Guilt

He shook his head again. 'I feel bad about Trang, but what's the point of belaboring it? Nothing's going to bring him back. It's the simple fact of it… of life being so fragile. I don't feel so glib about that. Not at my age.'

'Your age again. How old are you, anyway? Sixty? Sixty-five? You couldn't be seventy.' She was teasing him, trying to cheer him up.

'Eighty-three next month,' he said. 'But I work out.' He pushed around some items on his desk. 'Actually, since you're as young as you feel, I couldn't be a day over eighty-one.' He shook his head. 'Sometimes the world gets to me, Christina. I shouldn't burden you with it.' Shifting around behind the desk, he flashed his self-deprecating grin. 'You're just lucky, I suppose, getting to listen to my moaning.'

'I do feel lucky.'

'Well, I'm glad. I do, too.'

'You do?'

He nodded. 'Why do you think the managing partner takes fifteen minutes at the end of the day just to visit, risking not only the office gossip but the wrath of people who think they need my time?'

'I don't know. Part of me thought you were just watching out for me, after talking me into coming here, that I wasn't screwing up.'

'I don't believe that.'

'Well, a small part, but some…'

'None. Not the smallest bit. I don't take care of people professionally – you either do it here or you're out.'

'No. You wouldn't…'

'I don't recommend you try me. But I have no worries about you. Not one.'

She sat back in the chair. 'Then I don't know why…?'

'Yes, you do, Christina.' He leveled his eyes at her across his desk. The moment called for a matter-of-fact, intimate tone, and he got it. 'You know, life goes along, and people get so they don't talk to people – I mean you talk, but it's mostly surface, but with you and me, maybe we got lucky that first morning, Ash Wednesday, you remember?'

'Of course.'

'What I mean to say is this, it's not common – in fact, it's rare. And valuable. I value it immensely. You ought to know that. I'd hate to die suddenly like Trang did, and you not know. This isn't business. You and me isn't business, okay?'

'Okay.'

'And another thing, while we're on it – I'm happily married. My wife is a great partner and a wonderful person and not a half-bad cook. I'm not going to accept any gossip about you and me that this office is likely to put out, and I hope you don't either.'

She was smiling now, with him. 'I won't. I don't.'

'Good. Now, how are things with your boyfriend?'

Abe Glitsky, in a pair of khaki slacks and a flight jacket, was walking down one of the muted hallways toward Dooher's office, accompanied by the night receptionist, an exceptionally attractive black woman of about twenty-five. She was explaining that Dooher's secretary had gone home – was Glitsky sure he had an appointment for this time, 6:30? Normally, the receptionist was explaining, if she'd known that, she would have stayed.

'I made it with Mr Dooher personally,' he said, non-committal. 'Maybe he didn't mention it to her.'

Glitsky was struck by the color of the light. The doors to several west-facing offices were open and the sun was going down over the cloud banks, spraying the hallway with crimson.

In almost every office he saw a young person hunched over a desk, oblivious to the sunset, to everything but what they were reading or writing. Fun job.

Dooher was standing in his doorway, talking to yet another beautiful woman. Glitsky figured they grew on trees at this altitude. 'Sergeant Glitsky?'

She was smiling at him, holding out her hand, and he realized he knew her – from the rape clinic, and then that visit to his office. What was she doing here?

'Christina Carrera.' Helping him out.

'Right. Levon Copes,' he said. 'And I'm still looking.'

This seemed to register positively. 'I'm glad.'

The man with her – Glitsky presumed it was Dooher – stepped forward. Protectively? 'You two know each other?'

Christina quickly explained while Glitsky checked out the man in his thousand-dollar pale gray Italian suit. The only wrong note was the hair – no gray, which meant the guy was vain and had a bottle of Grecian Formula hidden in the back of his sock drawer. Glitsky figured if he looked like Mr Dooher, he'd be vain, too. But he'd have to go some before he decided to dye his hair.

The receptionist had disappeared. Christina was asking if Glitsky was the only Homicide Sergeant in town. 'Sometimes it feels like it.'

'I don't know how you do it,' Christina said. 'Up until a couple of months ago, I never knew anybody who'd been murdered, and now I've met two -Tania Willows and Victor Trang. It's unsettling.'

'You knew Trang?'

'I met him here in Mr Dooher's office once. Still…'

'It is easier if you don't know them first.' Glitsky tried to mitigate the cop humor of what he'd just said by smiling, but his scar got in the way. 'I know what you mean, though.'

'It's terrible,' Dooher said. 'Christina here and I were just talking about Victor Trang, the waste of it.'

'You were in Vietnam?'

Christina had gone away – Glitsky had no questions for her. He and Dooher went into the big corner office and they had more or less finished with the routine questions. Glitsky was still seated on the sofa, his tape recorder spinning silently on the coffee table. The receptionist had brought him a cup of tea, and it was excellent. With a slice of lemon yet. He would take the moment of peace until the cup was drained. They were hard enough to come by.

Dooher was volunteering information. It probably had no connection with Victor Trang, but Glitsky's experience was that a murder investigation led where it took you, and the most innocuous comment or detail could be the hinge upon which it all eventually turned. He sipped his tea and leaned back in the soft leather, waiting for whatever was coming next.

The strange red sky had gone mother-of-pearl and Dooher had loosened his tie. He was drinking something amber without ice, pacing around, leaning on the edge of his desk, crossing to the easy chair, to the floating windows. Nervous, Glitsky thought. Which wasn't unusual. He knew that people -even attorneys – got jittery when they talked to Homicide cops. It would be more suspicious if he wasn't.

'That's why I was surprised I found myself liking him. Trang, I mean.' Dooher sighed. 'I don't like to admit it, but it's one of the prejudices I've carried around all these years. Maybe it's genetic. My dad had the same thing with the Japs – the Japanese. He always called them Japs. Me, now, some of my best friends…'

Glitsky kept him on it. 'So how'd you like it, Nam?'

'You go?'

He shook his head. 'Bad knees. Football.'

'Yeah, well, maybe you've heard – it sucked.'

Glitsky had come upon that rumor. 'You see action?'

'Oh yeah. We got ambushed and most of my squad got killed.' He swigged his drink. 'I still don't know why I survived and the other guys… and then the warm welcome at home, that was special.' He looked over at Glitsky. 'I was bitter for a while. Blamed it on the Vietnamese. Ruined my life – all that.'

'Did they?'

Dooher took in his plush surroundings. 'No, that was all youth, I suppose. Excuses. Look around, my life isn't ruined. I've been lucky.'

Suddenly he snapped his fingers, went around his desk and opened a drawer; he pulled something out and handed it to Glitsky. 'These were the guys.'

It was a framed color photograph of a bunch of soldiers, armed and dangerous, goofing and scowling. Dooher was in the front row, on the far right, with his captain's bars, his weapon propped next to him. 'I had this up in that space in the bookshelves here till just before Trang came up here the first time. Then I realized it would be offensive to him. I guess I can put it back up now.'