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can mix a batch of quality shit faster and better than any first-year chemical engineer at Dow or du Pont could do practically on his lunch break.
    It isn't simple anymore, Lesko thought. And I don't care anymore. I'm out of it.
    "I care," Susan said softly.
    "What?" Lesko blinked. "About what?"
    "You said nobody cares anymore. I care about you. Very much."
    "Yeah," he nodded. "Me, too."
                He looked at her. Those first few months, after Katz and after the barbershop, he'd spent every spare hour watching her apartment, following her to work on the subway and home again at night. He'd get other cops who owed him favors to spell him while he was being grilled by Internal Affairs, the District Attorney and the federal Narcs. All this in case he was wrong about Elena, o r he was right about her not being able to control the Bolivians. A couple of times he even listened at Susan's door when a guy took her home and didn't leave right away. He shouldn't have done that. It was when he learned the hard way that Susan was grown-up and had a private life.
    "If we care about each other so much," Susan said gently, "you'd think we'd be able to talk."
    "You keep saying that," Lesko made a show of holdi ng his fingertips to his temples, "and I keep trying to remember when we've shut up for two minutes all night."
    " Right." She twisted her lips, a mannerism she in herited from him. "And it's all been really good father- and-daughter stuff, too. Like, the Knicks haven't had anyone under the boards since Willis Reed re tired; like Jerry Cooney could have taken Larry H olmes if he crowded him early and went to the body; and like the beer at Shea Stadium these days tastes like someone pissed in it. Oh, and you also asked your usual twenty questions about who I'm seeing and how serious it is."
    "That last part is father and daughter stuff. And as usual you ducked it."
"That's different."
    "What's different? Two minutes a go you asked if I had a lady friend."
    "Okay, but if you said yes and told me her name I wouldn't get someone to run a check on her back-
    ground."
I only did that once."
"Is that so?"
"Maybe twice."
"But never again. Promise?"
    Lesko made an ambiguous gesture that he hoped would pass for agreement. Susan reached for his hand and dug her nails into it.
"Repeat after me. Never again."
Lesko winced. "Never again."
    "Show me your other hand. I bet your fingers are crossed."
    L esko pulled free and slid his chair out of reach. "This is a wonderful conversation. If I don't get stomped on, I get stabbed."
     
    “Y ou know why we're like this, don't you." Susan kept her eyes on her plate as she trimmed the fat off her veal chop.
"Like what?"
"So secretive."
    "Are you sure we're so different from any other fa ther and daughter?"
    "Fathers who are cops are different. You almost never talked about your job unless something funny happened or you met a celebrity. Never any of the bad things."
    "If I worked in a slaughterhouse, you wouldn't ex pect me to describe my day at the dinner table."
    "If it t bothered you, yes. If you needed to talk about it"
    "Cops who bring their jobs home get divorced a lot quicker than I did."
    "I don't believe that. I think sharing more of yourself would have helped."
    Lesko laid down his fork. "Susan, listen to me. All l a cop sees is people, even decent people, when they're at their worst. We see and sometimes do some very sicken ing things. Police departments know this. That's why they all l have programs setup to help cops deal with the bad side of being cops. But mostly cops talk to each other because there just isn't anyone outside the job who would understand. This is not just true of cops, either. Guys who were in combat, hospital nurses, they have the same problem."
"I suppose."
    "What worked for me was to keep my home and my job as separate as I could. That's why we didn't socialize with other cop families. Not even my own partner."
    Susan saw a peculiar pause at the reference to