"I don't think anyone's talking about counting—"
"Mr. Stolte," Lloyd said, "you had the number before you got out of the car. The kid with the tablet said it. Four. That's what you came here to talk about." He held out the pad. Not to Stolte; to Kwiatek. "Sarge. I'm not writing any today. I don't know if I'm going to write any tomorrow. I need to think about it. If that means I'm off the detail, I'm off the detail."
There was a silence at the fountain. Somewhere behind them, across the square, Cornelius said something loud and triumphant about the Sicilian Defense.
Kwiatek took the pad from his hand. She did it without hurry and without looking at it, and she put it into the pocket of her own jacket, and then she turned to Stolte, and Lloyd saw her face settle into the patient, slightly ironic expression she had worn at roll call that morning, the one she had been perfecting since the Fourth District.
"Officer discretion, Spencer," she said pleasantly. "It's in the general orders. I'll make a note of it. Now, you wanted to look at the bandstand? There's some water damage on the roof I think the district's going to want to hear about. Right this way."
She led them off toward the bandstand. The young man with the tablet hurried after. Stolte went last, and as he went he looked back once over his shoulder at Lloyd, not angry, exactly, but with the flat appraising look of a man making a mental note, and Lloyd met it, and let him make the note.
Afterward, when the party had gone, Kwiatek found him standing by the coffee cart on Front Street. She bought a coffee for herself and one for him without asking, and handed it to him, and they stood side by side drinking them with their backs against the lamppost and their eyes on the square.
"Stolte's going to call the deputy chief," she said.
"I know."
"The deputy chief's going to call the captain. The captain's going to call me. I'm going to have to say something."
"I know. I'm sorry, Dina."
"Don't be sorry. I've wanted to see someone tell Spencer Stolte no to his face for two years. I just wish it hadn't been you, because you're the one it's going to land on." She drank her coffee. "You want to tell me what happened? This morning you were fine. This morning you were standing up for Arnold and his loaf."