Page 17 of Crosshairs
“I’d recommend we discuss it tomorrow when we’re not on a date.”
“That’s a fine idea.” She smiled and said, “How’s your new partner?”
“He’s still odd and I definitely don’t want to discuss him. Either now or tomorrow.” I gave her a grin to let her know I was kidding. Sort of.
Mary Catherine replied with a spectacular smile herself. “You’re right, Michael. This one time I’ll admit to being incorrect.”
“Wrong?”
“Ha! Don’t push it. I’ll only admit to ‘incorrect,’ or maybe poor timing.”
I reached across and took her hand on top of the table. We started to chat about everything. The kids, our life, our future. There really was no way to compartmentalize our lives when we shared so much.
We both sat appreciating the moment. I gazed across the smalltable at my wife’s beautiful face. Her light hair—which was varying shades of strawberry blond—framed her cheeks and brought out the blue in her eyes.
Mary Catherine said, “We Irish have a saying about love.”
I cut in. “Don’t the Irish have a saying for everything?”
“As a matter of fact, we do. The first one is, never interrupt someone when they’re trying to be romantic.” She gave me what she liked to call her Irish glare. It felt more like a loan shark’s threat.
When Mary Catherine was certain I’d learned my lesson, she continued. “Love is like a friendship caught on fire.”
I just sat and thought about that. It captured us perfectly.
Mary Catherine said, “And a baby would only make the flames grow.”
I guess Mary Catherine had no lingering doubts whatsoever about having a baby. There was no hesitation at all.
CHAPTER 22
ROB TRILLING DIDN’T like leaving his new partner so abruptly to handle his personal business. But he hated to miss appointments, and he’d barely made the one today.
At least now he was on his own time and not responsible for anyone but himself. It hadn’t taken long for Trilling to learn that a cop, like a member of the military, rarely had time when he or she was completely “off duty.”
Trilling had considered going home and getting some rest. But he knew that was a foolish idea. He was lucky to doze off for an hour a night without taking some kind of medication. And the fact that he required stronger and stronger medication was starting to scare him. Lying awake in bed wasn’t the way to relieve his anxiety. But he could definitely feel the lack of sleep catching up to him.
Trilling hesitated at a curb. Maybe he was paranoid, but hedidn’t really want anyone to know where he was going or what he was doing. That’s why he figured it was safer to park farther away and walk to the building he needed to reach.
It was just getting dark, and he could feel a stab of hunger in his stomach. He tried to eat at places he trusted. He didn’t know Midtown that well and decided he could find something healthy to eat at home later. It was tough to stay healthyandstay on a budget in New York City. No matter how many times his mom had warned him it would be almost impossible to live comfortably in the city, he was still surprised at the prices. A hamburger in this neighborhood could cost as much as a hardcover book. Trilling considered that his only serious vice: collecting books. His mom let him store half a dozen boxes at her house in Bozeman, Montana. He had another hundred or so books stashed around his apartment.
He started walking the four blocks to the bar he was looking for. The walk gave him a chance to think. To clear his head. Something he was able to do in Montana easily. New York City had proved to be a little more of a challenge when he wanted some space and perspective. He found that was a problem with a lot of New Yorkers: they had no perspective. They just assumed the rest of the country was good with whatever they thought was right. After living here for almost two years, he kinda understood both sides of that problem.
When Trilling first moved to New York, all he’d thought about was his time in the military. Now it felt like most of his time was spent contemplating the politics and landscape of the New York City Police Department. He was starting to warm up to his new partner, Mike Bennett. The detective was intimidating even if he didn’t mean to be. The guy was an absolute legendin the department. He’d caught some of the most high-profile killers the city had ever seen.
It wasn’t Bennett he was so concerned about, though. It was the police department itself. This latest move to pull him off the FBI fugitive task force had thrown Rob for a loop. He didn’t mind being assigned somewhere else temporarily. But there was one fugitive case he did not intend to give up. A real dickwad named Lou Pershing had gotten under his skin.
Pershing was wanted for drug trafficking, but Trilling’s interest came from interviewing the fugitive’s former girlfriend: an attractive young lady who now wore a glass eye because Pershing had punched her so hard during an argument, he’d popped her real eye. Back in Montana, a guy who did something like that would’ve been beaten by the other citizens. Trilling had decided after meeting Pershing’s poor girlfriend that he was going to bring this man to face a judge no matter what.
Pershing had been arrested several times over the years, but age and some effort on his part had changed his appearance drastically. All Trilling had to go on was a blurry photograph that the girlfriend had provided, and reports that Pershing had a tattoo on his right biceps of a Muslim being hung. Maybe it had something to do with his employment as a contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trilling found the little bar he was looking for. To say it was a hole-in-the-wall was an insult to holes everywhere. It literally looked like some sort of storage area in the corner of a building. There were no markings over the door and only a little sign on the wall that simply said,MUG AND BOTTLE. This was where Lou Pershing was supposed to hang out. Rumor had it that the bar was also where business off the grid was conducted. Its location wasrelatively convenient for anyone from the Bronx all the way down to SoHo. A good central spot.
Rob Trilling had been here twice before, looking for Pershing. Even for this expensive neighborhood, the mediocre drinks were wildly overpriced to make up for the small number of patrons who came through the place. Everyone paid without complaint because they needed an establishment like this that they all knew and trusted.
The place was busier than Trilling had ever seen it. Over a dozen patrons. Most of them rougher-looking, middle-aged men. Three attractive women were sitting with a man in a dark corner. A couple of men were watching a hazy TV, trying to keep up with some soccer match in Europe. A few younger men played darts, and the rest were chatting quietly at the bar or one of the few tables. And one guy in the back who could be Pershing. He had a thick, untrimmed beard and hair slicked back with some kind of product.
Trilling made it a point to not even look the man’s way as he eased toward the bar. He wished there was a mirror at this dive so he could covertly look at his suspect, but there was just a bare concrete wall with no decorations behind the bar. He couldn’t risk a direct confrontation here, especially in case the man wasn’t Pershing.