I pulled into the parking lot. We sat there for a moment, and then he opened his door. He didn’t get out.
“Thank you for dragging me to that place,” he said.
“My pleasure,” I said. “I heard what you said there, by the way.”
“What did I say?”
“You said, and I quote, ‘I don’t care how many bullets you took for me.’”
“Yeah, well. We both know I was next. We’ve already covered that.”
Another moment of silence.
“Your daughter’s okay?”
“She’s okay. She’ll be going back to work next week.”
One more silence. The last one.
“We made a good team,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“Put it this way,” he said. “If we ever have to do it again, I wouldn’t want to be the guy on the other side of the ball.”
“Have a good night, Chief.”
“You, too. I’ll see you around.”
He got out and closed the door. Then I drove back home to Paradise.