Lou shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.
The bartender set the two coffees down in front of us and asked for our orders: Lou picked waffles. I stuck with yogurt, thinking that would be quick to eat. The sooner we finished, the sooner we could leave. Lou thanked her. I didn’t say anything. The bartender moved away to put our orders into the kitchen.
“So you didn’t go to Jackal’s last night after all,” Lou said.
I drummed my fingers on the bar. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten the standing date for Carrigan’s happy hour. “You’re very nosy about how much time I spend in Jackal’s bed. It’s starting to make me wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“Are you jealous of him, or me?” The best defense, and all that.
Lou’s fingers froze on the rim of her glass. Her big green eyes met mine—she would’ve never said it, but I know she liked the question, the challenge of it. I held her gaze for a long beat. She looked away first.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Lou said. She slurped her coffee.
“I’m sure you do.” I tried to catch her eye again, but the fun of the challenge had gone out of it for Lou; she wouldn’t look at me.
Instead, she unfolded her napkin, placed it over her lap. She let the pause grow long. Then: “You said you went out to eat. Where’d you go?”
“I . . .” I had no answer. My mind was blank, still wishing for an answer from her. Lou stared at me, eyebrows raised.
The bartender saved me.
“Here you are, ladies,” she said, pushing the plates forward on the bar top. “Enjoy.”
“I went back to that tiki bar,” I blurted. “Like you said I would. I guess . . . I guess I wanted to go back to a moment before everything with . . . you know who.” Back to the moment when the only thing I had to worry about was the money I owed the Lady. Back to the moment when Ellen was still a living pain in my ass.
For the first time that morning, I let myself think of her, really think of her, and it was too much. I knotted my fists into my abdomen, hoping the pain would keep me from sinking back into that Ellen place.
“You lied to me,” Lou said, a faint trace of surprise—or amazement—in her voice. She dropped the fork onto the plate, flipping it upside down.
I licked my lips, feeling the pang in my stomach get worse. “I didn’t—”
“You said you weren’t drinking.” Lou shook her head, staring down at her coffee. Like the sight of me disgusted her. She jabbed at the waffles on her plate with the fork tines. “Stupid me. I actually believed you.”
She started in on the waffles in silence, drowning the fluffy grids in syrup and hacking away at them with her fork. I stared down at the yogurt, its white clotted texture like scooped marrow. My stomach cramped. I pushed it away. Funny how nothing affected Lou’s appetite.
Even if I could work it out with Carrigan—and I wasn’t at all sure that I could—slide the money to the police, tie up all those loose ends without Lou or the Lady ever knowing, I’d still be in the Lady’s debt. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to train another girl without seeing Ellen’s face, her bruised neck, her little blue lips. Even if I worked it all out right, it wouldn’t change the fact that I’d killed someone.
That we had killed someone.
I took a deep breath. “The Lady has to know by now,” I said. Lou stopped with a forkful of waffles halfway to her mouth. The bartender had her back to us, racking clean glasses. “About the last case. What’d she say?”
Lou set her fork down carefully, busied herself with unfolding her napkin. “She wasn’t happy,” she admitted. “She wondered if there’d been something we’d missed with Ellen, something we should’ve caught earlier.”
I bit my lip. The bartender dropped a washcloth and bent over to pick it up, revealing a hamsa on her lower back. If it had been a different day, I would’ve scoffed, pointed it out to Lou. “And me? What’d she say about me? She was impatient for the rest of her money a week ago. It’ll be longer, now.”
Lou wiped her hands on her napkin and turned to face me. I caught a whiff of lemons. “A little more time will be all right, under the circumstances. She said she understood.”
“What? But you said the Lady wanted to . . . retire me.”
Lou rubbed her eyes, fidgeted in her seat. She didn’t want to talk about it. “Extraordinary times. She’s willing to push the debt on to Carrigan, once this all blows over. Really, she does want what’s best for us, Jo. She’s looking out for us. And I don’t know about you, but no one’s ever done that for me before.”
I frowned. “She turned awfully understanding all of a sudden. Not how you made the situation sound at the tiki bar.”
“Maybe I took a little creative license with her words,” Lou said carefully.
That didn’t make sense. “A little creative license? To threaten me on behalf of the Lady?” I chewed my bottom lip. For some reason, I saw the look of skepticism on Jackal’s face as Lou gave the cease and desist orders on Carrigan. “Lou, what do you mean you—”
“Excuse me,” the bartender leaned into us again. “Can I get you ladies anything else?”
“No,” I snapped. I made the mistake of glaring at her. Instead of being offended, she smiled at me and made a finger gun, snapping it at my head.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she said.
I glanced at Lou, who was looking between the two of us. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” I said. “We’ll take the check.”
“I’m sure I know you,” the bartender said. She reached up and pushed a curly lock of hair behind her ear from where it had escaped her ponytail. She grinned at me, stuck her tongue in the gap between her teeth. “I remember that pretty face.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Nope, sorry. Not me,” I said. “The check, please.” I turned to Lou, who was still staring at me with narrowed eyes. But she had something to answer, too. Had it been the Lady or Lou who had threatened me? And if it had been Lou, why had she done it? It didn’t make any sense. “Lou, what did you mean when you said—”
“Jo, I think that was a backhanded compliment,” Lou said, sliding her eyes to the bartender. Freckles dancing across her nose as she crinkled it. “She remembers your pretty face, only it wasn’t you.”
“Honest mistake,” I said.
At the same time, the bartender said: “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She winked at Lou.
“What about my pretty face?” Lou leaned across the table. “Would you remember me?”
I watched them flirt, and it was like watching sand drain through my fingers as the promise of our fresh day of hooky together slipped away. Lou was laughing, giving me the full cold shoulder—still pissed about the “lie” I’d told her, no doubt—tossing her hair. At one point, she reached forward and grabbed the bartender’s hand, tracing her fingers over the tattoos on her wrist.
I stood up and made my way to the bathroom. I tried to focus, tried to get back whatever thought had been on the edge of my brain before Lou’s flirt fest, but when I closed my eyes, all I could see was Lou’s open mouth, laughing, her face lit up by someone else, and then, even worse, Ellen’s smeary eyes, her twitching white shoulders, the sound of a car door dinging.
When I rejoined them, Lou had a glass of rosé in front of her and the bartender was snagging it with a fingertip to sneak a sip.
“On the house,” she offered. “If you’d like to join us.”
Join us. “Thanks,” I said, “but, Lou, I thought we had plans today.” I turned to the bartender and bared my teeth, a smile if you squinted. “Our boss is kind of a demanding bitch.”
Lou ignored the bait. “She’s not drinking,” she answered for me. Not done punishing me yet. “In fact, maybe you’d better go home. It’s probably too tempting for you to be here right now. Mischa
can call you a cab.”
“Don’t bother,” I said, and grabbed my purse. At the door, I turned and stared back at the two of them, the dark head and the auburn bent toward each other, a little coven of two. I felt a twinge in my heart as I imagined Lou intertwined with her, whispering sweet Lou nothings into the seashell of her ear. I dug my nails into my hand so sharply I started to draw blood. I couldn’t make her choose me, I thought, and that has to be okay. But then I thought: Bullshit. Bullshit.
The sound of her laughter chased me out onto the street, where I turned the corner to my car, the windshield cluttered with parking tickets.
Chapter 23
It wasn’t easy to wake up the next morning with the ghost drumbeat of gin horses galloping in my head. I wouldn’t be early to the office, but then again, Lou was probably still wrapped around the bartender—Mischa, Jesus, what a name.
Ugh. I sat up in bed, massaging my head. Lou would never have what we had with anyone else, though, I thought, not a bartender, not the Lady. She’d never have Ellen’s bluing body twitching in the back seat of a car with any other woman.
Be human, Jo.
My stomach roiled as I got out of bed, searching for my phone. We had a three-day no-contact rule, ordinarily, when we ran cases. Gave the mark a long enough time to miss the girl, work up some lurid fantasies, but not so long that he’d forget all about her. Well. No time to play games now.
I coughed a few times to clear my throat before I called Carrigan’s office, his direct line. I wanted to sound vulnerable, not hung over.
His voice was brusque, annoyed from the moment he picked up. Not in the mood to be seduced. “Carrigan.”
“Mr. Carrigan?” I didn’t want to waste his time, but the woman he’d kissed in front of my apartment door was a woman who would be a little unsure about everything, a little meek. “It’s Jo. From the bar. The woman you gave the ride to the other night?” I made every sentence sound like a question, like I wasn’t even sure of my own name, and I kept my voice soft, like I thought the phone might bite if I startled it.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the small mirror next to my bed—dark hair messy, lips slightly swollen and bearing traces of last night’s lipstick. A similar scarlet shade ringing the mouth of the gin bottle next to my bed. My face was creased with sleep, eyelashes tacky with mascara. Some pearl-clutching good girl I looked.
“Yes.” He didn’t say anything else. I waited. “I remember,” he said, finally.
“I don’t think I really thanked you properly, it was such a kind—”
“Yes,” he said, cutting me off. “It was kind of me. And very foolish, too. I have to go. Please don’t call here again.”
“But you have my bracelet— I mean, I can’t find my bracelet,” I said, the words gushing out of me. It wouldn’t be impossible to navigate the sting still if Carrigan refused to see me voluntarily, but it would be trickier. Too many coincidences and he’d wonder if I was stalking him. Besides, I was running out of time. “I think I left it in your car?”
There was a pause. I filled it, trying to keep him on the phone. “It’s important to me—”
“Not so important you couldn’t keep track of it,” he said. I could hear him drumming his fingers. “I’ll check. Anything else?”
My head was throbbing. I was feeling sick and not only from the gin. I rubbed the spot on my wrist where the bracelet usually sat. “Helluva way to get people to vote for you,” I snapped. “I thought the Carrigan name stood for gentility.”
There was a pause and my stomach dropped. Goddammit, Jo, of all the times to lose your temper. I realized I was clutching the phone in one hand and squeezing the flesh under my elbow with the other.
“Don’t call here again,” Carrigan said, his voice frosty.
“Please,” I said, dropping my voice an octave. There was a real twinge in my heart, imagining never seeing that stupid gaudy gift again. There was a bigger twinge in my heart, imagining not seeing Carrigan again, missing my shot at his money. “It really means something to me.”
“Fine,” Carrigan said. “I’ll check.”
He called back not five minutes later. He had the bracelet. I could pick it up anytime I wanted, he said. In fact, that very afternoon, when he’d be out, would be ideal. I bit my lip. No one can make my Mitch do anything he doesn’t want to do.
“Wonderful,” I said. “I’ll be sure not to mention that it’s jewelry I left in your car the other night.”
There was a long pause. I could almost hear his brain clicking through the optics. “On second thought,” he said, “I’ll come to you. Is tomorrow afternoon good?”
I pinched my inner thigh until it welted, until I was sure I could control the excitement in my voice. “It’s perfect.”
* * *
When I got to the office, there was no sign of Jackal or Lou. But the office wasn’t empty.
The door was cracked, and someone had closed the blinds so that thin ribbons of sunlight cut into the ugly orange rug but shaded the corner of the office. A pair of loafers edged out into the sunlight. I gave a little yelp. MacLeish sat in a chair next to a potted plant, reading Attorney at Law Magazine. Lou’s idea of a little joke. I craned my neck, looking down the hallway for Escobar.
“Planned to go to law school once,” MacLeish said to me. The chair’s leather creaked under him as he shifted.
“That door was locked.” I was almost sure of it.
MacLeish focused one eye on me and kept the other on the magazine. An unnerving trick. “One of my skills that wouldn’t have been put to good use as a lawyer,” he replied.
“You didn’t have to break in,” I said, my mind working in overdrive. He wouldn’t break in alone to serve me a warrant. This had to be extracurricular, coming to collect on the cash.
I took a gamble, tried to throw him off-kilter. “How does it happen that your partner on the force is younger than you and already higher-ranked? It doesn’t take a genius to see you’re the better cop.”
MacLeish tossed the magazine onto the table next to him. “You can lose stripes as easy as you earn ’em.”
“Ah,” I said. “Because you made a mistake? What kind of mistake?”
“Did you know Hiram Klein had dozens of complaints filed against him over the years?” He stood up, adjusting his belt. Mac-Leish put his hands on his hips, dipped forward so we were closer to eye to eye.
The abrupt switch threw me. Now I was the one off-kilter. “No, I didn’t know that,” I lied.
“Mean shit,” he said. “And he looked like such a nice grandfatherly type.”
“You’re here to tell me about Hiram Klein’s casting-couch preferences?”
“Dozens of complaints over the years.” He shook his head at me, his mouth twisted in a grimace. He wasn’t faking his disgust. “And they always went away before we could get around to investigating.”
I swallowed. I tried to look casually over my shoulder, check down the hall. If Escobar was nearby, he was sure being quiet about it.
“I see worse all the time. I’ve got kids burned to death in an apartment building where the landlord didn’t want to shell out cash to keep the place up to code. I’ve got a guy killed his wife cuz she mouthed off. All those people, I’m sorry they’re dead. Hiram Klein is one more body to me.”
“Why are you telling me—”
“Now, Ellen Howard,” MacLeish went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “What bothers me, how did she end up asphyxiated? You hear about people choking on their own guilt, but usually it takes a little longer. And it’s a little less . . . on the nose.” He shook his head. “It’s a shame about that money of hers. She’d be so forgettable, otherwise.”
I forced myself to lift my chin so I was looking down on him and calculated my odds of pushing past him to the sliver of open door behind me. But MacLeish seemed to be making a point of letting me keep
my personal space.
“This is how it works?” I said. “You get the money back, you look the other way?”
“It’s funny what people remember,” MacLeish said, still not moving toward me, holding his ground as though he knew what I was thinking. “Not an hour ago, I got a call from a woman, said she saw Klein’s car leave the Alto Nido the night of the murder. Recognized the plates right off, he was a man who liked to be recognized. Said she could see two heads in the car, but crime scene says Klein was killed at Ms. Howard’s apartment. So who else could be in the car?”
Lou used to tell me my biggest tells were what I did with my hair and my hands. “You toss your head when you’re nervous,” she told me once, sliding her fingers through my hair and shaking it out, mimicking the motion. “And you drum your fingers when you’re scared.” Eventually, she took to cupping her hands softly over my own until I learned to stop.
My fingers were twitching against my blouse like pinned butterflies. I slid my hands into my armpits to hide it. “Give me two days,” I said, my voice not steady. “I promise. Then the money’s all yours.”
MacLeish’s mouth twitched. “Here’s the thing, kid,” he said. “The money that’s missing, it’s good for the usual. But we’ve got too many people crawling around, asking questions.”
My stomach sank. “Let me guess, squeaky wheels need greasing. How much?”
To his credit, MacLeish didn’t make excuses for the shakedown. He didn’t pretend to feel bad, and he didn’t pretend it was my fault. “Fifteen large. Should do it.”
I almost laughed in his face. “Sure,” I said. “Would you prefer that in diamonds or gold bricks?”
MacLeish scratched at his chin. He thought for a moment. “I used to think I could help people with this job.” He looked almost sad. Shifting back and forth on his toes like he was getting ready to move. I could feel my heart hammering against my palm. “But people have to want to be helped.” He shook his head again, something almost fatherly in his expression. “This woman you work for, she’ll have something on you now. Always her lapdog.”
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