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plan.
    In my postdream awakening I had this sense that the chief was offering me a job in Robbery-Homicide. That’s what I was expecting from him. What I didn’t expect was my coming to the job interview naked. What was worse was that my unclothed body revealed the extent of my burns. My vision had distorted the picture of my body, making my skin grafts red and raw and all my flesh rigid. Somehow, my year of healing and all my gains looked to have been reversed. My body showed all the ravages of the fire and more. Instead of going forward, I had this sense that I was going backward.
    It wasn’t exactly Marley’s ghost rattling his chains and talking to me, but the image of my body degenerating spoke to my doubts. Could it be possible that Homicide Special wasn’t right for me? My subconscious, or whatever it was, seemed to be telling me that. It must be nerves, I tried to tell myself. Homicide Special was what any LA cop wanted. It was the top of the detective food chain. Besides, lots of people had dreams where they were naked,and even though my moment after wasn’t quite a dream, it was close enough.
    I tried to tell myself that there might have been some other reason I was naked in my vision, but the more I tried to convince myself of that, the more strongly I began to feel that taking the position in Homicide Special wouldn’t be good for me. Doubting Thomas had seen his own wounds and they weren’t pretty. Still, it was too late to be reconsidering the job. I had made my appointment with the chief to press him for this placement. That’s why Sirius and I were now waiting in the antechamber of the chief’s office. There was no fallback position I had in mind, no other job in the department that interested me. When you are prepared to ask for a boon, you better know what it is you want.
    I ran my hand along my partner’s head and neck. He was no longer part of the equation. Sirius’s injuries precluded him from returning to K-9 work. That added to the emptiness I felt, but I hadn’t brought him along just to feel nostalgic. Sirius was there as a reminder to the chief of what we had both given and what we were both owed. Besides, it was likely the chief remembered my partner more than he did me. The two of them had made the cover of Time magazine with their memorable handshake. There had also been a shot of me on the inside of the magazine, but the picture they’d selected made me look as if I should have been wearing the white mask of the Phantom.
    Sirius and I sat waiting outside of the tenth floor suites at the Office of the Chief of Police (OCP). Two large desks manned by officers barred entry into that space. This wasn’t my first time in LA’s Police Administration Building (PAB), but I’d never been to the OCP. The new ten-floor limestone building had cost the citizens of LA almost half a billion dollars. The architectural firm designing the building had tried to construct it in such a way as to allow a sense of openness between PAB and the city hall building. Spatially at least, that seemed to have been achieved. PAB was part of the new LA skyline; city hall was to the south, the LA Times building to the west, the Caltrans edifice to the east, and the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana to the southeast. The view from the tenth floor was so impressive you didn’t even notice the smog.
    After a twenty-minute wait a smiling administrative assistant, definitely a civilian, came out from the inner sanctum.
    “Good morning, Officers ,” she said, showing a lot of white teeth beautifully set off by her mocha skin. “I’m Gwen and I’ll be showing you to Chief Ehrlich’s office.”
    “Don’t blow it,” I whispered to Sirius, but I was really talking to myself. My dog doesn’t need a muzzle; my tongue does.
    As we walked behind her, I reminded myself to be the old Michael Gideon, the one I’d studied on videotapes. I had practiced for this role; in another lifetime I’d even lived it.
    The LAPD is the