by Louisa Luna
Cap took in the information, batted away the first impulse of jealousy. He thought maybe he should just let it drop but then figured there was really nothing to lose by doing a little more fact-finding. He could count on one hand the times Vega had offered up personal intel about herself, and the temptation to find out what kinds of guys she liked was too great to pass up.
“How many times did you sleep with him?” Cap asked casually, as if they’d discussed this sort of thing all the time.
Vega shrugged, unfazed by the question.
“I don’t know, thirty, forty?” she said.
Cap did his best not to let his jaw swing open.
“That’s a lot,” he said.
“Is it?” she asked. “It’s been the past few months. He’s my Muay Thai instructor.”
Cap pictured all sorts of jacked-up types now, guys chugging Muscle Milk while doing box jumps. It wasn’t what he’d ever imagined when he thought of Vega having a boyfriend, but he wasn’t sure what guy would make sense in that role instead.
“Did you,” Cap said, looking back up at the TV, “break it off with him?”
“There’s nothing to break off,” Vega said, getting agitated. “It was sex. He didn’t seem to mind any of the thirty or forty times when we never…” She paused, searching for words, then waving toward the TV. “Watched the news together afterward.”
Cap laughed at her.
“Vega, are you under the impression that’s what couples do? Watch the news together?”
She shrugged again, and Cap realized she truly had no idea. He continued to laugh.
“The fuck are you laughing at?” she said, her tone serious but a lightness appearing in her eyes.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said. “All I’ll say is that if a man tried to pull what you’re pulling,” he continued, pointing the beer bottle at her, “he’d be branded an asshole immediately.”
Vega rolled her eyes, looking weary.
“So start a blog, Caplan,” she said, which made Cap laugh even harder.
She began to smile then, her lips curling at the edges like a single sheet of paper starting to burn. Cap finished his beer and asked Vega if she wanted another. She shook her head and showed him hers half-full. Cap signaled to the bartender for one more.
He took a sip of his second beer, and they both watched the news without a great deal of focus, Cap feeling the diminutive alcohol content from one-point-five beers start to have an effect. Normally it would have taken more than that, but he was so physically reduced that it was hitting him instantly, causing him to feel a pleasant numbness of the extremities, a soporific haze of the mind.
There were cops on the TV, looked to Cap to be suits with badges at a press conference. Brass. He squinted to see the caption. “Deputy Chief of Police Armando Posada.” Cap couldn’t see it perfectly but the man on the screen was overweight with light skin, a white guy. Looked more Irish than Latino.
“Those are Trina’s friends,” said McTiernan, reclaiming his seat. “Safe bet they won’t burn us.”
“McT, who is that?” Cap said, pointing to the screen above.
“That’s your friend Posada,” said McTiernan.
“He’s talking about the tunnels,” said Vega.
Then the cops were gone, replaced with footage of a wildfire up north. Cap didn’t know if it was exhaustion, his eyes, or the beer that was tripping him up. He took out his phone and went to the Internet, searched for Deputy Chief Armando Posada. He tapped the images, scrolled and scrolled.
“This guy,” said Cap, showing the screen to McTiernan. “This is Posada?”
McTiernan glanced and nodded. “Yeah, from the hospital, right? I’m at a loss to say how the hell he fits into this.”
“This is not who I met in the hospital,” Cap said emphatically. “The guy I met is Latino.”
“Posada’s half-Mexican, I think,” said McTiernan, not understanding. “Looks white.”
“No, I’m saying it was a different guy,” said Cap. “Not him.”
“What’d he look like?” said Vega. “The guy who said he was Posada.”
Cap sifted through all the activity and stress of his memory of the day and did his best to remember the man from the hospital.
“Definitely darker-skinned than this guy,” he said, tapping the phone screen. “Nicely dressed. Not just nice, though, sharp. Gold cuff links.” Cap tried to remember the face. “A scar, a big one, right here,” he said, bringing his finger to his chin.
“And he threatened you?’ said McTiernan. “This other guy with the scar?”
“Sure seemed like it,” said Cap.
“Ring anything anywhere for you?” Vega said to McTiernan. “Scar on the chin, Mexican, sharp dresser?”
McTiernan thought, shook his head.
“I don’t know. No one pops.”
“We can’t afford to spend time on it now,” said Vega. “We know it wasn’t Posada in the hospital but we have to keep moving.”
She took a last small sip of beer and set the bottle on the bar, stood up to leave. McTiernan did the same, and Cap did too, somewhat reluctant to give up the gloriously ordinary feeling of having a drink in a bar, but he knew it was time to go, and he knew Vega was right, to stack that question on top of all the others and keep pushing until every last one of them cracked open.
* * *
—
They headed to the airport. McTiernan approached the parking entrance, powered down his window, grabbed the ticket from the machine, and took the ramp for long-term parking. As they pulled into an open-air lot, Vega watched a security camera near the elevators spin and follow them.
“She usually parks in the K section, near the walkway,” he said.
Vega saw an armed guard standing on an island between A–K and L–Z. She leaned back in her seat, staring into her lap as they passed him. She saw McTiernan watching him in the side mirror.
“Normal for parking security to carry an AR-15 here?” she asked.
“Depends on the day, I guess,” McTiernan said.
He pulled into a spot at the end of a row of cars in Section J. The three got out, McTiernan locked up, and they started to walk, weaving through cars, McTiernan studying the signs on the posts above. When they reached K, McTiernan held the fob above his head and pressed the horn button twice. They heard the honking to their left and went toward it, McTiernan pressing the button a few more times until they saw the lights of his girlfriend’s car flashing.
Vega winced every time. It seemed noticeably loud in the empty lot, even under the steady whoosh of planes landing and taking off nearby. She and Cap followed McTiernan until he stopped in front of the car, a tiny red hatchback that reminded Vega of a candy apple.
McTiernan pressed the Unlock button and tugged at the driver’s side door, but it didn’t open.
“I didn’t hear a click,” said Cap, leaning his head down to the window. “Try it again.”
McTiernan pressed it again, also leaning his head down. Vega hung back, crossing her arms, glancing over her shoulders. McTiernan tried the door again, and still, it didn’t open.
“I didn’t hear it either,” he said.
Cap tried the passenger side, then the backseat.
“Fuck,” said McTiernan, hushed.
“When’s the last time you used her key?” said Cap.
McTiernan shook his head.
“Year ago, maybe.”
“Battery might be dead,” said Cap.
“Let’s go back to your car,” Vega said. “Now.”
“I’m giving it another minute,” said McTiernan, continuing to press the button.
“Yeah, when mine’s going dead it works sporadically,” said Cap, as if this were a tested method.
Neither of them seemed too concerned, both pulling on the han
dles.
Vega turned all the way around, watching out for any movement. She saw a couple of cars in different directions, parking and circling.
“You click, I’ll yank,” said Cap, troubleshooting.
McTiernan clicked. Still locked.
“Horn still works,” said McTiernan.
He pressed it, and the horn honked loudly, lights flashing.
“Stop it,” Vega hissed. “Let’s go back to your car.”
“Vega, we got a chance to get a new vehicle, we need to take it,” said Cap.
Then she heard the sound of jet engines, and a plane roared directly over their heads, the sound shredding any remaining quiet around them. When it had finally passed, Vega’s eardrums buzzed and hummed.
“Enough tries. Let’s go,” she said, her voice sounding like it was coming through a foam mattress.
McTiernan nodded and looked about to say something, but then stopped, just as Vega heard a sound she knew well, even muffled. It was the unmistakable click of a safety on an assault rifle. Looking at McTiernan’s and Cap’s faces, she knew she was right as they gazed past her, watching their hands rise slowly into the air above their heads.
18
very civilized here on the west coast, thought cap as they pulled into the SDPD lot. No cuffs, plenty of please-and-thank-you; they even got to hold on to their phones, and no one made a move to take McTiernan’s firearm. The worst thing he could say about the experience of not quite being arrested but brought in for questioning here was that the three of them were crammed into the backseat of an undercover cop car, which did not allow for a lot of free movement among them.
Even the guy with the AR-15 had been polite, saying they could lower their hands as long as he could see them, and that they would have to wait only a few minutes before someone would take them to see Commander Otero, who would explain things.
Great, Cap had thought. I would love to have things explained.
Vega sat in the middle, McTiernan on the other side. He had kept asking the detectives in the front seat, whom he knew somewhat, for details and they either didn’t know anything or were pretending not to. After they’d parked, Cap unbuckled his seatbelt but stayed put, knew better than to get out of the car before the undercovers. Then once McTiernan and Vega slid out, Cap followed.
They were brought through a side door, up the stairs to a hallway. The undercovers were ahead of them, but McTiernan hustled to keep up, continuing to pepper them with questions or, more specifically, different iterations of the same question.
“You get the orders from Otero personally, though?” McTiernan asked one of them, a stout black guy.
“Nah, it came from Rebeuto,” he said.
Cap realized they were heading to the interrogation room with the ficus, where they had questioned Joe Guerra.
“Yeah, but did Rebeuto get it from Otero?” said McTiernan, stopping in front of the door.
“We do A to B,” said the other guy, wiry and white, bald head. “No C. Rebeuto says pick you up, drop you in the room. All friendly.”
Cap believed them. He was tired but could usually tell when a cop was lying. Right now these two were passing the test; no feathers tickling the back of Cap’s neck signaling otherwise.
It seemed like McTiernan believed the undercovers too. They shook hands with him and said nice to meet you to Cap and Vega, then left. Cap saw in that moment the exhaustion in McTiernan’s face, his eyes bloodshot, his shoulders hunched in defeat.
McTiernan opened the door to the interrogation room, and there was a man sitting at the round table who looked like a cop but a little older than the average, Cap thought. A white guy but tan with silver hair clipped short and gelled to stay in place, spiky on the top. He stood when he saw them, and McTiernan sighed and groaned simultaneously.
“Dammit, Wayne,” he said.
Wayne held his arms out, like he was presenting himself. He snapped gum between his back teeth.
“Hi, Detective. You gonna introduce me to your friends?”
McTiernan rubbed his eyes and let out a small, sad laugh.
“Alice Vega, Max Caplan. This is Mickey Wayne, IA.”
“Pleasure,” said Wayne, pulling his suit jacket off the back of the chair. “Sorry we can’t stay.”
Wayne walked to the door, and Cap and Vega moved out of his way. McTiernan didn’t move. He stood there, letting his hands fall to his sides. Cap had the feeling he would’ve sat down on the floor, fatigued from running and reconciled himself to getting caught.
“Detective, you coming?” said Wayne, standing in the doorway.
“Yep,” said McTiernan.
He followed Wayne but stopped and turned to look at Cap and Vega one more time.
“I’ll text you,” said Vega, sounding much more certain than Cap felt or McTiernan looked.
McTiernan gave a slight nod, and Wayne’s gum cracked once more as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Let’s get moving,” he said, not particularly aggressively.
McTiernan left, and Wayne began to close the door but stuck his head in to say, “Someone will be right here.”
Then the door shut.
Cap stared at it and put his hands behind his neck, trying in vain to massage the muscles, hard and tight as extension cords.
“Dammit,” he said, angry and tired.
He turned to glance at Vega, who was sitting at the round table, scrolling through pictures on her phone. She didn’t seem concerned about anything.
“We just got McT shitcanned,” he said, trying to bring the moment home to her.
“Maybe,” said Vega.
She seemed distracted, an absentmindedness cast over her face as she swiped right with two fingers.
Cap paced and continued to talk: “Someone calls Internal Affairs, it’s never a good sign. It doesn’t end well even when it ends well.”
He stopped pacing, gripped the back of a chair, and leaned forward on it.
“They don’t have enough to arrest us, but they can do whatever they want to McT,” he added.
Vega set her phone down on the table and unzipped and removed her hoodie.
“We’ve been over this,” she said, standing.
“Sorry I’m boring you,” said Cap, getting pissed. “Just grabbing for a handle here.”
Vega didn’t respond, lifted the right side of her shirt and began to peel one corner of the bandage.
“What are you doing?” said Cap.
“Take a picture of the cut, would you,” she said, handing him her phone.
She peeled the gauze back, only a hint of discomfort visible in the pursing of her lips. The cut was glossy but not bleeding, the dead thread holding the skin together tight, looked to Cap to be as thick as barbed wire.
“Why am I doing this?” he said, coming around the table.
He bent down and zoomed in to the cut.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You were saying, about the handle.”
Cap pressed the red button five or six times and said, “I’m thinking maybe we offer a deal for McT. Like we do whatever they want us to do, within reason. A trial or information…” He placed the phone on the table, and Vega began to carefully reapply the bandage, smoothing out the tape against her skin in a rectangle.
“We say okay, take us instead,” Cap said, dropping into a chair.
“They might be hearing everything you say,” Vega said, nodding to the painting.
“I don’t give a shit, girl,” he said. “I’m not sending a cop up. I’m not going to do it.”
Vega readjusted her shirt and sat back down, picked up her phone and began typing a text.
“So you’re doing a rerun of exactly what you did to get yourself fired from the Denville PD. Throw yourself on the tracks again.”
Strange
ly, Cap had not directly made the connection until Vega pointed it out.
“Yeah, I am,” he said, feeling slightly liberated. “And the same thing tomorrow.”
Vega put down her phone and met his eye.
“Because that is who you are,” she said.
“Yes,” said Cap.
“You know who I am?” she said, leaning forward, hands folded, a smile lurking somewhere around her lips.
“Who?” Cap said, playing along.
She cupped her hand next to her mouth and started to whisper. Cap couldn’t quite hear the first word, and was about to tell her to speak up, when the door opened, and there was Otero.
Vega sat back in her chair, and Cap stood up and stuck his hand out. Otero shook it but barely looked at him, focused on Vega.
“Mr. Caplan,” he said. Then, “Ms. Vega.”
Vega stayed seated and didn’t say anything. Cap attempted to read her expression but it wasn’t easy. There was a humor in it, amusement. He knew she wasn’t the type to put her nerves on display, but her default was the steel, the frost in her eyes. This wasn’t that. She looked about to laugh.
Otero sat in the chair opposite her, and Cap sat between them, watching them regard each other like dogs off the leash in the street. A minute passed, and then another. No one looked at a phone. One more minute dragged by, and then Otero spoke.
“I talked to my wife,” he said, his tone flat.
Vega let another thirty seconds pass before answering: “Yeah, I talked to her, too.”
Otero slung one arm behind the chair and crossed his legs, getting comfortable.
“Usually we don’t like to involve families in this department,” he said calmly.
Cap thought of Nell, flashed on coming through the door in the morning after third shift when she was little, his heart still clattering around in his chest after a night of breaking up bar fights and answering domestic violence calls. He would pick her up off the floor and pat her hair, knotted from sleep, smell toothpaste and Froot Loops on her breath.
Vega leaned forward and folded her hands.
“The Janes have families, too,” she said.