I checked the clock. Over an hour ago. I made a note of his home number, then suffered a fit of indecision. He said to call, so I'd call. Nothing tricky about that… unless he was already in bed and asleep. I hate waking people up. Before I felt any more squirrelly, I punched in the number.
He picked up on the first ring.
I said, "If you're asleep I swear I'm going to slit my wrists with a butter knife."
He laughed. "Not at all, babe. I'm a night owl. How about you?"
"Not me. I'm an early bird. I usually get up at six for my run. How come you were working so late? I thought you got off at five."
"We spent the day cooped up in a van over on Castle, taking videos of Johns going in and out of a hot new whorehouse. Heavy weekend trade coming up. We'll do a sweep as soon as we have enough little fishies in the net."
"Nothing like sitting all day to wear you down."
"I'm trashed. How about you?"
"I'm pretty trashed myself," I said. "Though I did have a productive evening. You won't believe where I've been."
"Answer can't be Rosie's. Too easy."
"I was out with Reba. First we went clothes shopping and then we went to Bubbles where we ran into Beck and Onni. I won't plague you with the details -"
"Hey, come on. Don't be like that. I love the details."
"I'll tell you next time I see you. At the moment, I'm too bushed to go into a blow-by-blow. The upshot is Reba's ready to do business."
"She's agreed to talk to Vince?"
"That's what she told me half an hour ago."
"What brought this on? I know she was waffling, but this falls into the too-good-to-be-true category, don't you think?"
"No, I'm trusting her on this. Mostly because I was right there watching when the whole thing went down. Beck laid on a bunch of BS, three or four lies in a row, and Reba nailed him on all counts. I mean, not to his face. He was stringing her along and stringing her along. I think she could have dealt with that – she's probably used to his messing with her head. The kicker was, she realized he was taking Tracy to Panama when he'd implied he was going alone."
"How'd she find out?"
I hesitated. "We did some independent research."
"I don't want to hear this."
"I thought not. Bottom line is she'll meet with the feds as soon as you can set it up."
"Shit, that's great. I'll let Vince know as soon as I can track him down. Might take a couple of days. He's hard to reach on weekends."
"The sooner the better. We don't want her changing her mind," I said.
"While we're on the subject, Vince checked on that FBI guy who went to Reba's with the photos. Turns out he'd been transferred from another office and wanted to show how good he was at taking the initiative. He got his ears boxed but good."
"Glad to hear that," I said.
"So what are you doing at the moment? Are you down for the count?"
"Meaning what, am I in bed? No, I'm up."
"Meaning, I don't want to keep you on the phone if you're about to hit the sack."
"Not a bit of it. I just walked in the door. I was worried I wouldn't catch you before you went to bed yourself."
There was a moment of quiet.
I said, "Hello?"
"I'm here. I was wondering how you'd feel about company."
"Right now?"
"Yes."
I thought about exhaustion, both his and mine. "Good. I'd feel good – assuming it's yourself we're discussing and not someone else."
"Give me ten minutes."
"Make it fifteen. That'll give me time to change."
I took the spiral stairs two at a time, whipped off my clothes, jammed everything in the hamper, showered, shaved my legs, washed my hair, flossed and brushed my teeth, all in the space of eight minutes, which gave me plenty of time to pull on clean sweats (minus underwear) and change the sheets. Downstairs again, I was in the process of refolding sections of the newspaper when I heard his tap at the door.
I tossed the Dispatch in the wastebasket and let him in. His hair was curly and damp and he smelled like soap. He was holding a pizza box that smelled heavenly. He closed the door behind him. "I never ate dinner. The guy just delivered this. You hungry?"
"Of course. You want to take it up with us?"
He smiled, shaking his head fondly. "Always in a hurry. We have time."