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I pushed him inside, turned on the light switch, and kicked the door closed behind me.
"Facedown on the floor, arms straight out," I said.
"We don't need all this street theater, do we?" He looked again at my face in the light. "All right, I don't argue. But there's nobody else here. It looks like you've won the day."
The inside of the duplex looked like a motel room. An air-conditioning unit hummed in one window and dripped water on the shag carpet; the wallpaper had been roller-painted a pale green; the furniture was either plastic or made of composite wood; the air smelled of chemical deodorizer. I looked quickly in the bedroom, the bath, the small kitchen and dinette.
"It's a simple place," he said. He had to turn his head sideways on the rug to talk.
The pink fat around his hips was striped with gray hair. "No women, no guns, no mysteries. This might be a disappointing bust for you, Lieutenant."
"Take off your shirt and sit in that chair."
"All right," he said, and a smile flickered around the corner of his lips.
"Do I amuse you for some reason?"
"Not you. Just your attitude. I told you once before you had puritan sympathies. At some point in your career, you need to realize that nobody cares about these things. Oh, they say they do. But they really don't, and I think you know it."
He dropped his pajama top on the arm of a stuffed chair and sat down. His chest was small and gray, and his stomach pushed up high on his breastbone.
"Turn them up," I said.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned up his forearms so I could see the flat, gray scar tissue along the veins. The scars were so thick they could have been traced there with a barber's razor.
"I heard you were just a two-pop-a-day man. I think you've worked up to the full-tilt boogie," I said.
"Does that somehow make you feel better?" The smile was gone, and I could see the contempt, the cynicism, the glint of evil in his eyes.
"If I allowed myself to have feelings about you, I would have blown you up on the porch."
"And we thought you were a professional."
"I hope you shot up a lot of dope tonight. You're going on a long dry. Figure what it's going to be like after two days in lockdown."
"I'm trembling already. See the cold sweat on my face. Oh Lawsie, what's I going to do?"
At that moment I felt a genuine rush of hatred in my chest.
"If my brother dies and you somehow get back on the street, God help you," I said.
"Your brother?"
I watched his face carefully.
"He's still alive, and he saw the guy you sent to do it," I said.
"You think we tried to kill your brother?"
I watched the bead of light in his eyes, the curve of his palms on the arm of the chair.
"That's what all this bullshit is about? Somebody hit your brother and you think we were behind it?" he said.
He widened his eyes, pursed his lips with his own question. He started to smile but glanced at my face and thought better of it.
"I'm sorry to tell you this, old boy. It wasn't us," he said. "Why would we want to hurt your brother?"
"He looks like my twin."
