Just to make life even spicier, my Latina ex-everything-except-wife was a fellow Dallas cop. She worked out of the Northeast Division, and I out of Central. Complications had been a hallmark of our relationship since the day we met. We had two things in common, our dual love for little Sam, and how in our own way we’d both grown to love our jobs—at least until my recent run-in with my redneck colleague, so-called decorated Corporal Ernie Sims.
I nodded. “Ah. I’m glad you took the initiative of turning our five-year-old into a teen. Today, anyway.”
Eva opened her mouth to retort, but she held back, no doubt cutting me some slack, considering what I’d been through.
Instead, she said, “I heard on the radio what was going on, and I texted you. Obviously, you didn’t get it.”
I looked away and recalled feeling my phone vibrate in the middle of the melee. Must have been Eva. Dammit! Why couldn’t I have glanced at my phone?
I took out said phone and thumbed through a multitude of text messages and Facebook posts, all who had seen my ugly mug on the evening news and were thankful Samantha was alive and okay. I thumbed through several posts of still images, including one where I was holding Samantha with the burning carnage behind me. I stopped and chuckled at one note from a long-time friend.
“What’s that one say?” Eva asked.
“You know Justin. He’s jaded. That little prick.” I meant that in the most caring way. “He said: Glad to see Booker finally showing a little emotion. Maybe he is human after all. Then again, can Superman be human?”
Eva smacked the table and let out a loud hoot. She loved seeing me eat a piece of humble pie, even if she knew it was a joke.
I smiled and shook my head, then opened a news app. Headlines flashed across the screen: Murder and Mayhem. Another said. Aryan Nation Denies Association with Bloodbath.
“Thirteen kids and two adults died,” I said.
Eva’s slinky fingers touched the back of my hand, and I embraced her hand and looked toward her brown eyes.
“It could have been Samantha.” A lump invaded the back of my throat.
“But it wasn’t. Thank God. But those parents, those families. I can’t imagine what they’re experiencing right now.” She looked away and then got up and walked to the counter. I heard the clink of her glass against the bottle. “Want another?” she asked without looking my way.
Within seconds, I was right behind her, my body pressed against hers. I took in a tropical smell, everything Eva. I wanted her. I needed to rid my mind of all the horrific images polluting my mind. I needed to feel human. I needed to feel love. She turned and rested her hands on my chest. Our lips met, and we held the kiss for ten seconds. My hands gripped her hips, and our heads dipped in perfect rhythm. I took a breath, opened my eyes, and saw a single tear escape the corner of her eye.
I stepped back, realizing I shouldn’t put Eva through another roller coaster for my own selfish reason.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone there.”
She nodded and curled a layer of locks around her ear. “Join me?” she asked, holding up my glass.
“I’ll pass.”
I drove home and took a cold shower instead.
5
He slurped another heaping bite of Fruit Loops and kept his gaze on the flashing screen.
“Once again, our top story today comes from Dallas. A horrific tragedy at a Boys & Girls Club, where a bomb exploded on a bus. As a warning, for any kids who may be watching, some of these images are disturbing and should be supervised by adults,” the talking head said.
“Ha!” the man said to no one in his six-hundred-square-foot apartment, and then shoveled in another bite before he’d completely swallowed the previous one. He savored the sweet, fruity taste, a reward for breaking his routine. But the ultimate reward was playing out before him on the TV screen.
“Pure pandemonium out here today,” a haggard reporter shouted over gas-powered generators, twisting his body to observe the bustling crime scene that was lit up like a stage at almost midnight. “Thirteen kids ranging in age from four to fourteen left home today, went to school, and then went to one of the safest places in the city, a place to play, grow, and learn. Those thirteen kids never made it back home. They were brutally murdered, devoured by an explosive device. And because of a gutless bigot carrying some kind of political torch, their families are left with a grief so dark and agonizing that their lives surely will never be the same.”
The reporter glared at the concrete and put his hand to his mouth, apparently getting choked up by his own description of what had taken place.
“Well done, Mr. Reporter. You’re probably so torn up, you’ll get off the air and go grab a couple of beers with your press buddies. You don’t care about those colored kids any more than…well, than I do. At least I have a good excuse. You have no point to your existence.”
The man realized his pulse was racing as his back arched on the edge of his discolored sofa. He took in three deep breaths, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. The man adjusted his round, metal-rimmed glasses and glanced back down at the bowl. A rainbow of distinct colors had now disintegrated into nothing more than a stained moat. His stomach grew tight. Disgusted at his own weakness, he vowed to not be drawn into an emotional reaction with every completed task.
He closed his eyes, focused on the rhythmic thumping of his own heartbeat, gradually silencing his conscious mind. He took in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds then forced out air, releasing a bit of anxiety with it. He repeated the routine ten times, then imagined himself in an elevator, watching the lights blink as the weightless floor dropped beneath him. Coming to a peaceful, easy stop at the tenth level, he heard a bing, and the doors opened. A warm light cradled his body, almost like a baby nestled against his mother’s bosom.
Slowly returning to the conscious world, he allowed himself to reflect about his mission. A knowing calm settled his mind, simplified his thoughts. Thin lips drew a straight line, anticipation of control and dominance uncorking a steady flow of adrenaline. Goose bumps tingled off his forearms.
The world, and all of its actors, would invariably figure out a way to self-destruct. But as a master puppeteer, it was his destiny to dictate when and how society would disintegrate.
6
He looked like a gyrating walrus who’d just finished a marathon binge-eating session. A frog-like belch escaped KY’s sun-drenched face, and moments later, an invisible fog of stench invaded my personal space. I almost cried for the second time in two days. Instead, I held my breath, leaned back, and swatted the foul air.
He never raised his eyes from his computer screen.
Damn, he has bushy eyebrows.
I forced out a breath, an audible signal that the daylong evaluation process—countless questions about the incident and every other aspect of my life—had evaporated all but a drop or two of my patience tank. I leaned on my knees and pinched the ends of my fingers to keep the blood flowing. A sting emanated at my elbow, reminding me of the sickening scene at the Boys & Girls Club twenty-four hours earlier, the anguished shrieks of onlookers who had just watched thirteen kids and two adults get blown to bits. A haze of smoke screened a million memories—articles of clothing, notebooks, splintered pieces of metal and vinyl, rubber and plastic, even pieces of human, chopped up like a diced onion.
And my Samantha could have been sprayed across the parking lot just like the fifteen other people. A thunderous pain engulfed my chest plate, and I could feel a burning sensation crawling up my esophagus into the back of my throat. I popped my chest twice, hoping the oddly placed ache would dissipate and the images seared in my brain would retreat into a box I’d never find.
Dropping my head, I noticed a tiny, brown spider scurrying across gray tweed carpet squares. It paused in between my chair and KY’s desk, as if it sensed my presence, pondering if I’d lift my boot and snuff out another life.
“You finally thinking through the consequences of your actions?” KY�
�s gravelly voice cut through stagnant air.
Attempting to swallow, it felt like gritty sand lined my throat. My mouth was parched, my last drink coming almost nine hours earlier, a god-awful cup of burned coffee. I released two dry coughs and eyed the man who held my career in his hands.
“You and your minions have asked me the same questions over and over again, a hundred different ways. I can’t change my answer now,” I said, energy fading. “I won’t change my answer. It’s the goddamn truth.”
KY snickered and shook his head. “You’re really going to do this?”
“Consider it done.”
“You’re one defiant son of a bitch,” he said, shuffling two file folders from one corner of his desk to the other. “Not sure that will get you anywhere in life, though. It could have been a lot different. Your arrow was pointed up. Detective was in your future. Did you hear me? Detective. Men work twenty-five years around this place and never sniff that side of the building. You’ve been here, what, seven years? . . . and it’s within reach.”
The ass wipe was still trying to convince me to change my story about that night, to somehow twist the truth into allowing an assault to be pushed under a very shady rug, which happened to be about as thin as KY’s lips.
“Don’t tell me, it’s true?” A rigid posture and hands gripping the armrests, my voice was full of deadpanned anticipation—a hint of sarcasm he’d yet to detect.
The smirk was gone, and the folders stopped shuffling. All five neurons in his bigoted brain were bouncing off each other, but nothing was firing. “What are you talking about?”
Sounds like there might be a few more skeletons in the sergeant’s closet of secrets.
“Well…” I looked away, stringing this along as best I could. What did I have to lose?
“Is there something you know?” He blinked twice. “Something you think you know?”
“I guess it wasn’t rumor.”
“What? Tell me, Booker. Now.”
Forceful prick.
“You and Sims are, uh, you know…playing baseball. You the pitcher or catcher?”
KY nearly spit up, a red screen masking his white face in just seconds, two Frankensteinian purple veins snaking down either temple.
“I saw you checking out Sims’ ass the other day during a pre-shift meeting. He’s got to be the catcher.”
KY’s red-rimmed eyes didn’t leave mine as he jerked open a water bottle and chugged it dry. It made me even more thirsty. I was ready for the game to end, to get the hell out of his office and his life.
“Don’t need to say a word. Just give me my marching papers,” I said.
Swiping his sleeve across his mouth, he hurled a string of cuss words that would have put my Little League football coach to shame—and that was saying something. The last five coincided with his fist pounding the desk.
“You done with your little hissy fit?”
He just stared at me. Whatever.
“I was going to give you a second opportunity.”
Was he serious? My insides twisted like a pretzel.
“Not a fuckin’ chance anymore.” He reached over, grabbed a folder, and tossed it in the trashcan next to his desk. Then he tapped his keyboard with the grace of a T-rex, and paper spit out of the printer to his right.
Five minutes later, I walked out of the office, minus my badge, firearm, and a bit of pride.
7
“Need any help behind the bar?” The last thing I wanted to do was paint a fake smile on my face, serving up Cosmos and vodka martinis just to solicit a two-dollar tip. But after driving around the last two hours, a plume of smoke trailing my rusty Impala, I’d realized I didn’t know where to take my life.
“Four weeks paid leave?” Knowing me almost as well as I knew myself, Justin, an old running buddy since before we shared the same backfield for James Madison High School in southeast Dallas, had ignored my question, realizing it was rhetorical, and responded with one of his own.
He rested one hand on the bar’s wooden frame, the other arm draped over a curved brass railing.
“Four.” A frustrated tone carried the word as I held up the same number of fingers. My shoulders slumped a bit, and I wondered if I’d just talked myself out of my job, the only career I’d truly envisioned, at least as a pseudo-responsible adult. KY had dangled the detective carrot, but I still couldn’t tell if he did it just to taunt me.
I sipped my drink, Sprite on ice. The hard stuff would eventually flow.
“They kept you there all day?”
Four or five inches shorter than me and no more than a hundred seventy pounds, Justin’s dirty-blond hair parted in the middle, thinning some on the top now, but long enough in the back to pull into a ponytail.
“Tried to break me like I was third in command for the mafia.” I shook my head. “KY must have pictures on a few folks in Internal Affairs.”
“With other women…or each other?”
I let out a hearty laugh. He circled the bar and we smacked hands, just like every other time over the last two decades of knowing each other. I watched him check on a couple sitting at a small round table, a fake candle splitting the pair, illuminating a scarred, white brick wall full of motifs and pictures of everyone Justin had wrangled into visiting The Jewel, his pride and joy for the last ten years. Just a bit after seven on a Wednesday night, the scene was beginning to pick up a bit with a few college kids starting their weekend party on hump day. A handful of suits sat in the lounge full of leather chairs, ties loosened, legs crossed, and beers attached to hands. And that one couple huddled close over the tiny table, one nodding and the other smiling. Their relationship arrow appeared to be pointing up. But what the hell did I know.
A quick image of Eva from the previous night flashed through my thoughts, her strawberry scent filling my senses, hands resting on her Latin hips, our heat and passion so easily ignited by the slightest of signals. Yet, our relationship was complicated. I’d call it a push-pull affair. When she pulled, I generally pushed her away. And the same for the other direction.
Occasionally over the years even after I’d chickened out of the marriage, when the stars were aligned and cosmic gods coexisted harmoniously, we’d danced in the sheets like wild animals. At times, I pondered if we were actually in love. Then, real life would come knocking—in the form of a cute little girl—and we’d inevitably either find ourselves arguing or Eva would unleash her resentment claws. All it did was make it more difficult for me to see Samantha, which is why last night I’d somehow managed to peel myself away from Eva’s magnetic pheromones.
I needed a real date, a woman with no baggage, at least none ready to be dropped at my feet. But first, I needed a real job. In four weeks, the Dallas Police Department would be listed as my former employer. It might as well have been etched on my police career gravestone.
“Time for the hard stuff.” I wiggled my glass toward Justin. He held up a finger as he gabbed like a suburban soccer mom to a couple of the suits. “Alisa, can you take over behind the bar?” He waved a hand toward his longest-running employee, a thirty-something lady, nice enough, even ditzy at times, and, yes, blond—Texas style.
“Whaddya having, Booker?” I noticed crow’s feet forming on either side of her eyes, but she was still quite the looker, always had been, ever since our hook-up in Austin over a decade earlier. But that remained our dirty little secret.
I crunched ice. “Started off with just a Sprite, but it’s time to turn it up a notch.”
“Jack and Coke?” she asked.
The one TV monitor to the left of the mirrored backdrop got my attention. My police chief—actually soon-to-be-former police chief—Scott Ligon, adorned in full blues and surrounded by his leadership team, was giving a statement. Wait…Sergeant Kenny Young and his weasel-like face peered just over Ligon’s shoulder. I could feel my muscles tense, heat radiating through my eyes.
“Hey, Alisa, turn that up.”
She picked up the remote and punch
ed the volume button. I still couldn’t hear much, but I read the monitor: DPD Police Chief shares content from call.
Channel 8, the local TV station carrying the news conference, displayed the verbiage from the lunatic who called in the bomb warning:
We fight to safeguard the existence of our race, the purity of our blood and the sustenance of our children. Heil Hitler.
I’d heard KY’s boyish assistant say the words out loud, but to read them on the screen reminded me this wasn’t just a crime that had taken place. It was an act of pure terror.
Suddenly the screen blinked, and a nameless college football game appeared. Normally, I’d be stoked. I looked left and gave Justin the eye.
“Dude, this isn’t your living room. I’ve got a business to run. I don’t want to be scaring anyone.”
He had a point. Alisa slid my drink across the bar, a bit of it sloshing over the top. I reached in my back pocket, pulled out a few bills.
“No need, Booker. This one’s on the house. I may not have any kids, but I’ve got a niece and nephew. What you experienced, I can’t imagine.” Alisa touched her expansive chest and gave me an assuring half-smile.
I held up my drink. “Thank you, Alisa.” She poured herself a shot of whiskey, glanced over at Justin who’d been drawn into another surface-level conversation, and clinked my glass.
“To the good life,” I said.
“The good life.”
She downed the shot, and I took a strong gulp of my drink.
“Did I hear someone say good wife?” Justin appeared stage left.
Alisa held out an arm, an explanation pressing against her lips.
“No big deal. I know I’ve been acting more like a business owner than just a friend who owns a bar lately, but yesterday changed everything. Which is why I’m really working the room now. I need people to know this is the place to let go, forget about the hell outside of the walls, even if a terrorist struck just a couple of miles from this bar.”
BOOKER Box Set #1 (Books 1-3: A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense) Page 3