She kissed Jannie a couple of times on both cheeks.
And then she grabbed hold of Nana and kissed her. 'And I love you.'
Nana beamed as if she'd just been introduced to Jesus himself, or maybe Mary. 'I love you too, Maria. You're a miracle.'
'I'm not here,' I said from my listening post at the kitchen door.
'Oh, we already know that,' said Nana.
Before I could leave for work, I had to kiss and hug everybody too, and say 'I love you's.' Corny maybe, but good in its way, and a pox on anybody who thinks that busy, scarily harassed families can't have fun and love. We certainly had plenty of that.
'Bye, we love you, bye, we love you,' Maria and I chorused as we backed out the door together.
Chapter 8
JUST AS I DID EVERY MORNING, I drove Maria to her job in the Potomac Gardens housing project. It was only about fifteen or twenty minutes from Fourth Street anyway, and it gave us some alone time.
We rode in the black Porsche, the last evidence of some money I'd made during three years of private practice as a psychologist, before I switched full-time into the DC police department. Maria had a white Toyota Corolla, which I didn't much like, but she did.
It seemed as though she was someplace else as we rode along G Street that morning.
'You okay?' I asked.
She laughed and gave me that wink of hers.
'Little tired. I'm feeling pretty good, considering. I was just thinking about a case I consulted on yesterday, favor to Maria Pugatch. It involves a college girl from GW University. She was raped in a men's bathroom in a bar on M Street.'
I frowned and shook my head. 'Another college kid involved?'
'She says no, but she won't say much else.'
My eyebrows arched. 'So she probably knew the rapist? Maybe a professor?'
'The girl definitely says no, Alex. She swears it's no one she knows.'
'You believe her?'
'I think I do. Of course, I'm trusting and gullible anyway. She seems like such a sweet kid.'
I didn't want to stick my nose too far into Maria's business. We didn't do that to each other – at least we tried hard not to.
'Anything you want me to do?' I asked.
Maria shook her head. 'You're busy. I'm going to talk to the girl – Marianne – again today. Hopefully I can get her to open up a little.'
A couple minutes later, I pulled up in front of the Potomac Gardens housing project on G, between Thirteenth and Penn. Maria had volunteered to come here, left a much cushier and secure job in Georgetown. I think she volunteered because she lived in the Gardens until she was eighteen, when she went off to Villanova.
'Kiss,' Maria said. 'I need a kiss. Good one. No pecks on the cheek. On the lips.'
I leaned over and kissed her – and then I kissed her again. We made out a little in the front seat, and I couldn't help thinking about how much I loved her, about how lucky I was to have her. What made it even better: I knew that Maria felt the same way about me.
'Gotta go,' she finally said, and wriggled out of the car.
But then she leaned back inside. 'I may not look it, but I'm happy. I'm so happy.'
Then that little wink of hers again.
I watched Maria walk all the way up the steep stone stairs of the apartment building where she worked. I hated to see her go, and it was the same thing just about every morning.
I wondered if she'd turn and see if I'd left yet. Then she did – saw me still there, smiled and waved like a crazy person, or at least somebody crazy in love. Then she disappeared inside.
We did the same thing almost every morning, but I couldn't get enough of it. Especially that wink of Maria's. No one will ever love you the way I do.
I didn't doubt it for a minute.
Chapter 9
I WAS A PRETTY HOT DETECTIVE in those days – on the run, on the move, in the know. So I was already starting to get more than my fair share of the tougher prestige cases. The latest wasn't one of them, unfortunately.
As far as the Washington PD could tell, the Italian Mafia had never operated in any major way inside DC, probably because of deals struck with certain agencies like the FBI and CIA. Recently, though, the five Families had met in New York and agreed to do business in Washington, Baltimore, and parts of Virginia. Not surprisingly the local crime bosses hadn't been too thrilled about this development, especially the Asians who controlled the cocaine and heroin trade.
A Chinese drug overlord named Jiang An-Lo had executed two Italian mob emissaries a week before. Not a good move. And reportedly the New York mob had dispatched a top hit man, or possibly a hit team, to deal with Jiang.
I'd learned that much during an hour-long morning briefing at police headquarters. Now John Sampson and I drove to Jiang An-Lo's place of business, a duplex row house on the corner of Eighteenth and M Streets in Northeast. We were one of two teams of detectives assigned to the morning surveillance, which we dubbed 'Operation Scumwatch.'
We had parked between Nineteenth and Twentieth and begun our surveillance. Jiang An-Lo's row house was faded, peeling yellow, and looked decrepit from the outside. The dirt yard was littered with trash that looked as if it had burst from a pinata. Most of the windows were covered with plywood or tin. Yet Jiang An-Lo was a big deal in the drug trade.
The day was already turning warm, and a lot of neighborhood people were out walking or congregating on stoops.
'Jiang's crew is into what? Ecstasy, heroin?' Sampson asked.
'Throw in some PCP. Distribution runs up and down the East Coast – DC, Philly, Atlanta, New York. It's been a profitable operation, which is why the Italians want in. What do you think of Louis French's appointment at the Bureau?'
'Don't know the man. He got appointed though, so he must be wrong for the job.'
I laughed at the truth in Sampson's humor; then we hunkered down and waited for a team of Mafia hitters to show up and try to take out Jiang An-Lo. That was if our information was accurate.
'We know anything about the hit man?' Sampson asked.
'Supposed to be an Irish guy,' I said, and looked over at John for a reaction.
Sampson's eyebrows arched; then he turned my way. 'Working for the Mafia? How'd that happen?'
'Guy is supposed to be good. And crazy too. They call him the Butcher.'
Meanwhile, an old, bowed-down guy had begun to cross M Street with deliberate glances left and right. He was slowly dragging on a cigarette. He crossed paths with a skinny white guy who had an aluminum cane cuffed at the elbow. The two stragglers nodded solemn hellos in the middle of the street.
'Couple of characters there,' Sampson said, and smiled. 'That'll be us someday.'
'Maybe. If we're lucky.'
And then Jiang An-Lo chose to make his first appearance of the day.
