Larkin was cut off when Doyle grinned and said into the phone, “Hello, ma’am, my name is Ira Doyle. I’m a detective with the NYPD’s Forensic Artists Unit. I’m working in conjunction with the Cold Case Squad and was hoping to speak with Principal Widalski?… That’d be great, thank you.”
Larkin didn’t run to the printer, but he was very conscious of walking quicker than usual.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“It’s illegal todrive and use a cell phone anyway,” Larkin was saying from the passenger seat of his Audi while scrolling through his list of contacts.
“And you’ve got calls to make,” Doyle said by way of suggestion.
“Yes,” Larkin answered, only a touch defensively. He caught a quick, there-and-gone smile flicker across Doyle’s face. “NHTSA no longer recommends hands at the 10 and 2 position.”
“No?”
“Due to the dangers certain airbags present, 9 and 3 is now advisable. I bring this up because you currently have onlyonehand on the wheel.”
Doyle responded by putting his left hand on the steering wheel as he made the turn onto the FDR, but before he could even straighten out, it had dropped into his lap in what was clearly a subconscious, automatic behavior that would take more than one reminder to correct. The actual aspect that frustrated Larkin was how unreasonably attractive Doyle’s cool and calm demeanor was when he drove one-handed. Larkin wasn’t certain why he’d always found competent male drivers to be, if he was being crude, a turn-on, and he’d been unable to find any serious studies on the subject outside of Reddit users asking about the very same phenomenon, so Larkin could only surmise it had something to do with confidence. Doyle struck that golden mean between self-doubt and arrogance in just about every facet of his life, but add 4,300 pounds of machinery into the equation, and it made Larkin’s heart beat a little faster.
Larkin put his phone to his ear and said, “Ira.”
Doyle glanced away from the road, round tortoiseshell-framed sunglasses meeting Larkin’s steady stare.
Larkin felt his skin prickle from a sudden rush of heat, and instead of whatever he’d thought to say, he blurted, “Please use both hands.”
“Why the fuck you callin’, Grim?” Ray O’Halloran growled over the line.
Larkin redirected his attention to the phone call and replied, deadpan, “I’d like your opinion on Pantone’s decision to award Classic Blue as color of the year.”
Doyle had to stifle a laugh with the back of his hand.
“Come again?”
“I thought they played it too safe after choosing Living Coral for 2019.”
“You’re not funny, shithead.”
“So no future at the Comedy Cellar,” Larkin asked.
“I’m hanging up.”
“I need the name of the MTA employee who reported yesterday’s DB, as well as their supervisor’s contact information.”
O’Halloran snorted. “You were supposed to conduct that interview yesterday.”
“Just give me the name and phone number.”
O’Halloran sighed heavily, dramatically, like there wasn’t enough patience in his soul for even one more asshole today, but eventually asked, “Got a pen ready?”
“I’ll remember it.”
“Uh-huh. You’ll transpose a 9 and 8 and end up calling the Pussycat Pleasure Hotline or some such bullshit. Actually, you know what?That’dbe funny, Grim.”
“Yes, a gay man calling a straight sex hotline is very eighth-grade funny, O’Halloran, but at least my sexual partners have never needed to draw me an anatomical map with an X marking the spot that, at best, you only found by accident while you were motorboating her—a tip you probably read about on a wildly hetero blog called something like Manliness 101, where that same expert also said, with absolute conviction, that the alphabet trick works.”
The Audi swerved hard to the left and Doyle swore under his breath as he corrected.
“This is why I said to drive with two hands, Doyle,” Larkin stated.
“You got some fucking nerve—”
