"If I let that other pencil dick get his ass whipped and then his fucking lawyer gets onto it and starts saying: You're a cop, why didn't you step in and stop it?
"Then the department attorneys get on me: Why are you getting involved when you're off duty? Was the guy a physical threat to you or others?"
Better to just scare the guy off, he said. He'd catch that idiot on the street someday and he'd be glad to do some ass-kicking when he was in uniform and it was his turf.
She liked that about him, too. He wasn't like the wimpy guys back home or the bar clowns who were all mouth. He told her some stories about suspects who fought him on the streets. He was aggressive in bed, too. But she wasn't complaining. They'd had sex here in her apartment the first time and she was a little frightened by how intense he was, but she'd had an orgasm like nothing she'd ever had in the past. He was strong and bold in the way he took her. It was exciting. After that they'd done it at night on the beach, once in the pool after he'd slipped the lock to the utility room and turned the underwater lights off. They'd even done it in the backseat of his car one night out somewhere in the Everglades where there weren't any houses or traffic.
She looked at him now, stretched out on her bed. She didn't like the boots on her spread but she knew better than to say anything. She found her perfume among the mess on the bureau and dabbed some on. She found him in the mirror. He had that way of kind of dominating a space when he was with her. Like the time he was getting beer from her fridge while she was letting the shower water warm and she heard him punch on her message machine and listen to the whole tape. Or the time he walked into the apartment before her and scooped the mail off the floor and went through each letter before putting it on the counter. Yeah, it was all junk, but she called him on it anyway.
"What? You afraid I'm going to see something from your boyfriend in Minneapolis?"
"That would be a trick since I don't have a boyfriend in Minneapolis," she'd said, and it was the truth.
"You'd better not," he'd said and then slipped his hands around her from behind and nuzzled her ear just like he was doing now.
She looked at him in the mirror. It did feel good to be wanted. Then he slipped his hands up from her waist and cupped her breast over her blouse.
"Come on, baby. You know I gotta get to work," she said.
"Yeah?"
He put his mouth on her neck and started unbuttoning her top button.
"If I'm late again Laurie's gonna kill me."
"No she won't," he said, working on the next button.
"No? She fired Roxy just last week. Though it was probably because she was always drunk by the time her shift ended."
"So let her fire you," he said, and now he had himself pressed up against her from behind and she could feel him getting hard against her. "You don't need to work there. I'll take care of you."
"Oh, you're gonna keep me barefoot and pregnant?"
He was unfastening the front snap on her bra and she put her hands on his to stop him and he did that cop thing where he suddenly spun his wrists and grabbed hers and in a split second he had her arms locked up behind her. With her shoulders pulled back, the bra snap gave way and when he pulled her elbows tighter together her breasts came out of the fabric. In the mirror both of them could see that she was now excited, too, and she thought: OK, I won't fight it. Just this once.
CHAPTER 14
My flight landed at Palm Beach International and I found my truck deep in long-term parking. When I opened the door, a wash of stale air spilled out. It was eighty degrees in the sun. Compared to Philly, the humidity felt like it was at ninety percent. Welcome back.
I tossed my travel bag into the passenger seat and then rolled up the new coat and stuffed it behind the seat where it might stay for another twenty years. I rolled down the windows and headed east, my cell phone in my ear and feeling anxious to talk with Billy. When I got to his office and he opened the door I realized that I looked like a slob, but then next to William Manchester, Esquire, most men fell to some level of slobdom.
Billy was dressed in a two-thousand-dollar Armani suit that was a dark, deeply woven color. The fabric contained shades of black and gray and held a textured shadow that could only be named subtle money, or unmistakable class. His short-collared shirt was such a brilliant white against his mahogany skin that the contrast was like a razor cut. I sat down on the leather couch in my blue jeans and crossed my legs like a gentleman, exposing the sweat socks tucked into the newly scuffed work boots I'd bought at the Army/Navy store in Philly. I balanced a saucer and cup of coffee on my knee and watched him move like I'd fallen into a damn magazine ad. My mouth may have been slightly open.
"D-don't stare, M-Max. I've seen you l-look that way at a b- blue heron out near the Glades and it's very discomforting."
"Ain't no bird got nothin' on you, partner," I said, almost whistling.
"We have b-been invited to a p-political fund-raiser downtown this evening," Billy said, snicking up the fabric of his trousers by the sharp creases as he sat across from me.
"Ah," I said. "If you can't beat them, join them?"
"No. As Diane would s-say: You beat them by joining them."
"The woman's got smarts," I said.
"We shall see."
Billy picked up a file and opened it in his lap. He was done explaining himself.
"OK, M-Max. While you were away, I ran the t-two individuals who attacked you in the alley," he said, clipped and businesslike. "A David and Robert Hix. S-Small-time thugs and n-not very g-good at being criminals."
"Brothers?" I said.
"Yes. David just g-got out of Glades Correctional on a r- robbery jolt that looks like it was probably a drug rip-off. He's on six years p-probation after d-doing three. Brother Robert has done c-county time in b-both Palm Beach and Broward. Check k-kiting, burglary and identity theft. W-with all these cross references, it l-looks like they travel as a t-team, but Davey does the h-heavier work."
Billy passed me the folder and I scanned the booking photos that he had downloaded off the Department of Corrections Web site.
"Did you show these to Rodrigo yet?"
"I've called him twice. B-Both times he's been short, almost whispering and asked for you. He says he's all right, but I could hear the fear in his voice," Billy said. "Hard to see how a Filipino middleman gets these two as leg breakers."
"It's a global village, Billy. We learned the hard way that the criminals have cell phones and Internet sites, too. If their job recruiter in Manila gets squeezed because his people are making noise about legal representation on work problems, he makes a call to a fellow shit-heel in Miami, who farms it out," I said. "I'll talk to Rodrigo. Can I take these mug shots?"
Billy flipped the backs of his fingers and stood up.
"While I w-was asking around, I also t-talked with a prosecutor friend in Broward about your Mr. O'Shea."
He walked over to the wall of windows and looked out toward the ocean. Though we were twelve stories up, he never looked down over the edge and into the streets. Billy never looked down.
"He tells me he's had to t-turn Sherry down on filing a probable cause on O'Shea t-twice. He t-told her all she has is circumstantial evidence, even with the Philadelphia incident. No b-body. No forensics. Just a couple of witnesses willing to say they saw him with two women who m-may be missing."
"As far as I know, he's right," I said.