Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“What, you got a hot date with the little woman?”

I didn't move. I could smell the tequila on her. The smell was so heavy it could have been leaking from her pores.

Dolan stared at me in the hard way she has, but then her eyes softened. She shook her head, and all the arrogance was gone. “It isn't a good time for me, either, World's Greatest. Bishop fired me. He's transferring me out of Robbery-Homicide.”

I stepped out of the door and let her in. I felt awkward and small, and guilty for what happened to her, which stacked nicely atop the guilt I felt about Lucy.

I took out the bottle of Cuervo 1800 and poured a couple of fingers into a glass.

“More.”

I gave her more.

“You're not going to have one with me?”

“I've got some beer.”

Dolan sipped the tequila, then took a deep breath and let it out.

“Christ, that's good.”

“How much have you had?”

“Not nearly enough.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Had a little tiff with your friend?”

“Who?”

“I'm not talking about your cat, stupid. The little woman.” Dolan tipped her glass toward the kitchen. “A purse is sitting on your counter. You aren't the only detective in the house.” She realized what she'd said, and had more of the drink. “Well. Maybe you are.”

Lucy's purse was by the refrigerator, put there when she'd set down the bags. She'd taken her clothes, but forgotten the purse.

Dolan had more of the tequila, then leaned against the counter. “Pike wasn't smart, playing it this way. You talk to him, you should get him to turn himself in.”

“He won't do that.”

“This doesn't help him look innocent.”

“I guess he figures that if the police aren't going to try to clear him, he should do it himself.”

“Maybe we shouldn't talk about this.”

“Maybe not.”

“It just looks bad, is what I'm saying.”

“Let's not talk about it.”

The two of us stood there. It's always a laugh a minute at Chez Cole. I asked her if she wanted to sit, and she did, so we moved into the living room. The tequila followed us.

“I'm sorry about Bishop.”

Dolan shook her head, thoughtful.

She said, “Pike would've been in uniform just before I came on. You know what areas he worked?”

“Did a year in Hollenbeck before moving to Rampart.”

“I started in West L.A. There weren't as many women on the force then as now, and what few of us there were got every shit job that came along.”

She seemed as if she wanted to talk, so I let her talk. I was happy with the beer.

“My first day on the job, right out of the Academy, we go to this house and find two feet sticking up out of the ground.”

“Human feet?”

“Yeah. These two human feet are sticking straight up out of the ground.”

“Bare feet?”

“Yeah, Cole, just lemme tell my story, okay? There's these two bare feet sticking up out of the ground behind this house. So we call it in, and our supervisor comes out, and says, ‘Yeah, that's a couple of feet, all right.’ Only we don't know if there's a body attached. I mean, maybe there's a body down there, but maybe it's just a couple of feet somebody planted.”

“Trying to grow corn.”

“Don't try to be funny. Funny is another in the long list of things you can't pull off.”

I nodded. I thought it was pretty funny, but I'd been drinking.

“So we're standing there with these feet, and we can't touch them until the coroner investigator does his thing, only the coroner investigator tells us he won't be able to get out until the next morning. The supervisor says that somebody's gotta guard the feet. I mean, we can't just leave'm there, right? So the supervisor tells me and my partner to watch the feet.”

“Okay.”

She killed the rest of her tequila, and helped herself to another glass as she went on with her story.

“But then we get this disturbance call, and the supervisor tells my partner he'd better respond. He says to leave the girl with the feet.”

“The girl.”

“Yeah, that's me.”

“I'm up with that part, Samantha.”

She took another blast of the tequila and took out her cigarettes.

“No smoking.”

She frowned, but put the cigarettes away.

“So they take off, and now I'm there alone with the feet in back of this abandoned house, and it's spooky as hell. An hour passes. Two hours. They don't come back. I'm calling on my radio, but no one answers, and I am pissed off. I am majorly pissed. Three hours. Then I hear the creepiest sound I ever heard in my life, this kind of ooo-ooo-ooo moaning.”

“What was it?”

“This ghost comes floating between the palm trees. This big white ghost, going ‘ooo-ooo-ooo, I want my feet.’ Real creepy and eerie, see, just like that.”

“Don't tell me. Your partner in a sheet.”

“No, it was the supervisor. He was trying to scare the girl.”

“What did you do?”

“I whip out my Smith and shout, ‘Freeze, motherfucker, LAPD.’ And then I crack off all six rounds point-blank as fast as I can.”

“Dolan. You killed the guy?”

She smiled at me, and it was a lovely smile. “No, you moron. I knew those assholes were going to try some shit like that sooner or later, so I always carried blanks.”

I laughed.

“The supervisor drops to the ground in a little ball, arms over his head, screaming for me not to shoot. I pop all six caps, and then I go over, and say, ‘Hey, Sarge, is this what they mean by foot patrol?’”

I laughed harder, but Dolan took a deep breath and shook her head. I stopped laughing.

“Sam?”

Her eyes turned red, but she shook back the tears. “I put everything I had into this job. I never got married and I didn't have kids, and now it's gone.”

“Can you appeal it? Is there anything you can do?”

“I could request a trial board, but if I go to the board, those pricks could fire me. Bishop just wants me out of Robbery-Homicide. He says I'm not a team player anymore. He says he doesn't trust me.”

“I'm sorry, Samantha. I'm really, really sorry. What happens now?”

“Administrative transfer. I'm on leave until I'm reassigned. They'll put me in one of the divisions, I guess. South Bureau Homicide, maybe, down in South Central.” She looked down at her glass, and seemed surprised that it was empty.

“At least you're still on the job.”

A kindness came to her eyes, as if I was a slow child. “Don't you get it, Cole? Wherever I go, it's downhill. Robbery-Homicide is the top. It's like being in the majors, then having to go down to the farm team in South Buttcrack. Your career's finished. All you're doing is killing time until they make you leave the game. You got any idea what that means to me?”

I didn't know what to say.

“My whole goddamned career has been forcing men like Bishop to let me be a starting player, and now I don't have a goddamned thing.” She looked over at me. “God, I want you.”

I said, “Sam.”

She raised a hand again and shook her head.

“I know. It's the tequila.”

She looked into the empty glass and sighed. She put the glass on the table, and crossed her arms as if she didn't know what to do with herself. She blinked because her eyes were filling again.

She said, “Elvis?”

“What?”

“Will you hold me?”

I didn't move.

“I don't mean like that. I just need to be held, and I don't have anyone else to do it.”

I put down my beer and went over and held her.

Samantha Dolan buried her face in my chest, and after a while the wet of her tears soaked through my shirt. She pulled away and wiped her hands across her face. “This is so pathetic.”