Eventually he looked up to see who was looming beside his desk. “What now, Audran?” he snapped. He hadn’t seen me in three days, but he made it sound as if I’d been badgering him non-stop all that time.

“Just wanted to know what your plans for me were.”

Hajjar looked up from his data deck. He stared at me for a long moment, his m6uth twisted as if he’d just chewed a rotten date. “You’re flattering’ yourself,” he said in a quiet voice. “You don’t enter into my plans at all.”

“I was just volunteering to help in the investigation of Jirji Shaknahyi’s death.”

Hajjar raised his eyebrows. He leaned back in his chair. “What investigation?” he asked incredulously. “He was shot by Paul Jawarski. That’s all we need to know.”

I waited until I could speak without shouting at him. “We have Jawarski in custody?”

“Whe!” demanded Hajjar. “Who’s we? You mean, does the police department have Jawarski? Not yet. But don’t worry, Audran, he won’t slip away. We’re closin’ in on him.”

“How do you expect to find him? This is a big city. You think he’s just sitting in a room somewhere, waiting for you to show up with a warrant? He’s probably back in America by now.”

“Good police work’s how we’ll find him, Audran. You never have much faith in good police work. I know he ain’t left town. He’s here somewhere, and we’re tightenin’ the net around him. Just a matter of time.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell that to his widow,” I said. “She’ll be heartened by your confidence.”

Hajjar stood up. I’d made him angry. “You accusin’ me of somethin’, Audran?” he asked, jabbing a stiff forefinger into my chest. “You hintin’ that maybe I’m not pushin’ this investigation hard enough?”

“I never said nothing, Hajjar. I just wanted to find out what your plans are.”

He gave me an evil grin. “What, you think I got nothin’ better to do than sit around and worry about how to utilize your special talents? Hell, Audran, we were gettin’ along fine without you the last few days. But I suppose now you’re here, there must be somethin’ for you to do.” He sat down again at his desk and riffled through a stack of papers. “Uh yeah, here we go. I want you to go on with that investigation you and Shaknahyi started.” I wasn’t happy about that. I wanted to be directly involved in tracking down Jawarski. “I thought you said we were supposed to lay off Abu Adil.”

Hajjar’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say anything about Abu Adil, did I? You’d better lay off him. I’m talkin’ about this chink, On Cheung. The baby seller. Can’t afford to let his trail get cold.”

I felt a cold chill pass through me. “Anybody can follow up on On Cheung,” I said. “I got a special interest in finding Paul Jawarski.”

“Marid Audran, Man on a Mission, huh? Well, forget it. We don’t need you roarin’ around the city workin’ off your grudge. Anyway, you ain’t shown me yet that you know what you’re doin’. So I’m assignin’ you a new partner, somebody with a lot of experience. This ain’t some ladies’ volunteer club, Audran. You do what I tell you. Or don’t you think puttin’ On Cheung out of commission is worth your time?”

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t like the assignment, but Hajjar was right about it being just as important as collaring Jawarski. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”

He gave me that same grin. I wanted to whack it off his face. “You’ll be ridin’ around with Sergeant Catavina from now pn. He ought to teach you plenty.”

My heart sank. Of all the cops in that station house, Catavina was the man I least wanted to spend time with. He was a bully and a lazy son of a bitch. I knew that if we ever did catch up to On Cheung, it wouldn’t be because of Catavina’s contributions.

The lieutenant must have read my reaction from my expression. “Any problem with that, Audran?” he asked.

“If I had a problem, is there any chance it would change your mind?”

“None whatsoever,” said Hajjar.

“Didn’t think so.”

Hajjar looked back at the screen of his data deck. “Report to Catavina. I want to hear some good news real soon. You cut the legs out from under this dink, there may be commendations for the two of you.”

“I’ll get right on it, Lieutenant,” I said. I was impressed with Hajjar’s cleverness. He’d skillfully maneuvered me away from both Abu Adil and Jawarski by throwing me into a time-consuming but perfectly valid investigation. I was going to have to find a way to accomplish both my official assignment and my own personal goals.

Hajjar paid no further attention to me, so I left his office. I went to find Sergeant Catavina, I’d rather proceed without him, but that wasn’t going to be possible.

Catavina wasn’t that excited about being paired with me, either. “I already got the word from Hajjar,” he told me. We were walking down to the garage, to pick up Catavina’s patrol car. Catavina was trying to give me the benefit of all his years’ experience in one disjointed lecture. “You ain’t a good cop, Audran,” he said in a grim voice. “You may never be a good cop. I don’t want you fucking up with me like you fucked up Shaknahyi.”

“What’s that mean, Catavina?” I asked.

He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. “Figure it out. If you’d known what you was doing, Shaknahyi’d still be alive and I wouldn’t have to be holding your hand. Just stay out of my way and do what I tell you.”

I was mad as hell, but I didn’t say anything. I planned to stay out of his way, all right. I figured I’d have to lose Catavina if I wanted to make any progress.

We got into the patrol car, and he had nothing more to say to me for a long while. That was okay with me. I thought he might drive back to the neighborhood where On Cheung was last known to have operated. Maybe we could learn something useful by interviewing those people again, even though they’d been so uncooperative before.

That wasn’t his plan, however. He headed west, in the opposite direction. We drove about a mile and half through an area of narrow, twisting streets and alleys. At last, Catavina pulled up in front of a crumbling apartment building, the tallest building on the block. The windows on the ground floor had been covered over with plywood, and the front door into the foyer had been taken off its hinges. The walls inside and out were covered with spray-painted names and slogans. The lobby reeked; it had been used as a toilet for a long time. As we crossed to the elevator, we crunched broken glass beneath our boots. There was a thick layer of dust and grit over everything.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” said Catavina. He punched the button for the elevator. When it arrived, I was hesitant about getting in. The condition of the building didn’t give me any confidence that the cables would hold our weight. When the elevator asked what floor we wanted, Catavina muttered “Eight.” We looked away from each other as the door slid closed. We rode in silence, the only noise coming from the elevator as it creaked its way upward.

We got out on the eighth floor, and Catavina led the way down the dark hallway to room 814. He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door.

“What’s this?” I asked, following him into the seedy apartment.

“Police officers’ lounge,” said Catavina.

There was a large living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. There wasn’t much furniture — a cheap card table and six chairs in the living room, along with a torn black vinyl couch, a small holoset, and four folding cots. There were uniformed cops asleep on two of the cots. I recognized them but didn’t know their names. Catavina dropped heavily onto the couch and stared at me across the bare floor. “Want a drink?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Bring me some whiskey then. There’s ice in the kitchen.”

I went into the kitchen and found a good collection of liquor bottles. I tossed a few ice cubes into a glass and poured in three fingers of raw Japanese liquor. “So what are we doing here,” I called, thinking of the department’s motto, “protecting or serving?” I carried the drink back into the living room and handed it to Catavina.