Brush Back

When you're struggling to survive, no one gets to label you a coward, not even you yourself in your private thoughts.

On NCIS or White Collar, I’d forcefully persuade a reluctant judge to issue a search warrant and then persuade my equally reluctant boss to give me access to a portable X-ray machine, and then I’d find Sebastian’s body and make an arrest—after a near-death escape from Nabiyev, whom I’d overpower despite his bigger size and more massive gun power. I wished I were a TV detective.

his back to her. “Vic, how long’s it been?” “How’d you end up down here, Sid?” I asked. “I thought you knew better than to put yourself in the crosshairs.” “Nobody asks me to go out on the street anymore and I got me a weekend place down near Schererville.” He winked, meaning, I suppose, that he was actually living down in Indiana—a no-no for someone on Chicago’s payroll. Sid had been one of my dad’s last partners, after Tony had been redeemed from cop hell: my dad had been sent to West Englewood

Even without Lotty's adjuration, I would have stuck to side streets: simply moving my head between the side mirrors started the throbbing in my eye again. Spenser never complained about pain, I reminded myself, nor Marlowe, let alone Kate Fansler. Suck it up Warshawski, don't let those WASPS show up the Pollacks.

No,” I said, “when you’re struggling to survive, no one gets to label you a coward, not even you yourself in your private thoughts.