J. Konrath - Cherry Bomb

He shakes his head, his whole body twitching, and slowly raises his empty hands. Alex digs into his pocket, takes out a battered.22. She tucks it into her belt.

“Do yourself a favor, kid, and quit crime. You suck at it.”

She walks out of the store with a cop swagger and a cart full of merchandise she didn’t pay for.

PHIN AND I STARED AT EACH OTHER for a little bit. I put on my cop face to keep my emotions hidden. But instead of Phin wearing his tough-guy face, he looked like the last kid picked for kickball.

“I’m not going to be around for long,” he said.

I folded my arms. “I’m not forcing you to help me, Phin. You can leave whenever you want to.”

“I meant being alive. I’m dying of cancer, Jack. I might not make it through winter.”

“Oh.” I was trying to be strong, not be an asshole. “Sorry.”

“It’s just-women carry pregnancy tests for two reasons. Because they think they’re pregnant…”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“…or because they want to get pregnant.”

“I don’t want to get pregnant. And you had no right to search my purse.”

“I wasn’t searching your purse. You told me to take money for donuts.”

“And you saw something wrapped in toilet paper and decided to take a look?”

“It wasn’t wrapped in toilet paper. It was sitting on top of your wallet.”

I wasn’t buying. I reached into my purse, pulled out the wad of toilet paper I’d used to wrap up the EPT, and waved it like a surrender flag.

“Are you saying this isn’t toilet paper?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, that’s toilet paper. But it wasn’t wrapped around anything.”

“Why else would I have toilet paper in my purse?”

Phin shrugged. “Emergencies? Afraid of being caught without it? How should I know? I’m not a chick, I don’t own a purse. I don’t know why you women keep half that stuff in there.”

“I only keep essentials in my purse.”

“You’ve got a wind-up plastic nun in there.”

“That’s Nunzilla. She shoots sparks out of her mouth.”

“That’s essential?”

“It was…a gift.”

Latham gave it to me, on our first-year anniversary.

“Look, I know you’re hurting. I know you miss him a lot. But if you’re trying to get pregnant to fill a void in your life, you should find a father who will be around for a while.”

I wasn’t sure what rankled more, Phin thinking I slept with him to get pregnant, or Phin thinking I needed a child to fill some void in my life.

“It’s not any of your business, but since you brought it up, I missed my last period and thought I might be pregnant, so I bought a pregnancy test when we were at the gas station last night. If you’d bothered to look closer, you’d see there was only one blue line, not two. I’m not pregnant, so this conversation is over.”

Phin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then cupped his elbow and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I believe you,” he said.

“Good. Because I’m telling the truth.”

“But if it’s negative, why did you save it?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. What was I supposed to tell him? That part of me wanted to be pregnant, so I could always have part of Latham with me? That maybe I did have a void that needed to be filled? That keeping a negative pregnancy test was one more way I could punish myself, as a reminder of what never would be?

I wasn’t ready to tell him that. Especially when he was high on coke.

“If you think I slept with you because I wanted a sperm donor-”

He raised his palms. “I’m just trying to understand you a little better.”

“Why? Why the hell do you need to understand me?”

“Because…”

He gave me that look again and I knew that he was going to say the L word, and I did not need to deal with that right now.

“Never mind,” I interrupted. “We need to get to Gurnee and meet Harry. You want to drive, or rifle through my purse some more?”

He went from lovey-dovey to wounded, which I preferred.

“I’ll drive.”

I followed Phin out to the Bronco. The day was gray, overcast, and matched my mood. We got in the truck and didn’t say anything to each other for the first half hour of the drive. I finally got hungry and picked out one of the donuts he bought.

“Sprinkles,” I said, after swallowing a bite.

“Excuse me?”

“I like donuts with sprinkles.”

“Oh. Good to know. Anything you want to know about me?”

He sniffled, rubbed his nose. I resisted the temptation to ask which coke he preferred, Colombian or Panamanian. I also resisted asking him about criminal acts he’d committed in his past. I was curious how bad this bad boy really was, but I was also a cop and might feel compelled to act on the information. Sometimes ignorance makes things easier.

“Does it hurt?” I asked instead.

“The cancer?”

I nodded.

“Only some of the time.”

“When doesn’t it hurt?”

“When I’m asleep.”

“The pain is bad?”

He nodded, took one hand off the wheel to rub his elbow again. I reached out, touched his injury.

“Jesus, Phin! It feels like you have a beanbag in your elbow.”

“It’s pieces of cartilage. I’m supposed to keep it immobile.”

“You should have it in a sling. You don’t want permanent damage.”

“It won’t be permanent,” he said.

He didn’t say it with regret, or self-pity. He said it matter-of-factly, like he was talking about the weather.

I’d met some tough guys. Cops. Military. Bikers. Mobsters. Killers. With one sentence, Phin took the tough-guy crown. Which made me want to kiss him.

Jesus, this was messed up.

The phone rang. I cringed, thinking it was Alex, but it was Harry again.

“Where you at, sis?”

“We’re taking the Gurnee exit now.”

“I’m on the north side of the mall. Knock three times.”

“What about that deal you made?” I asked, referring to him selling out Phin to the Feds. I didn’t want to walk into a Feebie party.

“Not until we catch Alex. Trust me.”

Gurnee Mills was one of the largest malls in America, but the Crimebago was easy to find, even in the packed parking lot. Phin pulled up behind it, and I knocked three times like Harry instructed.

“Door’s open!” he called from inside.

Upon opening the door, I was greeted by a nasty smell. Not the normal nasty smell I associated with Harry. Something far worse.

“Jesus, Harry, it stinks in here.”

“I’m working on that.”

Harry was in a rumpled suit, stained with wet spots of various colors. He was holding a handful of those cardboard pine-scented car fresheners shaped like Christmas trees. But I wasn’t smelling pine. I was smelling zoo on a hot day.

There was a scream to our left, and I dropped to one knee and struggled to dig my gun out of my purse. When I got it in my hand Harry grabbed my wrist.

“Sis, don’t shoot Slappy!”

Another screech. I followed the sound to a large wire cage. Inside the cage was a monkey. It was light brown, perhaps eight or nine pounds, with large brown eyes and the cutest little monkey face.

I put my gun away.

“This is the extra help you recruited?” I asked.

He nodded, grinning. “He’s a pig-tailed macaque.” Harry said it mack-a-cue.

“I think it’s pronounced ma-kak,” Phin said.

Harry scratched his stubble. “That’s not what Al told me.”

“Al?”

“Al at Al’s Exotic Pets, in Deer Park. He sold him to me this morning.”

“He’s adorable,” I said, meaning it. “Why’d you name him Slappy?”

On cue, the monkey slapped himself on the side of the head. He did this over and over, increasing in speed and force. The sound wasn’t unlike applause.