She nodded, and avoided Romano’s stare.
“Good girl. Keep cool and we’ll get through this. I’m with you. But we keep what I was and what I do under our hats. Remember that.”
She nodded again, and touched his jaw.
Romano took hold of her arm roughly. “You are not yourself. I will take you back to the club with me.”
“I don’t need this,” Sonnie said.
The sirens were no longer distant. Revolving lights swept across the houses on either side of the street. The first vehicle belonged to the fire department, but was different from any Sonnie had seen before. This was followed by three police cars. Men spilled forth and formed huddles with some of the firemen.
“Hah,” Romano said. “Such a provincial place. They have nothing to do so they all come to a fire that is already, poof nothing.”
Roy cleared his throat and said, “What d’you think, bro?”
“Trouble,” was all Chris said. “Arson team could be routine here for all I know. But we’ve got a lot of cops on the scene, huh?”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You’re going to upset Sonnie,” Romano said, then seemed to notice Ena for the first time. “You should stay back, madam. With the rest of the crowd.”
Ena said, “Twit,” very succinctly and remained where she was.
Sonnie grinned at her, and received a gleeful smile in return. Sonnie told Romano, “This is my friend Ena. She lives next door. And she reported the fire or there probably wouldn’t be anything left of the house.”
Carrying equipment and followed by the entourage of police, the man and three women from the first vehicle trudged up the driveway and into the house.
But for sounds from onlookers, minutes passed in silence for Sonnie. None of the others spoke.
A police officer appeared on the front steps once more. He began unwinding crime scene tape across the veranda steps.
“Why would he do that?” Ena said. “It’s to make people stay out, isn’t it?”
“They must think it’s arson,” Sonnie said slowly. Fire. It could have been another attempt to frighten her away.
Or to kill her.
Spinning around, she walked into Chris’s chest. Sounding almost impassive, he said quietly, “I’m asking you to keep it together. Don’t give anyone any ammunition. We don’t want to give some whiz kid—or someone with an agenda—an excuse to say you’re acting strangely. I’ve got a hunch some people would just love to pin that little fire on you, then use it as an excuse to get you to a place where no one even heard of Key West. For your own good, of course. To rest. And just to remind you, whatever happens, do not say I’m an investigator of any kind, or that I’m working for you.”
“They’re putting that tape everywhere,” Ena said loudly. “Will you look at that? I bet that kid never got a chance to use the stuff before. Looks like he’s playing cat’s cradle or something.”
Ducking the tape, a man in a suit and a straw fedora ran down the front steps and made straight for the group beside the Jaguar. He pointed to the car and said, “I want that out of the way. Now.”
Roy said, “I’d do it if I were you, Romano, old buddy. You’re lookin’ at the law—I can recognize it, y’know, had practice—and he’s prayin’ one of us gives him a reason to slap us in irons.”
“Move it,” the man demanded, and snapped his fingers. Romano’s nonchalant walk to his car must have taken willpower—he was definitely jerky. He got in, gunned the engine, and backed up.
The man in the straw fedora reached Roy, Chris, Ena, and Sonnie. He pushed the hat back on his head and smiled, showing a wide space between his two upper front teeth. “Mrs. Giacano?”
“That’s me,” Sonnie said.
“Detective Kraus,” he said. “I need a word. Alone, please.”
She nodded and followed him under the tape that crossed the end of the driveway now. He took her by the arm and led her closer to the house.
“The fire’s out,” he said. “I understand you’ve been told to spend at least tonight elsewhere. That’s a good idea. You may want to make that more than a night. Because of the odor, if nothing else.”
“I’ve already made arrangements,” she said, starting to relax a little.
“You’ve only been here a few weeks, is that right?”
“I’ve only been back a few weeks. I lived here for three years before—”
“Your accident. Yes, we have all that information. Recovered any memory of the event, have you?”
Nausea flowed in, all but overwhelming Sonnie. “No.” She couldn’t explain the bits and pieces that almost came clear.
“Okay. Sorry for your trouble.” Before she could thank him, he continued, “Living here alone, are you?”
“Yes.”
“You sure? We don’t shock easy, Mrs. Giacano. And we don’t judge. You need company, that’s your business.”
“No,” she said, and knew she was protesting too loudly. “Νο, Detective Kraus. There’s just me here.”
“Think carefully. You didn’t let someone stay for a few days? Someone who was passing through, maybe?”
She remembered to breathe. “Νο. Why are you asking me these questions? You’re making me nervous and defensive.”
“Well, ma’am, if you’re telling the truth and you’ve got nothing to hide, there’s no need for any of that, is there?”
Sonnie didn’t like him. “I guess not.”
“Okay. I’ll get to the point. We’re going to need you to come down to the station on Angel Street with us.”
She needed to sit down. Sonnie cast around, then looked at the grass.
“Sonnie?” It was Chris who shouted. He jumped over the tape and sprinted across the debris-scattered lawn. “I’m the lady’s friend,” he called to the detective.
To Sonnie’s horror, Kraus produced a gun and leveled it at Chris. “Hands up. Keep ‘em where I can see ‘em. And back away,” Kraus said.
Instantly Chris’s hands went up.
“This is my friend,” Sonnie said, “and I want him with me. Put that nasty thing away, please.”
“Stay where you are,” Kraus said. “Gimme your name.”
“Chris Talon.”
“From?”
“Most recently, Duval Street. Sonnie’s a good friend and she also works for my brother.”
“You don’t say. Okay, but keep your hands where they are.”
Chris followed directions and stood beside Sonnie.
“I’m waiting for another officer to join me. Then we’ll be driving Mrs. Giacano to the station.”
“What the hell for?” Chris asked.
Sonnie heard Romano’s voice, raised again, but he showed no sign of following Chris onto the grounds. For that she was grateful.
The officer Detective Kraus was waiting for arrived, breathless and leafing through a notebook, stopping to scribble a word here and there.
“Whatcha got?” Kraus said.
“It’s affirmative. Corpse under the cave-in. Poor bastard never made it out of his sleeping bag.”
Fourteen
Officious little punks.
Had he ever been like that? That pumped up? Capable of picking on a woman he didn’t know and pushing her around even when he could see it was like pushing a kitten, or a kid—a one hundred percent one-sided confrontation?
Had he been like that?
Maybe. At least once, even though the situation had been so different.
He couldn’t go back there, not tonight. Tonight he’d made promises he had to keep.
They’d put her in the back of a vehicle for the drive to the station. No, they couldn’t let her come in on her own. Shee-it. Big men protecting themselves against one dangerous unarmed unknown quantity—approximate weight, 110. Record? Zero.
And now he had to go in there—fast—and keep his head. If he lost it, even for a second, he’d lose any advantage he might be able to use for her. Bumbler. Yeah, that was a good one. N
ot-too-bright bumbler. Cheerful…
“Who’s there?” He’d been too engrossed in watching Sonnie taken from the car into the building, too engrossed in talking himself down, to sense what he should have sensed at once. Someone was nearby, watching him.
“A friend,” said a familiar voice. “Don’t you know how to stay away from these places even when you don’t belong there, schmuck?”
Chris glanced from the lighted windows to the rangy figure that stepped from the shadow of a wall. “Flynn? For…What the fuck are you doin’ here? I don’t have time to argue with you now.”
“Αh, ever the grateful, charming Talon. Keep it zipped a second, you ace schmuck, and I’ll get a chance to say you worried me when you called, so I decided to take what miserable little R and R I’ve got coming and use it on you.”
“Touching. How’d you find me?”
Laughing, Flynn came closer, his teeth white in the darkness. “I drove. Thanks for asking. And yeah, I left a few hours after we talked. And you’re welcome. I figure we owe each other more than one or two good ones. And your brother’s too good for you. I know what’s going down. I don’t know why you’re going out on a limb for the woman, but that’s your business. You’re going in there now, aren’t you? How’re you going to handle it?”
The reason they’d made such a great team was because they’d developed the magic some cops only dreamed about. They knew each other’s minds. “Cheerful, bumbling buddy, Ι thought. No way do they find out who I used to be.”
“What you are, you mean? Okay, okay, save the violent thoughts till you need ‘em. Let’s go.”
“You’re not coming.”
“The hell I’m not. I can be a bumbling charmer.”
Chris slapped Flynn on the shoulder. “Look, friend. I’m glad you’re here. Or I’m sure I will be in time. You’d confuse Sonnie—not that it might take much. Roy’s gone back to the Nail. You know your way. I should have remembered that. Wait for me there, huh?”
Flynn didn’t waste time arguing. He grunted and turned away. “Make sure you don’t forget to bumble,” he said. “You’re right. Letting the local boys get a whiff of NYPD might be a nasty idea. See ya.”
“Sure,” Chris muttered, already on his way to find Sonnie.
The initial shock of knowing Flynn was around had passed. It couldn’t hurt to have officiaΙ access to information.
But Flynn and the other—the stuff that had to stay gone—they were tied together. That could hurt.
Inside the pink stucco building he had to stop himself from looking too at home. He followed arrows pointing to “Detectives” up flights of stairs to a floor artfully tiled in pink and turquoise. Tiled a long, lοng time ago. Sure, the place was pedestrian compared to what his slice of law enforcement had been all about, but the air held the same heady aroma of dust, sweat, aggression, and hopelessness. Hell, where was the vast used-furniture warehouse that must supply crappy standard issue to every precinct in the country? How come the voices sounded the same no matter the city or cast of characters? Cussing, whining, sniveling. The great universal language of trouble.
He arrived in a tiny anteroom where a wooden half door separated him from whatever action was in play.
“Hey,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and waiting for a cop with his heels on a cluttered desk to move his face from behind a copy of True Crime.
After the required period of silence, the guy lowered his magazine and looked at Chris through a pair of wire-framed glasses with lenses that were just big enough to cover his pupils. “Hey, yourself,” he said, deadpan.
“Is it always this busy in the middle of the night?” Chris asked, repeating a question he’d heard too many times. “Just joking.” He heard the law at work, but only the policeman was in sight.
The officer concentrated hard on ripping another strip from an already punished thumbnail. When he’d examined his efforts, he said, “Is there something I can do to help you, sir?” and whipped Chris’s cynical superiority away. “Works best if you just ignore all that back there. Takes all kinds, and we get all kinds. You learn not to notice.”
When Chris collected himself, he said, “Sounds like good advice.” Then he remembered he was supposed to be not very bright, but pleasant. “I’m lookin’ for a friend of mine. A lady. Her house caught on fire. I don’t really understand why, but they said she had to come here so they could talk to her about
it.”
The cop, whose name tag identified him as Guntrum, swung his feet to the floor. He kept on smiling, but the almost gentle expression on his face sharpened. “Your name, sir?” he asked.
“Talon,” he said, “Chris Talon.” He just had to hope they didn’t dream up a reason to run any checks on him. He wasn’t about to assume any names—not anymore.
“Don’t I know that name?” the cop said.
Chris managed not to groan aloud. “Roy Talon’s my brother. The Rusty Nail on Duval`? He and his partner own it.”
“Oh, sure. Roy. Good guy. Let me go see if I can find out what Detective Kraus’s up to.”
Chris watched him walk away. So much for thinking anyone had heard of Chris Talon, supercop—superscrewup.
Several familiar officers came in and filed past Chris. The men were familiar because they’d been at Sonnie’s house tonight, and they would soon be huddled, putting pieces of their puzzle together and deciding who would do what, how, and why.
Guntrum returned. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Seems the detective’s got a burr up his ass,” he said conversationally. “He certainly knows where he’d like to see my ass—and everyone else’s. Guess he hasn’t had a whole lot of sleep lately.”
The son of a bitch was losing it around Sonnie. Chris stuffed his anger far enough down to say, “That can be hard on a person, Officer,” with all the Southern charm he’d never learned at his daddy’s knee. “I surely would like to be with my friend Sonnie. She’s a sensitive little thing. I’m kinda like her brother. She relies on me.”
Guntrum frowned and nodded. He came around his desk and patted Chris down. “She doesn’t look great. I mean, she doesn’t look too well. Nice-looking woman.” He checked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Corridor on the right.” He inclined his head. “Office at the end. I must have stepped out. You’re just looking for your friend, okay?”
Chris could have hugged the man for his common sense—and his decency. “You’ve got it, Officer,” he said. “She hasn’t been arrested, has she?”
“Not as far as I know. I can’t see any reason she can’t have a friend with her. I’d sure do what you’re doing if she were my friend.”
Yeah, no doubt. “Thanks.” Chris ambled toward the corridor. He felt a stab of irritation at the thought of Officer Guntrum being attracted to Sonnie. But she was attractive, damn it, and Chris Talon didn’t have any right to feel proprietary toward her.
Most doors were open to the offices that lined the corridor. Not the one at the far end, the one that didn’t do much to soften a raised male voice on the other side.
Chris set his teeth and speeded up, prepared to be stopped at any moment.
He made it to Detective Kraus’s nameplate and knocked. “Yeah?” The guy would make some marine sergeant. And bumbling was getting a whole lot harder for Chris.
He opened the door, stuck his head inside, and looked straight at Detective Kraus. “There you are, Officer.”
‘‘Detective.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Detective. Geez, it’s tough to find someone in here. I never had any idea how many people a guy like you commands.” Command should be a word Kraus relished. “Kinda found my way. All those little rooms those guys work in look like jail cells. Hey, there, Sonnie. How’s it goin’? Need some company?”
She appeared almost transparent, and no blue eyes had ever been that dark—not that he’d seen. She held out a hand to him. “You okay, kid?” he said, planning murderous things for Kraus. A dark night, a quiet place, and the little Na
zi would never look the same.
“Get out,” Kraus said. “We got an investigation going on here. You’ll be given your moment. But not here and now. And for your information, this used to be the jail and those offices were jail cells. They’re plenty big enough.”
Sonnie’s hand remained outstretched and Chris took hold of her cold fingers. He smiled at her and rubbed her icy skin. “Don’t you worry, okay? The officer doesn’t understand. This is probably what they call circumstances. You live in a house that had a fire and a poor man died in the fire there. The officer’s just asking routine questions. Right, Officer?”
“Detective. I don’t need your help here. What was your name?”
“Chris. I was there at the house with Sonnie. I brought her back after she heard about the fire.”
“Nice of you. Now get out until you’re told someone wants to talk to you.”
Chris frowned. “But I was told it’s okay for me to be with Sonnie now. She hasn’t done anything wrong, so you’re just talking to her, right? She hasn’t been well, you know, Officer. She had a terrible accident—”
“We know all about that. We know about that and a lot of other stuff. Mrs. Giacano isn’t living a simple life.”
Sonnie ground their fingers together, but when he studied her face, although he saw she was scared, he also saw she was determined.
“I want you to stay with me. I’m not arrested, am I?”
“Not yet,” Kraus said.
“This is what’s called cooperating with the police,” Chris said. “I’ve read that lots of times. That’s why they could put you in that car, I suppose, although I don’t know why I couldn’t have brought you.”
“You don’t have to know,” Kraus said. “Wait out front.”
“If he goes, I go,” Sonnie said, standing up. “Chris is my friend. I trust him. You didn’t do any of that rights business. Should I get a lawyer? What would I say you’re charging me with?”
The asshole had the grace to turn red.
“We’re not charging you with anything yet. It’s just easier to talk one-on-one at this point. Iron things out nice and easy. Casual. Friendly.”
Friendly like a poisonous snake, Chris thought. Keeping his act up wasn’t easy, but Sonnie was worth it. “You’re so right,” he said to Kraus. “I always say there’s a nice way to do things, and a nasty way. Nice is nicer—cleaner.” All suitably bumbling affability, he sat in a chair beside Sonnie’s and grinned engagingly at Kraus. “So what’s the theory? Who was that poor guy? How’d he get into Sonnie’s house?”
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