King City (12 page)

But if he was honest with himself, and he usually was, it wasn’t really the food, or the convenience, that led him across the street. He wanted to see Amanda Guthrie again.

There were about a dozen customers in the restaurant, most of them middle‐aged. Mandy worked the front counter while another waitress, a good twenty years older than she, covered the tables. Old man Guthrie was at the cash register with his oxygen tank, his cigarettes, and his shotgun.

“You’re still alive,” Guthrie said.

“So are you,” Wade said.

“The odds were more in my favor.”

Wade took a seat at the counter. Mandy came over and poured him a cup of coffee.

“How was your first day?” she asked with a smile.

“You’ll have to ask me tomorrow,” he said. “It’s not over yet.”

“What are your hours?”

“Today it’s twenty‐four, but starting tomorrow, my shift is nine at night to nine in the morning.”

“Yikes. I’ll make you a canteen of coffee that you can take with you tonight.”

“That would be nice,” he said.

“Everybody’s talking about you,” Mandy said. “Your showdown with Timo, you moving in, the sit‐down with Duke, your arrest of that junkie.”

“Word gets around,” he said.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

It was and she got points in his book for knowing it.

“So what’s the consensus?” he asked.

“Duke bought you, or you’d already be dead.”

“What do you think?”

“I think if you could be bought, you’d still be in the Major Crimes Unit and not here.”

“You read up on me,” he said.

“I did,” Mandy said. “What would you like for dinner?”

“The usual.”

“You’ve only been here once.”

“Now you know how much I liked it.”

She took the order back to the cook in the kitchen and then served some other patrons at the counter.

While Mandy did that, two of the guys who’d trashed Wade’s car came in and approached Guthrie. But they kept their eyes on Wade, staring at him with cold hate.

Wade just sipped his coffee, unperturbed by their presence, which perturbed them plenty.

Without a word, Guthrie opened the register, took out some money, and handed it to them. They walked out.

Wade had another sip of coffee. “Donating to charity?”

“Paying my weekly security bill,” Guthrie said.

“I thought this was hallowed ground.”

“Even the Vatican needs security,” Guthrie said.

“I don’t recall seeing any smiling pancakes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel.”

“If you look closely, they’re there,” Guthrie said. “Michelangelo hid pancakes everywhere. It was his thing.”

“Have you thought about not paying?” Wade asked.

“The DVD place tried that,” Guthrie said. “They had a fire and now they’re gone.”

“But now you’ve got a police station right across the street,” Wade said. “That changes things.”

“We’ll see,” Guthrie said and starting coughing.

Mandy came out of the kitchen with Wade’s pancakes and bacon and carried them to an empty booth by the window. She set the plates down on the table and came back to the counter.

“Your dinner is getting cold,” she said.

He picked up his coffee and went over to the booth. A moment later, Mandy slid into the bench seat across from him, setting down the pot of coffee and half of an apple pie.

“What are we doing over here?” Wade asked as he started to eat.

“I wanted some privacy while I chatted with you.”

“Do you want to tell me something that you don’t want your father to overhear?”

“I might say something racy and suggestive.”

“Like what?”

She picked up a fork and took a bite of his pancakes. “I haven’t had sex in six months.”

“Oh,” Wade said.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“Nope,” Wade said, continuing to eat. He liked how frank she was and how relaxed she seemed to be with him. It made him feel relaxed, more at ease than he’d felt in months. The uniform did too, though he didn’t know why.

“Aren’t you interested?” she asked.

“Sure I am,” he said. “But I’m being chivalrous.”

She stole another bite of his pancakes. “I didn’t know that chivalry involved not talking about sex.”

“Sir Lancelot never talked about sex.”

“But he got plenty of it,” she said.

“Probably,” Wade said.

“That’s why they called it Camelot,” she said.

“I think you’re mispronouncing it,” he said.

“What about you, Tom?”

“What about me, Mandy?”

“Are you getting plenty of it?”

“No,” he said.

“Any?”

“I’m not very good at this.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “I think you’re a man who doesn’t do anything unless you’re certain that you’re good at it.”

“What I mean is that I was married for a long time.”

“But you aren’t anymore,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’m not sure I know how to be with someone else anymore.”

“Do you want to be?”

“I didn’t until now,” he said.

She took another bite of his pancakes. “Maybe you should be less chivalrous.”

He pushed aside his plate and she slid the pie in front of him.

“Want some apple pie? It’s my momma’s recipe.”

“I’m told it’s better than sex.”

“I think we ought to do a comparison,” she said. “While the taste is still fresh in our mouths.”

She stuck a fork into the pie, carved out a bite, and ate it.

____

They made love with tender urgency on the bare mattress amid all of his unpacked boxes in the center of his apartment.

When it was over, she lay naked on top of him, her head on his chest.

“Was it Camelot?” he asked.

“I think you’re mispronouncing it,” she said.

“Just following your lead,” he said.

“You followed it well,” she said.

He stroked her back and sniffed her hair. He wanted to remember her smell, to always have that intimate recognition of her no matter what happened next.

“Why me?” he asked.

“You mean, why did I pick you to end my celibacy?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Because I know I can trust you. I didn’t think I would be able to trust a man again,” she said. “I also like the way you move, especially on top of me.”

“You didn’t know that before tonight.”

“I had a strong inkling,” she said. “Why did you accept my invitation to bed?”

“I’m a man,” he said.

“You really are, maybe more than any man I’ve known,” she said. “But not in that way. You wouldn’t fuck a woman just because she asked you to.”

“I might,” he said. “Just to be chivalrous.”

“I want a straight answer.”

“You’re smart and you’re direct. You are who you are. You don’t make excuses for it and you don’t try to be anything else. I like that.”

“It’s what you like in yourself.”

“You’re also a very attractive woman. You mentioned that you’ve been away for a while. Where were you?”

“It wasn’t prison, a mental institution, or a convent.”

“That’s a relief.” Wade looked over her shoulder at the watch on his wrist. It was nearly 8:00 p.m. He hated to say what he had to say next. “Officer Greene will be here in a few minutes to start her shift. I need to go. I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to.”

“Me too.” She kissed his chin and rolled off him onto her back. “But we’ll have other opportunities.”

He looked at her. “That would be nice.”

“Nicer than my momma’s apple pie?”

“Much,” he said.

Wade let Charlotte drive the squad car to give her a chance to feel in control of her situation and to discover the neighborhood on her own. But mostly, he did it because he was feeling pleasantly, postcoitally languid and wanted to enjoy it. She kept stealing suspicious glances at him and he pretended not to notice.

“You didn’t seem surprised to see me,” she said.

“I shot Billy, not you. It’s not bothering him any.”

“Because he’s an idiot.”

“He’s smarter now than he was yesterday,” Wade said.

“I came back because I realized all that bullshit you said about this being the one place I could make a difference actually wasn’t bullshit.”

“Good to know. What did forensics say when you dropped off the guns?”

She gave him a long look, clearly disappointed that he wasn’t treating her admission with the gravity she felt it deserved. He looked out the window at the dark, abandoned factories.

“They asked if it was related to a specific case.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them that the weapons were recovered on the street outside of our station,” she said.

“Did they give you an idea when we might get the fingerprint and ballistic results on the guns?”

“I got the impression it would be after hell froze over,” she said. “But before dogs have evolved to the point where they can walk upright and speak English.”

His cell phone vibrated on his gun belt. He’d forgotten that it was there and that it was on.

“Excuse me,” he said and answered the call. “Wade.”

“It’s me, Dad,” Brooke said.

The instant he heard her voice he felt a deep, painful stab of guilt. It must have shown on his face, because Charlotte immediately looked away and concentrated intensely on her driving.

“Where have you been?” Brooke continued.

“I am so sorry,” Wade said. “I’ve been totally distracted by work.”

“You’re working?” She sounded like a young, innocent version of Ally. They shared the same vocal patterns, even the same laugh.

“Yeah,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“What I’ve always done. I’m a cop.”

“I thought you weren’t anymore,” she said.

“I never stopped being one,” he said. “But now I’m back on the job.”

“Mom said that would never happen.”

“I guess she was mistaken,” Wade said.

“Will I still see you this weekend?”

“Every weekend,” Wade said. “I’ll come by on Saturday morning and take you to the movies. But it will have to be an early show. I’m working nights.”

But even in daylight, he would still hesitate to leave Charlie and Billy alone even for a few hours. He’d take her to one of the downtown multiplexes so he wouldn’t be too far from the station if his rookies got into trouble.

“What do you want to see?” Brooke asked.

“Anything that doesn’t have cartoon animals.”

“I’m thirteen, Dad. I am way past that. It’s Mom who isn’t.”

Ally wasn’t past a lot of things, Wade thought.

“See you Saturday,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

“You too, Dad.” She kissed the receiver and hung up.

Wade stuck the phone back on his belt and saw Charlotte steal a glance at him. “That was my daughter. She’s thirteen.”

“How many kids do you have?”

“Just the one,” he said.

“How long were you married?”

“Fourteen years,” he said.

“What happened?”

“I went to the Justice Department and told them that everyone I was working with in the Major Crimes Unit was corrupt.”

“So your wife felt that you were betraying the department.”

“She didn’t know about any of it until it was over.”

Charlotte turned to look at him, dismayed. “You didn’t tell her?”

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

Charlotte shook her head and kept driving, heading south. She slowed as they passed Duke Fallon’s strip club, a windowless place called Headlights that was known for the giant neon sign shaped like a woman, her boobs flashing. It was just one of Fallon’s legitimate businesses in King City and his headquarters in Darwin Gardens. Wade wondered if the choice was influenced by
The Sopranos
or if Fallon just liked being around topless women. Maybe it was both.

They kept heading south until they reached the projects, the southernmost boundary of Darwin Gardens, where the river curved in a wide arc toward the east. Wade was sure they weren’t there by accident. Charlotte was smart and had probably spent the hours since he’d last seen her researching the neighborhood instead of getting rest.

The three twenty‐story apartment towers were enormous tombstones marking the death of King City’s industrial core. The Alphabet Towers, named after the A, B, and C buildings that comprised the triangular complex, were built in the late 1970s as premium residences for the well‐paid white‐collar workers who wanted to be close to their executive offices at the south side factories.

But in the last twenty years, with the fall of the factories, the towers had gone from swanky to skanky, teeming with poverty‐stricken families living in slum‐like conditions. Now they were known collectively as the Projects.

They were high‐rise slums, except for the penthouses, which were owned by Duke Fallon. He’d restored the building B penthouse that he lived in far beyond its previous grandeur, complete with an outdoor pool, a driving range, and an unrestricted, 360‐degree view of the entire city.

Fallon’s penthouses in the other towers supposedly housed his most sensitive criminal enterprises, including the labs where he produced meth and processed heroin and cocaine for sale on the street.

Wade could appreciate Fallon’s choice for his home base. The towers were easy to defend from attack, from the ground or the air, whether it came from gangland rivals or law enforcement. There were surveillance cameras everywhere and lookouts posted on the rooftops. And the twenty floors of slum apartments overflowing with poor families loyal to Fallon offered the crime lord plenty of human shields, creating a potential for devastating collateral damage that kept the King City police, the DEA, and the FBI from attempting raids.