Briggs noted that stop.
He stepped out of his cruiser into the rain, rolled his shoulders, walked toward the passenger side of the sedan—not the driver side, because the angle disoriented people, forced them to twist and feel exposed before a word was spoken.
He brought the flashlight up. The beam hit the driver's face through the passenger side window.
The driver did not flinch. He did not raise his hand against the light or turn his face away. He sat with both hands at 10:00 and 2:00, fingers spread slightly, looking directly toward the source of the light with an expression that was neutral in a way that Briggs found—in an unexamined flash of instinct—slightly irritating.
The interior light of the sedan was already on. The window was already rolling down before Briggs's knuckle touched the glass.
"Is there a problem, officer?"
The voice was measured and unhurried. The voice of someone reciting from a very long practice.
Briggs let the flashlight linger on the driver's face for three extra seconds purely as a message, then dropped the beam to sweep slowly across the interior. Clean leather seats. The driver wore a charcoal suit, pressed, unwrinkled. A watch on the left wrist—not flashy, but the kind that costs what it looks like it costs.
Briggs felt the familiar equation completing itself. His face settled into the expression his officers had described in private moments as the grin before the bite.
"License and registration."
"Of course."
James reached slowly into his breast pocket, narrating the movement as he did it, saying clearly that his license was in his inside left pocket, and produced the ghost ID and the rental agreement. He held them out with two fingers, clean and unambiguous.
Briggs snatched the documents without looking at them. Kept the flashlight aimed at James's face.
"You're a long way from home." He glanced at the Illinois address. "What's a guy like you doing driving through my streets at this hour?"
"I'm on my way back to my hotel downtown. Just passing through." The voice remained completely even. "I wasn't speeding and my taillights are functioning correctly. May I ask why I was pulled over?"
The question was asked without edge. No confrontation in it, no challenge, just the simple direct request of someone who expected a reasonable answer.
This irritated Briggs more than the neutral face had, more than the clean stop had, more than the interior light that was already on. The expectation of a reasonable answer, as though that were something to expect from a man on this stretch of Dryden Avenue after 11:00 at night.
Briggs stepped back from the passenger window and moved to the driver's side, making James track him through the vehicle. He leaned down to the open window, bringing his face 18 inches from James's, close enough that James could smell the stale coffee on his breath and the rain soaking through his uniform.
"You crossed the center line back there. Swerving. Smells to me like you might have had something to drink."
"I haven't had a drop of alcohol."
"Step out of the car."
"I haven't done anything wrong. I'm simply trying to get back to my hotel. May I ask—"
"I said step out. Now."
The words came out flat and hard, the tone of a man issuing an instruction he expected followed because the alternative was not something the listener would enjoy. He rested his right hand on the butt of his holstered service weapon. Not drawing, just present. Just reminding.
There was a beat, half a second, and then James unclipped his seatbelt, pushed the door open, and stepped out into the rain.
He stood 2 inches taller than Briggs. This was immediately apparent when James rose to his full height and Briggs stepped directly into his personal space in response, closing the distance until the toes of his boots were 6 inches from James's shoes, using his bulk as a wall.
James did not step back.