went straight to her ear. "You breaking our date?" She sounded surprised. Not nearly as surprised as I was. "You working a night shift?" "No," I said, then added lamely, "family problems." "You got yourself a girlfriend, don't you?" I could tell she was smiling.
"No way."
"But you're working on it." She was enjoying this.
I didn't answer. I wasn't even sure I knew the answer.
"Hey, baby, I'm cool with it," she said.
"How's our college student doing?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Two As, two Bs, and he's writing a sports column for the school paper. I might apply to college myself. Could you write
me a reference?"
"Honey, I could write you a reference that would fog their glasses and get you a four-year scholarship." "You sure you wanna break this date? Sounds to me like you still got pussy on the brain." "I'll get over it," I said. We hung up, and for the rest of the ride home I tried to block the whole long day from my thoughts. But every now and then the voice inside my head would say, "Don't forget, you promised Big Jim you'd call Diana."
CHAPTER 21
I made the trip back from Big Jim's about three minutes shy of my personal-best door-to-door time. Speeding without fear of catching hell is one of the perks of being a cop. I turned into my driveway and automatically looked down at the clock on the dash.
Joanie had this little game she invented called Dashboard Poker. Whenever you get to your destination, you look at your car's digital clock and make a poker hand out of the numbers. There's no winning or losing, but a good hand means the stars are lining up in your favor. You're not allowed to plot your arrival time. It has to be completely random.
I arrived home at thirty-four minutes after midnight. The eerie green digits that the Acura designers had foolishly thought only served to tell time glowed happily with the good news that I had just been dealt a four-card straight: 1, 2, 3, 4, all lined up in a row. According to Joanie's rules, the better your poker hand, the greater your reward, so I knew excellent things were in store for me. Maybe Elkins's killer would be sitting in my kitchen, cuffed to the table, writing out his confession.
Joanie wasn't a mystic or a kook or any of those other labels we give people who don't rigorously follow the Accepted Path of Logic and Reason. Like millions of other perfectly sane people, she believed there are powers beyond the observable physical world. She would read our horoscopes daily, knock on wood whenever the occasion called for it, and was always on the lookout for Signs From God. So Dashboard Poker became much more than a game. To Joanie, it was one of God's many ways of communicating with us. G-mail.
Joanie had more than a passing need to hear from God. She desperately wanted a baby. Each month as her unfertilized eggs would drop, and the blood and the tears would flow from her body, she would pray for God's blessings and ask for His help. Some nights I would see her kneeling at her bedside, the angelic little Catholic girl, hands clasped, her lips moving in silent prayer. Other times she would storm out of the bathroom, the EPT strip in her hand unmistakably negative, and she'd thrust it up to the heavens and yell, "Thank you, God, but this is not the fucking sign I was asking for."
Eventually, we turned to one of God's helpers on earth, Kristian Kraus, fertility doctor to the stars. His patients adored him, and from the moment you met him, you knew why. Kraus was about sixty, with silver hair, a golden tan, and blue eyes that radiated compassion, understanding, and most of all, hope.
But being a trained detective, I could see beyond the Marcus Welby facade. The man reeked of money. His suit cost more than my car. His Ferrari in the parking lot cost more than my house. And according to Joanie's estimate, he also had about $200,000 worth of limited-edition prints. And that was just in his waiting room. We were never invited to his home in Hancock
Park or the
"No way."
"But you're working on it." She was enjoying this.
I didn't answer. I wasn't even sure I knew the answer.
"Hey, baby, I'm cool with it," she said.
"How's our college student doing?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Two As, two Bs, and he's writing a sports column for the school paper. I might apply to college myself. Could you write
me a reference?"
"Honey, I could write you a reference that would fog their glasses and get you a four-year scholarship." "You sure you wanna break this date? Sounds to me like you still got pussy on the brain." "I'll get over it," I said. We hung up, and for the rest of the ride home I tried to block the whole long day from my thoughts. But every now and then the voice inside my head would say, "Don't forget, you promised Big Jim you'd call Diana."
CHAPTER 21
I made the trip back from Big Jim's about three minutes shy of my personal-best door-to-door time. Speeding without fear of catching hell is one of the perks of being a cop. I turned into my driveway and automatically looked down at the clock on the dash.
Joanie had this little game she invented called Dashboard Poker. Whenever you get to your destination, you look at your car's digital clock and make a poker hand out of the numbers. There's no winning or losing, but a good hand means the stars are lining up in your favor. You're not allowed to plot your arrival time. It has to be completely random.
I arrived home at thirty-four minutes after midnight. The eerie green digits that the Acura designers had foolishly thought only served to tell time glowed happily with the good news that I had just been dealt a four-card straight: 1, 2, 3, 4, all lined up in a row. According to Joanie's rules, the better your poker hand, the greater your reward, so I knew excellent things were in store for me. Maybe Elkins's killer would be sitting in my kitchen, cuffed to the table, writing out his confession.
Joanie wasn't a mystic or a kook or any of those other labels we give people who don't rigorously follow the Accepted Path of Logic and Reason. Like millions of other perfectly sane people, she believed there are powers beyond the observable physical world. She would read our horoscopes daily, knock on wood whenever the occasion called for it, and was always on the lookout for Signs From God. So Dashboard Poker became much more than a game. To Joanie, it was one of God's many ways of communicating with us. G-mail.
Joanie had more than a passing need to hear from God. She desperately wanted a baby. Each month as her unfertilized eggs would drop, and the blood and the tears would flow from her body, she would pray for God's blessings and ask for His help. Some nights I would see her kneeling at her bedside, the angelic little Catholic girl, hands clasped, her lips moving in silent prayer. Other times she would storm out of the bathroom, the EPT strip in her hand unmistakably negative, and she'd thrust it up to the heavens and yell, "Thank you, God, but this is not the fucking sign I was asking for."
Eventually, we turned to one of God's helpers on earth, Kristian Kraus, fertility doctor to the stars. His patients adored him, and from the moment you met him, you knew why. Kraus was about sixty, with silver hair, a golden tan, and blue eyes that radiated compassion, understanding, and most of all, hope.
But being a trained detective, I could see beyond the Marcus Welby facade. The man reeked of money. His suit cost more than my car. His Ferrari in the parking lot cost more than my house. And according to Joanie's estimate, he also had about $200,000 worth of limited-edition prints. And that was just in his waiting room. We were never invited to his home in Hancock
Park or the
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