application essay, and I need a copy editor.'
Looking at Chooch standing in the living room of their little Venice canal house, Shane couldn't help but feel a flash of extreme parental pride. The boy had been a surprise, coming along late in his life. The fifteen-year-old arrived as a houseguest two years ago, sent by an old lover and police informant named Sandy Sandoval. Sandy had told Shane that her Hispanic son was getting into trouble, and had been hanging with some EME gangbangers in the Valley. She said the teenager needed a male role model and she had picked Shane for the job. But Sandy was killed during the Molar case-died in Shane's arms and her last sentence revealed to Shane that Chooch was his son. A love child he'd never known he'd had. The Molar case turned into a huge police corruption scandal involving Shane's old partner. Alexa had been part of the case, which ended in a gunfight up in Lake Arrowhead.
After Shane and Alexa had healed from the wounds inflicted during that shootout, they took Chooch in. A blood test confirmed that Sandy was telling the truth. Shane was Chooch's father. A relationship that had started out as troubled had blossomed into one that Shane treasured as much as the one he now shared with Alexa. He looked at his son, who was six foot three, with Sandy's Hispanic good looks and Shane's deep sense of honor and thought: a handsome, athletic specimen with the heart and head of a champion.
Chooch was a junior at Harvard Westlake prep school in the Valley and he'd already been contacted by Joe Paterno, with the offer of a football scholarship to Penn State. They wanted to switch him from quarterback to strong safety, but Chooch wanted to keep his old position, so he was still talking to coaches at three other universities.
'Listen, Alexa, could you take a look at this college essay and tell me what you think?' Chooch asked. Harvard Westlake had students do a first draft in their junior year. These all-important essays had to be completed and sent by Christmas of their senior year.
'I'll do it,' Shane volunteered. But when Chooch looked over at him, he seemed puzzled, and hesitant.
'Alexa's a better speller,' he hedged.
'Don't you want me to read it?' Shane asked, feeling hurt.
'Maybe later,' he said, and handed the paper to Alexa.
Shane was not going to beg. He got a beer, then went out back to sit on one of the metal lawn chairs and look at the windblown waters of the Venice canal. The moon was hanging low on the horizon. The water rippled in its silver glow. He never tired of the view.
Venice, California, had been plopped down one block from the ocean in 1928, designed by an architectural dreamer named Abbott Kinney, and fashioned after a scaled-down version of Venice, Italy. The canal blocks had fallen into a state of disrepair in the seventies, but there was an old-world charm to them, as if a dreamer's vision might still be able to catch hold in this high-tech microchip world and cling to life, refusing to be banished, no matter how out of place and ill conceived. The four canal blocks of Venice, where Shane lived, were the remnants of that kind of stubborn dream. Corny plastic gondolas growing moss at the waterlines floated at docks; Old World bridges arched over narrow seawater channels only three feet deep.
The Venice canals squatted in defiance, just a stone's throw away from strip malls and steel-and-glass medical buildings. It took a stubborn heart to be so different and unrepentant.
Shane was sitting there, pondering Venice and his day the death of Kevin Cordell and the rediscovery of Nicky Marcella. He was also trying with all his heart to live up to his promise to Alexi and not think about Farrell's bad joke.
Then she came out and sat on the chair next to him. She seemed pensive.
'What's wrong? You okay?'
'Yeah.. It's just Chooch's essay,' she said.
'Really? What's it about?'
'You'll have to get him to tell you.'
Now Shane was a little angry. Why were they hiding it from him? But he was determined not to pester her or Chooch about it. If they didn't want to share it with him, so be it. He was still staring out at the rippling water when she spoke.
'Listen, baby, I was a little taken aback when you said you were putting in for Special Crimes.'
'Really?'
'Yeah. That unit reports to me, and it gets some pretty hairy assignments. I was sort of hoping to make a case for your going to Internal Affairs. You know, the sixth floor at Parker Center has a thing for ex-IAD advocates. It's the fast track to the top of the department. I could get you a shot down there.'
Shane kept his eyes fixed on the canal, watching a mallard duck glide across the surface, thinking, right now, that he was just like that duck: his emotions paddling like crazy beneath the water, but on the surface, calm, showing nothing. He didn't want Internal Affairs, even though he knew Alexa was right about it being the quick way into administration, but he didn't want that either. He wasn't cut out to be a manager. He was a street cop, a field man.
'I… I think my cowboy days aren't quite behind me yet,' he finally said.
'I know…' She leaned over, took his hand and squeezed it. 'That's what I'm so worried about. It's your decision, of course, but maybe the time has come to stop playing cops and robbers.'
He looked over at her and' smiled. 'Is that what I'm doing? Playing cops and robbers? I thought I was policing the city, defending the innocent, prdtecting and serving.'
'Okay. You want the real reason?'
'Might help.'
'I'm worried about your safety. When you get into the field, you take too many chances. You expose yourself. You're not too risk-adverse. You've already got more holes in you than a shooting range cutout. I couldn't stand to lose you.'
He didn't answer her, but her concern touched him. He took her hand and led her into their bedroom. They could hear Chooch's radio playing rap. Shane took Alexa into his arms and they embraced at the foot of the bed. As he kissed his beautiful wife, Shane felt a longing surge over him. They pulled their clothes off and found each other under the cool sheets. The air conditioner in the window clattered, spilling cold air across them. Some ducks started quacking in the canal outside as Shane and his wife wrapped themselves around each other.
'Forget what I just said,' she whispered. 'I was being selfish. You go to Special Crimes if that's what you want.'
'Honey, I won't let anything happen to this family. I promise.'
They made love. He entered her and slowly they both came to climax, clutching each other, moaning in ecstasy until finally, in love and passion, they achieved total unity. In the midst of sexual climax, they completely lost their sense of self and merged into one.
When it was over and they were lying in each other's arms, Shane could feel her steady breathing, feel the warmth, the softened curves of her.
She suddenly separated and faced him. 'You promise?' she said.
He didn't know for a minute what she was talking about. Then he realized they were back on Farrell. 'Oh, that? Yeah, sure,' he said, and kissed her. They lay facing each other, smiling in each other's arms.
But dammit, he thought, she hadn't seen the look in Farrell Champion's eyes.
Chapter 4
Sometimes Shane didn't realize how much he missed police work until he got back inside a station house. There was something mesmerizing about it-a heartbeat… a sense of teamwork… a frenzy of activity. Even the smell. Loser sweat and Lysol. Around it all, wrapping it like sandwich paper, was the knowledge that it was also inevitable. Police work, like humanity, kept marching on, day in and day out. Good guys, bad guys; crime, punishment; life, death-all of it playing against the clock and refereed by stern-faced jurists in black robes. At the beginning of each watch, the shift commander yelled 'Play ball.'
Cops and criminals were locked in a deadly game together. There was a strange sort of camaraderie that
