Baxter Clare - L.A. Franco 4 - Last Call Read online

  "I'm not counting."

  Frank's "lapses into inebriation," as Gail calls them, are an issue around which they have created a wary detente. Gail's dad was a destructive drunk, always promising to go on the wagon and stay there, and always falling off. Frank doesn't get drunk in front of Gail and Gail doesn't bring it up. Today Frank has broken the rules and couldn't care less. Her best friend's dead and she's entitled. She lets the chips of their delicate truce fall where they may.

  "Would you like me to stay?" Gail surprises Frank by adding, "I promise I won't nag."

  Frank reaches across the table for her hand. "Yes." She says this because she thinks it will please Gail to feel needed. Also because it's the right thing to say. One shouldn't be alone at times like this and all that jazz. What she won't admit is that, lying restlessly under fathoms of alcohol is the frail hope that Gail can touch her, that the doc can offer some small measure of comfort. That maybe, just maybe, Gail can become part of the click.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, Frank is comforted by the distraction of a mild hangover. She stays at Tracey's long enough for a cup of coffee. Amid tears and dark laughter, Tracey, her sister and one of Noah's sisters are managing the funeral arrangements. Tracey's mom and dad are flying in this afternoon and Noah's folks will drive up tomorrow from San Diego. Tracey and the kids will be surrounded by people who love them, and Frank will stay out of the way.

  Before leaving, Frank hugs Noah's kids. Leslie is just hitting puberty. She is silent and withdrawn. At ten, Jamie is wide-eyed and brave, vainly trying to comfort her baby brother. Markie is old enough to understand his father is dead, but young enough to burst into tears for him. She returns them to the diversion of aunts and cousins, making Tracey promise to call her if there is anything at all she needs.

  The rest of Frank's morning is spent repeating the phone calls she made yesterday. Without emotion, she relays the details of Saturday's funeral and memorial. The squad drifts in and out, until they have all gone home, but Frank remains, burying herself in the minutiae of administration.

  Now it is a few ticks shy of midnight. Frank paces the squad room. Her cadre of ghosts follows in close formation. Light filters in from her office and the hall. The squad room dozes, undisturbed by the station sounds drifting up the stairs.

  Smoking is not permitted in the building yet a blue haze nuzzles the ceiling. Frank stops long enough to light a new cigarette off her old one. She drops the stub into the Pepsi can Darcy uses to spit his chew, the sizzling extinction pleasing her. From the boom box in her office, Sinatra spills his guts. The CD player was a birthday gift from the squad. She'd been touched, sure it had been Noah's idea to replace her ancient cassette player.

  Frank keeps stopping at his desk. Like a kitchen is always the gathering place in a house, Noah's desk has always been the focal point of the office. The metal sides are upholstered with his kids' artwork held in place by a variety of magnets. Colorful paintings and poems paper the wall behind the desk. Noah updated the school photographs each year but never changed the picture of Tracey he put on his desk his first day in homicide. She picks up Tracey's smiling face. Frank used to joke that he wanted a younger wife, but Noah always maintained the picture was good luck.

  "Not good enough," she tells the picture. She puts it down, continuing past the silent hulk. After a few more tours around the cramped office, Frank is inevitably drawn back to the desk. She stares at the cluttered top, then pulls Noah's chair out. She sits in it, pushing and prodding at papers. She will have to divvy his cases among the squad. Prominent on the desk is the murder book for a stabbing he caught two days ago. Lewis can have that. Noah is—uh-uh, Frank corrects herself. Was. Noah was the primary on it, and as his partner, Lewis has already helped him work it. Besides, Frank's sure that sooner or later someone will drop a dime on their perp.

  Frank lifts the cover on another binder. The dead crack baby. Lewis can handle this one, too. There's a rock hound out there that carried for nine months and is suddenly childless. Lewis'll either find the woman who suffocated her infant or she'll get someone to talk. Life's cheap in South Central, but smothering a baby and burying it under a pile of garbage is scandalous even by 'hood standards.

  Mentally parceling out Noah's cases, she leaves the murder books where they are. The mess on his desk is comforting. It lets her believe Noah's coming back, that he's just at home, on vacation, taking sick time. He'll be back. The work waiting for him tells her so.

  Like faithful hounds by their master's chair, two cardboard file boxes press against the desk. A pile of obsolete memos and crinkled forms sit on top of them. And a shoebox.

  "Oh, yeah," she mutters. The Pryce case. Was he working on it? Not likely, considering the boxes are covered with papers. Still, Frank checks a couple of the old memos. Their dates suggest the boxes haven't been touched in at least six weeks. She thinks back. It could have been slow enough then that he'd gone through the case one more time.

  Almost seven years old, Pryce is still unsolved. Noah'd caught the case right after Joe had told Frank she was being promoted to lieutenant. Months before, Joe and Noah had kicked her ass to take the lieutenant's exam. She'd done it to get them off her back, and maybe because she didn't care, she'd scored in the top ten percent on both the written and oral tests. Joe had been pulling strings for almost a year but still only received the green light three weeks before his retirement. Frank had balked at advancement. She didn't want to command a squad. She just wanted to stay a Detective III, keep to herself, and drink away every last vestige of her past. But Joe and Noah wouldn't let her.

  Swamped with all Joe had been trying to teach her before he left, Frank couldn't help her old partner. Noah had to work Pryce alone. The case was two months old and spilling into its second box by the time she took a look at it. Still overwhelmed by her new responsibilities, she hadn't offered much input. Noah actively worked the case for the better part of a year, chasing the tiniest of leads like a whippet after a mechanical rabbit. The rabbit always eluded him, but the boxes stayed by his desk.

  Two years into her command, Frank noticed them by the cold files. After that, when his workload permitted, Noah would tackle the case again, always hoping he'd spot a lead he'd missed the first thirty dozen times. Frank had meant to help him with it—had started to a couple of times—but some crisis dujour always derailed her.

  Frank's cigarette has burned down to her fingers. She takes a quick last suck on it then grinds it under her heel. She carries the musty boxes into her office. Pryce has just been reassigned.

  Chapter 5

  Frank takes a garment bag out of the closet. She lays it on the bed, unzips it and carefully removes her dress blues. She undresses in the adjoining bathroom and takes a long shower. She finds her blow-dryer under the sink and dries her hair. The smell of hot dust fills the room. She doesn't have the patience to finish her hair and leaves it damp against her neck.

  Walking naked into the bedroom, she contemplates the clothes laid out on her bed. She never thought she'd have to wear them for this. Not for him.

  She pins the gold bars on the collar. Satisfied they're straight, she slips into the heavy cloth. The shirt buttons snugly and Frank has to suck her breath in to zip her trousers. She tells herself she'd better spend more time on the treadmill. She pulls her dress belt through the pant loops and puts her tie on in front of the mirror. She doesn't look at her face.

  Carrying her hat into the living room, she snaps her old .38 to the belt. She loves her 9mm, but today she feels a need to carry history. Creased and pressed, she drives alone to her best friend's funeral.

  There, she stands with her squad, looking across the rectangle of plastic grass at Noah's family. Kennedy is there. Her old flame is subdued but solicitous. She asks why Gail didn't come.

  "She wanted to. I asked her not to. Selfish of me, but this will be easier without her."

  Frank has developed two personalities—a softer, more accessible personality
reserved for rare intimates, and a professional, implacable police persona she uses to her advantage now. She braces herself, relieved when Kennedy doesn't press for detail. She's also relieved when Kennedy doesn't follow to the reception.

  Cops and civilians make two separate knots, the former growing louder and raunchier as the liquor disappears. Joe Girardi is here. He's lost hair and gained weight. Frank doesn't know if she's glad to see him or not. She loves Joe, but his presence brings memories. Just like the old days, he pulls Frank away from the squad. She is both relieved and apprehensive.

  "You look like you've been fucked, fried and flogged halfway to Friday."

  It's such a classic Girardi line Frank has to smile.

  Joe squeezes her shoulder, bending his head to hers. "How you doing, girlie-girl?"

  "I'm okay."

  "I know, I know. You're always okay. How you handling this?"

  "Handling what?"

  "Noah."

  "I'm gonna figure out his caseload and his partner's—"

  "No, no, no." Joe jabs a finger between her breasts. "How are you dealing with this?"

  Frank stares over his shoulder. "Best I can. There's not a lot of options."

  Joe stays quiet, but keeps his face in Frank's.

  She manages a grin. "You're interrogating."

  "Damn right." He grins back. "I know you won't give it up without a fight."

  "Even then," she says, backing away, raising her palms in the air.

  Joe shakes his head. "It'll eat you alive."

  "I'll take care of it."

  "How?"

  "Joe, I respect you. Always have. But you're not my LT anymore. Don't push me."

  "All right, all right," he soothes. "I'm just asking. I know what you're gonna do anyway."

  "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

  "You're gonna dive into a bottle and pretend it's never happened."

  It rankles Frank that she is so transparent, and she answers, "So what if I do? Who's it gonna hurt?"

  "You, girlie-girl. It's gonna hurt you. And it doesn't have to be that way."

  "Maybe it does."

  Frank stands squarely during Joe's full appraisal. She feels like she's let him down, but she can't change that. Finally he nods.

  "Maybe it does. Come on," he says, swinging an arm around her neck. "Let's get back to the party."

  He leaves soon after. Lightly slapping her cheek, Joe tells Frank to be careful. And reminds her she has his number. Watching him leave, she's surprised by the lump in her throat. She sips club soda so her crew can tie one on. As the funeral reception breaks up she pours them into cabs and sends them home with more sober revelers. She hugs Tracey and promises to call. She winds up alone in her car, driving with no destination. Like a serial killer, she cruises aimlessly until a perfect opportunity appears.

  It's the Alibi. She locks her .38 into the lockbox in her trunk. In the bathroom she exchanges her uniform for shorts and a T-shirt from the backseat. They're wrinkled and stiff with sweat, but there's hardly anyone in the bar. Much of the Alibi's trade is from downtown offices so the place is quiet on Saturday afternoons. The weekend bartender doesn't know Frank well and tries to initiate conversation. When Frank shuts him down he takes up a position at the opposite end of the bar.

  She stares at the NASCAR race over her head and drinks doubles. She did what she had to do at the wake, but now her time is her own, and she intends to use it getting shitfaced. As she finishes her third Scotch, Johnnie walks in. She doesn't admit how glad she is to see him. They order boilermakers and raise their shot glasses.

  "To Noah."

  They order again. By midnight they see two of themselves behind the jeweled bottles in the mirror. The bartender's afraid to cut the cops off and afraid not to. He's relieved when Frank tells him to call a cab. She and Johnnie tumble out to the sidewalk, Johnnie bellowing, "I'm drunker 'n a fuckin' lord!"

  "Hella high," Frank agrees. She sways gently while Johnnie waggles a finger. Or two.

  "La Freek." He calls her by the old nickname only he uses anymore. "You're drunker'n a fiddler's bitch."

  "Uncanny, Detective Briggs. No foolin' you."

  When the cab comes they go to another bar. By the time she gets home she has to kneel in front of her door and shut one eye to get the key in the lock. She gets in on the third try, stumbling past the flashing light on her answering machine. She knows who's called and it's too late to do anything about it. She drinks a big glass of water and takes four Excedrin PMs, hoping she'll sleep through the worst of the hangover.

  It's a good plan, but at dawn Frank is hugging her John. After she's left with dry heaves she drinks more water and sticks her finger down her throat. When the water comes back up her stomach levels out. She chases two naproxen with an inch of Pepto Bismol and goes back to bed. The ringing phone wakes her. She reaches for it while assessing damage control. The hangover has left only a foggy head and sore stomach muscles.

  "This is Franco."

  "Hi." Gail's voice elicits remorse mingled with caution.

  "Hey." Frank makes an offensive play. "I'm sorry I didn't call yesterday. Johnnie and I stopped by the Alibi and kind of closed the place down."

  "Kind of closed the place down," Gail repeats, her words stuck in the wire like an icicle. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that I might be worried."

  "Honestly, yes. But by the time I thought to call you I was pretty smashed."

  While waiting for Gail's move Frank tries to remember how she got home. She walks to the living room window, doesn't see her car in the driveway and assumes she had sense enough to take a cab.

  At last Gail says, "I hope you feel like bloody hell this morning."

  "I do," Frank lies.

  "Good. You deserve it."

  The doc's honesty amuses Frank. It's what she loves most about Gail. That and her legs.

  "I owe you dinner. How about I take you out and we catch a movie?"

  "And you think that'll get you off the hook?"

  "I don't know. Will it?"

  Gail considers, allowing, "This time."

  It's too late for Frank to go back to sleep so after a glass of chocolate milk she exorcises her guilt in the garage that is her gymnasium. With the Soloflex, treadmill and free weights, she sweats the night from her system. A cab takes her to the Alibi where her old Honda waits patiently. When she picks up Gail, she is bright-eyed and hungry. She will not drink tonight. She will be charming and attentive. Frank plans this, she thinks, to keep Gail off her back, to convince the doc everything is all right.

  Chapter 6

  Frank takes Lewis and Bobby aside after the Monday morning briefing. She asks them to clean out Noah's desk. It takes three boxes to hold all his gag toys, pictures, holiday decorations, art projects and birthday cards. Per her instructions, they leave the boxes in Frank's office. They are filled to the top, overflowing like Christmas stockings. She ignores them until the end of the day, when she walks across the street and comes back with two more boxes. She repacks everything until she can seal each box, thinking if it's this hard for her to look at his stuff, how hard is it going to be for his wife?

  She calls Tracey, asking if she'd like company for dinner. She's pleased when Tracey answers, "Fuck, yeah. I'd love to see you."

  Having six tender ears around hasn't bled the blue from Tracey's tongue.

  Frank suggests, "How 'bout I get some Kentucky Fried Chicken? Wash it down with plastic coleslaw and watery potatoes?"

  "God," Tracey groans. "I haven't eaten that shit in years. But the kids'll love it. And don't forget the biscuits and gravy."

  When she arrives at Noah's house—it will always be Noah's house—Tracey greets her with the usual bear hug. What it lacks in exuberance it makes up for in comfort. The women hold on to each other for a while.

  "Hey, I've got some stuff in the car. From Noah's desk. Want me to put it in the garage?"

  "Would you?"

  "Sure." Noah's youngest are watching TV i
n the living room and Frank says, "Hey, come help me bring your dinner in."

  "Hi, Frank," Jamie says. "We're watching a movie."

  "Not anymore," Tracey replies, waving the remote at the TV. "Go help Frank."

  Frank loads the kids with bags of food, then stacks the boxes on a shelf in the garage. She brings a six-pack in from the car, but Tracey has already snapped the cap off a Bud and left it on the counter. Picking up her own bottle, she clanks it against Frank's.

  She quips, "I was going to open a delicate little Pouilly-Fuisse but thought this might have a gutsier bouquet."

  "Hear, hear," Frank says, draining much of her bottle in one go.

  Tracey wipes her lip and says, "Thanks for coming by."

  "Thanks for letting me invite myself."

  "Well, hell, how can I refuse when you bring dinner?"

  The kids aren't in the kitchen, so Frank asks, "How's it going?"

  "Horrible. I can't stand this. Waiting for him to come into the room, or call and say he's running late. I don't know how many times a day I think, oh, I've gotta tell No this, and then each time it's a fresh kick in the stomach when I remember I can't." Tracey starts crying and yanks a paper towel off the holder. "I talk to him anyway. I like to think he can hear me, that he can still see us and knows how much we love him. What else can I do?" she pleads.

  "Nothing."

  "That's it." She nods. "Nothing. I cry all the time. My shirts are always wet," she jokes, but not really.

  "It'll get better, Trace. You saw me go through Maggie. If I can do it, then anyone can."

  "No kidding."

  Tracey tries a chuckle, swiping her cheeks. Frank wraps her arms around her best friend's wife and for a minute they share the load.

  The spring night is balmy, so they picnic on the patio. Tracey confides that they've been eating dinner everywhere except in the dining room. She can't stand seeing Noah's chair empty. After dinner, Tracey brings fresh beers. Leslie has disappeared into her room, but Mark and Jamie color near them.

  Frank tilts her head, asking so they won't hear, "How are they?"

  Tracey blows her sorrow and frustration out in a sigh. "Markie follows me everywhere I go, and at some point during the night Jamie joins us in bed. They're so confused. But at least they're talking about it. Les just hides in her room. She answers me in monosyllables but won't volunteer anything."