"I wouldn't talk too much," Miro whispered in his ear and Jack nodded solemnly.

But Jack was covered, so he signed the release document, then told Miro he needed to stop by the hospital pharmacy to get his pain prescription filled.

"We can do that later. I need to drop you at your apartment so I can get back to the office by noon." Something about the way he said it shot a warning up into Jack's fuzzy brain. Cops had world-class bullshit detectors. Miro wheeled the chair out of the hospital into the parking lot, then helped Jack into his yellow Ford Escort.

"Wait till you see all the flowers at your place. Smells so sweet, Miro couldn't believe how gorgeous." He had slipped behind the wheel and back into third person as he started the engine.

"Yeah, flowers are always nice," Jack managed.

Jack's apartment was off Sepulveda in the Valley-a duplex that had seen better times. The apartment was in the back. Miro pulled into the drive and parked, then ran around to help the patient out of the front seat. Jack's arm was in a sling and his back was killing him. He needed more painkillers and he needed them now. He had the prescription slip in his pocket, but Miro had pushed the wheelchair right past the hospital pharmacy, then had driven past the corner drugstore. For a best bud this was not good behavior.

"Hey, Miro, you gotta take me to the pharmacy down the street."

"In a minute Miro will get that done. In an itsy-bitsy minute. Soon as Miro gets you settled."

"Okay, but my shoulder is killing me. So's my back."

"Stop being a noodge."

They were standing at Jack's busted screen door. Miro took the key out of the flowerpot. "Bad hiding place, honey. A cop should know better." He opened up and let them in. The house was full of flowers and people.

Susan was there with Herman, Shane, Alexa, Lieutenant Matthews, Chick, even some guy Jack didn't know who smiled way too much. Izzy was also there, this time looking a lot like Wayne Newton in tennis togs.

"Hi," Susan said as she stood to meet him, then came across the room and took his hand.

"What is this?" Jack asked. He could smell trouble. Trouble and carnations.

"We need to talk to you," Susan said. "Sit down."

"I don't wanna sit down," Jack grumbled.

Susan turned and motioned to the smiling man. "This is Dr. Marion Trent."

"I don't need a doctor."

"Dr. Trent is a drug-intervention counselor."

Jack looked over at Dr. Trent the way you look at a big black spider hanging in the corner of your garage.

Dr. Trent kept the old grin pasted up there, smiling like a Halloween pumpkin. As an intervention counselor he was undoubtedly used to silent disapproval. Jack's didn't bother him at all.

"Okay, so what's the deal here?" Jack said.

"Jack, we're worried about you," Susan said. "And we all care desperately about you. We're your friends."

"It's true," Miro said from behind him. "Your buds."

"Okay… you're my friends. Okay, good." Jack knew what was coming next and it pissed him off. After all, he needed to be in charge of his own life… didn't he? Wasn't he?

"Okay," Jack said. "But this still doesn't tell me what's going on." Although he knew.

"Jack, I think you have a serious addiction to painkillers," Dr. Trent said.

"You do? How can you tell? I never met you before."

"We do, too," Alexa Scully said. "Jack, sit down and listen to us, okay? We have your best interests at heart."

So Jack sat. Alexa was a police lieutenant and the cop in him always obeyed a ranking officer.

Miro perched on the arm of a chair, but he got up quickly because there wasn't much upholstery there and it was like sitting on a split-rail fence.

"Okay, gimme the pitch," Jack said sullenly.

"You're angry," Susan said.

"Hey, you people don't know my problems. Are you forgetting I stopped a Parabellum with my spine a little while ago?"

"Hey, Jack, that was almost seven years ago… seven years," Shane said.

"Six," Jack corrected. But fuck it, even he knew he was quibbling.

"Six then," Shane said. "Hey, pal, six years of popping 'cets and you don't think you've got a problem?"

"No, I don't think I have a problem," Jack said. He was feeling ganged up on and outnumbered. Jack looked at those furrowed brows and said nothing.

"I think you do have a problem," Miro said from a spot behind him.

"I'm not talking to you, Miro. You led me into this ambush."

"Jack," Miro said, "I took a terrible beating to protect you, so if I don't have a right to be concerned about your health after that, who does?"

"Don't pull that old Japanese spiritual ownership crap on me. You know how I feel about what you did, but it has nothing to do with this."

"Yes it does," Miro persisted. "Because now I care what happens to you, honey, and I'm not going to let you throw your life away on some stupid pain pills."

"Listen to him," Chick said. "He's talking sense."

This from the guy who was afraid to drink out of Miro's glass.

What the hell is going on here?

Susan came across the room and knelt in front of Jack.

She took his hand in both of hers. "Jack, you've got to do this."

"Do what?"

"We've arranged for you to be admitted to the Betty Ford Clinic this afternoon. Dad and I are going to drive you there."

"I don't have an addiction. This is crazy."

"You do have an addiction," Herman said. "Listen, Jack, I owe you a lot more than I can tell you. Without you I would have lost everything. Now I'm on the cover of Lawyer Magazine. I'm so hot now I'm on fire. Judge King is even going to rehear my motion to reduce the fine. Childbirth may have mellowed her. I'm going to see to it that before I leave town your problem is taken care of."

"Don't do me any favors, Herman," Jack growled.

"Honey…" Susan this time, not Miro. He looked over at her. "I love you. In front of everybody I'm telling you I want us to be together… always. But not unless you get this problem taken care of. If you want us to be together you're gonna have to take it from here."

Miro slapped his hands together. "Miro loves it! A proposal."

Jack looked around the room. Shane and Alexa nodded. Chick was staring at his shoes, but as Jack's gaze fell on him he looked up, his ham-red complexion shiny in the hot room. The two of them locked gazes. "Do it, man."

"It's the right thing," Izzy said. "You do it and I'll write a song about it.

Cats gargling his name on the Sound Machine. How could he say no?

Then Lieutenant Matthews stood. He'd said nothing thus far, so when he spoke everybody turned to look at him. "Jack, listen. You get straight and I'll work on something downtown. Maybe we can get you assigned to work for us as a special consultant."

"Or you can come to work for the Institute," Herman suggested. "We've got an opening for a new detective. We'll never do better than Jack Wirta."

Two job offers and a marriage proposal and all he had to do was go see the former First Lady for a couple of weeks. It hadn't been a grand slam because Miro hadn't offered him a partnership in Reflections.

Jack did want to ditch this problem. He did want to get off the 'cets, but there was something very humiliating about all of this.

As Chick once told him when they were in Homicide, "If ten people tell you you're drunk, don't drive."

Cop logic.

So there you have it. Jack Wirta, America's foremost chimpanzee detective in a twelve-step program. Somebody call Swifty. Get this to the AP.

They parked at the Betty Ford Clinic in Palm Springs, and Herman got out and retrieved Jack's overnight bag from the trunk. Jack's back and shoulder were killing him but he was starting to feel slightly better about all this. Maybe he could finally get this problem under control.