Brad Parks - The Good Cop

“Yeah, actually I do mind. Can’t they just call me?”

“What, you have a hot date or something?”

I shrugged. This is where my relationship with Tina was altogether too complicated-moral of story: never get involved with a woman who might end up being your boss-and I thought about keeping my mouth shut. Then again, having started work at the ungodly hour of 8:38, I felt the Eagle-Examiner had gotten enough of my time for one day.

“Yeah, maybe I do,” I said.

“Oh, what, with that mousy little thing in the library? What’s her name, anyway? Minnie? Maisy?”

Tina knew Kira’s name, of course. She was obviously trying to get a rise out of me, and I wasn’t going to take the bait. Don’t engage, don’t engage, don’t engage …

“You get her to go out with you by offering a wedge of cheese or something?” Tina asked. “You know, peanut butter works better. Or, wait, you’re using those little glue traps, aren’t you? Very humane of you.”

I kept my jaw clenched. She kept prodding: “Just to warn you, some Irish women don’t age well. I’m sure she looks fine now, but by the time she’s forty, she’ll have more wrinkles than a linen suit.”

Don’t engage, don’t engage, don’t engage …

“What do you see in her, anyway?” Tina asked.

Unable to hold myself in check any longer, I fired back, “I see someone who doesn’t try to screw with my head all the time and is actually interested in a normal, steady relationship. I see someone who doesn’t have a million ridiculous issues about commitment. I see someone who isn’t afraid to fall in love just because she may have failed at it in the past.”

Tina had been smiling-albeit maliciously-when she was making her mouse jokes. But now the smile had been replaced by this hard mask.

“Great,” she snarled. “Normal. Committed. Have fun with that, big guy. Does she make you turn the lights out during sex? Keep her eyes closed the whole time?”

I was going for blood now: “Actually, we mostly do it in public places. She likes it when people watch. She says it makes the orgasms better. Wanna bring your pom-poms sometime? Cheer us on?”

“If you’re involved? I think I’d rather watch bowling on TV. More action.”

I inhaled to respond-something about how the pins probably stood a better chance of getting knocked up than her-then stopped myself. I just couldn’t believe the venom that was coming out of my mouth. Why was I trying to hurt her? For whatever might have happened between Tina and I-and it had been too stunted and strained to ever really find out what it was-we were still friends, or something, at one point. We had cared about each other, or at least I thought we did.

Now here we were, going after each other like we were on opposite sides of the table in a divorce lawyer’s office, trying to singe each other’s skin with our words.

She was standing there, braced, like she was waiting for the next salvo. Instead, I said, “Tina, what the hell? Can’t we at least be civil to each other?”

“Relax. I’m just busting your chops. Don’t take it so seriously. There’s no need to get all girly on me.”

“Ah, so you’re not at all upset that I started dating Kira? Because, you know, the way you’ve been acting around me lately I would beg to differ.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, the mask still in place. “Because I asked you to stay late tonight rather than … whatever you were going to do?”

“Tina, we barely talk anymore…”

“You think I really care that much what you do after work? Don’t flatter yourself. Look, you’re a damn good reporter-my best, if you have to know. That’s the only thing that matters to me. Whatever chick you’re bouncing on your balls is none of my business.”

“You’re … you’re really going to play that game?”

“It’s no game, stud,” she said. “Anyhow, since you’re not sticking around, I have to. Someone has to make sure the desk doesn’t massacre this thing. Have a nice night. Just keep your cell on, okay?”

She walked away without bothering to hear my answer.

* * *

I was in such a foul mood about Tina, I forgot all about dinner-which would prove to be something of a mistake-and instead talked Kira into leaving five minutes early. It was either that or lure her into making out in Tina’s office. And I figured that would just make things worse.

We got in my Malibu and started driving toward an address just off University Avenue. I half expected she might have changed into after-work garb-Kira seemed to celebrate Halloween roughly a hundred times a year-but she was still in the dark pink sweater set she had worn to work.

“So tell me about this party we’re going to,” I said as I maneuvered out of the parking garage.

“Well, it’s hosted by this guy named Powell.”

“Powell? Is that his first name or his last name?”

“Actually, his name is Paul,” Kira said. “But he prefers people pronounce it Powell. Like he’s foreign. He’s really from Mahwah. I guess he thinks it gives him mystique.”

“Ah, mystique.”

“Yeah, he’s a bit of a character.”

“You don’t say.”

“Wait until you meet him,” she said, lightly tracing the bones of my right hand with her fingers. “He is getting a Ph.D. in what he calls ‘Death Studies.’”

“I didn’t realize Rutgers-Newark offered courses in Death Studies.”

“They didn’t until Powell came along. I’m not sure how he talked them into it. He’s basically just making it up as he goes along. He takes courses from the School of Criminal Justice, the Law School, even the Nursing School.”

“The nursing school has a course on death?”

“Oh, I have no idea. I met him because he was taking a library sciences class at the New Brunswick campus. I think maybe he just likes being a student.”

“I’m sure his parents love that,” I said.

“I think they have enough money that it doesn’t really matter.”

“Mmm,” I said, and left it at that. A guy with my background couldn’t exactly make a wisecrack about the Lucky Sperm Club simply because I didn’t have a trust fund waiting for me.

We drove until I pulled up in front of a five- or six-story industrial-looking building badly in need of a paint job. A hundred years ago it might have been some kind of flourishing factory. But now it was dark and appeared to be abandoned.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s the coolest thing. It’s this loft. I think the lower floors are still being renovated by someone who is going to turn it into condos or something. But they started with the top floor and that’s where Powell lives.”

An artist’s loft. In Newark. Could trendy, overpriced boutiques be far behind?

We rode a creaky elevator up to the top floor, which, sure enough, looked like it had been transplanted from Greenwich Village, with high ceilings, hardwood floors, and exposed brick. There were no lights on, just votive candles set in the broad windowsills. Most of the furnishings-what little I could detect in the dark-were milk crates that had been creatively stacked together. I detected a few life-forms sprawled on pillows and blankets on the floor. It was all very bohemian.

“Welcome,” I heard someone say. It was the voice of a man trying to sound like Vincent Price but failing.

“Hi, Powell!” Kira chirped out.

A young man with perfectly mussed dark brown hair and black eyeliner approached and kissed Kira on the cheek. He was about my height but scrawny and ghostly pale, perhaps with the aid of foundation makeup. He wore skinny black jeans and a tight black T-shirt and also had a variety of piercings on his face and ears. His neck and arms were festooned with tattoos, not that I could discern the significance of any of them. He reached out to shake my hand, and I saw he was wearing black nail polish. It was a look that used to be called goth. Now maybe it’s called emo. My parent’s generation would have just called him a freak.