This is where we shoot salt water into your testicles,” said Gary.

He’d converted a big room in the back of the house into a huge walk-in shower room, with sound speakers recessed high in the walls.

“You’re going to have to take your clothes off,” Gary observed. “Not that I’m looking forward to seeing you naked, believe me. You’re in shitty shape for a private detective.”

“How many private detectives do you know?”

“Well…there’s Magnum.”

“Get away from me.”

“Drop ’em.”

“So this is the deal. I let you do this thing to me, and I get the receipt.”

“Right. And quit with the ‘do this thing to me’ like I’m gonna mutilate you or something. This’ll be fun.”

“This is what you do for fun?”

“I get some buddies around, we shoot some saline, we have fun. It’s a party thing. Play some music, have some drinks, you know. I mean, it’s not like we meet in alleyways and mutter, ‘wanna do some saline?’ It’s on the Web, right? Like your girlfriend said.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You sure?”

“I would have noticed.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Huh. Maybe not. She’s way cooler than you are. Straight people are so fucking weird.”

Aryan Guy came in, stark naked and carrying steaming jugs of water. “Let’s give this guy some balls,” he laughed.

Trix followed him in, holding a medical bag. She winked at me. “I want to see this.”

“I’m your fucking thesis now?”

“You need to relax,” she said, handing Gary the bag. “This is going to be a new experience for you. Just enjoy it for what it is.”

“It’s being trapped in a shower with a gay cop who wants to mutate my nuts, Trix.”

“Oh, will you unclench? Now get ’em off.”

“Gary, does she have to be here?”

“Trix wants to be here, man.”

“I don’t want her to see me naked.”

“Dude, none of us wants to see you naked.”

“You don’t want me to see you naked?”

I couldn’t judge from her voice what she really meant by that. Or possibly what I wanted her to mean by that.

“Listen,” I said to Gary, “I’m her employer. It doesn’t seem…appropriate.”

Trix gave an explosive sigh. “God, I hate that word. ‘Appropriate.’ It’s like, hang a sign around my neck reading I Am a Boring Asshole. Okay, whatever, I’ll go.”

She stomped out, and I felt worse. Aryan Guy stood in front of me and folded his arms. “If you’re done shitting on your girl and generally dicking around, take off your clothes and we’ll all try real hard not to vomit on you. Now.”

I stripped, picturing their corpses being eaten by weasels.

“Jesus,” Aryan Guy said. “Last time I saw a body like yours it was dangling from a tree on CSI. Do you live on grease sucked straight out of burger-joint drains or something? I bet the only exercise you get is flushing the toilet.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Seriously, man. You’re like two steps from the graveyard.”

“I have a rough life. My girlfriend left me for a transgendered dyke with hair implants in her nipples.”

“And alarm bells should have been going off right there, man.”

There was a burst of laughter from the living room, and Scandinavian pop started bubbling out of the speakers.

“There we go.” Gary grinned, his hand in the black bag. “Now we’re having fun.” He split an IV tube out of its sterile wrapper.

“Look, I’m sorry I got in your face before. I’m not having a good time here.”

“Well, now you’re gonna have some fun.”