End of Watch (26 page)

She sorted through music, selecting albums that were romantic but not blatant, familiar but without memory. Arranging fleshy, pink roses she wondered if they were too flagrantly labial. She decided she didn’t care—subtleties didn’t count as pushing. A good thing because she was grilling a dozen oysters along with the steaks.

The semi-tropical winter day was cool enough for her to soak in a steamy tub. She read from the AA Big Book, sinking after a while up to her chin and reflecting. She found her hand coming out of the water, groping for the glass she habitually took into the bath with her.

“Jesus,” she whispered, alarmed at the treachery of corporal memory.

She dried off and rifled through her drawers until she found a tiny vial of oil. Wrinkling her nose, she daubed her temples with it. The woodsy scent reminded her of search-and-rescues deep in sweltering canyons, but Gail loved the stuff.

Naked, Frank stood in front of her closet. Casting a side glance at the mirror, she noted the loss of her alcoholic bloat and the transition of flab back into muscle. There was still a little belly and pockets of cellulite she couldn’t get rid of but she looked healthy.

Not ropy and wizened like a gym rat trophy wife, but firm and fleshy. Healthy.

Patting her belly, Frank told it, “Forty-five-year-old woman
should
have some droops and dimples. Shouldn’t be mistaken for a walking stick of jerky.”

She grinned, dressing in snug jeans and a black turtleneck. Her heart sank when the phone rang and she saw Gail’s number.

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. Are we still on for dinner?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great. I’ll be over in about half an hour.”

“Good,” Frank breathed. “Good.”

She fired up the grill and the oven, popping potatoes into the latter and tonging oysters over the former. As she worked she sipped apple juice on ice. She didn’t particularly like the stuff but the glass satisfied her hand, the color tricked her eye and the rattling cubes calmed her ear.

Gail was closer to an hour getting there and Frank kicked herself for starting the oysters so soon. She knew when Gail said half an hour it meant at least three-quarters and that an hour stretched close to two. But her irritation vanished when Gail walked in.

“Good timing. I just pulled oysters off the barby.”

“Oysters?” Gail arched a meaningful brow.

“They’re full of iron,” Frank answered over her shoulder. “And they were on sale. Plus we gotta plump you up. You’re looking skinny.”

“Skinny? Me? You must be looking at somebody else.”

“I’m looking at you, lady. You’ve lost weight.”

Gail fluttered her eyelashes. “I haven’t had anybody to cook for me.

“We’re gonna change that. Sit. Get comfortable.”

Frank produced the oysters, arranged on a platter between mounds of horseradish and lemon wedges.

“Now, I know these would be great with a beer or an icy Fume but maybe I can interest you in a faux wine cooler instead?”

Gail laughed, the dry, throaty chortle that made Frank’s crotch ache. “That would be lovely.”

Frank mixed white grape juice with club soda and they slurped oysters as Frank grilled the steaks. The doc chatted through dinner and Frank listened happily. She missed her red wine a couple of times, but briefly and without intensity.

After they pushed their plates away Gail noted, “This is when you’d bring out the port or the brandy. How has it been going through all this sober?”

“You mean New York and all?”

“Yes.”

Gail’s eyes were shadowy, flecked with candlelight. Frank had an immediate glib answer, but she checked herself.

“Parts of it were difficult. But in going through all of it I’m starting to see just how numb I’ve been. For as long as I can remember. And truth to tell, even the pain feels good. Well, not good, but at least
real.
Honest. I feel like I’m coming out of the deep freeze. It hurts when limbs start defrosting but I can hear again and see and taste and feel everything. So, if that’s the price … that’s the price. Something I should have done a long time ago, but you know, I just couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. Everybody has a bottom. I hit mine. Had to go as low as I did. And now I don’t ever have to go there again. So yeah. Parts are hard, but there are more parts that are beautiful. Overwhelmingly so. Like sitting here with you.” It sounded like a throwaway line but Frank was suddenly close to tears. Gail reached for her hand and Frank said with a small laugh, “That happens a lot lately. I just… I don’t know. I get moved easily. It’s like this … I don’t know … this realization how sweet life is. How
good.
Even when it hurts. Makes me all weepy. It’s fucking weird. Downside is I get angry a lot easier too.”

“I think it’s lovely.”

Frank was wordless. Rather she was full of what she feared were the wrong words, so she concentrated on Gail’s hand in hers. Before she could say something stupid she gave a little squeeze and let go. “I got some movies. Took the liberty of hoping you’d stay for one.”

“What did you get?”

Frank listed them and Gail frowned. “You hate romantic comedies.”

“I don’t
hate
‘em. Just don’t want to spend eight bucks on ‘em in a theater.”

Gail wagged her bob. “The oysters, the candles, the sweet music. If I didn’t know bet—”

A cell phone rang and they both got up. Gail’s was on the table near the door, next to Frank’s. They checked their messages and Frank swore.

“Franco,” she answered.

“Frank, it’s Lewis.”

“S’up, Sister Shaft?”

“We got word Diaz is in La Quinta. Probably at a friend’s house. Me and Darcy want to go get him.”

“Whoa. Slow down. Let’s call La Quinta PD, see if they can find him. If they do, they can pick him up, then you can go get him.”

“Naw, Frank, I got it
deep
that he’s there. I don’t want no jake bustin’ my play and losin’ my boy for me. I want to get him myself.”

“Lewis, I can’t authorize OT to go get a suspect that might or might not be there. Call the locals, let ‘em do their job. Then you can go.”

“What if I went on my own time?”

Frank sighed. “Why you want this so bad?”

“You saw what he did to his wife? I want that mo-fo locked up and put away! You can’t do shit like that in my ‘hood and walk away. Nuh-uh. And I don’t trust them Palm Desert cops to do the job right. I want it done right, I gotta do it myself. See it through. And it ain’t no skin off the department’s nose if I go off the clock. So what’s the big?”

“No big,” Frank admitted. “One thing though. Two. I’ma call Palm Desert and arrange backup for you. And you
will
use it, is that clear? You’re not to go in alone.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lewis replied sweetly. “And the second thing?”

“Call me. Keep me in the loop. Call me when you get him and if you don’t get him call and tell me why. Clear?”

“Crystal, LT.”

“A’ight. Be careful.”

“I will.”

Lewis banged the phone down and Frank winced. Gail was clearing the dishes and Frank called, “Hey, don’t do those. I’ll just be a sec.”

But it took a while to get hold of someone at Palm Desert PD who could authorize Lewis’s backup and by the time Frank was done Gail had finished the dishes.

“I thought I told you not to do those.”

Gail leaned back against the sink, drying her hands.

Frank couldn’t help but cup her hand against the doc’s cheek. “You look beat. We’ll save the movie for another night.”

“No.” Gail smiled. “I’m fine. You don’t have to go in?”

“Nope. Just arranging for Lewis to pick up a suspect. She’s a regular Stakhanovite.” Frank grinned. “Reminds me of me when I was her age.”

“What’s a Stakhanovite?”

“Hey,” Frank said, surprised. “Not often you ask me what something means. Stakhanovite’s a hard worker, real industrious person. See, when I got my medical degree I got a linguistics degree, too.”

“So I see.” Gail laughed. She touched Frank’s face. “I liked that. What you did with your hand.”

Frank held Gail’s cheek again. “That?”

“Yes.”

Then it seemed that the next right thing to do was to kiss her. So Frank did. On the lips, slowly, mouths lingering.

Gail pulled back. She smiled but said, “How about that movie?”

“How about it?” Frank returned the smile.

Gail nodded off about forty minutes into the movie. Frank tried to stay with it, waiting for Lewis to call, but she dozed off, too. The DVD defaulting to menu woke her. Gail was still out. Frank remoted the TV off.

For a while she watched Gail sleep, lulled by the doc’s breathing. She still didn’t wake when Frank got up for a blanket. She draped it over the doc who muttered, twisting against the pillows. Frank smoothed Gail’s hair, whispering a “shh.” Instead of sending Gail into a deeper sleep it roused her. She looked at Frank, dazed.

“Hey. You fell asleep during the movie.”

Gail righted herself, looking around.

Frank knelt and took her hand. “Let me put you to bed. In the guest room. You shouldn’t be driving home.”

Gail nodded and Frank helped her up. She kissed Gail’s forehead, steering her toward the spare room.

Frank turned lights off and double-checked locks. She looked in on Gail, calling through the bathroom door, “Want a toothbrush?”

“Please.”

Frank brought her a new one, and a clean T-shirt. “Thought you might like to sleep in this.”

“Mm. Thanks. Sorry I flaked out on you.”

“That’s okay. I did too. Not the best movie in the world.”

“Do I even have to ask how it ended?”

Frank shook her head. “Exactly as you’d imagine.”

“Well, you were sweet to get it.”

“Get some sleep. Lewis is supposed to call. I might not be here when you get up, but stay as long as you want, okay?”

Gail nodded.

“There’s coffee, grapefruit, eggs, cereal… help yourself.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Frank turned to go, but Gail touched her arm. “Why didn’t you invite me to sleep with you?”

“Thought about it.” Frank grinned. “Figured that would definitely constitute pushing. Should I have?”

Gail blinked, debating.

Frank tried to sway her. “It’s not too late.”

“I’d like that. Very much.”

The answer was so ingenuously vulnerable that Frank blurted, “I love you.” She offered her hand. “Come on. Let’s sleep.”

Expecting nothing more than the pleasure of Gail’s proximity, Frank offered a chaste good-night kiss. Gail returned it eagerly and Frank offered another. It too was hungrily accepted. Frank gave and received more kisses, as their hands roved the familiar terrain of each other’s bodies. Their lovemaking was hot and ardent, wordless, their passion speaking for itself.

After their desire had spent itself to a whisper, they lay in a tangle of limbs.

Frank swore, “Christ, but I’ve missed you.”

“Mmm. Me, too.”

Gail’s breathing quickly evened out and Frank basked in the simple pleasure of Gail against her. She wondered why Lewis hadn’t called yet, then her thoughts shifted to Irie. She’d felt absurd dropping his prints at the lab, justifying to herself that it couldn’t hurt to have background on him. There was a reason Irie wouldn’t register as an official CI and odds were high it was a criminal reason—probably nothing worth the price of a private print check but Bobby’d be pleased with the extra info.

Checking the night clock Frank thought about Lewis again. Until Marguerite James snaked into her thoughts. Even with her arms wrapped around her lover, Frank had to admit a potent attraction to the
mambo.
It wasn’t an emotional pull, or even intellectual, but completely physical. The woman wore her sexuality like strong cologne.

The phone rang and Gail woke but Frank told her to go back to sleep. She picked the phone out its cradle and took it into the living room.

“I got him!” Lewis crowed.

“Good. Where are you?”

“We found the bastard in Indio. Got him locked up in the back of the car.”

“Good job. I’ll meet you at the station at… six?”

“Make it six thirty.” Lewis laughed. “I been up all night and I’m
starving]”

“Six thirty it is.”

Frank went back to bed to salvage a couple hours sleep. She half-heartedly tried rousing the doc but Gail didn’t respond. Just as well, Frank decided, dropping hard into sleep.

Only a few hours later, Diaz broke in the box. Lewis was happy but tired. She headed home, leaving the booking and reports to her well-rested partner. It was Sunday morning and the squad room was empty except for Frank and Darcy. Frank cocked her head at him. “Hey.”

He grunted at his paperwork.

“You told me you had a gift and chose not to use it. But why does Marguerite think
I
have a gift?”

“Because you do,” he answered, still not bothering to look up.

“How so? What kind of gift?”

He stopped abruptly, pinning her with cool blue eyes. “You should talk to her about this.”

“Why can’t I talk to you?”

“This is her area of expertise. Remember? I gave it up.”

“But you know what she’s talking about.”

He flicked a heavy shoulder.

“That whole business with Mother Love, you finding me … all that?”

“All that and more. That’s the thing, Frank. There’s always more. What you went through, what you experienced, that’s not even the tip of the iceberg.”

“That was plenty for me.”

“It’s hard,” Darcy agreed. “Gifts like these aren’t free.”

“Is that why you walked away?”

Darcy spit tobacco juice into an empty soda can. “Partly that, partly Gabby. I considered her the greater responsibility. I couldn’t see devoting myself to Marguerite’s lifestyle and providing for my kid at the same time. So I took the easier route. Every now and again I take my talents off the shelf, dust them up and show them off like a parlor trick. Like telling Jill where that forty-four was, or finding you. Marguerite hates that. It drives her crazy that I don’t respect what’s been given me.”

Frank chewed that over. “Ever regret your decision?”