HE WASN’T REALLY Bradley Cooper.
Spike said that there were two categories of people when you were comparing somebody’s face to a celebrity’s: They were either a Looks Like or a Reminds You Of.
The guy getting up off my step, long hair and blue jeans and old Timberlands and bomber jacket, reminded me of Bradley Cooper, whom I hadn’t been able to save, despite an embarrassing amount of tears, in A Star Is Born.
As he came toward me I said, “I have a gun.”
“Makes two of us!” he said, putting up his hands in surrender. “May I show you mine?”
“Slowly,” I said. “I’ve had a rough couple of days.”
The bomber jacket was open, despite the cold. He pulled it back to show me the shoulder holster he was wearing and the badge around his neck.
“My name is Jake Rosen,” he said.
“What division?”
“What is this, a job interview?”
“Think of it that way.”
“Kind of my own division,” he said. “General investigator.”
“Reporting where?”
“Superintendent of the General Investigations Unit,” he said.
“Focusing on?”
“You know it’s cold out, right?” Rosen said.
“Humor me.”
“I call it the three G’s,” he said. “Gangs, girls, guns.”
It was the unit Darcy had described.
“I’m a girl and I have a gun,” I said. “But my only gang is at yoga. Not that you’d ever want to pick a fight with us.”
“Good one,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“I tried to call,” he said.
“My phone is in the shop,” I said. “Tried to call about what?”
“Your friend Mr. Marcus.”
“Not my friend.”
“Not mine, either,” he said. “Hey, could we go inside?”
I told him we could, and walked past him and opened the door. I still had plenty of time before my appointment with Susan Silverman.
And he was definitely cute.
ROSEN AND I sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Rosie had finally stopped barking at him, and was now in the living room pouting and emitting an occasional low growl. I had made us coffee. Rosen didn’t seem to mind that it wasn’t micro-brewed.
I asked if he knew Darcy Gaines.
“Everybody knows Darcy,” he said.
“You two get along?”
“Kind of,” he said.
“Kind of?”
“We kind of got in each other’s way on a thing a few months ago and I got on her bad side,” he said.
“Not where you want to be with her,” I said. “I know from experience.”
“I think we’re good now.” He grinned. “I kept telling her I was too cute for her to stay mad at me.”
“And that worked?”
“It was more a feeling I got,” he said.
“Get it a lot?”
He grinned. It was a tiny bit lopsided. But it seemed to be working for him. “You bet.”
I looked at the clock behind him.
“What about Tony Marcus?” I said. “I know his business is girls. And he talks about dabbling in guns. But gangs?”
“He’s always looking to expand,” Rosen said, “especially with foot soldiers looking to move up in the world.”
“So now he’s checking all your boxes?”
“Including ways I’m not really at liberty to discuss,” he said.
“Then why are you at my kitchen table, drinking my coffee, acting like you’re afraid of my dog?” I said.
“I am not afraid of your dog,” he said.
“Easy to say when she’s out of the room.”
He toasted me with his cup and smiled. Blue eyes like Bradley’s, too. I was starting to think that I needed Rosie back in here to protect me. Mostly from myself.
“Why are you here, really?” I said.
“Because you’re working for Tony,” he said.
“Who told you that?”
He was still smiling.
“Are we really gonna do this?” he said.
“Probably not.”
“I just want to give you a heads-up that this might not be the best time to be in the Tony Marcus business,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m good. And not really in the Tony Marcus business.” I put air quotes around “business.”
“Listen, I know who your father is,” he said. “Everybody in the department knows who your father is. Think of me being here as a professional courtesy.”
“How much of what you’re not at liberty to discuss has to do with Tony and Gabriel Jabari getting ready to go all Game of Thrones?” I said.
“Some,” he said.
“Who wins that one in the end?” I said.
“If we play it right, neither one of them does,” he said. “You don’t mind me asking, how’d you come to work for a jackwagon like Tony?”
“Not at liberty to discuss,” I said, and smiled.
“How about this?” he said. “How about if you find Lisa Morneau you tell me and not Tony?”
“Who’s Lisa Morneau?”
He put his elbow on the table and leaned down so he could run his hand through his hair. How old was he?
“We still doing this?” he said.
“Not showing you mine if you won’t show me yours,” I said.
There was no point in telling him that Lisa had called me. Maybe he already knew. Maybe somebody at headquarters had said something to somebody, even though Darcy had said they would not.
“There’s a chance we can help each other here,” he said.
“That’s only assuming you have something I want,” I said.
The cocky grin again. I could see why he didn’t think anybody could stay mad at him for long. Yeah. Definitely cute.
“Could you be a little more specific?” he said.
I looked at the clock again. It was past noon by now. Time to go.
Jake Rosen said, “I just want you to know that if your pursuit of Lisa gets in my way, then maybe shit happens and I don’t take those two jackwagons off the street who need to be taken off.”
Now he was the one taking a card out of his wallet and placing it on the table between us.
“Working together would be a lot more fun than working against each other,” he said. “I’ve managed to inflict some serious pain on some serious bad guys over the past few months, but Tony’s the one I want.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Lot of moving pieces here,” he said.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
He said he’d be in touch. Rosie then barked him all the way to the front door. I watched him walk down the walk, careful not to slip on the snow, telling myself that only a cynical person would suggest that I was looking at his butt.