“She said you seldom if ever showed any emotion or told her how you felt. Men in other professions, they have a problem at work, they’re not getting along with a customer or their boss, they come home and tell their wives about it. Then the wife gives hubby a few sympathetic strokes-poor baby-it’s why he tells her.”

The waitress with the gray hair and sequined glasses, Milly, placing his shell of beer on the table, said, “Where’s your buddy?”

The girl from the News jabbed her cigarette out. She sat back and looked off across the field of tablecloths.

“Who, Jerry?”

“The kinda sandy-haired one with the mustache.”

“Yeah, Jerry. He was gonna try and make it. You haven’t seen him, huh?”

“No, I don’t think he’s been in. I wouldn’t swear to it though. Who gets the doggie bag?”

The girl from the News waited.

“Just put it there,” Raymond said. “She doesn’t take it, I will.”

“I have a name,” the girl from the News said as the waitress walked away. Then hunched toward him and said, “I think your values are totally out of sync with reality.”

Raymond sipped his beer, trying to relate her two statements. He saw her nose in sharp focus, the sheen of her skin heightened by tension. She was annoyed and for a moment he felt good about it. But it was a satisfaction he didn’t need and he said, “What’re you mad at?”

“I think you’re still playing a role,” the girl said. “You did the Serpico thing in Narcotics. You thought Vice was fun-”

“I said some funny things happened.”

“Now you’re into another role, the Lieutenant of Homicide.”

“Acting Lieutenant. I’m filling in.”

“I want to ask you about that. How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Yeah, that’s what it said in your file, but you don’t look that old. Tell me… how do you get along with the guys in your squad?”