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When his eyes refused to follow orders, he thought, okay . . . fine. There might have been a stain running down the outside of his calf, but it was motor oil. Yeah, that was it.
It was not blood. In spite of all the copper in the air.
Out in front of the trap house, José tripped over his feet as he bumped right into his unmarked. When his body hit the front bumper, he had to put his hand on the hood to steady himself—especially as he got a clear shot at the man getting out of the Escalade.
His dizziness did not improve as he got a proper look at the driver.
Across the street, standing straighter, taller, and broader than José remembered . . . was his old dead partner. Sure as if José had conjured Butch O’Neal out of thin air by wishing the guy was still around for backup.
And what do you know, Butch seemed equally poleaxed.
The two of them walked forward like a pair of zombies, meeting in the middle of the road.
As José blinked, he decided that he knew what this was. This was a dream, conjured up after he went home from the scene he’d been at all day long. With his wife in school, and the kids busy, he’d obviously had too much of that leftover carne asada from Tuesday and had fallen asleep on the sofa. Preoccupied with his own retirement, his subconscious had burped this little not-actually-happening over the ol’ brain transom and—
“Hi,” Butch said roughly.
“You’re taller.” As José spoke the words, he had the weird conviction that they’d done this before. Not in the middle of this particular street, but in other alleys, roads . . . and at church. “Than I remember.”
“It’s the shoes.”
They both looked down, and José whistled. “Nice boots. What brand are they?”
“We just call them shitkickers.”
“Badass.” José smiled a little. “Are you okay?”
The moment he asked the question, he winced, that headache coming back.
“I’m thinking I need to ask you that.” Butch cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you again, old friend.”
José forced his eyes to focus, yet they weren’t unclear—and then he heeded an internal conviction that he had to talk fast because Butch wasn’t going to last. Or rather, this dream wasn’t going to last.
Yes, this was totally a dream.
“I’m retiring,” he blurted.
“You are?” Butch seemed shocked, his eyes bugging. “Wait, for real?”
“Yeah. I’m tired of getting calls in the middle of the night, and I’ve gotten too stuck in my head. Plus I’m old, now.”
“You’re not old.” There was a desperate edge to that familiar voice. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I got my pension, you know. I’m staying one month after it kicks in—hey, you look great, by the way. I mean, so healthy. You’ve turned your life around.”
This was a good dream, he decided. Considering the raw material, he was lucky it wasn’t a heartbreaking nightmare involving a lot of blood.
“I met someone,” Butch whispered. “I fell in love and I married her. She’s too good for me.”
José smiled even as his head really started pounding. “I swear we’ve had this conversation before—but then I’m asleep and imagining this, aren’t I. I always hoped you’d find a nice woman and settle down.”
“You’re a good friend, José.”
“Why do you look so sad if you’re happy?”
“I miss you.”
Such simple words. That went through José’s chest like a scalpel.
“We were a good team.” José shut his eyes and then rubbed them. “God, my head hurts.”
“I think you better go.”
“Why do I feel like we’ve done this before?” he mumbled. For the hundredth time. But that was what happened in dreams, wasn’t it. Things were always a little skewed, a little wonky . . . real, but unreal.
He’d wanted to see Butch one last time before he retired, before José wasn’t out in the downtown at night anymore. Like maybe his retiring would stop these dreams from happening, like they were the same as his badge and his service weapons, something he had to turn in at his exit interview.
“We have done this before.”
Opening his eyes, José nodded. “I think we have.”
Butch’s hazel stare shifted to the left, and he focused on something over José’s shoulder. “I gotta go, too.”
Pivoting, José did a recoil, even though . . . he somehow wasn’t surprised. Two men had arrived at the trap house’s front door and they seemed to be waiting for Butch. One was huge and blond and looked like a movie star. The other had black hair, tattoos at one temple, and a goatee. Both were dressed in leather.
José turned back to his old partner, a strange feeling coming over him. “We have done this before, haven’t we.”
“Yeah, we have.”
“And this isn’t a dream, is it.”
“Life is a dream, José. The whole thing is one long fuzzy fiction, and I’m glad you’re getting out of homicide. It’s dangerous on the streets—”
