chunky, married or lesbian, but never really hit on any of them and never dated a fellow cop. That was the word, anyway.
Which I admit frustrated me, because he always stopped and talked to me a little longer, flirted a little more boldly, than with any other girl on the force. A part of me resented that. A bigger part wished it would go further....
On this particular afternoon, I hadn’t noticed him approach my little outpost in the Records bullpen. Suddenly he was just there beside me, dragging a chair from somewhere to sit on it backward next to me in a boldly familiar way, as if he’d done it a hundred times, when it was probably only fifty.
“Afternoon, sexy,” he said. His voice had a husky, almost raspy sound.
I kept typing. Didn’t look at him. “Wow. You must not’ve heard about the new Sexual Harassment Protocol.”
“What new Sexual Harassment Protocol?”
“The one they just adopted, fifteen years ago.”
He shrugged. Yawned and made a show of it. “I’d have to work here for that to matter.”
Now I looked at him. Couldn’t help myself. “Since when don’t you work here?”
His smile was endless and endlessly self-satisfied. “Since five minutes ago. Tended my resignation...or is that tendered? Which is right? Ah hell, make it ‘tendered’...I’m feeling more tender today, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked irritably, doing everything I could to sound like I didn’t care. I was back to my typing, not looking at him anymore, but I won’t say it was easy.
He leaned in. “What I’ve been talking about. For
“Remind me.”
“Starting my own agency.”
“Oh. Mike Tree, Private Eye. I thought that was a pipe dream.”
He gestured with both hands, leaning against the back of that chair as his friendly mug hung over it. “If so, I’m smoking some really good stuff. ‘Cause I turned in my written resignation and my badge and I.D. and even my gun.”
Now I looked at him, right at him. “You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.” He pointed at me, Uncle Sam-style. “You know why I stopped by, don’t you?”
“To say goodbye? Goodbye.”
“No. Because I need a few good men.”
“You what?”
“For my new agency. I need a few good men.” I’d turned back to my typing, but from the corner of an eye, I saw that cocky half-grin of his. “I could even use a few good women.”
I paused. Turned toward him again. “What is this, a proposition?”
He didn’t rise to my bait, instead shifting tone and, seemingly, subject. “Look, your pop was the best cop ever...a cop’s cop...so you became one, right?”
“Right.”
“You were the only child, and you happened to be a girl, which disappointed Daddy but which I happen to be fully in favor of....Anyway, the point is, you picked up the family banner. You got a two-year law enforcement degree at that junior college out in the suburbs, what’s it called? Doesn’t matter, and before you know it, you’re at the academy acing every damn thing they could throw at you. Right?”
“Right. So?”
He leaned in again. Way in, this time. The eyes, typically, were gentle, sweet, but that jaw remained determined. “So where’d you start out, after graduating with top honors? Where did this boy’s club called the Chicago PD feel your gifts could best serve our fair city?”
“Don’t say it.”
“Writing parking tickets,” he said.
“I asked you not to say it.”
“And so you worked your way up to Records. And gee whiz, gee willikers, it only took three years. Why, you’ll be on the street in...let me do the math...
I said nothing for a moment.
He let me mull it.
Then I said, “You have a better offer?”
“Miss Friday, I certainly—”
“I prefer ‘Ms.’ ”
“Do you?” The blue-green eyes twinkled. No shit, they twinkled. “Maybe you’d prefer being a
I frowned. “Private variety? Divorces and security systems? No thank you.”
Both eyebrows went up. And his smile had no smirk in it at all. “Even if I offered you a full partnership? I’m bringing over a couple of other coppers, too, though they aren’t as cute as you...well, maybe Dan Green is.”
“You don’t mean that kid Green, the patrolman?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly who I mean. Took
“
“Yeah. That asshole.” He flipped a hand. “Roge was my partner starting out, and the first person I thought to ask aboard...though you were always high on the list, Ms. Friday.”
“You’re on my list, too. And please spare me the story about Freemont saving your life in Desert Storm. I’ll wait for the movie.”
I swung back toward the computer, my fingers poised. But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to type.
He stood watching me not work. But he wasn’t smug at all when he asked, “So—what do you say, Michelle?”
“It’s ‘Michael.’ ”
He shrugged. “Whatever. You’re a rose by any name that deserves better than sitting behind a computer at some goddamn desk in a dreary uniform that does lousy things to your....What do you say?”
“What do I say?”
“Is there an echo in here?” His grin was big and friendly but something in his eyes was serious, almost pleading. “Yeah, Michael, what do you say?”
My lower lip quivered. My eyes were tightening and untightening. My breath was coming fast.
“...Yes?”
And six months later, I was a partner in the Tree Agency, smartly attired in a black suit with white blouse, both courtesy of Norma Kamali...
...behind a desk, typing at a computer keyboard.
Well, somebody had to run the office, Mike said. And I was the only one among the handful of Tree Agency employees who had the computer skills. Once we had expanded, as our new Michigan Avenue suite of offices would easily allow, I could replace my own position and finally get out in the field.
Mike said.
I admit I was frustrated. Dan Green, Roger Freemont and Mike made up a smaller boys’ club than the Chicago PD, but a boys’ club all the same. Each had his private office—there were three offices and a conference room at the rear—and I would see them conferring just outside those offices, in various combinations. Our agency may have been in the Loop, but I wasn’t. I kept my own company in one of the eight cubicles that were to be filled one day.
Freemont I particularly found grating.
Fortyish, bald, burly, in black-rimmed glasses and off-the-rack suits, he looked like an accountant having a bad day. Every day. He was civil but spoke to me only when necessary, and I had the feeling he resented that I— like he and Dan—was a full partner.
Once, about three months after we opened the office, Freemont had stopped by my desk and awkwardly tried to make nice. Sort of.
He said, “Look, I know you’re qualified, and the time will come. Trust me.”
“Why?”
