"I'm okay."
"Just wanna see if you're swelling up."
Soledad didn't care about showing her new bruise to Lesker. He was there when she got it. She didn't want to show him because, really that much, she didn't want to have to look at the guy.
"C'mon, let me see."
Soledad turned from the window, got an eyeful of her partner. Lesker was overweight, but not so much to get kicked off the force. Unfortunately. He tended to be unpleasant in an annoying way, was free of ambition and was just marking time until he could draw pension. Combine all that, it was no accident he was partner free, available to work with whatever cop came along.
He checked out Soledad's face. A bad bruise had formed on the right side between her eye and temple."Shoulda just popped the bitch back."
Soledad had gotten careless on a domestic disturbance call. Not careless. Not really. No matter his years on the job, Lesker's police skills were weak and he was lazy about using them. Soledad found herself having to do two things at once. Domestic disturbance calls are not a good place to get distracted. More cops are injured refer-eeing those than any other kind of calls. Including MTac. Soledad had got herself between a drunk husband and an angry wife. Lucky all she got was an ashtray to the temple.
"Shoulda just popped the—"
"I heard you. Should've popped the bitch. It was an accident!"
"Coming at you with an ashtray? Those people don't hit cops by accident."
"What kind of people is that?"
"Those kind. That's what kind."
Old school, Bo had said. Old school didn't begin to describe Willie Lesker.
"Those fucking people. We're supposed to be protecting them, then every time a cop gets shot they have a holiday; break into a liquor store and burn it down or some shit. Christ. What the fuck are we out here for?"
"If they didn't have us, they'd only have each other to shoot at all day long."
"Hell, let 'em."
If it came glazed, Soledad wasn't sure Lesker would recognize sarcasm. Didn't matter. His focus was across the street. Another of" those people" rubbing him wrong just by existing.
"Jesus, look at homeboy in the Benz. Yeah, we're winning the war on drugs. Fucking oughta roust him."
Soledad's head swung the opposite direction, looked out her window. Only the third shift.
"Oughta roust him. Ten to one he's got an outstanding on something. Probably child support for baby number thirty-two. Got to get yourself some glasses, O'Roark. A good dark pair, before all the shit gets in your eyes."
We could go somewhere else."
"That's okay."
"I mean, if you wanted to—"
"I'm good."
When Soledad'd told Ian it was okay if they went out on a date, long as they didn't go on a date date, he figured that meant shopping or going to a bookstore or tossing around small talk in the middle of the afternoon over a couple of Jamba juices. What Ian hadn't figured on: To Soledad a nondate date was sitting in an auto shop on Little Santa Monica while the front end of her Honda got worked on. Except for the heat and the noise and the auto repair smells and the grease-covered guys sneaking Soledad the eye while they chewed their lips, it was very close to almost being something like a date.
Ian tried one more time to get Soledad around to the idea of going somewhere—anywhere—else.
"You know, across the street there's this little cafe—"
"Want to keep an eye on these guys. Minute you walk away they start making up stuff that's wrong with your car."
And she had sunglasses on. Bad enough all the other distractions, but here they were inside and Soledad kept her eyes hidden.
Ian fell back in his chair. Not defeated, but definitely taking a between-rounds breather. Ms. O'Roark was going to be work. A whole lot.
She said: "Thought you'd like this."
"Like what?"
"Thought you'd like coming to the garage with me. I mean, you like cars, right?"
"I like them, but—"
"And this place… I don't know, it's got character."
And it did. Right among the overpriced boutiques that littered Beverly Hills, the banks and finance companies, movie and television production houses corralled in Century City, the garage was a little brick throwback of a building that couldn't hold more than three vehicles at a time. Driving regular speeds down Little Santa Monica, you'd miss it if you weren't looking.
Soledad'd missed it plenty of times. Wasn't until a cop on SPU had given it a recommend that she'd driven real slow and found the joint.
They did good work at Grimmet's, the garage. Had to. Family-owned since the days when the cars that rolled through the door had names like Packard and Studebaker. They'd done a lot of star business at Grimmet's too. Headshots on the walclass="underline" Cornel Wilde, Barbara Stanwyck, the Fonz.
It was funny about LA: every shop, dry cleaners and hole-in-the-wall restaurant you went to had headshots autographed by stars. But in all the years she'd lived in the city Soledad'd never seen anyone particularly famous. Not a one. Just a guy who could light himself up and shoot flames. That Soledad had seen.
"The Jag you drive: What kind," Soledad asked,"is that?"
"Sixty-seven Series I XK-E." Ian tripped over himself answering, happy Soledad showed the slightest interest in something about him."It's nice, you know, but way too temperamental. All the Brit cars are like that. The old ones. What I really want is a Sixty-four and a half Mustang."
Soledad frowned.
"What?" Was he talking too much? Did she really not care about cars?
"That's what guys say. Whenever a guy goes on about old cars, he always says he wants a Sixty-four—"
"Sixty-four and a half."
"Mustang."
"That's because it's a classic. It's a classic car."
All Ian earned with that was a shrug out of Soledad."Camaros are cooler."
"I thought you didn't know anything about cars."
"How much do you have to know to know cool?"
Shaking his head, dismissive, adamant, not caring he should be working to earn points on their first nondate date: "You can't even compare the two."
Dismissive, adamant back: "You got that right."
"I'm talking about a classic piece of automotive—"
"Classic. Classic, not a muscle car. What I'm talking about is a muscle car, okay? I mean, yeah, you want to go pick up some drapes from the store, take your grandma to dialysis, an old Mustang is real nice, but..
Ian stared Soledad right in the sunglasses. He saw a teeny-tiny version of himself getting exasperated."You know who drives Camaros? White trash. White trash drives Camaros. They love them. That big V-8 is good for towing around their mobile homes."
"Lots of people drive Camaros." Soledad tried to think of a few. A bunch of pale trashy faces popped into her mind."… Lots of people."
"White trash and New York goombahs."
"They drive Trans Ams."
"Same shit. The shit's the same."
She fought it hard, but she couldn't help herself: Soledad smiled.
Ian got energized by this tiniest of victories. A foothold while storming the beach O'Roark. He pressed his advantage."You have nice eyes," he worked at being smooth."At least I remember them that way. I'd love to see them."
Soledad dropped her smile. For a second Ian thought he was going to be repelled back into the cold, cold water. A few seconds after that, Soledad's hand came up, slid off her sunglasses. Hard as she made that little bit of a chore seem, she might as well have been lifting a bus over her head.
And they were pretty eyes. Green. They looked good against her caramel skin. Would've looked even better if most times they weren't always burning so hot.