End of Watch

'Frank? Hey. Whatsa matter?'

Tearing her gaze from the dog long enough to glance at Annie, Frank answered, 'Nothing.'

'Nothing? You're white as a ghost. What's the matter with you? You afraid of dogs?'

'I'm okay.'

'Come on.' Annie pulled at Frank's arm again. 'Look at you. You're shaking.'

Frank crossed the street, wondering if her legs were going to hold her up. She felt queasy and stopped to lean against a building. She rubbed her right forearm.

'Did it bite you?' Annie asked.

Frank shook her head. 'Long story.' She took a couple deep breaths, willing the nausea away.

'You want I should get a cab?'

'No. I'm okay. Just... give me a sec. Catch my breath.'

Frank tested her legs. Annie walked close beside her.

'I'm okay,' Frank assured. 'Not gonna keel over on you.'

'You sure about that?' Annie was still peering at her. 'For a minute there I thought I was gonna have to do CPR on you.'

'Nah, I'm okay.'

'Well, at least your color's back. You just drained, my friend. Looked like Dracula'd got hold of you.'

'Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you.'

'Don't worry about it. I been scared worse.'

The restaurant was at the end of the block. Annie opened the door for her and the first thing Frank saw was the bar. Under the aroma of seared meat the scent of liquor set her cells aquiver. She concentrated on the other patrons, eyeing them as if she'd have to write them up in a report. The hostess asked if they had a reservation.

Annie said, 'No, hon, but we're just two. And my friend here needs to eat or she's gonna faint dead away.'

After glancing at Frank, the hostess must have believed Annie. Grabbing two menus, she announced with a worried smile, 'This way, ladies.'

They settled at a table and Frank studied the menu. She couldn't help but pair each entree with the perfect wine and contemplated ordering dessert for dinner. But she'd been running on doughnuts and cookies all day so decided on sensible food, telling the waitress, 'I'll have a dozen oysters on the half shell, the beet salad and onion rings.'

'Very good,' the waitress said. 'As dinner or as appetizers?'

'Dinner.'

'And to drink?'

A bottle of Chardonnay, Frank thought. Better yet two. 'Water,' she answered.

Annie ordered and after the waitress had brought her a glass of wine Annie asked, 'So what's the story with the dog?'

Frank tore her eyes from the glass. 'Weird case. We had this Santerfa priestess who we knew was offing people. First time I interviewed her she warned me about a red dog. I just laughed and forgot all about it. Couple weeks later this pit bull got loose near the station and latched onto my arm.' She pushed up her sleeve to show Annie the scars. 'Ripped into an artery and did some nerve damage. My thumb's still numb.'

'Was the dog red?'

'Yep.'

'Creepy.'

'That wasn't even half of it. Got weirder. I had this like . . . vision while the dog was chewing on my arm. Of me and this Mother Love character. It was like we were adversaries doing battle in a different time and place. Very strange. I dismissed it as a by-product of shock but then it happened again. A couple times. Just this same vision of us dueling to the death. It was really vivid. And to tell the truth, it scared the hell outta me. At the same time, I had a witness in this case I was working against the Mother. But he was terrified to talk. He was sure she'd hexed him and that he was gonna die if he went against her. So to get him to testify we persuaded him that another priestess could undo Mother Love's hex, could turn it around so that he'd be protected from her. After I got him worked on by this priestess, she looked at me and said, 'I see Mother Love's hand all over you.' I laughed then, too.'

Annie sipped her wine, distracting Frank. It was only her second sip. Frank would have been working on her second glass by now.

'And?' Annie prompted.

'And then I started having these visions all the time. I called Marguerite back—the good witch, we called her—and I let her do this cleansing ceremony on me. What the hell, right? Maybe there was something to it. Long story short, I was stupid and Mother Love ended up getting me alone in her warehouse. Had me strung up by my heels, ready to slit my throat and sacrifice me to one of her gods. Marguerite had said the Mother and I were in mortal combat and that the only way to beat her was to pray. Hanging there like a side of beef, you bet your ass I prayed. Strange so far, right?'

'You could say that.'

'Gets better. I'm strung up there, totally helpless and I'm praying to this friend of mine, old partner. The other cops used to tease us. Said we had a Vulcan mind-meld thing going on. We knew each other so well we could usually anticipate what the other was going to do. So I'm calling him, trying to get him to feel my vibes, right, and come save my ass. I'm praying to Mickey Mouse, the spirit of Houdini, anybody who can get me outta this jam, and in busts my new detective. His ex-wife is the good witch. He knows all about this Santeria jive 'cause of his wife and growing up in Louisiana. But he's got a gift too. Told one of my other detectives where to find a forty-four she'd been looking for. Sure enough, it was in a fridge just like Darcy'd said it would be. Anyway, he comes in, big shootout, I guess—I'd passed out by then—and later in the hospital I ask him how the hell he knew where I was. See, I hadn't told anybody where I was going. No one could have known where I was. He said he just kept seeing the Mother's warehouse and had this overwhelming feeling that I was in trouble.'

Frank sat back as the waitress brought their meals. Patting her napkin over her lap, Annie observed, 'You sound like one lucky kitten.'

Frank smiled. Annie didn't even know about the 9-millimeter.

'If I were you, I'd light a candle, making your guardian angel work overtime like that.'

Slurping an oyster, Frank needled, 'You believe in angels? They come with the Madonna?'

Annie jabbed a finger. 'Let me tell you a story.' Between bites of steak, she narrated. 'When I was sixteen we went upstate for a vacation in the Catskills. I'm swimming in this lake. I love swimming. It's late afternoon, everyone else is either napping or eating another sandwich, whatever, and I decide to swim across the lake. No big deal. The lake's only about a half a mile wide and I was a good swimmer. Piece a cake, right? So off I go. I get across to the other side. It's nice and quiet, peaceful. I rest a while 'cause the water's pretty cold, then I start swimming back. Don't you know I get this cramp. That's okay, I've had cramps before, like a Charlie horse, you know. Get it in my thigh, so I float a minute and while I'm floating I get this huge cramp in the small of my back. My God, it's like I've been whacked with a sledgehammer. Of course my first instinct is to double over, right? Which I did. And I was so startled by the pain that I gasped and breathed in all this water. I tried to straighten up, get my head above water, but I couldn't. It was like my back was frozen. I tried rolling over but I couldn't stay afloat, couldn't keep my head up. As I was turning back down into the water I caught a breath, only it was more water than air and I started choking. I'm breathing in more water and thinking, oh, my God, I'm gonna freakin' die out here. This is it. I mean, time stopped. Everything was getting gray and I couldn't get my head outta the water.' Annie held a finger over the plate of onion rings. 'Think I could have one?'

'Oh, sure.' Frank pushed the plate closer. 'Help yourself. So what happened?'

'So what happened is, I feel this whack on my arm, like it's in a vise, right? And I get yanked. I break the surface and look up into this old woman's face. She's got wrinkles, long gray hair, and she's draggin' me over the side of the boat. Haulin' me in like a prize catch. And let me tell you, I ain't no lightweight. Not back then, neither. I'm sittin' there doubled over, coughin' my lungs out, shakin' like a leaf. She wraps this scratchy wool blanket around me—it stunk to high heaven. Mold, diesel fuel, and let me tell you I've never been so grateful for anything in my life than that rotten old blanket—I point and cough out where I live and she takes me to the shore. Helps me out, watches me walk up the path toward the cabin we was staying in. I tell my mother and my aunts what