Number 1?

Heh. Look at that. All fixed and stuff.

Can i tell you how happy I am to have finished "In the City" before the thread ended?

You can tell us. We'd understand. Feel tempted to inauguerate with something, but have nothing ready.

Well done, Victor.

Was that one of your goals?

(Because I hadn't realized we were so close to the end.)

Was that one of your goals?

Sort of-my big goal was to finish the beast before I left for California, but I also wanted it all in one thread, so I could more-easily go back and pick up parts of it.

Holy cow! I didn't even realize this was the new thread. Maybe I can keep up this time.

OK, so this is part of one of my behemoths, yeah? Homicide/Wire, but this moment? Kind of a stand-alone, and the closest I get to "sweet" and "heartwarming"...mark your calendars.

Bunk and Munch drove through the city, the breathing room in the Cavalier only slightly enhanced by absence of Bolander.At least, Moreland didn’t fiddle with the radio to find Elvis. John Munch still found that the minefields of the oldies station extended past “Hound Dog” as “Dedicated To The One I Love” played, the Shirelles sweet harmonies calling on him to remember a much softer time in his life.

Damn it, some nihilist. How could he still believe we were all food for worms if he wondered if Helen were sending him a message every time he heard this?Even in Muzak. Fucking Muzak, opiate of the consumer senses, and he gets all squishy. Might as well be Bayliss.

“Could we not?”

“Really? Bad memory?”

“Yes. No. She’s...dead.”

“You didn’t kill her, did you?”

“Of course not. They got the guy.” Not going to talk about working my dream girl’s homicide. Not. Not. Not. Maybe it could be like the reverse of that Indian crap and if he didn’t talk about it, it would disappear.”

Only with kindness,” he imagines Tim saying. So he doesn’t. He wonders when he’ll stop thinking they’d both have been happy if he’d taken her to the prom, that maybe everything that went wrong in the life of John Munch dates to his first time of being “let down easy”

“Dang.” Bunk said.

Munch made a face. “No, no, it’s good that her case was closed. But your confession would be like Viagra for my clearance rate, know what I’m saying?”

“I know what you mean, Detective Moreland. I’ve looked at enough veins this week I feel like I’ve made my mother happy, uh, I mean marginally less miserable and become a surgeon.”

Moreland fiddled with the radio and the Chi-lites “Oh, Girl” filled the Cavalier.” Now, that’s a *song*. Damn, Nadine was fine then. That girl-group shit was a little before my time. Classic, though,” He finished awkwardly.” Was she pretty?”

Not the last time I saw her. Selfishly, he would have preferred Helen to stay forever young, like Marilyn. “Helen was a goddess.” A part of him said “Goddess? What kind of crap is that?”

“Drink her bathwater, huh?” Bunk said. “ I still feel that way about Nadine. Not that that keeps me from creeping, sometime.”

Munch knew. He could teach a course.

Now I'm goign to be speaking in Belzer-voice for the rest of the night. Thanks a bunch.

I like it.

Like that's all my fault. Give me a personal break, babe. Don't lay your advertising enhanced jones for mimicry off on me, ok?I'm not Montel Williams!) (Um, I mean, that never happens to me and I don't know what you're talking about.Babe.) And this is a problem because... Happy to help. :)