Stephen Brust - The Gypsy

Durand's hands were fists on his knees. Stepovich loosened his grip on the steering wheel. If that damn kid came across the seat at him, he was going to nail the fucker good. He pulled up in front of Norm's and coolly called in their lunch break. He half turned toward Durand when he was done. Right in the mouth was where he was going to hit him if the kid came at him. Smash his big mouth, and to hell with the bloody knuckles.

"You think you're telling me something I don't know?" Durand's voice was thick with an emotion Stepovich couldn't identify.

"No. I think that's all you know. I think you don't know that the last time, Ed and I dumped her on Marilyn's doorstep at two in the morning after they let her out of Emergency. I don't think you know that Marilyn took her in. Tiffany Marie is no whore, Durand. Not anymore. She's going to school at night and she's paying Marilyn a bit of rent and she's going to make something out of herself. All she needed was a chance. What she don't need is you hitting on her and treating her like a whore."

Durand made a move that might have been something that started out to be a punch and ended up a slap on the dashboard instead. "I don't treat her like a whore." Durand's words were as individual as single shots. "Not that it's any of your business."

"You saying you aren't banging her?" Stepovich deliberately baited him.

"I'm saying it's none of your fucking business,"Durand roared, and in the roar was an edge that let Stepovich know one thing and suspect another.

He poked at the idea. "So you ain't screwing her.I suppose you're in love with her skinny ass."

"Fuck you," Durand replied with controlled fury. And he got out of the squad car and walked away,into Norm's. Stepovich slowly followed him in. Long habit made his eyes scan the scene before coming to rest on Durand. He was bellied up to the counter, and Tiffany Marie was already taking his order. Stepovich looked at her, remembering how he and Ed had shook their heads over her name. Tiffany Marie, a diamonds and velvet name for a cracker-butt kid with carroty hair and pink lipstick on a pouty little mouth and eyes made up like a Technicolor raccoon. Tiffany Marie,with hickeys up the side of her neck and chipped fingernail polish and runs in her sexy black mesh nylons.

Shit.

He added up the years. Yeah, she probably was eighteen now, maybe even nineteen. The soft swells under the clean white blouse were probably all hers,and when she turned to pass Durand's order to the cook, her hips weren't exactly the skinny little ass he remembered wrapping a blanket around when he carried her out of that cheap motel. The carroty hair was more like burnished copper now, and was probably long, but he couldn't tell with the way she had it pinned up. Had it been that long since he'd really looked at her? He took the stool next to Durand's,and Tiffany Marie turned to him with a smile. Her lips needed no lipstick and for the first time he realized how blue her eyes were. "Hey, Mike, having the usual?" she asked, and her voice was so casual and warm that he knew Durand hadn't said a word to her about what he'd said in the car.

Stepovich felt slimy.

He glanced at Durand, but the kid wouldn't look at him. The kid. Hell, yes, just a big kid, what was he, twenty-two, twenty-four? Not exactly cradle-snatching for him to be looking at Tiffany Marie. And she was looking back. As she set silverware and napkins before them, it was her hand that brushed against Durand's. He studied Durand in small glances between spoonfuls of chili. What was the kid, six-two,six-three? A little puppy fat on him, maybe, not much. Dark hair, grey eyes. He had a job, he made money regular. He was clean, mostly. He was a dumbshit,but at least he wasn't a drunk or a junkie or a sponge.Probably didn't hit his women. Maybe Tiffany Marie didn't think he was an dumbshit.

Maybe he wasn't a dumbshit around her. Would she keep a dumbshit's coffee mug filled all the time like she was doing? Would she keep turning around and smiling at a dumbshit?

Stepovich crumbled crackers into his chili, mashed them in. Boy, Marilyn was going to be pissed; she had called this one wrong.

And there had been more than one dumbshit in the car this morning.

He was thinking about that so hard that he was more than halfway through his Chili and Cheeseburger Special before he realized they hadn't ordered to go like he'd meant to. Damn. He'd wanted to go to the park, and talk to the driver of the horse hack that Ed had tracked down for him. Ed hadn't known the guy's real name, only the handle of Spider, and that his horses were mismatched, one grey and one brown. Stepovich had been counting on catching him near the espresso stands where a lot of the yuppies went to eat lunch and be picturesque. Horse-drawn cabs picked up fares there, the same yuppies being dashing and romantic before going back to their offices after lunch.

And now Durand had screwed him up.

After a moment's reflection, he decided to call it square. He'd acted like a jerk in the car, grilling Durand about Tiffany Marie. So let Durand get away with this. Besides, it was just as well. Durand would have wanted to know what he was talking about to the cabby, and that wouldn't have done at all. It had been hard enough to get the rest of the tip from Ed without him getting suspicious. Well, actually Ed probably was suspicious.

He let Durand pick up the tab and leave a tip, and even followed him out to the car. He was still trying to think of some way to let Durand know he knew he'd been out of line. He called in on the radio to let it be known he and Durand were back on the streets.He'd about decided he'd have to apologize, and was thinking of the right words when the dispatcher saved him. She acknowledged their call, then added in an almost human voice, "Three messages for Stepovich to phone Jennie Edwards at his earliest convenience."

Edwards. Jennie Edwards. Somehow it had really hurt him that she'd gone back to using her maiden name. And made a big point of notifying all their friends. Like she didn't want to keep the least little scrap of their life together. "Be a second or two," he grunted at Durand as he got back out of the car.

There was a pay phone at the rear of the diner,outside the restroom doors. He dialed her work number, dumped in a quarter when she answered. "You wanted me to call you," he told her without preamble. No hello, how are you, what's up, just get right to the message. This was how they did it now.

"Yeah. It's about Laurie…"

"She okay?" He cut in, visualizing hospitals, kidnappers, car wrecks, rapists.

"She's fine." Impatience at his fear in Jennie's voice. "And that's just the trouble, really. Since school started this year, she's been running with the wrong crowd. Faster kids, kids older than her. Some of them are driving, for Christ's sake. She's come in past midnight the last two nights, and I'm sure I smelt liquor on her breath. And the clothes she's wearing…"

"Hold on. Wait a sec." Something wasn't adding here. His Laurie was what, thirteen, no, fifteen? And into frilly blouses for square-dancing for the PTA, for God's sake, not staying out until midnight with older kids with cars. "What the hell are you letting her run around like that for, Jennie? And how is she dressing weird? Where the hell is she getting the money for all this?"

"From you, and don't think I don't know about it!Sneaking around, sending her extra checks behind my back! How do you think it makes Jeffery feel, when he finds out daddy sends big sister thirty extra bucks to blow and nothing for him? Not to mention what it does for my authority when she goes out and buys spandex leopard-spot pants without even asking me."

Spandex. What the hell was spandex? Whatever it was, it didn't sound like something Laurie should be wearing. "Jennie. Wait a minute. She phoned me up and told me she needed money for a blouse for a square-dancing program…"