by Cohen, Celia
“What do you think will happen?”
“Oh, you know the newspapers. They’ll run the story.”
“Let me guess. The chief says the story will screw up our investigation, and you say the more people who know about it, the better chance we have of protecting Papa and Alie and cracking this crime.”
“You’re learning, Kotter.”
“So now what?”
“Now at least we have the names of Papa’s old pals. Recognize anyone?”
Randie handed me a list of a dozen names, and I scanned it. “I arrested a guy named William Gibbons a couple months ago for credit card fraud, but he was young. Maybe a son or a nephew or something.”
“Maybe. It’s a pretty common name, though. We have mug shots on some of these characters, but nothing recent. Still, it’s a start.
“The briefing is in an hour. Sam’s going to conduct it, although I’ll come by. Be there.” Randie put a hand on my shoulder, captain to cop. “Don’t you forget about our talk this morning. You have your orders. This changes nothing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
***
I got back to the College Inn in time to drive Alie to the tournament. Like the day before, shewanted to get there early. I noticed she was edgy again, like a thoroughbred approaching the starting gate.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, wondering whether Papa had told her about Penn’s discoveries.
“Oh, I always get nervous before a match. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing a qualifier or Steffi. I used to throw up, even. Now I just always think I’m to lose, and then I go out on the court and something comes over me and I get fierce and I win. It’s like Wonder Woman or something.”
I figured that was as profound as Alie de Ville got. I left her to her thoughts. I kept an eye on her until match time, and then I wandered courtside and took up a position just behind the low wall that separated the court from the crowd. I had memorized the few mug shots we had, and I felt much more comfortable as I checked out the scene. I noticed the other cops seemed more confident, too. There was no guarantee, of course, that Papa’s muggers were local, and we might be entirely off the track. Still, we felt we had accomplished something.
Papa and the mayor showed up a little before Alie was scheduled to appear for the traditional, pre-match warmup. Shortly after they arrived, so did Penn. He had press credentials around his neck and a notebook in his hand as he approached the mayor’s box. He said something, and the mayor, who had his fill long ago of Penn’s embarrassing stories, turned in fury. Papa stood up and shook his fist, unleashing the street punk that loomed inside the multi-millionaire. Penn raised his hands in a gesture of apology and retreated. It sure looked like a couple of “no comments” to me. I had to admire Penn. He did a lot of the unpleasant things we did—and without a badge or backup.
The players emerged to a standing ovation. Alie was going against one of those fifteen-year-old sensations who should still be in high school, not trying to make it on the tour. Her opponent had a bunch of weapons, but she was too young to be consistent with them. She would follow up a spectacular shot with a total muff job—which certainly kept the match interesting. Alie had the patience to let her make her mistakes and walloped her in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.
Now it was my turn to be nervous and maybe a little bitter. Alie came out of the locker room, signed some autographs and said to me, “Take me to Poe’s.”
I nodded, feeling sorely used. Alie might not take prisoners on a tennis court, but she sure as hell took hostages in real life.
Alie looked hot to trot. She was dressed in another one of those silky shirts, this one in green, which might as well have had a road map pointing, “This way to the nipples.” She also wore khaki jeans, neatly pressed, just begging to be stripped off and rumpled. Walking into Poe’s, she would be a knockout even if she wasn’t Alie de Ville. She wasn’t making it easy on the cop assigned to security, I can tell you that.
Poe’s was packed, its primal rock music pulsating into the parking lot every time the door was opened, which was frequently. I took a look at the customers and realized the tennis tournament managed to coincide with the summer practice for Hillsboro College’s football team. Huge, swaggering college boys were everywhere, the kind the locals resented. Damn. Poe’s was going to be its combustible worst.
I let Alie out of the car and followed her toward the door. She stopped and said, “I don’t want you too close to me. I don’t need any nanny.”
“Okay.”
She grabbed my lapel playfully. “Unless, of course, you want to have a drink with me, Kotter.”
“No, ma’am, I’m on duty.”
“Fuck you, Kotter.” She shoved me aside and walked away. Her hips were rocking.
Inside people had to turn sideways and shoulder their way through the gyrating crowd. Alie spotted some other tennis pros at the bar and bulldozed toward them. They were encircled by a panting crew of football players.
It took a moment for the crowd to realize Alie was Alie. Heads turned, fingers pointed, and there was a general surge in her direction, although not many people got through. I took advantage of the disruption to wedge myself against the wall near the door. If I couldn’t stay close to Alie, at least I could prevent her from leaving without me. I settled in grimly for a long and miserable evening.
In Alie’s little group she quickly became the center of attention. She joked with the other tennis players, flirted with the football studs and even kissed the bartender. She drank way, way too much.
The night wore on. The music got louder and more frantic. A couple of the other tennis players left, but not Alie. By this time, she was drunk enough to be leaning against the bar for support. One of the football types, the biggest and blondest among them, helped her toward the rest rooms in the rear. At first when they didn’t return right away, I wondered whether there was a line. Then I wondered whether Alie was sick. Then I broke out in a cold sweat as I wondered whether they had gone out the emergency exit. If the alarm went off, no one would have heard it in this din.
I shot out the door and sprinted toward the back. I saw them in a corner of the parking lot. The football player had Alie pinned against a pickup truck, his hands groping wherever they wanted, his mouth covering hers. She was struggling, but she couldn’t get away.
I ran up to them. “Police! Let her go.”
The football player turned partially toward me but still kept a hand on Alie’s hip. The guy was easily six-foot-four, and he was drunk. He took one look at me and laughed. “Go fuck yourself, copper,” he said.
He shouldn’t have done that. I was carrying a blackjack. It was no longer regulation, and I wasn’t supposed to have one. If I got caught with it, I’d be in trouble, but sometimes you do what you have to do.
A blackjack was a joy to use. You could conceal it in your hand and then smash it with all your might against an elbow, even one belonging to a guy who was six-foot-four, and watch as the excruciating pain left him crumpled and howling. Stick it as hard as you could into his gut, and you had really made your point.
As he doubled over, trying to clutch his stomach and his elbow at the same time, I snarled my identification at him. “Kotter, W.L., Hillsboro P.D., badge number two-four-six-oh-one. Go ahead and turn me in.”
I knew he wouldn’t. There was no way a guy like him would ever let it be known he had been whipped by a female cop like me.
Alie stumbled into my arms. I helped her across the parking lot to the police car. “Can I sit up front?” she sniffled. I let her in the passenger’s side, then got behind the wheel. “Can we just sit here a minute, please?” she asked.
She cried quietly, not really making a big deal out of what had happened, just getting her emotions out. I felt my adrenaline level returning to normal.
“You were right,” she said wanly. “I shouldn’t have come to Poe’s.”
I forgave her for everything. I was nothing if not a pushover for a beautiful damsel I had
just saved from distress. Isn’t that the way it works in all the fairy tales?
“Listen,” I said. “I know a place we can go that will make you feel better. It’s called the Hollies. It’s for women.”
“My father will kill me if I’m seen in a place like that.”
“No one will know. It’s very discreet. I’ve been going there for years.”
“If you’re really sure, then okay.”
I drove out the dark, familiar road to the inconspicuous break in the low stone well, up the twisted drive through the press of pine trees to the inn with the single candles shining in the windows, the inn that had become my home when there was no more home to be had with Wendell and Lynn. This is where I grew up, where I learned what it meant to be included in the company of women. If there was such a thing as ghosts, mine would return here when the time came, sharing eternity with the shades of Randie and Julie and the Hollies, the women who took me in.
Alie could have let herself out, but she waited for me to help her. “This is pretty,” she said.
We went inside, and immediately I was swallowed by Big Holly’s bearlike embrace. When she released me, she greeted Alie with the experience that came from welcoming scores of closeted celebrities. Then she wagged her finger at me. “Kotter! Why didn’t you phone ahead? I’d have reserved a table for you. Fortunately, I have one set aside. I had a feeling this tennis tournament could produce a few extras.”
“Sorry, Holly, but this was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
Holly hugged me and whispered in my ear, “With your talents, Kotter, I’m not surprised.”
I shrugged, content to let her think whatever she wanted to. Big Holly was happily paired with Little Holly, but she had never missed a chance to lay a hand on me. Just being friendly, of course.
She showed us to a table nearer the front than she usually put me, then excused herself to greet some other new arrivals. I glanced around. It was mostly a hometown crowd. I noticed the Hillsboro College tennis coach sharing an intimate little dinner with a player from the tour. The player caught Alie’s eye and nodded at her.
“Is it a problem, her being here?” I asked.
“No. I know about her, she knows about me. I’ve run into her at places like this before.”
Big Holly returned. “Something to drink?”
“I’m kind of still on duty,” I said. “Better just bring me an Evian, Holly.”
“Same for me,” Alie said with a sheepish smile that acknowledged she’d already had enough.
“Food?” Big Holly asked. Alie shrugged, so Holly said, “I’ll bring you some hors d’oeuvres. You can nibble.”
We were as alone as you can be in a roomful of people. Alie looked at me. I looked at Alie. I was out of my league.
“You were very brave,” Alie said.
“Nah. I’m a cop. I did what I was supposed to.”
“I mean it, Kotter.” She clasped my hand.
I felt the electricity shooting up my arm and arcing speedily to all the places that made me want to do whatever it took to please someone like Alie. I became very conscious of Alie’s body stretched against the silky fabric of her shirt, and I imagined how those jeans must be curved against her as she leaned forward in her chair. The music seemed particularly sultry as it swirled around us, and I found myself blurting, “Dance?”
Her smile had a little triumph in it. The control was swinging back her way. We went to the dance floor.
I held her close, alive with the sensation of her breasts against me. Traces of the alcohol and smoke that poisoned the atmosphere at Poe’s still clung to her, but I was a creature of the gutter and did not care. I wondered whether she could feel my trembling as we swayed sensually to the music.
When the song ended, we returned to the table. My throat was so tight, I couldn’t trust myself to speak. Alie folded herself back into her own thoughts. We sat in silence, picking at the food Big Holly brought us. After awhile, Alie asked me to take her back to the College Inn. She rode in the back seat, still not talking.
At the hotel she closed the door to her room without saying good night. It didn’t matter. I had danced with her, and that was enough.
Chapter Eleven
When the telephone rang in the morning, I was already awake, puttering around in sweatpants and a T-shirt. It was a miracle.
“Hello, Kotter speaking,” I said, very politely.
I heard Randie laugh. “You’re a quick study, aren’t you?”
“Good morning, Captain.”
“Are you up?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m calling from the lobby. I’ll be right there.”
I figured Randie’s visit must be Julie’s doing, unexpected as it was. The voyeur in me wondered what had been offered or withheld in the night to bring it about.
Randie appeared in her uniform with a couple of takeout cups of coffee and the Courier. “Have, you seen the paper yet?”
Penn’s story on Papa de Ville was plastered across the front page, and it was a good one. Penn had done his homework. He even tracked down an old assistant principal, retired to the Home of Merciful Rest, a name that always sounded more like a cemetery than a nursing home to me. The assistant principal had helped to discipline the schoolboy gambling ring and recalled Papa as “wild and unrepentant.”
Penn also had a quote from Alie’s agent insisting Papa’s past had nothing to do with the recent mugging. “Do you believe that?” I asked.
“Not in the least. Let’s see if anybody else is talking about this,” Randie said, flipping on the television.
Somebody else sure was. Not only were the local news stations repeating the story, but it was all over ESPN. The sports network already was pronouncing Papa to be one of those Rotten Tennis Dads, like the fathers of Steffi Graf or Mary Pierce.
“I think this tournament is about to get a little more media attention. What do you think, Kotter?” Randie deadpanned.
“The mayor said it would give Hillsboro a new identity.”
We watched the ESPN broadcast until it moved on to the baseball scores. Randie hit the “mute” button and said, “So how did it go last night? Did she still want to go to Poe’s?”
“She did.”
“Any problems?”
“Nothing to speak of.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
She always knew. Since I was a kid tagging along with her softball teams, Randie had always known. I shrugged.
“Did you do anything that could get you in trouble?” she asked.
“You know,” I said, “when you go into a night with the rules turned upside down, it almost has to happen, doesn’t it?”
“All right,” Randie said. “All right.”
She didn’t ask me anything else. I would have told her if she did, but this way it became one of those moments of friendship you never forget.
“The detectives have tracked down some of the names from Papa de Ville’s old gambling ring,” Randie said. “One guy’s dead, another one’s been in jail for years in California, one just had a heart transplant and is still in the hospital, and one of them’s a truck driver who’s on the road a lot. They even found one guy who never lost the gambling bug—he’s a security guard in an Atlantic City casino.”
“They better watch the till,” I said.
“Don’t you know it. A lot of the rest of the crew are apparently still in the area, but they’re the types who go from apartment to apartment, job to job and woman to woman. The detectives are having the usual trouble finding them, and of course, our culprits are probably among them. Still, the investigation is going pretty well.”
“Thanks to Penn.”
“Yeah. As if that hasn’t happened before.”
We passed the time until the door across the hallway was flung open. “Kotter! Do you know what the fuck is going on?” Alie said, the voice at full throttle.
She came busting over, sexy as always in shorts and a sweatshirt, then spotted R
andie and stopped in her tracks. A wary expression came over her, and it was pretty obvious she was trying to figure out whether there was something going on between Randie and me. “I didn’t expect you’d have company at this hour.”
“Don’t worry,” I said drily. “I’m not trying to sleep my way to the top.”
“In Kotter’s case, even that wouldn’t help,” Randie added wittily.
Alie giggled. “I remember you. You’re Captain Wilkes, right? You came here the night my father got mugged when they wanted to put all that extra security around me.”
“Instead, you got Kotter,” Randie said, smiling.
“Yeah. Hey, Kotter, how come you never wear your uniform? Captain Wilkes looks great in hers.”
Three new suits—two that Randie knew about—and this babe wishes I was in uniform. I couldn’t believe it. Randie would never let me forget this. I didn’t dare look at her. I’m sure it was all she could do to keep from laughing.
Oblivious to the destruction she was sowing, Alie plunged ahead. “Kotter, what’s going on? My agent just called and said to make sure I don’t talk to any reporters. I’m supposed to go over and meet with him and my father.” She glanced at Randie, then went ahead, anyway. “Did anyone find out about the Hollies?”
“I think they probably want to talk about what was in the paper this morning,” I said and handed it to her.
Alie read Penn’s story—without moving her lips. “That’s horrible! It was so long ago! How come the press has to go and dig up things like that? Oh well. At least it has nothing to do with what happened to us.” She smiled at Randie. “Kotter was awesome. Did she tell you?”
Oh God. In my darkest nightmares I could not have anticipated this.
“Kotter’s so modest,” Randie said smoothly. “Maybe you better tell me.”
Alie turned out to be a pretty lurid storyteller, even if she had to ask for help at the crucial part. “Then Kotter came running up, and she told the guy to stop, but he told her to go fuck herself, so she took out, you know, one of those little clubs—”