"Oh, fuck!" He gagged some more.

"I can finish up in here, Marino," I said.

"Just give me a minute."

"Why don't you go on and find a shower."

"You can't tell anyone about this," he said, and I knew he was thinking about Anderson. "You know, I bet you could get a really good deal on some uh this camera shit."

"I bet you could."

"Wonder what they're gonna do with it."

"Has the removal service come yet?" I asked him.

He raised his portable radio to his lips.

"Christ!" He spat and gagged some more.

He vigorously wiped the radio on the front of his pants and coughed and conjured up spittle from the bottom of his throat and let it fly.

"Unit nine," he said on the air, holding the'radio a good twelve inches from his face.

"Unit nine."

The dispatcher was a woman. I detected warmth in her voice and was surprised. Dispatchers and 911 operators almost always remained calm and showed no emotion, no matter the emergency.

"Ten-five Rene Anderson," Marino was saying. "Don't know her unit number. Tell -her if she doesn't mind, we sure would like removal service guys to show up down here.”,

"Unit nine. You know the name of the service?"

"Hey, Doc," Marino stopped transmitting and raised his voice to me. "What's the name of the service?"

"Capital Transport:'

He passed that along, adding, "Radio, if she's a ten-two, ten-ten, or ten-seven or if we should ten-twenty-two, get back to me.°"

A storm of cops keyed their mikes, their way of laughing and cheering him on.

"Ten-four, unit nine;" the dispatcher said.

"What did you just say that got you such an ovation? I know, ten-seven is out of service, but I didn't get the rest of it."

"Told her to let me know if Anderson was a weak signal or negative, or had time to get around to it. Or if we should fucking disregard her."

"No wonder she likes you so much."