'Trying to grow corn.'
'Don't try to be funny. Funny is another in the long list of things you can't pull off.'
I nodded. I thought it was pretty funny, but I'd been drinking.
'So we're standing there with these feet, and we can't touch them until the coroner investigator does his thing, only the coroner investigator tells us he won't be able to get out until the next morning. The supervisor says that somebody's gotta guard the feet. I mean, we can't just leave'm there, right? So the supervisor tells me and my partner to watch the feet.'
'Okay.'
She killed the rest of her tequila, and helped herself to another glass as she went on with her story.
'But then we get this disturbance call, and the supervisor tells my partner he'd better respond. He says to leave the girl with the feet.'
'The girl.'
'Yeah, that's me.'
'I'm up with that part, Samantha.'
She took another blast of the tequila and took out her cigarettes.
'No smoking.'
She frowned, but put the cigarettes away.
296 ROBERT CRAIS
'So they take off, and now I'm there alone with the feet in back of this abandoned house, and it's spooky as hell. An hour passes. Two hours. They don't come back. I'm calling on my radio, but no one answers, and I am pissed off. I am majorly pissed. Three hours. Then I hear the creepiest sound I ever heard in my life, this kind of ooo-ooo-ooo moaning.'
'What was it?'
'This ghost comes floating between the palm trees. This big white ghost, going
'Don't tell me. Your partner in a sheet.'
'No, it was the supervisor. He was trying to scare the girl.'
'What did you do?'
'I whip out my Smith and shout, 'Freeze, motherfucker, LAPD.'And then I crack off all six rounds point-blank as fast as I can.'
'Dolan. You killed the guy?'
She smiled at me, and it was a lovely smile. 'No, you moron. I knew those assholes were going to try some shit like that sooner or later, so I always carried blanks.'
I laughed.
'The supervisor drops to the ground in a little ball, arms over his head, screaming for me not to shoot. I pop all six caps, and then I go over, and say, 'Hey, Sarge, is this what they mean by foot patrol?' '
I laughed harder, but Dolan took a deep breath and shook her head, I stopped laughing.
'Sam?'
Her eyes turned red, but she shook back the tears. 'I put everything I had into this job. I never got married and I didn't have kids, and now it's gone.'
'Can you appeal it? Is there anything you can do?'
'I could request a trial board, but if I go to the board, those pricks could fire me. Bishop just wants me out of Robbery-Homicide. He says I'm not a team player anymore. He says he doesn't trust me.'
'I'm sorry, Samantha. I'm really, really sorry. What happens now?'
L.A. REQUIEM 297
'Administrative transfer. I'm on leave until I'm reassigned. They'll put me in one of the divisions, I guess. South Bureau Homicide, maybe, down in South Central.' She looked down at her glass, and seemed surprised that it was empty.
'At least you're still on the job.'
A kindness came to her eyes, as if I was a slow child. 'Don't you get it, Cole? Wherever I go, it's downhill. Robbery-Homicide is the top. It's like being in the majors, then having to go down to the farm team in South Buttcrack. Your career's finished. All you're doing is killing time until they make you leave the game. You got any idea what that means to me?'
I didn't know what to say.
'My whole goddamned career has been forcing men like Bishop to let me be a starting player, and now I don't have a goddamned thing.' She looked over at me. 'God, I want you.'
I said, 'Sam.'
She raised a hand again and shook her head.
'I know. It's the tequila.'
She looked into the empty glass and sighed. She put the glass on the table, and crossed her arms as if she didn't know what to do with herself. She blinked because her eyes were filling again.
She said, 'Elvis?'
'What?'
'Will you hold me?'
I didn't move.
'I don't mean like that. I just need to be held, and I don't have anyone else to do it.'
I put down my beer and went over and held her.
Samantha Dolan buried her face in my chest, and after a while the wet of her tears soaked through my shirt. She pulled away and wiped her hands across her face. 'This is so pathetic.'
'It's not pathetic, Samantha.'
She sniffled, and rubbed at her eyes again. 'I'm here because I don't have anyone else. I gave everything I had to this goddamned job, and now all I have to show for myself is a guy who's in love with another woman. That's pretty fucking pathetic, if you ask me.'
298 ROBERT CRAIS
'No one asked you, Samantha.'
'I want you, goddamnit. I want to sleep with you.'
'Shh.'
Her breast moved against my arm. 'I want you to love me.'
'Shh.'
'Don't shush me, goddamnit.'
She traced her fingers along my thigh, her eyes shining in the dim light. She gazed up at me, and she was so close that her breath felt like fireflies on my cheek. She was pretty and tough and funny, and I wanted her. I wanted to hold her, and I wanted her to hold me, and if I could fill her empty places maybe she could fill mine.
But I said, 'Dolan, I can't.'
The kitchen door opened then, an alien sound that had no part in this moment.
Lucy was in the kitchen, one hand still on the door, staring at us, a terrible pain cut into her eyes.
I stood.
'Lucy.'
Lucy Chenier snatched her purse from the counter, stalked back across the kitchen, and slammed out the door.
Outside, her car roared to life, the starter screaming on the gears.
Outside, her tires shrieked as she ripped away.
Dolan slumped back into the couch, and said, 'Oh, hell.'
