'Okay, since you brought that up, why didn't you?'
Her ice-blue eyes were sparking anger. 'Why didn't I what?'
'You threw my board sixteen years ago. Why?'
'Who told you I threw it? That's ridiculous.'
'DeMarco told me. He said you impeached your own witness and withheld Ray's sworn affidavit.'
Now they could hear men's voices downstairs; they echoed in the hollow atrium. The backup unit had arrived. The elevators were shut down for the night and, after a minute, they heard footsteps marching up the tile stairs.
'You might have me on this low-grade B and E, but I'll get you for throwing that Board of Rights sixteen years ago,' he threatened. 'DeMarco will testify that you gave the case away. You'll probably be getting your own CF number down here. Give you a look at this division from the other side.'
'I wish I'd never laid eyes on you,' she said sharply.
He could see the beginning of indecision in her eyes. She was a career cop, high on the lieutenant's list.
There was a rattling at the front door of the Advocate Section.
'Anybody in there?' a cop's voice called into the office.
'What's it gonna be, Sergeant?' he asked. She stood frozen, holding her gun in one hand. Finally she lowered her weapon, turned, and walked to the door, then opened it.
Two uniforms moved in. Shane could see them through Warren Zell's open office door.
'It's okay, Officer. My mistake,' he heard Alexa say. 'It was just one of our sergeants. He works here.'
To punctuate the point, Shane pulled out his badge and flashed it at them.
'Sorry for the call,' she said. 'If you could do me a favor… Cancel my Code Six A and ask Communications to cancel my call to Deputy Chief Mayweather.'
The cop nearest to her touched his shoulder mike and started broadcasting a Code Four, which was a stand- down. Both uniforms turned and left. Alexa closed the door and walked back to where Shane was standing. 'We're even. Get outta here,' she said angrily.
'Not until you hear the rest of it,' he said softly. 'And not until you tell me why the hell you threw my board sixteen years ago.'
Chapter 26
They walked down Third Street, through the glare of the movie lights, and settled on a small, dingy bar called the Appaloosa, two blocks south of the Bradbury. The proprietor had made a half-assed decorating attempt at a Mexican motif: table candles with corny glass sombreros, badly painted pictures of Appaloosas with stoic Mexican cowboys or dusty regal hombres from Santa Ana's army looking across prairies or valleys, their heads held high, reeking Hispanic nobility.
'That fucking Schwarzenegger movie is driving me nuts,' she said as they slid into a cracked vinyl booth and waved at a Mexican waiter wearing a dirty white coat about the same color as the gray linoleum floor. Mariachi recordings hissed and popped through a bad speaker system. The place was a refried dive.
'Scotch and water,' she said.
'Two,' he added.
The waiter left and they sat there, each waiting for the other to start. She was pushed back on the ruptured red vinyl seat, as if she were trying to get as far away from him as possible.
'This is your party,' she finally said.
'I want to know why you threw my board.'
'Ancient history.'
'I wanna know, just the same.'
'I wanna know why Christie Brinkley can't keep a husband. It's a mystery. Leave it at that.'
'You threw my board sixteen years ago, and now you volunteer for this one?'
'I didn't volunteer. I was ordered. I've been out of Internal Affairs for ten years, running a patrol shift down in Southwest. I wanted to stay in the field, but because of you, I ended up getting called back by Tom Mayweather to handle your board. Don't ask me why.'
'Tom Mayweather?'
'Yeah. Heard of him?' Cutting sarcasm now, laying it on with a trowel. 'He's head of Special Investigations Division. Read your department administration list.'
'I heard you volunteered.'
'Look, Scully, for whatever it's worth, you don't even remotely interest me anymore. I'm gonna try your BOR in seven days because the Glass House wants me to. Then I'm going back to Southwest Patrol, where I can actually do some honest-to-God police work.'
'Why would Tom Mayweather pull you back to handle my board?'
'If I tell you what I think the reason is, it'll just piss you off.'
'I'm already pissed off.'
'Because I hold the record. I'm the best advocate they ever had down there. I only lost your case and a few others in the time I was in that division. Mayweather wanted the best, so he ordered me back. If that seems egotistical and self-serving tough. That's what I think.'
'You know what I think?'
She didn't answer, but sat staring at him with those remarkable laser-blue eyes.
'He pulled you back because you tried me before. Sparks flew back then, and he knew it would piss me off. He's trying to pressure me to turn over that videotape he thinks I have. He thought putting you on the case would up the stakes.' He paused while the waiter set down their drinks and left.
'That's your take, because you always put yourself at ground zero,' she said. 'To everyone else, you're marginal business, just another dumb mistake that needs to be handled in due course. This has been fun. We've had our one drink. Meeting's over, see ya.' She took a long swallow, then set the glass down and started to leave.
'Hey, Lexie, I'm not through yet.'
'I don't go by 'Lexie,' asshole. The name's Alexa.'
'I don't go by 'asshole,' Alexa. The name's Shane.'
They sat in silence for a moment.
'So, why did you throw my board?'
'You won't get off that, huh?'
'It's pretty unusual. You're the best advocate down there, the Black Witch of the Division, yet you intentionally let me slide? I want to know why.'
'Because I knew Ray Molar was using you. In the years I'd been at IAD, I'd seen a handful of probationers take violence beefs for him… guys he'd handpicked out of the Academy and teamed up with. It became pretty obvious what was happening. He was busting heads and holding court in the street, then getting you dummies to take the heat for him if complaints came down. It was starting to piss me off. Then, when Ray gave the chief advocate that bullshit statement behind my back, saying that you had emotional problems and that he'd been worried about your mental stability, I sorta lost it. Furthermore, I was sure my key wit, that gas-station attendant, was dirty. Ray musta threatened him to get him to say he saw you beat that kid, because he flunked the poly I gave him. The case was an air ball, so I called DeMarco and told him where the holes were.'
Shane sat there for a long moment and looked at her. She seemed different, somehow softer, more vulnerable. Maybe it was the low light, or the scotch, or maybe it was what she'd done for him sixteen years ago at some risk to her own career. But he was being compelled to view her in a different way, so he sat there, turning dials, trying to regain some focus on her.
'You just throw cases if they seem wrong to you?'
'Listen, Scully, I know you think Internal Affairs is a sewer full of ladder-climbing politicians who don't care
