We figured you’d be back.” He was showing off. This was supposed to make me think he was Svengali. I sat down at the kitchen table where O‘Reilly indicated as though it were his house. Cops were ripping the purple, blue, and magenta slipcovers off the furniture in the living room; they were flipping through books and throwing them on the floor; they were opening jars in my refrigerator. Then his sidekick, another plainclothesman, Detective Beaumont, started shaking every pill bottle in the house in front of my face. “Sunshine? Windowpane? Speed? THC?” I knew he was trying to impress me with his knowledge of names, which made me think he was a jerk, which made me less afraid. “Vitamins, aspirin, Midol,” I said. It was a good thing I took that last hit of speed for housecleaning. “You may as well come clean,” O‘Reilly said. “We’re sending them to the lab in the morning anyway.” “Waste your money,” I shrugged. “You don’t seem to understand the trouble you’re in.
