Chapter 10

Sleep was nonexistent.

No matter how I tried, or how many glasses of Wild Turkey I poured myself, my eyes were not closing. That kiss. Jesus, Mary, and Ralph. What a kiss. I could still feel the tingling on my lips. Or maybe that was the whiskey. After a couple of shots, I rose from my sofa, gathered up the booze and my dead orchid, and went out onto the patio. The sounds of the inner city met me as I plunked my ass down on cold concrete. I had no furniture out here. Why would I invest in a patio set when the view consisted of the back of another apartment building? Also, people who had little tables with umbrellas, matching chairs, and flowering things in ceramic pots were like Oliver. Who had a house, and flowers, and kids, and a live-in friend, who I still didn't think was trustworthy.

I'd see if I could touch base with Interpol tomorrow. No, that would be today. Christ. I sipped my warm whiskey, the orchid resting between my legs.

"I'm sorry I let you die," I whispered to the flower as it sat there. "If it's any consolation, I tend to let most things in my life wither and die. I don't know why." I took another sip, then reached into my front pocket for a cigarette. Only there were none. I was quitting. Again. Motherfucker. I tore off the patch on my biceps, got to my feet, and did the hunt of shame. Anyone who has tried to quit smoking knows the hunt of shame. It's where you rummage and toss your house in search of a cigarette. I found none between couch cushions or in jacket pockets. So, I sunk lower and pawed in the trash in hopes my housekeeper hadn't dumped it. She had. So not one stale butt was to be found.

"Motherfucker," I repeated just because it felt good, then went to find another patch. After that was stuck on, I returned to the patio and my lonely orchid, and proceeded to drink myself into a state of misery. Thankfully, I did doze off, but my phone alarm had me up at seven. My ass was numb, my head felt like a rhino had sat on it, and my mental state was still a wreck. I got to my feet with a moan, carried the empty bottle and dead orchid back inside, and showered.

Mack had court today. That left me on my own to sort out a shit-ton of paperwork and touch base on the slew of cases we were buried under. The county could not get new blood in this unit fast enough to suit me. I'd stopped on the way to the precinct for coffee and two slices of breakfast pizza after filling up my Buick. I'd not stopped thinking of Oliver's lips and the way he had felt pressed against me since our mouths had parted.

I had kissed a lot of men in my twenty-eight years. None of those lip-to-lip meetings had dug into my soul like tasting Oliver Cowan had. Even now, several hours later, my body was humming with residual lust. Not a good thing, as I had case files up the ass. So, shoving a certain sexy hockey player out of my mind—or trying to—I got back to work and checked the internal server to see what had come to the top of the cesspool overnight. I had a shitty system for organizing tasks. There were three categories. Super Important Shit or SIS. Medium Important Shit or MIS. And Not Important Shit or NIS. One of the cops I had partnered with before I'd gotten my detective badge had taught me that system. Barclay Pressman. Good man. Good cop. Dead now. Shot while investigating a noise complaint. Left a wife and three boys. I'd attended far too many funerals for law enforcement officers in my time on the force. And sadly, there would be a lot more before they gave me a gold watch. Given I chased down and incarcerated the mob, Mexican cartels, and feral street gangs, I'd probably be in the ground way before I got that Timex.

Nothing that had my name on it, nor had anything to do with any of my active cases. I started working on follow-ups on the guy we'd found behind the dumpster a few weeks ago. Seemed he had been traced back to one of the lower echelon pushers on the east side. The only odd thing about the shooting was that it wasn't your typical gangland execution. This guy had been carved up in a particular fashion that had deranged monster written all over it. Homicide was working that one, so I closed it out after touching base with Paul "Peanut" Williams—Peanut due to the small size of his head—and moved onto more mundane tasks, such as gathering admissible evidence, making phone calls, and other things that did little to keep my pickled brain from drifting.

With my partner in court for the day, I knew I should keep my ass in my chair, but this office, this building, was growing cramped. I needed some air. Somewhere clean. Somewhere I could sort through the mess inside my skull. Somewhere calm and peaceful. Maybe the beach. Cap would totally buy that I felt sick. I looked like death warmed over. Yeah, some time on the sand with the sun on my face and my toes in the surf would do me wonders.

"Hey, Mary, get your face on. We have a pornography raid to back up. Warrant just came in, and SAFE needs some bodies," Berke called as he and his partner bustled ass through our section of desks and water coolers. Mary. Nice. Whatever. I'd been called worse, for sure, but one day, Paul Berke and I were going to have a long talk about suitable nicknames. All cops had them. Berke was known as Drippy due to his constant allergies and Mason was called Joker because he appeared a great deal like Cesar Julio Romero Jr. from the 60s Batman show. Mack was Kilt because he was Scottish, and me, I was Mary because I was gay and Berke was a jerkoff old homophobe. All the other guys called me Rollo when it suited. It was some stupid sling-around to my last name being Winwood and the singer Steve Winwood having a hit song about rolling with it. Yeah, I never said cops were good at nicknames—we just had them.

"Face is already on. This is as pretty as I get, Drippy," I barked, knowing this raid would probably be on child porn producers that SAFE had been investigating. Nothing said "good morning world, it's a fine day," better than bringing down the hammer on sickos who preyed on kids. The flip side to that perky day arresting scumbags was that many times the kids were on site, sometimes held against their will. Lots of children of color went missing every day. The stats were horrific, and while all of us in law enforcement did our best, sex trafficking was alive and well and tied into many other things. Such as my division of organized crime.

Yeah, the job had its up and downs for sure.

I tossed down the last dregs of coffee in my Minnie thermos and went to play with the boys from Sexual Assault and Felony Enforcement. Generally, our little bands didn't share the sandbox, but given how low every department was on able-bodied cops, we pulled together when necessary. Mack was going to be peeved to miss out on all the fun, but as much as we bitched about court dates, that was what we did all of this for. Hopefully, all the hard work, cold beds, and empty whiskey bottles resulted in getting bad guys off the streets.

We geared up for the raid, pulling on Kevlar raid vests in case things got dicey. Typically, the "breach" team pulled on the most gear. As the detectives who were serving as backups for SAFE, we were there to help lock down the scene after the breach unit entered, secured the site, and deemed it safe for us to enter.

Not as exciting as it was on TV, but still better than sitting in the office dwelling on a wet lip-lock with a witness. A witness I wanted to toss over the nearest counter and fuck seventeen ways to Sunday. It was all so bad, on so many fronts, but there it was. So yeah, this would be a nice distraction. We piled into an unmarked car that Conrad "Chip" Cooley from SAFE drove, and made our way to the outskirts of LA, to a small run-down building at the end of a strip mall. Next to a nail salon called Wins Nails sat Honeybee Video Productions.

There were five detectives on-site, along with a small breach team of about six SWAT members. As I said, we were there for the ice cream—the breaching unit did all the hard work. Still, things could escalate quickly, so backup was always appreciated.

We lingered a bit, just a moment or two, using the windowless brick wall as a buffer as SWAT did their thing. Shouting as they busted into the front of the video production store. Flash bangs went off and at least fifteen men erupted out of the rear of the nail salon, as well as the video store. We all gave chase as soon as we locked eyes. Feminine screams could be heard from the interior of the nail parlor along with the loud shouts of the breach unit. I locked my sights on a tall Black male, with white hair, blue shirt, cargo shorts, and new Nike high tops. Someone behind me called my name. Well, they called Mary, which I chose to ignore as adrenaline raced through me.

Cops erupted out of the rear of several stores and ran hard.

White Hair glanced back at me once. His eyes widened, and then, he sped up. The fucker. Maybe the whole smoking cessation thing was a good idea if this was what I was doing on occasion. Wheezing slightly, I nonetheless maintained distance even if I didn't overtake him. I switched on my body cam and he led me on a fucking merry chase, zipping around parked cars, into a four-lane road where we both nearly got mowed down, and into a playground. Over a rusty fence he went, landing awkwardly, his left leg buckling for a split second. Pushing myself to my limits—fucking greasy food and menthol smokes had to go—I arced over the fence, one hand on the top rail, and landed on my feet. Women and kids screamed. Ten or so guys shooting hoops stopped the game instantly. A basketball bounced once, twice, and thrice on the old court as I lunged at the man who was getting to his fancy Nikes. I took him down with a football tackle I had learned back in my high school days playing defensive tackle for the Milford Mustangs. Go Mustangs!

We skidded over the cracked blacktop of the basketball court, him throwing wild haymakers at my head. One landed solidly in my eye.

"Motherfucker," I spat out in pain as tears ran down my right cheek. I pinned him down, knees on his arms, as my overworked lungs sucked in as much air as they could. "You have the… right to… remain silent…" I huffed while I dug out my handcuffs. He fell in on himself, the fight leaving him as Berke arrived, huffing, to stare down at us. I read him his rights as best I could, given I had done my best impression of a sprinter.

"Jesus, Mary," he panted, hands on his knees, as the crying man I was seated on gave up completely. "You're a speedy fairy."

"It's the wings," I gasped, then moved White Hair to his belly to secure the cuffs.

"What the actual fuck?" Berke asked as I hauled White Hair to his feet. "I mean… Christ, my legs are on fire. What the shit got into you? We're here as backup to SAFE. This is their bust. You were way out of line on this one, Mary."

I didn't give stepping on toes a second thought when I saw potential—innocent until proven guilty after all—child abusers/traffickers darting out of several doors like rats fleeing a house fire. I simply ran. Instinct. Training. Head up my ass after tongue-fucking a witness in one of my cases. They all were viable excuses, but excuses wouldn't save my ass if our captain got a call from the SAFE captain. Protocol was important. Since I had no good reason for my questionable reaction, I moved on, shoving my suspect ahead of me. Berke came with me, still out of breath, but able to ream me out all the way back to the strip mall where everyone on our side seemed to be in high spirits.

"Body cam was on," I reassured.

The whole chase-and-subdue had maybe taken four minutes. In the end, we'd captured ten slimeballs, confiscated thousands of hours of videos about to be shipped off to foreign ports the world over, and took in about forty thousand plus dollars in cash. Thank all the gods for blessed miracles that there were no children on site. The cash we found, I was sure, had been laundered along the way. White Hair proved to be one hell of a songbird, as well as a champion sprinter, because he was singing to all of us like a lark as they were piled into a van to be processed. We had a few names to track down linked to the money laundering, one that we knew rather well and two that were new to us, all thanks to White Hair Sings-A-Lot. With a successful bust under our belts, we all returned to our respective desks after dropping off our gear.

I'd no sooner nodded at Mack, who was coming from court, when the door to my captain's office flew open and my supervisor filled the opening, looking none too happy. Great. Seemed the head of SAFE had made a call.

"How'd court go?" I asked my partner.

Mack grunted while hanging his suit jacket over the back of his squeaky desk chair. There was an odd sort of silence filling our happy little work area.

"Winwood, in my office now," Franks barked. Mack cocked a brow in question. I sighed, shook my head, and walked into Franks' office. The door was open at my back. "Close that door."

Okay, that was never good. I did as I was told, took two steps into the office, and got hit in the face with round after round of irate commander verbal artillery fire. Franks never once sat down. He paced his office, shouting, pointing, and slapping his hands on his desk to make several key points. I nodded. What else could I do? I'd acted irrationally. I should have gotten clearance from my superiors. I should have taken a partner. The list went on and on until Franks, heaving in irritation, stalled out to glare at me.

"Oh, is it my turn to talk?" I asked.

"You talking is a large part of why my ulcers are so bad," he snapped. I opened my mouth to reply. He cut me off with a hand in the air. "No, do not say one word. What I want you to do is tell me why you ran off without a fucking word or a backup. Then, I need you to explain why you fucking tap danced over interdepartmental protocol. Also, and this is maybe the most important, I want you to clarify just what the fuck is wrong with you of late? You were always a wiseass, but the past few months you've been off the rails, Winwood. Do you need some counseling? The department has excellent therapists to help our officers who are struggling with the stress of the job."

"I… no, I don't need therapy." He seemed unconvinced. I was too, if I were being honest. "My caseload is crushing, I'm getting nowhere with the clinic robbery, and my orchid died."

"Orchid your cat or something?"

"No, it's a flower."

"Thank fuck."

"Yeah, I agree." I scrubbed at my face for a moment. "It's a flower. Dead. Been dead for months. I can't seem to throw it away, though. But yeah, sorry, none of that is any excuse for being a dick on a raid. I'll apologize to Captain Klinger over at SAFE."

"You do that, and make sure you grovel nicely. Klinger is a stiff bastard on a good day. As for the workload, I know it's rough. The switch from eight-hour shifts to ten has broiled all of our brains, but the good news is that we have some new blood coming over from various localities. One from Sacramento, and one from La Mesa, so the caseload will lessen in a few weeks."

"That's good. They being paired together?"

"Unlikely." I thought to push to see if these new men would be teamed up with one of our four, but given Franks was apoplectic, I just bobbed my head. "Go make your apologies. And, Winwood, if you are feeling the strain, speak up. We can't afford to lose a good detective over caseload burnout."

I had to wonder how he would feel about the fact I had played tonsil hockey with one of the LA Storm. His blood pressure would rocket. His head would blow off. And his wife would de-nut me with her incredibly long porcelain fingernails.

"I'm good. Just jittery, drank too much last night. I'll call Klinger now and kiss his ass."

"You do that."

Seemed I was dismissed. I slunk out of Franks' office and met the worried glance of my partner and the two elder detectives who had suddenly fallen silent.

"Anyone know the best way to suck a straight guy's dick without actually applying your lips to said dick?" I asked aloud.

The replies I got were varied. None were helpful.

I commenced with the inevitable apologizing aka dick-sucking. Klinger did not give an inch. The call was short, nasty, and filled with simmering ire at my stupidity.

After I hung up, I lifted my thermos to my lips, only to remember that it was empty. Great. No coffee, no smokes, and it was barely noon.

This day could only go upward from here, right?