1George Sutton needed a cigarette. He had been clean for almost two weeks now—he fucking deserved one if anyone ever did. He held a pack of Marlboro in his hand, thumbing it with a greedy look in his eye. Oh, what he wouldn't do to just open up the plastic cap—no, tear open the plastic cap—and start smoking to his heart's content (or discontent, rather). He could do it in less than ten seconds, he mused. Just rip that fucking cap right off and start puffing. Make the Marlboro Man proud. Old Marlboro might not last as long as maybe a Camel or a Lucky, but it sure would do the trick; he would get his fix all right. But then he remembered that he wanted to quit—had to quit. Those damned things were nothing but cancer sticks that would kill you without the slightest bit of compunction.
George Sutton had all the help he could have gotten for quitting—countless pamphlets, brochures, and top-ten-reasons-to-quit self-help manuals were stuffed inside his office desk, and he still had a weeklong supply of nicotine patches. While they all helped him when he was in a clear state of mind, they were no help at all when he was faced with just him and a pack of cigarettes. When he held a pack of cigarettes, he inconveniently forgot all about the reasons to quit. He would start convincing himself that he didn't actually need to quit. His mind came up with all the classic counterarguments to try to induce him into lighting up: We all die anyway, was one; Old habits die hard, so why even try? was another. You can't change what you can't control, though, had to be one of his mind's favorites. And the latter had been proven true for the past four years; he had wanted to quit, but had been unable to control his intractable habit.
He had been wearing the nicotine patches infrequently (he always got terrible nightmares and really bad itches whenever he wore one), and what he really needed was a nice puff on a real cigarette, a real source of nicotine. Still thumbing the top of the Marlboro with perverse ardor, he contemplated deeply on the pros and cons of lighting up, consumed by his mind's ambivalence.
He was just about to decide to hell with it, fuck quitting, I've smoked too long to quit, when he was abruptly broken from his irresoluteness. Hugh O'Connor, the coordinator of the Normberg case, entered the room. Hugh was a short man who was most distinguishable by his horn-rimmed glasses that were at least three years outdated. He bore on his face a simulacrum of a smile as he walked in. Then he looked at George, speculated silently in his mind (as he did this his fake smile was replaced by a bovine look that almost made George laugh), and then frowned as if he had caught George doing a really naughty thing.
"Thought you were trying to quit," he announced, still frowning. George thought that he looked like his mother at that moment—his mother about ready to scold him for doing wrong. He even recoiled a little bit, as he had often done right before his mother brought hell on him, before replying.
"Just looking," he said. Hugh roamed George's office, seemly trying to say something that he was having trouble getting out. At last he managed: "George, I've got some bad news. Normberg died this morning." George looked at Hugh briefly—skeptically—before nodding slowly.
"Yeah," he said. "I figured as much."
George really had expected Normberg to die, although he had hoped that he would have lasted long enough to be able to testify. They had a sworn written statement, but a real testimony before a jury was much more admissible in a trial.
"Suicide." George said. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah," Hugh said. "How'd you know?"
George laughed.
"When you have been in this business as long as me, Hugh, you just know. It's intuitive." Hugh nodded, showing he understood, but George didn't think so. He was much too young to fully understand. The way he dressed, the way he looked, the way he acted all attested to his inexperience in the field. He had only been on the Force for six years, yet had only had patrol experience for four years before becoming a detective.