I kissed Maggie on top of her head and she grinned. “Hi, Uncle Connor. We already ordered. You’re late.”
“So I am,” I said. “Lucky for you, I’m not hungry.”
“I’m hungry!” said Anthony Junior. He dove under the table, past his mother and into his seat, where he attacked his Happy Meal.
I pointed out the window. “What’s that?”
All three looked. I snatched one of Maggie’s French Fries and stuffed it in my mouth.
Maggie looked back in time and caught me. “Hey!”
“Keep your eyes on your fries,” I half-sang and slipped into the booth next to her.
“I thought you weren’t hungry,” Maggie said.
I shrugged. “Don’t have to be hungry to eat fries.”
“Keep yoah eyes on yoah fwies,” sang Anthony Junior.
I heard Rebecca laughing softly. I glanced up at her and caught her eyes. She looked at me and that sweet, seductive softness was there again. It had begun appearing more frequently sometime earlier this year. I don’t think either one of us was ready to deal with it just yet. I wasn’t, anyway.
I gave Rebecca a quick smile and glanced back toward the counter. The shitbird was still waiting in line. I looked around the dining area for his crew. An elderly couple sat a few tables away drinking coffee. A polyester cow and her three kids were sitting next to them eating sundaes. Two kids, probably boyfriend and girlfriend, lounged by the window, munching cheeseburgers and talking on cell phones. Probably to each other, the way they were giggling. But no sign of any Mexican bangers anywhere.
I struggled to remember this cholo’s name. It’d been about three years ago, I knew that much. Before I left patrol. He and his brother had been in a fight with a couple of Crips outside a downtown bar. His brother had been an asshole…in fact, he’d fought with us. I remembered now. He’d fought like a fucking Tasmanian devil, even though he only weighed a buck fifty. I finally had to nail him in the nose with a blast from my palm and that took the fight out of him. He bled all over the place, too. And once he started bleeding, he started crying and calling for his brother, who was the stocky one at the counter now. The cops beat me up, he said. Come help me. Come help me…Rueben! That was his name. Reuben Gonzalez, Hernandez, some-fucking-dez.
“We went shopping,” Rebecca said.
“Were you successful?”
She motioned at the bags next to her on the bench. I nodded. “A resounding victory for bargain hunters everywhere.”
“Smart alec. How’s work?” Rebecca asked.
I watched Rueben out of the corner of my eye. He was talking to the thin girl with bad teeth taking orders.
“Same as ever, “ I told Rebecca. Nothing ever changes in my office. I deal with the bar owners, liquor licenses, code enforcement, and zoning issues. Over-service at the newest night-spot is the most severe crime I deal with anymore.
“You always say that.”
“It’s always true,” I answered. “SPP is not exactly a firestorm.”
“But it is special,” she joked.
Special Police Problems. SPP. Ha. Ha.
Just join right in, Rebecca, I thought. It’s not like every cop on patrol hasn’t thrown in their own little jokester gem about my job. It comes with the territory.
I grinned at her anyway. She knew I transferred there for the day shift and the weekends off. She knew I did it to be able to see her and the kids and to be there when they needed me. She knew a lot. She’d been a cop’s wife.
“Uncle Connor id speshal,” Anthony Junior said around the chicken nugget in his mouth.
Rebecca and Maggie laughed. I smiled and watched that fucking cholo get his food and start walking right toward us.
Back when I was on patrol, I carried my off-duty gun everywhere I went. My old girlfriend thought it was cool at first, but after a while she’d sigh heavily every time I strapped on the ankle holster or slipped the gun into the small of my back. “Better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it,” I always told her. For her, my carrying a piece ruined the night for her, like the gun somehow invaded our personal life. I couldn’t be her boyfriend while I was being a cop. Ironically enough, that’s what she said when she moved out.
After Anthony died, I got promoted but after a couple of years on patrol, I managed a transfer to SPP. Around that time, I stopped carrying so often. Now, I couldn’t remember the last time I packed my off-duty piece. Which was stupid, really, because right now I needed a gun and I didn’t fucking have it.
Reuben-Fucking-Greaseball walked by without a sideways glance.
Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me. Or maybe he was playing it off, too. Waiting for the right time to make a move.
Jesus, police work makes you paranoid.
“What’s wrong?” Rebecca asked me.
I gave her a cautious look. I’m sure it looked paranoid. “Client,” I said in a low voice.
Her eyes widened slightly and she glanced around the restaurant. I watched her until she spotted Reuben, then looked back at me. I nodded to her that she was right.
“Should we leave?” she asked.
“Probably.”
Maggie watched both of us. She didn’t miss a thing. Anthony Junior might have looked like his father, but that little girl acted like him to a tee. Same awareness, same senses, same ability to judge people. Same radar. Anthony’s had almost never failed him. Almost.
“What is it, Mom?” she asked. She may have been eleven, but sometimes she sounded like she was twenty.
“Nothing, hon. Just finish up your fries.”
Maggie wasn’t convinced, but her radar was on and she dropped it.
Rebecca started gathering her things. “You want to meet us back at-”
“Hey, pig.”
His voice was coarse and accented. Rebecca’s eyes snapped over my shoulder and back to me. I saw panic enter them.
Easy, I mouthed to her.
I turned slowly in the booth and planted my feet on the floor. Rueben stood almost directly in front of me. His right hand was deep in his baggy pants pocket. His left hand dangled at his side, fingers twitching.
I felt the adrenaline course through me. I took a long, slow breath to control it and met the greasball’s eyes. He gave me his best I’m-The-Baddest-Motherfucker-In-The-Cell-Bloc look. I tried not to reflect it back at him. The last thing I wanted to do was to start posturing. But I had to show him strength. It was the only thing people like him understood.
“You beat up mi hermano, ese,” he said, his voice low and singsong. “Broke his fucking nose.”
I kept my eyes locked on his but I concentrated on that right hand. Was he carrying or was he bluffing?
“You think you’re tough, ese? Hmmm? Not so tough without your badge and uniform. Not so tough without your homies.” He leaned in toward me and lowered his voice. “Not so tough without your gun, huh, ese?”
“You’re out of bounds, Rueben,” I told him evenly.
He cocked his head back and to the side at the sound of his name. “Out of bounds? What the fuck you mean, ese?”
“I’m off-duty. You’re not with your homies. This is out of bounds.”
He regarded me in silence for a moment, his eyes flat and unrevealing.
“Let’s save this for another time,” I suggested. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
A smile touched the corner of his lips. “You’re scaaaaared, ese. Fucking tough guy is scared.”
I changed tactics. “I don’t want any trouble, Reuben.”
His gaze swept over me, took in the T-shirt and shorts. Saw the small fanny-pack around my waist.
“You got trouble, puto.”
I didn’t reply, but moved my hand slowly to the zipper of my fanny-pack. I watched his eyes calculate the size of the fanny-pack. Could I fit a.38 in there? A.25? Maybe a.22?
“Is this going to be a fist fight, Rueben, or a gun fight? Or nothing at all?”