“Nah. A date with Peter the prostitute. Sounds like a plan. Be sure to bring flowers.”
“I was thinking condoms. But, your idea sounds more romantic.”
“Romance with the male prostitute, now?”
“It’s a little judgmental to assume they don’t like romance, Luis.”
“Is he jealous of the boyfriend?”
“He is the boyfriend.” I paused. “Maybe.”
“I’m going to change the subject now,” Luis said slowly. His careful glance at my hand told me that I was not imagining the uneasiness in his voice.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, echoing his earlier statement. The coffee cup shook in my unsteady fingers.
Luckily, we pulled up to Rhonda’s ranch style house a minute later, saving us from coming up with a pretense of conversation. The theme of the day was prostitutes.
We Tested Negative For Hepatitis
If I were casting a commercial on the dangers of methamphetamine use, Rhonda Pendergrass would star in it.
Before meth destroyed her teeth, skin and figure, Rhonda had been a willowy blonde with a come-hither smile; she used to flash it at me as if it could dazzle me enough to keep from arresting her. These days she was still blond, but her hair was greasy. I counted four teeth in various stages of decay, and the dull green of her eyes reminded me of rancid pond water. Her body, encased in a pair of too-tight shorts and tube top, made me worry about bones popping through her scab-smattered skin. She also had five mixed-age children ranging from two-to-nine years old, all of them staring through me with vacant eyes. Additionally unsettling was recalling from her rap sheet that she was only twenty-three.
Since entering her house my main objective had been to leave it, and not just because of the stench of unwashed flesh; I was calling social services the instant we left.
“He ain’t here. I don’t know where he is,” Rhonda stated when Luis asked about Gaines. “He don’t come round ‘til beginning of the month, when my check come in.” Her welfare check. The one she most likely used to buy more meth instead of feeding those kids.
We stood by the front door, at the far end of a brown carpeted living room. The kids sat or crawled on the floor and the holey sofa a few feet away. The pair of preschool-aged twins watched a fuzzy television while a girl about five or six, with a bushel of awesomely bouncy curls, was de-stuffing the cushions. The oldest boy, tall and olive-skinned with angry brown eyes, grabbed a drug pipe from one of the toddlers, who appeared to be using the bulbous end to soothe his gums. I couldn’t help myself; I walked a few steps inside the house, took the pipe, and slipped it into my coat pocket before returning to my position by the door at Luis’s side. I tried to avoid eye-contact of any kind with the kids after that.
“Why don’t you go ahead and write down a list of his numbers and places he’d go,” Luis said, holding out his notepad and pencil to her. “Friends. Relatives. Anyone or anyplace you can think of.”
“I don’t know his friends.” She ignored the tablet, crossed her arms and scratched her elbow. I winced and unconsciously took a step back as a scab pulled off and blood bubbled out.
“Do you think going downtown might help you remember a couple of his friends?” I said. “While social services comes and gets your kids? Wonder how big your check would be with them in foster care.” My threat produced a more cooperative Rhonda. She grabbed the pad and commenced scribbling an info-dump on it.
Except for the TV, the whole house was silent while Rhonda scrawled on the notepad. Likewise, aside from a few small actions, the kids had barely moved since we had arrived. The ones not in diapers were wearing jeans with massive stains. The curly haired girl wore a threadbare dress over hers. I’d heard foster homes were bad, but they had to be better than what these kids were living in.
And then the whole situation, the kid’s emotionless eyes, the mother’s profession, the rank stench of tobacco—all of it made me think of Peter.
This was his future, looking forty at the age of twenty-three with nothing but a string of arrests and lovers who would either steal his money or pimp him out. The sad part was that I had been a cop long enough to know it was probably too late for him. One glimpse of Rhonda’s bony clavicle and I decided I was going to try and change the trajectory of Peter’s life.
“He visit them boys on the Platte,” Rhonda said, meaning the Platte River which ran through the city. Certain underpasses in the warehouse district near the river were notorious for hooker traffic of the ‘different’ kind: young boys, transvestites, transsexuals. The kind of people less wary about cops because cops were busy with the drug trade and the sea of hookers working on the main street. “He be there three, four times a night before Prisc. Now his boy in jail, he probably go back and shake down them boys for quick cash. They don’t make no fuss.” She handed the pad to Luis. I leaned over to see her writing. Every 'i' had a heart over it.
We left with a list of names and places to check out, most of which would probably not be worth our time.
The very second I stepped foot outside, I took a cleansing breath and pressed my cell phone to my ear. Luis said nothing as I contacted the Division of Child Welfare Services on our way across the street to the car. I took his silence as approval.
“I want to wait until they get here,” I told him once we were seated in the car.
Luis’s brown skin dotted with sweat within seconds. “Could be hours,” he said before switching on the car just long enough to roll the windows down and light a cigarette.
“If we had arrested her, we could have put the kids in custody immediately,” I pointed out, leaning toward my open window and waving the smoke out.
He wasn’t going to argue the point. We both knew arresting her would have been a mistake. If we had arrested her, she would have clammed up; she wouldn't have had anything left to lose.
“An hour,” Luis said and maneuvered out of his blazer. I did the same, throwing both our coats across the seat divider.
“Or until the social worker comes.”
“An hour.”
“Or—”
“One. Hour.”
Our wait turned out to be a lot less. But it wasn’t social services that got our asses moving.
Twenty-five minutes into becoming two slabs of broiled cop-steak, Prisc Alvarado parked in front of Rhonda’s house.
The fact that he was out on bail so soon set my hackles up. “Why do they even call it a justice system? They should call it a motel with mildly restrictive checkout requirements.”
“Lawyers,” Luis grunted in response.
Alvarado jogged up the path and rang her bell. There was an animated conversation in which Rhonda shook her head a few times, arms flailing with fingers clutching a cell phone. Two seconds later, she dialed a number and spoke into the phone. When she hung up, she said something to Alvarado, something that lit a fire under his ass. He rushed back to his car.
“Hour’s up,” Luis said, twisting the car on and making a U-turn to follow Alvarado’s black SUV.
“This is why you should always listen to my instincts,” I grinned. “If we’d left earlier…”
“Your instincts? As in the 4th Street Deli?”
“Hey, we both tested negative for hepatitis.”
“The ‘strange’ looking guys at the grocery store on Racine Street?”
“Stopped a robbery, didn’t we?”
“I got shot.”
“You got grazed,” I corrected. “Are you hormonal or something?”
“You ever say that to Angelica?”
“Do you see me still breathing? Yes? There’s your answer.” I didn’t want to think about Angelica. The guilt and recrimination wouldn’t help with the case. I needed to focus on work.
“Where’s he going?”
I twisted and grabbed my suit jacket, slipping it on and adjusting my holster. “Obviously somewhere import—” My words died as Alvarado swung his car left into the lot of the restaurant where Peter worked.
Oh, Shit. Oh, Shit. Have I Mentioned: Oh, Shit!?
The parking lot of Colorado’s Finest Diner was uncharacteristically empty for three in the afternoon. I expected it to be just as crowded as ever, but apparently Tuesdays were slow.
Alvarado had parked in a spot less than three strides from the front door, before disappearing inside the restaurant. Luis and I pulled in a minute later. The flashing “Career Ending Now” sign reappeared.
“This is Joe Dench’s place,” Luis murmured, turning the car off and settling back in his seat. “Where you waited for the no-show?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, watching the side door with trepidation. My stomach tightened and twisted.
Retired Detective Joe Dench was, from what I heard, a soft-hearted schmuck no one figured would last a year in Vice. And they were right. He lasted twenty-seven instead. Nearly four years ago he abruptly retired at age fifty-six, bought the diner and then not-so-quickly keeled over of a heart attack three years and eight months later. I only knew of him from Luis, who made comparisons of him and me. According to Vice legend, Joe Dench was a bleeding heart who had too soft a spot for street kids.
Luis had backed into the parking spot at the far corner of the lot, sandwiching us between a minivan on the left and an older model sedan on our right. I avoided glancing at the sedan, since it was exactly where I had parked last night. We could only see the cash register and first four booths from our vantage point, but the side door and alley were in full view. Directly across from the side door was a retainer wall, with dumpsters huddled against the far end. Peter stepped outside with two large black bundles, which he tossed in the trash containers.
“And that’s Joe’s kid,” Luis said with a nod, just as Alvarado followed Peter out and jammed a cell phone into Peter’s chest and spitting words at him.
“Huh?” I said intelligently.
“Foster kid. Took in him and two other kids, about four years ago. They all used to hustle under the bridge. Coincidence Alvarado’s here looking for Gaines?”
Lovely.
“Now that I think about it,” Luis continued, “there was talk that Dench and Alvarado had ‘history’.” He air quoted the last word.
I sat there and watched the heated exchange, deliberately not clenching my fists as Peter slapped away Alvarado’s pointing hand. They were toe-to-toe, giving the impression they were going to come to blows, when something far more disturbing happened.
Prisc’s palm roped around Peter’s neck and pulled him into a hard kiss.
“Now that is interesting,” Luis said. I tried not to do something ridiculous—like growl. I was only partially mollified when Peter pushed Alvarado away.
To feel the first stirrings of jealousy was shocking. Especially since I didn’t have any relationship with Peter. Besides, I had plenty of other problems without adding possessive feelings for a whore to the list. I had never been a jealous guy, which might explain why it had always been easy for me to cheat. Every one of my relationships had ended because of my philandering. Angelica was the first and, so far, the only person who had ever been able to curb that particular vice.
“I said no!” Peter shouted. He backed up to the retainer wall, tactically lighting a cigarette to maintain the distance between himself and Alvarado. It worked. Alvarado retreated to the opposite wall, still muttering something in a voice too low to carry our way. Good thing he did, too, because we would have had to intervene if things had gotten physical, which would have meant giving away our position and the fact that we were tailing Alvarado.
And it would have meant me giving away a lot more personally.
“Please tell me how the fuck that asshole got released this fast?” I was more terrified than angry, but my words were filled with so much heat that I hoped Luis couldn't hear the quiver in them.
“Even murderers get bail, let alone glorified pimps. Alvarado’s star is rising. Lots of cash for fancy lawyers.” Luis blew a long stream of smoke into the car after he lit up. I couldn’t summon the will to wave it away, so I settled for a cough full of fucking-stop-smoking meaning.
“Asshole lawyers,” I muttered, my imagination conjuring a very satisfying picture of shooting Alvarado in the face with my Taser. And then shooting his lawyer.
The conversation between Alvarado and Peter continued out of earshot, with Peter rebuffing several attempts at affection—a hand swatted away from Peter’s cheek, a hard shove when Alvarado moved in closer. Most of the ‘discussion’ was one-sided, with Peter answering nonverbally so often that I figured he could find work as a bobble head.
Luis pointed his cigarette at the pair. “Doesn’t seem to be about Gai—” He was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. “Martinez,” he answered. “When? … Where?” He started the car while I frowned at him. “Nah. Keep him there.” After clicking the phone off, he gave a relieved puff of air. “They got Gaines.”
“When? Where?” Today was apparently Repeat What Luis Says day.
“Walked into the station and demanded protection. Seems he suspects a hit is out on him.”
“Gee, can’t think why.” I leaned over and picked up an empty coffee cup from the floor and busied my fingers picking it to pieces.
“He’s in lockup,” Luis said and then added, “for protection,” with air quotes.
I tapped my index finger against the dash, something I was prone to do when puzzled. The gesture always helped me think. It annoyed Luis. I considered it payback for the premature death I was sure he was going to give me by way of secondhand smoke. “You know, yesterday, sitting there across from Alvarado and his five-hundred-dollar-an-hour mouthpiece, with this mountain of questions we needed to ask, all I wanted to do was ask him one question,” I stuck the crook of my elbow out the window. “Why the fuck would he keep a dumbass like Gaines on his payroll?” Luis initiated a smile which never quite materialized as his features contorted. With a concentrated squint, he lifted the cigarette to his lips and twisted to settle his eyes on Alvarado and Peter. I followed his stare, matching my partner’s frown. “Why Gaines?” I asked again.
Luis still appeared contemplative, but I wasn’t done. “You’re Alvarado. You have a lucrative business starting up. Bigger and more complicated with a lot more risk. Lots of cash rolling in. So naturally you pick a two-time loser like Gaines to help handle your entire network? A guy who’s waiting on a third strike? A guy so dumb he gets caught with smack because he forgets to turn his headlights on and turns snitch?”
“Questions like that remind me how you made detective,” Luis replied.
It took five seconds for me to comprehend the insult in that compliment. “Nice,” I grumbled. “Why are we still sitting here?” We needed to be talking to Gaines about this and with him in lockup we no longer needed to follow Alvarado. And besides, I did not want to witness the makeup between Peter and Asshole, if there was going to be one.
Luis shrugged, stared at me too long, and way too intensely. Then he made me choke on my own spit when he casually dropped his cigarette out the window and said, “I thought, since we’re here and all, maybe you wanted to ask Peter the whore for a date. And maybe you could get a few questions in about his boyfriend, too.”
Oh, shit.
I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Man. Yet
Silence followed. A long one. Not long enough for me to come up with an appropriate denial, but longer than necessary to seal any doubts Luis might have had at his assumptions.
“Did you pay that boy for sex?”
“It would seem that way,” I said with a lame attempt at humor which, unsurprisingly, fell flat when my voice came out tired and fatalistic.
“Meaning?”
“I didn’t have sex with him, or intend to.” I slanted my eyes, checking Luis’s reaction. That was the truth as I saw it. “Of any kind,” I added hastily at his unblinking stare. “But I did give him money for…contact.” Time moved too slowly, emphasizing my speed-of-light heart rate. At any moment I was destined to
either throw up or drown in my own sweat.
“I don't have time for any of your bullshit, Glass. Did you compromise yourself and this case?” Every minute, every second of him studying me was a second closer to the end of my life as I knew it. Bite the bullet and trust him, or lie and twist things to a better light? At this point I could have told Luis that I had suspicions about Peter. That I paid him for information. But I would never have done that to my partner.
Cop partnerships can be more intense than marriages. You ride along with this person, both of your guns weighing heavily on your belts, and you’re completely responsible for this other human being for eight, ten, twelve hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. And not the kind of responsibility that means love and affection in compensation. With your partner, the compensation is protection. You leave the station house knowing that their life is in your hands, and that yours is in theirs. There’s no honeymoon stage, no adjustment period. There’s you and your partner, committing to an absolute trust. You can lie in a marriage and still make it work, but if you lie in a partnership, you put your partner’s career, their life in jeopardy. And if they think you’re willing to abandon that trust, how could they have faith in you?
Then there was the gay. The second part of the Austin Glass is Fucked equation. I wanted to tell Luis the truth, and while I trusted him implicitly, I was terrified. Lie or truth? To me, both options could mean the end of my career, and of our partnership. So I just sat there, suffocating from the combined heat and silence. I didn’t know when or where, or even how, to begin. I wasn’t someone who lied about important things. Cheat, yes. Lie, no. A fine line, but distinct in my mind. Instead of lies, I used off-color humor to make the truth sound ridiculous, so I didn’t have to lie. But even after wracking my brain, I still couldn’t come up with a way to do that here. Or even use humor to diffuse the situation. I was too nauseated to be funny.
“Did you compromise this case?”
Did I?
“Probably,” I admitted. “Or, at least, my involvement in it.” I could have made excuses about how I hadn’t known he was a prostitute. Or that he was involved with Alvarado. How I hadn’t sleept with him. How I was having an identity crisis, and it had all begun as something very innocent. Really.
Shattered Glass Page 5