Flirting with Disaster (2 page)

Before the guy knew what was happening, Dave took one last step forward and wrapped his arm around Frank’s upper chest. In one swift move, Dave pulled him backward off the wall, scraping his suit pants along the weather-pocked concrete and knocking the hide off the heels of his Bruno Maglis. Dave tried to cuff him, but the guy scuffled with him just long enough that his last thread of patience finally unraveled. Dave ordered him down on the ground in a tone that didn’t leave any room for disobedience. Once he was licking asphalt, Dave yanked Frank’s arms behind his back, clipped on the cuffs, then pulled him back to his feet.

“What’s the matter with you?” Frank shouted. “Are you nuts?”

“Yeah, Frank.
I’m
nuts.”

Frank’s belligerent expression slowly crumpled, giving way to a look of total despair. As his eyes welled with tears, Dave walked him to his patrol car amid a smattering of applause and whistles from the road below. He opened the back door and deposited Frank inside.

As Dave was shutting the door, he saw his brother Alex approaching, walking with the self-assured gait and commanding manner of a police detective born to the job. Essence of cop oozed out of every pore in his body, but that wasn’t surprising. Law enforcement was a profession as inherent to the DeMarco family as politics were to the Kennedys.

“Heard your radio call,” Alex said. “Thought I’d come by and see what all the commotion was about. You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice work. Got here just in time to see you pull him back.”

Yeah, he’d kept Frank from taking a dive today. But who was going to stop him next time? And there would be a next time.

There was
always
a next time.

“Pretty slick,” Alex said. “So what did you say to the guy to get in close enough to grab him?”

Dave looked away, hating the admiration he saw in his brother’s eyes.
I told him I didn’t give a shit about his problems, that he could leap off that overpass right into a body
bag for all I cared.

“The usual. Got his name. Established rapport. Kept him talking. Told him that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. You know. Procedure.”

He nearly choked on the word. He wasn’t sure he was in the frame of mind to follow procedure again as long as he lived.

“I heard the lieutenant say once that they should loan you out for the Middle East peace talks,” Alex said. “In twenty-four hours the Arabs and Israelis would be one big happy family.”

Dave faced his brother. “To tell you the truth, Alex, right about now I’d probably tell both sides to solve their own problems and leave me the hell out of it.” He turned to get into his patrol car.

“Dave. Wait.”

“I’ve got to get this guy to Tolosa Medical.”

“Yeah, okay, but when you’re finished, why don’t we go for a couple of beers? I’ll buy.”

“I’ve got to get home.”

“Aunt Louisa will keep Ashley a little while longer.”

Dave turned back. “No. Not tonight. She’s been having a little trouble at school, and—”

“Trouble?”

“Nothing big. Big to a five-year-old, I guess. I’ve got to get home.”

Dave started to get into the patrol car again, and Alex caught his arm. “Then forget you. Think about me. I don’t get a chance to go out very often, you know. Ever since Val and I got married, she’s been keeping me on a pretty tight leash.” Alex leaned closer and spoke confidentially. “She’s got an evening surveillance tonight. If I play my cards right, she’ll never know I stepped out for a drink or two.”

That was as big a load of bullshit as Dave had ever heard. A private investigator, Val was hardly one of those women who expected their man front and center at the dinner table every evening at six o’clock. Dave heard what Alex was really saying.

Something’s eating you. Have a beer or two. Forget about
it, just for a little while.

Dave sighed with resignation. “Okay. I’ll come by for a quick one.”

Alex stepped away from the car. “I’ll call John and tell him to come along.”

Their brother, John, had also embraced the family business, which meant it had been a triple victory for their father, Joseph DeMarco. Even years after being killed in the line of duty, he was still a legend in the Tolosa Police Department. Growing up in that kind of shadow, had any of them really had a choice of occupation?

Alex pointed at Dave as he walked away. “The Onion. Six o’clock. Be there.”

Dave nodded and got into his car, refusing to acknowledge the fact that Frank was sitting in his backseat, tears streaming down his face and dripping onto his silk tie. And it wasn’t until Dave was halfway to the hospital that his hands started to shake and the realization of what he’d done smacked him like a brick to the side of the head.

You told that poor bastard to jump.

And now all Dave could think about was,
What if he had?

The Blue Onion was a grubby little beer joint and pool hall, the hangout of choice for most of the cops who worked the south side. Dave had never been able to figure out why. Grime coated the tables, the rancid odor of stale smoke filled the air, and the felt on the pool tables looked as if rats had gnawed on it. It was just the kind of dirty, rowdy, in-your-face establishment that he generally took great pains to avoid. Among Tolosa cops, though, tradition died hard.

He met Alex at six o’clock, just as he said he would, intending to stay for a couple of drinks, watch a little of the Mavericks game, then head out. They grabbed a table next to the wall, and John joined them a few minutes later.

“About time you came out for a beer,” John said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how to have a good time.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been a hermit.”

“Will you shut up? I’m here now, aren’t I?”

John glanced at Alex with one of those “yep, something’s up with him” looks. Subtlety had never been one of John’s long suits.

“Heard you had a jumper today,” John said as if he was just making idle conversation. “Talked your way up to him, then grabbed him right off the ledge. That took balls.”

Actually, balls hadn’t been required. A eunuch could have pulled that one off, as long as the eunuch was a fed-up cop who didn’t give a damn if he stepped over the line.

Way over.

As Dave was transporting Frank to the psych ward at Tolosa Medical Center, he kept picturing him sailing over that wall, his coat ballooning up behind him, his tie quivering in the wind, falling like a hawk taking a nosedive—right up to the moment when he wasn’t falling anymore. Then somebody would have cleaned up the mess and everyone would have patted Dave on the back and told him that of course he’d done everything he could. That you couldn’t win them all. Better luck next time.

“It was no big deal,” Dave said to John. “He had no intention of jumping.”

“Bullshit,” John said. “You can never tell. You think you’re dealing with rational people, but they’re not rational. Not even close. Saw a cop talking a woman down once who swore she wasn’t going to jump. He almost had his hands on her when she shifted gears and took a dive.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

Thank you, John, for making me feel so much better.

Dave drained his first beer, wondering how many more he’d have to drink before it took the edge off the way he felt right now. All he wanted to do was shove what had happened today to the back of his mind and pretend it had never happened.

“You said Ashley had a problem,” Alex said. “What’s up with that?”

Dave sighed heavily. “It’s nothing. Some kid on the playground smacked her with a swing.”

“So tell her to smack him back,” Alex said.

“She sat down in the corner of the playground and cried.”

“Well, that’s not going to cut it,” John said. “She needs to learn not to take any crap. Once the other kids know she’ll stand up for herself, they won’t bother her anymore.”

“Come on, John. Can you really see Ashley hauling off and belting another kid?”

His brothers looked down at their beers.

Timidity was an unheard of characteristic in the DeMarco family, and it worried Dave that it seemed to dominate Ashley’s personality. Then again, Ashley took after her mother far more than she took after him. She had none of the dark ruggedness of the DeMarco family, her face instead reflecting the tender features of her mother: sandy blond hair, brows fanning out in a gentle arch, ivory skin, delicate mouth. Even though Carla had been dead over four years now, barely a moment passed when he looked at his daughter that he didn’t see his wife’s face.

That night four years ago, Carla’s car had sailed through the guardrail and off an icy bridge, plunging nose-first twenty feet down into the vast darkness of the frigid water below. What Dave had never told his brothers, never told anyone, was exactly what her death had done to him, and how he could live to be a thousand and still he wouldn’t be able to put that night out of his mind.

“Maybe I need to go out on that playground,” Dave said. “Grab the kid by the collar. Have a word with him.”

“Yeah, and then his father’s attorney will have a word with you,” Alex said. “It’s one thing for Ashley to beat up on a kid. It’s another thing for her father to do the job.”

“You’re a cop,” John said. “I can see the headlines now.”

“Let her fight her own battles,” Alex said. “Eventually she’ll learn to kick some ass.”

“Not that you can’t teach her a move or two,” John said, then turned to Alex. “But excuse me. If a boy hurts a girl, it’s not his ass that needs kicking.”

Dave shook his head with disgust. “Great. Next I’ll be stashing a grenade in her Barbie lunch box, just in case something really big goes down.”

“Barbie,” John said, rolling his eyes. “Jesus, Dave. There’s half your problem right there. Give her a role model with puffy blond hair and thirty-eight double-D boobs. I’ll bet she takes all kinds of crap off Ken.”

“A doll is not a role model.”

“So get her a mother.”

So get her a mother. As if it were that easy. “Yeah. I’ll pick one up tomorrow on my way home from the station.”

“At least date once in a while. When’s the last time you even went out? You can’t buy a thing if you don’t go shopping.”

He expected those kinds of questions from his sister, Sandy. That his brothers were starting in on him, too, told him his dateless status had reached crisis proportions.

“How long has it been since you got up close and personal with a woman?” Alex asked. “Maybe that would improve your disposition.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my disposition.”

“Why don’t you let Ashley stay with Renee and me one night?” John said. “That way you can invite a woman over. You know. Have a little privacy.”

Privacy. Right. He might as well plaster a sign on his front door in big red letters: DAVE’S FINALLY GETTING SOME—DO NOT DISTURB. As if his family didn’t already stick their noses into every other aspect of his life, they were moving in to take a ringside seat around his bed, too.

“I’ll pass on that,” Dave said. “But you know, the second I decide I want the whole world to know I’m getting laid, you’ll be the first one I call.”

“Hey, just trying to help, little brother.”

His family. By the time they got through helping him, he really
did
need help.

Dave tried to turn his attention back to the game, but all at once he was struck by a monumental case of envy for what his brothers had that he didn’t. Their wives moved in symbiosis with them, filling in their blanks. Renee was a calming influence over John, arresting his sometimes hotheaded nature, while Val was the only woman on earth who could kick Alex’s ass and leave him with a smile on his face. Not that they didn’t fight once in a while. Both couples could go at it like the WWF on a Saturday night. But their love for each other was never in question, and Dave wondered every day how he’d ended up the odd man out.

So get her a mother.

Everything came right back around to that, because, you know, after four years, he really ought to be getting on with things. After all, he’d taken Carla’s death so well. That was Dave. He always made the best of things. Stuff rolled right off him, and then he moved on.

Yeah. Right.

There had been a time in his life when he’d felt sure of everything, but with every year that had passed since Carla’s death he’d become more and more certain that he had no control over anything. Where Ashley was concerned, all he wanted to do was love and protect her, but sometimes he felt as if he was doing a really shitty job of being Mom and Dad all rolled into one. Hell, if he didn’t have a clue what to do about her kindergarten playground problems, what was he going to do when things really got tough?

He knew what it was like to grow up without a mother. His had died when he was only six. So for Ashley’s sake, he knew he needed to be thinking seriously about getting married again. And if he did, he would just keep on wearing that mask that said he had it all under control, that life was just wonderful, that he’d weathered the storm of his wife’s death and gone on to find love and happiness a second time.