Plugged - Eoin Colfer [34]
I decide not to answer that question.
So, in the morning we’re wedged into the corner like two corpses that have been tossed there, neither with a clue what to say.
I regain consciousness first and use the minutes to examine the lady I’ve just had some kind of relations with. Usually I do the examining beforehand, but there’s nothing usual about this encounter. Everything about Deacon says strength. Wide brow, strong nose, full lips, skin the colour of polished rosewood. Her body is lean and muscled like she beats suspects a lot, and there’s a welt on her upper arm looks like a bullet wound.
I touch the scar gently; feels like there’s a marble under there.
‘Nine millimetre?’ I ask. Mister Romance.
‘Branding accident,’ Deacon grunts, still half asleep.
I have a feeling we’re never going to send each other perfumed letters.
She shrugs her shoulder to dislodge my hand and her bracelet rattles. It’s unusual enough for me to notice, snaking around her wrist a couple of times, laden with various charms. Washers, bottle tops, coloured glass. I’ve seen these before in Africa. Memory bracelets, the story of your life’s journey worn on the wrist.
I try for some confirmation. ‘Memory bracelet?’
Deacon grunts again.
Most of the charms seem standard enough, but there’s a wizened sphere like a shrunken golf ball.
I tap it with a fingernail. ‘What’s this one?’
Deacon’s voice is sleepy. ‘Guy kept asking me questions,’ she slurs. ‘His left nut.’
Okay. No more questions. Maybe I’ll just take forty winks; after all, I’ve got protection.
Deacon’s skin is smooth against my chest and I try to pretend she’s actually fond of the person behind her. Maybe after a couple of years together Detective Deacon will develop a grudging respect for me and we can have a series of adventures.
Unless she does a sideways shuffle and you have to kill her.
I’m starting to realise that tuning out GZ is next to impossible so long as I have a single brain cell that is not distracted by life.
I attempt to distract myself by wondering how Deacon is going to keep herself out of prison. Obviously she hasn’t come clean about Goran, or she’d be filling out a million forms in triplicate and holding staring contests with Internal Affairs.
‘They must have found Goran by now?’
Deacon stiffens, and I think that maybe she had been trying to distract herself with all the tough talk. ‘Not yet. I put her in the trunk.’
This is not good news, as Deacon’s trunk is at the back of her car, which is probably parked outside my door.
‘Goran is in your trunk? Hard to explain that to IA.’
Something like regret flits across the side of Deacon’s face; maybe there’s a human heart beating inside Robocop. ‘Explain to IA? You’re kidding, right? You screwed my career, McEvoy, and I was a good cop too. Twelve years in. Youngest black detective in the state.’
I feel I should stand up for myself. ‘You’d prefer to be dead?’
‘It’s funny,’ says Deacon, and I’m guessing tragi-funny not funny ha-ha. ‘People always think I’m dirty cos of my attitude. Typical. A hardball boy cop is a maverick, doesn’t play by the rules but gets the job done. You get a girl with some balls, then there must be something wrong with her. I was never dirty, until now. I’m finished. I’ll be lucky to get off with manslaughter.’
I sit up to ask the obvious question. ‘Why didn’t you call it in? It was a righteous shoot.’
Deacon slumps even further into the corner, suddenly dead tired. ‘I should have. All night I’ve been asking myself that question. I guess I panicked; is that what you want to hear, soldier boy? My partner and superior tried to murder me. I didn’t know who to trust apart from the guy with the sniper rifle, which I figured had to be you. I hoped you might be able to tell me something. But you know shit, right?’
My time with Simon suddenly comes in handy. ‘There is a very strong case for post-traumatic stress here.’
‘Who are you?’ says Deacon. ‘Sigmund Freud? I’m a cop, man. I know how we think and I wouldn’t buy that psych bullshit for a New York minute.’
I forge