Free The Third Rail by Michael Harvey

in a shooting gallery.
    "It's a task force, Rach. Probably just sit around a small office drinking bad coffee."
    I hustled into the bathroom. Rachel followed.
    "You don't need to lie, Michael."
    She was leaning against the edge of the door frame. Some part of my brain registered her legs, which were great. The rest of me was in full avoidance mode.
    "What do you want to hear?" I began to run water in the sink.
    "Really?"
    "Go ahead." I bent down and splashed some water around.
    "Law school, Michael? Northwestern, Chicago? You'd love it, you'd be done before you know it, and you'd be a hell of a trial attorney."
    It was Rachel Swenson's pet project. Trade my gun for a briefcase. Turn Michael Kelly into Clarence Darrow. I toweled my face dry and escaped back into the bedroom.
    "I like what I do, Rach." I threw on some jeans and laced up a pair of New Balance 827s. "Even if I'm not any good at it."
    "You're very good at it. And that's not the point."
    I reached for my gun on the dresser. She caught my empty hand in hers.
    "What is the point?" I said, forcing the question through my teeth.
    "It's about growing up."
    I pulled my hand away and found the gun. "What I do is pretty grown up." I clipped the nine to my belt.
    "That's not what I meant."
    I sat down on the bed. She didn't join me this time. "What I do is different."
    "What you do is dangerous." Rachel loved to make lists. Now she ticked off my deadly sins on her fingers as she talked. "You work alone. No, you don't work. You hunt. That's what you do. You hunt human beings. Human beings who often hunt human beings themselves. You carry a gunand routinely use it. You have no backup, no safety net. I don't even know if you have health insurance. Worst of all, you like it."
    "And?" When overwhelmed by opposing forces, I liked to reach for the reliable conjunction.
    "And where does it end? What's the career path here?"
    "You mean do I end up getting a bullet in the neck for my trouble?"
    "Yes, Michael. That would be nice to know. And it's not just you anymore. You understand that?"
    The pup trotted into the room on cue, jumped up into Rachel's lap, and stared at me.
    "Nothing I do is going to hurt you." I gestured around the room. "Hurt us."
    "You don't know that."
    "Yes, I do."
    "How?"
    "How what?"
    "How can you make that promise? How can you say that and not know it's a lie?"
    I turned my eyes down again, found my watch. "Listen, Rach, I gotta run. Hubert Russell is waiting and Vince might just start shooting things."
    I winced at the choice of words, but Rachel didn't seem to notice. I kissed her on the top of the head, packed up Jim Doherty's files, and left.
    As usual, the judge had all the right questions. As usual, I had nothing but jokes for answers.

CHAPTER 20

    F ilter was in a section of the city called Bucktown. The neighborhood got its name from the goats Polish immigrants used to tie up in their front yards. Today the goats are gone, replaced by angst-ridden hipsters, spiked goths, and dewy-eyed emos. Pick a label and throw a blanket over them: what you have are a collection of just-out-of-college types, living in industrial lofts bought with what was left of their dad's cash, specializing in self-awareness and taking it all very seriously. Think yuppies with tattoos and no sense of humor.
    I sat at a table near the window. My waitress stumbled her way across the floor on black platform shoes, wearing ripped jeans stuffed to overflowing and a T-shirt that read WE NEVER SLEEP. She was texting on her cell phone as she set down my cup of coffee.
    "Could I get a pierogi with this?"
    The woman nodded and began to wander away. Then she looked up from her phone and wrinkled her nose.
    "A what?" She spoke in that flat, loud, cringe-inducing tone Americans are beloved for the world over.
    "A pierogi. It's a Polish dumpling."
    "We don't have them. We have carrot muffins."
    I was about to launch into the history of Poles in Chicago, and pierogis in particular, when the