The door was closed. The bar had emptied out over ten minutes earlier, and there was just the bartender, Fuzzy, Detective Casey Maclam, and the joker in the bathroom who was taking way too long.

"So, what's this asshole done, CM?"

"It's personal, Fuzz. Don't let it worry you, okay?"

"No, no. I'm just needin' to clean up and go home. Don't need any more trouble in here. You should know that. I could get a lot of shit for this."

"Just chill out and go about your business. If he doesn't get out here, I'm gonna go in and roust this asshole in a minute."

"You're sure he's still in there?"

Casey gave him the long eye. "I'm sure. I saw him go in there just before you shooed everybody out and locked up. Give me another 7- Up before you get too involved back there."

"Want a slice with it?"

"Yeah." The cop answered as if he was disappointed.

"You pissed off, CM?"

"Nah. Look," he said, stretching his lips with his thumbs and letting go. "Mr. Happy."

At fifty-seven years old, Casey MaClam was a tough city cop looking forward to early retirement just around the corner. Tall and still solid, he had a pale hard face disfigured by a broken nose. Substantial strength was left in his massive frame, evident in long, knotty arms and the density of his shoulders. With steely blue eyes and a full head of brown-turning-gray hair, he didn't quite look his age. He wore a black bomber jacket with a white shirt and gray slacks.

To Casey, the bottles behind the bar were as seductive as a woman's smile.

The truth was he wanted a drink. And he didn't mean to ease back into old habits, either, with a casual Manhattan sipped at a brass-rail bar with red leather booths and rows of gleaming glasses stacked in front of a long wall mirror. He wanted kick-ass boilermakers with Jack Daniels and draft beer, or Beam straight up with a water chase, or raw tequila that left him breathless and boiling in his own juices. And what's more, he wanted it in a knock-down, backstreet, lowbrow dumpy saloon where he didn't have to account for any of his subsequent ridiculous actions. He was in the right place, and he was on a mission.

Casey said, "Make sure nobody gets back in that door, Fuzzy. I don't want to bust you for something stupid like impeding an officer doing his duty."

The Half Moon bar was as dim inside as out. There were no windows. A narrow entry skirted past the bar with its shabby leatherette stools. A couple of tables sat in back with a color TV. A shuffleboard bowling game, and what appeared to be a little-used dartboard, hugged the wall. It smelled of beer and peanuts and stale cigarette smoke. Christmas tinsel, wreaths and paper bells wrapped with gold and silver foil stayed up year 'round. Inside, the place was always New Year's Day.

Fuzzy was bent over the tubs washing shot glasses. "Maybe he flushed himself down in there," he said. A middle-aged man who had tended bar all night in a dirty apron, Fuzzy Hernandez was built like a steroid addict. He wore a black leather vest over an off-white T-shirt and was bald in a bad way, with a bushy fringe and a tuft of curly hair left on his head like a circus clown. He wore a gold earring and smoked a cigarette that looked as if he found it, and it waggled wetly in the corner of his mouth as he spoke.

Casey half- straddled a stool. He flipped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his foot as Fuzzy slid the 7-Up in front of him without a napkin.

"You sure got your time in, huh, CM? I never seen a cop handle so much shit, or spend so much of his time lookin' for one dude. You've been in and out of here every day for the last week. You ever sleep?"

Casey scowled. "But, a lot of citizens seem to think it's a cake job. I don't know where they get that shit. The imagination calls to mind some silly-assed radio shows of the forties, like Boston Blackie. Those guys were supposedly as gallant as their beautiful clients were cunning. The reality is otherwise. The fuckin' press makes shit up too. Who knows who's gettin' paid off."

"Yeah," said Fuzzy. "You never know what to believe anymore."

"You've got that right. Like that story a while back about Jimmy Hoffa being buried under the goalpost of the Meadowlands," said Casey. "That was all bullshit. A New York hit man who admitted to murdering people for as little as a hundred bucks, said Hoffa was ground up into fish bait and thrown by the bucket-load off the stern of a cabin cruiser, then the deck and gunnels were all washed and hosed down and wiped to a pristine white right off the coast of Long Island."

"Yeah, yeah," Fuzzy said, flipping his hand in the air. "I didn't believe any of that shit anyway. You know I don't buy anything I don't see with my own eyes, and sometimes, I doubt them. You know how I can always tell when a drunk is lying? His lips are moving. Same thing for TV guys. And you guys get your ass shot off for things like this here." He jacked his thumb in the direction of the men's room. "You got that asshole boxed in the shitter, he could come out shootin'. Jesus, God! You never know." He nervously stacked glasses on the shelf behind him and eyed Casey as he slid off the stool and stood up.

Casey shrugged. "I'm not worried about the outcome tonight. You watch too much TV, Fuzz. Real cops rarely die in firefights with these assholes. They're shot to death during routine traffic stops or while responding to domestic disturbances. As a rule their killers couldn't masturbate without a diagram. Anyway, time to kick that fucker out of his hole."

He pulled his 9mm Glock from the holster under his jacket. A pained expression suddenly covered his face. He leaned forward on the stool and let out a quick breath. His hands trembled and he pressed them hard against the bar.

"Fuck it. Give me a double shot of Jack."

"What?" said Fuzzy. He hiked his eyebrows.

"Just do like I say, okay. I'm going in there. He knows I'm still here, he's waiting me out, is all . . . be right back."

"You know, CM, sometimes dealin' with you is like jerkin' off with sandpaper. You ain't took a drink in a long, long time. I really hate to see you slide back."

"What? I can't have a drink if I want? I can handle it. Hell, I used to drink on my shift. No problem, for Christ sakes."

"Yeah," said Fuzzy. "But I remember you were ninety proof most of the time in those days too, CM, Ya' know?"

"Don't go Billy Graham on me, Fuzz, okay? I said set me up and then I want you to stay put back there. Got it? This is none of your business." He headed to the bathroom. The big detective lumbered when he walked and looked as if a cannonball hung from his scrotum.

*******************

Jackie Gidlings was a street punk. His front teeth were rimmed in gold, and he had a diamond stud in his ear. The only thing missing was a T-shirt that said Con Artist.

A perpetual slicky-slick smirk covered his face. He was tall, at least six-three. He was goateed, and so good with a basketball that he sometimes played in work boots just to show off. His head was bald and shiny and his neck was decked out with gold chains. A thick pink tongue caused him to lisp. He also had the IQ of a moth, a real pocket pool artist who peddled heavy-duty drugs. Gidlings made no attempt to hide the spiritual cancer that lived in his face.

When Casey walked in Jackie was at the urinal, shaking himself off. He flexed his knees, tucking his phallus back inside his pants. Then he turned, grinning from behind his shades, Casey holstered his gun and kicked the man between the thighs as casually as you would a football.

A wave of nausea and pain surged through Jackie's lower body that was like broken glass being forced up his penis and out his rectum. He fell backward through a stall door, crashing into a toilet bowl, his fingernails raking down the sides of the walls. He felt the wet rim of the bowl against his back and piss on the seat of his nylon pants.

It was as if Casey really wanted to kill this man with his bare hands, to bash his face to a pulp, pull his arms out of their sockets, smash his testicles, crush his windpipe and watch him suffocate.

When Gidlings tried to get up, Casey knocked him back down, trapping him between the toilet and the stall wall. Jackie gasped for breath, his feet fought for purchase on the wet floor, one arm sunk deep inside the bowl. Casey didn't let up, he smacked Jackie's head against the wall like a rubber ball tethered to a paddle, and then, finally backed away.

"Fucker, you've got the balls to sell crack to my daughter, you fuckin' scumbag. It damned near killed her! You're going away for a long time, Jackie -- that is if there's anything left of you."

He was out of breath and turned briefly, leaned on the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. The man on the floor groaned while Casey ran water over his hands and splashed his face.

Jackie had just enough time to pull the piece tucked in the back of his pants. When he fired, Casey dropped as though somebody had cut his puppet strings. When the bullet smashed into his skull, red, rich blood and brain matter splattered the wall and mirror. He was gone. . . part of the fabric of the night.

Jackie struggled to his feet. "Arrogant fucking pig," he breathed as he kicked Casey's bloody head.

Fuzzy heard the gunshot and was there in an instant. He stopped and stood frozen in the doorway -- transfixed by what he saw. He barely had the chance to assess the situation. He blinked for a moment as he found Jackie's eyes on him.

"What the fuck did you . . ."

Jackie fired two more rounds, one missed, but the other caught the bartender in the chest and he dropped to the floor like a wet sack of laundry. "Ahhhh!"

Jackie leaped over the bartender's body and ran for the back door of the bar. It was a mere few feet down the hall, but he quickly discovered it was locked.

"Damn!" He saw that it was one of those keyless entry locks. You had to know the numbers. What the hell?

A shiver of fear hit his spine. Scrambling for the front door, Jackie's chest heaved, his pulse bursting in his eardrums. When he reached the door, he discovered it also was armed with a coded security lock. Motherfucker!

Using his sleeve to swipe the sweat and blood from his face, he felt his anxiety pulse up and down the length of the muscles in his arms and legs. His balls ached from Casey's kick.

He couldn't scream for help . . . and what good would it do to beat on the door. I'm fucked!

He looked around, desperate for an answer -- for help of some kind . . . as if some magical phenomenon would change his fate. His mind raced and his hands trembled as he pressed them hard against the door until the quivering stopped. He blew the air from his cheeks as the hopelessness of his situation set in.