“What did he pull out of his waistband?”

“A knife.”

“And you standing there with your revolver.”

“He whirled. He pulled something out of his belt. I wasn’t waiting to see if it was a cell phone. I came up clean.”

“But still you’re in the auto squad.”

“It made the papers, the shooting, and Internal said I was wrong to have gone there without backup. The brass transferred me to the auto squad to get the stink out of homicide. So now I chase cars. Like a dog.”

Just then Priscilla returned to the table. “Nice job, cowboy,” she said as she placed another Blue Hawaii in front of me.

“I’ll be here all week,” I said.

“Let’s hope not,” she said. “It would be hell on tips.”

I took a long draft of the blue drink, winced.

“What’s the matter?” said Gleason.

“I got this tooth…”

“You ought to get that looked at.”

“So I been told.”

“The guy who took care of Seamus did an amazing job.”

“I have someone in mind,” I said.

“Think about it. Seamus’s teeth were like Stonehenge before, and after they looked pretty damn good.”

“Was he grateful for what you did?”

“Oh, yeah. That was the thing. He was a good kid and appreciated everything. The more you did for him, the more you wanted to do.”

Thank you, Marv, that was beautiful and heartfelt. The ladies here would surrender to you in a minute. A squeal went up. Let’s give Marvelous Marv a hand. Next up, the always popular, always terrific, our own Officer Patrick Gleason, singing something from the King’s 1968 Comeback Special. Come on up, Patrick.

Gleason downed his bourbon, belched to clear his throat, gave me a wink before standing and walking with authority to the stage. On his way up, he motioned for the three sirens at the bar, with their rising hair and plunging necklines, to follow, and they did, climbing to the stage with him, forming a row behind.

“This is for a kid I used to know,” said Gleason.

He lowered his head, shook his knee, waited as the music started, a muted trumpet, the humming of his background singers swaying slowly in their row, a slip of strings floating over the bridge.

When Gleason raised his head, his eyes were now focused high and there was something different about him, something transported. He began to sing in a lovely and deep gospel voice about lights burning brighter and birds flying higher, about bluer skies and better lands and brothers walking hand in hand.

It was a sappy song, maudlin and obvious, without a hint of irony. And here was this Elvis wannabe, standing on a karaoke stage, in a pathetic tribute bar, singing to a sparse crowd already punched into submission by the likes of Harvey from Huntingdon Valley and Marvelous Marv, by the likes of me. Yet with the emotional music, the background singers, the way Gleason’s voice roughed with passion as it strived to reach the high notes and higher emotions, it also seemed, for a moment, as true as pain. And his apparent belief in every word shamed me.

See, Gleason was a cop, and sometimes cops become cops because they like the power, the guns, the adrenaline rush of being on the front lines of someone else’s tragedy. And then sometimes they become cops because it’s a tough job that doesn’t pay near enough but needs doing and allows the men and women who take it up to maybe make a real difference in the world. It’s not always so easy to tell one from the other.

“You’re pretty damn good,” I said when he sat back down at the table. “You ever sing professionally?”

“Remember there was this rockabilly trend a couple decades back. The Stray Cats. Robert Gordon. The whole ‘Gene Gene Vincent, we sure miss you’ thing. Some of us just out of the academy had a group. I fronted and played rhythm guitar.”

“What were you called?”

“The Police Dogs. Played some of the bars around here. We were pretty good. Had offers from clubs in New York. But it was just a hobby. I always wanted to do what I was doing.”

“Police work,” I said.

He shrugged.

“It was a good thing you tried to do for Seamus.”

“He was a good kid.”

“Not everyone steps out to help like you did.”

“It wasn’t anything.”

“But I’m troubled here. You knew about his testimony in the François Dubé case?”

“Yeah.”

“And you knew that the defense would be interested in knowing about his former drug use, his misspent youth, how he was found by a cop in a drug house during a raid? You knew all that would be relevant, didn’t you?”

“I know the way it works. You guys on the other side take any little thing and twist it into something else.”

“That might be true, Detective. We all have our jobs to do. But when you learned he was slated to testify, why didn’t you tell anyone what you knew?”

“No one asked.”

“And you didn’t volunteer. You didn’t think Torricelli would be interested? Or the D.A.? They were basing part of their case on the kid’s testimony. You didn’t think they would want to know about his past?”

“He was cleaning up,” he said. “His future was bright. No one needed to know everything he had gone through.”

“Or about your relationship with an ex-drug abuser.”

“I told you, there was nothing wrong in it.”

“Maybe there wasn’t.”

“I was just trying to protect him.”

“Or maybe you were just protecting yourself. Like you said, everyone thinks they understand when they think the worst.”

He didn’t answer, he didn’t have to, the truth of it was writ upon his face. But if he had spoken up, things might have been so different. The D.A. would have turned over the information to the defense, she would have had to, and it would have been rough for Seamus on the stand, sure. It might have made a difference in the François Dubé case, sure, but it would have made a difference to Detective Gleason, too. Because if his commanding officers had known of his relationship with Seamus Dent, he never would have been assigned Dent’s homicide, he never would have rushed off rashly to confront Seamus’s murderer, he never would have killed the man, never would have been booted down to the auto squad. And he never would have been in this situation now, right now, with his fate in my hands.

“You should have told them,” I said.

“I know it now.”

“If they find out, they’re going to look again at that shooting.”

“Most likely.”

“It’s going to appear less like self-defense and more like a dark vigilante form of revenge.”

“It was what it was,” he said.

“But still.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s going to be bad.”

He shrugged.

“You understand I don’t have a choice.”

“I was just trying to do something good.”

“But that’s the way of it, Detective,” I said as I pulled out the subpoena I had typed up in my office and placed it gently before him. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

He didn’t look at it, he didn’t have to.

I emptied my second Blue Hawaii. The alcohol puckered my throat, the pineapple juice jabbed like a steel pick into my tooth. For a moment my jaw trembled and the blood in my head drained and the world grew pale.

Gleason reached out a hand and grabbed my shoulder. “Sakes alive, boy. What’s going on? Are you drunk?”

I shook my head and immediately regretted the action, the pain burrowing deeper with each shake.

“It’s your tooth, isn’t it? Let me give you the name of the dentist I was telling you about.”

“I have a name,” I said, grabbing into my jacket for the card Whit had given me.

“But you should give this guy a chance. He’s supposed to be relatively painless.”

“It’s the relative part that has me worried.”

“You need help, son. Really. I could give him a call.”

I put the cool of the glass against my jaw. “Who is he?”

“Pfeffer,” he said.

My eyes snapped open at the name.

“Dr. Pfeffer,” said Detective Gleason. “He’s the one who helped Seamus, and believe me when I say, based on what he did for Seamus, he’s an absolute magician.”