Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay Page A

human expressions paid off for me here as I put on my best innocently curious face.
    Kyle apparently couldn’t decide if that was right. He worked his jaw muscles and unclenched his fists.
    “I should have warned you,” Deborah said. “He’s good at this.”
    Chutsky let out a big breath and shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. With a visible effort he leaned back and flicked on his smile again. “Pretty good, buddy. How’d you come up with all that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” I said modestly. “It just seemed obvious. The hard part is figuring out how Sergeant Doakes is involved.”
    “Jesus H. Christ,” he said, and clenched his fists again. Deborah looked at me and laughed, not exactly the same kind of laugh she had given Kyle, but still, it felt good to know she could remember now and then that we were on the same team. “I told you he’s good,” she said.
    “Jesus Christ,” Kyle said again. He pumped one index finger unconsciously, as if squeezing an invisible trigger, then turned his sunglasses in Deb’s direction. “You’re right about that,” he said, and turned back to me. He watched me hard for a moment, possibly to see if I would bolt for the door or start speaking Arabic, and then he nodded. “What’s this about Sergeant Doakes?”
    “You’re not just trying to drop Doakes in the shit, are you?” Deborah asked me.
    “In Captain Matthews’s conference room,” I said, “when Kyle saw Doakes for the first time, there was a moment when I thought they recognized each other.”
    “I didn’t notice that,” Deborah said with a frown.
    “You were busy blushing,” I said. She blushed again, which I thought was a little redundant. “Besides, Doakes was the one who knew who to call when he saw the crime scene.”
    “Doakes knows some stuff,” Chutsky admitted. “From his military service.”
    “What kind of stuff?” I asked. Chutsky looked at me for a long time, or anyway his sunglasses did. He tapped on the table with that silly pinkie ring and the sunlight flashed off the large diamond in the center. When he finally spoke it felt like the temperature at our table had dropped ten degrees.
    “Buddy,” he said, “I don’t want to cause you any trouble, but you have to let go of this. Back off. Find a different hobby. Or else you are in a world of shit—and you will get flushed.” The waiter materialized at Kyle’s elbow before I could think of something wonderful to say to that. Chutsky kept the sunglasses turned toward me for a long moment. Then he handed the menu to the waiter. “The bouillabaisse is really good here,” he said.
     
     
    Deborah disappeared for the rest of the week, which did very little for my self-esteem, because no matter how terrible it was for me to admit it, without her help I was stuck. I could not come up with any sort of alternative plan for ditching Doakes. He was still there, parked under the tree across from my apartment, following me to Rita’s house, and I had no answers. My once-proud brain chased its tail and caught nothing but air.
    I could feel the Dark Passenger roiling and whimpering and struggling to climb out and take the steering wheel, but there was Doakes looming up through the windshield, forcing me to clamp down and reach for another can of beer. I had worked too hard and too long to achieve my perfect little life and I was not going to ruin it now. The Passenger and I could wait a bit longer. Harry had taught me discipline, and that would have to see me through to happier days.
     
    ____
     
    “Patience,” Harry said. He paused to cough into a Kleenex. “Patient is more important than smart, Dex. You’re already smart.”
    “Thank you,” I said. And I meant it politely, really, because I was not at all comfortable sitting there in Harry’s hospital room. The smell of medicine and disinfectant and urine mixed with the air of restrained suffering and clinical death made me wish I was almost anywhere else. Of course, as a