Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“I wish I’d stayed home last night,” she said, then walked to the Suburban and got in the passenger side.

She slammed the door and Bailey backed out of the driveway, turned and flipped him off, mouthing “fuck you” from behind the window before driving away. Roberts would follow on the off chance he’d lead them somewhere. Marquez watched the rest of the team filter out of the house and looked at the warped garage door, the avocado paint peeling off it. What did they have on Bailey? Forty cardboard boxes. Heinemann’s story, which would need some evidence to be worth much.

What they had didn’t add up to much yet. He watched Alvarez messing with trying to close the front door, running crime tape through the lock bore hole and trying to tie it off on the porch. Bailey’s lawyer was probably already drafting a letter saying his client had been right there willing to open the door and never got the chance. Where was Bailey getting the money to hire a lawyer like Alberto Cruz? The blown-out front door would sound like macho bullshit to Keeler and in combination with the lost equipment, he knew it was going to get rough with the chief soon unless they came up with something.

“Hey, Lieutenant, how do you want to leave this? It keeps blowing open.” Alvarez grinned at him. “What did you guys do in the DEA when you kicked in doors?”

“Throw a chair behind it and go out the back door.”

He’d leave two wardens down here and take the rest north for the Heinemann release. He’d sit down with Heinemann this after-noon. Marquez talked through all of it now with the team before they split up.

On the drive north as he was coming through Pacifica he took a call from Petersen. There was a light wind off the water and he watched a line of pelicans above the surf as they talked.

“Will we get any help from her?” Petersen asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“Meghan’s pretty tough. She uses her sex like a cutting knife. You could try her, but I can’t connect with her.”

“That type usually talks to you.”

“Not this one.”

Marquez heard another woman’s voice, then Petersen’s name called out loudly, not her alias either. It made him smile. She’d already told him she was in line to get a sonogram, sitting in a wait-ing room listening to the chatter as she waited for her appointment.

“I’ve got to go, John.”

“I can hear. Good luck with the sonogram.”

“Do you want to meet me in Richmond or in Marin?”

“I’m going through the City first. I’ll call you.”

He slowed at a stoplight and lost the pelicans. Forty minutes later he was in San Francisco, a strange nervousness turning in him as he parked and walked down to Presto.

He could see Katherine behind the zinc counter, her smile loose and easy as she joked with one of her employees, and then her expression changed as he walked in. The smile stayed but her eyes clouded and she lifted a hand to wave hello before saying, “Just a minute, John. I’ve got to do one thing in back.”

Marquez looked around at what Katherine had made here, the smooth limestone, the tall doors that folded like an accordion, tables with a couple of solos working laptops, the sunlight slanting in across the stone and onto the counter where a young guy was working the espresso machine and a woman with purple hair and a ring in her nose was taking orders. He looked through the glass at a plate of sandwiches cut in triangular shapes, little panini, she called them. She’d made a place that felt good to be in. It was easy to be here and he wondered about making a different life himself, something that fit better for both of them. Take a round table in the sunlight, drink a coffee and read a newspaper, take a long run along Stinson Beach and not worry about the Klines and Baileys of the world. He could get a different job and it wouldn’t be so hard with Katherine. She came out from the back office now and then around from behind the bar, leaning toward him and kissing him, her face flushing as she did.

“I was coming through and thought I’d stop and see you.”

“I have to walk down to the florist. Do you want to come with me?”

“Sure.”

They walked in the sunlight down the sidewalk and she told him about her conversation with Maria and how little Maria had eaten yesterday. An orange, less granola than you’d feed a pigeon, half a banana.

“Not a whole banana, John, half a banana because she said a whole one would make her vomit.”

“How much weight do you think she’s lost?”

“She won’t get on a scale with me around and she claims she has never felt better.”

He’d gone on the Net and read what kind of problem anorexia was with teenage girls and young women, and that’s what Kather-ine was talking now, although Maria had yet to see her regular doctor. Now, he asked the question he’d been carrying around.

“How much do you think is caused by you and me?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure it figures in, but she’s the one with the problem.”

“What do you tell her about us?”

“Lately, that I’m discouraged. She needs to know the truth. She doesn’t need any more bombshells.” Katherine slowed to a stop and looked at his face. “The truth is we’ve been separated five months and not much has changed. We’re still arguing.”

“We may always argue.”

“What do you think I should tell her?”

“That we’re trying to work it out.”

“I don’t see you trying very hard, John.”

“I’m here to see you, right now.”

“Unannounced and on your way to somewhere else. Our mar-riage has never come first. You were too used to being on your own when I met you.” Her eyes glistened and she shook her head. “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known and I don’t want to fight with you, but you’re never going to put us first.” Tears started and she wiped them away angrily. “I think I’ve done all I can.”

“Why don’t you move back in and I’ll resign as patrol lieu-tenant. I’ll find another line of work.”

“You can’t do that.” She shook her head. “I have to go to the florist. I have somebody coming right now that I have to meet.” He stepped forward and put his arms around her. He felt her break and her chest heaved with quiet sobs. “I feel like my dreams are gone,” she said, and he couldn’t hear the rest. He wiped her tears and she took hold of his face and pressed hers against his and he felt her hot tears on his skin. “John, John, this is so hard for me, but I don’t know if we’re getting anywhere and I’m really afraid.”

“Move back in with me.”

“I can’t.”

And for the first time he realized the marriage might end. She reached up, touched his lips with her fingers, then turned and went down two doors and into the florist shop. He walked back to his truck and everything he was doing felt diminished and less important than it had an hour ago. He started the truck and dropped down toward Lombard, driving slowly, his thoughts clouded in confusion at what he couldn’t seem to grasp. He took a call now from Alvarez.

“Bailey dropped Meghan at a house in Santa Cruz and came back to Half Moon. He’s at a bar. We’re with him?”

“Stay with him.”

“You all right? You sound funny.”

“I’m good. I’m on my way to Heinemann.”

He was on Lombard running toward the Golden Gate Bridge with a desperation to make things right with Katherine, but with a new uncertainty and wondering what to make of it. He sat in the center lane on Lombard until he noticed a white sedan that he thought he’d seen earlier when he was on the sidewalk with Katherine, a government Crown Vic hanging three lights back now but pacing the pack he was in. Marquez changed to the right lane and then turned right at the next corner, dropped down to Chest-nut and turned left into boutique and tourist traffic that moved at no more than twenty. He went two blocks and then saw the flash of the sedan’s white side as it turned onto Chestnut.