Shattered Glass (8 page)

“I’m not on the down-low!”

Luis barreled on past my denial without acknowledging it.

“So we go with that. A cop on the down-low to another gay.

Maybe he’ll be more receptive to questions.” “A gay? I don’t think it’s a noun.” Not that I hadn’t just used it in exactly the same context.

“You prefer homo?” His expression was so deadpan I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“I’m not—”

“Nah. You’re not gay. Straight guys always chase around hustlers.”

“An aberration. And you’re taking that part very well.” He shrugged and looked out the window. “Querida is gay.” “Your daughter is gay? Where are all these gay people coming from? Gay friends. Gay daughters of friends. Gay sisters-in-law.

Gay suspects. I ask one guy for a kiss and suddenly I’m living in Ancient Greece.” I was going to hyperventilate. Panic will do that. “Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe all these gays rubbed off on me or somethi— Ow!” I rubbed the back of my head.

Luis gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles blanched. “When my daughter comes to me at eighteen and says she wants to take a girl to prom, Denise tells me, ‘God gives us difficulty to prove we’re worthy of heaven.’ Things will work out if we just love Querida more. Then Querida marries this girl, and now I have a beautiful grandson. Okay, I think, Denise was right. Then my son gets arrested for stealing cars, and she tells me it’s God’s way of saying I need to be paying more attention to my children. So I spend more time with Carlos, and now he’s in college, his second year he made dean’s list. Right again.” When he became silent, I didn’t chime in; he was going

somewhere with this.

“When I complain to Denise that my partner makes our nine-year-old look mature,” he continued, ”she tells me ‘God has a plan’ and I need to figure it out. It turns out he’s not so bad—this kid. He’s a little dumb about some people, a little too soft about street kids, but after only six weeks as my partner, he makes himself a target so I can crawl to safety after being shot.

He chases down suspects in two thousand dollar suits. Snitches trust him for some reason, and he asks a lot of questions no one else seems to ask. He’s got good instincts. I start thinking that maybe God’s plan is I make him more of a man and less of a boy. And then, one day, he can be an even better cop than me.” “How’s that working out?” I hadn’t taken my eyes off Luis, though he was watching the now-empty alley. Peter and Alvarado had gone inside, or maybe for a walk. I had been too riveted by Luis to notice.

He rubbed his fingers over the stubble on his chin and finally shook his head at me. “I think I was wrong. Some men will always be boys.”

“Interesting,” I replied, twisting to stare out the front window. Apparently I disappointed father figures as well as fathers. At least I was consistent.

“But sometimes my partner is already a better cop than I am.”

I showed none of the elation or surprise I was feeling. Instead I fell back on what was natural for me when shown affection.

Quiet.

My silence lasted about five minutes.

“I can’t believe you’re still whining about getting shot.”

Luis nodded slowly and settled back, flipping the car on. “I was in the hospital.”

“It was fourteen stitches and a tetanus shot. Your arm wasn’t even in a sling. I’m the one who had to go to the department shrink for shooting the guy.”

“You still got that shrink’s number?” Ignoring the insinuation that I needed to go back to therapy, I jerked my head to the restaurant. “What did you mean by 'go with' the gay, anyway?”

“It means, I’m going to drop you at your car and then go talk to Gaines and find out if he really was working for Alvarado.

And you’re going to go talk to the whore.” He gave me a meaningful snort before adding, “And remember: he’s a witness and possible person of interest.”

How to Interrogate A Prostitute. Or Not Luis once told me I was an idiot for getting my degree in accounting when clearly I should have majored in psychology.

He said this after a twenty minute interrogation led to a man’s confession to selling his thirteen-year-old son in order to pay off a gambling debt. It had been the sixth time in four months that I had wrung a confession from a suspect after the other detectives’ efforts had produced nada. My father called this ability “juvenile charm”. Luis apparently agreed with that assessment. I called it the Bro Effect.

The trick was to know your audience. Read the jacket, find out the suspect’s background, and lastly, from the second you enter an interrogation, you adopt the correct persona. Because of my easy smile, and casual attitude, I was nonthreatening.

“The bro”. The kind of guy who didn’t think too hard or judge anyone too harshly. The kind of guy everyone can relate to.

Unless you were a red-haired hustler with mesmerizing freckles.

Peter had met the tripping-over-his-own-tongue, panic-stricken, flustered Austin. Entering the diner, I was acutely aware of that disadvantage, among others. Getting the upper hand was going to prove difficult. I had no idea how I was going to approach questioning him.

Peter had no arrest record to study. Given his profession, that was astonishing. Astonishing in the Joe-the-ex-cop-must-have-pulled-some-strings way. From Joe’s ex-partner, Ron, I’d managed to glean some information about the guy. His name

was Peter Martin Cotton. Peter Cotton. The bunny slippers finally made sense.

Joe had picked him, and two other kids, off the streets four years ago and illegally fostered them. According to Ron, the kid was dealing for Prisc Alvarado. Alvarado, it turned out, had been Joe’s first failed attempt to rehabilitate a street kid. At the time of his death, and after eighteen years, Joe was apparently still trying with Alvarado. Which should have been an lesson to me about obsession. It wasn’t.

To everyone’s surprise, the diner had been left to Peter, not Alvarado, when Joe died, which explained Peter’s constant presence there these days.

Ron had also informed me that Peter was devoted to the other two ‘foster’ kids Joe had taken in; Darryl and Nicolas, both around Peter’s age, though Ron couldn’t be sure about their ages or names. After retirement, Joe had severed most ties with his former partner.

Other than that information, I only had what I had gathered myself: He was a whore, he disliked me, he had six freckles over his upper lip that begged to be….

Okay, maybe I had enough to work with. Devoted to the other kids. That was a vulnerability I could exploit, if necessary.

In a booth at the back of the restaurant, close to the kitchen doors, Peter’s grey slipper dangled enticingly from the edge of his seat. From the way it hung suspended off his toe, I could tell his foot was crossed over his knee under the table. Though his back was to me, I imagined he was laughing with the youth

across from him.

The black-haired boy, and, yes, this time I meant boy—he had to be sixteen, max—was blushing as they laughed and using an ink pen to scribble on a drawing pad. He raised his head as I came near, frowning only slightly, but his grey eyes were bright and warm and his smile remained in place. Was I about to intrude on a date?

Peter followed the other boy’s stare, twisting in his seat.

“What—” His smile was so breathtaking, in the split second I got to see it, that my hands briefly tightened into fists. Then the smile was gone. “Cai, get your things and go home.” Peter’s eyes never left me.

Cai blinked and flashed a confused squint to Peter. “But—” “Now,” Peter interrupted and began to scoot out of the booth; I stood at the end of his seat, caging him in.

Cai offered a shy, inquisitive peek under his black bangs while he grabbed a messenger bag, putting his drawing tablet inside. “Night, Rabbit.” He directed a twitchy smile at me and hesitated before slipping out of the booth and disappearing behind the kitchen doors. I propped my chin in my palm as I took his place at the table.

“Have I been too subtly hostile?” Peter said, clasping his hands and leaning forward. “Was my I'd-only-have-sex-with-you-if-you-paid-me statement too vague? Exactly how do I get rid of you? A billboard? A letter in braille? Sign language? I could threaten to go to the cops, but I think we both can agree that would be pointless.”

I couldn’t place the reason for my nervousness. For my sweaty palms and racing heart. I wasn’t intimidated by his words

or his anger. I wasn’t scared in the traditional sense. And let’s face it, someone named Peter Cotton wasn’t exactly ominous. It was just him and his furious eyes. He got to me. “Your freckles are adorable.” Somehow I didn’t think Luis would approve of that opening line. And, by his incredulous glare, I knew Peter didn’t. That, or he was seeing spiders crawl out of my ears.

“You’re not just short a few sandwiches,” he said, lip curling up in disgust. “Your picnic is missing the basket and blanket.

There’s not even ants at your picnic.” I couldn’t help the grin. “Tell me about Prisc Alvarado.” “What?” His eyes blinked wide, head jerking backwards. And then he quickly adopted an air of indifference.

“Is he my competition?” I asked.

“Everyone is your competition.” Peter lifted his hand to his eyes and began lowering it incrementally. “It goes normal human beings, crazies, republicans, my hand, imaginary characters, corpses and then, in a moment of lustful psychosis, you.” By the time he was done, his hand was below the table.

Ouch. “A little over the top, don’t you think?” “No.” He tried to scoot out again. I laid my badge on the table and he hesitated, a brief pull of his brows as he stared at it.

“I really do need to know about Prisc,” I said. “Officially.” He sat back down and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t help you. And if this is some kind of ruse to get in my pants, it won’t work.”

“We’ve established how I can get into your pants. And I didn’t bring any cash.”

“That was a one-time offer.”

“For me? Or does Prisc get a discount?”

At this rate, the sheer amount of time he spent glaring at me was making me immune to it. “Why the sudden interest in Iss? I didn’t see your car stalking me today, but it can’t be coincidence that he came see me on the same day you question me about him.”

“Different car. And I wasn’t stalking.” Yes I was.

“Don’t worry. Not like I could report you, is it?” He sneered.

“Are you genuinely asking? Because if so, yeah, you can report me.” I reached into my inside coat pocket and retrieved my wallet, a pen and one of my business cards. I wrote two numbers on the back and slid the card in front of Peter. “That’s my full name and rank on the front. The back is my badge number and the number to my direct superior. You can make the complaint to Captain Ashenafi Mangistu.” “You’re making up that name,” he challenged.

“No. He’s Ethiopian, and he’s very uptight, politically correct and there’s not an ounce of corruption in his soul.” Damn.

Peter eyed the card for a few seconds and then met my eyes as he reached over, palming it. “And what would he do?” “Probably suspend me pending an investigation,” I said honestly. “Internal Affairs would be called in. It’s not like the movies, they don’t all band together around me and create an impenetrable blue wall.” My heart was twisting in some new ways that had nothing to do with my attraction for Peter.

“Especially not a faggot,” he challenged, arms crossing in front of him.

Ouch again. I was going to need stitches if the jabs continued this sharply. “I don’t know. Maybe one of them would try to convince you I’m a great guy.”

“Superficial. You’re a superficial guy.” He focused on the window to his right. I studied him, checking for any sign of hope he wasn’t going to report me.

“Everyone is superficial at first.”

“You’re vain.”

“Confident.”

“Arrogant.”

“Self-assured.”

“Aggressive and full of yourself.”

“Cocky,” I settled on. My smile returned.

“Where you come from that’s a good thing?” “I’m a little cute?”

He sighed and observed me, his eyes hard. “I thought you might be. I thought you were just shy, sitting out there in your car, watching the restaurant. Watching me. Then I thought you were just scared. And that’s what made you be an asshole.

Coming here and accusing me of making you gay.” “I was. Scared. Am. I am scared. All those freckles and your perfect face—”

“Stop fucking talking about my looks. Quit staring at me like that’s all there is to me.”

“It’s not. That’s not—”

“What do you know about me? All you see is this.” He waved a hand in front of himself. “This weirdness of coming here all the time. You don’t ask me my name or out on a date. I sat in your car for ten minutes and all you did was stare at me.” Oh. I laughed self-consciously. No one made me feel self-conscious, except my father. Leave it to Peter to have brought out that unattractive trait. I kept letting him be the catalyst of

my worst behavior. “I was embarrassed.” I ran a hand through my hair, felt the spikes pop out as it passed over the strands. “I didn’t know—. I don’t know how to deal with this. That I’m physically attracted to a guy. I couldn’t think of a way out. Or how to ask you out. I was going to say coffee. It sounded lame.