by Dan Alatorre
Sergio stepped into the elevator, proud that he had sidestepped the confrontation the reporters had obviously wanted. The elevator walls were polished stainless steel, almost like mirrors. Pressing number twenty-one, he sat against the rear handrail and clasped his briefcase in front of him, letting his gaze drift to the bottom of the panel of buttons.
Who had set the trap? Carly wouldn’t intentionally accuse him of almost getting her killed, especially to others. It didn’t matter, though; now that he knew what the game was, he’d be able to keep his guard up. Reporters weren’t that hard to read. His “legal defense” meeting in the Walker building might even be a matter of public record, if any of the TV people wanted to dig hard enough to find that out.
A woman in a dark blue business suit stepped between Sergio and the panel. The hem of her suit coat brushed across her well-toned rear end as she set down her briefcase.
The doors closed, and the elevator jolted into motion.
It wasn’t a good feeling, to know someone had tried to get him to make an inflammatory statement about the department or Carly, but it was good to know the trick didn’t work. Then again, the pack of reporters might still be waiting for him when his meeting was finished, looking to bait him into an argument. He’d have to keep that in mind over the next few weeks as he fought his suspension.
The woman cleared her throat.
Sergio took a deep breath. What if reporters were waiting for him at his house, or ambushed him when he came back for follow-up sessions? Maybe a back door exit would be a good idea after today’s meeting, and circle around the block to the parking lot.
“Excuse me.”
He looked up. The woman was facing the panel of buttons. All he could see was the back of her brunette head.
Her green eyes met his, reflected in the polished steel panel. Under her dark eyebrows, she was glaring at him. “What floor?”
Sergio straightened himself up. “Oh, I pushed twenty-one.” He leaned around to see the panel. Button twenty-one was the only one lit.
The woman folded her arms, frowning. “No, I pushed twenty-one. You’ve done nothing but stare at my butt since I walked in here.”
“What?” Sergio blinked a few times. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t—I’m going to twenty-one to discuss a . . . a case.”
“Twenty-one, huh?” She turned around and glared at him, head-on. “Are you a bottom-drawer pro bono lawyer, or some flunky cop who stepped in it and now is trying to hang onto his job?”
She was beautiful, but intimidating. And angry. High cheek bones and piercing green eyes, dark Cleopatra bangs, and a ponytail that draped over her shoulder and onto her well-tailored suit.
“I, uh . . .” Sergio shifted his weight on his feet. “Those are the choices?”
The woman turned back around. “They are if you’re going to twenty-one, champ.”
He nodded, his shoulders slumping.
Looks like it’s not gonna be my day.
The elevator bell dinged, and the ride came to a stop, the doors opening onto the lobby of the twenty-first floor. Sergio waited for the woman to exit, but she stood to the side with her finger on the “door open” button—and her backside pressed to the elevator wall and her gaze fixed and firm. Cheeks burning, Sergio slinked toward the lobby.
As he passed her, she huffed. “Go get ‘em, champ.”
The drab gray décor of the twenty-first floor of the Walker building shouted “government issue” at every turn. The lobby was straight out of World War II surplus, complete with linoleum floors and two featureless tan couches that were furniture in name only. A row of heavy, wood-framed blue chairs lined the other wall, beneath an array of government posters instructing anyone in the lobby of their workplace rights, workers compensation filing dates, and other things nobody ever read.
Sergio took out his phone and tapped the screen as he approached the reception desk. The gray-haired woman there ended a call and stared at him.
“Hi, I’m Sergio Martin. I’m here for a meeting with . . .” A tiny digital clock face spun on his phone screen, under the words, “no signal.”
“Miss Wilder.” The receptionist looked past him. “Your ten o’clock’s here.” Her phone rang again. She tapped the computer and greeted the caller with a flat tone.
“I’m sorry,” Sergio said. “I’m not getting much of a signal in here. My email . . .” He held his phone up, aiming it at the windows.
The receptionist pointed a finger at him, then slowly turned her hand to point down the hall. Sergio’s eyes followed.
The woman from the elevator stood in the hallway, her hands on her hips.
A knot formed in Sergio’s gut. “Terrific.”
“Let’s go, champ.” She waited for Sergio to reach her, then walked beside him. “End of the corridor, last office on the right. I’d lead the way, but if I walk in front of you, we might have a sexual harassment suit on our hands before we get there.”
His cheeks on fire, Sergio walked down the hallway in silence. I wasn’t looking at your butt! I wasn’t looking at anything. I was staring at the elevator panel, lost in thought, and you walked into my field of view, that’s all. As much as he wanted to explain, Sergio held his tongue, expecting an attempt at a verbal explanation wouldn’t fare well in the hallway.
Entering the office, the woman plopped her briefcase onto the large desk and stood by the door. Sergio moved next to the two small chairs in front of the desk; the woman shut the door and took the larger chair on the opposite side.
After she sat, he sat.
She leaned back, eyeing him as she propped her feet up on the corner of the big desk and folded her hands behind her head. “Okay, what are you in here for? Sexual harassment?”
“No.” Sergio sat upright. “I—wait, you haven’t even reviewed my case yet?”
“No. Why would I?”
He shrugged. “If you’re supposed to represent me, I just assumed—”
“Well.” The lawyer rocked forward, glaring at him. “I assumed I could ride twenty-one floors in an elevator without having someone stare at my butt the whole time, but I guess I was wrong.”
Sergio winced. “About that. There seems to be some misunderstanding.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I—”
“You weren’t looking at me?”
“No. I—”
“I guess my eyes were playing tricks on me, is that it? I’m too dumb to know what I saw?”
“Oh, for . . .” Sergio glanced around. “Look, a bunch of reporters tried to ambush me on the way in here, and I was thinking about that when I got in the elevator. I was staring at . . . I don’t know, the panel with the buttons for the floors on it, I guess, and you walked into my field of view.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Wait, so it’s my fault you were staring at me?”
“I wasn’t staring at you. And I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I—”
“Do powerful women scare you? Is that why we’re here?”
“Oh, for . . .” Sergio put his hand to his forehead. “Okay, I’d better get out of here before I’m suspended worse than I already am.” He stood up.
The lawyer rocked back in the chair, placing her hands behind her head again. “Relax, Detective Martin. I was testing you. I saw you out front with those reporters.”
“What?”
“Yeah. You may have won this round with the news hawks, but why were they even out there? Who knew about this meeting? If you ask me, that’s fishy. I think someone’s trying to sabotage you. Those reporters won’t be so unprepared the next time you see them, so keep your eyes open. And if you want to keep your job, you’re going to have to be a lot sharper in your hearing than what you’ve shown me in here, or opposing council will take you right down.”
Sergio stared at her, his jaw hanging open. The desk phone buzzed.
“Hold on.” She pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”
“Miss Wilder,” the r
eceptionist said over the speakerphone. “There’s a Mr. Morton calling for you.”
She pressed hold and looked at Sergio. “Do you want to get out of here? Get some lunch or a drink?”
He clutched his briefcase. “Uh, it’s, like, 10 a.m.”
“We’ll keep it to beer, then.” She pressed the intercom button again. “Tell Mr. Morton to leave a message.”
“Ma’am, he says he’s left several messages.”
She shook her head. “You’d think he’d take the hint, then.” She leaned into the intercom. “How about we tell Mr. Morton to come on over here and find that big, tall flagpole out front, and ram it up his—”
“Excuse me?”
The lawyer hung up and grabbed her keys. “Last chance, Detective.”
“Uh . . .” Sergio shifted on his feet. Everything within him said to say “no” and run out of there. But as offbeat as she was, Wilder was his department-provided lawyer. And she was right about the press. They’d be back.
And she was sharp enough to play me in the elevator—all the way up to right now.
Sergio nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Some food sounds good, actually.”
“Okay. And call me Abbie.” She stood up. “We’ll take my car. It’ll be faster.”
He wanted to ask, “Faster than what?” but he didn’t get the chance.
“Try not to stare at my butt on the way out.” Abbie chuckled.
He smiled, following his attorney out of the office.
Chapter 21
The server at Café Cubano sat Sergio and Abbie in a booth at the front of the restaurant, after a speedy ride in the attorney’s bright yellow Mazda MX-5. The dining room was practically empty; only one other table was occupied, due to the relatively early hour. An old-school place with a black and white tile floor and the same cook for fifty years, Café Cubano was a local favorite. By noon, the entire dining room would be packed with hungry office workers from the surrounding skyscrapers, dashing in for a sandwich on their lunch break.
As the server placed two large, plastic tumblers of ice water on the table, the attorney picked up a laminated menu. “Why’d you pick this place?”
“Oh, I love this place.” Sergio pushed his menu to the side, checking out the plastic Christmas tree decorated with gift certificates. “The food’s really good, and it’s kind of a cop bar—okay for us to hang out and talk shop without anyone getting nosy or worrying who might overhear.”
“A cop bar.” Abbie scanned the bill of fare. “I suppose that has its plusses.” She glanced toward the kitchen, taking a few sniffs. “It sure smells good. What do you like for lunch?”
“Cuban sandwich,” he said. “The roast pork is really good, too, but if I order that, it kinda feels like I’m cheating on my mother’s roast pork, you know? And a big pork lunch would—”
“That would put me to sleep.”
“—put me to . . . yeah, to sleep.”
She placed her napkin on her lap, smiling. “Gee, we’re already finishing each other’s sentences.” Her phone buzzed. Abbie checked the screen and sent it to voicemail, but the smile had disappeared.
The server approached their table. “Any questions, or have you two already decided?”
Sergio read her nametag. “Two Cuban sandwiches, please, Dolly.”
“Coming right up, Hon,” she said.
As Dolly left, Abbie leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “So, let’s get down to business, Detective. Why did you—”
“Wait,” Sergio said. “You did read my file, right?”
Abbie nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s a relief. Well, you messed with me a little bit back at the Walker building, so let me get to know who I’m really working with. Fair?”
“Sure.” She sat back in the booth, folding her hands in her lap. “Fire away, champ.”
“I think you’ve forever poisoned me from that name. Abbie—is that short for Abigail?”
Faking an exaggerated gasp, the lawyer put her hand to her mouth. “You must be a detective! But, no, actually. It’s short for Absinthe.”
“Absinthe?” Sergio cocked his head. “Like the drink?”
“Yep. My dad was a real creative type—just ask my sister, Rain. I think he was listening to the word Absinthe phonetically, and liked the sound.” She took a sip of her water. “My turn. Do you like being a cop? And don’t just say yes and that you always wanted to be a cop.”
“But I did always want to be a cop.”
“Okay, but do you like being a cop?”
Sergio took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s a heck of a question to ask a guy on suspension.”
“Well . . .” She leaned forward again, lowering her voice and giving him a crooked smile. “I’ll tell you why we always ask it if you promise to answer it.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“If you ask someone if they like their job,” Abbie said, “and they hesitate or they give a mediocre answer, they probably don’t like their job.” She held her hands out. “Even if they say yes right away, their face usually says they want to keep their job, not that they like their job.”
“And I didn’t answer right away when you asked just now.”
“Nope.”
“Well, I like my job,” Sergio said. “I love it. I enjoy almost everything about it.”
“Mm-hmm.” Folding her hands back in her lap, Abbie stared at them and bounced her thumbs together. “Well, then why did you become a cop?”
Sergio shifted on his seat. “I didn’t know this was a psych evaluation, too.”
“You’re the one who put a car in the bay when you were still on sick leave.” She stopped the thumb bouncing, looking up at Sergio. “I’d say that’s worth a question or two. Give.”
He slouched in the booth, twisting the corner of the cocktail napkin under his water glass. “My dad’s younger brother was real close to me when we were growing up. He died in a car wreck—he drove through a stop sign and got broadsided. They think he was reading a text.”
Abbie took a pen and a small notepad from her purse. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I was in high school when it happened.” He rolled the corner of the paper napkin back and forth, his gaze staying on it but his thoughts far away. “Stevie and I always played together as kids, because they lived close by. He was my uncle, but Dad came from a big family, and Stevie wasn’t much older than me. We acted more like cousins. It was cool to be able to hang out with someone a little older, you know? He took me under his wing.”
Sergio sat up. “So, he meets this girl, they get married, he has a kid . . . One day, he drove to Sarasota for a business meeting and doesn’t come home, doesn’t call. We went over to his house, to kinda help the family not worry—but there’s nothing you can really do. Everybody’s all nervous, wondering what happened. They’re calling hospitals. My aunt—Stevie’s wife—found out she was pregnant again, too, so my mom was real concerned about her losing the baby.” He unrolled the edge of the cocktail napkin, his voice falling to a whisper. “I was there when the police came. It was around ten at night, because the early news had just come on, and we were watching to see if there had been a big car wreck or something. I was sitting on the living room floor with my cousin—Stevie’s little daughter—playing Barbies with her to keep her distracted from what all the adults were whispering about.” He looked at Abbie and smiled. “Gina was all excited about getting a baby brother or sister, you know? But even she knew something was wrong.” He sighed. “Anyway, when the police officers came to the door, they were cops we knew from the neighborhood. One lived a few blocks away from us. My dad told me to take my cousin to her room.” Sergio shook his head slowly. “The way he said it, his voice was very plain, very soft. But he choked a little on the words, and his face was . . . My dad was a big guy. A hard guy, who worked with his hands. He didn’t mist up very often, but his voice was just so sad. And . . . I knew.” He raised his eyes to Abbie’s. “From the way the
officers were acting, and my dad, I knew Stevie was gone. So, I took my little cousin into her bedroom and shut the door so she wouldn’t have to hear about it the wrong way.”
He stared at his water glass. At the front of the quiet restaurant, the hostess placed napkins and silverware on the empty tables.
“That’s about when I decided to join the police force. As kids, everybody played cops and robbers on our bikes, and I watched all the cop TV shows and everything, but when I was sitting on my little cousin’s bed, watching her cry with her mother and my parents because her dad wasn’t coming home ever again, I wanted to stop bad things from happening to people. I told that to my dad, and he said if that was in my heart, then becoming a cop was probably the best way to achieve it. The officer who came to Stevie’s house that night, he’d stop by a few times a week after that just to check on them. Him, or he and his wife, would make sure they were getting along okay. He did that for months. I think it helped my aunt a lot.”
Abbie sat, watching his eyes, saying nothing. The hostess walked past them and disappeared into the kitchen.
Lifting her pen, the lawyer scribbled a few notes on her tiny pad. “You joined the force right after that?”
“Dad made me go to college first. I applied to Tampa PD the day after graduation.”
Her phone buzzed again. This time when she looked at the screen, she frowned. “I’m very sorry, Detective. I have to take this. Please, excuse me.” She stood up and pressed the phone to her ear, her heels clicking and clacking as she crossed the black and white tile floor, making her way toward the ladies’ room.
“Here are your sandwiches.” The server set down a plate in front of Sergio and one where Abbie had been sitting. “Do you need anything else right now, hon?”
Sergio smiled. “No, thanks, Dolly.”
“Well, you let me know if you do. I’ll get you a refill on these drinks.” She picked up the plastic tumblers and walked to the kitchen.
Two large men entered the restaurant and stood near the cash register. They scanned the tables and spoke to each other in low tones, constantly glancing back toward the front door.
One wore a leather coat and a leather, fedora-style hat with a short brim. The hair that showed on the back of his head was trimmed close like a crew cut, and he had pockmarks on his face. He appeared to be around fifty years old, maybe older, but retaining a physique that said he still worked out—a lot. The other man was just as big and just as old, sporting a stylish head of thick, graying hair, and clenching a toothpick in his teeth. He held his hands in front of him, rubbing his thick fingers and watching the door.