“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll go. Ladies, sorry for the disruption.” He tipped a fake hat and smiled.
“Why don’t you stay,” Katie said. “Maybe it would be good for the big bad agent to hear our stories.” Nina looked at her questioningly but Katie just smiled, foxy and smug.
Beck looked to Nina expectantly.
“That’s up to everyone, not me,” Nina said.
Brooklyn, Reina and Melanie exchanged glances then all shrugged.
“I got nothing to hide,” Reina said, shrugging her massive shoulders.
Nina sighed. “Fine. Get a chair. And stay quiet.”
Beck had the look of a child being allowed to sit at the grownup’s table. He quickly grabbed a chair and settled in.
They were all silent for a moment, this new addition throwing the session off balance.
Finally Beck cleared his throat and said to Brooklyn, “So what did make you quit?”
Brooklyn’s eyes glassed over. “Getting arrested. I got off light, I know that. California had just passed that prop decriminalizing everything. So I only went to County for a month. But 30 days is still no joke. It scared the living shit out of me. I wasn’t trying to die, you know? I was just an addict. But I wasn’t gonna throw my life away. Turns out exercise works well too.”
Brooklyn smiled so sincerely that Nina’s icy constitution melted.
“We’re not all bad you know,” Brooklyn said to Beck directly. “Some of us were just young and stupid.”
“I know that,” Beck said.
Without a prompt, Melanie jumped in. “I got clean when I found out I was pregnant with Tara.” Everyone turned to focus on her. She waited until she had everyone’s attention before she continued. “I didn’t want my baby to be like some crack baby. And I knew I’d probably lose custody of her if anyone found out I was using. And you know? I wouldn’t blame ‘em.”
“That’s great,” Beck said. “A lot of people don’t make that choice.”
Melanie beamed. “But,” she said with a lamenting sigh. “It didn’t last. I was using again by the time she was three months old. I stopped breastfeeding. I mean, I really wanted to do right by her, but I just couldn’t stop. It feels like a friend you know? And you don’t want to give up that friend forever.”
Everyone else nodded in agreement. They all knew the warm comfort of that old friend.
After the meeting, Nina and Beck lingered at the back of the bar lounge while everyone else moved to get the restaurant ready for the lunch shift.
Beck wasn’t sure what to make of this group of women. In his time in the DEA, Beck had already felt himself hardening to the realities of the job. It was easy to talk about the product, but not the people. To objectify the users. He knew it was worse out on the streets. No wonder police relations were so bad. The uniforms had to fight an uphill losing battle, day in and day out. They looked at these hopeless junkies, and thought, what a waste. Beck understood. It was easy to become jaded. But they were people beneath the mask. They still had hearts and souls and life. He’d witnessed that here today.
Beck knew from watching Jack that people don’t always realize what they’re getting into when they take that first pill, do the first line. They don’t realize how quickly they’re signing themselves over to it. It was affecting all of them. Blue collar, white collar. Everybody. It was non-stop. Every day. And it wasn’t getting better, no matter how many sound bites Congress put out about it.
“I think you being here actually meant something to them,” Nina said.
Beck laughed. “That was a first for me. Thanks for letting me stay. It was…eye-opening.”
“We all have to come to terms with the wreckage of our pasts,” Nina said. “None of us gets a free pass on that. It’s the only way we’re ever free. But it’s easy to forget sometimes that a lot of them were just kids when they got in trouble.”
“I lost my brother to heroin,” Beck blurted out. He didn’t know why he’d said it, but the words just tumbled out.
Nina blinked and raised her brow. “Oh. I didn’t…I’m so sorry. Recently?”
She leaned against the bartop and opened her ears to him.
Beck rubbed his forehead, the headache mounting. “No. When he was 14. He um, he’d gotten himself mixed up with the bad crowd. We didn’t have a great childhood. Our mom was a bit unstable. Dad was out of the picture, drunk. You know, classic tale of woe.”
Nina smiled thinly, regretfully.
Beck sighed. “I hated that Jack was my responsibility. I hated that I couldn’t just be a normal kid. That night, I was supposed to take him out for his birthday. Mom was at work. Probably the third new job she’d had that year. Jack was being a brat. Said he didn’t want to spend his birthday with his dick older brother. So I left him at home and went off to hang out with my own friends. Jack went to a party. I got the call a few hours later.”
“Beck…I’m so sorry. That’s terrible. But you know it’s not your fault. You were just a kid.”
Beck simpered. “Yeah, that’s what years of therapy has tried to convince me of. But it never dissuades the guilt. It will never take away the If only I had…”
“Is that why you became an agent?” Nina said.
“Something like that.”
Nina came toward him and took his hand. She leaned into his body, her bright seafoam eyes staring up at him. He felt her breath, felt her pity. He hated her pity. But he wanted her too much to care.
He kissed her hard.
She didn’t resist. She fell into him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
After a moment, she pulled away, her cheeks flushed, lashes lowered in girlish bashfulness.
“Thank you for sharing that,” Nina said.
Beck shrugged. “I haven’t really talked about Jack with anyone in…years I guess.”
She met his eyes. “I’m glad you told me.”
They stood in awkward silence, so many things unsaid dangling in limbo between them.
“Um, maybe we should talk about what happened the other night. Talk about what happened just now,” Nina laughed nervously.
“Yeah, we should,” Every intention Beck had had of putting an end to this suddenly evaporated.
“I’m here until close tonight, but I have tomorrow off. You want to maybe get a drink?”
Beck grinned and touched her cheek. “Sounds good.”
Nina watched Beck leave, a newfound respect growing in her gut. He had stakes in this game, it was personal.
“Nice catch,” Katie said, slithering up beside her.
Nina turned and faced her. Her serpentine eyes studied Nina, calculating.
“What?” Nina said.
“The agent. He’s a nice catch. Not a bad way to keep yourself on the right side of the bars.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Katie.”
Katie brushed her long red hair over her shoulders and shrugged. “I’m just teasing you, boss. But he does look like he’s a marvelous kisser.”
She winked at Nina and slithered off.
Nina thought maybe she’d fire her after all.
Chapter 23
Beck went back to the station after leaving Nina’s. Part of him felt lighter from his confession, but part of him felt more vulnerable. He’s tried so many ways to deal with Jack’s death over the years, but he’d never just come out and talked about it to a friend before. Was Nina a friend? No, that’s absurd. Nina was an asset.
An asset you fucked, Graham. Well done, idiot.
Beck had a pounding headache and no matter how much coffee he poured down his throat, it wouldn’t subside. He went to the water cooler and filled up his glass and pounded it. Maybe he was just dehydrated. The mountain air was thinner and drier than the coastal air he was used to. But the thrum just kept on in his temple with the piercing pain right in the center of his head.
It had to be stress. Or you’re suffering a head injury from being thrown off
a motorcycle, agent.
The station was buzzing today as he made his way through the chatter and the smells of bad coffee and too much sugar to his little makeshift desk. Beck's patience with being housed in the local PD was just about spent. The thing about small mountain towns like Tahoe Village, was the local law enforcement typically had little to do other than bust up lake parties, hand out DUIs, and deal with the occasional rowdy tourist being an asshole. So the station was usually a hive of mindless chatter, crass jokes, and local gossip. None of which interested Beck even slightly. He needed to focus. He needed to get his head straight.
He missed his old office—stubbornly old fashioned with dark wood paneling and the scent of pine and fire. Quiet, tranquil.
“Hey Beck,” he heard a saccharine voice.
Beck looked up to see Shelley, the station’s office manager standing by his desk. Round cheeks and bright-eyed, the girl barely looked 18. Her youthful figure was squeezed into a tight sheath dress and platform heels, what she must have thought of as business attire. The unfortunate result was looking painfully cheap. She wasn't an unattractive girl, but she wore entirely too much makeup and had an orange tinge to her skin that hinted at fake tanner. She puckered her overly pink lips in what he imagined was flirtation but she ended up looking more like a fish.
“Hey Shelley,” Beck said with little inflection. “What's up?”
Shelley toyed with a lock her of her honey blonde hair.
“So, I was thinking that you probably don't know your way around the town very well yet. So some of my friends and I were going to go hit up some of the bars down on Broadway tonight if you want to join us.”
She had the unmistakable up speak inflection of women her age, somehow managing to sound like a sexy baby asking questions. Did this generation of girls ever expect to be taken seriously?
Beck cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Hey, thanks that's a great offer. But you know I'm pretty buried with this case. I’m probably gonna be working all night,” Beck said.
“Oh, come on now then. You can’t work all the time you. Come out and get a little crazy with us. It will refresh your mind.” Shelley tilted her head into her shoulder. Was that flirting?
He thought of Nina, sitting at home, slowly sipping a beer while she watched the doorway for intruders. And he was supposed to go out on the town with this bubbly Shelley girl and forget all about his troubles? He didn't think so.
He tried to picture the scenario in normal, everyday life. Him out at a bar, alone, looking for some company. Shelley sauntering up to him, her curvy hips swinging side-to-side as she sauntered through the music on a path toward him. He tried to picture that blonde hair tilting over her tanned shoulder with the background of neon. Tried to picture what decision he'd make a few shots deep, mind clear of images of Nina. Was Shelley the kind of girl he’d take home? Maybe under the right anonymous conditions, but that didn't mean it was a good decision. Then again, lonely people rarely make good decisions.
He shook his head. No, even under normal circumstance he had no desire to stuff himself into an overcrowded bar, shouting over Top-40 remixes and fighting for cheap liquor.
“Honestly, I really appreciate the offer, but I really just can't. I have so much work to do. We’re right in the middle of it here.”
Shelley's sweet face fell into a baby frown that made her look like a cartoon character.
“Oh well, I tried. Just know that the offer is on the table. Any time.” And then she twirled a lock of bleached hair around her finger. She actually twirled it around her finger. Beck rubbed his head. He did not have the mental capacity for this.
She picked up one of his business cards and wrote her number on the back. “Just in case.”
She walked off, shaking her hips as she walked. Beck stuffed the card in his pocket and flipped open his laptop. He had a stack of casino transactions to dig through in the hopes that something would stick out as blatantly illegal. He’d wanted off the streets, true, but he wasn’t sure he was cut out for all this desk bullshit. Some days he wished he could just go back to be being muscle for hire.
But within a moment, another agent took Shelley’s place next to his desk. “Hey, Graham, Martinez wants to see you.”
Just what I need. More berating, Beck thought.
“Ok, be right there,” Beck said.
Martinez was at his desk going over a file.
“Sit down,” he said when Beck appeared in the doorway.
“What's up?” Beck asked, not taking a seat.
“You know you've gotten really bad at taking orders recently. Just sit.”
Beck sat and waited.
Martinez sighed and folded his hands over the desk.
“There’s been a change of plans,” Martinez said. “I know you’re not going to be happy about it, but we need Nina to bait Eugene Sessions.”
“What?” Beck nearly leaped from the chair. “No way.”
“Calm down. Just a routine undercover. Put a wire on her. Get Eugene talking. See what we can find out.”
“Absolutely no way. She's not an undercover agent. She runs a damn restaurant.”
“Don’t boil her down to such menial things, Beck. That woman is smart. She co-ran a drug operation. She served time. She knows the game. She practically worked undercover for the drug boss. If anyone is cut out for this, it’s her.”
Beck shook his head fervently. “Absolutely not.”
“You seem to be under the impression that you have a say in this, Graham. I think you forget your junior rank. You barely have say about what you eat for lunch. This comes from the top. Springfield wants progress.”
Beck was fuming. His pulse was beating against his neck.
“You could get her killed,” Beck said.
“We won't get her killed. She’ll have backup.”
“You think they won't hesitate to put a bullet in her head the moment they smell something's up?”
“You think this is the first time we've sent in an undercover? Come on Graham, this is routine. Bush league. Haven’t you done this 1,000 times in your young career?”
“She’ll never agree,” Beck said.
“Then make her agree.”
“Find somebody else to do it.”
Martinez narrowed his dark eyes at Beck. “Graham, you are bordering on insubordination. I know there’s more going on between you and Nina than you let on. And I’ve looked the other way because I figured, hey, whatever gets the job done. I’m only going to tell you this once, your feelings for her have officially gotten in the way of your duty. So you tell me right now if it’s going to continue to be a problem or if I need to send you back to Inglewood or whatever shit city they had you working. And if that happens, you might as well just hand over that badge right now. Along with your future at the agency.”
Beck sighed. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to quell his headache. How could he do this to her? He’d promised her that she was going to be safe. He’d promised her that all they needed was information. After that, they’d leave her alone and she could live her life in peace. Fuck. She was going to hate him. But more than that, he cared about her safety. The moment she heard this she was going to be in the wind. They would have to arrest her to keep her here.
“You’re a mother fucker you know that Martinez?” Beck said.
Martinez smiled thinly. He shrugged.
“Goes with the territory, man. I'm sorry. Look, if there were any other way, I’d be all for it. But she's our best chance of getting these guys. I know you’ll do the right thing here.”
Every fiber in his body protested, but Beck nodded. “Of course, sir. I’ll go talk to her right away.”
Chapter 24
Nina was surprised to see Beck come through the front door of the Black Cat.
She’d been running crazy all day and was a disastrous sweaty mess. The fryer had gone down mid shift, one of the dishwashers was a no-show and they’d been wall-to-wall all day.
“Hey you,” she said, smiling through her exhaustion. “Everything ok? Why are you back?”
Beck rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t meet her eyes.
“You still right in the thick of things? I can come back,” Beck said.
Nina’s chest tightened. Something in his tone was off. “No that’s ok, we’re pretty much done with lunch. Let’s go to the back office.”
Beck nodded.
“Hey B, can you watch the front for a few?” Nina called out.
Brooklyn gave her a thumbs up.
Nina led Beck into the small back room and shut the door. She sat at her desk chair and Beck sat on the small couch.
“Okay, so what's going on?” Nina said.
Beck took a deep breath and looked around the room for a moment before answering. Finally he looked to her directly.
“About us,” Beck started.
Nina smirked. “This conversation couldn’t wait until tomorrow huh? Yeah, I know. Huge mistake. I can forget it if you can.”
Beck looked taken aback. “Just like that?”
Nina shrugged. “We don’t really have a choice. The whole thing is just messy so it’s ok, you’re off the hook.”
There was something regretful in Beck’s eyes.
“What? Is there something more?” Nina said.
Beck exhaled loudly. “Martinez wants to bring you in undercover.”
Nina thought she'd been shot right in the head. Her vision blurred. Then she laughed. Obviously he was joking.
Beck didn’t smile.
She stiffened.
“Excuse me? I didn't hear you right,” Nina said.
“Yeah, you did,” Beck said.
“But…I’m not a…undercover? Why?” Nina’s head spun. This wasn’t real. A dream. Alternate reality.
“I know. I’m so sorry it’s come to this, but Martinez thinks you can get something out of Sessions.”
“Sessions?”
“Street name Badger.”
The Redemption Lie Page 16
