LITMIR.BIZ

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was going to be any fun for me. “Nah, I’ve got it. Besides, you can’t follow her into the locker room.”

      Ben checked his rearview. “Ha. Who says?”

      I slid back in the seat and stretched my legs out as far as the Camaro would allow. I was unprepared for the sudden jolt when Ben jammed on the brakes to avoid a checkered cab that had just cut him off. I bolted forward, toward the dash, but luckily, the belt pulled me back.

      “What the hell?” Ben yelled. “Did you see that moron? Times like these, I wish I had my old ticket book. I’d write that clown two tickets right off the bat—one for the cutoff and one for being a friggin’ jackass!”

      I was used to driving with Ben, so I knew the drill. I checked the seat belt to make sure I was harnessed in tight, and then tuned him out. He’d go on for a bit longer about the cab. He was an impatient driver, a hot dog. Both shortcomings came in handy when rushing to a scene or pursuing a suspect, not so much in rush-hour traffic. I was confident he’d stop short of wrecking his car, though.

      “Allen’s holding back,” I said.

      “Everybody holds back shit. And don’t mind the fact that we almost got tin canned.”

      “In the elevator? She wanted to know if I had a gun and knew how to use it. Why, if she didn’t think I’d have to shoot somebody?”

      “Could be she’s just curious.” Ben rolled down his window, leaned out. “Where’d you learn to drive, dodo? Hell?” He flipped off the languid-looking cabbie, then rolled his window back up and sped through the yellow light. I gripped the shoulder harness for assurance.

      “Did she ask you?”

      “Nope, but I look like I could shoot the crap out of something. Nobody expects that from a woman.” His big cop foot pressed down on the gas, and the Camaro wove around a green Hyundai with pink, fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. I squeezed my eyes shut. Cars, testosterone, and traffic did not a good mix make.

      “But don’t shoot the messenger,” Ben said, chuckling. “Get it? Shoot the messenger?”

      I shook my head, remembering what it had been like riding with him every day. He was a good cop, and we’d worked well together: we’d known each other’s moves, strengths, weaknesses, and then there had been times like this when he brought what he thought was The Funny.

      “Shoot the messenger,” I muttered sourly. “Got it.” I flipped the passenger visor down and looked at myself in the oblong mirror, at the frown on my face, the worry lines creasing my forehead. It hadn’t been curiosity I’d seen on Allen’s face; it had been fear.

      Ben dropped me at my car, which was parked at Allen’s office, and then we parted ways. I offered up a prayer for his safe deliverance and then headed south, toward home, picking at the edges of Allen’s problem. I had a new car, well, new to me. I’d bought the Black Honda Civic used at a dear price just a month earlier. Not by choice. Someone had tossed a Molotov cocktail into the backseat of my old one—a hazard of the job. I’d driven the Civic off the lot with nine hundred miles on the odometer, resentful of having to sign my life away for it, but more than a little enamored of the new car smell.

      My cell phone was in my bag, but a buzz sounded through the car speakers, announcing an incoming call. I glanced at the dashboard readout, one of the new age techno whizbangs I hadn’t had in my old, reliable ride, now smoked and gone to auto heaven. It was Eli. I smiled and then tapped the snazzy button on the steering wheel.

      “Hello, stranger.” His voice rolled nice and easy out of the speakers.

      I smiled, checked the rearview, changed lanes. “Hey, what’s up?”

      “I’m standing outside your place with too much Chinese food, an extra pair of chopsticks, and a whole lot of cop swagger.”

      I sped up just a bit. “Beef and vegetables?”

      “My swagger’s not enough?”

      I turned onto the Inner Drive, just blocks from home, but didn’t say anything. Let him think I was trying to decide.

      “If it takes that long, I’ll take my egg rolls and go home.”

      I snickered. “Wait. Why are you standing outside? Mrs. Vincent should be home. She’ll buzz you up.”

      “I don’t think she likes me like that yet. I get a vibe.”

      Mrs. Vincent lived on the first floor of the three-flat building I owned. She was part neighbor, part mother figure, gentle, stern as nails, full to brimming with good old-fashioned mother wit. I squinted, curious. “What kind of vibe?”

      “The kind that says she knows we’re spending time, and she’s not all right with it.”

      I whizzed past the green domes of the museum, ready to make the turn, amused by the big, tough cop’s unease at coming up against a kindhearted octogenarian in sensible shoes. “Spending time, really? She’s old, Eli, not dead. She knows I spend time. In fact—”

      He interrupted me. “Never mind. Forget it. I’ll wait in my car.”

      I chuckled. Couldn’t help it. “Five minutes. Keep the food warm.”

      We ate sitting crossed-legged at opposite ends of my couch, the food between us, watching nothing in particular on television, the sound muted. I picked vegetables and noodles out of the carton using chopsticks, forgoing proper plates and forks, which were way at the back of my apartment, in the kitchen I rarely used. I’d changed out of my suit into an old pair of jean shorts and a faded Chicago PD T-shirt. Eli, fresh from work, was in slacks, shirt, and loosened tie, his police star still clipped to his belt. This was clearly the easiest part of my day.

      “And then she tells me I can bring workout clothes.”

      “Vonda Allen,” he said. “That’s some high cotton.”

      I jabbed a chopstick at him. “She’s bent.”

      “What’s Mickerson think?”

      “He thinks she’s bent, too, but he’s okay with babysitting her. Sometimes I don’t get him. I mean, I get him, but then . . . I don’t get him.”

      Eli speared a baby corncob and stuffed it into his mouth. “Stalking cases are tough. Lot of levels.”

      “The fact that she’s tight-lipped says a lot. She could involve the department without broadcasting her business, so why hasn’t she? And she has lawyers, lots of them, I’d imagine. Why not have them work it out? Or, like Ben suggested, just tell whoever it is to buzz off. There are a lot of options out there.”

      Eli looked at me, shook his head.

      “What?”

      “Buzz off?”

      “In a polite but firm way, sure . . . It can be done.” He looked like he didn’t believe me. “I’ve done it. Trust me. Egg roll?” I offered up the bag, but he declined another.

      The final score of some game scrolled along the bottom of the TV screen. He took only a passing glance. “I hope I never get that kind of brush-off.”

      I smiled, took a bite of broccoli, watched him as I chewed.

      “No assurances?” he asked.

      I shrugged, grinned playfully. “If it comes to that, I promise to let you down gently.”

      “Brutal . . . but oddly titillating. Too bad they didn’t get anything out of the guy on the phone.”

      “No name, nada. He copped to the flowers, said he knew her, but that’s it.” I shook my head. “It could be someone else entirely. I don’t know enough yet, and Allen’s sure not helping.”

      “What about this Chandler? You might get something from her, if you frame it as you looking out for her boss, not trying to damage her. Aren’t you both on the same side, more or less?”

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