Loving Time

the Faith. M’ijo, wait a minute. What’s the hurry?”

Mike struggled into his leather jacket, adjusting the gun harness under his arm with a jerk. His voice showed how angry he was. “Maria had the Faith. And she had me. Was she happy, Mami?”

A giant tear collected unexpectedly in Maria’s eye. All her sorrows puddled into a lake and tipped over the dam of her lid, gathering momentum as it rolled down her cheek. He hadn’t gotten over it. Mike was still in pain, still suffering over that poor crazy chica.

“I’m sorry, m’ijo,” she cried. “Is it my fault that God’s plan is so mysterious we can’t understand it?”

Mike kissed the wet cheek. “No, Mami, it’s not your fault. But if you believe in God”—he opened his hands, shaking his head like a wise man—“then you have to trust He knows what He’s doing with me, too.”

Maria felt God’s presence in those words, too. She believed her son was assuring her that either china primavera would become a Catholic if they married or he was not that serious about her after all.

sixty-three

Bobbie Boudreau closed the door to the fire room he now called home in B3 of the Stone Pavilion. He had spent the last four nights here. It was dark, and all that could be heard was the machinery—the electrical relays of the elevators clicking and throwing off sparks one after another all day and all night long, as the buttons were pushed upstairs and elevators in the bank right next to him moved from floor to floor; the thud and creaky whir of the mammoth belts and gears on the pumps that drove the water; the hiss of the steam escaping from dozens of safety valves. It was very hot, like Louisiana in the summer, but none of the sounds there were animal or human. He liked that. He was in a hurry to get upstairs, though. He needed a bathroom, a hot cup of coffee, and a doughnut.

He had just turned the corner into the main corridor near the elevators when he saw a guy in a gray sports jacket and a female slope coming toward him. Bobbie looked at them warily, kept going. His bladder was full. He had to take a leak.

The man spoke. “Robert Boudreau?”

Bobbie thought of turning the other way and bolting, but he decided he didn’t give a shit. He kept moving toward them, his eyes fixed way ahead on a better future. The man was nothing, one of those little Hispanic clowns like the building workers, shorter than he and at least thirty pounds lighter. He could knock the guy over with one hand. He planned to brush past them on the slope’s side and just keep going. It didn’t work out that way, though. When Bobbie was ten feet from them, the man opened his jacket and casually reached for the gun in his waistband.

“Stop. Police.”

Stunned, Bobbie stopped short and put his hands up. “Hey, man, you got some kind of problem?”

The man shook his head. Bobbie was the one with the problem. “Are you Robert Boudreau?”

“You gonna shoot if I am?”

“No. Just getting your attention. I was addressing you. Didn’t you hear me?”

“No.”

“Do you hear me now?”

Must be some kind of undercover cop. Bobbie glared at him. Asshole never took the gun out of his waistband, but he kept his hand near enough to it for the display of power to piss Bobbie off. What kind of shit was this? Bobbie felt like peeing all over the spic.

“Yeah,” he said. “I hear you.”

“Good. Put your hands against the wall and spread them.”

An electrical engineer from the maintenance staff turned down the hall. He came to a stop when he saw them. The blood rushed to Bobbie’s face. Now he was being humiliated in public. He looked at the cop’s gun, then at the slope. Her jacket was open and she had a gun in her waist, too. What kind of shit was this? He hadn’t done anything to deserve this. This was an outrage. This was beyond an outrage. He didn’t want to put his hands on the wall and spread them. He didn’t want that slope touching him. But he’d seen people killed by cops before. He was clean. He didn’t have anything to hide, so he spread them. It was a good thing the male patted him down. He would have lost it if the slope touched him.

A few minutes later the two cops had him in a cop car headed for the station, and it was happening to him all over again.

sixty-four

April put the coffee and doughnut on the table in the interview room and waited for the uniform to return from the bathroom with the charming suspect. Sergeant Joyce had finally succumbed to her fever and called in sick. Mike was in her office talking to the D.A.’s office. He was in charge now.

She sniffed the coffee and was tempted, but it was precinct bilge, decided against it. The door opened. It was not the officer and the suspect. It was Lieutenant Marsh. Since the Department had done away with Desk Sergeant, some precincts had Lieutenants, even Captains, in the command area at the desk downstairs. The Two-O was one of them. She had no idea why Marsh had left his command post and come up to the squad room, waving an envelope in her face.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Marsh held out the sealed letter with a smirk. “Congratulations.”

April had been pranked before, more than once. She regarded the official-looking envelope with suspicion. She didn’t have time to be the butt of a joke. She had a suspect in the john.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant.”

Sergeant, what was this sergeant? She was a detective. April squeezed her lips together, afraid to take the envelope and get bad news.

“What is your opinion? Is this something I have to respond to right away?” she asked, meek as a lamb.

“I would say so, yes. Go ahead, take it, it won’t bite.”

“I’m in the middle of an interview.”

“Maybe the interview can wait.”

“Okay.” I’m a sucker. April took it.

“Go ahead, open it.”

She didn’t want to open it in front of Marsh. But she could see he wouldn’t leave until she did. She opened it. Inside was the request to report for the promotion she’d been waiting for. She’d made Sergeant. That was good. Her heart thudded. She’d made it. Had she made it, or was this a joke?

Lieutenant Marsh held out his hand. “Like I said, I wanted to be the first to congratulate you.”

April shook his hand. “Thank you.” Where was the joke?

“Yeah.” He smirked.

April glanced at the date for reporting. “Report November 16,” it said. What was this? Today was November 16. She frowned. That couldn’t be right. There was supposed to be notice for this kind of thing. It was a big deal. You had to report in uniform. There was a ceremony and everything. People brought their families. Everybody clapped.

She checked the date again and got the joke. The letter from downtown was dated November 1. That was the day the Cowles case started, the day of the flooding toilet. April stared at Marsh. “Lieutenant …?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, well, it got kind of mislaid.”

“Mislaid?”

“Well, I just found it. I don’t know what happened. Some screwup.” Lieutenant Marsh was a big red-faced man, the kind of guy who couldn’t run a block without stroking out. He wasn’t known for screwups. He was grinning now, totally unapologetic.