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the DA office himself. They were morons. Their names were Hanson and Rank. Hanson was a fat guy who took things easy, but Otto Rank was like rust. He never slept. He had ambitions, they said, to be DA himself. These two sat on stools at the breakfast bar in Ed’s kitchen and he made them coffee.
    “Hey,” said Hanson. “Chinese Ed.”
    “Hanson,” Ed said.
    “So what do you know, Ed?” Rank said. “We hear you’re interested in the Brady case.” He smiled. He leaned forward until his face was near Ed’s. “We’re interested in that too.”
    Hanson looked nervous. He said:
    “We know you were at the scene, Ed.”
    “Fuck this,” Rank said immediately. “We don’t need to discuss this with him.” He grinned at Ed. “Why’d you waste him, Ed?”
    “Waste who?”
    Rank shook his head at Hanson, as if to say, What do you make of this shithead? Ed said:
    “Kiss it, Rank. You want some more java?”
    “Hey,” Rank said. “You kiss it.” He took out a handful of brass cases and threw them across the breakfast bar. “Colt .45,” he said. “Military issue. Dumdum rounds. Two separate guns.” The brass cases danced and rattled. “You want to show me your guns, Ed? Those two fucking Colts you carry like some TV detective? You want to bet we can get a match?”
    Ed showed his teeth.
    “You have to have the guns for that. You want to take them off me, here and now? Think you can do that, Otto?”
    Hanson looked anxious. “No need for that, Ed,” he said.
    “We can go away and get the fucking warrant, Ed, and then we can come back and take the guns,” said Rank. He shrugged. “We can take you. We can take your house. We could take your wife, you still had one, and play jump the bones with her ’til Saturday next. You want to do this the hard way, Ed, or the easy way?”
    Ed said: “We can do it either way.”
    “No we can’t, Ed,” said Otto Rank. “Not this time. I’m surprised you don’t know that.” He shrugged. “Hey,” he said, “I think you do.” He lifted his finger in Ed’s face, pointed it like a gun. “Later,” he said.
    “Fuck you, Rank,” Ed said.
    He knew something was wrong when Rank only laughed and left.
    “Shit, Ed,” Hanson said. He shrugged. Then he left too.
    After he was sure they were gone, Ed went out to his car, a four-to-the-floor ’47 Dodge into which someone had shoehorned the 409 from a ’52 Caddy. He fired it up and sat in it for a moment listening to the four-barrel suck air. He looked at his hands.
    “We can do it either way you fuckers,” he whispered. Then he dumped the clutch and drove downtown.
    He had to find out what was going on. He knew a broad in the DA’s office called Robinson. He persuaded her to go to Sullivan’s diner with him and get lunch. She was a tall woman with a wide smile, good tits and a way of licking mayonnaise out the corner of her mouth which suggested she might be equally good at licking mayonnaise out the corner of yours. Ed knew that he could find that out if he wanted to. He could find that out, but he was more interested in the Brady case, and what Rank and Hanson knew.
    “Hey,” he said. “Rita.”
    “Cut the flannel, Chinese Ed,” said Rita. She tapped her fingers and looked out the window at the crowded street. She had come here from Detroit looking for something new. But this was just another sulphur dioxide town, a town without hope full of the black mist of engines. “Don’t put that sugar on me,” she sang.
    Chinese Ed shrugged. He was halfway out the door of Sullivan’s when he heard her say:
    “Hey, Ed. You still fuck?”
    He turned back. Maybe the day was looking better now. Rita Robinson was grinning and he was walking towards her when something weird happened. The light was obscured in Sullivan’s doorway. Rita, who could see why, stared past Ed in a kind of dawning fear; Ed, who couldn’t, began to ask her what was wrong. Rita raised her hand and pointed.
    “Jesus, Ed,” she said.