The St. Antoine Clinic doctor, a serious young guy with narrow shoulders and glasses, not much hair, was looking at the sheet Chris had filled out. He didn't seem to be listening. He said, "Tell me if anything I read is incorrect. You're Christopher Mankowski, no middle initial.

Date of birth, October 7, 1949."

Chris told him so far it was correct.

The doctor cleared his throat. He cleared it a lot, faint little growls coming from deep in there.

"You're presently a sergeant, bomb and explosives technician, assigned to the Crime Laboratory Section."

"I'm also a firearms examiner, you might want to put down. Or I was.

Right now I'm not sure what I am."

"You like guns?"

"Do I like them? I know guns, I'm not a collector."

"How many do you own?"

"I carry a thirty-eight Special and I have a Clock my dad gave me I keep at work. I don't want to get burglarized and have some head running around with a seventeen-shot automatic."

"That's what a Clock is?"

"It's Austrian, nine millimeter. Very lightweight."

"Even with all those bullets in it?"

"That's correct."

There was a silence. Then the sound of a throat being cleared.

"You've been with the Detroit Police since June 1975."

"That's correct," Chris said.

"Another month will be twelve years."

The young doctor said, "You don't have to tell me when the information is correct. Only when it isn't correct." So when the doctor said,

"You were in the military, honorably discharged, but you served less than a year," Chris didn't say anything. That was correct. He was stateside five months and the rest of the time with the Third Brigade, 25th Infantry, in Vietnam. Chris had a feeling the doctor didn't like to ask a question unless he already knew the answer. He was the type of person witnesses never remembered. The wedding ring didn't mean shit. He probably vacuumed and washed the dishes in his lab coat. It was like he wanted you to know he was a doctor, but wasn't that sure of it himself. Why did he wear a lab coat to sit at his desk asking questions? What did he think might get spilled on him?