“Me?”

“Yeah. It’s almost certainly something personal. You have any problems in your past?”

“Like what?”

“Any priors, arrests, internal affairs investigations, allegations of questionable conduct like drinking or homosexuality or chasing women? Any drug rehab program, problems with partners, problems with superiors. Anything personal or professional. Anything.”

I shrugged. “Jeez, I don’t think so.”

Connor just waited, looking at me. Finally he said, “They think they have something, Peter.”

“I’m divorced. I’m a single parent. I have a daughter, Michelle. She’s two years old.”

“Yes…”

“I lead a quiet life. I take care of my kid. I’m responsible.”

“And your wife?”

“My ex-wife is a lawyer in the D.A.’s office.”

“When did you get divorced?”

“Two years ago.”

“Before the child was born?”

“Just after.”

“Why did you get divorced?”

“Christ. Why does anybody get divorced.”

Connor said nothing.

“We were only married a year. She was young when we met. Twenty-four. She had these fantasies about things. We met in court. She thought I was a rough, tough detective facing danger every day. She liked that I had a gun. All that. So we had this affair. Then when she got pregnant she didn’t want to have an abortion. She wanted to get married instead. It was some romantic idea she had. She didn’t really think it through. But the pregnancy was hard, and it was too late to abort, and pretty soon she decided she didn’t like living with me because my apartment was small, and I didn’t make enough money, and I lived in Culver City instead of Brentwood. And by the time the baby was finally born, it was like she was completely disillusioned. She said she had made a mistake. She wanted to pursue her career. She didn’t want to be married to a cop. She didn’t want to raise a kid. She said she was sorry, but it was all a mistake. And she left.”

Connor was listening with his eyes closed. “Yes…”

“I don’t see why all this matters. She left two years ago. And after that, I couldn’t—I didn’t want to work detective hours any more, because now I had to raise the kid, so I took the tests and transferred to Special Services, and I worked the press office. No problems there. Everything went fine. Then last year this Asian liaison job came up, and it paid better. Another couple hundred a month. So I applied for that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, I can really use the money. I have extra expenses now, like Michelle’s day care. You know what day care costs for two-year-olds? And I have full-time housekeeping, and Lauren doesn’t make her child-support payments more than half the time. She says she can’t manage on her salary, but she just bought a new BMW, so I don’t know. I mean, what am I going to do, take her to court? She works for the fucking D.A.”

Connor was silent. Up ahead, I saw the airplanes coming down over the freeway. We were approaching the airport.

“Anyway,” I said. “I was glad when the liaison job came along. Because it works out better for the hours, and for the money. And that’s how I got to be here. In this car with you. That’s it.”

“Kōhai,” he said quietly. “We’re in this together. Just tell me. What is the problem?”

“There isn’t any problem.”

“Kōhai.”

“There isn’t.”

“Kōhai…”

“Hey, John,” I said, “let me tell you something. When you apply for Special Services liaison, five different committees go over your record. To get a liaison job, you have to be clean. The committees went over my record. And they found nothing substantial.”

Connor nodded. “But they found something.”

“Christ,” I said, “I was a detective for five years. You can’t work that long without a few complaints. You know that.”

“And what were the complaints against you?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Little stuff. I arrested a guy my first year, he accused me of undue force. That charge was dropped after inquiry. I arrested a woman for armed robbery, she claimed I planted a gram on her. Charge dropped; it was her gram. Murder suspect claimed I beat and kicked him during questioning. But other officers were present at all times. A drunken woman on a domestic violence call later claimed I molested her child. She dropped the charge. Teenage gang leader arrested for murder said I made a homosexual pass at him. Charge withdrawn. That’s it.”

If you’re a cop you know that complaints like these are background noise, like traffic on the street. There’s nothing you can do about them. You’re in an adversarial environment, accusing people of crimes all the time. They accuse you back. That’s just the way it works. The department never pays any attention unless there’s a pattern or repetition. If a guy has three or four complaints of undue force over a couple of years, then he gets an inquiry. Or a string of racial complaints, he gets an inquiry. But otherwise, as the assistant chief Jim Olson always says, being a cop is a job for the thick-skinned.

Connor didn’t say anything for a long time. He frowned, thinking it over. Finally he said, “What about the divorce? Problems there?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“You and your ex are on speaking terms?”

“Yes. We’re okay. Not great. But okay.”

He was still frowning. Still looking for something. “And you left the detective division two years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I already told you.”

“You said that you couldn’t work the hours.”

“That was most of it, yeah.”

“That, and what else?”

I shrugged. “After the divorce, I just didn’t want to work homicide any more. I felt like—I don’t know. Disillusioned. I had this little infant and my wife had moved out. She was going on with her life, dating some hotshot attorney. I was left holding the kid. I just felt flat. I didn’t want to be a detective any more.”

“You seek counseling at that time? Therapy?”

“No.”

“Trouble with drugs or alcohol?”

“No.”

“Other women?”

“Some.”

“During the marriage?”

I hesitated.

“Farley? In the mayor’s office?”

“No. That was later.”

“But there was somebody during the marriage.”

“Yes. But she lives in Phoenix now. Her husband got transferred.”

“She was in the department?”

I shrugged.

Connor sat back in his seat. “Okay, kōhai,” he said. “If this is all there is, you’re fine.” He looked at me.

“That’s all.”

“But I have to warn you,” he said. “I’ve been through this kind of thing before, with the Japanese. When the Japanese play hardball, they can make things unpleasant. Really unpleasant.”

“You trying to scare me?”

“No. Just telling you the way things are.”

“Fuck the Japanese,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Fine. Now I think you better call your friends at the network, and tell them we’ll be over, after our next stop.”