Plugged

Deacon says strength. Wide brow, strong nose, full lips, skin the colour of polished rosewood. Her body is lean and muscled like she beats suspects a lot, and there’s a welt on her upper arm looks like a bullet wound.

I touch the scar gently; feels like there’s a marble under there.

‘Nine millimetre?’ I ask. Mister Romance.

‘Branding accident,’ Deacon grunts, still half asleep.

I have a feeling we’re never going to send each other perfumed letters.

She shrugs her shoulder to dislodge my hand and her bracelet rattles. It’s unusual enough for me to notice, snaking around her wrist a couple of times, laden with various charms. Washers, bottle tops, coloured glass. I’ve seen these before in Africa. Memory bracelets, the story of your life’s journey worn on the wrist.

I try for some confirmation. ‘Memory bracelet?’

Deacon grunts again.

Most of the charms seem standard enough, but there’s a wizened sphere like a shrunken golf ball.

I tap it with a fingernail. ‘What’s this one?’

Deacon’s voice is sleepy. ‘Guy kept asking me questions,’ she slurs. ‘His left nut.’

Okay. No more questions. Maybe I’ll just take forty winks; after all, I’ve got protection.

Deacon’s skin is smooth against my chest and I try to pretend she’s actually fond of the person behind her. Maybe after a couple of years together Detective Deacon will develop a grudging respect for me and we can have a series of adventures.

Unless she does a sideways shuffle and you have to kill her.

I’m starting to realise that tuning out GZ is next to impossible so long as I have a single brain cell that is not distracted by life.

I attempt to distract myself by wondering how Deacon is going to keep herself out of prison. Obviously she hasn’t come clean about Goran, or she’d be filling out a million forms in triplicate and holding staring contests with Internal Affairs.

‘They must have found Goran by now?’

Deacon stiffens, and I think that maybe she had been trying to distract herself with all the tough talk. ‘Not yet. I put her in the trunk.’

This is not good news, as Deacon’s trunk is at the back of her car, which is probably parked outside my door.

‘Goran is in your trunk? Hard to explain that to IA.’

Something like regret flits across the side of Deacon’s face; maybe there’s a human heart beating inside Robocop. ‘Explain to IA? You’re kidding, right? You screwed my career, McEvoy, and I was a good cop too. Twelve years in. Youngest black detective in the state.’

I feel I should stand up for myself. ‘You’d prefer to be dead?’

‘It’s funny,’ says Deacon, and I’m guessing tragi-funny not funny ha-ha. ‘People always think I’m dirty cos of my attitude. Typical. A hardball boy cop is a maverick, doesn’t play by the rules but gets the job done. You get a girl with some balls, then there must be something wrong with her. I was never dirty, until now. I’m finished. I’ll be lucky to get off with manslaughter.’

I sit up to ask the obvious question. ‘Why didn’t you call it in? It was a righteous shoot.’

Deacon slumps even further into the corner, suddenly dead tired. ‘I should have. All night I’ve been asking myself that question. I guess I panicked; is that what you want to hear, soldier boy? My partner and superior tried to murder me. I didn’t know who to trust apart from the guy with the sniper rifle, which I figured had to be you. I hoped you might be able to tell me something. But you know shit, right?’

My time with Simon suddenly comes in handy. ‘There is a very strong case for post-traumatic stress here.’

‘Who are you?’ says Deacon. ‘Sigmund Freud? I’m a cop, man. I know how we think and I wouldn’t buy that psych bullshit for a New York minute.’

I forge ahead. ‘No, listen, Deacon, it’s true. Your partner tried to kill you. You had no idea how high the conspiracy went. You panicked, loaded up the body and went somewhere safe. There are a few holes, sure, but the basic truth is you acted in self-defence. Believe it or not, you are in shock.’

‘And you took advantage.’

Yeah, it’s a dig, but she’s going for the cover story. It’s a good story because it happens to be mostly true. The only detail she has to omit is the bald Irish one. I can see her eyes lose focus as she imagines how it would play out back in the precinct. There is a way out.

Then Deacon’s phone beeps and she rolls into a crouch, instantly alert. I see the curve of her spine shining like a samurai sword.

She shakes her trousers until a phone falls out, and checks the text message. Her posture was pretty tense, but now it cranks up another few notches. Tendons stand out like piano wire behind her knees.

Not good news.

Deacon bends low, snagging the Sig with her trigger finger. ‘You’re a knife man, right, McEvoy? That’s what it said in your file.’

I don’t like the sound of this. What’s the word?

Ominous? suggests Zeb.

Yeah, thanks.

‘So what? I’m a rifle man too, you probably worked that out.’

‘I figured that one,’ says Deacon, twirling the pistol. ‘But now I got this message from the County Coroner’s office telling me that Connie DeLyne was killed with a blade.’

I sit up pretty quick, wishing I had some pants on. At this point I’d settle for a napkin to cover myself. ‘It’s barely dawn; what kind of coroner works this early?’

‘One who owes me. So what about this blade?’

‘That was a bullet hole. What kind of knife makes a hole like that?’

‘You tell me, knife man.’

Deacon looms over me, tapping the barrel against her thigh, and I feel bald and naked, which I am. Twice a week I suffer nightmares that look pretty much exactly like this. It occurs to me that Simon Moriarty’s number is still in my wallet. I really need to call that guy.

‘Come on, Deacon. I saved your life. I put you on to Faber.’

‘It’s you-you-you,’ says Deacon, levelling the weapon. ‘Whatever happens, Daniel McEvoy is involved. There is definitely some shit you are not telling me.’

I feel myself shrink. ‘You want to aim that gun somewhere less sensitive? My heart maybe.’

‘No. I think I’m aiming at the right spot.’

‘Think about it, Deacon. We’re in this together. You need me to back up your story.’

Deacon closes her eyes for half a second. ‘I do need you, but I need time to get my ducks in the goddamn basket or whatever. I gotta talk to a few people, weigh up my options. The Goran situation needs to be wrapped up right before I turn myself in.’

‘That’s all good. You’re making perfect sense. We need to find the connection between Faber and Goran.’

‘There’s no we,’ says Deacon. ‘Just me.’

Zeb sniggers. No we. See how that feels.

I lose it for a second. ‘Shut the hell up. Now is not the time.’

Deacon frowns. ‘Now is not the time? What the fuck’re you crying about, McEvoy? You get emotional after screwing, is that it? And what’s up with that hair?’

I briefly consider explaining who I was actually talking to, but there’s no way to present Ghost Zeb and not sound a little unstable.

‘Okay. Calm down for a minute. Think things through. .’

Deacon cocks the gun, resplendently naked, not a self-conscious atom in her body, whereas I am very self- consciously naked.

‘I’m gonna think things through. That’s it exactly. Cuff yourself to the radiator, McEvoy.’

Cuffing myself would not be good.

‘Listen, Deacon. . Come on, what’s your first name?’