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smart remarks," Quirk said. "Because I don't have any answers." Clancy said, "Martin, there's no need to be angry."
    "The hell there isn't," Quirk said. "They come in here to be sure I'm doing my job, like I'd forget about it if they didn't."
    "Lieutenant," Trenton said, "the black community cannot be blamed for viewing the police with suspicion. How assiduous have you been in the past in solving what I've heard some of you call a 'shine' killing?"
    I saw Quirk take a long breath. He let his chair tilt forward and put his hand flat on his desktop.
    "Reverend," he said, "I am a professional homicide investigator. I've been one for twenty-seven years. I try to solve every murder, and catch every murderer, because I am employed to do that, and because I want to do that. I do that whether anyone is watching me or not, whether the victim is black or white, male or female; whether the commissioner wants me to or you want me to or God wants me to." Quirk paused. No one spoke.
    "Now, you people," Quirk said, "you people are not employed to catch murderers, and if you were employed to do it, you wouldn't know how. But here you are. If you can be honest with yourselves, you know that coming here won't catch the murderer. You're here so that you can tell your voters or your parishioners or your members that you're on top of things and that you are, therefore, the cat's ass."
    When Quirk stopped speaking there was enough silence in the room to walk on.
    Finally Rashad said, "Well, clearly, with that attitude there is little point in continuing." Quirk smiled pleasantly.
    Tuttle looked at me. "I will be reporting this meeting to Commissioner Pat Wilson," he said. "Might I know who you are?"
    "Orotund Vowel," I said. "I'm the lieutenant's elocution teacher."
    Tuttle stared at me. He knew he was being kidded but he didn't know what to say. Finally he turned and led them out.
    "Orotund Vowel?" Quirk said.
    I shrugged.
    "You're a strange bastard," he said.
    "… 7 was hers all the time I was a kid," he was saying.
    "Her what?" the therapist said.
    "What do you mean, 'her what'? I was her son."
    The therapist nodded.
    He wanted to say more about what he was. "I was her only child, you know, she worried about me all the time."
    "How do you know she worried?" the shrink said.
    Christ, couldn't she figure anything out? "She said so," he said, "and when I did stuff that worried her she'd get, like, sick."
    "Sick?" the shrink said.
    "Yeah, she'd lie on the couch and not talk all day and her face would have this look, like she was having cramps or something. You know, like broads get when they're having their period. "He felt the tingle of daring and guilt when he said it.
    "Like mean, you know. Bitchy."
    "What does bitchy mean to you?" the shrink said.
    "It means crabby, it means, you know, not talking to you, being mad at you, not… not loving you. Not being nice to you."
    The shrink nodded.
    "If I'd come home late for supper or hang around with the guys or go out." He could feel the tightening in his throat and the way his nose began to tingle.
    "Go out?" the shrink said.
    "With girls," he said. His eyes were filling. He felt himself burning with frustration and shame. "She told me that every girl was going to take me for all they could get." He fought the hot crying. He turned his head.
    The shrink said, "Let it come. Let's see what comes with it."
    Like hell. He wasn't going to cry here. His mother had never caught him crying. He held his head down and forced his breath in and out. In his groin he could feel the pressure.
    "I can control myself," he said.
    "Always?" the shrink said.
    He felt a trill of fear.
    "Absolutely," he said.
    "Control is important," the shrink said.
    "You lose control," he said, "you lose yourself."
    The shrink waited.
    "You get controlled," he said. "You don't control yourself, people control you."
    "Then they could take you," the shrink said, "for all they could get."
    He wanted to speak and couldn't. He felt as if