Take One With You (12 page)

Better not say that out loud.

“Get out!”

“Sarah, I’m sorry.”

She laid on the horn, and finally Charlie got out of the car and closed the door behind him. He leaned down and peered in the window, but she refused to look at him directly, turning her face to the opposite window and watching him walk away in the side view mirror through regretful, teary eyes.    

Thane downed his third and slammed the glass down on the bar, probably a little too loudly, causing the bartender to glare at him again from the other end of his workstation. The detective shrugged and held up a finger to signal he wanted another while he had the guy’s attention, although it wasn’t the preferred digit he would normally have used on the little prick. The bartender had been a shit since he sat down, like he was on parole and smelled cop, which he probably did.

I don’t give a shit what you did, dickless. Just fill my fucking glass.

He watched as the bartender poured him another double Jack.

Probably queer.

Thane gave him another look.
Maybe not. Too bad, though. I’d get better service.

Thane had had words again with his boss,
big fucking surprise
, and had been in a foul mood ever since.

What was really bothering him though, was his ex-wife. She’d been riding his ass about child support even though he’d never missed a payment. The latest burr up her ass was that she wanted him to pay in cash, which he wasn’t about to do. Thane had paid her with money orders since the very beginning, closing all their joint accounts and opening new ones in his name at smaller banks she didn’t know about.

It probably wouldn’t make any difference to her cunt of a divorce attorney if they really wanted to find out his information for whatever reason, but he wasn’t about to make it easy for her. As long as she got paid, she couldn’t do shit. The two of them could suck his dick.

He smiled as the thought of that image rumbled around in his fevered brain. Thane had to admit that lesbian counselor was a pretty sweet piece of ass, in spite of her fucking disposition. The first time he’d met her in arbitration he’d had wood the entire goddamn meeting. His own attorney kept asking if he needed to get up and stretch or go to the bathroom whenever they took a break, but fuck if he didn’t sit there with that raging boner for two solid hours so nobody could read his mind.

He still occasionally rubbed one out to her smug little ass, imagining how it would feel to spread her out for a couple of hours across the mahogany desk in her office he’d probably paid for.

Just then the bartender poured him another and Thane looked up with a dopey grin on his face, causing the guy to roll his eyes and walk away like a felon at the policeman’s ball.

As long as you’re around for my rounds, dickhead.

“Detective Parks?”

Shit. If I wanted to talk to another cop, I’d fucking pull some overtime.

He turned around and was pleasantly surprised to see that the voice belonged to Officer Goodbody from the day in the alley with the deaf kid.

What the hell was her name?

“Officer Hellstrom,” Thane said, standing up and silently congratulating himself on his stellar memory.

She laughed. “Anita, please.”

They just stood there looking at each other for the briefest of moments, but it wasn’t awkward. At least not to Thane.

It was one of his “quarter moments”, as he called them.

The first time he’d ever gone to Las Vegas, Thane was eighteen years-old looking twenty-five, and right away he’d hit triple sevens on a quarter machine with three coins in. That was back when silver actually spilled out when you won.

He’d stood there as his buddies hooted and hollered around him while six hundred quarters poured out, but the thing that struck Thane the most was that he’d just had a feeling the second before that he was going to win. He
knew
that he’d hit before it happened.

Thane had quarter moments sometimes during an interrogation, when he knew all he had to do was shut up and let the perp confess, and ninety percent of the time that’s exactly what happened. It was uncanny.

As he stood there looking at Hellstrom, he knew he was going to get laid tonight.

Nice quarter moment.

“Call me Anita,” she affirmed, and Thane smiled and offered her a seat, which she took. He leaned in close as he sat, smelling her perfume. It was just as intoxicating as the liquor he’d been swilling.

Good thing I only had three.

Thane dipped a finger in the freshly poured shot and licked it like a frosting spoon. “What’ll you have, Anita?”

“Bottle of water is fine,” she said. Thane thought he heard an apologetic note in her voice as if she expected an argument, but he decided against it.

Never look a gift twat in the puss.

“Coming right up,” he said, smiling. Thane lifted his hand, immediately catching the eye of the wary barkeep once again, who strode over promptly once again.

Must be my lucky night.

“Two bottled waters,” he said, pushing the full shot towards the bartender. “We’re gonna grab a booth.”

Thane could tell the bartender was about to say that he’d still have to pay for the shot, but he cut him off at the pass. “This one’s for you. On me.”

The bartender nodded and then glanced at Anita, who looked pretty fucking hot in a tight red dress and matching heels, with some of that criminal cleavage he’d noticed beneath her eyes.

Barkeep’s definitely not gay. Or maybe Officer Goodbody is just that good.

The bartender was back in a flash with the non-alcohol, and the two of them made their way to a booth along the far wall.

“So, you hungry?” Thane asked, once they’d settled in.

“Uh, no. Well, I’m meeting a girlfriend for dinner.”

Fuck.

“Okay,” Thane said. “So, where’s the old man tonight? Hill Street, right?”

She smiled. “That’s right. Didn’t know if you’d remember.”

Thane laughed. “I always remember the husbands.”

Anita giggled and Thane thought he saw a little color appear in her cheeks, too. He was on a roll tonight. Goddamn, he wanted her.

They talked on and on, like it was a first date. Thane noticed after a while that she’d stopped looking around for her friend and seemed a lot less nervous as the night wore on. They ended up ordering dinner, after all. He ordered light.

Not taking any chances.

Thane’s usual waitress, whose name he could never remember but always laughed when he called her Cookie, gave him a sly wink and nod of approval after appraising Goodbody. For the first time in ages, Thane was just letting loose and having a good time.

Before their food arrived, he noticed that she seemed to be getting a little nervous again, so he flagged down Cookie and ordered them both a drink without asking whether or not she wanted it. Thane had always been a take-charge guy with women, something a lot of them liked, and a few, such as his ex, didn’t tolerate for very long.

She doesn’t need to take it very long. Just fifteen minutes or so.

“What are you grinning about?” Anita asked.

Thane laughed. “Nothing. Just thinking about dinner.”

She leaned forward, her neckline now dangerously low. Thane stared into her eyes, which he just realized were an amazing shade of green. If he’d been asked before that moment what color they were, he wouldn’t have had a clue even though he’d been sitting a foot away from her for over an hour, but now he was trying extremely hard, not without success, to keep from staring at her tits.

“Tell me something,” she said, and Thane leaned in. They were so close he could have shoved his tongue down her throat just by craning his neck, and man did he want to, but he played it as cool as he could for a man with a blue-veiner and no place to put it.

Yet.

“What’s that?”

“What do you think of Myers?”

Thane blinked.
Myers? Who the fuck is Myers?

“Chief-of-Detectives Myers,” she added, amused that he looked so clueless about his own boss.

Thane sat back.
Why the fuck did she bring up Myers?

“Right,” he said. “Myers.” He nodded, appraising her anew.
What the fuck is her angle, anyway?

“I’m just wondering because of that night,” she added quickly.

“What night?”

“The boy. In the alley. The deaf – ”

“Right, yeah, I remember,” Thane said. “The kid in the alley. Myers was there.” He leaned in again. “Why, what did Myers do?”

“Well, he was kind of an asshole,” she answered, and that was all she needed to say. Thane opened up like that long-ago quarter slot machine, filling her in on all the past slights he’d suffered at the hands of the higher-ups like Myers who’d been holding him back for so many years.

Anita Hellstrom just sat back and listened for the better part of an hour as Thane raged against the department in general and Myers in particular. Their food came and went, barely touched, as Thane told her his secrets and lies, his hopes and dreams, his fears and ambitions.

And she began to feel empathy for him, which surprised her. Thane actually seemed like a good man and a loving father, although pretty rough around the edges. Her own dad had been like that, gruff and quick to anger, but when the chips were down, he knew who his friends were and he would fight for them with all he had.

Thane seemed like that to her. A man with his own particular code of honor that didn’t necessarily match up ethically or even morally with that of society’s, but which was a code nonetheless, and there was something to admire in that. Her husband was shallow and ambitious, more like Myers, in her eyes. A man who would easily rise above his level of competence over time simply by being a good politician. A man who knew which asses to kiss and how long to hold his pucker.

Thane was not a politician, she could see that now.

“Shit, what time is it?” she asked.

“Hell, I don’t know,” he answered, looking around for a clock, then comically searching his pockets for his cell phone.

“Thane.”

He looked up.
Goddamn she’s got some beautiful tits.
“Yeah?”

She reached across the table for his hand, and he was about to lean over and just fucking kiss her, when she grabbed his wrist and turned it over to check his watch.

Anita looked up at him with a confused look, and he chuckled.

“I don’t wear watches that work.”

She just stared at him for a moment. “Okay, you’re gonna have to explain that.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” he said, and turned to look through the pockets of his coat for his cell.

“Tell me,” she said playfully, “you told me everything else.”

Thane looked up a little too quickly, and she could see another side of her father, the side she didn’t like as much. She could see a flash of something more than anger, something closer to rage. At that moment she refocused and batted her eyes and smiled, and the madness drained from his eyes as quickly as it had appeared. When he started to speak, she could breathe again.

“I had this watch once. A gift from my ex, back when we were still married. I kept wearing it after the divorce, I don’t know why.”

He looked at her almost sheepishly, and seeing in her eyes what he believed was real compassion, continued.

“So one day it stopped working. I don’t know when, but it made me late for a very important meeting, and…things got all fucked up. So now, I don’t rely on any goddamn watch to tell me what time it is.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Stupid, huh?”

“What was the meeting?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“So why do you still wear the watch?”

“This? This isn’t the same watch,” he said. “Hell, no. Different watch.”

“So why do you wear
any
watch?” she asked. “If you don’t use them to tell time?”

“Fuck if I know,” he said. “Just feels like a man should wear a watch, I guess.”

She laughed. Now he sounded exactly like her father.

“What’s so fucking funny?” he asked, laughing with her.

She shook her head. “I’ll tell you when I know you better.”

He liked the sound of that. Thane reached in his coat, finally finding his phone, and said, “Eleven-forty.”

Her eyes widened, and she reached into her purse, frantically digging through it as if she didn’t trust his cell phone like he didn’t trust his watch.

“I have to go.”

“Oh, okay. Sure,” he said, the disappointment evident in his voice. “I’ll walk you out.” He threw some bills on the table.
So much for my fuckin’ quarter moment.

“That’s okay, you don’t have to rush out because of me.”

“Like I’m gonna stay in this dump,” he said, and they walked towards the door.

A dark figure in a non-descript sedan a half block up the street sat up and took notice as they exited, taking a last drag of his cigarette before tossing it, where it landed amongst several other butts on the damp pavement.

There was a light mist coming down, so Thane quickly took off his jacket and held it over their heads as they walked towards her car. She quickly fished out her keys and unlocked her doors with the fob.