Now he did smile. “I did. They have no objection to you taking the job.” Why should they? It saved them money. Besides, I doubted Miss Beatriz really was important enough for either the consulate or the police department to go to any trouble. But Philippe was only doing what the diplomatic service of any country does best: saving everyone’s face.
I leaned back. “Tell me, what’s she like?”
He rolled his eyes. “Earnest, boring, and unreasonably stubborn. Would you like some coffee?”
I gave the admin intern who wished he was a valet parker a ten-dollar tip because he had polished the pollen off my wing mirrors, and because it really was a beautiful day. There was still a slight breeze and the humidity was below sixty percent. Even the etiolated young birch trees that were spaced as carefully as nursery seedlings every ten yards on the concrete sidewalk looked fresh and clean.
I played Diamanda Galas all the way to Deacon’s. I got there five minutes early. Denneny was already there.
Years ago, when he still wore a uniform, when his wife was alive, he would have been joking with the women dishing up the fried chicken and greens behind the counter, talking them out of a free side of cornbread, inhaling the rich steam of grits and gravy and grease until his ruddy complexion darkened to plum; but this morning he was sitting at one of the rickety Formica tables, looking around at the clientele as though he were a stranger, out of place in his city suit and silk tie.
“You look more like an executive than a cop,” I said.
He stood. “I am, these days.”
“Anything good on the menu today?”
It was an old joke—Deacon and now his heirs had always served exactly the same thing—but Denneny just shrugged.
We stood in line and loaded up our trays with chicken and greens and potatoes and gravy and bread and iced tea. I paid for both of us and got a handful of paper napkins. I took the seat facing the door.
“You look as though you’re doing well. Watch your clothes with all this grease.”
“That’s why napkins were invented.” I tucked two around my neck, draped one across my lap, and picked up a chicken wing. The best fried chicken in the city. “So. You wanted a statement.”
He took one of those miniature tape recorders out of his pocket, put it on the table and looked at his watch. “I forgot to pick up a fresh cassette, so there’s only about half an hour’s worth of tape left.”
“That should be plenty.”
So in between bites of hot chicken and forkfuls of mashed potato loaded with enough cholesterol to stun an elephant, I told him about crashing into the woman, about the explosion, and the flames. I gave him times, descriptions, even a weather report. He didn’t ask any questions, just nodded and ate. When I’d finished he turned the machine off and slipped it back in his pocket. “I’ll get it transcribed this afternoon. You can come in and sign it anytime. That should take care of the formalities.”
“Any leads?”
“Just the drugs.”
“Surprising, that.”
“I’ve passed the point of being surprised by anything those people do.”
“I don’t think it was drug dealers.”
“The drugs were there, and there isn’t a single other angle to pursue.”
“And why even try when there’s a nice, neat explanation?”
“Something like that. You know how things stand, Torvingen. If we don’t get our share of the fed payout, not only won’t there be any air-conditioning in June, we won’t even be able to afford batteries and tapes for this little machine.” He tapped his pocket. “So unless you have the address and confession of the guy who did it, butt out.”
I shrugged. “Just making conversation.”
He wouldn’t let it go. “Do you have some special interest in the case?”
“Not particularly.”
“Good, because I’d hate to get our wires crossed on this.”
“Why should I care who killed whom and over what? I’m not a police officer anymore.”
“And you never cared much even then.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”
He applied himself to the potatoes for a while. “Do you miss it?”
“No.”
“Not even a bit?”
“Not even a bit.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t take that liaison job I offered you when you were pulled off the streets.”
“You know as well as I do that the mayor would have had kittens at the thought of me still walking around with a badge and gun in an election year.” I had better things to do with my life than be photogenic for the police department.
“True. So if you don’t miss being a cop, why did you take that job in Dahlonega?”
“It was work. Only now I don’t need to work.”
“Lucky you.” It came out sounding bitter.
“Sounds as though you could do with a vacation.”
“I’m taking one. Two weeks in the Napa Valley starting Saturday. Nothing but sun and the scent of the vine.”
When I’d first known him, he drank only beer and bourbon. There again, he wouldn’t have known a silk tie if it had bitten him. People change.
We looked at each other. I realized that his spectacle lenses were bifocals. He wiped his fingers carefully on a napkin. “Well, it’s been good talking to you. Come in to sign this thing tomorrow, after you finish with the rookies.”
“Anything in particular you want me to cover with them?”
He stood. “Nah. Just tell them how it works in the real world, so they don’t get themselves killed the first time they step out of the car.”
The real world. We had always disagreed about what, exactly, that meant. He had always believed in the rules, but rules are useless when lives are in danger. He never seemed to understand that.
two
There used to be several distinct kinds of gym. When I was growing up, school gyms—in whatever country—were sunlit and silent, the air dead and dusty with the scents of climbing ropes, ancient pommel horses sweat-soaked and bare on the handles, and a thin, greasy overlay of plimsoll rubber scraped off on the wooden floor during countless skiddings and bumpy landings. All very genteel and closed off. Working gyms in the city were meatier, more burly, with dim overhead lights, chalk dust, labouring fans, and metal everywhere: clanking Nautilus, ringing free weights, clinking dog tags. Male sweat and Ben-Gay. Hoarse huff-huff of pumping, the occasional burst of loud boy conversation: the game, the fight, the conquest. Dojos, on the other hand, were defined more by body sounds: the slap of open hands on arms, thud of bare feet on kick bags, the heavy, almost soundless impact of a rolling fall…and the voices, karate kiais like the cry of a stooping hawk; the very particular half-swallowed hut-hut, like a gun with a sound suppressor, of a whole school of people going through their katas; the endless, rhythmic susurrus of breath as half a dozen students meditate in zazen.
The precinct gym in City Hall East was less than a year old: beautiful sprung-wood floor, whispering air-conditioning, full-spectrum lighting. The sweet, cloying scent of new plastic and rubber grips on the weight machines vied with cologne and a very faint perfume. Rookies smelled different these days.
The fourteen newly minted police officers were wearing a variety of tees and shorts. I had told them to wear long sleeves and sweatpants. It doesn’t matter how nice the floor is; if you miss the mat, it’ll skin your knee. Two were very young but most were in their mid-to late twenties. One man had some grey at his temples. They all looked freshly showered. It was six-thirty in the morning.
“None of you are stretched out and ready. I have ninety minutes today. We don’t have the luxury of using any of that time on something you could do on your own. Take five minutes now.”