Fortz grins. “Just lending a hand. We’re all on the same team.”
I tell myself not to panic. Ronnie is straighter than Robocop and I haven’t done anything bad yet today. “Tell her I’ll be in the club later and to come on down.”
“Nah,” says Fortz. “She sent us to pick you up, get it?”
In my imagination the envelope is glowing through the fabric of my jacket.
“What kind of appointment is this?” I ask, like there’s a good kind.
“I think it’s a doughnut-tasting sorta deal,” says Fortz, his little features jiggling with mirth like the last jelly beans in a bowl. “Now, are you gonna get in back or do I have to start wondering why?”
Krieger has given up trying to get out of the car and I can tell by the set of his shoulders that he’s sulking.
“Okay, I’m getting in. Just tell your partner not to shoot me. I ain’t the one who locked him in the car.”
Fortz’s eye roll implies a fractious relationship with his partner, soured by years of grumpy stakeouts and botched coffee orders. “I think maybe I’ll shoot him and pin it on you. How does that grab you?”
He ushers me into the backseat, still chuckling.
Blues. Comedians every last one. I read somewhere that cops develop a macabre and inappropriate sense of humor just to survive the job, but I reckon that mostly this disposition has been lurking under the surface looking for a way to climb out. Like a troll down a dark well.
Krieger is not pretty to look at even from behind. He’s got these weird little clumps of hair sticking out from the back of his head like greasy stalactites and his shirt collar is clumping up his neck fat, which is weird because the rest of him is skinny as a matchstick.
As Fortz drives, Krieger has his arms folded and is giving off icy vibes. Fortz puts up with this for about two minutes, then . . .
“Come on, man,” he says, leaning across to punch his partner in the arm. “That hydrant thing was funny shit. Took some driving too. Talladega Nights, dude.”
Shake and bake, I think.
Krieger slaps away the punch. “Funny shit? How many times are you gonna pull that? I am sick to death of bashing the car door. You know I’m claustrophobic, Fortz, you asshole?”
“’Course I fucking know. That’s why it’s funny.”
Much as I would like to consider these guys total idiots, I’d have to be deep in denial not to hear the similarities between their bitching and what Zeb and I get into on a daily basis. It’s a little depressing.
“Hey, fellas,” I say, trying to keep it jaunty. “You really want a civilian listening in on your domestics?”
Krieger twists around poking his hand between the headrest and seat. I can’t help noticing there’s a Taser in his fist and the charge light is flashing green.
“No,” he says. “I guess we don’t.”
And he shoots me in the chest, which turns my entire universe electric blue. Through the neon I hear Krieger’s voice saying: “Moron brought that on himself.”
I wonder who the moron is?
CHAPTER 3
SO, I’M SPASMING WITHOUT DIGNITY IN THE BACK OF A POLICE cruiser and since yours truly is the guy spinning this yarn, the traditional thing to do would be to throw in a dream sequence at this point or maybe a flashback. Fill in a few paragraphs, beef up the backstory. Perfect opera-toonity, right? Except I can’t seem to fully pass out.
This is bloody typical. Back in the Lebanon we used to prank Tase each other occasionally for giggles. Hilarious, right? Sending fifty thousand bowel loosening volts coursing through a guy halfway through the weekly phone call to his fiancée. How we laughed. This went on for months until a staff sergeant went into a cardiac and had to be shipped home with his honorable discharge but without the use of his right leg. The point being that I got lit up a dozen times but most of the time it didn’t put me out. Just like now.
Here I am grinding my teeth hard enough to crack the enamel. My entire body is stiff as an ironing board and there’s a halo of agony buzzing around my head.
I should be out. This is too much pain.
I concentrate really hard and spit three words at Krieger.
“Hit . . . me . . . again.”
Krieger is a stand-up guy, so he obliges.
I do dream a little when I’m under. Mostly about Sofia Delano, which is to be expected since we got enough sexual tension humming between us to power a beer cooler.
The incident I flash on reveals a lot about me and my varied insecurities. I’m in my old apartment, downstairs from Sofia, and I come out of the shower to find her standing there in workout gear holding my towel on a finger.
“Oh, baby,” she says, her voice sensual from years of Jameson and Marlboro. “You look good.”
I don’t feel like I look good, never have. But there’s a woman in my bathroom who resembles Let’s Get Physical’s Olivia Newton- John telling me I look good, and that’s never a bad start to the day.
“Thanks, Sofia,” I say, trying to cover my privates without using my hands. Tricky. “You look good too. Great.”
She laughs. “Baby, you have no idea. I’ve sent bigger men than you home with a limp.”
This is not fair. This woman is the right age for me, i.e., she falls within my ten years up ten years down parameters, she has the correct amount of sass, and sex appeal that’s going to last until the day she dies, but thinks I am her long-gone asshole husband.
She backs up with the towel and I have no choice but to follow.
“Oh, baby,” she says and just the sound of her plump lips smacking on the b?
?s makes me feel a little excited, ignoble and also weak-willed.
I cannot take advantage of a delusional woman, says my angelic side.
My other shoulder demon comes back with: Yeah, but is there even a victim here? You’d be doing the dame a favor.
I am half-expecting another compliment from Sofia, which would be my undoing, but instead she says: “I thought it was bigger, Carmine. Didn’t it used to be bigger? You should see Dan’s.”
Even though I’m not sure who’s been insulted, the excitement drains out of me like air from a punctured balloon animal and I mutter some lame crack about perspective. Sofia doesn’t laugh, instead she goes all metaphorical with:
“Like the playgrounds of my youth, all seems smaller now.”
Deep. Too deep for a semi-horny man getting out of a shower.
Sofia has a moment of lucidity and says. “I gotta scoot, Dan. Carmine might call and if I’m not by the phone there will be freakin’ fireworks.”
I pluck the towel from her fingers and nod. I wanted her to leave, but now that she’s going I feel cheated.
Sofia kisses me so hard my shamed region forgets it’s been insulted.
“That’s better, baby,” she says with a smile that might even be for me.
I step back in the shower when she’s gone.
I feel myself surfacing but Sofia’s eyes are still there. Not the same sky blue though—more of a dirty petrol.
They are not Sofia’s eyes, says my subconscious. Notice the thick brows, not to mention the rubber gimp mask.
I have a pretty open relationship with my subconscious. A little unhealthy even. We dialogue a lot, which kind of defeats the purpose of calling it a subconscious in the first place.
Still, my inner voice is right. Sofia does not sport thick brows. I flop around a little trying to earth myself in whatever situation I’m in.
I feel a chair underneath me. Remembering the word for chair is not necessarily an indicator of no brain damage but I’m optimistic. More information seeps through the haze. For example the office chair seems to have me cuffed to it, and the room that me and the chair are in has swathes of pink satin streaming down from the ceiling. Also I seem to be naked apart from a pink leather thong, which I definitely did not snap on earlier this morning. This can’t be real? Maybe the Taser rattled my neurons a little. I blink the world into focus and immediately wish that I hadn’t.