Right to Die

and all.”
    “She will be next time.”
    “Suppose that’s how everybody learns, all right. You get your permit to carry back yet?”
    “August.”
    “You ever hear the story, about Jesus and the leper men, and one of them come back to thank him for the cure?”
    “I called to thank you. Three different days. Left a message each time.”
    “Maybe some saviors, they get asked in person, they like to get thanked in person.”
    “You’re right, Lieutenant, and I appreciate what you did for me.”
    Murphy let his lids get sleepy, showing about as much eye as teeth. “That A.D.A.?”
    “Which prosecutor is that?”
    “You still seeing her?”
    “Yes.”
    He kept watching me.
    “Lieutenant?”
    “Just getting into the Christmas spirit, Cuddy. Not trying to pull anything.”
    “Or suggest anything.”
    Murphy made a face and shook his head. “Well, it’s obvious you got no feeling whatsoever for the holidays. And you’re back here in person. That means you’ll be wanting another favor, huh?”
    “You know a detective over at Area A, William Neely?”
    “Neely? Yeah, from a time back. Why?”
    “I’m representing somebody in his neighborhood. The client got some threats, and I’d like to talk with him about them. Wondered what kind of guy he is.”
    Murphy glanced out his window and then back. “This client, he or she?”
    “She.”
    “She go to Neely?”
    “Her secretary got referred to him.”
    “Her tough luck.”
    “Why?”
    “This between you and me, or you going to be explaining it to real folks?”
    “You and me.”
    “Neely, he fancies himself an old-time hard-ass dick. Runs a few informants, reacts when the brass gets edgy. Otherwise, low profile and count the days.”
    “To retirement time.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “I don’t see what I’ve got jeopardizing his pension.”
    “What do you got?”
    I went through it, without names.
    Murphy said, “Neely, he got the complaint to start with, it’ll stay with him unless somebody gets nasty enough with a deadly weapon.”
    “I wasn’t trying to go over his head here, Lieutenant.”
    “Sure you were, Cuddy. And once you meet Neely, you’ll realize you were right to try too.”
    “Any suggestions on how to approach him?”
    “Neely ever took a promotion exam, he got stuck on name and address. Play up to the man, let him talk.”
    “Okay. Thanks.”
    I was at the door when Murphy said, “Oh, and Cuddy?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Neely’s got a nickname. ‘Beef.’ ”
    “Beef.”
    “Yeah. Don’t say it to him, but use it, huh?”
    “Use it how?”
    “Take the man to lunch.”
    I looked at my watch. “But I thought I’d go over therenow.”
    “Won’t matter to old Beef.”
    “Thanks again, Lieutenant.”
    “One more thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “You’d best visit a bank somewheres first.”

    “Pass the Worcestershire, willya?”
    “Sure.”
    “And maybe some more of that A-l too.”
    I put both bottles in front of Neely. He spritzed the Worcestershire on his second cut of prime rib. The meat lapped two inches a side over the platter.
    Victoria Station was done in a railroad car motif. It was the one restaurant Neely had said would have prime rib for sure, that time of afternoon. I had offered to cab it, but he said, “It’ll look better, I sign out a unit.” We were the only people in the room except for our waitress, and even she left, probably to call Central Supply and tell them to butcher another dozen head for the third course.
    “My hand to God, I love this joint.”
    At least, I think that’s what Neely said.
    “They got—” The tongue wasn’t quite quick enough to catch a dribble of jus cascading down his chin and onto his tie. Which was wider than the napkin he’d cornered into his collar.
    “They got real food here, you know? The kinda stuff we fought wars to eat.”
    Neely had stopped the beer after one stein, switching to tonic water. About six feet tall, counting crew cut, I couldn’t even guess his weight. The knot of his tie was only an article of faith under the jowls. He rocked his head after every third or fourth bite, as though he were positioning the food to slide down a different chute. Small eyes were squinched up under the brows, a piece of toilet paper on a shaving cut near his right ear.
    Neely generously rested his knife to point at my salad bowl. “That all you’re eating?”
    “Diet,” I said.
    He nodded like he’d heard the word but never studied the language that spawned it. I