Scalpers

An affair, Dean realized. Sid was having an affair with a courtroom judge. “Do it, Sid, or we're sunk.'

With Sid going after an injunction, Dean decided it was time he talked to Peggy Carson. He waited for an all- clear before returning to her room. On entering he found her foraging in the closet for her clothes, her backside showing through the open hospital gown. Hearing Dean come in, she jumped and turned, clearly embarrassed.

'Oh, it's you,” she said, remembering his face. “Who are you?'

Dean introduced himself and watched her eyes light up with some recognition.

'Oh, yeah, really? I read about you. You're the guy—the doctor in Chicago who caught up with that weirdo who was parading around as a priest and drowning people in holy water, right?'

'Close enough, yes. Officer Carson—'

'Peggy, please.'

He nodded and smiled, “Peggy, do you need help escaping?'

She returned his smile. “You can sweet-talk me anytime, Dr. Grant.'

'Go ahead, get dressed. I'll see that the coast is clear.” It was obvious that with or without Dean's help, Peggy Carson wasn't about to remain in a hospital bed. He may as well do what he could to help, and in the process, he might get to know whether she was capable of knowing what she'd seen and experienced in that alleyway where they'd found her bleeding from a nasty head wound, which—if Grant got his way—she would soon be allowing him to probe.

Grant found the nearest stairwell, then returned to the room to find Peggy ready for escape. He coached her momentarily at the door.

'Walk down the hall as if you own the hospital, and talk calmly.'

'You're so kine to come a-visitin’ wid mama, Dean,” Peggy said as they passed a nurse and an orderly going in the other direction. “S'long's we got support from our friends,” she droned on, “cain't nothin’ hurt us ... that and the Lord's will.'

'That's the truth, Sister Jones.'

They reached the stairwell, tsking repeatedly and shaking her head. 'Jones? You couldn't come up with something a little more original than Jones?'

'I see why they made you an undercover cop,” he replied. “You were excellent.'

'Thank you,” she answered.

'Once we get outside and into a cab, where do you propose going?'

'To the squad room downtown. I've got a lot of loose ends.'

The only thing that might give her away as a patient was the bandage over her forehead, but she had wrapped a scarf about it, making it look like part of her dress. Dean found her filled with an impatient, strong inner force, and somehow she reminded him of Jackie before the awful ordeal that had so changed her.

'I suppose you want to ask me a lot of questions, but I'm not in the mood, believe me, to be ridiculed anymore. I know what I saw.'

'I believe you do.'

She looked at him as if for the first time. “Good. That makes one smart white man.'

He laughed heartily at this. “I'll take that as a compliment.'

'For you, but not for your race.'

'Have you had lunch?'

'Are you kidding? It's up there.” She pointed in the direction of the room she'd just escaped from. “Wasn't nothing but juice and toast, anyway.'

'Hungry?'

'You buying?'

'Yes.'

'I know a place near the station.'

'Fine, you name it.'

'Rosie O'Grady's.'

'You are hungry.'

'Very.” Her smile was wide and energetic. Her mouth constantly reshaped itself, even when she was not speaking. Dean found her a hyperactive spirit of the best sort, and he guessed that despite all that had occurred to her, she loved her work and would be back at it within a day, if not sooner.

Dean flagged a cab and they were on their way.

'You know, they say there's no such thing as a free lunch, Dr. Grant.'

'Please, call me Dean.'

'And when a high mucky-muck like you asks somebody like me to call them by their first name, I know I'm paying. What is it you want to know?'

'Just exactly what you told Chief Hodges—no more, no less.'

'You couldn't get that from the Chief?'

'Not without editorials,'

'Oh, yeah, Hamel. I don't like shrinks, as a rule, and he hasn't changed that for me one bit.'

Dean considered this. “I suppose he's doing his job, as he sees it.'

'Yeah—by calling me a liar.'

'I don't think he meant—'

'Let's call a spade a spade, huh, doc?'

'All right, here's a spade for a spade—'

'Shoot.'

'You'd be a very attractive—no, beautiful—girl if you'd only lighten up a little. Just because you're a policewoman doesn't mean you have to be tough twenty-four hours a day.” Damn it, Dean instantly cursed himself, for blurting out his thoughts. “Peggy—Officer Carson—look,” he said quickly. “I'm sorry. I had no business saying that. I was completely out of line, and—'

'No, you weren't,” she replied.

'What?'

'You're right ... about me, I mean. It's just that ... well, sometimes being a policewoman is difficult, and being a black policewoman is the pits. I have gone a bit overboard. Damn, I hate the gung-ho type, too, but working vice turns you into one of the enemy.'

'Yeah, I know that feeling.'

'You've worked vice?'

He laughed. “Not exactly, but sometimes I have these strange, overpowering emotions that turn me inside out and I wonder if I'm much above the people I help put away.'

She nodded and slid a hand over his. “Yeah ... yeah.'

Dean was surprised at her touch, and equally surprised at the sudden desire he felt for her as she moved closer to him. He hadn't shivered with emotion like this since he was a teenager. Still, Dean found himself resisting, pulling back, afraid of what was happening, knowing it could only lead to complications neither of them needed right now.

Sensing his reluctance, she said, “Your wife, huh?'

'How'd you guess?'

'It doesn't take a mind reader, Dr. Grant.'

'I suppose you think I'm square, old-fashioned?'

'Shut up,” she said, covering his lips with her own when in a moment's hesitation Dean failed to pull away. She gave the cabbie a different address—her apartment. “I know a more private place where we can talk,” she said, her voice silky.

Dean could not deny that he wanted her, that every fiber of his being had been aroused by her the moment he'd surprised her in the hospital room. And it had been months now since he and Jackie had made love. Still, he fought for words to stem the tide. “But you're hungry, and I promised—'

She pressed her fragrant fingers to his lips. “Sex helps keep me on my diet. Call it body chemistry, Doctor.'

Grant caught the cabbie eyeing them in the rearview mirror. Without further argument, Dean went with her.