I bought another large coffee to go and walked back to the jailhouse. I was on the outside bench when O'Shea came through the doors, automatically looked up into the sky and took a deep breath of air, and then spotted me.
"Thanks, Max," he said, shaking my hand, "and your friend Manchester."
His eyes were red-rimmed. He'd only been in overnight but looked like he'd lost weight. His clothes carried a stink that flashed me back to Philadelphia lockups that we as officers only had to stand for a few minutes and then joked about back in the squad rooms.
"You all right?" I said, watching his face.
"You see that bitch, Richards, standing in the back of the courtroom?"
I just nodded.
"Took that fucking gloat off her face, your boy Manchester did."
"He's good," I said. "You need a ride home? Want to get something to eat? It's almost noon."
O'Shea nodded and walked with me.
"What's with that guy's stutter, anyway?" he said after a few moments. "He puttin' that on for a sympathy factor or what?"
"Does he look like a guy who needs sympathy?" I said, sharp, snapping to Billy's defense even when he didn't need it.
"No. Shit, no. He kicked their ass," O'Shea said and took my tone and let it go.
We got to my truck and as soon as I started the engine I hit the automatic windows and pulled out of the parking to get some air circulating. I got on Andrews Avenue and headed north. O'Shea put his arm out his window.
"Back in the world. Isn't that what the cons say?"
"Yeah."
"Christ, only one night and you can feel it," he said. "I can't understand why they even take the gamble."
I looked over at the side of his face when he said it. She was wrong, I thought again, shifting more of my doubt. O'Shea wasn't the one. When I got to Sunrise Boulevard I started east and then threw a U-turn at the crossover and pulled into a small lot at Hot Dog Heaven. Chicago-style dogs. Best in the city. Plus tables outside in the breeze. I bought two with everything for O'Shea and couldn't help myself and got a third for me. We sat at a picnic table outside, only fifteen feet from the street traffic. I let him finish the first dog.
"So tell me about the photo."
"Oh, yeah. OK," he said, wiping relish off his chin. "Sorry, had other things on my mind." He finished chewing, took a gulp of coffee, exhaled and looked across the street like he was seeing it.
"I took the third seat from the end of the bar, figuring, like you said, he liked the last seat and I didn't want to crowd him if he showed. I was a couple of beers into it when some woman sat down on my left. Not my type and besides she was taking up the trap so I belched once, trying to dissuade her.
"She asked a question about the game that was up on the tube, trying to be friendly, so I asked her if she ever heard the joke that goes: 'What did one tampon say to the other when they met on the street?'"
"Did she wait for the answer?" I said.
"No. She got up and left," O'Shea said. "Then about eleven the guy in the picture comes in and sits at the end. I can tell there's something up between him and the blonde bartender. She ignores him at first and he just sits there, same look on his face, passive, not a bit bothered. I'm checking him in the mirror and he's playing the same game, watching me. Guy's got cop all over him. Tight haircut, like old Sergeant Rixson used to push on us.
"He's got that smell of talcum like we all did in the days after we had to wear the Kevlar every night. Get so goddamn sweaty you had to powder up even after you showered at the end of the shift."
"What about him and the bartender? Did they talk?" I asked, maybe a little too suddenly.
"You didn't say you were looking for a cop, Max," O'Shea said, putting both elbows on the table and bringing his coffee cup up with both hands.
"No, I didn't," I said. I wasn't going to offer that I hadn't known I was looking for a cop until Richards ID'ed the photo two hours ago. "Did they talk?"
He sipped and made me wait.
"She finally came down and put a Rolling Rock in front of him without being asked and they looked at each other for a couple of seconds longer than a barmaid and just a regular would. Now mind you, she'd been pretty friendly before he got there, worked the bar nice."
"Thanks, O'Shea. I know you're an expert in that area, but did they talk?"
"Not a word with me sittin' there but there was a hell of a lot being said, if that's what you're asking. They knew each other. She might be dealing for him from the bar. Might be something else. My take was he's trying to be contrite about pissing her off about something and she's making a plan that he ain't got a clue about."
O'Shea had been a good cop. He knew something about reading people. But he'd yet to prove himself a psychic.
"You picked all this up through their body language, Colin?"
"Some of it, yeah," he said. "The girl walks down to the other end and I say to the guy 'Nice ass on that one, eh?' and he looks at me like I just insulted his mother."
"And of course you let it go."
"Sure. I say: 'Well excuse me, pal, but if your name ain't on it, every paying customer in the place has the right to at least look.'"
"And?"
"Guy's got an eye, Max. Kind you see on the street that makes you want to take the baton out of your belt loop just for safety sake."
"He say anything?"
"No. But it was in his throat, twitchin'. I could see it there so I backed off, bought him a beer and made like I was calling someone on the picture phone. When the girl brought him the Rock, I snapped that shot of him," O'Shea said, obviously proud of himself. "That's when he got up and walked out through the back hallway. Left the beer and his money untouched."
O'Shea said he stayed in the bar and hadn't tried to tail the guy. I started to react but held myself; he was right, if the guy was a cop and made him as a tail it might have scared him off completely. O'Shea said he stayed put and waited for the bartender to close up and watched her get into her own car, just like I had the other night. When he got home to his apartment, two Broward sheriff's officers were waiting for him. He called Billy, sent the photo over the phone and went to jail.
When we got back into the car I asked where I could drop him and he asked me to go east. We got over the intracoastal bridge and he motioned me to pull over next to the Holiday Inn.
"You got a room?" I asked.
"Not exactly," he said, getting out at the curb. "I'll keep in touch."
I watched his back while he walked away. I knew the Parrot Lounge was just around the corner and I would have bet a paycheck that's where he was headed. Irish whiskey, straight up, and I'm not sure I could blame him after the night he'd had.
CHAPTER 23
He'd pushed the patrol car up to eighty on the freeway and blown through the toll plaza to Alligator Alley, and hadn't said a word since he'd slapped her.
She didn't know where the hell he was going, but she did know that if she pushed it the wrong way it was only going to make it worse. They'd done this dark stretch of straight road before at night. She remembered the turnoff that he'd taken, up a hard-scrabbled path that was barely a road at all and ended up in some kind of woods he called a hammock.