Kolarich eyed the tattoo on Marshall’s forearm. It ran all the way from elbow to wrist, a bloodred dagger with a black snake curled around it, a multipronged tongue hissing out of the viper’s mouth. His mother must be so proud.

“I was disappointed to learn you went to Annunzio for school,” said Kolarich. He pointed to himself. “Bonaventure.”

Rivers watched him a moment, then showed his teeth. “Bon-Bons, huh? Too bad for you.”

Rival south-side high schools. It was time to play south-side geography: Which parish did you attend, which place did you go for kraut dogs, which bar was your favorite, Lucky Joe’s or the Green Castle? It loosened Marshall’s tongue. Gotta get that tongue loose first.

“You don’t live near Annunzio anymore,” Kolarich noted.

“Nah. Not the same place no more. I like burgers more than tacos, know what I mean?”

“Tell me fuckin’ about it.” Kolarich rolled his eyes and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “You been by Leland Park anytime lately? I think English is the second language down there now.”

Rivers liked that. He liked that a lot. It seemed to Kolarich like the right way to break through with this guy. People who didn’t amount to a whole lot, like Rivers, tended to blame other things for their troubles, principal among them the shifting demographics. There were lots of good, decent people on the city’s south side, but it was just like any other neighborhood—there were plenty of assholes, too. Marshall Rivers was one of them.

And Kolarich was a chameleon. When his goal was to connect with a suspect—and it usually was—he could flip a switch inside himself. He had actually fallen pretty hard for a Mexican girl at Bonaventure, a sophomore named Tina who never gave him the time of day, but at this moment, Kolarich forgot all about her.

“Anyway.” Kolarich jabbed a thumb at the door. “This mexicana? I’m sorry, this Latina girl, excuse me.” He shook his head. “Seems like a nice girl, but I swear to God, she doesn’t speak two words of English.” He chuckled. He put out his hands. “Best I can understand her, she says you confronted her and tried to get her into a car. Is that true?”

Rivers froze up. “Nah, man, that ain’t what happened at all. That chick, she waves at me for directions, see, so I pull over the car, and then she asks me if I want a little sucky-sucky. I said no fuckin’ thanks.”

Kolarich expelled a short breath, a small laugh, and covered his eyes with his hand in bemusement. It was about what he expected from Rivers, who’d had several hours to come up with that tale. Yeah, he thought to himself, that’s why an illegal immigrant would run to the cops, the last people in the world she ever wants to see. Because a potential john turned down her offer of a blow job while she was carrying her baby in a pouch.

“That’s about what I figured.” Kolarich put his hands flat on the table. “For Christ’s sake. Why am I not surprised?”

Rivers, still a bit wary but loosening up, showed his teeth again, a shark baring his fangs.

Kolarich threw up his arms as if agitated. “You know what? Fuck this,” he said. “I’m not going to screw up your life based on the word of some chiquita who probably doesn’t have her green card and can’t even bother to learn our language. I’m not going to do it. I don’t care. I’m not. So forget that, Marshall. I’m not pursuing that.”

Rivers watched him, his eyes intense, cautiously appraising the prosecutor. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. I’m not charging you on that.” Kolarich flicked his wrist, a straight line in the air. “That’s done.”

Rivers nodded, sitting back in his chair, still cautious but getting looser and looser by the minute. This guy’s all right, he must have been thinking. “I appreciate that, man.”

“The gun, though.” Kolarich knifed a hand onto the table. “Coppers saw you toss the gun. That’s not on the immigrant girl. That’s got nothing to do with her.”

“I didn’t toss no gun.”

Kolarich raised a hand. “Here’s my problem. I have to clear this case, right? This is a case, with a number assigned to it, that needs a resolution, or someone’s going to be all over me asking why the fuck there’s no ‘solve’ next to it.”

Rivers didn’t speak. Kolarich fell back against his chair, his eyes on the ceiling. Then he made a face, tilted his head back and forth, all like he was pondering how to get around this thing.

He came forward again, elbows on the table. “Let me ask you, off the record. Not quoting you, nobody but you and me. It is your gun?”

“Nah, man. Not my gun.” Rivers closed his arms in on himself. He was tightening up, becoming defensive. Kolarich would lose him if he wasn’t careful.

“Okay.” He clapped his hands together. “This is going to turn into a case, then. Because I got two coppers who say you tossed it from the car.” He jabbed his thumb at the door. “You get that? I can shit-can this part about the Mexican girl, because the coppers, they didn’t see that with their own eyes. I’ll tell them that I don’t believe the girl, and that’s that. But the gun? If I go out there and say, no, he denies it, they’re going to insist that you be charged, because you’re calling them liars. They can’t have that. They can’t have a file that says they lied. Know what I mean?”

He thought that Rivers could follow that. It all made sense.

“So then you go to trial, Marshall. You go to trial, and it’s you against two decorated police officers.”

Rivers ran his tongue over the inside of his cheek. His foot tapped the floor like a drummer on too much caffeine.

“S’posin’ it was my gun,” he said. “Just . . . s’posin’.”

“Well.” Kolarich put out his hands. “If you tell me it’s your gun, if you put that in writing, I can agree not to charge you. The cops, they don’t give a fuck about what happens to you after the arrest. They just want their arrest to be righteous. They don’t want anyone saying they fucked up. So, yeah—you admit it was yours, and you agree to give up the gun—can you do that, surrender the gun?”

“Fuck.” Rivers flipped a hand. If it got him a pass, he’d hand that pistol over to God Himself.

“Okay, so nobody’s calling the cops liars, I make the decision not to prosecute you, and we get another gun off the street.”

Rivers pointed at him, animated now, seeing real hope for the first time. “And you put it in writing, too.”

Kolarich smiled. “You’re a smart man. Yeah, of course I will. In fact, I’ll write it first, so you know I’m being straight.”

Kolarich slid the notepad over in front of him and removed the Bic pen from his pocket.

In exchange for the statement below, the county attorney’s office agrees not to prosecute Marshall Rivers in state court for unlawful use of a weapon or for any other firearms charge and will transfer this matter in accordance with Operation Safe Streets. Mr. Rivers acknowledges that he’s been made aware of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona.

Kolarich signed his name below the words and drew a signature line for Marshall Rivers, too. “There,” he said, sliding the notepad across to Rivers.

Rivers read it over, then looked up at Kolarich. “What’s that mean, a ‘transfer’?”

“It means I’m going to close the file,” said Kolarich. “I ‘transfer’ it from an ‘active’ case to a ‘closed’ case.”

Rivers looked down at the paper again. “And what’s this Oper—”

“Operation Safe Streets is our program for getting guns off the street. If you bring in a gun, we take it, no questions asked. That’s why I can do this, Marshall. That’s why I can give you a pass. Because you’re giving up the gun.”

The best lies, in Kolarich’s experience, had some truth interwoven. There had, truly, been programs like that in the past, sponsored by the city police department. Most people had heard of them, presumably Marshall included. Bring in your gun, we’ll take it off your hands, you walk away, no hassle.