“You’re in charge.”
“Stop it.”
“No, it’s cool.” Quinn breathed out slow. “Relax. That sounds nice.”
They drank their beers and Quinn went off for two more. Tracy was lighting a cigarette when he returned. He sat close to her on the couch. Quinn had downed three beers and was working on his fourth. His buzz was on, but he was still amped from the grab.
“Thought you were gonna relax.”
“I am.”
“You got your fist balled up there.”
“So I do.”
“Forget about what happened tonight with Wilson, Terry. He pushed my buttons, too. But he’s history and we got the job done. That’s the only thing that matters now, right?”
Quinn nodded. He
“What makes you think I had Wilson on my mind?”
“I asked around about you, talked to a couple of guys Karen knew in the MPD.”
“Yeah? What’d they say?”
“Well, everyone’s got a different opinion on what happened the night you shot that cop.”
“That black cop, you mean. Why didn’t you just ask Derek? He did his own independent investigation into the whole deal.”
“That how you two hooked up?”
“Yeah.”
“The department said you were right on the shooting.”
“It’s more complicated than that. You know what I’m sayin’; you were a cop yourself. But a whole lot of cops I come across, they’re not too willing to forget about it. Some guys still think that shooting was a race thing. By extension, that I’m some kind of racist.”
“Well?”
“Sue, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that I have no prejudice. For a white guy to say he sees a black man and doesn’t make some kind of assumptions, it’s bullshit, and it’s a lie. And the same thing goes in reverse. Let’s just say I’m no more a racist than any other man, okay? And let’s leave it at that.”
“You know, even the ones who had that opinion of you, they also admitted that you were well-liked, and a good cop. You did have a reputation for violence, though. Not bully violence, exactly. More like, if anyone pushed you, you weren’t willing to let it lie.”
Quinn drank deeply of his beer and stared at the can. “You always background check the guys you’re interested in?”
“I haven’t been interested in anyone in a long time.” Tracy took a drag off her smoke and ashed the tray. “Now you. Ask me anything you want.”
“Okay. First day I met you, I had the impression you had some daddy issues.”
“You’re wrong,” said Tracy, shaking her head. “Not like you mean. I loved my father and he loved me. I never felt I had to prove anything to him. He was always proud of me. I know ’cause he told me. He even told me the last time I saw him, in his bed at the hospice.”
“Was he a cop?”
“No. He did come from a family of them, but it wasn’t something he wanted for himself. He was a career barman at the Mayflower Hotel, downtown.”
“They’re all, like, Asian guys behind the bar down there.”
“That’s now. Frank Tracy was all Irish. Irish Catholic. Just like you, Quinn.”
“And you.”
“Not quite. The Tracy part of me is. My mother was Scandinavian, where I got the name Susan and my blond hair.”
“You’re a natural blonde?”
“Don’t be rude.”
“I was just wondering.”
Tracy smiled. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“You are something,” said Quinn.
They undressed each other back in his room, standing face to face before the bed. She helped him off with his T-shirt and then slipped out of her slacks, leaving on her black lace panties. They were cut high, and her thigh muscles were ripped up to the fabric. He unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it back off her strong shoulders. She wore a black brassiere that fastened in the front. He unfastened it and let it drop to the floor. He pinched one of her pink nipples and flicked his tongue around it.
“These are nice,” said Quinn.
