“Why?”
He didn’t answer. He swiveled his chair instead and looked at the screen, where my sister and her new boyfriend were scrubbing dishes and laughing.
“What’s his story?” he asked. “Your new friend.”
“Sarah met him at the mall. Same day I met you, as a matter of fact. Though you and I haven’t hit it off quite so well.”
He sent me one of those looks. “You live an interesting life.”
“You have no idea. What made you change your mind on the beach?”
He drank more of the OJ. “Two things. One of them has nothing to do with the beach itself: You were pissed off, not scared, when you confronted me the first time. Guilty people get scared, or they get smooth. You’re different.”
Well, that was a nice compliment. “And the other thing?”
“Guilty people don’t save lives in the dark. Murderers can save lives, if it suits them. They can run into burning buildings and grab babies out of cribs at risk of their own skins. They can even feel sorry about it if it doesn’t work out. But if there’s a choice, and if there’s no percentage and no witnesses, they won’t put themselves out for it. If a guy’s bleeding to death in an alley and all they have to do is make a 911 call, they won’t unless there’s a reason—unless somebody sees them and expects them to do it, or there’s some profit in it. Get my point? It’s all about the way it looks, not the life they’re saving; they really don’t give a shit about that.” He shrugged and tilted the glass to drain the orange juice to a thin film of gold. “You do. All you had to do was walk away and let that hole collapse on those poor bastards, and nobody would have known.”
“Nobody but me.”
“Yes. That’s my point.”
Something he said rang a bell. “You said, a murderer can run into a burning building and grab a baby… you were thinking of Quinn, weren’t you?”
He was silent for a moment, reluctant to say it out loud. “There was something about the way he did it. Standing there in the street, calculating the angles. There was a crowd, there was a mother begging him for help, but it was like some little computer inside of him was adding up benefits. Look, I wasn’t lying to you. Quinn was a good guy. I liked him. But being a good guy doesn’t mean you’re not a bad man.”
“Detective, if you’re not careful, you might start sounding deep.”
He gave me a faint, strange smile. “No chance of that. I’m a good cop. If I can’t see it, feel it, taste it, explain it to the jury, I don’t believe it. Quinn, he was intuitive. Mind like a jumping bean. It was all like a game to him. A contest; see who’s the smartest guy in the room.” His hands were clasped now, his thumbs rubbing slow circles on each other. He bent his head and watched them at work. “Can I believe he was a wrong guy? Yeah. I can believe it. I didn’t want to, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve been watching you. You don’t change when nobody’s looking. You say what you mean, and you say it to anybody who’ll listen.”
“Are you saying I’m not subtle?”
“You’re about as subtle as a brick. But you can take that as a compliment. Hero-types generally aren’t that subtle.”
Hero-types?“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” he said. “The greasy-looking kid who was in your apartment last night ripped off some cash from the flour jar in your kitchen. And the guy you were talking to before you left for work made him put it back.”
Kevin and Lewis, each acting according to their natures. It made me smile.
“Also,” Rodriguez finished, “you looked totally hot on TV, and your sister looks pretty good naked. Now. Tell me about what really happened with Quinn.”
I realized, about two sentences into it, that I couldn’t nottell him about the Wardens, and especially the Djinn. He had to understand what we were dealing with, and the stakes we played for. He had to understand that Quinn was doing something far beyond the capacity of the justice system to punish.
It took a long time. When my voice ran hoarse, Rodriguez got me a cold bottled water, and when I started trembling from nerves, he switched me to cold beer.
The air conditioner kicked in with a dry rattle at some point, drying the sweat trickling down into the neckline of my white tank top.
It was a strangely quiet interrogation. He just listened, except for those small acts of kindness. Occasionally, he’d ask for a clarification if I wasn’t getting something across, but he never disputed, never doubted, never accused me of being a lunatic straight off the funny farm.
Which I would have, if I’d been in the less-comfy chair hearing someone spout the same explanation.
When I got to the part that talked about his partner’s death, I saw his eyes go cool and hooded, but his expression stayed neutral. Then it was over, and I was clutching an empty brown bottle in my hands, and all I heard was the steady whisper of the A/C fighting the Florida heat.
“You know how that sounds,” he said.
“Of course I know. Why do you think I didn’t tell you all this up front?”
He got up, as if he wanted to pace, but the van was too small and besides, I thought what he really wanted to do was put his fist through something yielding.
Like me. There was that kind of sharp angle to the way he moved.
And still, nothing in his expression. The anger was burning, but it was somewhere miles down and sealed off with a steel hatch.
“You say there’s nobody to back up this version.”
“Well, there is,” I said. “The guy that was here last night. The kid. And you saw some of it yourself last night on the beach. Hell, you could call my boss in New York if you wanted. He’d tell you it was true—well, maybe he wouldn’t, come to think of it; he’s got a hell of a lot of problems of his own. But the point is, none of these people would be credible to you. They don’t have real jobs and real identities you can check out with independent sources. They’re ciphers. Like me. So I think you’ve got to go with your gut on this one, Detective. Do you believe me or not?”
He stopped and put his hand on a leather strap hanging from the wall—the better to grab onto if the van had to move into gear, I realized. This was quite a mobile cop shop he had.
“Tell you what,” he said after a moment. “I’ll believe it if you show me something.”
“What?”
“Anything. Anything, you know, magic.”
“It’s not magic,” I said, exasperated. “It’s science. And—well, okay, the Djinn, maybe that’s magic, but really, it can all be explained if you go far enough with the physics, and—”
“You do stuff other people can’t do, and you make things happen with the power of your mind?”
“Well—um—”
“Magic,” he said, and shrugged. “So show me something.”
Truth was, I didn’t have enough power to show him much of anything. I stared at him blankly for a moment, and then said, “Okay.” I had enough energy left inside for a tiny little demonstration. Maybe.
I held out my palm and concentrated.
It should have been easy, doing this; it was a trick I’d been practicing since I’d first joined the Wardens. Nothing to it—anybody with more than a spark of talent could pull it off; the trick was controlling it and doing it with grace and elegance.
I closed my eyes, let out a slow breath, and built a tiny little rainstorm over my hand. Pulled moisture out of the surrounding air and carefully crowded it together, cooled the vibrations of the molecules just enough to make them sticky. When I opened my eyes, a faint, pale fog was forming above my palm. It was ragged and not very well established and, all in all, the crappiest demonstration I’d ever seen, but I held on and continued to draw the moisture together into a genuine little cloud.
A tiny blue spark zipped from one side to another inside of it, illuminating it like a tiny bulb, and Rodriguez drew closer, staring.