The Smiling Man

I wondered if Parrs had suggested my resignation, knowing I couldn’t do it because of what he’d told me the previous day. He’d twisted the knife in my back so often that I could recognize the brand.

Sutty and I were two different kinds of bad cop. Our being partnered together was a sort of punishment for us both, and we each tried to make things as difficult as possible for the other. It was the only thing we had in common.

The nurse was a sick-looking man with grey, translucent teeth. He sucked them, audibly, as we walked. I wondered if he’d begun working here as a healthy person and then slowly absorbed the aura of madness and death surrounding him. I wondered what I was absorbing in my line of work.