What—surprised I found you?” Cuppy was an extortionate cop; the aftermath of Waldo’s seismic blowout when he left the LAPD had somehow left Cuppy untouched but taken down his even dirtier partner, and he’d been carrying beef since. When Waldo didn’t answer, Cuppy said, “Everybody on the force knows your face, asshole. Put out an APB, Revenant’s in town? Had you in ten minutes.”
“Why do you have an APB on me?”
Instead of answering, Cuppy turned to Lorena. “How’s business, sugar?”
“I had an excellent day, matter of fact.”
“Yeah, what’s that look like? Somebody leave the shades up?” Back to Waldo: “Tell me about Victor Ouelette.”
“Don’t know the name.”
“No? Then who was it dropped by his apartment on a bike—Lance Armstrong? You’re not a cop anymore, scum breath. Not permitted to interrogate the citizenry.”
“He’s a private investigator,” said Lorena. “Operating under my license.”
He turned to her. “Start piling up harassment complaints, someone’s gonna pull that ticket.”
“That’s what you’re here for?” Waldo said. “That piece of shit filed a complaint—about me?”
“No, I’m here because someone decided to wait in the garage under his building with a hammer and X out that—what’d you just call him?—‘piece of shit’?” Waldo and Lorena exchanged a glance. They knew enough to let Cuppy do the next bit of talking. “And it wasn’t a robbery—wallet, keys, phone, all right on the ground next to him. Neighbor upstairs said she saw a guy looked just like Charlie Waldo hassling him on the street. Anything you want to tell me?”
Waldo squinted at him. “That haircut isn’t working for you.”
Cuppy clucked. “So where were you last night, about eight?” Resentment ran deep at LAPD and a month earlier Waldo had been locked up for a murder the investigators probably knew he didn’t commit. Cuppy had come by the jailhouse to gloat and then some; no doubt he’d drag Waldo through all that again and worse if he could. But now he turned back to Lorena. “Let me guess. You’re each other’s alibis.”
Lorena was even more vulnerable to harassment: her livelihood was at stake. Waldo said, “What does she need an alibi for?”
Cuppy said, “Let’s talk Stevie Rose.”
Waldo shrugged. Don’t know her.
“Going to play that again? Rack your brain: poor little rich girl, dresses like a hooker? Probably throws up after every meal, even when she isn’t eating garden waste or whatever the fuck they serve in this joint.” Waldo and Lorena held stone faces. “Nothing? How about Ouelette’s boss at her school—Principal Fancypants, remember him? He says you had a bug up your ass about Ouelette.” Lorena threw Waldo a glance at the news of his Stoddard drop-in. “Not just a bug, either,” Cuppy continued. “Sounded more like a great big mutant cockroach.” He took a pad from inside his jacket and read, for effect: “According to the principal, you said, ‘Somebody needs to do something about him.’”
Now Lorena looked straight at Waldo, her eyes widening. Waldo checked her with a quick look.
Cuppy said to Lorena, “Might want to keep your boyfriend on a leash and out of the news. Bodies have a way of piling up around him. Can’t be healthy for that little business you’re trying to build.”
Lorena didn’t flinch but Waldo knew Cuppy had landed a shot to the solar plexus.
Cuppy grabbed a menu from a stand behind Lorena and put it in front of Waldo with a pen. “Cell numbers. Both of you.”
Waldo wrote his down and slid the menu to Lorena. He said to Cuppy, “So you’ve talked to the girl?”
“What girl, the one you don’t know? Not yet, only seen pictures. She’s next.”
“I want to be there when you do.” That pissed Cuppy off and pissed Lorena off even more. Waldo felt the heat rising from her corner of the table but stayed focused on the detective, who waved a dismissive paw. “Come on,” Waldo said, “at least let me bring her in.”
Cuppy said sharply, “Fuck. That.” Other diners turned to watch.
“Come on. The kid’s home by herself. Parents out of town.”
Cuppy thought about it.
Waldo said, “She’s fifteen years old. Can’t even drive yet.”
“Give you till noon,” said Cuppy, sliding out of the booth. He looked down at an older couple studying their menus. He leaned over the wife’s shoulder, said, “Try the mulch,” and sauntered out.
When Waldo turned back to Lorena she was all daggers, chewing on her tongue. Whatever she was thinking, he didn’t want to hear it, not with her furtive afternoon still hanging out there.
Lorena said, “Go ahead. Call her.”
“I don’t have her number.”
“Right,” she said, in a tone just on the edge of suggesting she didn’t believe him. She took her phone from her purse, found Stevie’s info and hit the call button. After a few moments she said, “Stevie, it’s Lorena Nascimento. Call me as soon as you can.”
The waitress arrived with their food. They ate in a silence that gave him room to ruminate on all of it. Well, Lorena had what she wanted now, to a point. No client or income, maybe, but nonetheless a case they’d be working together, and one he cared about, even if it was just to clear himself.
He thought about the final months with her in the old days, the best of times, before the catastrophe of realizing that in his ambition and hubris he’d robbed a man of his entire adult life.
Waldo had left L.A. and found peace in his woods. Lorena would scoff at the notion that it had been peace, but it was.
He thought now about how she had upended all that by dragging him into Alastair Pinch’s murder case and her own mess. He’d made it through, had maybe even grown. But this comfort he was able now to take in Lorena—physical comfort, emotional comfort—was that growth? Or only compromise masquerading as growth?
Was it even possible to sustain a connection to another person and still honor his private canon, or did coupling one’s life to another’s axiomatically create damage? At bottom, wasn’t that the question this moment was about?
If, instead of surrendering to the pleasures of Lorena’s bed, he had kept the vows he made to himself and stayed on his mountain, would Victor Ouelette be dead? Would Stevie Rose’s life be at least a little less troubled?
Indeed, wasn’t the very point of reclusion to avoid even having to ask himself questions like that ever again?
Plus, apart from those elemental questions, the toxic mystery still hung over their table, the one he really didn’t want to face: whose bed had Lorena been in all afternoon, while he had been sleeping in hers?
He played with his mushroom confit while he worked through all that, to nothing like a resolution.
Lorena said, “What are you thinking?”
Waldo said, “Nothing.”