I wake up when the phone double-rings, meaning it’s the doorman. I look at the clock: it’s just after eight. I hope I don’t have a visitor.
“Hello,” I say into the phone.
“Good morning, Miss Mack. A delivery for you,” the Greek kid says.
“Can you bring it up?”
“Right away.”
I’m startled when I catch sight of myself in the hall mirror. My eyes are so swollen from last night’s breakdown that I look like a battered geisha. I make an ice pack out of a tray of cubes and a Ziploc bag and I press it to one eye at a time until I hear a knock at the door.
The Greek kid hands me a vase, with floral paper protecting whatever’s inside.
“Thanks,” I tell him, and hand him a couple bucks. After an awkward pause, he nods and gets on his way. When I put the flowers down on the kitchen counter, I realize I’m not wearing a bra under my off-white pajama tank, and I think the kid saw more than I wanted him to.
I tear the paper off a dozen long-stemmed roses. No card. That’s how I know they’re from Mason; roses are his apology MO. They are beautiful, the stems so long and the petals so red that they almost look fake. I don’t want to draw the parallel.
I feed the flowers their packet of stuff and then I snag some cold pizza from the fridge for myself. I’m three bites in when the phone rings again, this time from an outside line.
I consider hiding, finishing this piece of pizza and the whole rest of the box, feeling sorry for myself and waiting to be rescued. And then I answer anyway.
“Smack, it’s Wade. How ya feeling?”
“I’ve had better hangovers.”
“You feel like breakfast?”
“Not really.” I drop the half-eaten slice back in its box.
“I’ll be at the Granville,” he says, “if you’re interested.”
“Not really,” I say again.
“Come on, Sam. Get off your ass and come talk to a friend. We have to stick together.”
“Fine,” I say. “Give me half an hour.”
I hang up and throw on a pair of jeans. I decide a charcoal turtleneck will draw the least attention to the discoloration in my face, but it’s tough to pull over my beat-up head. The ice pack didn’t do much for the swelling, and the bump on my forehead where Birdie knocked me is the size of a peach pit. Sunglasses are the only solution. I grab a pack of smokes and my Ray-Ban knockoffs and head out. Real peachy.
At the Granville, Wade’s in his usual booth, dumping cream into his coffee. The tables are all set close together and crowded with customers. I keep my sunglasses on and navigate around them. The place stinks of grease; the odor reminds me of Wade. He comes here so often he never gets the smell out of his clothes. There’s only one waitress, and she’s always here, and she’s on her own time. People who know this place don’t mind. Best breakfast in Rogers Park, they say. Eggs are eggs to me, though, and I wouldn’t wait for them.
Wade watches me come in like he knows what’s under my sunglasses. He pushes his plate aside when I sit and remove them, revealing loveliness.
“I’m not your father, Sam,” he says when I sit down.
“I know.” And I know he’s going to lecture me like he is.
“That’s why I’m not asking.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
“I am not asking,” he says again. “But you’d better quit this nonsense.”
“I will.”
He’s not convinced.
“I will,” I say again, with a little more feeling behind it.
“When? When you’re dead?” Wade stirs his coffee like he’s just added gunpowder to it, like it’ll explode if he’s not careful. I’m thinking he’ll explode if he’s not careful.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” I say, trying to avoid a scene.
“You look like you’ve been through an oil change without a car,” he says, to the whole restaurant. No one really pays attention, but I’d like to put my sunglasses back on.
“I don’t get it, Sam. You’re the sweetest face on the force, with an A-1 bullshit detector and a one-way ticket to the top, if you’d just take it. But you let your damn heart get in the way. And now you want to find this guy Marko Trovic. For what? For justification?” Wade removes the spoon from his mug and points it at me like a threat. “You don’t want justice, darlin’. You want to put a fuckin’ gun to his head.”
Wade puts the spoon aside and pulls up his shirt-sleeve, showing me the scar from the bullet wound on his shoulder for the hundredth time. I figured I’d hear this story again, though, so I give it the appropriate inspection.
“I know how it feels, Smack. Some days I’m still looking for the guy who shot me. Thing is, they can put fifteen guys on your case. They won’t stay long. Time goes by, less than a week even. Investigations get old quick. Guys gotta keep up with the crimes. You’re not so important, especially if you’ve still got a pulse. They got four, five people killed in this city every day and somebody’s gotta explain every one. You think you’re special? You’re alive. They don’t have time to feel sorry for you.”
“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.”
Wade shakes his head like he believes me only because he has been through the same thing.
“Six years go by and I still think I see his face on the street sometimes. It’ll be the same for you. If they do nail him? You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t find a loophole in today’s goddamned politically correct, baby’s ass legal system. ‘Officer so-and-so wasn’t nice to me. He hurt my feelings.’ And just like that, a pedophile has a way out because someone asked him the wrong question, or, better yet, a cop finally gave him what he had coming to him. One punch in the mouth, and the guy’s back on the street cruising for blow jobs from teenage boys.”
“That doesn’t always happen, Wade.” Ever since he got shot, he’s been real bitter about the way things are handled, legally anyway.
“Yeah, sometimes justice is done. So what? Say everything goes as planned, and they catch your man and manage to lock him up. You’ll spend every day he’s in jail dreading the day they let him out.”
Wade flags the waitress, and he might be the only person in this whole place she acknowledges on the first attempt.
“Trust me,” he says, “everybody’s sorry, but nobody cares. You have to make it right with yourself.”
The waitress comes by and takes Wade’s plate, though he hasn’t eaten much. “They put enough cheese on that, Bill?”
“Sure did. Thanks,” Wade says, and I wonder who else calls him Bill.
“You like to order something?” she asks me.
“Coffee, for now.”
“Cream?”
“Black’s fine.”
“Like her eye,” Wade says. “Bill” is hilarious.
The waitress winks at him, and I’m sure some variation of this familiar banter goes on between them every morning. She walks away, her plump lower half forcing her hips right and left with every step. She’s probably a grandmother; some kid’s favorite lap.
“You were saying?” Wade asks.
“You were saying,” I correct him.
He leans in close and I can guess from his breath that he ate all his sausage. “You’re a good cop, Sam. I knew it from day one. It’s in your blood. Remember your first week? You skipped your brother’s arraignment to help me nab that arsonist up at the Wilson El platform.”
“He was lighting people on fire. You needed help.”
“So did your brother.”
“I couldn’t help him.” My brother had been arrested for shoplifting at a mall out in Dundee. “I knew he was guilty.” I didn’t know he’d never talk to me again.
“Admit it: the Job came first.”
“I was a rookie,” I say. “I didn’t know what was important then.”
“Yes, you did.”
Wade sits there, waiting for me to object, watching me like a pretend wise man.
“What are you getting at?” I ask.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Say it anyway.”
“You won’t listen.”
“Try me.”
He waits as the waitress brings my coffee and refills his mug. He takes a sip, careful it doesn’t burn his tongue, dragging out his response like he’s letting me in on some profound philosophical truth. Then, finally, he says, “Give it up.”
“I won’t let Fred go this way. I owe it to him to find out the truth.”
“Fred’s dead, darlin’. That’s the truth. When are you gonna let go of this cop shit and accept it? You hide behind your star and you’re gonna regret it. Just like with your brother. Sometimes, Sam, you have to let go of the Job. Take it from me, you won’t find peace looking for someone else to blame. If you want forgiveness, you have to deal with what you have left.”
“What’s left?” I try to ask myself. There’s not much of an answer.
“Come on, Sam, you’re young. You still have a chance. You can change. Become somebody. Get out of this garbage life. Be a teacher, or a counselor—”
“A minute ago you said I was a good cop.”
“A week ago you weren’t in the middle of this shit.”
“I’m not quitting.”
Wade takes a cigarette from his breast pocket and holds it between his teeth.
“You’re in over your head. With the Sarge, with Jackowski. With Internal Affairs . . .” He trails off like I’m supposed to agree.
“Yeah, so?” I ask.
“So, it’s a losing battle. IA just wants everything sealed up nice and tight so they keep their hands clean. They’re not solving cases; they’re making ad campaigns for the city. They probably came up with that friendly-fire bit the news guys used like a slogan.”
“But a cop was killed,” I say, hoping he won’t be offended.
“No, a cop died. By another cop’s gun. Case unfortunate, but closed.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say. I lean in and look him in the eye so at least he’ll feel bad if he lies when I ask, “Did you know Trovic was working with us?”
Wade cracks something close to a smile and I realize he’s surprised by my naïveté, and not by this bit of information. “So what,” Wade says, “you want to tell the world that Fred was associating with a scumbag? You want people to remember him for that?”
Trovic was working with Fred? Wade can read the astonishment on my face though I’m trying to pretend I already knew what he just told me.
“Trust me, Sam, your poking around is only gonna make it worse. You can’t clear your name by stirring up shit. You want to end up like me?” Wade’s eyes turn soft and haunted. “Let it go, Smack.”
Yeah. Right.
“Even if I do,” I say, “IA will keep asking questions. Alex O’Connor won’t leave me alone.”
“Neither will Paul Flanigan, from what I can tell,” he says, completely changing the subject. He’s either had too much coffee or he’s thrilled with the idea of my dating the rookie, because now he’s wielding that spoon like a magic wand.
“Don’t start,” I tell him.
“If I were your father, I’d like to see you with a kid like that. He’s a good kid.”
“Kid being the operative word,” I tell him. I take my time lighting a cigarette. I think Wade has his suspicions about Mason and me. I don’t think he likes Mason, and he probably has good reason; but after last night’s scene with Deborah, I don’t want to know. I’m guessing bringing up Paul is Wade’s attempt to get the dirt on my love life without mentioning Mason. Like his teasing will give me the sudden urge to admit that Mason and I are together. Like he doesn’t know in the first place. Funny, the way we sit here with smiles and pretend neither one of us even knows Mason.
“If you were my father,” I finally say, “you’d tell me to stay away from cops.”
“And you definitely wouldn’t listen.”
Wade pulls on his coat and fishes around in his pockets. He knew he wouldn’t get any secrets from me, and somehow I knew he wouldn’t have any answers.
“I heard somewhere,” he says, “that there are two ways you can go: in search of happiness, or in search of relief. One is a hell of a lot more rewarding, I’m sure.”
He takes out a bottle of pills and washes one down with the end of his coffee. I wonder if they’re for happiness or relief.
“That why you missed work?” I ask.
“You don’t live to be as old as me without a few days off,” he says. “Today’s not one of them. I gotta go.” He puts a ten on the table as he scoots out of the booth.
“I’ll buy,” I offer, “as long as you forget that shit I pulled yesterday at the station.”
“You going to pick up Sarge’s lunch, too?” He doesn’t think twice about taking his ten bucks back. He rubs it between his fingers. “Some people will do anything for money,” he says. “A lot of people, actually.” He puts the ten away and stretches his bad shoulder. He usually kisses my head, but this time he just touches my swollen cheek. “You’re fighting with yourself,” he says. “How can you win?” He stands up and winks at the waitress before he heads for the exit. “Stay out of trouble.”
Great advice for someone with nothing but troubles. Maybe he was talking to the waitress.
When she comes to refill my coffee, I order breakfast. While I’m sitting there waiting, I think about what Wade said. Is it really possible that Trovic was working with Fred? Is that why Birdie assumed I knew why Fred was killed? I wish Trovic would turn up, because he’s the only one who knows the answers.
Wade doesn’t seem to think the answers will make me feel any better. What would I do if Trovic is found? I’d be relieved to know he was locked up somewhere, but I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’d have to watch him go through the court system, my own hands as tied as his. I’d pray he gets what’s coming to him. But convicted or not, will having someone else to blame for losing Fred be any consolation?
Maybe Wade is right. I’m fixated on Trovic so I don’t have to think about Fred. My partner died. Have I cried for him, or only for myself?
I know it’s time to own up to my feelings about Fred. I also know I have to settle my doubts about Mason. When my omelet arrives, I choke it down along with the thought of going to talk to Deborah.