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"No, I like 311 and Korn, and you're so out of it you can't tell the difference between Jonathan Davis and Dee Dee Raht?" Slowly, Bobby Dulac turns around and s " His smile is none too pleasant

"I'?" Tom Lund widens his eyes in a parody of wounded innocence "Gee, was it uess not "

"If you never laid eyes on the Wisconsin Rat, how come you knohat he looks like?"

"Same way I know he has funny-colored hair and a pierced nose Same way I knoears a beat-to-shit black leather jacket day in, day out, rain or shine "

Bobby waited

"By the way he sounds People's voices are full of inforuy says, Looks like it'll turn out to be a nice day, he tells you his whole life story Want to know so else about Rat Boy? He hasn't been to the dentist in six, seven years His teeth look like shit "

Froly cement-block structure next to the brewery on Peninsula Drive, via the radio Dale Gilbertson donated to the station house long before either Toood old dependable George Rathbun's patented bellow of genial outrage, a passionate, inclusive uproar that for a hundredfar truckers to laugh out loud:

"I swear, caller, and this goes for le one of you out there, I love you dearly, that is the honest truth, I love you like my momma loved her turnip patch, but sometimes you people DRIVE ME CRAZY! Oh, boy Top of the eleventh inning, two outs!

Six¨Cseven, Reds! Men on second and third Batter lines to short center field, Reese takes off fro A BLIND MAN COULDA MADE THAT CALL!"

"Hey, I thought it was a good tag, and I only heard it on the radio," says Tom Lund

Both , and they know it

"In fact," shouts the hands-down o out on a li recommendation, okay? Let's replace every uue, with BLIND MEN! You knohat, uarantee a sixty to seventy percent improvement in the accuracy of their calls GIVE THE JOB TO THOSE WHO CAN HANDLE IT ¡ª THE BLIND!"

Mirth suffuses Toe Rathbun, man, he's a hoot Bobby says, "Come on, okay?"

Grinning, Lund pulls the folded newspaper out of its wrapper and flattens it on his desk His face hardens; without altering its shape, his grin turns stony "Oh, no Oh, hell "

"What?"

Lund utters a shapeless groan and shakes his head

"Jesus I don't even want to

know " Bobby rams his hands into his pockets, then pulls hiht hand free, and claht? Make me an umpire ¡ª I don't wanna be a cop anymore "

Lund says nothing

"It's a headline? Like a banner headline? How bad is it?" Bobby pulls his hand away from his eyes and holds it suspended in midair

"Well," Lund tells hiet some sense, after all, and he sure as hell didn't decide to lay off I can't believe I said I liked the dipshit "

"Wake up," Bobby says "Nobody ever told you law enforcement officers and journalists are on opposite sides of the fence?"

Tom Lund's ample torso tilts over his desk A thick lateral crease like a scar divides his forehead, and his stolid cheeks burn cri that really getshave you been here? Five, six o, and when hi, which was the biggest case in this county for maybe thirty years, I can't claiht I helped put soether "

"One of the pieces," Bobby says

"I reirl bartender at the Taprooirl, and that was a big, big piece It helped get him So don't you talk to me that way "

Bobby Dulac assumes a look of couess I'm kind of wound up and beat to shit at the saot a couple years on ave Dale this crappy little bit of information, so what, I'm a better cop than you'll ever be How heroic were you last night, anyhow?

At 11:15 the previous night, Armand "Beezer" St Pierre and his fellow travelers in the Thunder Five had roared up froe into the police station and dehteen-hour shift, exact details of the progress they wereon the issue thaton here? What about the third one, huh, what about Irma Freneau? Had they found her yet? Did these clowns have anything, or were they still just blowing sive you all the goddaiant na up to Bobby Dulac and kept on strolling, juainst a filing cabinet, whereupon the giant Mouse had mysteriously inquired, in a cloud of beer and entleman named Jacques Derrida When Bobby replied that he had never heard of the gentlelare at the names on the chalkboard Half an hour later, Beezer, Mouse, and their companions were sent away unsatisfied, undeputized, but pacified, and Dale Gilbertson said he had to go hoht to reht men had both found excuses not to come in Bobby said he would stay, too, no problem, Chief, which is e find these two

"Give it to me," says Bobby Dulac