Bleeding Out

'You're better at it than I am,' Frank offered lamely. 'I'm pretty rusty when it comes to talking about stuff like that.'

'Rusty? Goddamn, girl, the Tin Man's got nothin' on you.'

Frank ducked her head in an embarrassed grin, then looked earnestly at Kennedy.

'Stay,' she said.

Kennedy hooked her thumbs defiantly into her waistband and arched an eyebrow. 'Gimme one good reason to.'

'My cooking.'

Kennedy's smile was Machiavellian. 'I'll stay,' she bargained, 'but only if you tell me who you bought this house with.'

Frank was too astonished by Kennedy's moxie to be fazed by the question. 'Why do you want to know so bad?'

''Cause I don't really know anything about you that's not related to your job, or this shooting somehow. I do know there's a real person lurking somewhere inside you, someone who's more than just the badge she wears.'

'Think so?'

'I know so. I met her in Tunnel's apartment and in the hospital. She was even in your guest room the other night.'

Frank was slipping on her hard-ass mask and Kennedy asked seriously, 'What are you so afraid of?'

Frank laughed at the ceiling. 'I'm not afraid of anything.'

'Girl, you lie like a rug,' Kennedy said with a heavy accent.

'It's not too late to take you back to your apartment.'

Kennedy picked up the suitcase. 'Let's go.'

Frank had to make a decision, and she didn't want to make the wrong one. She gnawed the inside of her lip, looking at Kennedy but not really seeing her. They waited like that until Frank spoke slowly, measuredly, 'I bought the house with my lover. And she's dead now. Okay?'

Kennedy's face softened and Frank looked down at the suitcase. 'Why don't you go put that away.'

The drive to Parker Center was crowded and slow, but Frank wasn't in a hurry. Now she was just wasting IAD time. The sun felt great pouring in through the window, and even the diesel fumes and oiled asphalt smelled good. Punching the radio's memory buttons and finding only commercials, Frank settled for the freeway's orchestra of random horns and a thousand cars and trucks.

IAD had been grilling her hard over this shooting, and Frank wondered if they had other motives. That wouldn't have surprised her. Honestly, she was amazed she'd made it this far. Her time on the force hadn't earned Frank any loyalty. The department was a machine, consuming people and spitting out statistics, that kept a handful of career politicians in coveted spots. Frank produced good stats so she was useful, but she'd never be one of the boys.

Gough had taunted her about that, telling her she could work for the department for fifty years and still not fit in. He was right. After almost two decades on the job she had yet to develop the proper 'us against them' mentality. Frank wasn't a saint—she did her share of bending means to justify ends—but she maintained her belief that her primary allegiance was to the streets, not the department.

The day she'd been sworn in as a police officer she'd taken a fundamental oath to protect and serve the people of the city of Los Angeles. Without that oath, she'd never have made it through her first day. The bitter politics and bloodied back alleys would have forced her out long ago. No matter who was on her now— IAD, Foubarelle, Johnston's mother, hell, maybe even one of her own men—she still owed Nichols' father, Peterson's mother, and Agoura's parents the meager satisfaction of finding their child's murderer. It was that simple. It was all she knew.

Frank pulled up at Parker and ran up the stairs, not because she was in a hurry but for the exercise. She greeted Rothman, who snarled, 'You're late.'

'Traffic.'

Stuka grabbed a folder off his desk and motioned to a conference room down the hall. IAD called their interrogations interviews. Conference room was a euphemism for hot box. Stuka told her to take a seat, but she said she'd prefer to stand.

She slouched against the wall, casual in pressed jeans and LAPD T-shirt, thumbs hooked into her pockets, Ray Bans on her head. The day was warm enough for Topsiders without socks, and Frank crossed a bare ankle over her shin. She looked like she was waiting to take off on a sailing expedition. Frank knew her posture alone was enough to piss off the IAD men.

'Where's your little chicken?' Stuka clucked.

'Back at the hen house.'

'Not worried about a fox getting in while mama's away?'

'I'd feel sorry for the fox,' Frank answered calmly.

'Oh, she doesn't like men either, huh?'

'You'd have to ask her that.'

'Doesn't she do whatever her sugar mama tells her?'

Frank grinned, but her eyes were as dark and flat as a shark's.

'I wish. She's her own girl, Stuka. If you knew anything about women, you'd have seen that right off.'

'Guess I haven't had as much practice as you.'

'Nah, guess not. You and the Ratman are too busy being IA moles.'

Rothman finally spoke up, telling Frank to cool her jets.

'Don't take it so goddamned personal. This is SOP. We're just doing our job.'

'Some job you got. You sleep good at night?'

'Lieutenant, how long have you been with the LAPD?' Rothman asked monotonously, a standard baseline question.

'That's not in your file there?'

'In your own words,' Stuka growled.

'Sixteen years.'

'You like it here?'

'Love it.'

'How come you've never been out of Figueroa?'

'It doesn't get any better.'

'Oh really?' said Stuka, feigning surprise. 'No better than Rollin' '60s and Pirus going off on each other like rabid dogs, wanting a piece of your ass worse than anybody else's? No better than Salvatruchas and Westsiders sticking each other every night and working leads from strawberries and hookers with running sores and that's the best they got? It doesn't get better than piss and graffiti on your own station house and snipers taking potshots at you and cockroaches in your desk drawers?'

Stuka ran out of steam.

Frank said sheepishly, 'Guess I don't get out much.'

It was Rothman's turn now.

'Nobody likes IAD, and that's okay. But at least Stukie and I haven't spent sixteen years in Figueroa.'

Tapping an unlit cigarette on the table, he asked Frank directly, 'Do you know what I think?'

'No clue.'

'I think you're afraid to leave Figueroa. You're a big fish in a small, scummy pond, and you know in your heart of hearts that you couldn't make the leap into a better pond. You're a big cheese in Figueroa because nobody else wants to be there. You're a woman in a man's job and you know there's only two ways to rise—EEO appointments or blow jobs. You don't have the guts to leave. If I was a woman, I'd be pretty frustrated.'

Frank allowed a glimmer of a smile. She knew they were playing her, shaking her cage. If it were a normal workday she'd be livid wasting her time like this, but on ROD she was actually amused by their tactics.

'That's very insightful,' Frank congratulated. 'Did you come up with that all by yourself?'