Monica, however, was a smart, attractive woman who was exceedingly affectionate, at least where I was concerned. Shit, all the good ones are taken. I grinned as she started to fawn over me.
“My God, every time I see you, you just look so damn cute. Look at those pants, they are just falling off you. You look about sixteen years old. Is that a new earring? My God, how many do you have in your ear now?”
“Only three.” I grinned. She pulled the silver chain out of my T-shirt and literally started straightening my clothes.
Her hands were heading toward my belt when I looked over her shoulder at Smitty. I begged him with my eyes to stop her before she unbuckled my pants and started trying to tuck my shirt in. He was grinning, and I could tell he was thinking about letting her continue. The big smart-ass. He was used to Monica’s exuberant greetings. I think he liked to see how uncomfortable she made me. If he wanted to play, we could play. Let her open my pants if she wants. My T-shirt isn’t that long, and I haven’t worn panties since I was in high school, buddy.
I must have looked like I was starting to enjoy myself because he finally intervened. “Hey, hey, I’m standing here. You two cut it out.” Monica stepped into his hug and they stood looking at me. They looked happy, but tired, or maybe just worried. Smitty wouldn’t have told her anything. I was sure of that.
“Sorry for dropping by on your day off.”
“Oh, please. You know you’re always welcome.” Monica pulled me by the hand into the kitchen and Smitty followed behind us. “So, what brings you here today, Foster?”
She plopped me down on a chair out back, where they’d obviously been sitting and relaxing before I came by. Snacks and glasses occupied the small table between the outdoor chairs.
Smitty sat down in the chair next to mine and handed me a glass of lemonade.
I knew what was coming but drank some and winced. I was never one to complain about sweets, but even I had my limits. “Smitty, you know you are supposed to put lemons in this, too, not just sugar.”
“Hey, I put lemons in it. I like it sweet.”
Monica was having iced tea and not the sugar water that we were drinking. I had promised myself to have her get my drink on future social occasions, but I always seemed to relent and accept whatever Smitty made.
“Hey, Monica, would you mind if I talk about work with Joe for a few minutes?” I always switched to “Joe” when I visited. Monica didn’t like “Smitty.” Someone should tell her the nickname was her husband’s idea.
“Sure, I need to go check on the food anyway.” Monica left us quickly. Like me, she had been raised in a law enforcement family. You learned when it was necessary to disappear.
As soon as she was out of sight, Smitty asked, “Did you talk to your dad yet?”
I ignored the anger that welled up in my chest at that question. “Yeah. He said pretty much the same thing you did.”
He nodded and settled back in his chair, satisfied. I pretended to do the same but my mind was working a mile a minute. It was weird. I was always the one doing the questioning and talking to suspects. Smitty said I had the gift of gab, but I was speechless. I’m sure it was a temporary condition, but disconcerting nonetheless.
Eventually, I croaked out, “You gave those uniform cops money. The ones who were there that night.”
I waited to see what his reaction would be, but he was watching Monica, who was flipping burgers over the grill. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about this anymore. The whole idea was to clean it up, get all eyes off you, and then go on with our lives. As near as I can tell, you’re home free. Why bring this up now?”
His voice was nonchalant, almost too much so. It could be the fact that I was having such a hard time with everything, but I was getting a feeling that there was more to this hush-money payment than Smitty was telling me.
“I know that, thanks to you, I’m not in jail right now, and I’m truly grateful. It’s just…One of those cops came and thanked me for it. He seemed to think it came from me.”
“They helped me with the body,” Smitty said calmly. “They deserved it.”
“Okay, but where did all this money come from, Smitty? You and Mon live on one salary. You have a mortgage.”
“What are you trying to imply, Everett?”
Smitty was a wonderful guy, but I had seen him go off on a few people and had often thought I would never want to be on the receiving end of his anger.
“I’m not implying anything. I don’t want you putting your family in hock for me. I would rather turn myself in.”
Smitty tensed and leaned in close. “Listen to me. You are not going to turn yourself in. I did give Goldstein and Gable money, but it wasn’t hush money, it was just for helping out. Both of them would have stood in line for the chance of taking that guy out themselves.”
I so wanted to believe I wasn’t screwing up anyone else’s life but my own that I nodded eagerly.
“Look, I’m going to tell you this because I know you are bothered by the whole issue. But once I tell you, I don’t want to hear about it anymore. I mean it, Foster, this could mean my ass this time. I’m not willing to risk my family because you’ve got a guilty conscience.”
“I hear you, Smitty. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“The money comes from a friend.”
“A friend?”
“Yeah. He was in law enforcement, too. He helps cops out when they are having trouble making ends meet or when something like this happens. Anyway, he created this special group with a few old cops. The fund was started a few years back when a bunch of cops got themselves into trouble and couldn’t afford an adequate defense. When the press starts swaying the public, it is almost impossible for a good cop to survive trial by public opinion, so whenever possible, the coalition steps in. If we can, we try to stop it from ever becoming an issue—like in your case. In cases where we can’t stop it from going to court, we provide anonymous donations for a legal defense. Only a select few people in the department know about it. The sole purpose is to help clean up situations that aren’t exactly criminal. Like your situation. You aren’t the first to take care of a scumbag, and you won’t be the last.”
“Hey, Foster, you want a hot dog or a burger?” Monica yelled from across the yard, giving me a chance to mull over what Smitty had just said.
“No thanks, I’m not hungry,” I yelled back. She looked at me strangely for a moment, then returned to her grill.
“You should have taken the burger. Now she is going to think something is wrong when there really isn’t.”
“Tell her I had a stomachache.”
“You have a cast-iron stomach. I’ll think of something.”
“Sorry, Smitty, you seem to be pulling me out of trouble a lot lately.”
“Yup, that’s my job. To pull people I care about out of trouble.” He took a sip of his sugar water.
My mind reeled with what I had been told. Something in me rebelled against the very existence of such a fund. I didn’t want to go to jail but I was disheartened that members of my field needed someone who would help us out when we broke the law. “I should get back to work.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
I could see that he regretted having explained so much, but I couldn’t muster up enough energy to make him feel better. My world was tipping on its axis, and I was halfway hoping I would just fall the hell off.
Monica came out of the house holding their sleepy five-year-old son Eric in her arms. I patted his wispy blond curls and smiled as he hid his face against his mother’s neck. Normally, I enjoyed the parting liplock from Monica; straight women are so funny. But this time, my mind was on what Smitty had told me. I followed him down a hall I thought of as “the shrine,” because it was lined with pictures of Monica’s deceased mother.
He opened the front door and said, “I know you don’t like what you’ve heard, but I wanted you to know that this is taken care of. You can hold your head up.”
I di
dn’t know what to say. I felt trapped, not just by my own decision to walk away that day instead of coming clean, but also by the knowledge that strangers now had dirt on me. I could be blackmailed. I was vulnerable and now owed certain people a favor.
My uneasy silence obviously bothered Smitty. He launched into a small lecture about why I needed to forget any of this had ever happened. “A lot of people stepped up to the plate to make sure you didn’t get the blame for this, but they are not going to take a fall for either you or me. If you don’t play by the rules, they could take back their support and things could get real nasty.”
I didn’t like where this conversation was going. “That sounds like a threat.”
“God damn it, Foster, get your head out of your ass long enough to hear what I’m saying. This is bigger than either of us.”
All of a sudden I saw something in Smitty’s eyes that I hadn’t noticed before. I had been so caught up in my own guilt that I hadn’t noticed that his face was almost two shades lighter than normal and a light sheen of sweat shone across his forehead. Detective Joseph Smith, my partner, was afraid of something. He had risked his livelihood for me. He didn’t deserve to feel the way he did. I would simply have to find some way to get through this on my own.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” I gave his shoulder a small shake, wanting to instill the confidence my tone seemed to lack. “This conversation never happened, okay? It’s over. Chapter closed.”
He took a deep shaky breath and nodded thankfully. This was not good. Smitty was no coward, and he certainly had not ever let me see that he was scared about anything. No, if he was afraid of something, it had to be pretty bad. We said good-bye and I left him standing in the entryway of his perfect house with his perfect wife and perfect child. I hoped he didn’t feel as dirty as I did.
*
“You’re bullshitting us, right?” Chrissie and Stacy looked at each other with their mouths hanging open.
I had been telling stories, ranging from the perp who dressed up in his mother’s clothes to avoid detection, to Jim at the Liberty Apartments who was tired of the low-flying helicopter making all that noise and decided he was going to take a shot at it with a rifle.
I threw back a free Buttery Nipple and grinned as the heat hit my chest. “I’m telling you the truth. That’s the thing about criminals. Stupidity knows no bounds.”
“Son of a bitch.” Chrissie walked off, shaking her head.
We had been shooting the breeze for over an hour. Both of them were keeping me company as I drank to the point that I no longer heard that annoying self-doubt in the back of my head.
“Hey, don’t you ever get scared out there?” Stacy asked. “I mean, I listen to my radio all the time, and some of the shit I hear is scary.”
Stacy was what is commonly called a “police scanner ho.” Some people were addicted to the Internet; Stacy’s thing was the police scanner. She listened to the police frequency on the radio, day in and day out, and even went so far as to call in and correct people when they used incorrect call numbers. Didn’t endear her to the folks in Dispatch.
“You can’t be a good cop and be scared,” I replied. “You would be a dead cop.”
“But what if your partner isn’t around and you have to deal with one of those big guys by yourself?”
“Spoken like a truly modern woman, Stacy.” I saluted her with my empty shot glass. “I’m not scared of anyone. The bigger they are, the harder you gotta hit them.” I knew I sounded like an asshole, but I was drunk and therefore suffering from a Napoleon complex.
“How about her? You’re not scared of her?” Stacy pointed with her chin and folded her arms over her big boobs.
I blinked at them for a moment, then spun around in my chair to see who she was talking about. The quiet bouncer. As was her habit, she sat at the front door checking IDs and charging a cover after eight o’clock. She always waved me in, even though I had my money ready whenever I walked through the door.
“Her? You want me to hit her?” I gestured with my thumb and asked a bit too loudly. A few of the regulars sitting at the tables nearest us overheard my question and began to blatantly eavesdrop.
“Woman, are you sick? She would knock you silly, I don’t care how tough you are. No, how about something a little more interesting, Ms. Bold and Beautiful.”
“Sure, whatcha got?” I leaned my elbows drunkenly on the bar ignoring the water that seeped through my shirt and wet my elbows.
“Okay, I dare you to go over there and kiss her,” Stacy said. “I don’t mean a peck on the cheek, either. I mean a long, hot kiss on the lips. And it had better last for at least five seconds or no deal.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Chrissie chimed in helpfully. “Man, she isn’t even gay, and she may try to kill you.”
“Oh, and that’s another thing. Hand over the gun.” Stacy held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “No pulling it on her when she goes to tear your head off.”
“No way. I’m not handing over my gun to no civilian.”
“What’s the matter, shorty? You afraid of the big bad Amazon?” Stacy teased.
I ripped the holster off my belt and slammed it down on the bar. “Don’t get any fingerprints or juices on it.”
Most of the people in the club had no idea what was going on until I started the “I’m going to get me some” walk toward the front door. I don’t know how it got started, but the girls began chanting something.
Riley’s hair was brushed back into its usual tidy braid, and she was neatly dressed in pressed jeans and a meticulously ironed T-shirt. Who irons creases into their T-shirts, anyway? She seemed to be reading some type of magazine when I walked up. I wondered why she hadn’t noticed the chanting going on around us. Maybe she was pointedly ignoring it, or so accustomed to the noise level she blocked it out automatically. I stepped in front of her. She was either truly into her magazine or I was of no interest whatever, because she didn’t even look up. I tapped her lightly on her shoulder. She jumped, lowered her magazine, and regarded me quizzically.
“Hi,” I said with as sexy a smile as I could muster, as drunk as I was.
“Hi,” she answered. “What do you—”
Before she could finish whatever it was she was going to say, I stepped between her open legs, grabbed her behind the neck, and covered her mouth with mine. Her lips quivered a little as I gently opened mine to gain access. I held her shoulder with my other hand and stepped in closer until my hips were pressing tightly between her thighs. So sweet, I thought as I continued to kiss the softest lips I had ever felt. That kiss was everything I had ever hoped for. It was warm and comforting, as well as erotic and sensuously shy.
My hands, of their own accord, ran down her toned arms to the hands I hadn’t realized were holding my hips. I let go of her wrists and reached for her face. I felt like I was lost and found all at once. Like I was suffocating, but breathing for the first time. She’s trembling, was the last thought I had as the sweet lips abruptly rejected mine and I was pushed away. She was staring, stony-faced, at something behind me. The chanting had reached deafening proportions. Everyone was clapping and hollering.
I faced the room acutely aware of Riley’s presence behind me.
Stacy swirled her towel around her head. “You win! My God, woman, you’ve got balls. All drinks for Foster are on the house.”
The grin on her face started to fade and the noise level dropped abruptly. From the dawning trepidation on everyone’s faces, I knew the scary bouncer was not amused and prepared myself for the major ass-kicking I was about to receive and no doubt deserved.
Ready to duck, I turned around and was shocked to find not anger but pain in Riley’s blue eyes. She dropped her magazine, got down off her stool, and walked out of the club. The door slammed back against the wall before it slowly began to close. The room was almost completely silent. The women who had witnessed my attempt to win Stupidest Bitch of the Year seemed about as stunned as I was.
“Aw shit, Riley.” Stacy dropped the towel and hurried toward me.
Brushing her hand from my shoulder, I rushed after Riley. She was already halfway across the parking lot. Her long strides ate up ground fast.
“Riley, please stop,” I called. “I can explain everything.” I couldn’t really, but I was going to do everything in my power to try. I felt like such an ass. Hell, I was an ass.
She kept walking and did not look back.
Never drink five shots and go running after someone. I would be happy if I caught up to her without puking my guts out. I finally got within reach of her and pawed at her shoulder. She whipped around, her fist balled.
I jumped back and held up my hands. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Her face crumpled before my eyes, and then she seemed to get a grip on herself. “What did I ever do to you?” Her voice was even deeper than the last time I had heard it.
God, I hoped she wasn’t going to cry. I already felt like a first-class asshole. “Nothing. It was dumb. Please come back to the club with me.”
She just stared at me angrily, her jaw working. “No.”
I grabbed her arm. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to play with this woman, but based on the solid muscle beneath my fingers, I knew she could rip my head off with her bare hands. As guilty as I was feeling, I probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight either.
“Listen, I’m so sorry for what I just did. I didn’t think about how it might make you feel. I drank too much. I know that’s no excuse, but I didn’t mean to hurt…” I paused, worried about making her mad. Phrasing my apology more carefully, I said, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you like that. It was a stupid dare, one I normally wouldn’t have taken, but I—”
“Had been drinking,” she finished for me.
Her deep voice so close to my ear, and the bluntness of the statement, caused me to start. “Yes.”
“I’ve been watching you,” she said.
Wall of Silence Page 5
