Linda Kay Silva - Delta Stevens 3 - Weathering the Storm (33 page)

“Come on, guys, lighten up,” Delta admonished.

“Lighten up? Stevens, you gotta be crazy. If he were my partner, he wouldn’t be after a fuck-up like that.”

“Dougherty’s right. That rookie nearly got you deep fried. As it is, he still got you sent to the hospital. That didn’t need to happen, Stevens, and you know it.”

“Look, we were off duty, Carducci had had a drink or two. Nobody expected that we’d have to think so damned fast on our feet. He made a mistake. What do you expect? Perfection?”

“We’d expect him to know his left from his right,” Came a deep voice from the corner. “Or his right from his left. Or up from down...or....”

“Admit it, Stevens, he almost got you flame broiled like a Whopper. We all know it. Don’t try to protect him, man. He fucked up royally and I, for one, don’t care to work with someone that stupid.”

“Ditto!”

Connie stepped over to Delta and gently laid her hand on Delta’s shoulder. “Give it a rest, you guys. She’s back one minute, and the next, you’re giving her shit. Ease up, okay?”

“We’re not on her, Rivera. It’s her dim-witted rookie, AKA The Cop Who Couldn’t Find His Ass With Both Hands.”

As a few officers chortled at Tony’s new moniker, the door slowly opened and Tony walked in looking like a man who had just bet everything he owned on a lame pony. Instantly, the laughing subsided and everyone ducked their heads and went back to work.

Lowering his head, aware that the whole room had just been talking about him, Tony headed for the locker room.

“Hey, Carducci, wait up.” Brushing past a few of the back slappers, Delta reached him in three of her long strides.

Slowly looking up, Tony forced a small grin. “How you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Really.” If anyone had bet Delta that she’d see the likes of Tony Carducci cowed, she would have bet a month’s pay that it would never happen. And she would have lost. Standing before her now was a beaten man, a rookie who had probably taken a lot more abuse in the last two days than the verbal sputterings she had just witnessed. Delta knew what bastards the Internal Affairs cretins could be, and she knew by Tony’s hang-dog appearance that they hadn’t been kind.

“Delta, I know I let you dow—”

Suddenly, the captain’s door opened and Captain Henry appeared, hands on his hips, wearing something between a frown and a scowl on his weather-beaten face. “Stevens, when you’re done signing autographs, I want to see you in my office.”

Frustrated by his timing, Delta patted Tony on the back before heading for the captain’s office. “We’ll talk later. In the meantime, don’t let the guys get to you.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Following Henry back into his office, Delta knew what was coming. She knew, and she had prepared herself.

Moving his great frame around to his side of the desk, Captain Henry clicked his little lamp off. “It seems you find yourself in the limelight once again.”

Delta couldn’t tell by his demeanor whether that was a good thing or not. “If I had my choice, sir, I wouldn’t be.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Delta,” the captain said, opening the file laying on his desk. Delta hadn’t noticed it when she sat down, but she knew exactly what it was. “You have, again, brought this department some very positive media attention. What you did, how you risked your life, is stuff the media loves writing about and the public adores reading.”

Delta watched Henry move in his seat like a panther paces back and forth at the zoo. She had no idea where he was going with this, but wherever it was, it was making him very uncomfortable.

“It seems,” he continued, “that no matter where you’re assigned, you always seem to end up in the thick of things.”

Delta started to respond, but thought better of it. She wanted to see where this was going before she tried to back out.

“Saving those kids has sure made us look good in a year when police brutality claims the headlines.”

“Thank you, sir.” Now she was really baffled. Just what was he trying to say? “Captain, just where, exactly, is this conversation heading? You seem at a loss for words.”

“That’s just it, Stevens, I am.” Leaning across the desk, Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Where do we put you now? The department is going to look real bad if we keep you on Training Patrol after this. Already, the papers want to know why you’re there now.
The Trib
is actually speculating that you’re being punished for your role in the Zuckerman death.”

Delta’s eyebrow rose. “Aren’t I?”

Slamming his fist on the desk, Captain Henry caught himself and walked over to the window. “Damn it, Delta, you’re not making this easy for me.”

“Captain, I’m not exactly sure what
this
is.”

Folding his arms across his chest, Henry stood there staring at her. “You and I know that it wasn’t luck that made you follow that Camaro. I don’t know how you did it, but somehow, you managed to weasel your way onto this case.”

“But—”

“Let me finish. Right now, how you knew, how long you’ve been collecting evidence, and how many regulations you’ve broken during your investigation are moot points to everybody. And I do mean everybody. Suddenly, you’ve become the golden girl of the police force and I don’t know what the hell to do about it.”

A lightbulb flashed. “Oh, I get it now. You want to put me back on the street.” Standing up, Delta walked over and looked out the window at the office outside. Department politics bored her. The feds and their bureaucracy annoyed her. The press and their power irked her. It seemed that at every turn, somebody was getting in the way of her doing what she did best: be a cop on the streets. “That’s it, isn’t it? Put the heroine back where she belongs before we get any more heat from the press, and maybe she won’t tear us a new asshole for putting her on Training Patrol in the first place. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

Turning toward him, Delta snarled. “Yeah? Well, the whole thing stinks. I’m not a puppet to be manipulated according to public opinion. You
did
put me on TP to teach me a lesson and to show the others what kind of a captain you’d be if anyone didn’t play the game your way. So don’t bullshit me or the press into believing otherwise.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“The hell it wasn’t. You used me as an example and now that the media is knocking at your door, you want to take me from the corner you sent me to to save face? Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Is it? Well, I don’t care! This is my career we’re talking about, Captain, and I don’t want to be involved in the political mish-mash of this department. I won’t be a pawn to be moved at the whim of the chief or Internal Affairs or even you, for that matter.”

“Now wait a minute—”

Delta whirled around. After having some asshole slap her around and put an Uzi to her head, and after nearly burning to death, Delta felt no inclination to be diplomatic. And she didn’t give a damn.

“No, you wait a minute. I’ve done what you asked me to do. I took a rookie to the streets, and we—” Suddenly, Delta stopped. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re taking Carducci off, aren’t you?”

Inhaling slowly, the captain played with his moustache. “He really messed up, Delta. You know that. If someone had told me he had no sense of direction, he would never have been on the streets in the first place.”

From somewhere deep inside her, a ball of fire ignited and started moving toward the surface of her subconsciousness. This flaming sphere, this righteous indignation had a name. And that name was Miles Brookman.

“So, that’s it? Is that your inspired compromise? Take Carducci off the street and label him a failure so you can slip me right back out there without looking stupid. This makes me sick.”

“Jesus Christ, Stevens, give me a break here! He can’t give or take directions correctly, he’s got an attitude problem and he—”

“Makes the perfect scapegoat. At least have the balls to admit it, Captain.”

“Now see here—”

Delta laughed. “Or what? You’ll fire me? You want to play petty politics, Captain, then I just joined the game. You can’t fire me right now unless you want to look like the biggest dumbass west of the Rockies, so don’t wave your finger in my face. If you’re going to make a decision about me or Carducci, then at least have the guts to do it above board. If not, then stop wasting my time.” Grabbing the door, Delta paused. “I had hoped you were different than the other captains, but you’re not.”

“Delta, wait.”

Delta gently closed the door, but kept her hand on the knob. “What?”

“First of all, I’m not playing games with you. I have to do what’s in the best interest of this department. I happen to believe that means you’re on the street—”

“And Carducci’s behind a desk.”

“Damn it, Delta, the man has no sense of direction! I can’t allow another one of my officers to be put at risk again because he can’t tell north from south or east from west!”

“What about his potential. Are you going to throw that away too, just because he has some directional problems?”

“He has a handicap, Delta, one I should have been made aware of. I think it’s best for everyone involved if I take him off TP and find someplace else for the kid to work. That’s my decision.”

Delta folded her arms across her chest and considered his words. She knew that the best thing to do was to go along with the decision and dump Carducci while she had the chance. Yes, he almost cost her her life, but she had made a bad decision once and didn’t she live with the fact that that might have cost Miles his life? Sure, the best thing to do was to agree with the captain, get back to the streets, and forget that her career was now being controlled by the press. The best thing was to simply accept it.

But then, there was the right thing. The right thing, the way she had been taught by Miles, was to stay there and fight for her partner, much as Miles had done on any number of occasions when Delta had broken the rules. The right thing was to return the favor that had been done for her all those years ago and give Carducci a fighting chance to deal with his handicap. The right thing was for Delta to refuse to be dominated by the media, by self-serving players in a game she couldn’t stand playing.

The right thing. Delta wasn’t used to doing what was right. More often than not, when she had the choice, she chose the best thing— which usually wasn’t the right thing. But this time was different. This time, they were talking about the dreams, the career, of a man who did-n’t want to be anything else but a cop. She knew that by the way he polished his badge in the car when he wasn’t driving. She knew it by how well he fired a gun. And she recognized it when she saw the pride on his face whenever he got behind the wheel. Tony Carducci may be a lot of things that Delta didn’t care for, but deep inside, the guy was a card-carrying cop. He simply needed someone to give him the chance to show it.

“I don’t want a new partner.” Delta stated firmly.

“What?” The captain asked incredulously. “You’re joking.”

“Look, Captain, I, more than anyone, know that Carducci has a lot to learn. But who doesn’t? No one comes out of the academy a perfect cop. No one ever becomes a perfect cop. We all have a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out, that’s all.”

“Not like this one.” Scratching his head, Captain Henry looked at Delta a long time before sighing. The sigh seemed to let his stomach out and it rested securely against his belt buckle. “What’s with you, Delta? You don’t even like Carducci. I would have thought you’d be glad to be rid of him.”

Liking or not liking Tony hadn’t occurred to Delta. He was her partner. Period. There were unwritten, unspoken codes of honor cops adhered to among themselves. For better or worse, and all that jazz, really meant something on the streets. Miles had shown her that good cops were secure with their partner’s strengths and willing to work out the weaknesses. No one was perfect—not Miles, not her, not Carducci.

For better or worse.

“You busted me to TP, sir, because you believed I could make a good cop out of him. And now, even before I get a chance to do so, you want to dump him like he was carrying the plague. Well, pardon me for saying it: you might give up that easily, but I don’t, and I just want it to go on the record that I think you’re making a mistake by letting him go. Carducci has so much untapped potential and I think I’m just the one who can tap into it.” Delta knew that, under normal circumstances, the captain would throw her out on her ear. But this wasn’t one of those times. Because of the department’s fondness for good press, she was holding all of the aces. He had to play out this hand.

Shaking his head, Henry opened the file on his desk and pretended to study the contents of the first page before refocusing on Delta’s face. “You are an enigma to me, Stevens—as unpredictable as they come. I expected you to dance a good old Irish jig when I cut him loose. Instead, I get the fight of my life.”

“When I came to this department, sir, I learned a great deal about partner loyalty. I don’t know whether or not Carducci’s `handicap’ can be resolved, but I’d like the chance to try. Don’t take the bat out of my hands before I get to the plate.”

Captain Henry grinned. “Somehow, I’m sure you’d manage to get a hit anyway.” Rubbing his chin and returning his gaze to the file, Henry finally shook his head. “The chief won’t hear of it, and frankly, neither will IA. The chief won’t have this department looking stupid because we keep one of our finest on Training Patrol.”