Time's Up (10 page)

Lee's eyes narrowed. “Sit down, okay?” He went to the bar.

A couple of bar-backs came by, sweeping up broken glass, mopping up spilled drinks, righting tables and chairs. I slid in the booth next to a glowering Cash, arms folded across his chest. Koji—the Eagle Scout—already had a round waiting at our table, including a beer for me.

I took a drink, the frosty cold Lite stinging my torn lip.
Delicious.

Lee returned with ice in a plastic bag, wrapped in a towel. He held it out to me.

“That was sweet,” I said, taking it. “Sweet but unnecessary.”

“Yeah? You'll thank me tomorrow.” Lee put his hand on mine and lifted the makeshift ice pack to my lower lip and chin. “So, tell me. Is what Nark saying true?”

That I'm a complete loser who got kicked out of the Police Academy? Yes.
“Huh?” I said, making him actually ask it out loud.

“That you're a parking enforcement agent?”

“Yes,” I said, leaving the ice pack in front of my mouth, waiting for the washout part.

It didn't come.

“How do you like it?” Lee said.

“It's interesting.”

“Working with the public always is. It's why I became a cop.” Lee grinned and took a drink of his Stella Artois. “You ever date anyone on the job?”

“No.” I said. “Never.”

“We're not all like that jackass.”

“What?” I asked, catching up. “Oh no, I'm not opposed to law enforcement or anything. But my father and three brothers apparently traded in the sacred partner don't-date-my-ex card for the don't-even-look-at-my-sister/daughter one.”

“McGrane.” Recognition dawned on Lee's face. “Your clan's Detective Division, Homicide, yeah?” He looked at my brother. “Except for Cash in Vice.”

I nodded.

“That's okay, then.” Lee said. “I don't think they'll enter into the equation.”

He gave me a look. And it was a good one. “How about dinner?”

“Thanks, Lee. But I don't think so.”

My head hurt and I felt sick. Sick from adrenaline, a dozen Diet Cokes, getting kicked out of the Academy, Tommy Narkinney, Peterson, the PEA in general, and most of all, Hank.

Lee let me out of the booth, and I signaled to my brother with the keys.

 

After the last of the wasted wolf pack was dispatched, Cash, Koji, and I headed back to our house. Inside, Koji split off, going to the main floor guest room he normally stayed in, while Cash and I went upstairs and quietly crossed the hallway to our rooms.

“Hey!” Cash whispered and waved me into his room. “Make sure you wake me and Koji up at eight thirty tomorrow. We want to hit the range before our tee time.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Cash put a hand to his ear. “I didn't hear a
yessir
.”

“And you won't,” I said. “The deal's off. You're going to continue to see Jennifer Lince. And I'm a free woman.”

“Oh yeah?” He sat down on his bed.

I pressed my hands dramatically over my heart. “Mom will be so proud you applied to SWAT.”

The color drained from his face. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Best of luck with that one. After I tell Da, you'll be off the list faster than you can blink in denial.”

“You don't know that.”

“Yeah? Then why haven't you told them yourself?”

Cash flopped back onto the bed and said to the ceiling, “God, I hate you.”

I gave him a poor baby pout and walked toward the door.

“Okay, wait,” he said scrambling. “I'll—”

“You'll keep seeing Jennifer until after the Dhu West Gala. I'll cover your chores. But no more thrall duty.”

Cash nodded. “Deal.”

I made it to the door before he asked, “What'd Lee Sharpe say?”

“You and Koji are at the top of the heap.”

Saturday dawn, I woke up with a throbbing shoulder, tender chin, and a headache. I got dressed and surveyed the damage in the bathroom mirror. I owed Lee Sharpe big-time for the ice pack. The bruise on my chin was pretty much undetectable, unless someone was looking for it. My lip didn't look that bad, either, slathered with Aquaphor and surrounded by Dermablend concealer.

Way too early, I started down the stairs, prepared to beg Thierry for a smoothie and a poached egg, and halted at the sounds of protest.

Cash and Koji were already up and in the hot seat, fibbing away like mad. “Honestly, Mr. McGrane. You should have seen those idiot beat cops begging SWAT for a throw-down.”

“And Maisie was with you?”

“Jaysus, Da,” Cash complained. “Nothing happened. She's totally fine.”

“Pretty feckin' thoughtful, taking her to Hud's,” Rory said, “seeing as she's just been scotched from the Academy.”

“Give it a rest, Rory. She was happy to go. In fact,” he embellished, “it was her idea.”

“Maisie, darlin',” Da called. “Come down off the stairs and tell me your version of last night's shenanigans.”

Cash and Koji were still arguing with Rory as I skulked into the dining room.

Flynn's phone buzzed. “McGrane.” He snapped his fingers and held up his palm. The squabbling stopped. “On our way.” He hung up and looked at Rory and Da. “Triple homicide in Ashburn. One juvenile.”

“This isn't over,” Da said, following Flynn and Rory out of the dining room.

Minutes later, Cash, Koji, and I watched from the window as they tore out of the driveway, dash, deck and grille lights flashing.

“Bullet officially dodged.” Cash took a bite from his makeshift breakfast burrito. He'd wrapped a pancake around his bacon and scrambled eggs so as to not stop eating for a second. “I mean—” He sucked some falling egg back into his mouth. “How lucky are we? Mom and the twins, stuck in the city, slaving away on their pedo case. Da and the guys gone till the wee hours.” He smacked me in the arm. “Let's have a party.”

“You're an imbecile.”

“Dude,” Koji said. “Get real. We're working tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “C'mon. Two hours till tee time and I gotta hit some balls.”

I spent the rest of the day culling through Thorne Clark's solitary, squeaky-clean life, looking for connections to Nawisko that didn't exist.

Sunday I went to Joe's Gym, telling myself I'd trained there for the last twenty-two months and I had every right to be there.

Hank wasn't there, either.

 

Monday morning, bright and early, I waited in Dhu West's Traffic Enforcement Bureau reception area for Jennifer Lince. Today was the day she'd hand over the coveted keys to the golf cart and bestow upon me the Barbie-replica shield. The little piece of aluminum that the TEB believed gave their minimum-wage earner a sense of righteousness and pride.

I drummed my hands on my black cargo pants–covered knees. Dhu West ran with the efficiency of a clock dipped in maple syrup. Eventually, Jennifer's sullen secretary led me back to her office.

Ms. Lince, phone wedged between her ear and shoulder, was hard at work, fingers flying across her computer keyboard. “Yes. I understand. I see.” She stopped typing and pointed at one of the red fabric chairs.

Everything in her office was exactly as it had been when I'd seen her a week ago, including the silver eight-by-ten framed photo of Cash, except for two things. The pony keg–sized mug of coffee that could flush out the digestive tract of an elephant and a little scrap of paper sticking up from her keyboard.

Oh jeez.
The stub to the art movie Cash took her to.

Finally, she hung up the phone, took a manila folder with my name on it from her in-box, and began to read. “My goodness, Maisie.” Jennifer smiled pertly at me over the folder. “I have never known Leticia Jackson to give such a glowing recommendation. Caiseal must not be the only one with charm to spare in the McGrane family.”

I smiled politely, not taking the bait.

“In fact,” Jennifer said, “if I wasn't so well-acquainted with her illiterate scrawl, I'd have said you wrote it yourself and, quite frankly, overdid it.”

I hadn't seen that one coming. “A lot in common, I guess.”

Jennifer's eyes narrowed. “Such as?”

“Uh . . . Dennis Prager?”

“Really? A mutual friend?” She tipped her head in relief.

“Okay then.” She closed the folder, hefted her giant cup of coffee to her lips and took a long slurp. “I think you have what it takes to become a Dhu West player. A can-do attitude and a certain level of . . .
understanding.
”

“Ma'am?”

“Dhu West only recently acquired the Chicago contract. As one of the single non-union-run city departments, Dhu West focuses on two things the unions don't—profit and efficiency. Which is why I've assigned you to a senior agent.”

“PEA agents don't have partners,” I said automatically.

“Normally that's correct.” Her lips rolled back in a prim smile. “Your new partner, Eunice Peat, has had a long career with the TEB. Unfortunately, she's operating at the barest minimum standard while her age and health condition are causing a drain on the entire PEA benefit package.”

“Dhu West believes an early retirement would best suit all parties.” Her blue eyes lit with an unholy glee. “Naturally, when you find your partner's not performing to company standards, or is physically incapable of properly executing her duties, you will immediately bring that to my specific attention.”

“I believe in respect, and I think you do, too, Maisie. Respect that you have a higher loyalty to Dhu West, above whatever affinity you may have for a partner.” Jennifer opened a desk drawer and removed an AutoCITE machine, Traffic Enforcement Bureau shield, and an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven laminated route card. She slid them across the desk to me. “With Leticia's recommendation and effective performance, the sky's the limit for your career here.” She stood up and extended her hand. “Welcome aboard, Maisie.”

 

“I heard you'd made the cut and I was, like, so totally jazzed,” Obi said, wheeling around the counter of the Dispatch office building.

He handed me a boot requisition form on a clipboard. “Usually you have a standard two boots per vehicle, unless you have Friday specials like—you know.” He leaned in. “Hey! I heard about the boots you laid at the Brothers of Allah Prayer Center. Those guys are complete assholes.”

“You can say that again.”

He chuckled. “Miz Jackson said one of the cops who showed up was just as bad.”

“Yeah.” I looked the form over and signed the bottom.

His face scrunched up in question. “Why didn't they arrest the guy who broke your radio?”

“Officer Narkinney and I aren't exactly what you'd call pals.” I forced a smile. “More like mortal enemies.”

“Oh,” Obi said. “Stormtrooper?”

“Romulan.”

Obi rolled his eyes. “Ix-nay on the ek-Trey.”

“I thought Stormtroopers were pretty much silent. Narkinney is loud and obnoxious.”

“Ahhhh.” Obi stroked the wispy fuzz on his upper lip. “Tusken Raider.”

“Now you're talking.” I handed the clipboard back, not letting go until he looked me in the eye. “From now on, Ms. Jackson should arrive with an escort every third Friday.”

Obi nodded. “I'm on it.” He slipped the clipboard into one of the
Star Wars
saddlebags on the side of the chair.

“Where do I get the keys?”

“You don't. Ms. Peat's the driver.” He wheeled backwards up the ramp, showing off.

“Can you give me the lowdown on my new partner?”

Obi smiled sadly and shook his head. “The Force is strong within you, my young friend, but even I cannot reveal your destiny.”

 

I swiped my key card at the TEB entrance, stopped in front of the time clock, and punched in.

“Told you I'd set you up, McGrane,” Leticia Jackson crowed from the hallway. She marched into the break room, black shoes squeaking on the waxy gray linoleum floor. “Get me a Cherry Coke and some Cheetos and come sit your scrawny ass down.” She sat down at one of the stained Formica tables while I pulled out a couple bucks and fed them into the vending machines.

Today was not the day to skimp on a bribe. I threw in a Snickers, as well.

I brought the snacks over and sat down. Leticia wiped the sweat from her neck with an orange bandanna. “There's a couple things we need to get straight, McGrane.”

“Should I be taking notes?”

Leticia squinted at me to see if I was kidding, decided I wasn't, and opened the chips. “Hell, no! This is James Bond, CIA kinda shit.” She leaned across the table, eyes wide. “This is one hundred percent under-the-table radio silence.”

Unable to help myself, I faked a look of intense interest. “Wow.”

Leticia cocked her head and eyed me suspiciously. “You ain't wearing a wire, is you, McGrane?”

“No.”

“Okay.” She shook out a couple Cheetos and popped them in her mouth.

“Of course, as a civilian, I'm under no obligation to tell you the truth,” I said helpfully. “Nor would I have to tell you if I was a police officer.”

Leticia stopped mid-chew and gave me the look one of those hippos on the Discovery Channel does just before it charges the cameraman and rips his leg off. “You're blathering.” She finished chewing. “Cops can't lie. That's entrapment.”

“Nope. The law does not prohibit officers from lying in the course of performing their duties.” She raised a skeptical brow and I continued, “Entrapment's when someone's persuaded by police to commit a crime that they had no previous intention of committing.”

Leticia shook her head and thrust her stubby fingers back into the bag. “You sure do know a lot of useless shit.”

She was attractive in that cute-potential chubby-faced way. I wondered what she'd look like sixty pounds lighter. Smoking hot, or would that aura of would-be attractiveness evaporate into the ether with the lost weight?

“We're going to talk about your new partner, Eunice Peat,” Leticia said. “And before you ask, it's Niecy, never Eunice.” She raised her palms ceiling-ward. “Lordy, what kind of back-country hillbilly gives their baby girl a homely-ass name like Eunice?”

I shrugged. Maisie McGrane was not exactly the moniker of a cosmopolitan sophisticate.

“Anyhow,” Leticia said, “I got a warm spot in my heart for Niecy. She brought me up through the ranks, when the TEB was still owned by peeps who actually lived in this goddamn country.”

“Um, I don't really see—”

“Niecy's got a touch of the Parkinson's,” she said.

“How bad?”

“Bad enough that Dhu West has the Ice Bi-otch Lince looking for every way to Sunday to throw her ass out.”

“Why?”

“Bottom line, why you think?” Leticia rolled her eyes. “Niecy hits thirty-five years in three months. If she can hang in, it's another ten thousand a year in pension. She can't quit. On account of she's too young to get Medicare and she don't qualify for the Medicaid with her pension.”

I had the distinct sensation of needing a double scotch and I don't drink scotch.

“Naturally, after you and me kicked Marcus-Mohammed in the balls at the House of fuckin' Burka Oppression, I thought of your skinny-ass hopping in and out of the cart, booting like nothing I've ever seen.”

I folded my hands on the Formica table, ignoring the need to pull at my shirt collar.
When trying to befriend a suspect, show them you're on the same team.
I couldn't remember if it was a cop-ism or a lawyer-ism, but it meant I was screwed. Totally.

“I wrote you up aces so Lince would have to choose you.” She took a swig of Cherry Coke. “Are you hearing what I'm saying to you, McGrane?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Well, you just sitting there. Not nodding. Not moving. Nothing.”

“I'm waiting,” I said.

“For what?”

“The other shoe to drop.”

Leticia sat back and grinned at me. “Other shoe . . . That's a good one. You make that up?”

“No, ma'am.”

She nodded and slit open the Snickers with a baby-blue airbrushed thumbnail. “Look. She ain't that bad. Only a couple times Chen—the gate dude—and me had to load her into the trike.”

I didn't say a word.

Leticia sucked in a breath through her teeth and set the Snickers down untouched. “What you're gonna do is hop in and out writing tickets like you're supposed to, only sometimes you might pick up the wrong AutoCITE. And by the time you get all the way to the meter, you just ask Niecy for her number, on account of you want to do your best for Dhu West and don't wanna waste any time.”

Not only against company policy, but actually illegal. “Jesus. I can't—”

“Like hell you can't. You're my little marine.” She gave me a fist pump. “Boo-Yah!”