LITMIR.BIZ

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before Jamie entered the kitchen and the eggs cracked and beaten in a bowl.

      The swinging door seemed to hesitate once, then sweep inward. Jamie wore an Oakland Raiders cap with the bill turned sideways, a T-shirt featuring a larger-than-life portrait of an angry black man, baggy jeans and sneakers. Marvia didn’t know who the man on Jamie’s shirt was. She bit her lower lip at the realization that she couldn’t even recognize her son’s current hero.

      Jamie sat at down at the table.

      Marvia said, “Hat off.”

      He glared at her but complied.

      “Have you thought about what happened last night?”

      “What happened to my stash?”

      “You’re lucky, Jamie. I got mad and threw it away. So now I’ve destroyed evidence and you and Hakeem are in the clear.”

      “I told you the Hackman had nothing to do with it. It was my dope. Could I have my roach clip back? That was expensive. And it’s just a roach clip, it’s not illegal.”

      “It’s drug paraphernalia and it is definitely illegal. Have you talked with your friend? Did you call him last night or this morning?”

      “No.” He scowled.

      Marvia dumped the eggs into the skillet and stirred them in silence, then she carried the skillet to the table and distributed eggs onto both their plates. She never had eaten any pizza last night and she realized, surprised, that she was hungry. The marmalade was already on the table, in its jar, and when the toast popped up she put it on a plate and set it beside the marmalade. Then she sat down.

      “I expect to hear from Hakeem’s parents, Jamie, or I’m going to call them myself. This is serious business.”

      “What are you going to do, call my dad? He in Washin’ton playin’ up to all ob de white folks, ain’ he?”

      Marvia clutched her butter knife until her knuckles ached. She restrained herself from slapping her son. “You will not use that Tomming dialect in this house or anywhere! Never!”

      “My mama the sellout. When are they going to give you a talk show?”

      She decided to change her tack. “Did you finish your homework? Or were you and your friend too stoned last night to do any?”

      “It’s all done.”

      “I want to see it before you go to school.”

      “The dog ate it.”

      Marvia stood up. Jamie grinned and tucked into his scrambled eggs. Marvia had lost her appetite. She checked the blinking readout on the microwave oven. She had to get to work.

      “Finish your breakfast and put your dishes in the washer before you go to school. And I want you to come straight home from your last class and study until your grandma and I get home. I just might phone you any time. In fact you can sure that I’ll call, that’s a promise, and you’d better be here when I do.”

      She hurried back upstairs, retrieved her .38 Airweight and tucked it into her waistband. She clipped a pair of handcuffs onto a belt loop behind her back. She intended to get rolling seriously on the Bjorner case today, and she would be most effective, she decided, in civvies.

      She pulled the Mustang out of the driveway and headed north to McKinley. She needed to talk with somebody about what was going on in her life. For a moment she considered phoning James Wilkerson. He was Jamie’s biological father, and he might have some influence with the boy.

      But Wilkerson had never shown much interest in Jamie. Lieutenant Wilkerson getting Corporal Plum pregnant? That meant he’d fraternized with her. A male officer and an enlisted woman? Strictly against regulations!

      So she’d got her discharge, he’d married her, she had her baby, and they were divorced.

      The only time he’d paid attention was not long after Desert Storm, when Jamie was onboard an antique bomber and in danger of losing his life, and James Senior had a chance to be a hero and make headlines.

      Good press for a would-be congressman, and Wilkerson was now a member in good standing of the United States House of Representatives.

      No point in calling him, Marvia decided. He wouldn’t want the trouble, and if she pushed him too hard he might just make another attempt to get Jamie away from her.

      She shivered.

      She was wearing a plaid button-up shirt and jeans and a bright red sweatshirt. She didn’t want to be invisible today, she wanted people to see her coming and know that they were expected to answer questions when she asked them.

      Her second husband was worse than the first, and the man she’d had between them.… She shook her head. She wanted to kick herself. He hadn’t been a great physical specimen and he wasn’t the world’s most sparkling personality and he was white, one-two-three strikes you’re out at the old ball game. But he was the best man she’d ever known, except for her father, and she’d shined him on and now he was living in a glitzy high-rise in Denver and climbing a corporate pyramid.

      He was out of California and out of her life and—brakes screamed. Marvia gasped, hit her own brakes, and swung the wheel and missed a FedEx van by a hair. She sat clutching her steering wheel and shaking. She’d gone so deep into her self-pitying reverie that she’d run the red light at Ashby, one of the busiest streets in the city. She was lucky she hadn’t been killed, or killed somebody else.

      When the light changed again she crept through the intersection and continued on to work.

      It wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning and already her day was a depressing pile of compost.

      She found a stack of paper on her desk, including a note from Dorothy Yamura. Come see me.

      She sank into her chair and rubbed her temples until her head hurt. It took her mind off other things. She leafed through the stack of paper. A few routine memos, a number of interviews and crime-scene reports from KRED. That was good, anyhow. Nothing from the lab or the coroner’s office, though. A call-back slip from Angelina Tesla at the DA’s office.

      She had to clear her mind of her personal problems. Gloria had always been a difficult mother. Since the death of Marvia’s dad, Marcus, she had become impossible. And Jamie smoking dope in his room with Hakeem—Marvia knew that marijuana itself was a mild enough drug, but it put her into an untenable position as a sworn police officer.

      Besides, if Jamie and Hakeem were starting to move with the drug crowd.… She didn’t even want to think about it, but she had to. Maybe she should talk to her brother, Tyrone. He was Jamie’s favorite uncle—his only uncle—the only positive, adult male figure in the family.

      And she did love her brother, and did enjoy his company. She’d ask him to help out.

      In the meanwhile she sent off a memo to Inspector Stillman in narcotics. She’d gone undercover once on a narco bust, with mixed results. She and her team had failed to prevent a murder, but they’d made a collar that stuck and put away not only the killer but several of his associates, including the club owner, Solomon San Remo.

      And wasn’t that an amusing coincidence: here was Solomon San Remo again, connected with the late Robert Bjorner. Except that Solly was in prison. That Marvia knew for a fact.

      Other than that one occasion, Marvia had shied away from narco work. She was old enough to retain a few of the romantic illusions of the Sixties. She knew that narco wasn’t a matter of busting school kids for trying out a little weed. If it ever was, it wasn’t anymore. It was crack and smack and crystal. It was ugly and it was violent. She wondered if she had the stomach for that kind of work. She was starting to think she might have to develop it.

      Her schoolgirl friends had argued that there were inconsistencies in the law. Gin-swilling and wine-quaffing politicians wouldn’t let kids smoke grass. They were a bunch of hypocrites. There were irrational provisions that Marvia still had trouble reconciling

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