Ting-A-Ling by Mike Faricy Page A

to me. He pulled an empty coffee cup out of the console between us, tossed it over his shoulder and into the back seat. Then he crammed his strawberry shake into the console, loosening the plastic lid in the process.
    I stared into the bag. It figured. My filet of fish was way down on the bottom beneath everything Louie had ordered. “What do you want first?” I asked.
    “I don’t care, just hand me something,” he said, then drove off. He started with the apple pie, wolfed down the cheeseburger, and then inhaled the Big Mac after that. He let the wrappers drift down to the floor around his feet. He was working his way through the McRib, dribbling sauce on his pinstriped lapel when he asked, “Mmm-mmm, what’s wrong, aren’t you gonna eat?”
    He said it in a way that suggested he wasn’t really worried about my food intake, but was maybe thinking there could be one more thing to devour if somehow I had lost my appetite.
    “Yes, I’m going to eat. It’s just that my filet of fish was way down on the bottom. Your stuff was piled on top. I couldn’t get to the thing until now.”
    “Don’t know how you can eat that thing,” he said and gave a non-committal shrug. As we pulled into the potholed parking lot across from the police station Louie reached for his strawberry shake.
    “God, I thought they were supposed to pave this damn thing,” he said just as the lid slipped off and strawberry shake dripped over the McRib sauce he’d spilled on his suit coat.
    “You’re dripping there, big boy.”
    “Huh? Oh, damn it,” he said, then bounced across two more potholes and pulled into a parking place. He crammed the cup back into the console then used his index finger to halt strawberry shake from running any further down his suit coat. He licked his finger clean, repositioned the lid on the shake and started sucking the straw in earnest.
    I placed my Filet of Fish back in the box. I’d lost my appetite and truth be told I wasn’t looking forward to heading back into the police station and talking with Manning.
    Louie released his grip on the straw long enough to ask, “You gonna finish that fish?”
    “You can have it if you want.”
    “God, I don’t know why anyone orders these things,” he said and crammed half the filet into his mouth. “Mmm-mmm,” he grunted, then sort of nodded and raised his eyebrows as if to suggest, ‘not half-bad’ .
    “Should we go in there and get this over with?” I said a few minutes later.
    Louie sucked on his straw until it gurgled an empty reply. He dropped the cup into the back seat and looked over at me. “Just pay attention to my cues in there. Okay? We are here of our own free will. We’re here to help in their investigation. We’re here to take you off their list of suspects. Anytime Manning asks you a question I want you to look at me before you answer. I touch you on the leg like this,” he touched my thigh. “That means you shut the hell up. I don’t care if you’re in mid-sentence, Dev. You stop talking. Got it?”
    I nodded.
    “Say it,” Louie commanded.
    “Yeah, relax, I got it. Come on, Manning’s probably running a stop watch just to see if we show up on time.” I climbed out of the car. Louie did the same, scattering wrappers across the floor of the front seat as he did so. He sort of hiked his trousers up by pulling on his belt, not that it did anything to help his appearance. He strode off toward the building entrance across the street. I followed dutifully behind. I focused on the graveled parking lot, dodging potholes until we made it to the street. Louie stamped his feet on the pavement in an effort to knock off some of the snow and slush.
    “Just remember, we’re in charge on this deal. We’re here to set the record straight and get ahead of any bullshit ideas before they get carried away over the course of their investigation,” Louie said, then stepped off again once a car drove past.
    I noticed for the first time that his