by Frank Zafiro
“Well, Officer Burt, do you think that Detective Falkner would do me the courtesy of issuing the ticket himself? Since he’s behind all of this, I mean.”
Burke’s cheeks reddened slightly when I mispronounced his name. A flicker of surprise flared in his eyes at Falkner’s name, but he did his best to hide it.
“It’s Burke, sir. Not Burt.”
“Like I give a fuck.”
His cheeks blossomed a deeper red. He pushed the ticket further toward me. “Your copy, sir.”
I made no move to accept the infraction. “How about you stuff that up your ass?” I asked.
Burke’s jaw tightened.
“Better yet,” I said, “Why don’t you stuff it up Falkner’s ass instead? I mean, after you move your nose out of the way.”
Burke clenched his jaw. “You should watch your mouth,” he said in a low voice.
He was right, of course. And if he decided to yank me out of the driver’s seat, there was no getting around the fact that I had a concealed weapon tucked in my waistband. That was at least a year in prison. But I pressed on anyway.
“You mean I should refrain from exercising my First Amendment rights?”
“I mean you shouldn’t engage in disorderly conduct,” Burke growled. “Or threaten to assault a law enforcement officer.”
I snorted. “Good luck making that stick.” I shook my head. “Unless you’re going to do some creative report writing.”
Burke shrugged. “From what I hear, you’re the one with the questionable police ethics.”
I smiled slowly at him. “Thank you.”
Burke gave me a questioning look. I didn’t help him, but let him figure it out for himself. After a few moments, realization sunk into his features. Then he tried to cover.
“For what?”
“For confirming why you made this chicken shit stop.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do.”
“No, I –”
“Yeah, you do. So do me a favor and tell Falkner not to be such a little bitch. If he wants to talk to me, call. Otherwise, leave me the fuck alone. Or I’ll be down at Internal Affairs filing harassment complaints by the bushel.”
Burke didn’t seem to know what to say. He hesitated, opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut. Finally, he muttered, “Whatever, asshole,” and flicked the ticket into my open window. The slip of paper fluttered to my lap. Burke spun on his heel and stalked back to his car, giving me a couple of over-the-shoulder glances on the way.
I watched him get in the car. He backed up, then chirped the tires into a U-turn and headed the other way. A moment later, his overhead lights turned off.
The citation on my lap was the size of a restaurant receipt. I picked it up and gave it a quick look. All the information I expected was there, just like the old tickets I used to scratch out when I was on the job. The fine was steep, but I guess that’s the idea.
I put it in the glove box, dropped the car into gear and started for home.
The ticket didn’t bother me. I’d contest it and mark the subpoena box for Burke to attend. Odds were he wouldn’t show and the judge would dismiss. If he did show, I was pretty sure I could trip him during testimony. I had another cell phone at the house that I rarely used and never for business. A copy of that bill showing no record of a call at the time of this stop ought to be enough to make Burke look like he was full of shit.
No, what bothered me was Falkner.
He knew about Matt, which worried me. How did he know that? And did he know about Brent, too?
I cruised up Alberta Street, mentally walking through all of the people I’d done business with over the past year. All of them were solid professionals. Under-the-radar types. No dopers. They didn’t have long rap sheets, didn’t break into occupied dwellings, didn’t carry weapons, and didn’t do any of the other things that enhance a burglary charge or move it up the ladder in a prosecutor’s eyes.
Still, could one of them have gotten popped and decided to tell Falkner stories in order to get off?
I didn’t think so. There just wasn’t enough teeth in property crimes laws to make it worth it. At most, someone might do a few months for possession of stolen property, if the case was actually filed, and if there was a guilty verdict. Property crimes were low on the totem pole, unless someone was caught while doing a burglary. That might get some attention, or at least more than mere possession of stolen property. But even burglaries were prioritized.
No, that wasn’t it.
What about Ozzy and Randall, then? They were definitely higher profile, and into things that not only attracted attention from property crimes detectives, but the drug cops, too. And since the drug business can be violent, I threw in the possibility of assault cases, too. Cops from multiple units might have a solid case against either one of those guys. Drag the guy in, question him, shake him up a little, then throw an escape route to him.
Who can you give me that’s bigger than you?
I thought about that.
I thought about that hard.
I was still thinking about it when I pulled in front of my house and shut off the engine.
Ozzy had to be used to police attention. Randall, too. Hardened to the tactics. So unless one of them was grabbed up while holding a whole lot of dope, the odds of either rolling seemed small to me. Even holding dope, my guess was that either one would lawyer up rather than work with the cops. The cops were the enemy, and if you ever crossed that line, there was no going back, especially in the drug world.
So probably not Ozzy or Randall.
Then why was Falkner up my ass again, after all these years? And with what leverage? What evidence?
I took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. The answer would come soon enough. Either he’d make a move if he had something, or fade away again if he didn’t. All I could do was increase my caution level, and watch for him.
I thought about my meet with Ozzy later.
Shit.
Cautious?
Easier said than done.
I needed to get my cash back and just taper back for a little while. Maybe take a road trip to Tri-Cities or Yakima and do a little business there instead. Let things cool off in Spokane. If Falkner didn’t have enough to charge me, his bosses would make him move on to the next big thing. The department only investigated a third of the reported felony property crimes with solvability factors. A detective couldn’t linger on a pet project without eventually showing results.
I could afford to wait.
After I handle the Ozzy situation, that is.
I slid the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car. A nice breeze cooled me off as I strolled up the walkway to my front door. I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and almost dropped my keys in surprise.
In my living room, perched on my couch, sat Helen Falkner.
NINE
For an instant, I just stared. All the air left the room. All the sound, gone. A frozen moment of disbelief.
Then she smiled, and rose from the couch.
“It’s been a long time.” She stepped toward me.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out of my dry throat.
I swallowed, and tried again.
“Helen—”
Then her arms wrapped around me in a soft, fierce hug. My own arms came up involuntarily, and I drew her close. Her scent washed over me. Clean. Dirty. Perfect.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered in my ear.
I swallowed again.
“I’ve missed you, too,” I finally managed, the words spilling out automatically.
&nb
sp; We stood there for a long minute, cleaving to each other like we’d drown if either one of us let go. Then slowly, a little bit of the spell faded.
I took her by the upper arms and moved her slightly away from me. This put our faces only a few inches apart.
She wet her lip with her tongue and stared at me intently. “Yes?”
Her lipstick was the same shade of coral that I remembered. I knew it would taste the same, too. I pushed past the ache to kiss her, past that husky whisper. I looked for reason. For anger, and hurt.
It was harder to find than I would have thought.
“How did you get in?” I finally managed.
“Your spare key was under the third potted plant on the left,” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
She smiled slightly. “Jake, I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
Her smile faltered. “You’re still mad at me.”
I let go of her arms and turned away. At the counter, I emptied out my pockets slowly and methodically. Then I walked around the counter, slid open the kitchen drawer and put my gun inside. I could sense her standing behind me, waiting. I drew in a deep breath and let out a measured exhale.
When I looked up, she was still gazing at me like she always had, with that crazy, half-innocent, half-smoldering expression, full of promise.
Jesus, she was intoxicating.
“You want something to drink?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I just want to talk, Jake.”
“Talk, huh?” I went to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of beer, and twisted off the cap. “Little late for that, don’t you think?”
Helen smiled again. “I’d like to think it’s never too late for something worthwhile.”
I took a pull from the bottle, and tossed the cap on the counter. The daze she threw me into when I walked through the door was clearing.
A little.
I took another drink. Swallowed. Then I said, “I’d like to think a career in major league baseball is still in the cards for me.”
This time, Helen’s smile held strong. “Some things never change. You still joke to hide your feelings.”
“And what feelings are those?”
“Oh, come on, Jake. It’s obvious. You still love me.”
I laughed, but it was a dry, stale sound. “After what you pulled? I don’t think so.”
“But that’s the proof,” she said. “That’s how I know.”
“You don’t know shit.”
She stepped slowly toward me. “I do know.”
Another step.
I didn’t say anything, just took another drink of beer, and shook my head.
She nodded in reply. “It’s true.”
Another step.
“I know I treated you poorly, Jake. I should have never left without saying goodbye. I should have told you I was married before we got together. I should have told you who my husband was.”
I held the cold, wet bottle in my hand.
Stared at her.
She took another step. “The way I treated you was wrong. And most people, if they came through their front door to find me here after all we’ve been through, their first reaction would be to throw me out. To yell and scream. Some men in this world might even hit. But not you.”
“Why not me?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure if I was asking her or asking myself.
“It’s like I told you. Because you still love me.”
Another step toward me.
“I should have done things differently,” she said quietly. “I know that now. But you can’t blame me for us, Jake. You can’t blame me for what we had. You can only blame me for running away from it.”
I wanted to say that I could blame her for whatever I wanted, but the words stuck in my throat.
Then she was around the counter and standing in front of me again. Warmth radiated off her. Her light brown eyes sliced into me.
“This is us,” she whispered. “I know you can still feel it.”
“This is insane,” I croaked.
“This is life.”
Aw, Christ.
She wet her lips and leaned toward me.
I should have resisted. I should have thrown her out on her perfect ass the moment I saw her sitting on my couch.
But life is full of should have’s, isn’t it?
Afterward, we lay in my bed atop the blankets, silent. Her hip pressed into mine. Her head nestled under my chin. My nostrils were full of the musky scent of her skin and hair.
Christ, was I really lying here with her?
I opened my eyes and looked up at my ceiling in the dim light of my bedroom. The landscape of texture and cracks reminded me of the moon. For a while, I imagined hiking through the ravines and over the hills of that alien topography. It was easier than what was here on Earth.
Her fingers lightly traced a slow circle on my stomach. Goosebumps rose under her nails. Her breath caressed my chest.
I stopped thinking about the moon.
“Where did you go?” I asked, breaking the silence of the room.
“East,” she said.
“Where to?”
“I ended up in Minneapolis for a while.”
I swallowed thickly, and asked, “With who?”
“I went with the person who, in all the world, I most needed to get to know.” She shifted, turning and putting her chin on my chest and looking up at me.
“Who?” I repeated.
“Me, Jake. I had to get to know me.”
I frowned. “So you took off…what, to find yourself?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s why the divorce, too?”
She returned my frown. “One thing I figured out, baby. I didn’t know who I was, but I was definitely not Mrs. Kyle Falkner.”
Not Mrs. Jacob Stankovic, either.
She stared at me a while, then shrugged. “I worked a couple of different jobs while I was in Minneapolis. And I took some classes.”
“Did you find yourself?”
She shrugged. “I think what I figured out is that we all know who we are. At our core, we know. A lot of the time, when people are trying to ‘find’ themselves, they’re really just running away from what they already know.”
“So who are you?”
“A greedy bitch.”
“Is that what you found in Minneapolis, or is that what you were running from?”
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Both, I think.” Then she smiled. “But it took working on my own and taking some classes to see it.”
“You could have done all that here.”
“No, I couldn’t. Not with the great master detective lurking around every shadow during the divorce. And not…not with you here, either.”
“Why not?”
“God, Jake. I have to spell it out for you?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but she shut me up with her own mouth, and I was lost again.
We dozed for a while after the second time. I dreamt something that was both comforting and dangerous, but when I woke up, it was gone almost immediately.
Helen was fast asleep beside me. I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes, amazed at how easily this happened. She’d been gone for years, and after that moment of initial shock, everything seemed normal. As if she’d never left. And yet magical, at the same time.
Christ, this woman was infuriating.
I let out a long
breath. This was how it always felt with her.
And I liked it.
I glanced over at the clock.
The crimson numbers read 7:09 .
I blinked.
Ozzy.
“Shit!” I said, clambering out of bed and reach for my jeans.
Helen startled awake. “What is it? Is someone here?”
I pulled on my jeans and started looking for my boots.
“Jake, what is it?”
“Nothing. I’m late for something, that’s all.”
“Late for what?”
One boot was in a pile with my shirt. I grabbed it. “Nothing.”
“Jake, I can hear the stress in your voice. Are you okay?”
I found the other boot halfway under the bed. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on both boots. “I am fine,” I said. “I’m just late.”
She hesitated. Then she said, “I’m not trying to pry. You just scared me, is all.”
“Sorry.” I whipped through tying my boots. Then I stood, pulling on my shirt. “It’s something important.”
“Oh.” Crestfallen, like a little baby bird.
I paused. “Look, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” Same voice.
I leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I didn’t.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “But come back soon, okay? I still need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
She just shook her head. “After your important thing. I want your complete attention.”
I glanced at the clock. 7:10 now. Then I looked at her again, sitting up in my bed. Her hair tumbling down the front of her shoulders. Not long enough to cover her perfect breasts. Her eyes looking at me like I was it, man. I was the only person in the world. No one else mattered.
Christ, how did I ever shake this woman in the first place?
“I’ll come right back,” I promised. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t.”
I tore myself away, grabbed my keys, and hurried to my car.
TEN