"Hey, listen, Audie. I'm supposed to tell you that I'll be hanging out with you for the next couple of days at least. Quinn's still got a bunch of other stuff he needs to do."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you mean you're supposed to tell me? Did Quinn ask you to say that? He's hiding from me, isn't he?"

"No! No! That's not what I meant. Ah, shit." Stanny-O looked over at her a bit nervously. "Look. He's busy with work, that's all. Our commander told us to make your case a priority, but we had to clear up a whole bunch of other cases, that's all. Quinn told me to explain that to you and tell you he'd see you soon."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Audie stuck her hand out into the summer night wind and inhaled the lake air. "Does Quinn hit on women a lot?"

Stanny-O's head spun around. "What? God, no. Not at all." He grinned again. "He don't have to."

Audie laughed. "No, I imagine he doesn't," she said softly. "Has he had a lot of girlfriends?"

Stanny-O adjusted himself in the leather seat. "That's the kind of thing you'll need to ask him about, OK? It's not my place."

"Fair enough."

"But not many. He's picky. The last one lasted about three years. I always assumed they'd get married, but she broke it off with him."

"Really?" Audie tried to hide her smile.

"She ran off to Miami with another guy."

"Oh."

They were quiet for a moment, and Audie leaned back against the headrest to watch the endless geometric blocks of light pass by, buildings clustered along the lakefront shoulder to shoulder in the night sky. "He's a good man, isn't he?"

"Quinn?Yes, he's a good man." Stanny-O looked a bitsurprised by her question. "And a good cop. Why did you ask that?"

Audie shrugged. "I'm just trying to figure him out, I guess. Is he always so quiet? He just doesn't seem to talk very much when we're together."

Stanny-O chuckled under his breath. "He's mostly quiet, but that's because his brain is working overtime and he's listening real careful and keeping his eyes sharp.

"But I've seen him hammered and he can let it rip then, let me tell you. He gets all sappy and tells stories that don't have no endings as far as I can tell, and he sings those gut-wrenching Irish songs that make my skin crawl.

"And you definitely don't want to let him near his pipes when he's like that. God! The sound of those things makes me want to shoot myself in the head even when he's sober. But when he's hammered he can't play worth shit and it sounds like somebody's being tortured."

Audie stared at Stanny-O in confusion and disbelief, laughing. She'd just been handed a huge amount of information that didn't jibe with what she knew of Quinn. And what the hell are pipes?

"What the hell are pipes?" she asked.

"Bagpipes." He turned toward her. "You don't know about his pipes?"

She laughed again. "Guess not. You going to fill me in?"

Stanny-O smoothed down his mustache and looked up at the streetlights along Lake Shore Drive. "He plays with the Chicago Garda Pipe and Drum Band," he said. "His dad does, too-it's the official Chicago Police Department pipe band. They do police and fire funerals, parades, weddings, festivals, stuff like that. I think their shows sound like a whole herd of cows being slaughtered myself, but some people seem to like them."

"Bagpipes?" Audie shook her head. "Like with a kilt and everything?"

"Oh, yeah. Whenever I give him hell about that, he tells me only real men have the balls to wear a skirt." He winced at his choice of words. "Sorry."

Audie laughed loudly. "Well, what do you know?" She took a few moments to try to imagine the masculine Stacey Quinn in a kilt. She just couldn't do it.

"So what's Garda mean?"

"Quinn told me it's the name for the police in Ireland or something."

"Oh."

They drove for several minutes in quiet. "Hey, Stanny-O?"

"Mmm?"

"What about the women that Quinn meets in his work? I mean like me-one of his cases. Does he… hook up with, you know, get involved… with women he meets by being a cop?"

Stanny-O was slowing down to take the exit to Audie's apartment building, looming huge and bright against the dark lake.

"No. Not that I've ever seen, except maybe you," he said, giving her a shy glance. "You're pretty much the first one I've seen him interested in."

"He gave me a really nice present the other day. Did you know about that?"

Stanny-O smiled broadly. "Yeah. They were his mother's."

"What?" Audie nearly jumped out of her seat. She stared at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Oh, crap," Audie whispered, letting her head fall back against the seat. This was too bizarre, and she didn't know whether to be appalled or flattered-and wasn't that just perfect? Wasn't that the perfect gift from Stacey Quinn, the most exasperating man she'd ever met?

"Has he said anything to you about me?"

"He don't have to." Stanny-O pulled into her parking garage. "It's obvious what he thinks of you."

Audie turned to him in the bright fluorescent light of the underground ramp and huffed with impatience. "And what is that, if I may ask?"

The detective sliced into Audie's assigned parking spot and cut the Porsche's engine. He grinned at her, his small blue eyes glittering. "That's another thing you'll need to ask him yourself."

Quinn opened the door to Keenan's Pub and immediately sensed the soul of the place: the incense of cigarette smoke and spilled ale, the celestial choir of laughter and jukebox reels, the reverence for something transcendent, larger than life.

"Over here, Stace!"

Quinn's eyes adjusted to the dim light and dark paneling to find the smiling face of his youngest brother, Michael, and then, as the other head turned, the grin of his middle brother, Patrick.

"Good evening, Stacey." The bartender had already drawn his pint of Guinness and placed it on the bar to sit. Quinn knew he'd repeat the process three times before he'd achieved the perfect balance of foam and liquid.

"Matt! Good to see you. How have you been?"

"Grand. Just grand."

And Matt did look grand, Quinn thought to himself-the same little spark plug of a bartender he'd known nearly all his life. He gazed around him-the whole place looked wonderful. Most of the usual Friday night flock was already assembled, and as he moved toward the booth he waved at a few of the patrons, slapped the backs of a few more, and shook hands with the rest.

Quinn reached into the booth and briefly tugged at Pat's shoulders before he joined Michael.

"Is Da coming?" Pat asked.

"What? The two of us aren't good enough for you?" Michael edged over in the booth as Quinn pushed harshly against him as a greeting.

"Move your wide ass," Quinn said.

Then he winked across the table at Pat and settled in with a sigh of pleasure. "Da stayed a little late at practice tonight," Quinn said. "He'll be here eventually."

"So is the band ready for CityPest?" Pat asked. "I hope to God you've got some new sets, because we're getting tired of the same old crap every year. Have pity on your fans, Stacey."

Quinn smiled at Pat, realizing it had been six years since his ordination, but it was still sometimes jarring to see his smart-aleck brother in a priest's collar.

"Sure, Pat. We thought we'd do some gangsta rap this year. Maybe a few calypso tunes."

Pat and Michael snickered for a moment before they launched into their favorite pastime-arguing with each other. Quinn sat back and expected to be entertained.

As he observed, he remembered how there'd been more than a few broken hearts in the neighborhood the day Patrick went into the seminary. It was as if God decided only one child would get the very best from the union of Patricia Stacey and James Quinn-and it had been Patrick.