Revolver by Duane Swierczynski Page A

much-needed break from the job.
    Jim frees his arm and glides out of bed and steps on something hard yet pliable in places. Turns out to be his watch. He swallows a yelp. Claire stirs but doesn’t wake up. Some lizard part of her brain knows she doesn’t have to rise until the first child awakens, so she doesn’t.
    And now there’s an urgent beeping sound. Shit, where are his pants? His beeper is in his pants.
    Shit.
    The beeper goes off again. Jim finally locates his pants (great detective work, Detective). His beeper inside the right pocket. The 215 number on the display belongs to Jim’s partner, Aisha, which means somebody has died.
    Jim slips on his pants, makes his way downstairs and around Sta ś on the pullout couch and finally over to the kitchen phone, stepping around Audrey’s dolls and trucks and Fisher-Price doctor gear. He loves the girl, but damn if she isn’t like a locust, spreading a wide swath of destruction and ruin everywhere she goes.
    He dials his partner without even thinking about the number. Of course she’s up, most likely freshly showered, dressed, highly caffeinated.
    “What’s up, Aisha?”
    “We’ve got a dead girl near Twenty-First and Pine. How fast can you get there?”
    “We’re up again?”
    “Apparently. So how soon?”
    “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
    And he can. The joy of being awake in Mayfair at this time of the morning is that he can zoom down I-95 in ten minutes flat, merge right, dart up the Vine Street Expressway, and boom, he’s in Center City. If this were an hour later, though, he’d be screwed, and better off crawling down Aramingo Avenue. Or huffing his way down there on foot.
    Jim hangs up, take a deep cleansing breath. There’s no time for a shower, just breakfast. He dresses in whatever’s available and makes his way down to the kitchen, where he pours a glass of orange juice, spiked with a little Absolut—perfect hangover cure.
    Pants on, shirt buttoned, tucked in, tie tied, jacket on, shoes on, wallet check (check), watch on, badge check (check), gun (check), and downstairs Jim goes, as quietly as possible.
    That’s because his oldest, Sta ś , is sprawled out on the sleeper sofa, one gangly foot sticking out from under an afghan his grandma made. This past school year Sta ś , a senior, announced he was sick and tired of sharing a bedroom with his brother. So until (a) they moved into a bigger house, or (b) Dad surrendered the basement and finished it into a spare bedroom, Sta ś informed the family he would be taking over the living room couch at 11 p.m. every night.
    Jim really couldn’t say much to that. Kid was right.
    So now he edges around the sofa bed, which takes up a fair chunk of living room real estate. Sta ś snores with his mouth open. Just like he did when he was a baby.
    Jim is almost home free.
    Almost…
    Because standing there, in the kitchen doorway, is baby girl Audrey.
    Swear to God—the girl never, ever sleeps.
    “Honey, what are you doing up?”
    “Good morning, Daddy!” she says, knuckling her eyeball to dislodge the sleepies and crusties. “I’m hungry.”
    Jim kneels down next to her, even though dipping down like this makes him a little dizzy.
    “Shhh or you’ll wake Sta ś .”
    “I’m hungry!”
    “Look, I’ve got to go to work, sweetie. Your mommy will be up soon. She’ll fix you breakfast.”
    “But I want pork roll!”
    “I wish I could stay and make you pork roll. Believe me, sweetie. But I really have to go and be a policeman.”
    She pouts. Jim hugs her. She still pouts. Jim picks her up, twirls her around once (even though it roils his stomach in an extremely disturbing way), sets her back down, kisses her forehead, then sends her back up to Claire. Let her deal with the pork roll situation.
    Outside, Jim blinks as the harsh early-November wind whips down the street and flash-freezes his sweat. It’s raining, too, which adds more moisture to the sweat. He’s got his own weather system going on,