“No.”

“Dude, lighten up,” said Kyle.

“I’m just asking to see it. It’s not like I want to take out a window or anything.”

It was a laid-back gabfest, going nowhere quite slowly, and she was frankly bored. Add to that the way Kyle was back to dressing in his black Chuck Taylors, cargo shorts, and a ringer T-shirt, looking very young and very aimless and very much without the dangerous edge she had found so attractive during the Toth affair, and the whole thing left her wondering what she’d been so hopped up about in the first place. She began checking her watch, wondering when would be a polite time simply to leave.

“Don’t mind Skitch,” said the bar’s owner, that skinny Bubba Jr. “It’s not often we have a celebrity with us,” he said, hoisting a beer in Ramirez’s honor.

Ramirez forced a smile and raised her beer in return. She and Henderson had become briefly famous on the local and national news shows for neutralizing the now-infamous Toth murderer as he’d tried to add a U.S. senator to his list of victims.

“You seemed to like being in front of the camera,” said Kyle.

“Just part of the job,” she said. But she had liked it, and was good at it, and realized during her fourth television interview that the center of attention was exactly where she wanted to be. But hanging at a bar with these losers wasn’t helping her get there, that was for sure.

“You know where they make this now?” said the old toothless man, staring sadly at his beer. “New Jersey. It makes me want to puke.”

“I feel the same way,” said another older man, with a bulbous nose, whom Kyle had introduced as his Uncle Max. “But it’s from them pills I take for my back. So what’s going to happen to that senator?”

“My guess is not a damn thing,” said Ramirez.

Senator Truscott had held a press conference to announce his horror at what his cousin had done. Truscott had promised full cooperation with the ongoing police investigation even as he vowed to continue to vigorously represent the interests of Pennsylvanians in the United States Senate.

“But it’s the end of his presidential ambitions at least,” said Bubba Jr.

“Don’t bet on that,” said Ramirez. “He’s getting coverage in the national press, he’s gaining a celebrity beyond politics. That stuff can be intoxicating.”

“And it’s not really his decision to run or not, is it?” said Kyle. “His mother has been calling all the shots for him since he was a baby. That’s a hard habit to kick.”

“It’s going to be tough for her to keep doing it from where she is now,” said Ramirez. “They put her in an asylum in North Carolina. We’ve been trying to speak to her, but they claim she’s suffering from shock and dementia.”

“The only dementia she’s suffering from is her own overblown sense of entitlement,” said Kyle. “She married a Truscott, her offspring is entitled to the presidency, and there’s nothing she won’t do to make it happen.”

“What a fun gal,” said Kat.

“Maybe sometime I’ll show the movie we found in Spangler’s apartment,” said Ramirez. “Puts the old lady in a whole new light.”

Kyle raised his beer. “Dudes, I have, like, a toast.”

Cutlery clanked against beer mugs.

“It’s been an insane couple of weeks, starting with my wig-out at the ball game—”

“We had that game won, bro,” said Skitch.

“Yeah, maybe, though it wasn’t exactly Willie Mays in the on-deck circle. But from the ball game through the violence of last night, I have to say, the whole experience for me wasn’t altogether horrible. You might have heard I lost my dad when I was twelve—”

“No, we hadn’t,” said Bubba Jr. “You ever hear that, Kat?”

“Not in, like”—she checked her watch—“the last ten minutes or so.”

“And my mom died last year,” continued Kyle, ignoring the sarcasm, “and I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, abandoned and alone, the poor little orphan boy.”

“You’re making me cry,” said Tommy. “Stop it. No, really, stop it.”

“But in the middle of the insanity,” said Kyle, “each of you guys came through for me when I needed it. Junior letting me use his bar for the meeting even after giving me the heave-ho, which I fully deserved. Kat getting me out of jail, staying in touch with the police, and keeping me grounded. My Uncle Max, who’s like family to me—”

“I am family to you, you putz.”

“For giving me his sage advice and his unflinching honesty.”

“Does that mean we’re good again?”

“No,” said Kyle.

“You let me know.”

“I also need to thank Lucia, who saved my life not once but twice from a homicidal maniac. And finally Skitch, who stood with me during the entire time and helped out in ways we won’t talk about with a cop present.”

“He’s just talking hypothetically,” said Skitch to Ramirez. “What I would have done if it wasn’t, you know, against the law.”

“You all helped, each of you, except for Tommy, actually, who didn’t do a thing except call a United States senator a pussy to his face.”

“I was right about him, wasn’t I?” said Tommy.

“Yes you were,” said Kyle. “So I just wanted to thank you. We all want to know we’re not alone in the world, and right now I feel less alone than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Which is good, since after Kat kicks me out, I’m going to need a place to stay. So here’s to all of you, even to Old Tommy Trapp. Thanks for taking up the slack in my life.”

They were clinking glasses, and Ramirez was ready to take her cue to up and leave, when she saw it, above the neon hanging in the window, a quick bob of gray hair passing to the left. And even as she saw it, she noticed that Kyle saw it, too, and reacted to it like a slap in the face. He stared for a moment, dropping his jaw like a ventriloquist’s dummy, and then he was on his feet and heading out of the bar without so much as a word to anyone else at the table.

“What the hell?” said Ramirez, as she stood to go after him.

“Leave him be,” said the pretty lawyer, smiling kindly at her as she put her hand on Ramirez’s arm. “Welcome to Kyle World.”

Ramirez sat down again, and Skitch leaned over to her. “Just a peek?”

“Forget about it.”

“There any other hotties like you on the force?”

“You mean,” she said, “hotties who’d be interested in someone like you?”

“Yeah.”