"I told you I don't got no shit. If you gotta have it, you can git outta here now. There's lotsa shit out there." She pointed to the door.
Liberty shook his head. "I never liked the stuff. It makes you stupid."
She humphed through her nose.
"What's that mean?"
"Nothin'."
"It means you don't believe me. Well, we're even,
then." He punched a few buttons to shut his computer down and stood up, stretching.
"What you doin'?"
"I've invaded your privacy long enough. I know this has been a huge inconvenience. I apologize, and I'll be on my way."
Belle hoisted the canvas bag she'd been carrying to the table. "What for?"
He didn't answer.
"I axed you a question." She opened the bag and started unpacking the lunch she'd brought.
Liberty's stomach growled. "And I asked you one. If you don't have to answer, I don't have to answer."
"Jeesus," she muttered. "Is this important?"
"Trust is important to me. I prefer to know the people whose houses I hide in."
She stopped setting the table and parked a hand on her hip. "You wanna know who I am?"
"Yeah."
"What's it to you?"
"I don't know you. It's nothing to me, but if you're a dealer I don't want to be here when you're arrested. If you're a cop, I don't want you to tum me in."
A genuine laugh lit up her face. "What makes you think I'm either?"
He glanced at the merriment softening her features, then eyed the food, determined not to touch it. "Miss Belle, your accent comes and goes, and you don't live here."
"I thought ballplayers were dumb," she muttered.
"I haven't been a ballplayer for a long time."
"I guess you'll want a napkin."
He surveyed the meal a last time, then shook his head. "No thanks, I'm not staying."
"I made it myself."
"I have to go see someone."
"You'll have to wait till later." Belle picked up a fork. For a second Rick thought she was going to reach over and stab him with it. But she used it to fill a plate. She set the plate down in front of him.
His stomach growled again. He'd never liked bossy women, was sure he didn't like this one. She stood there, a bag of rags, pointing the fork at him.
"Your friend Tor was deep into the shit, man. Deep into it."
"I know that. It had been a problem in the past. I thought he was over it."
"No way, man."
"What about my wife . . . ?" The question hung there.
If Belle understood the question, she didn't show it. "Your wife was killed by a black man, that much we know."
"A black man, you sure?'
She nodded. "Could have been you." She gave him a hard look.
"Or Wally Jefferson."
Belle nodded, then switched her attention to the food on his plate. "Nothing runs on empty," she said.
"I've got to find that bastard."
"How about eating something first." Belle looked at the food. "I made it myself."
"All right." After a moment Rick sat down and took a bite.
27
April hurried down the hall to the prosecutor's office, her scarf flapping. She checked her watch: 12:33. She had hoped to catch Dean Kiang at his desk, but now hesitated. His door was three-quarters closed. What if he was with someone, or out to lunch? Suddenly she was unsure that she'd done the right thing by driving all the way down here to see him in person without taking the time to call him first and say she was coming. An hour ago she'd been certain that the great sage, the judge of proper feelings and behavior (in whom Skinny Dragon Mother believed, but April did not) would say there was no fault in her actions. So why the sudden attack of nerves that caused her coat and jacket to feel like a sauna set on high?
April had talked to prosecutors dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. And this particular prosecutor had already called and missed her twice today. Why then did she find it easier to handle a bloody homicide than to be a fragrant flower for an interested Chinese bee? April thrust her gloves in her pocket and tugged at her coat, sweating freely now. God, she hated winter.
A cop was supposed to be professional at all times, wasn't supposed to be attracted to anyone. April had the deepest contempt for the constant flirting, teasing, and fooling around that was a permanent fixture of precinct life. She fluffed at her hair with nervous fingers, then knocked on the door. No answer. She was double stupid, should have called first.
Kiang must be across the street in court. No, the judges always adjourned for lunch. He could be anywhere, could have gone to a crime scene or a precinct on another case. She knocked again, telling herself she shouldn't be disappointed, then poked her head in Kiang's tiny, cluttered office. It was empty.
She stood in the doorway for a second, her heart pounding. What now? Should she go to the medical examiner on her own and ask a few hard questions, as Mike had told her not to do? Should she leave Kiang a note, telling him she'd been there? She debated with herself for a moment, staring at the messy piles of papers on Kiang's desk.
Suddenly an arm draped across April's back. She flashed to a sergeant in the tactics house. The sergeant had played a bad guy acting like a good guy, who happened to have a Glock in his handshake. In an instant that sergeant had shot April dead to demonstrate how you never knew who had a razor blade between his teeth or a gun under his chin. Now, she whirled around, her hand instinctively reaching for the gun in her waistband.
"Well, hello, gorgeous," Kiang said, squeezing the arm going for the gun.
"Dean." An embarrassed flush flared across April's cheeks as she let her hand drop.
Kiang grinned. "Thanks for coming, babe. Can't do lunch, though, I have . . ." He checked his watch. "Ten minutes." Smoothly, he led her into his office and closed the door.
April took a seat, still blushing. People had called her a lot of things in her life, but no one had ever called her "babe," or thought she was looking for a date. The sage says a perfect person does not show anger or hurt. A perfect person is like the earth, accepting of fire and thunder, earthquake and flood, uncomplaining. Surviving all. She did not protest being ' called "babe," which she believed was the name of a pig in a movie. Remembering Skinny Dragon's advice, she gave him a weak smile back.
Kiang sat down at his desk and put his feet up. He was extremely good-looking even with his feet in her
face. Taken for an idiot, April felt her heart banging away in her chest a lot faster than it had to. She wished she hadn't come.
"What can I do for you, sweetheart?" He made a telescope of his fingers and took a look at her through it.
Was it a Chinese thing for him not to admit he'd called her that morning? Or was it a male thing? April had come all the way downtown, past Chinatown, to the courts and prosecutor's office to talk to him. Kiang was the person with the greatest knowledge of the law, a higher authority than Ducci, than Mike, or Iriarte—even the CO of her precinct, whoever the new person was. But now that April was here, she didn't know where to start telling him her concerns. She'd met him over a dead body less than a week ago. Was she his sweetheart already? With men, sometimes it was hard to tell.
Suddenly Kiang put down the telescope and came down to earth. "I hear Liberty's taken off. What's going on?" he said seriously.
"Yes, he shook his surveillance sometime last night. We're trying to locate him." Ashamed of a failure that wasn't hers, April looked down at her hands. "But I didn't come about him."
"What then?"
"Sanchez and I had a meeting with Ducci this morning."
"So?" Kiang's face went blank at the mention of Sanchez.
April took a deep breath. "He's concerned about some irregularities coming out of the medical examiner's office."