“No!” The word leaped out of his mouth before he could look across at his now-frowning companion. “I mean, maybe. One day. Sure.”
“Poor bastard,” Amanda sighed and returned to her conversation with Julia.
“You know what I mean, Amanda. There has to be an address or two that your team isn’t really looking at because it falls below your radar. Maybe those addresses might be worth our looking at?” Julia said. She looked over at the now-woebegone young man at the next table and told him, “Oh, and don’t let my friend fool you. Marriage is a wonderful thing. And your girlfriend there? Beautiful. Gorgeous. If I were you, I’d ask her right here and now. I can tell that she’s the type who waits for no one. Nor should you, my bella.”
The young man attacked his food as quickly as he could while the woman across from him just rolled her eyes.
“You’re not going to give up, are you?” Amanda’s eyes twinkled.
“On romance or justice?” Julia smiled.
“Romance comes and goes,” Amanda began, looking over at the young couple, articulating each word as she repeated, “Romance. Comes. And. Goes. Remember that. Justice, on the other hand…”
The young woman got up abruptly and stalked out, leaving her date sitting alone. This time, it was clear she wasn’t coming back. The man threw down several bills, grabbed his coat, and hurried after her.
“We’re all cops, Amanda. Same team. We all signed on for the same thing. And we don’t want any more right-hand, left-hand, do we?”
Amanda let out a huge sigh. “I need to go to the loo,” she said and got up, a bit wobblier than she had anticipated. “Don’t walk out on me.”
*****
“Okay. I’ve got a couple of addresses that we can’t work right now,” Amanda announced as she sat down, appearing much better for having excused herself. “We’re in eyeballs-deep helping a new Crown with a case that’s tanking.”
“Is he cute?”
“She. Objectively, a looker, but is she my type? No. Not at all.” Amanda looked over at the vacant table. “I hope we didn’t scare them off?”
“I doubt it. She was on her cellphone in the washroom talking to some other guy.”
“Oh, the tangled web— ”
“This Crown. Poor girl. Pretty and new? Sounds like fresh blood to me.” Julia sighed.
“No kidding. She’s smart and young, and I give her three years, tops, before she’s married to another Crown, another five before she has two kids, and another two after that before she’s bitter and divorced. Oh, wait. That’s my life story minus the law degree. Never mind.” She looked at the menu in front of her. “Did we decide on a dessert or…?”
“I’m not having any.”
“Party pooper!” Amanda accused, waving the waiter off. “Okay, right now, I can think of a couple of places that aren’t hot enough for us to look at, but are busy enough that the neighbours are calling about trespassers and the like.”
“A good neighbourhood?”
“No,” Amanda replied, filling Julia’s glass from the fresh bottle of wine. “City housing.”
“And the neighbours are calling in?” Julia took a sip. “Must be pretty bad.”
“You’d think.” Amanda looked at the empty table next to them again. “We did scare them away, though, didn’t we? Have we become hard?”
“No, we didn’t and we haven’t. She was already on the phone to another guy. And did you see him? Compared to her? Not a chance,” Julia scoffed. “So your team doesn’t want to deal with this one?”
“We’ve got too much on our plate as it is. Yesterday was just a bonus round to get our numbers up to keep everyone happy. We’ d have been much better off spending that time following up on some of our other places, but that takes time and we needed some quick wins and…”
She motioned for the waiter. “I am going to have dessert, after all. If I’m going to be the divorced mother of two girls, likely living in a trailer park before we’ve separated our assets every which way but fair, I might as well look the part. I’ll have the tiramisu.”
She looked around. “Good thing we got here when we did. Look at the lineup at the door now.”
“You know, I’ll have the torta della nonna,” Julia told the waiter, passing him the menus. “So, does this mean you’re giving me some places?”
“You ply me with wine, you provide me with entertainment…”
Julia raised a questioning eyebrow.
“That poor star-struck couple,” Amanda said.
“He may have been struck by stars, but she certainly wasn’t,” Julia laughed.
“She was likely as close to anything that shiny and new as he’ll ever get,” Amanda agreed as she scribbled a couple of addresses on a piece of paper she pulled from her purse. The waiter was juggling the desserts plates next to their table, having reappeared much quicker than anticipated. “Let’s just say you came across these. Don’t mention my name. To anyone.”
“So I shouldn’t tell Mike that you say hi?” Julia snickered, taking the paper from Amanda. She took a bite of her dessert. “Oh my God, this is to die for. I am so glad we decided to order dessert.”
“Especially don’t tell Mike,” Amanda laughed as she tried the tiramisu. “This is like sex in your mouth. If I never see that idiot again, I’ll be a happy woman. Well, that and after the divorce goes through without losing the shirt that I paid for with the money that I saved, and after I meet someone other than a guy who can fix my toilet.”
Both women stopped talking so they could savour their desserts for a few moments while the table beside them was being quickly reset.
“Maybe we should just finish up and pay at the front,” Julia suggested, looking at the new bright and shiny, hopeful young couple now being seated next to them.
Chapter Seven
Sunday, October 30th, 2005 - 8:30 p.m.
“Do you think I’m fat?” Sal asked as Mike struggled to clip his seatbelt in place.
“I never really gave it much thought,” Mike muttered, loosening the belt and giving it another pull to adjust it. “There better not be a fucking sunflower seed jamming this.”
“Likely. I don’t mean fat fat, but you know…fat?”
“I dunno,” Mike replied, becoming increasingly annoyed at the broken seatbelt. “Stop the car. Let me drive.”
“I’m serious. I mean, look at me. Honestly. Fat?” Sal continued, making no effort to comply.
“Well,” Mike said, finally getting the belt done up, “you might want to consider giving up the jeans you wore in your twenties. Once a guy hits thirty, it’s all kinda downhill if he’s not careful.”
“Like you?” Sal said, glancing over at Mike.
“No, not like me at all.” Mike pulled down the visor to look at himself in the mirror. “I mean, you were probably in much better shape a few years back, right?”
“I’m still in good shape, Sal,” Mike snapped, glaring at his partner. “I’m one of the careful guys.”
“I see.” Sal focused on the road ahead of him.
“Never mind. Maybe we should just stick to business. How did your coffee go with Mr. Personality? Clearly, the two of you have a lot in common.”
“Oh, shit!” Sal glanced down at his watch. “Right, we got…uh, thirty minutes to get over to the car rental on Queen Street.” The tires of the car squealed as he made a quick U-turn into oncoming traffic.
“Jesus, Sal! This is why I don’t let you drive!”
“Sorry about that, old man,” Sal said, maneuvering the car up, over, and back down off the curb to avoid a collision before continuing his story. “Ron told me about a rental van that he saw three guys piling our girls into last night. He got the plate, ran it and—bada bing, bada boom—it’s a rental. Ron knows a woman named Barb at the Queen car rental location who can help us track down the guy who rented it.”
“Great,” Mike said, loosening the cross strap of the seatbelt that h
ad tightened during Sal’s maneuvering. “By the way, do you know anything about this Burning Schoolhouse Party at a warehouse downtown tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. It’s been all over the news. Why?”
“Really? Why don’t I know anything about it?”
“I have no idea. Maybe you live under a rock. Why do you ask?”
“My mother was talking about it at dinner.”
“Yeah, I could see that. She’s hip.”
“Watch your speed, buddy,” Mike cautioned, concerned that they were hitting the bumps in the road a little harder than necessary. “She said there was some rumour going around that the organizers were going to torch the building at the end of the night.”
“That would be worth the price of admission!” Sal replied, reaching over to the glovebox in front of Mike.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for a packet of sunflower seeds.”
“Fuck off and drive.”
Sal pulled his hand back.
“So,” Mike continued, “you don’t have a problem with that?”
“Burning a place to the ground for shits and giggles? Not if it’s done carefully.” Sal turned the car sharply to correct a turn he had miscalculated.
Mike pressed his left hand flat against the interior roof of the car for stability, then looked over at his partner. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Listen, old man, there are still some people out there who like to have fun.” Sal smiled as the numbers on the speedometer crept higher and higher. “Hell, if we’re not busy, we should pop by and have a look. I bet they’re going to torch it around midnight. That would be pretty cool to see, eh?”
“I’m kind of hoping we’ll be doing up the paperwork to close down this case by then,” Mike snorted, placing his right hand on the dashboard to further steady himself. “Can we slow down at all?”
“Pffft.”
“You’re an idiot,” Mike said, releasing his grip on both the ceiling and the dashboard.
“I’ve been called worse by better. Holy shit! There’s the mall. Hold on.”
Sal drove into two lanes of oncoming traffic, bullying the cars into scrambling aside. Missing the entrance to the car rental place despite the manoeuvre, he drove the car over the curb, yanked at the wheel to turn the car in the opposite direction, and drove on the sidewalk for twenty feet before veering off into the parking lot.
“What are you trying to do? Get us killed?” Mike hollered, his heart pounding. “I am never letting you drive again.”
“You gotta live before you die, Mikey,” Sal laughed, slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in the parking spot in front of them.
*****
The car rental office was in a strip mall from the 1970s that had managed to escape modernization. Ample parking out front and in back was in stark contrast to the tiny units that the mostly independent shops occupied. Turnover was minimal, making this mall somewhat of an institution against a backdrop of continuous neighbourhood redevelopment.
The large paper signs outlining prices and discount specials that covered the front window of the car rental shop made it easy to spot.
“Yes, gentlemen?” A large older woman greeted them, the jangling of her jewellery taking longer to fade away than the sound of the door buzzer. “How may I help you this evening? Make it quick because I’m closing in two minutes.”
“Sign on the door says you’re open until nine,” Mike said, looking down at his watch. It was only eight forty-five.
“Sign isn’t the one who has to go home to heat up her frozen dinner and pretend it’s edible, do a week’s worth of laundry, provided, that is, that the perv from the fourth floor who wanks to the beat of the drier isn’t hanging out there, and then work on filing last year’s income tax because shit happens and life gets busy, is she?”
The woman took a deep breath and glared at Mike and Sal. “Now make it quick because I’m closing in…” she looked at the clock, “seventy-one seconds.”
Mike looked at the cluttered desk on the other side of the counter that kept the woman at a safe distance from him. Beware of Barb a sign on the desk read.
“You’re Barb,” Sal said.
“Does it matter?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, making her look for all the world to Mike like an iguana, complete with dangling jowls that moved independently on her puffy face.
“We aren’t looking to rent a car,” Mike advised. “We’re—”
“Then get out,” she ordered, the spiked tufts of the clearly dyed jet-black hair on the top of her head accentuating the direction her chins were giving the two men.
“Cops,” Mike continued. “We have a favour to ask,”
“Then get out quicker. My ex was a cop,” she spat, her bejewelled right hand massaging the only finger on her left hand that did not have a ring on it. “Real dickhead. Maybe you know him? Arnie…Arnold Lobsinger?”
“No. Sorry, I don’t,” Mike replied, contemplating how lucky that bastard had been to have escaped from this lizard lady.
“Good. That changes everything. How can I help you then?”
“We have this licence plate—” Mike began, giving Sal a jab with his elbow to remind him to stay quiet.
“Stop right there,” Barb ordered, holding her hand up with a level of authority that would have done any traffic cop proud. “If you want me to find out who rented it, I can’t do it. I mean, I can, but I won’t. Against company policy.”
She held her hand in place as she locked her steely blue eyes with Mike’s, ignoring Sal completely.
“Well, maybe—” Mike began.
“Nope. No can do!” She lowered her hand and shook her head vigorously. “Not even for you, bright eyes.”
“Perhaps—” Mike continued.
“You know…” She abruptly stopped shaking her head, almost as if she had snapped out of a trance. Her eyes narrowed even more as she sized Mike up. “You know, you have a shitty job. I was married to Arnie for twenty-seven years. It was hell. Mostly the shifts and some of the stuff he would tell me about, I mean. Not him. It didn’t become hell with him until he started banging some bimbette on his platoon. Not like I couldn’t have had a few of his partners myself if I was that way inclined, of course.”
Sal audibly groaned. Mike gave him a swift kick. Barb didn’t seem to notice.
“Before that, it was the shifts. You know, at one point, I thought about becoming a cop myself. I really did. Angie Dickinson and Earl Holliman and all that jazz. You may not believe it looking at me now, but I was quite a looker back in the day.”
Sal groaned again, this time even louder. Mike kicked him harder, causing Sal to stumble for a moment until he regained his balance. Barb, again, did not seem to notice.
“Arnie and I even talked about me joining, but he said it was no place for a lady.”
Mike shot a glare at Sal, which appeared to quell the younger man’s need to respond to this woman’s monologue.
“Judging by that bitch he was boning, I’d have to agree,” she concluded.
Suspecting that this comment might be too much for his partner, Mike gave Sal a pre-emptive kick that was received without objection.
“I may have had twenty years or more on her, but she had no class. None. Serves him right. But you two seem like good guys. Smart guys. Not too smart, but smart enough, am I right? Here, hand me that paper. Let me see what you’ve got.”
Sal gingerly handed over the paper he’d scribbled the licence number on.
“Oh, that’s a shame. Not from this office.” She handed the paper back.
“Like it matters?” Sal laughed.
“Of course, it matters!” Barb scowled. “Ever tried to pick up something that wasn’t there? If it wasn’t from this office, then—”
“I thought you rented cars out all across the country,” Sal interrupted. “What kind of Mickey Mouse operation are you, anyway?”
Barb just looked at him, unmoved.
“If it could be done, you could access records from anywhere, though, couldn’t you?” Mike suggested with a smile.
“I can, sure, but not everyone else can.” Barb nodded appreciatively at Mike. “I’ve been here for almost thirty years. Did you know that? After my dreams of becoming a cop went up in smoke, I did the next best thing and got a job renting out cars. Ha! And if you believe that, then you’re dumber than that piece of ass Arnie dumped me for.”
Mike glanced over quickly at Sal, hoping he would keep his mouth shut.
“And you know what? He ended up dumping her, too. Said she was boring. Ya think? Compared to me? Come on now.”
Mike and Sal just stared at her. Too much information, Mike thought.
“After the thrill of sex wears off—and the bimbette was pretty vanilla in that department—you gotta have things in common to make a relationship last. That’s what I told Arnie when he came sniffing back. It was too late for us, but it felt good to be able to say ‘I told you so’.”
“About this licence plate?” Mike reminded her.
“Yeah. Sure. Give it over, kiddo,” she said, looking to Sal before turning her attention back to Mike. “You’re lucky I’m working tonight. Nobody else at this office knows how to get these records.”
“Actually, it was a friend of mine, Ron Roberts, who—” Sal said meekly.
“Shut the front door!” Barb’s face lit up. “R2D2? Now there’s an odd little man. Heart of gold, but no social graces at all. I like to get him going, you know? Kind of flirt with him. Throws him into a spin. He’s not married, is he?”
“I believe he is.” Sal refused to allow himself to even consider what this reptilian woman could possibly mean by flirt.
“Poor woman. Must be a saint. Anyway, every time he comes in, he always brings me in a coffee. A really good coffee, you know, not that watery crap some of my other regulars bring in. Which reminds me, bright eyes: double double next time. Make sure it’s real cream. Not milk. Not soy. Not oatmeal or whatever else they mash up these days. Cream. Double double.”
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