Uncorked

by Lois Greiman

“Tell me what’s happening,” I tried again, but in that instant, Rivera leapt forward. The cop behind him tried to hold him, but his prisoner burst free, shoving me aside with his shoulder as he made a beeline for Bulldog.

  The two faced off. Bulldog’s hand was on his weapon.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Rivera’s voice was nothing more than a feral growl.

  “Get the fuck out of the way.”

  “Albertson!” Rivera snapped, half turning his head toward the cop behind him. “Control your hound.”

  “Listen, you goddamn wetback—”

  “Coggins!” Albertson’s voice was clipped. “Stand down.”

  “The bitch—”

  “Joel!” he barked, and this time the squat officer backed away, hands held shoulder high, gaze still hard on Rivera.

  Coggins tightened his anvil jaw, grin twisted and ugly. “I’ve been waiting for this day,” he said.

  Rivera narrowed his eyes. “Then keep your fucking hands to yourself and you just might live through it,” he suggested.

  “Threatening an officer of the law?” Coggins asked.

  “I’ll write it into the report myself.”

  Coggins’ eyes were small and mean and full of venom. “Anytime you wanna—” he began, but Albertson stepped into the breach, effectively stopping the pissing contest.

  “Shut up, Coggins. Rivera! You’re in enough trouble already.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Get in the car.”

  Rivera remained where he was, body taut as he shifted his attention toward me. Our gazes met and clashed and melded. In the flash of an instant, I thought of half a dozen dumb-ass things to do, but he narrowed his eyes, breaking my line of thought. “Don’t make trouble,” he said.

  I shook my head, even though that had been exactly what my skittering subconscious had been planning to do.

  He nodded once and walked toward the door. I moved along in tandem. “Where are they taking you?”

  He didn’t answer. His jaw was tense. A dark copse of hair fell forward across his brow. “Just…” His teeth were gritted. “Please! Don’t do anything stupid,” he said, and then he left the building with his fellow officers close behind.

  I watched them walk away. In a matter of moments, they were gone, Rivera locked into the back seat of the squad car, eyes angry until he disappeared from sight.

  “Holy cats!” Shirley said from behind me.

  “Shit,” Phillip said. “Your cop’s got good hair too.”

  Chapter 7

  Ice cream—sweet goodness wrapped in guilt.

  —Suzie Ernst, Chrissy’s rather chubby middle-school friend

  “What do you mean you can’t divulge that information?”

  I’d been on the phone for most of the day and knew just a little less about the situation than I had when Rivera had burst into my office eight hours earlier. My first call had been to the lieutenant's captain, but Kindred was said to be unavailable. He would, however, call me at the first possible opportunity. It was now nine o'clock in the evening. Apparently opportunity had not yet come knocking, so I'd moved on, trying every avenue I could think of to gain information.

  “Are you unfamiliar with the meaning of divulge, or is information the term you’re uncertain of?” The bimbo at Central Community Police Station was so saccharine sweet that it was difficult to believe she was mocking me. But I was pretty sure she was.

  “Listen, you little…” I caught myself, forced a smile into the receiver and matched her sugary tone with my own. “I just need to know where Lieutenant Jack Rivera is being held. Surely even you know that much.” It was fast approaching my bedtime and my patience, usually so stellar, seemed to be at a low ebb.

  “Perhaps it would help if I used smaller words,” she said. “Maybe English isn’t your first language. I could transfer you to—”

  My patience snapped like a chicken bone. “I'll transfer your—”

  “Hey, Mac.”

  I turned with a start. Laney was standing in the doorway of my kitchen. I stared, mouth open. Matamata was hell and gone from Sunland, California. She raised a brow at me. “Using your innate charisma to charm and influence people again?”

  “Laney.” I said her name like a prayer. I mean, I’m not gay or anything, but if I were, Brainy Laney would be the one I had wet dreams about. Normally, she’s curvy and gorgeous with a mess of strawberry blond hair and a smile that makes men from nine to ninety willing to sell major organs just to get a chance to drool over her. Tonight, however, her hair was short and black, her eyes heavily lined with dark mascara smeared beneath uneven bangs. Since her rise to fame, Laney had become pretty creative with disguises.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Laney,” I said again, and bumbled to my feet. The receiver dropped from my hand as I took a couple steps toward her.

  She met me halfway, catching me in her arms and hugging me as if I were an unsteady toddler. And suddenly I was crying. I don’t know why. There has been more than one person in my life who was so impressed with my hard-ass demeanor that they swore I was born without tear ducts.

  “It’s all right.” Laney was rocking me a little, crooning. Rocking. “It’s all right.”

  I shook my head, smearing snot across the ugliest jacket I had ever seen. It smelled a little like sheep droppings. Apparently she was in deep disguise.

  “It is,” she repeated.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Ma’am.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded mildly peeved and ultimately tinny. “Another nut job,” she muttered, then the phone went dead.

  We ignored it.

  “How’s Rivera?” Laney asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know where he’s being held.” I winced before I delivered the next piece of news. “Andrews is out of prison.”

  “I know.”

  “He was shot.”

  “I heard he's expected to recover."

  I felt frenetic and shocky. “Doesn’t anybody take pride in their marksmanship anymore?”

  She grinned. Even her teeth looked different, but I was too distracted to wonder why. “I’m just glad you weren’t implicated.”

  “I thought I would be. But then…” I shook my head. “How’d you find out?” I was still blubbering, but I’d gained enough control to formulate moderately articulate sentences.

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said, and easing back, took my hands in hers. “You okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay,” I said, and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I’m obviously deranged.”

  She smiled. “That’s never bothered you before.”

  “Well, before….before…” I was kind of hiccupy. “Shit.”

  She squeezed my hand, then turned slightly to set the receiver back in its cradle.

  “Before you had Rivera to blame for the crazies,” she said.

  I winced. I’ve never been a huge fan of honesty, but it was an integral part of Laney. Even in disguise. “I don’t even like him.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t!”

  “I know.”

  “But he’s…” I shrugged.

  She eased me into a kitchen chair. “Hot?”

  I gave her a scowl, as if to ask how she could be so shallow at a time like this. “He’s an ass sometimes, but he doesn’t deserve this. I mean…” I watched her pull off her wig. Her hair swung to her shoulders in red-gold waves as she pulled a carton of Rocky Road ice cream from the freezer. “That’s the only reason I care. Because of the blatant unfairness of the situation.”

  “So you’re over him.”

  “I’d be stupid to care about a guy who cheated on me,” I said.

  “Or crazy.” She was already dishing up enough rocky goodness to feed a battalion. Or me.

  She caught my gaze. “You’re sure he didn’t shoot Andrews?”

  I was honestly surprised. “Of course I’m sure. He’s an overbearing pain in the ass. But he’s cop clean through to h
is blue-tinted clavicle. He might cheat on me but not on his department.”

  "Who accused him of the crime?"

  "I don't know. No one will tell me anything."

  “But Andrews was shot after Rivera left here, right?”

  “Maybe.” I was hedging.

  She gave me a look.

  “How would I know?” I asked.

  “The lieutenant left here at approximately 11:02. Andrews didn’t show up at the hospital until nearly three o’clock in the morning.” I never knew how Laney obtained the information she did. Maybe she magically divined it, but perhaps it was attributable to the fact that men were willing to sell their kidneys to give her whatever she wanted…information not withstanding.

  "Which hospital?" I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. "If I tell you will you promise not to go there?"

  "I promise not to go tonight."

  She stared at me a second then sighed. "Cedars-Sinai."

  I nodded. The choice seemed likely. Cedars was a top notch facility.

  “What’s the department’s official line?” She asked and scowled at the ice cream. I would never do anything so heinous. In a world of unsavory acts, ice cream is ever the innocent.

  “Some bullshit about their total faith in their officers.”

  “Isn’t that good news?”

  “If they have faith in him why’s he in jail?” I felt the crying hiccups advancing again.

  “Are you even sure he is in jail?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.” My voice was rising a little, which isn’t like me. I’m usually more careful not to upset the ice cream. “He could be dead for all I know.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said. “Captain Kindred believes in him.”

  “And you don’t?” My tone was kind of whiny, kind of pissy, kind of watery.

  She glanced sideways at me, eyes expressive enough to make granite weep. “He hasn’t always been the most traditional police officer on the planet.”

  I stared at her. “I know that.”

  She returned the stare, eyes questioning.

  “He accused me of murdering Bomstad! You think I’ll forget that?” Bomstad had been a tight end for the L.A. Lions and my most illustrious client, until he overdosed on Viagra and started chasing me around my desk like a thoroughbred on crack. I’d screamed. He’d laughed. Ninety seconds later he had dropped dead as a shoehorn on my ivory carpet, and Rivera had shown up to blame me. No one ever said life was fair. At least not if they had a drop of Celtic blood in their overly dramatic veins.

  Laney set the ice cream in front of me, then armed me with a spoon.

  “He took my shirt to test the cherry stain for blood,” I added, remembering a night from years ago. “There wasn’t even any blood to be tested.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “And he handcuffed me to his dad’s kitchen cupboard once. You remember that?”

  “I do.”

  “And oh…here’s a good one. He tried to make me move back in with my parents.”

  “To keep you safe.”

  “No. Just to drive me crazy.”

  Laney smiled. “Eat,” she said.

  “He’s always ordering me around.”

  “It’s going to melt.”

  I fiddled with a rocky part of my dessert. “Always acting like my head is full of air.” I swiped away a tear with the back of my hand. “My head’s not full of air.”

  “Your head is full of your cerebellum and four rather important lobes, just like everyone else’s.”

  “I’m actually very intelligent.”

  “Thirty-two on the ACTs.”

  “People always underestimate me.”

  She nodded toward the bowl, then nudged it toward me. “It’s one of your fifteen favorite flavors.”

  “Rivera always underestimates me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He treats me like I’m some dumb bitch.”

  “You’ve never been dumb.”

  “Damn straight.” I sniffled a little, trying to buck up, but the truth was beating down on me like the L.A. sun. I gave a little shrug. “Maybe I was kind of a bitch sometimes, though.”

  “Could be.”

  “But he was an ass!” I looked up at her through blurry eyes.

  She had retrieved a spoon of her own, dipped it into my ice cream and offered it to me.

  I ate it out of a sense of loyalty. “He’s still an ass…but…”

  “He’s your ass,” she said.

  “He’s my ass,” I warbled, and then I was crying again.

  By midnight I was worn out. I hadn’t felt so tired since I was thirteen and had filled Michael’s condoms with super glue. He’d come home looking pale and frazzled, took one glance at me and chased me into the next burb. After that, I had hidden in the attic for a week until he quit twitching when he walked. My self-imposed exile had been totally worth it.

  “That’s a nice memory,” I murmured. I was almost asleep. My head was resting on Laney’s ridiculously firm thigh. She'd changed out of her butt-ugly cargo pants into blue jeans. Every once in a while she’d stroke my hair away from my face.

  “The one where you put super glue in your brother’s condoms?”

  I smiled. I didn’t know if she was reading my mind or if I had recounted the scene out loud. The options had equal probability.

  “He’s an ass, too,” I said.

  “But you’re not in love with him.”

  “No.” I sighed, then snapped my eyes open and rolled my head sideways. Our faces were less than twenty-four inches apart. “I’m not in love with Rivera either. Not anymore at least.”

  She raised her brows at me. Our gazes met. “Need I remind you of the ice cream, Mac?”

  I scowled up at her. Gilded curls framed her angelic face. It’s not easy scowling at a celestial being. It takes some practice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The Rocky Road.” Her voice was soothing and patient. “You didn’t finish it off for a good twenty minutes. For a while I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “I’ve turned down ice cream before.”

  “Yes.” She squinted into the near distance and brushed a lock of misplaced hair behind my ear. “I believe you were eleven years old and you had the stomach flu.”

  I tried to remain sober, but the grin peeked out. “I’ve never been so sick in my life.”

  “So you threw up in Peter’s face.”

  I giggled and rolled onto my back. “Ahhh, good times.”

  The room went quiet. “What are you going to do, Mac?”

  “About what?”

  “About Rivera,” she said, and yanked the hair she had just brushed behind my ear.

  “Ow!”

  “Somehow they’ve kept the media out of this. But the press is going to have a field day when it gets wind of this. That alone is going to be a pain for his department.”

  It was also going to be a pain for her if they discovered she was back in the country, but she didn’t mention that.

  “What are you going to do about Rivera?” she asked again. Her tone was a little tougher.

  Mine was whiny. “Nothing.”

  She yanked again.

  “Quit that. What can I do?”

  “You can forget about it,” she said. “Just let it go.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it, Mac. You can leave this up to the authorities to handle. This isn’t your battle.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s gotten out of worse jams without your help.”

  “Of course he has.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  I shifted my eyes away.

  “Mac!” She tapped my forehead with one sensible fingernail. “Don’t mess with this.”

  “But—”

  “No buts!” she said, and rising abruptly, dumped my head onto the lumpy sofa cushion. “No buts. He’s a big boy.”

  “How do you know?” I asked an
d narrowed my eyes at her.

  She gave me a how-nuts-are-you glance but managed to ignore the worst of the insanity. “He’s a big cop.”

  “But he—”

  She swung toward me, hands on perfectly proportioned hips. “What? What? He needs help from a civilian? Needs help from you? Mac, his dad’s a senator.”

  “An ex-senator.”

  “A wealthy ex-senator with a tremendous amount of clout.”

  “An ex-senator who will hardly even talk to him.”

  “And whose fault is that, Mac? It’s not as if Rivera is Mr. Cotton Candy. I mean, for all we know he might have shot Andrews.”

  “He did not!” I said, and suddenly I was on my feet. “You take that back!”

  She stared at me, both eyebrows lost in her hairline.

  I faced her for an instant longer, then collapsed back onto the couch, deflated, head in my hands, eyes closed.

  “So it’s official,” I said, and nodded dismally at the obvious truth. “I’m certifiable.”

  Chapter 8

  A fool and his money are soon elected.

  —Senator Rivera’s political opponent, who actually stole the quote from someone older and wiser…and consequently not in politics

  “Christina.” Senator Rivera drew me into his arms with warmth, caring and a good deal of drama. I could feel heads turn toward us as every eye in the room was brought to bear. Maybe it was the fact that he had been California’s senator for umpteen years. Maybe it was because he had once been a presidential hopeful, but perhaps it was simply his phenotype that made men growl and women purr.

  Miguel Rivera was an extremely attractive man. He was tall, dark and exotic, with a honey-edged Spanish accent and the politically advantageous ability to make an individual feel as if she were the center of the universe.

  He pushed me to arms’ length and stared into my eyes, making me grateful that I had taken special care with my makeup that morning. Usually it’s a dab of this and a smidgen of that, but today it was more like a boatload of this and a couple tons of that. Plus my hair, usually as lank as an anemic mule’s tail, had been curled and tortured and lacquered into submission.

  “Christina.” He said my name again, crooning it like a Latin lover. The sound made me miss Francois something fierce. “How are you faring, my dear?”