“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I should not have started with that kind of open question. I know that this is an emotional subject with you. Let’s try to start again. By the way, you can smoke if you’d like.”

“Is that in the file, too?”

“It’s not in the file. It didn’t need to be. It’s your hand, the way you keep bringing it up to your mouth. Have you been trying to quit?”

“No. But it’s a city office. You know the rules.”

It was a thin excuse. He violated that law every day at the Hollywood Station.

“That’s not the rule in here. I don’t want you to think of this as being part of Parker Center or part of the city. That’s the chief reason these offices are away from that. There are no rules like that here.”

“Doesn’t matter where we are. You’re still working for the LAPD.”

“Try to believe that you are away from the Los Angeles Police Department. When you are in here, try to believe that you’re just coming to see a friend. To talk. You can say anything here.”

But he knew she could not be seen as a friend. Never. There was too much at stake here. Just the same, he nodded once to please her.

“That’s not very convincing.”

He hiked his shoulders as if to say it was the best he could do, and it was.

“By the way, if you want I could hypnotize you, get rid of your dependency on nicotine.”

“If I wanted to quit, I could do it. People are either smokers or they’re not. I am.”

“Yes. It’s perhaps the most obvious symptom of a self-destructive nature.”

“Excuse me, am I on leave because I smoke? Is that what this is about?”