Chapter 7. I don't know, Jack, Ted Holm said with a shake of his head. The whole thing sounds

pretty stupid to me. Home was a city cop, a sergeant at robbery homicide, in fact, but he was all right.

We knew each other from the war, and that was enough for him, and it was enough for me.

Circumstances dictated that we were on different

sides often enough, but it wasn't personal with Ted the way it was with some of the others. See,

there are a few things more annoying to a cop than the thought of a detective who can turn down a case

and who isn't required to fill out 31 flavors of paperwork every time he scratches his behind.

The whole idea of a detective for hire sets their teeth on edge, as though their pensions were somehow at stake. I did very

little to endear myself to the local constabulary. It was true. Most of the department would have

given me the runaround on spec before they even really knew what I wanted. Not so, Sergeant Holm.

We sat at his desk in a corner of the squad room with two genuinely lousy cups of coffee.

I can't believe they make you drink this, I said, staring at the thick sludge in the bottom of my

cup. Technically they don't, Holmes said, and it isn't any worse than it always is, but you drank it anyway.'

"'You know what the first problem with this coffee is?' I started.

"'Jack, I don't want to talk about the stupid coffee,' he said.

"'I blinked at him.

"'I understood all of those words, but strung together in that order, they made no sense.'

"'Sorry,' Ted said, aware of having given offense.

He was always too decent a guy to be a cop, but he wasn't good for much else, and sometimes

you did get to shoot people, which he didn't enjoy, but he was quite good at.

It's just I was wondering if we could cut to the chase a little bit on account of Lieutenant

Sabian is on duty just now.

...