Stephen Brust - The Gypsy

"1 know," he said. "But it's the only thing I have left, so I'm saying it. Please."

She said nothing as a secretary tip-tapped past them in high heels, but as soon as she was safely out of hearing range, she leaned closer to Stepovich and hissed, "Listen, I know I owe you. And I've said any number of times that I'd make it up to you in anyway I could. But I didn't mean something like this!This is bending a lot of rules, Mike. And people like us don't do that. It's one of the reasons we get along so well. So don't ask me."

He clenched his teeth a moment, standing with his head lowered. He knew it wasn't fair. He knew this wasn't the kind of thing she'd meant when she'd promised to pay the favor back. She'd meant dinner at her house, or an evening out at her expense or something else that might have led to places he wasn't ready to go. Not a favor that could lead to her losing her job. So she was upset, not just because he'd asked for this, but because he'd never asked her for the other. She put her hand on the door of the ladies' room again. He'd deliberately caught Marilyn out in the hall, away from her computer and coworkers. She probably had to go to the John pretty bad, and she'd already told him "no" twice. But he needed help. And he'd been the one to go in and find her nephew in that rat-ridden flophouse, and drag him out and help Marilyn drive him across to Pennsylvania and check him into a drug rehab center. Marilyn wasn't even the kid's legal guardian. They'd bent a rule or two then, and she knew it. He'd sweated day and night for six weeks that the kid was going to have his parents press some kind of kidnapping charges. But Stepovich had done it, because even if it was against the rules, it was still right. And maybe what he was asking of Marilyn was the right thing to do also.Maybe.

"Please."

She spun on him, a transcription clerk with doggie brown eyes, suddenly transformed into a hellcat. She took a step toward him and he involuntarily stepped back, expecting to feel the rake of her nails. But she snatched at his sleeve and pulled him closer.

"Listen!" she hissed, sharp as broken glass. "Give me that damn description, and I'll do a search. Nationwide, if that's what you want, and to hell with my job if someone wonders why I'm using unauthorized link time. But listen, pal, you gotta do something for me, too. And then we're going to call it square and no more favors between us, right?"

Stepovich hated the way this was going. Marilyn wasn't his friend, exactly, but they'd been good at working together, more than acquaintances. She'd thought that he would never ask her to put it on the line for him, not on something like this, anyway. But,damnit, it was the only thing he could think of to do.Bend a few more rules to get himself back on the right track. Bend them so he could clean up the mess he'd made of things with the Gypsy thing. He didn't hesitate to grant her favor, but only asked, "What is it?"

"You put a muzzle on that horny little shit you calla partner, that's what! He's hitting on Tiffany Marie two and three times a week. You tell him she's no whore, not anymore, and he'd damn well better quit treating her like one."

"Okay, okay," Stepovich muttered. He felt like he'd just stepped in dog manure, Durand and Tiffany Marie? Next Dumbshit would be going after the jumprope and jacks set. Marilyn snatched the carefully wrought description from his hand, and spun away to the rest room. "I'll call you tonight, okay?" he said after her. She gave no sign of hearing him, but he was sure she had. She pushed the door open so hard it bounced off the stopper. He turned away. The day had turned rancid, all its good intentions gone to slickness and deceit.

He knew he'd lost whatever it was they'd shared,mutual respect, whatever it was. She'd never trust him after this, and he'd miss that. But she was the only one he knew who could take his carefully remembered description of the Gypsy and turn it into possible names and criminal histories, without his having to fill out a bunch of forms and official requests.

He stuck his head into the coffee room. The walls were lined with vending machines, and folding tables with singularly uncomfortable attached stools filled the center of the room, Durand was there. He'd solved the stool problem by sitting on the table. He had a cup of coffee steaming next to him and was trying to coax a Twinkle out of its wrapper. "Durand!Let's go!" was all Stepovich said, and then continued down the hall. He heard his partner's protesting cry of, "Hey, just a second…," but he didn't pause. He picked up their shotgun and radio and went outside into a sulking grey morning and down the back steps.

He found their assigned car for the day and did his standard walkaround, looking for unreported scratches and dents that the previous shift might have left on the car. It was okay. The bright blue shield on the door said, LAKOTA POLICE DEPARTMENT, and under it. TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE. He grimaced. Once, he and Ed had painted over the shield on Richart's unit the motto, OVER 4 MILLION BUSTED. It didn't seem so funny anymore.

He unlocked the back door and jerked out the seat,checking under it for any little goodies the last passengers might have left behind. Once he'd found half a gram of coke under the seat, and another time there'd been a zip gun. Stepovich didn't believe in leaving anything to chance. Never assume the night shift had checked under the seats.

He'd finished his inspection and put the back seat in and was behind the wheel before Durand came outside. Durand got in, shaking hot coffee from his fingers. Stepovich glanced at him briefly before turning the key. "Wipe the Twinkie cum off your chin,"he told him in disgust as he slammed the car into gear.

Durand scrubbed guiltily at a smear of white frosting before demanding, "What the hell's eating you?"He slurped coffee from a paper cup.

Stepovich gunned the engine to see if he could make Dumbshit spill coffee on himself. No luck."Nothing. You got to talk all the time? Can't we ever just shut up in here?"

"Sure, boss," said Durand ironically. "You want quiet, you got quiet."

The quiet lasted perhaps forty-five seconds before the first calls sparked out of the radio. The Exxon Basher had struck again late last night and Little Philly precinct got stuck with the follow-up, and there was a cold burglary, which Durand jumped on. Stepovich hated them. There were too damn many of them, and he couldn't feel anything about them anymore. East Lee, this time, in an apartment building that was trying to pretend it wasn't in Little Philly. Someone had just painted the lobby, but the graffiti was already bleeding through the white paint. Second floor,apartment E. The girl who let them in looked like she'd been crying. She couldn't have been more than twenty.

"I was just gone overnight," she said. She was trying to keep her voice from quivering. "And when I got back this morning…"

Stepovich let Durand do it. It was all just routine these days. They were supposed to remember that no matter how many burglaries they saw every day, for each victim this was the one that mattered. He knew she felt violated, outraged, and scared. He knew she was wondering, if they got in here while I was gone,will they come back when I'm here, when I'm asleep and alone? But there'd just been too many of them lately.

Durand took down all the routine stuff. When did she leave, when did she come back, how'd they get in, what was missing, who knew she was gone, had she suspicions about anyone, and all the rest of it. By the time he was finished, it sounded like the ex-boyfriend, and that too was becoming routine. Durand took his name and number and address and description,more to make me girl feel better than to act on it. Chances were they'd never get enough evidence to bust him. Durand went through the spiel-suggesting dowels in the tracks of the sliding windows and a new dead bolt on the door. Stepovich only listened with half an ear. He knew, even if the girl didn't, that it wasn't that bad.Whoever had done it had known what he was after and had simply taken those items. The place hadn't been tossed or trashed. He knew from what she'd said,though, that this was the very first place she'd lived all on her own, and that what had happened had taken some of the shiny off it. He looked around, at the stuffed yarn cat doorstop and the doilies on the end table and the half-finished afghan in the basket by the coffee table. It reminded him of a little girl's playhouse, each thing just so, as if the idea of living there was more important than the reality of it. Her canisters in the kitchenette were labeled, and he'd bet there really was tea in the one that said tea, and that the spices on her spice rack were alphabetical. The towels in the bathroom all matched, and the three potted plants on the windowsill were in color-coordinated pots. Barbie's first apartment,the doll set might say, and he knew with a sudden ache that someday Laurie would want a place like this, with a ceramic spoon-rest on the little range top and copper pots hung in order by size.