by Audrey Faye
Not particularly helpful, but it wasn’t a big building and I knew what my guy looked like. I headed through the only doorway in the aforementioned wall and looked around. The face closest to me glanced up, not quite as bored as the last guy. “Looking for someone?”
“Yeah. Detective Booth.”
All signs of interest fled. “Back room, far left.”
I had no idea what Rick Booth did when he wasn’t engaging in major criminal activity, but clearly everyone thought they knew why I was here to see him and they couldn’t care less. Good. The blindness of familiarity—it would hopefully protect me as well as it had shielded him.
We are most surprised by deep waters in those we know.
I made my way over to Rick’s desk slowly, assessing the man I’d seen only once. He’d lost the sneer he’d had in his own doorway, that arrogance of a guy who knows he’s king of all he sees. He looked just like any other bored desk jockey, one hand aimlessly pushing a mouse around a really beat-up pad, the other picking nuts out of a well-mined bowl.
Time to shake up his morning.
I reached the edge of his desk and waited until he looked up. Hopefully, he didn’t see any signs of cruise-ship director in my flannel and jeans.
I’d expected this to be the terrifying part, the moment where I had a seething need to crawl under a desk or melt into a convenient wall and become part of the scenery. Nobody was more surprised than me by what rose up instead.
I wanted him to see me. Not my t-shirt, not a pithy threat, not the fierce eyes of my partner or the knife in her hand. Me. Ordinary, life-worn me.
I sat down at his desk, disturbed by the energy kicking in my ribs. This was a takedown for Shelley, nothing more.
My ribs called bullshit on that.
He raised a mildly annoyed eyebrow. “You want something?”
I laid a sheaf of printouts on his desk.
He didn’t even bother to look. “Missing persons is down the hall, human resources is upstairs. We’re not hiring.”
I felt deeply sorry for the poor souls who showed up here desperate over a lost loved one. And even more sorry for anyone who wanted to work and breathe the same air as this guy.
“I’m not lost.” Or unemployed, but he was going to figure that out for himself in a minute.
His face flashed annoyance. “Reception can help you find whoever you need. Guy in the blue shirt—you probably passed him on your way in.” The words were polite, the tone utterly dismissive. He’d filed me into the same mental garbage can as the pile of paper I’d dropped in the middle of his desk.
It was going to be fun changing that impression. “I think you’ll be interested in what I brought you.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Did the guys set you up to this?”
They’d have sprung for the chick in a penguin bikini. “No.” It was time he learned to take a chick in flannel seriously. “It’s a bunch of restaurant reviews. 1,321 to be exact.” I enjoyed watching his eyes fly to the stack of paper.
“The hell?” He hadn’t touched the paper yet, but I had his full attention.
I breathed in my moment in the sun. “I have it on good authority that they will be uploaded to your account if Internal Affairs and the FBI aren’t asking you some very uncomfortable questions within the next hour.”
He stared at me, unable to process the bomb of words I’d just dumped into his universe.
I gave him time.
Finally, his eyes dropped from my face to the paper. I saw him process the user name on the top page, helpfully highlighted in screaming purple.
His faced turned an ugly shade of burnt brick and he leaned in, hissing. “Who the fuck are you and what are you trying to do? And why are you doing it here?”
It took me a moment to catch up—he thought I was one of the bad guys. Good. That would keep Shelley safer. “I’m doing it here because you’re an asshole with a gun, and I’d rather not get shot while we have this little conversation.”
He pushed to his feet. “This conversation is over.”
“It’s not.” I needed to move quickly—there were only two other cops in the room now, but that could change. I didn’t want to get foiled by a change of shift or an overdue lunch break. “We know you use those reviews to send messages to people who don’t normally have nice chats with policemen.”
He glanced down at the top of the stack again, at the purple-framed user name. “You can’t prove any of that.”
I’d wager Carly on the winning side of that bet any day, but it didn’t matter. “We don’t need to. You’re going to tell the feds all about it.”
“The who?” His eyes bulged as he finally figured out which side of the law I sat on, at least temporarily.
“We notified three or four handy field agents. They’ll be showing up here soon to talk to you.” Getting them here was Carly’s job—she’d spent a lot of yesterday working out who was earnest enough, ambitious enough, or bored enough to respond to the summons.
I was fairly impressed that she’d found three or four candidates.
Rick’s face had gone from angry red back to some color approaching normal. “The guys totally set you up for this.” He sat back down again and shook his head. Then he looked around the room and let out a bark that was probably trying to be a laugh. “What, do you guys have a camera set up? Not fucking funny, assholes.”
The camera would have been a good idea. “You don’t have that many friends here. At least, you won’t when they find out how many burritos you eat in your spare time.”
He eyed the sheaf of paper again. Denial running into an inch-and-a-half stack of reality.
I needed to use smaller words. “We consider those a public service.”
His head snapped back up. “What?”
I had no idea if he was any good interrogating suspects, but his skills on the bad-guy side of the table sucked. “Your reviews suck. Ours are way better. 1,321 legitimate opinions of the restaurants involved.” Or as legitimate as you could get without eating at any of the establishments in question.
His eyes burned fire. “You can’t do that.”
Personally, no. Fortunately, I had friends in techy high places. That, however, wasn’t something he needed to know.
He was reading the first couple now—and turning white. Good. We needed the bad guys to be scary enough to chase him into the waiting arms of the law.
He looked back up at me, fury trading places with sick fear. And then he spun around to his computer and typed madly. I tried not to cackle as he pulled up the review site and logged in. Even I knew that was several levels south of dumb, especially with the feds on the way. This wasn’t a guy used to thinking while anyone else was watching.
Or he was a guy too scared of the bad guys to care about leaving evidence for the good ones. I sobered. We needed to keep the bad guys very uninvolved, for the sake of Shelley and Danno and Rosie and a shiny sixteen-year-old kid. Carly and I knew how to hide—they didn’t. This wasn’t a game, and I had a job to do.
Rick turned back around from his computer. “Nothing’s changed online.”
“Just one.” I named the restaurant and watched him look it up. The strangled sound he made was almost a wail. I waited a beat, making sure I had his utter and complete attention, and then I patted the stack of reviews on his desk. “1,320 can join that one. You have an hour. Make the right choice.”
“You can’t do that.” Bravado. Skepticism. Hope.
I shrugged. “We can.”
He swallowed audibly, bravado vanishing under the charge of marauding fear. “It wouldn’t be just me you’re fucking with.”
I knew what it was to wear paper-thin courage—and to have it torn away. This guy was like me, used to working from behind the scenes. “They’ll come for you first.”
We’d staked a lot of innocent people on him being smart enough to know that.
He stared at me, the human equivalent of a blue screen of death. Nothing moved.
I t
ried one more time—we needed him to make the smart choice. Sometimes people don’t, even when there’s only one door to go through. “I hear the federal drug enforcement people are pretty good at witness protection.”
I waited, expecting a last blast of anger, or confusion, or threats, or at least a decent attempt to lie his way out of a monumental mess. Nothing came. Just a pale man staring at the stack of burrito reviews that had ruined his life. On another plane of existence where I didn’t know he was scum, I’d almost have felt sorry for him.
I’ve seen assholes beaten before. This one was done.
I stood up. “The FBI and DEA are on their way. You can choose who to talk to.”
He only nodded.
I picked up the sheaf of reviews on my way out, and felt whatever had been holding my backbone stiff leak out through my knees.
Next time, I was sending the chick in the penguin bikini.
18
The assignment was done, we were checking out of our warehouse hideout—and unlike most jobs we finished, we had visitors. They’d come bearing good news, and only ten minutes later than the local TV station. A cop being carted off in metaphorical chains by the feds was pretty big news in a town this size.
Shelley looked a bit stunned, a lot relieved, and more than a little teary. Danno was exuberant. “It’ll take years.” He practically danced around the room, a guy who didn’t give a damn how slowly the wheels of justice turned. “But he’ll be off in some witness protection jail cell somewhere while he waits.”
I had no idea whether this was fact or Law & Order hearsay, but I was pretty sure Rick wasn’t ever going to be writing reviews in this town again, and that’s all that mattered on our balance sheet. Justice for Shelley. If the rest of the universe wanted a piece of Richard Booth, they’d have to claim it for themselves. We’re assassins—not heroes, not white knights, not anybody who lives in the sweet, untarnished, impossible land of unicorns and fairy wings and karma that always lands where it should. We hang out in the messy, slimy, gray area where justice and violence and righteousness intersect—and sometimes things don’t work out.
This time, it looked like they would, and that felt damn good.
Shelley smiled, her eyes taking in all of us. “Thank you so very, very much. I’m pretty sure you’ve given me my life back.”
I hoped so—and I had one more thing to give her. I reached into my bag for the most badly wrapped parcel since the elves got drunk at my youngest sister’s Christmas party a couple of decades ago. “I’ve got something for you.”
She stared at me blankly.
Danno nudged her none too gently. “Usually people open presents.”
Big-brother strong-arming, but it worked. Shelley rolled her eyes and took the parcel, unwrapping it far more delicately than it deserved. She pulled out the white t-shirt, still puzzled—and then I saw her eyes travel to the words written in black Sharpie marker.
Shelley Helped.
“I wore it under my flannel.” I shrugged, embarrassed and determined to get through this because it mattered, and I knew it. It had mattered when I wore it, too. It isn’t might that takes down bullies—it’s solidarity.
“I don’t know what to say.” She hitched a breath. “Thank you.”
I didn’t have a clue what to say either, and I could hear sniffling in the room behind me. That kind of solidarity, I could live without. “It’s about four sizes too big for you.” My chest was big, even without sock stuffing.
Fingers that had typed a hundred thousand words clutched the t-shirt tight. “It’s perfect. I’ll grow into it.”
In all the ways that matter, she already had.
Epilogue
Blessed solitude. I watched Rosie and Lelo pile into the van with Carly, uncertain why they’d decided to abandon me for a couple of hours, but eternally grateful I wasn’t being dragged on their shopping expedition. We all celebrate success in different ways, and my versions pretty much never involve hordes of people.
Carly would enjoy the company. And if Lelo managed to get herself lost for a while, Rosie might discover just how much fun a certain lesbian assassin can be in the rare moments when she manages to get relaxed.
Me, I was going to be relaxed in about three minutes—about the length of time it takes to brew a cup of tea and run a really hot bath.
Or that was my plan until I spotted the huge white box on the bed. It was glossy, two feet tall, long enough to hold a body, and topped with a red bow big enough to use as fishing bait for a whale.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t my turn-down chocolates.
I also knew better than to open a monster gift box. I backed up three feet, took a picture with my phone, and texted Carly. You know anything about this, or should I call the bomb squad?
The reply was almost instant. Open it.
That was way worse than a bomb. No way.
We love you. Do it. Over and out.
That was totally not fair. I eyed the box, deeply suspicious—and far worse, deeply curious.
Which lasted about thirty seconds, and then against every screaming instinct of good judgment I possessed, I let my toddler-on-Christmas-morning hands loose and lifted the top of the box.
It slid right off like I knew it would, courtesy of three troublemakers who had wanted to make it as easy as possible to get at whatever lay inside.
The first layer smelled like sexy heaven. I reached for the sprig of red flowers, toddler fingers still on the loose. Rowena’s beauties, every feisty petal full of the personality of the woman who had grown them.
It made you want to grow up and be that woman.
And under the flowers…
Danger. I knew it, even as my fingers ached to touch.
A red dress, of the kind I’d been brave enough to wear once. Sexy, sultry, and screaming for three-inch strappy sandals and lace underneath.
I snorted. My wardrobe these days ran to flannel and flannel. And then I spotted the toe of the sandal, peeking out from under the edge of the flowers. Fire-engine red, just like the dress.
They were playing totally dirty. I reached for the envelope lying on top, not knowing whether to be mad or to cry for the woman who wasn’t even brave enough to touch a dress like this one anymore.
The card was one of the hand-drawn ones from Rosie’s shop, and it had three messages written inside.
I look sexy as hell in this dress, but the shoes don’t fit. Rosie.
If you don’t show up, Carly’s gonna sing. Save us. Mario’s, 8pm. Lelo.
You wore this stuff for him once. This time, wear it for you. C.
I set down the card, remembering the first rule of every barroom jazz singer ever born. Every hot red dress is destined to leave a trail of tears behind it.
This one was starting early.
-o0o-
There are moments in every life that suddenly inhale and become small planets, or Death Stars, or the freaky, gnawing end of something that might be a black hole.
It was a Tuesday night at 8:03pm, and I’d just walked into one.
My insides had been gelatinous goo for two hours, and the crumpled bit of paper in my hand that had once been a note from three friends was covered in enough sweat and tears to have aged ten years.
I’d snuck into Mario’s the back way. Past the funky outdoor bathroom with the wrought-iron door, past the opening to the kitchen where some guy had been messing with a block of Parmesan bigger than his head and throwing curses at the luckless nimwit who had stirred the tomato sauce the wrong way.
I’d have traded places with the nimwit in a second.
My shoes squeaked as I walked the last steps into the dining room. I was wearing my usual sensible brown boots. The dress was tucked away into the nether regions of my duffle bag along with the penguin bikini. Tucked away because they were foolish and silly and exposed all kinds of bits of me I had no intentions of hanging out in public.
And tucked away because I wanted the world to see me tonight.
> I was still in jeans. Still in a top that felt a whole bunch like flannel, but this one was soft and stretchy and formfitting enough that nobody was going to miss me walking by. Thrift-store treasure of the curve-hugging kind. Finding it had held me up thirty minutes.
It was purple. The color of crocuses in spring—those silly, valiant ones that stick their heads up through melting snow and beam hope into the universe.
And tucked into the waves of my hair rode a sprig of red flowers.
I’d come—as me, and as a little bit of what I saw in the eyes of my friends. I was as uncertain as all hell about what was going to happen next, but this assignment had taught me that sometimes showing up matters. And sometimes you want to stand up and be counted, even if it’s just a couple of scrawled words on a t-shirt nobody can see.
My insides gave up on gelatinous goo and headed straight for hot acid instead.
Rosie spotted me first, and judging by how hard Lelo jumped right after, there had been a friendly, two-hundred-pound kick delivered under the table. I looked away and aimed for the old guy in the corner. There was no way I was going to get this done if I got anywhere near the three operatives who had engineered it.
The guitar player looked at me, kindness in his quiet, wise eyes. “You’re back, carissima. You pick the song to sing tonight—something beautiful, to go with your smile.”
I couldn’t have said three words if the entire existence of the universe rode on it. So I went around the numb, choked death in my throat and tried to find the land where music is born. A few notes limped out, shaky as a seizure and nowhere close to anything even the kindest guitar player might understand.
I stopped, feeling defeat steal up the sexy lines of a purple crocus top that had been a really bad idea.
And then I heard the clapping. Two enthusiastic hands, rapidly joined by four more. A pause, and then a wave as forks went down and conversations stopped and every head in the place looked around for the reason they were all clapping.
The guitar player added his two arthritic hands to the beat.
