Not that I was ready to acknowledge being gay. Not completely. Or maybe I was acknowledging it, just not eagerly. Funny thing was I’d expected when I admitted it to Angelica, something would click and things would make sense. But all I’d accomplished was hurting her and sinking myself into a depressive state.
“Enough,” I yelled, throwing the last dish into the dishwasher. I wasn’t going to figure things out by flooding my brain with memories and questions. It was time for some endorphins. I went upstairs, changed, and then it was back down to my basement where I vegetated on ESPN while getting in a few treadmill miles.
Hump Day!
Fact: Wednesday is commonly referred to as “hump day”—a.k.a Austin’s favorite day.
“Today is hump day, Luis.” I lolled my head to the side and blinked prettily at my partner.
“Don’t make me lock you in a cell, Glass.” I was never Austin with cops. I was Glass. It was a terrible nickname. I was not breakable; and being linked to my family name was distasteful. My dislike of that tether was probably why Luis was just “Luis” with me.
“What kind of gifts do people give their partner on hump day? Lube? Vibrators? Issues of Bazooms with a box of tissues?”
“The gift of silence,” Luis replied. We stopped at a light, and he leaned over to grab his lighter, cupping his hand as he lit his cigarette. I sighed, my mind automatically imagining tongue rings, pink lips and pierced…things. All my orders to stop thinking about Peter accompanied Luis’s smoke out the window. “Dios Mio, kids today.” Luis rolled his eyes and shook his head in what appeared to be resignation.
Today’s lovely motor-pool issued car had no working lighter, air conditioning or sirens. What it did have was the strong odors of meth, vomit, urine and bleach. At least I hoped it was bleach. I shuddered to consider what else it might be. And now, it smelled of smoke, too. I coughed and stuck my head out the window for a breath.
“Out of curiosity, when do I grow up and become a full-fledged man with a penis?”
“When words like ‘hump day’ don’t make you giggle like a twelve-year-old,” he retorted, blowing smoke my way.
“Wow, that long?”
We weaved through traffic at a pace considered slow by blue-haired grandmothers. It was another hot and sticky day, with both of us in suits. Luis, who, surprisingly, did not have a trust fund, wore the same mismatched blazer as yesterday, with a pair of nondescript green polyester slacks—which were wrinkled beyond repair. My new Brooks Brother’s grey suit, specially made to remain crease free, fit me like a glove. He was comfortable, barely sweating. I could have squeezed my jacket out and created a neighborhood swimming pool.
We had just completed a four-hour long review of the evidence on the Alvarado case so we could be prepared for the afternoon’s interviews. And we did it while boxed up in a tiny room, the air quality resembling that of a third world country. I had suggested lunch to clear our heads.
Half a block from the station, my cell rang. I clicked it on while waiting for my partner’s reply. “Glass,” I answered.
“I can’t go out with you,” Peter stated, sounding as if he was speaking between tightly clenched teeth.
I pointed at a McDonalds. Luis shook his head and went the other direction. I recognized the route to our favorite Mexican place. “Sure you can,” I said into the phone, relaxing back into the seat without protesting Luis’s decision. “You get in the car, I take you to coffee, we talk, you find out how charming and loveable I am, invite me in to your house, kiss me and take me to bed.”
“You’re frustrating,” came Peter’s reply. Luis glanced over with raised brows as he parked.
“I’m adorable.”
“From a distance,” Peter admitted—grudgingly. I calculated just how tight his lips were clamped by the way he had said it. Grudging or not, he thought I was adorable. Mental victory dance time.
“Up close, I’m sexy as hell.”
“You’re rich, spoiled and used to getting your way,” he said stubbornly.
“Not true. If I had my way you would have kissed me and ridden me like cowboy while screaming ‘yeehaw’.”
I heard a choking sound over the phone. Or was it from Luis? “What makes you think you won’t ride me?”
My turn to choke. And blush. I never blushed. Before now I would have thought the only way I would blush was from sunstroke. Luckily, only Luis could see it. And his brows disappeared into his receding hairline. A difficult thing to accomplish, considering it resided somewhere on the crown of his head.
“Yeah. I think that’s how it’s going to go,” added Peter as the silence stretched. My brain broke again. Images flashed in my head that were really more graphic than I was ready for. “I think you’re going to spread those—”
“Anyway,” I sing-songed and cleared my throat, “about Saturday. I’ll see you at three.” I hung up quickly, checking Luis from the corner of my eye. I’d worry about Peter’s buyer’s remorse later. Right now I was too concerned with finishing that sentence. Spread those what? Cheeks? Legs? Lies? Rumors? Okay, I was just kidding myself with those last two.
“Soooo. That was not Angelica,” Luis said.
“No, that was not Angelica,” I evaded.
“Glass, tell me that wasn’t the Cotton boy.”
Well, if he insisted. “That wasn’t the Cotton boy.” I nodded gravely. “I think I’ll have the Menudo today.” I climbed out of the car while Luis went on a Spanish cursing rampage.
He caught up to me after I was already seated at a table, munching on chips and salsa. “I ordered iced tea for us both.” Sitting across from me, he glared long enough that I grew fidgety and began picking my bottom tooth with a finger while staring at the ceiling.
“This is not at all funny.”
“Which is why I’m not laughing,” I answered, showing him how very serious I was by returning his glare.
“He’s a witness. How many ways can I spell ‘fucked up’ for you?”
“I saw him first!” The sheer ridiculousness of that statement made me sit back. I didn’t try to clarify what I meant, however.
“You can’t work a case if you’re involved with a fucking witness. You can’t look at him objectively,” Luis reasoned.
“Maybe not. Or maybe I can. Either way, no one will know this case better. That makes me the best choice to continue.”
Penny, our usual waitress, plopped two iced teas at the table, disrupting the flow of the argument. “Hey, guys. The usual?”
Luis was still glaring, so I answered her. “Yeah, and a bowl of Menudo for me. New haircut?”
She twisted a brown strand of pixie short hair in her fingers and nodded. “Yup. Kinda drastic but this summer’s so hot, and the hair was getting heavy.”
“Looks great,” I winked and added, “Brave, too.”
“I still sometimes feel it at my waist. Ghost hair,” she sighed, and we both laughed. “Back in a jiff with your food.” Before tucking her pad into her brown apron and walking off, she gave Luis a questioning glance.
“What is it with this kid?” Luis picked up his interrogation, as if Penny had never been there.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“That suicide last month. It really got to you. Wasn’t your first db (dead body), wasn’t even your first suicide I’d bet. You’ve been weird ever since then, though. Haven’t been by the house. Haven’t seen Angelica as much. Today’s the first hump-day shit since. What gives?”
“Seemed like such a waste,” I hedged, gulping the tea like it’d soothe the ache in my chest or cool the watering heat in my eyes.
“Junkie that hangs himself ain’t surprising. It’s a fucking public service usually.” Luis was prodding gently, poking around like there was a button he just hadn’t found yet. He’d already found it, I just was having a slow reaction to it being pushed—shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, glaze of sweat on my upper lip. Where was Penny with our food? I checked over my shoulder, hopin
g to see her carrying a tray over. “He someone you know?” Luis tried guessing.
“No.” The wide eyes I gave Luis should have been heard by him as “Drop it!”, but he was still searching for that button, like a blind guy reading the Braille in a hotel elevator.
“Can’t just be that he was a junkie, we see those every goddamn day.”
“Drop it. Jesus Christ, this is lunch, not therapy.” Thank fuck the food arrived. I ignored Luis’s contemplative gaze and dug into my tacos. The bowl of Menudo sat off to my left, daring me. “I don’t know what it is with the kid. He’s—?” Christ, how was I going to put this without sounding like a fucking woman. “…appealing. Attractive. I don’t know. He’s something. Shut up.” I held up a hand. “I don’t give a shit if your daughter is gay or your whole fucking lineage is taking it up the ass. They’re not me. Unless you have some unique perspective on why I’m suddenly checking out guys’ asses, then I’m just going to go with the redhead that takes it up the ass and hope he has a shitfucking answer.” Or a goddamn roadmap of how to deal with a sudden attraction to penises might be helpful, too. “I won’t fuck up this case. That’s all you need to know.”
A sigh, then Luis picked up his taco and bit in. “Penny,” he called over his shoulder. “Where’s the hot sauce?”
I breathed out a sigh of relief as Luis switched to babbling about his youngest daughter, Mariposa, who apparently found a box of Oreos the night before and ate the whole thing, claiming her innocence through chocolate-cookie-coated lips.
My Father, The Anti-Hero
Questioning suspects while attorneys are present is like a game of chess where one side makes all the moves behind their back, and you have to trust they’ll tell you which move they made. Of course, they always lie. So when Luis and I entered the room, we were as prepared as possible for any lie Alvarado might tell. But the asshole already had our king in danger.
“Did it even take convincing to represent him, Dad, or did he just have to mention I was on the case?” I sat down across from Desmond Glass, propping up an elbow and dropping a cheek onto my fist.
“My client mentioned you were working the case. It had no bearing on the agreement to handle it. And you will address me as Mr. Glass in these proceedings.”
“Did my father neglect to tell you that he hasn’t seen me in four years and barely spoke to me before that?” I asked Alvarado. “That $1500 an hour for Desmond Glass and there was no advantage for you, was there? He doesn’t know me at all, Prick. Oh, I meant Prisc.” No, I didn’t.
“You may direct your questions to me,” Desmond Glass said, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knee.
“Good. I wanted to tell you something really important, anyway. I was going to call, but it’s so much better in person. Your son, Mr. Glass, is a big homo.” My father’s back straightened. His eyes narrowed, and his mouth pinched closed so tightly I thought maybe he’d eaten his lips.
Now that was freeing, while also being useful. My father was speechless.
Luis took a seat next to me, flopping down some evidence files, and began rubbing the center of his forehead with his fingers. “Dios, mio,” he sighed.
While my father tried to control his hyperventilating, I tried to get a read on Alvarado. He was sitting back in his chair, tapping the ends of the arms while focusing flat brown eyes on me.
I didn’t see it. He and Peter. Peter must be right about my being superficial, because no matter how many ways I twisted it or how many angles I approached it from, Peter and Alvarado just wouldn’t come together in my head.
“This meeting is a courtesy, detectives, between the district attorney and my client. We have nothing further to discuss with you.” Good old Desmond—who now refused to acknowledge my existence in the room—directed his comment to Luis. That was okay. Something was whirring around in my brain, and I needed to continue my analysis of Alvarado to figure it out.
Alvarado wasn’t unattractive, I decided. Older than me by quite a few years. Was that Peter’s type? Big, tattooed Latin guys with cruel eyes and a tiny mouth? The exact opposite of me? Or maybe he had various types? Or he lied about finding me attractive? So which was it: Had he been lying about this guy, or lying about me?
Observing Alvarado, I noticed similarities between him and Peter. Wife beater t-shirt, baggy jeans, lots of ink, wide gauges in his ears. But Alvarado had a good thirty-to-thirty-five pounds of muscle on me. I’d guess steroids, since I couldn’t imagine he’d take the time to actually work out that much. He was a shortcut kinda guy. Which also didn’t mesh with how I viewed Peter.
Peter seemed careful—considerate in his actions. If Peter was with Alvarado, it wasn’t for any romantic reasons. All that guff about being sixteen and enamored? It was crap. Something else was up. Peter was trying to lead us off Alvarado. But why?
Alvarado slowly brought out a piece of gum and folded it in his mouth. I watched him chew, growing more unsure with every second. “You and Peter were never together,” I bluffed. His chewing halted briefly. I didn’t even need the flicker of fear in his eyes. I already knew. Peter had lied. Alvarado was exactly who we thought he was: a scumbag human trafficker with a penchant for young boys. I stood up and gathered the files. “No deals. Our informant wasn’t lying,” I said to Luis. Time to bluff some more, because I still didn’t think Terrelle Gaines had anything to do with Alvarado. If that was the case, then we needed to know where our informant had gotten his information.
My partner, familiar with my interviewing techniques, followed me to the door.
“Man, Terrelle don’t know shit. You think I would trust that pendejo to be all up in my business?”
“Quiet,” my father said, laying a hand on his client’s arm.
“Gee, Luis, that pendejo who didn’t know shit? He sure led us to a lot of evidence.”
“Items we found in your home.” Luis opened a file and began laying pictures on the table. “Passports, receipts for warehouses under the name Sambucho, Inc, a company registered under your conveniently missing wife Leila, where fourteen people who matched those passports were working as illegal day laborers. Papers that led us to Inez Castillo, Abelinda Villanueva and Guadalupe Portilla, picked up last night and this morning. Each identifies your client as the person who sold them as domestics to three wealthy couples.”
Desmond Glass didn’t even blink at the charges. He simply stared at the mirrored partition as if he knew the DA was behind it. Which he was. “Mr. Alvarado performed a misguided goodwill gesture by helping some of his fellow countrymen retain work in the US without green cards. Those three women are seeking asylum by accusing my client, and in the case of Miss Villanueva, we are prepared to offer proof that prior to coming to the US, she worked in a brothel in her hometown of Tanque. Further, he maintains his innocence with regard to how they crossed the border, but he is willing to give more information on the person responsible, as well as the locations of the children of some of those families. In return, my client requests immunity and witness protection under the purview of the FBI.” My father checked his watch. “Should the DA care to make an appearance, we could move toward that goal.”
The FBI? He wanted to get involved federally? Something was wrong. Really wrong. Luis had figured it out, I could tell just by his bland expression. I wished the epiphany would migrate my way.
“It’s a cop,” Luis explained, eyes directed at Alvarado. “Whoever he’s turning over. A cop or bigger. But he won’t give us the name, or he’d have made the deal already. The whole point of this meeting was for us to reach that conclusion. Then we’d instigate an investigation, and the FBI would swoop in and take over.”
“Peter knows who it is?” I asked Alvarado. He rested penetrating brown eyes on me and said, “Man, who you think set me up with the guy?”
Fuck. I’m a complete and total moron.
Chapter Six
Once I Got Over Him Being a Scumsucking Criminal
We pulled into the diner’s lot a ha
lf hour later, and Luis turned off the car. I grabbed his arm as he opened the door. “There’s just no chance of you letting me do this on my own?” I pleaded.
His answer wasn’t so much a laugh as it was a guffaw. He shook off my hand and continued laughing the entire walk into the restaurant. I hung my head for a minute, then followed.
The hostess—and I use the term loosely because she didn’t greet us so much as give us a once over and raise her brows—met us at the entrance. We held up our badges. She curled her lips and stuck out her chin. “What?” I wondered if hostility was a job requirement at the diner.
“We’re here for Peter,” I said and checked behind her for him.
“Peter? Who the fuck is Peter?”
Luis cocked a brow at me. “Yeah, who the fuck is Peter?” His amusement was not catching.
“Bunny slippers, bad attitude, boyfriend named Cai,” I snapped.
I checked hostess-girl’s nametag. Matilda. Really? Matilda? “Rabbit. You mean Rabbit.” She giggled, causing her chin to wobble hypnotically. Resting a hand on her ample hip, she smirked at us both. I attempted a smile in return.
Just as she shifted toward the kitchen doors and screamed, “RABBIT! COPS’RE HERE FOR YOU!”, Peter walked out of the kitchen. For two seconds he stared at me. He blinked in surprise and started a half smile. His gaze bounced to Luis. He squinted and his eyes blew wide. Taking a backward step, he swiveled and tore off into the back. I stared, dismayed, at the doors swinging back and forth. Then I twirled on my heel and booked it out the door to follow.
“Goddammit, stop, Pete— Rabbit!” I shouted as he hopped over the retaining wall behind the restaurant and sped across the main street. “Motherf— I just bought this suit!” And it’s too fucking hot to chase your ass in it. Fuck. There was no way that little shit could outrun me. I had been training for the FBI for ten years. And I was taller. Yeah, taller. I just decided that.
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