Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot Part 8

Why the h.e.l.l was a cop here alone, though, and at one in the morning?

I didn't have any more time to consider that. The overhead light came to life, and then he walked in, a tall young cop with his handcuffs looped over his belt in back, the tan leather straps of a shoulder holster coming together between the shoulder blades, a utility bag like a photographer's over the left shoulder. As he pa.s.sed right under me, I could have reached down and touched that familiar curling red hair, worn today in a neat ponytail at the nape of the neck.

"Joel," I said lightly, and before he'd even fully turned around, I jumped.

He took it better than most people could have. We went to the floor hard, but it didn't knock the wind out of him. I stuck the muzzle of the Browning against his jawline and clicked off the safety.

"Hailey?" he said, seeing past the new brown hair.

"Be smart," I said. "I'm going to take your piece now. Let me." Without lifting my body weight up off him, I reached for his gun, eased it out of the holster, and tucked it into the place where the Browning had just been.

"Hailey, think about what you're doing."

I ignored that. "Do you carry a backup weapon?"

"I've got a knife in my boot."

"Which boot?"

"The right."

To reach it I'd have to turn facing away from him and reach down, which would put me off balance. I didn't like that. "Okay, we'll let that go for a moment," I said. "Don't make any sudden moves. It's not my intention to hurt you, but remember you're dealing with a very nervous wanted criminal who's facing death row."

At his size he would win a wrestling match, so I didn't want him to try.

I sat up to a straddling position on his hips and pushed the bag he'd been carrying out of his reach. Then I said, "Arch your back a little bit, I'm going to reach under you for the cuffs."

His jaw tensed, but he cooperated. I leaned forward slightly and slipped my free hand under his lower back until I felt metal. I pulled the handcuffs free.

"Where's the key?"

He didn't answer, but I saw his eyes go to the bag. I pulled it to me, keeping the gun on him with my other hand.

He said, "I don't think you want to do this. You've already committed a.s.sault on a sheriff's deputy. If you handcuff me, legally that carries the weight of kidnapping, which-"

"Stop," I said. "I've already got two murder charges on the books against me. I'm through sweating the details." I felt a round nub of metal under my rummaging fingers and pulled out the handcuff key.

"Okay," I said, "very slowly, you're going to sit up-not stand-and slide backward until you're sitting against the leg of the piano. My gun's going to be on you the whole time."

I climbed off him into a crouching position, holding the gun in front of me, still pointed at him.

Joel obeyed me, easing himself slowly backward, but as he did, he said, "Magnus believes your story. So do I."

"Put your arms back so that one hand is on either side of the piano leg."

"Please let me take you in. Magnus has some weight. He can run some interference for you in the system."

"That much? I doubt it. I'm a suspected cop killer. Put your hands where I said."

He lowered his face as he did so, nearly closing his eyes. I knew what he must have been feeling, but I couldn't afford the distraction of empathy. I moved behind him and locked the handcuffs around his wrists. Then I leaned back a little and put my hand on his leg. "Relax," I said, slid my hand inside his right boot, and took out the knife he'd said would be there. I flicked it open.

"Pretty," I said, examining the curved blade. "Most cops would prefer a gun as a backup piece, a little .380 with an ankle holster."

"I've always liked edged weapons."

"Really? Magnus told me you were a real marksman. 'Kid could hit the ten ring standing on a water-bed mattress' was his exact expression."

"He said that?" For a second, Joel seemed pleased, but then his expression darkened again. I knew why. Whatever respect he'd won from the veteran Ford, it was lost now, after he'd let a fugitive get the drop on him and chain him up with his own handcuffs.

I stood up and surveyed him thoughtfully. "You may be a lights-out shooter, but you've got some things to learn about being on the other end of a gun," I said. "Like, a gun's not dangerous at all if the person holding it isn't willing to pull the trigger."

"You're saying you weren't?"

"I had my finger outside the trigger guard, that's how worried I was about accidentally shooting you."

"I didn't know that."

I turned my attention back to the bag he'd been carrying, opening it again to examine the contents. Among them: a digital camera, a sketch pad, a narrow notebook like the kind reporters use.

I said, "Magnus sent you to get some photos and drawings of the scene? To make some notes?"

"Yeah."

So he was here to do essentially what I was here to do. Interesting.

He said, "You could've broken my neck, jumping on me like that."

"But I didn't."

"I could've shot you."

"But you didn't. These kinds of conversations bore me. They're pointless." I started pacing. "Listen, we're both a little jammed up here," I said. "I can certainly call someone and tell them you're here, but you're way out of your jurisdiction, and I'm guessing you didn't give SFPD a courtesy call about your visit."

His guilty, irritated expression told me I was right.

"When Magnus Ford hears about this, I don't think he's going to be happy. And me, once your colleagues hear about this, I'm facing those added a.s.sault and kidnapping charges you mentioned."

Joel said nothing, but his expression was dark.

"But I think there might be a way out for both of us." I reached inside my pack and dug out the aspirin bottle, with Serena's pills inside. Shaking out a handful, I separated several small white tablets and scooped the rest back into the bottle. Then I sat on my heels in front of Joel and showed him.

"Ambien," I said. "Two of these should put a guy your size under."

"No way," he said. "I'm not letting you drug me. I don't use. I hardly even drink."

"Hear me out," I said. "You take the pills, you fall asleep, I take the cuffs off and leave. You wake up, grab your weapons and cuffs, and go. Ford never knows what happened here tonight. I'm certainly not going to tell him."

There was conflict on his young, open face. He saw the merits of it, but at the same time he hated the idea. Cops, soldiers, firefighters ... they trust their bodies, rely on them. They hate to lose control of them, even temporarily.

He said, "I've never seen Ambien before. How do I know-"

"That it's not something dangerous?" I said, impatient. "Because A, I'm not a killer, and B, if I wanted you dead, I would've shot you as you walked right under me. I wouldn't chain you to a piano and make you poison yourself."

He sighed. "All right."

"Good. You could probably dry-swallow these, but I'll get you some water. Don't let me hear you fooling around up here while I'm gone."

I wasn't really worried about that; there was nothing he could do to get loose in such a short period of time.

When I came back with the water gla.s.s, I knelt, put the tablets in the palm of my hand, and held it out as if I were feeding a horse. He lowered his face to my palm, and briefly I felt him use the tip of his tongue to get the pills out of my hand. Then I held the water gla.s.s to his mouth and he drank.

He didn't seem like the devious type, but just in case, I said, "Open your mouth and lift up your tongue."

He sighed again, irritated, but complied. There was nothing there. "Okay," I said.

Then I reached around to the back of his neck, felt for the rubber band holding his ponytail, and pulled it out, then shook the loosened hair free with my fingers.

Joel gave me a curious look. "What was that for?" he said.

I shrugged. "I get uncomfortable when my hair's pulled back for too long."

"I never noticed," he said. "Since I've had to wear mine long, I pull it back every chance I get. I can't wait to cut it off."

He wasn't like CJ, then, who'd grown out his hair despite his mother's frequent sighs and rarely so much as pulled it back.

I said, "Magnus made you grow it out? To work undercover?"

" 'Work undercover' is putting it too strongly, but yes, to be a decoy in the park. He wanted me to look less like a cop."

"It worked."

"You have hard feelings about that? That I fooled you?"

I shook my head. "No," I said, being honest. "That was your job. It was a good trick, and you were good at it."

"My father is blind. I grew up around it."

"Yeah?" I said.

"I think that's how Magnus got the idea. He didn't come up with it until after I mentioned my dad."

"I'm kind of surprised you guys really expected to get anything out of you sitting in the park watching people."

"I had my doubts, too, but we didn't use a lot of hours on it. Magnus just wanted some boots on the ground in that neighborhood. He's a patient guy, and his methods can be unusual."

We were quiet a moment. A lot of people wouldn't have understood it, I thought, the two of us having a civil conversation. But Joel wasn't revealing anything that would hurt their investigation, and he knew I wouldn't give him any information that he or Ford could use against me, either.

Then, apropos of nothing except for the fact that it'd just crossed my mind, I said, "How'd you get in here, anyway, if the SFPD didn't let you in?"

"Pick gun," he said. "Magnus gave it to me."

That was something I'd only heard about, never seen for real, that greatly sped up and simplified the process of lock picking. Trust Ford to have all the cool toys.

Joel said, "My shoulders are starting to hurt a little."

They shouldn't have been, not this early. "First time in handcuffs?"

"No, we practiced on each other at the academy, to learn-"

"That doesn't count," I said dismissively.

He tilted his head, a.s.sessing me. "You're saying you've been? I didn't see any arrests in your history."

I didn't answer, looked away, remembering last December. What would this kid say if I told him the truth? Yes, I've been handcuffed. Last year I f.e.l.l.a.t.ed a man while I was handcuffed and at gunpoint, and when he was finished, he dropped me on my face and I couldn't break my own fall. That probably distracted me from a minor pain in my shoulders.

Don't think about this, I warned myself, but already I was back there, hearing Quentin saying, The first thing I do, with a woman, is see what group she falls into. Hearing Joe Laska say, This is taking way too long. Get her back up on the table.

I heard a cracking noise and saw that I was still holding the water gla.s.s, but now it had a fine line running up its side from the pressure of my grip.

"Hailey? What's wrong?"

"Shut up. Don't talk to me."

It had been months since the projection booth, and memories of it had caught me unexpectedly before, but I'd never felt a shaking red rage like this until now. Even the sound of Joel Kelleher's voice threw fuel on it, as Quentin's or Joe Laska's might have. I closed my eyes.

No, don't touch Joel-he didn't do anything, he's nothing like them. Think of walking with Tess afterward, think of North Beach on Christmas Eve, the lights in the window displays.

That was better. I took a deep breath, felt the events of last winter recede.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm all right."

"Are you bleeding?"

"No," I said shortly.

He tilted his head, watching my face. He said, "Something bad happened to you, didn't it?"

I gave him a sharp glance. "Like what?"

"You tell me," he said. Then, "I heard something about a traffic accident on Wilshire-"

"Don't go there."

He fell silent, chastened. Then, after a moment, he said, "You wouldn't tell Magnus how you lost the finger, either."

"Does it matter?" I said. "No, it wasn't an accident; yeah, it hurt. Who cares? Thieves get rich, saints get shot, G.o.d don't answer prayers a lot."

He didn't have anything to say in response to that. When I looked over at him again, I saw that the Ambien was taking effect. It was visible in his relaxed face, his heavy-lidded eyes. "You're circling the airport," I said.