“Hey, I said thank you,” said Lynch.

“John, I was new in town, OK? I should have squeezed you for your marker. But you owe me, and you know it. How about this – we meet for a drink. I buy this time. I tell you what I need, and you decide. That’s fair, right?”

Lynch thought for a moment. Not about the case, but about Johnson. He’d enjoyed the drink last time. And he’d seen her around, she’d say hi, he’d say hi, him always feeling a little visceral tug. And he’d heard she left Minnesota after a divorce. Besides, growing up in Chicago, he understood the algebra of favors. His old man had moonlighted as political ward muscle for years. What was it he used to say? “Everybody’s gotta scratch a few backs. Otherwise, whole world’s got itchy backs. Nobody’s comfortable.”

“Yeah, OK,” Lynch said. “You know McGinty’s?”

“Sure. Half an hour?”

“OK, yeah.”

Lynch wondered should he change. After fourteen hours, he figured a shower and a clean shirt, at least. Toweling off, he poked through the closet and saw the sweater his sister had sent for Christmas. Strange-looking roll neck kind of faded purple thing he always thought looked a little candy-assed, but he had to admit his sister knew this kind of shit, so he thought what the hell. Threw it on over a pair of jeans, slid his holster back on his belt.

Johnson was waiting at the end of the bar when he got downstairs. She’d gotten her hair cut, he noticed, very short now. Long neck. Black turtleneck, tight. Black slacks. She looked like a million bucks in stock options.

“John,” she said, getting up from her stool. “Thanks. Really.” Big friendly smile. Lots of straight, white Scandinavian teeth. She put out her hand.

He took it. Big hands, he thought. But his were bigger. He hoped she noticed.

“You are the only person on the face of the earth that calls me John,” he said.

“Really? What should I call you?”

“Most people call me Lynch. There are a couple other options, but you’ll have to buy more than one drink to hear them.”

She slid her hand up to his elbow and turned him into the dimly-lit brick room toward the high-backed wooden booths along the windows that overlooked the river. “Guess we’d better get a table, then,” she said. “It could be a long night.” Different smile, less teeth, more sly.

When the waitress came, Lynch ordered a double Woodford Reserve. The waitress’ smile perked up along with her likely tip. Johnson asked for a Chardonnay.

“You a bourbon connoisseur, Lynch?”

“Hey, you’re buying.”

“You’re really going to get your pound of flesh, aren’t you, detective?”

“Pound?” Lynch said, looking up from under his eyebrows with a slight smile. “I’ll take all the flesh you care to offer.” He watched for her reaction.

She tilted her head a little, small chuckle, then looked back.

“That’s a very nice sweater, John Lynch.” Another smile. Not so sly this time. That was the smile he was looking for. She took a long sip from her glass.

“So how’d it go with Eddie Marslovak?” Johnson leaned forward, forearms on the table.

“Who says I talked to him?”

“Come on, Lynch. You’re the lead on his mother’s murder. He’s maybe the most powerful man in Chicago. What are you going to do, send him an email?”

“Yeah, OK. I talked to Eddie. This your technique, Johnson, right for the throat? I don’t get schmoozed?”

“You want schmooze?”

“You’re buying the drinks. Sure. Schmooze me.”

Another smile, a look like he’d surprised her a little, like she was happy about that. “OK, Lynch. Tell me about being the Great White.”

Lynch’s turn to get rocked back a little. Great White: a nickname from his football days at Boston College. White guy – rare for a DB, maybe not at BC, but at most places – decent speed, played strong safety, and tended to leave blood in the water. Little grin from Lynch. Trying not to look too proud about it, the jock thing being a little silly at his age. Still, though.

“So who put you onto that, Johnson? That’s going back some.”

“Every girl wants to meet a football hero. Third round pick, right?”

“Green Bay, yeah. Blew out my knee in the preseason. That was that. Happened today, signing bonus be enough to retire on.”

“Happened today, they’d fix your knee. Miss it?”

“Shit, I’d be long retired by now anyway, Johnson.”

“But still?”

“Yeah, OK. I miss it. I liked it. I was good at it. And there is nothing like completely reordering some wideout’s worldview when he tries to go over the middle.”

Johnson laughed. “So why the cops? Why not coach or do TV or whatever?”

“Dad was a cop. Genetic inertia, I guess. So what else you got? Gonna grill me on my aborted engagement to Cindy Tremaine back in the third grade?”

“How about Cabrini, 1984? Want to talk about that?”

She’d read the book on him. Lynch turned to the side, looking out the window over the river. Took a long swallow. In his mind, he could still see the muzzle flashes, hear the round thump into Michealson, hear rounds ripping through the sheet metal on the squad. Remembered getting hit, crawling to the front of the car, laying prone, firing from under the bumper. The first black kid going down, holding his gut, feet kicking, rolling over. The other kid running toward the squad, squeezing off shots. Lynch with one round left, knowing there’d be no chance to reload, knowing he’d never be able to anyway, bullet in his left shoulder, his left arm useless. He stayed prone, bracing the butt of the pistol on the ground, lining the kid up, the kid still shooting, but too high, Lynch letting him come, then putting a .38 right through his chest. Michealson making that gurgling noise, Lynch trying CPR, getting nothing out of it but a mouthful of blood.

Lynch took another swallow, held the glass up and wiggled it at the waitress. “I said schmooze, Johnson. Didn’t ask for a proctological exam. Pick a new subject.” Waitress put down the new drink, Lynch took a pull. Both of them quiet for a minute, Johnson knowing she’d stepped out of bounds.

“So,” he said. “What about you? Minneapolis, right?”

“Born and raised. Cop family, too. Dad just retired. Chief of Detectives. Older brother’s a captain, younger brother put in ten years on the force, law school at night, comer in the DA’s office now.”

“So why’d you skip town? Sounds like you had a house full of sources.”

“When I said cop family, I meant cop family all the way. Not an easy place for a girl with ambitions beyond marrying one of them. Which I did, which was a mistake. He wasn’t too keen on me working, especially for the press. After the divorce, I was on my own, all the way out from under all that macho bullshit for the first time. Liked it. Figured I’d be even more on my own down here.”

“So not much use for cops, huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Lynch. My dad, my brothers? They’re good people. Hard to live with sometimes. I’ve been around cops my whole life. That sense of honor at the core of the whole thing? I like that. You don’t get that with your MBAs. But, with a lot of them, after a while, they never take off the body armor.”

“Your ex?”

“Yeah. Kevlar man.”

“Don’t worry, Johnson. I haven’t put on a vest since I got off patrols.”

“There, you see? We’re hitting it off already.” Johnson getting another wine.

“Yeah. You give good schmooze. Look, I don’t really have shit on the Marslovak shooting yet, and I couldn’t give it to you if I did, you know that. Why the call?”

“I’m not looking for a quote here, Lynch. This is not-for-attribution all the way. Just with Eddie Marslovak in the mix, this is going to be front-burner for a while. I don’t want to get blindsided by anything.”

“OK. Strictly as background. I talked with Eddie. I think he needs a couple of bushels of Prozac and maybe a decade or two of therapy. But if he ties into the shooting, it’s going to be sideways – somebody coming back at him out of some deal he screwed them on or something. All I got.”