ed. "My goodness," he said. "Well."
He smiled again, a little more broadly. "One has one's duty, you know.
My, yes. Duty." He nodded to Malone.

"Of course," Malone said, going to the door and opening it. "Thanks
again, Mr. Kettleman."

Kettleman saw the open door and headed for it blindly. As he left he
flashed one last smile after Malone, who sighed, shut the door, and
leaned against it for a second.

The things an FBI agent had to go through!

When he had recovered, he opened the door again and peered carefully
down the hallway to make sure Kettleman had gone. Then he left the
interrogation room and went down the hall, past the desk sergeant, and
up the stairs to Lieutenant Lynch's office. He was still breathing a
little hard when he opened Lynch's door, and Lynch didn't seem to be
expecting him at all. He was very busy with a veritable snow flurry of
papers, and he looked as if he had been involved with them steadily
ever since he had left Malone and Kettleman alone downstairs.

"Well," Malone said. "Hello there, Lieutenant."

Lynch looked up, his face a mask of surprise. "Oh," he said. "It's
you. Through with Kettleman?"

"I'm through," Malone said. "As if you didn't know." He looked at
Lynch for a long minute, and then said, "Lieutenant..."

Lynch had gone right back to his papers. He looked up again with a
bland expression. "Yes?"

"Lieutenant, how reliable is Kettleman?" Malone said.

Lynch shrugged. "He's always been pretty good with the kids, if that's
what you mean. You know these social workers--I've never got much
information out of him. He feels it's his duty to the kids--I don't
know. Some such thing. Why do you ask?"

"Well," Malone said, "what he told me. Was he kidding me? Or does he
know what he's talking about? Was what he said reasonably accurate?"

"How would I know?" Lynch said. "After all, you were down there alone,
weren't you? I was up here working. If you'll tell me what he said,
maybe I'll be able to tell you whether or not I think he was kidding."

Malone placed both his palms on the lieutenant's desk, mashing a
couple of piles of papers. He leaned forward slowly, his eyes on
Lynch's bland, innocent face. "Now look, Lynch," he said. "I like you.
I really do. You're a good cop. You get things done."

"Well, thanks," Lynch said. "But I don't see what this has to do
with--"

"I just don't want you trying to kid your buddy-boy," Malone said.

"Kid you?" Lynch said. "I don't g