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exaggerated look that spoke volumes.
    Harry brought his right forefinger up and waved it at her in an admonishing motion. “I warned you,” he said. “My knee will be waiting.” And then he couldn’t keep from adding, “among other things.”
    She laughed and went inside her apartment as Harry turned to start the three-story climb to his place. On the way up, he thought about Suni. He was both father-confessor and lover to the woman. He was hardly around, but when he was, she told him things no one else knew. Harry probably knew more about the twenty-seven-year-old than her parents did. The one thing her parents had over him was knowledge of her real name. Sunny had become Suni, but Michelle had stayed the same. It was not a Japanese name, but the woman remained adamant about keeping it. Harry could understand why. From what she had told him about her absurdly strict, nearly hypocritical upbringing, it wasn’t surprising that she had renounced her past.
    Harry unlocked his door and twisted the knob. Unconscious habit made him do this with one hand, leaving the other one free in case of emergency. His door swung in with an uneventful creak, revealing an almost octagonal room that gave new meaning to the word “quaint.” It was quaint the same way a slum could be called “rustic.” To the left of the door was a bureau. To the left of that was the bathroom door. To the left of that was a small refrigerator. To the left of that was a kitchenette so small the fridge had to be put in the living area.
    To the left of that doorless doorway was the night table with his wife’s picture on it. To the left of that was the unmade bed. The covers might not be that great, but Harry had bought the best mattress and box spring that money could buy. The last thing he needed was back trouble or insomnia. Next to the bed was another table with a portable black-and-white TV on it. Behind that was a two-door closet. Next to that was the front door, and it all started over again.
    There was one great thing about the apartment, Harry figured. No ambusher could realistically hide in it. The cop shrugged off his jacket and threw it over the back of the one chair at the foot of the bed in the middle of the room. While undoing his shirt with one hand, he opened and reached into his icebox with the other. As the last button came undone, the can of brew reached his lips.
    The next thing that had to come off was his gun. Harry pulled the weapon out of its shoulder holster. In his hand was a Smith and Wesson Magnum .44 Model 29 revolver. In his closet was the adapting kit and the eight-and-three-quarter-inch barrel, but at the moment, Harry carried the blue steel version with the six-and-a-half-inch barrel. What little he lost in accuracy, he more than made up for in practicality. With the eight-inch barrel on, it was like hauling a bazooka out of his armpit.
    The six-and-some-odd-inch barrel suited his needs best, especially in conjunction with his specially made holster. Harry tossed the gun on the end of the bed and started pulling the shoulder apparatus off. It was the soft “Lawman Leather Cutaway” holster, designed and built specifically for him in 1969. During the various student skirmishes of the decade, which occasionally led to death, Harry found his quick draw marred by the regulation holsters which kept the revolver’s cylinder enclosed.
    So the cop had the Lawman Company make him a device that was cut out in the side of the upper portion so the .44’s cylinder would protrude. In the more than a decade since, Harry’s exploits with the holster had become so well known “in the trade” that the holster company had taken to calling the new mass-produced cutaway the “Dirty Harry” model. Whenever some patron would inquire as to why, the company’s execs would regale them with stories about the time Harry foiled an armed robbery single-handed, how he foiled a skyjacking single-handed, or the time he rescued the mayor from