“I think all I want right now is for you to leave.”
He looks down at his empty mug and he looks so sorry. Or bummed.
I’m not sure which pisses me off more. I take the mug.
“Why did you come here in the first place?”
He stops, his back to the mirror that hangs over my dresser. From where I stand, I can see him, 360, and I can see myself.
He starts to say something, but then I see myself scowl, and I have another flash from last night, or else from my dream: my fingers slipping. My breath caught. The water; he must think he saved me.
I put the mug on the dresser. “I’m sorry—what did you say?”
“I thought you were mad.”
I cross my arms. “Why are you concerned about me at all?”
“Honestly? I wasn’t concerned about you until I got here. The reason I came was to talk about Johnny Marble.”
I see myself smirk. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find him yourself.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you not to.” Weiss shifts on his feet, tucks his hands in his back pockets. There’s something stuffed into one of them. A hat. Black.
He says, “You know now that Marble couldn’t have hurt his mother. And that he probably wasn’t hard to find. So I thought—I don’t know, professional courtesy?—I thought you should also know I was trying to figure out who did. Before I turned him in.”
“How considerate.” I cross my arms again, the other way. “Except that professional courtesy would have been to tell me this from the beginning.” I’m trying to be a bitch because I feel exposed. And I feel like he knows that, and he’s getting leverage by going along with the act.
When he takes the hat from his pocket, I realize George wasn’t the one Maricarmen saw casing my house while I was in the hospital.
I also realize Weiss has got a nice couple of back pockets.
“Jesus Christ,” I say, because I can’t believe myself. I am nuts.
“I’m sorry,” Weiss says. “You should be mad. But I didn’t tell you because I thought you were trying to jam me up.”
Then, I can’t believe him. “How, pray tell, could I possibly do that?”
“By acting like you couldn’t possibly.” He looks at me. “You’re good at that.”
I don’t argue. I probably am.
“I get it, Gina,” he says. “You aren’t the only cop who’d like to throw my star in the river. With me wearing it. And I’ll admit: it’s hard to like me. I don’t work by the book because the book doesn’t work. I don’t play fair because fair doesn’t get us anywhere. And I guess, also, I can be kind of intense. But I’m not going to find the guy everybody wants just to put him through a meat grinder with a couple pieces of evidence and turn out a nice sausage case for the state. And I’m not going to send one guy up the creek when he couldn’t have done it without help. Life is messy. People are fuckups. And sometimes, those fuckups are cops.”
“Me. You mean me.”
“I thought I did.” He curls the hat bill in both hands. “When you started looking for Marble—against Iverson’s orders? It made me wonder who was really turning the crank. Was this supposed to be a case against Marble, or a way to save you?”
“Save me? From what?” I know I sound defensive. I am.
“I found Marble about five minutes after I got the assignment. Five seconds after that, I knew he didn’t hurt St. Claire. Anybody who’s ever met him knows that. You had to know that. I mean, the dude is a giant child. He lives in an apartment run by parakeets.”
“Some people would say that qualifies him as a psycho.”
“Some people would say it makes you a candidate for use of excessive force.”
What? “That’s ridiculous. I was the one who wound up in the hospital. He was the one who took off with my gun.”
“Yeah, well, how things turned out that way isn’t exactly clear when you know Marble’s got the mental capacity of a kakapo.”
“So what? You don’t need much of an IQ to be mad.”
“When I found him, he was terrified. He said he had a deal with the cops. That if he stayed away from his mother, she would be safe—”
“He told me the same thing when we arrested him. He kept saying, ‘Stay away and mama is okay.’ He kept saying my name, too, like it was on mental repeat.” I mimic: “Gina Simonetti,” my voice low, loud and flat. “So he heard me identify myself. And he obviously understands I’m a cop. But me, the one cutting him a deal? How does that even make sense?”
“I thought you were afraid he’d say something that’d get you in trouble—”
“So you thought I fucked up, and I wanted to cover my ass?”
“Something like that.”
I won’t admit it was almost exactly like that. I will say, “I need to sit down.”
“I’ll go.”
I don’t sit. He doesn’t go.
I can’t believe I’m accused of being too tough when the truth is, I wasn’t tough enough. I get out of the way of the mirror because I don’t think I look so good. When I get enough nerve to look at Weiss, I do and I say, “I didn’t use excessive force.”
“I know that, now.” He looks down at his hat; it’s got a Pittsburgh Steelers logo. Reminds me of that conversation we had so long ago, drunk at the bar, when he thought injured players should pay for their mistakes.
He must be here because he thinks I ought to pay for mine.
“What would you have done,” I ask, “if you found out I was covering my ass? Would you have turned me in?”
“It wasn’t about you. I just like to get to the truth.” He smiles, and I see something different in it. Something knowing.
I remember Andy’s warning, about Weiss charming me to get what he wants.
Then I think about Soleil, and what she’d do to get what she wants.
“This isn’t professional,” I say. “Or courteous. In fact, I’m starting to think this is all pretty personal. Coming here uninvited. Asking Andy about me. Following me. You want to get to the truth? How about we get to Soleil?”
“Soleil?” The dismissive way he says her name makes the notion sound as preposterous as it is entirely possible.
“Go ahead, tell me again: you can’t stop her from doing what she wants. But you can’t stop wanting her, either, so you’ll let her ruin my brother’s life, and mine, too—”
“I should go.” Weiss pulls on his hat, the bill low, a disguise for his eyes. His mouth hangs open, like he’s got something more to say, but he clears his throat instead. Then he heads for the front door.
I follow him. “Do you have any idea what I lost while I was trying to find Marble?”
“I guess I don’t.” He opens the door and steps outside.
“Let me rephrase, then, before you go. Do you have any idea what I lost while you were protecting him?”
He turns around and looks at me from under his hat. “Will you accept my apology?”
I close the door.
19
I take Tylenol, and I try sleeping, but I’d call my headache more clusterfuck than cluster, and it’s a bright and beautiful Sunday. Plus I can’t stop fiddling with my phone, contemplating calls I should make while worrying I missed Walter, and trying George again, and again, and again.
I can’t keep this up, being alone. I need a friend. I drink two cans of 7Up, get dressed, and go.
I take the Kennedy and get off at Harlem. I stop at the golden arches drive-thru for a couple strawberry-banana smoothies and a large order of fries.
The fries are gone by the time I pull up to Andy’s.
I double-fist the smoothies and elbow-knock the door. I’m gambling since it’s his day off, but I didn’t want to say sorry over the phone. I hate apologies; I suck at them. Especially in person. But sucking, right now, is kind of the point.
“Kanellis?” The blinds in the front window are open but it’s so bright, the sun directly overhead, that I can only see an inch past the window. I hear music p
laying somewhere inside, an eighties metal song I recognize that causes every man I know to pump his fist, but it could be Andy’s poor man’s security system—all the lights on, noise going.
Since Loni hasn’t come around, her usual bark and scratch, I think maybe they’re both gone. I have a funny vision of them at the dog beach. I see Andy throwing a ball. I see her looking up at him like he’s an asshole. I see him going to fetch the ball himself.
I ring the bell. I get nothing. I try one of the smoothies. I should’ve ordered myself a milkshake.
I knock again, and try the lock, and then I start to think this is a dumb idea. It is Sunday. A real day off. And a perfect day to go to the park, or the zoo, or the playground.
Of course I wonder what Isabel is doing.
I’m about to give up when a bird flies into the window. From the inside. It hits the glass and bounces, flutters, and disappears.
“What the?” is all I say before Loni shows up in the driveway and starts barking her head off.
“Hey, Bologna.”
She bristles. Growls. Shakes me off, and goes back the way she came.
I wonder about the bird. I follow the dog.
She trots toward the garage, snippy glances over her shoulder, tail high, like she’s always been right about me.
“I’m not arguing.”
She darts left, into the backyard.
When I get there, she’s climbed up onto the hot-tub deck, where steam seems redundant, this heat. She sits at attention, top of the steps, a guard over her master, who is currently alone but immersed to his neck, the only parts of him above water his head and the hand that’s keeping track of his icy drink.
“Hot,” I say.
“Hey, baby!” Andy says. The exclamation proves there’s booze on that ice. He sits up and raises his sunglasses. “You look like shit.”
“George took Isabel.”
“Jesus, G,” he says, like someone died. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I climb two steps and lean in to hand him his smoothie. Loni growls at me. “Relax,” I say. “It’s a peace offering.”
Andy picks up Loni and deposits her on the other side of the tub. “I’m already at peace,” he says to me, and sucks down a few gulps of the smoothie. “Why don’t you come in? The water is perfect. Hundred and two. And you look like you’re the one who needs to relax.”
“Didn’t bring my suit.”
“You could use Amanda’s.”
“Yeah, no.” I’m not supposed to sit in water that’s warmer than body temperature—heat equals inflammation equals numbness—but Andy doesn’t know any better. He probably thinks I’m worried about fitting into his girlfriend’s extra-small bottoms and extra-large top.
Andy grins, a real shit-eater. “You could not wear a suit.”
He’s fucking with me. I love him for it.
I climb the other two steps and lose my shoes. “How about my feet.”
“Suit yourself,” he says, and laughs at his own lame joke. He seems happy, somehow. Alone like this. It’s not the booze. I wish I knew what it was.
The music he’s got going inside, a Bob Seger song now, pipes out from the open sliding-glass door.
He sings along, “She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes…”
“What’s with the bird?” I interrupt.
“You saw—wait. Out of the cage?”
“Flew into the window.”
“That son of a bitch. I know which one it is. He—or she, I don’t know, how can you tell?—he seems like a he. He knows how to pick the cage lock—”
“There’s more than one?”
“I didn’t tell you?”
“Maybe you did. Seems like people have been telling me a lot of things I don’t remember.”
Andy finds his Marlboros. “Marble’s place was a petting zoo. Birds. Cats. A couple Chihuahua mixes. The furry ones went to the shelter, but nobody knew what to do with the birds. You know me. I can’t let anything go. I thought I’d give one to my niece, maybe. Get the rest adopted. But my sister said no and the place I was going to take them, this bird club in Villa Park? Seventy bucks per, just to give them away. Tests for bird flu or whatever. Did I say how many birds?”
“You did not.”
“Sixteen. That’s over a thousand dollars. If I had that money to spend, I’d build a big gold cage and keep them myself.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No idea.” He starts to laugh. “It’s funny, really. Amanda won’t come over. The fucking peeping.”
“Is that why you’re playing the music? So you can’t hear them?”
“I’m playing the music because I like it. And so do they.” He smiles. “I know Donna is laughing her ass off.” He lights a cigarette. “I’m glad you’re here. I thought you were miffed because I wouldn’t come on for the Marble thing.”
“There is no more Marble thing.”
He takes a drag. “We don’t have to talk about it. I sure as hell don’t want to talk about it. But what the fuck.”
“What the fuck” is right.
“Iverson had me in for a powwow. Said St. Claire’s tox report was presumptive positive for morphine and Thorazine and that Pearson said the old lady doesn’t have a prescription for either. Yet, St. Claire is still resisting the rape kit—”
“So we are talking about this?”
“Nah.”
I find a jet in the tub. Let it carry my feet to the surface, one, then the other.
Andy sits there, smoking and soaking and singing along, “Workin’ on mysteries without any clues.”
I think about St. Claire. I hope she has a scrip for morphine now, her broken ankle. But, I can’t remember, “What’s Thorazine for?”
“It’s an antipsychotic.”
“Could it have been Marble’s?”
“I don’t know, Gina. Are we talking about this?”
“St. Claire has an irreversible neurological disease. She is vulnerable, and her health is deteriorating, and nobody cares. I wanted to protect her. I was trying to build a case.”
Andy reaches for his real drink. “St. Claire doesn’t want your help, G. In fact, her daughter went on the warpath when she found out we put Marble in the clink. Called Iverson to say she’s hiring an attorney.”
“I don’t understand. She wants someone to represent her brother on a charge her mother brought against him? How is anybody taking that seriously?”
“Because she’s looking to sue the department. Coercion of a witness. Wrongful arrest.” He hands me his drink.
“That means they’ll dig up reports, take depositions…” Shit. I take a long sip.
“I wouldn’t worry. Any smart defense attorney is going to prove St. Claire can’t be coerced. Even if she wanted to, she can’t tell the same story twice.”
“But we’ll have to.” I take another drink. There’s nothing much left in the glass but ice. I chew it. I taste rum. I want more. I could sit and soak and drink and do whatever else it takes to forget.
But I remember what Christina Hardy said, her ready response about how she’d never ask her mother for a dime. And now she’s stepping in to be the advocate? “She’s doing it for the money,” I say. “The daughter.”
“That’s what a lawsuit is, baby. Financial justice.”
“I wonder what else she’s doing. She has the guts to press us, there’s no doubt she’s squeezing her mom.” I pull my feet out of the water. “I’m going to talk to Kay.”
“Gina, no. Your bleeding heart? It’s going to bleed out.”
“May as well.”
Andy gets up, sits on the tub ledge. “You remember last year, I chased that junkie who swallowed the bullet of heroin? It was fifty-fifty, whether he’d die—and my career, too, same breath. And then it wasn’t about what the junkie did, why he ran from me. It was about me—my behavior. Was contact warranted? Was pursuit reasonable? Did I make any mistakes? I sat there watching the medics work on the guy and I questioned myse
lf when he was the bad guy. I quit trying to be a hero then and there. And you know what? The Job is much easier now that I’ve stopped giving a shit.”
“That’s what I should do? Stop giving a shit?”
“Yep.”
“Like you.”
“Like me.”
“What about the birds, then?”
“Those birds are sixteen examples of what happens with the best intentions and no backup plan.”
“You say I’ve got a bleeding heart.”
“Mine’s not bleeding. It’s broken.” He still smiles when he says this.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and get up. “I still give a shit. I’m out.”
“Disappointing, baby.” Andy extinguishes his cigarette in a puddle on the deck and gets out of the tub to hug me. All wet. I feel his belly and his strong arms and his smoky breath and his fingers, on one hand, curling up my hair. He loves me, too.
I say, “I wish you were my brother.”
“I wish you were ten years younger. And stupid.”
I lean back. He finds his rum smile. “Just saying. Young and stupid and hot? We’d be perfect for each other.”
We are perfect for each other. We are true friends.
Which is why I’m not mad when he proceeds to throw me in the hot tub, all dressed.
20
I stop at home to change clothes—back to black slacks, white button-down. Back to work.
I shove the receipt from yesterday’s Blue Cab ride into my lanyard, hit the pantry for a bag of pretzels, and take off. I don’t set the alarm. Just in case. There’s really nothing anybody can take that I’ll miss now, anyway.
I park on Division and walk so there’ll be no question about my filthy not-blue not-cab. It’s just past five and the sun angles through a haze in the western sky that will hang there until at least eight.
On the way to Haddon Street I smell barbecue. I salivate. When I get around the corner, I find smoke rising from an unmanned grill in the church parking lot. The church’s loudspeakers play the kind of R & B music I’ll bet Jesus would dance to. There’s one guy taping plastic tablecloths to folding tables. Another one comes out the church’s back door carrying a heavy aluminum-covered metal pan.
The Lies We Tell Page 21