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It’s parole with intense supervision. I’d put an electronic bracelet on your wrist if I could get my hands on one.”
    “You afraid I’ll go out and knife somebody?”
    She took a deep breath and shook her head. “You still don’t get it?”
    “Oh, I get it, all right. You want to fail. Which doesn’t exactly surprise me, being as you’re a typical department bureaucrat.”
    “You bastard …”
    That got her. She stood up, fists clenched. For a moment, I thought she was going to take her best shot. Not that I planned to leave my face in front of her knuckles.
    “If you wanted somebody to conduct a textbook investigation,” I said as calmly as possible, “you could have chosen any one of a hundred detectives. You came to me because you thought I could get results in a hurry. My problem is that I don’t think you’re willing to do what’s necessary to get those results. What you ought to do is back off and let me operate, but you’re too scared to do that, either. All of which adds up to a guarantee of failure. Face it, Captain. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, ‘Excuse me, Mister Pimp, I’m conducting a murder investigation and I need your cooperation.’ If you want Thong, you’re gonna have to take some risks. Those gold bars on your shoulder might be enough to impress other cops, but they don’t mean shit on the street.”
    She turned and walked out of the room without another word. I listened to her footsteps for a moment, then heard a door slam. Then, nothing.
    It didn’t take me long to begin reminding myself that of all the assholes I’d met in the course of my life, I was far and away the biggest, the most stupid, the smelliest. It’d taken all my self-discipline to show up at the lab every day. To give it my best effort without the consolations offered by the street. I’d gone home and stayed home every night. Whenever the tension got to me, I’d contented myself with beating the hell out of a heavy bag chained to a steel beam in my loft. Instead of the criminal psychopaths I preferred.
    Compared to the life I’d enjoyed on the streets of Manhattan, working in the lab and going home at night was worse than dying. It was death with your eyes open. The only thing that kept me sane was the hope that eventually I’d be freed. That an angel would appear with a magic wand and open the prison doors.
    So, why had I dumped on that angel? Why did I have to be as compulsive as the criminals I liked to hunt? Everything was going perfectly. I could (and should) have gone out with Vanessa Bouton and conducted a textbook investigation. The results would have been entirely negative, but that, too, would have been to my advantage. Captain Bouton wouldn’t have lasted more than a few weeks. What was that compared to the ten months I’d already spent in ballistics? Or the ten years I’d be spending?
    My self-incriminations were interrupted by footsteps. Vanessa Bouton’s footsteps as she made her way down the hall. I struggled to compose myself, to keep every trace of triumph or exaltation off my face.
    “Here’s what I want you to do, Means.” She stood in the doorway, shoulders squared, hands at her sides. “I want you to go directly to 655 Jane Street and report to Sergeant Pucinski. He’s in charge of accumulated evidence for the task force. Spend all night, if you have to. By tomorrow, I want you familiar with the evidence. Is that a problem?”
    “No problem, Captain.”
    “I’ll be at your place at ten o’clock in the morning. I want to get started as soon as possible.”
    I couldn’t suppress a smile. “Captain, the people we have to find don’t operate during the day. Ten o’clock at night would be a much better time to begin.”
    Her face softened for a moment. “Okay, Means. It really doesn’t make sense for me to hire an expert, then disregard his advice. I’ll come by your place around two. By that time, I’m sure you’ll be ready to name the perpetrator.