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Brian had stopped humming, and I looked at him. He looked back, his terrible fake smile in place. “Well, brother?” he said. “Today’s special? Two for the price of one?”
I could not hold his gaze. I looked away out the window. “Not yet,” I said.
“All righty, then,” he said, and I could hear disappointment in his voice. But he drove on, and I continued to look out the window. I buried myself in dark musings, and didn’t really see any of the scenery, even as we approached my house and it got more and more familiar. Neither of us spoke again until, some twenty minutes later, Brian did.
“We’re here,” he said, slowing the car. And then he said, “Uh-oh,” and I looked out the window. He was driving us slowly past my house, the home where I had lived with Rita for such a long time. And right in front of the house, another car was already parked.
A police car.
SIX
As I may have mentioned, Brian had a very real aversion to police in any form at all, and he had no intention of pausing to chat with the two cops we could see in the cruiser. They glanced up at us, just doing their job and checking out the traffic, looking bored but still prepared to spring out of the car and open fire if we should suddenly unlimber a howitzer, or try to sell them drugs. But Brian very coolly smiled and nodded and continued his slow cruise past the house, pointing at a neighboring house in a very good imitation of the House Gawker’s Crawl, a South Florida custom that involves driving around at a maddeningly sluggish pace while staring at houses that may someday be for sale. It was a perfect disguise, and the cops gave us no more than a glance before turning back to their conversation, no doubt involving either sports or sex.
But it was, after all, my house, and it contained most of my earthly possessions. I wanted to get inside, if only for a change of clothing. “Circle the block,” I said to Brian. “Let me out up at the corner and I’ll walk back.”
Brian gave me a concerned look. “Is that really a good idea?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s my house.”
“Apparently it’s also a crime scene,” Brian said.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Detective Anderson has stolen my house.”
“Well,” he said lightly, “as I said, there is a hotel room waiting for you.”
I shook my head, suddenly feeling stubborn. “It’s my house,” I said. “I have to try.”
Brian sighed theatrically. “Very well,” he said. “But it seems like an awful risk, less than an hour out of jail.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, although in truth I was not nearly as optimistic as I sounded. So far Anderson and the mighty Juggernaut of Justice that he represented had had their way with me, and there was no reason to think things would change now, merely because I was represented by Frank Kraunauer. But one can do no more than try one’s best in this Vale of Tears, and so I climbed out of Brian’s car absolutely brimming with synthetic hope, a cheery fake smile painted on my lips. I stuck my head back inside and said, “Go up to the strip mall on the corner. I’ll walk up when I’m done.”
Brian ducked down and looked at me searchingly, as if afraid he might never see me again. “If you’re not there in half an hour, I’m calling Kraunauer,” he said.
“Forty-five minutes,” I said. “If I get in, I want a shower.”
He looked at me a little longer, then shook his head. “This is a very bad idea,” he said. I closed the door, and he drove slowly away, up toward Dixie Highway.
I understood Brian’s worry. It was perfectly natural caution on the part of somebody who preferred the sort of entertainment he liked. He had always seen cops as the Enemy, a rival predator in the food chain to be avoided whenever possible. But even though I shared his distinctive tastes, I had no inbred aversion to blue uniforms. My unique upbringing and career path had made me familiar with cops, and I understood them as much as I understood any human.
So I walked right up to the patrol car, phony smile still on my face, and tapped on the glass.
Two heads swiveled toward me in perfect unison, and two sets of cold eyes, one blue and one brown, looked me over with unblinking readiness.
I mimed rolling down the window, and after another moment of staring, the owner of the brown eyes, closest to me, rolled down the window. “Can I help you, sir,” the officer said, making help sound as threatening as possible. I let my smile broaden just a little, but the officer didn’t seem impressed. He was thin, about forty, with olive skin and short black hair, and his partner, who was much younger and very pale, with blond hair that was Marine Corps short, leaned over to watch me.
“Yes, I hope so,” I said. “Um, this is my house here? And I was hoping I could get in a
nd get a few things…?”
Neither one of them offered any encouragement, not even a blink. “What kind of things,” Brown Eyes said. It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Change of clothes?” I said hopefully. “Maybe a toothbrush?”
At long last, Brown Eyes blinked, but it didn’t soften him up noticeably. “The house is sealed,” he said. “Nobody in, nobody out.”
“Just for a minute?” I pleaded. “You could come and watch me.”
“I said no,” Brown Eyes said, and he was sliding down the scale now, from cold to positively hostile.
