Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [45]
Finally Susan came to the phone. Her voice was brisk, demanding, the voice of a woman with very little time to spare. There was a long pause when she realized that it was her old friend and former personal trainer calling her, a puzzled silence that told me she was surprised, though not particularly pleased, to hear from me. I got right into it, what had happened and where I was. She let me talk. The silence deepened when she found out I was sitting across from her ex-husband. After a moment she told me to put Cortez on the line.
The inspector grinned when I handed him the phone. His first words were, “Hey, babe,” and I knew immediately that they were the wrong words to use with the new and improved Susan Andrews. His grin vanished, and he shifted uneasily in his chair, as though a splinter had found its way into his ass. His face grew tighter and less self-assured by degrees, until it became a mask first of doubt, then of quiet anger. I couldn’t hear her words, but I could guess their tone: cold and professional, filled with a steady refusal of all intimacy. I studied his face as he listened. I saw confidence replaced first by disbelief, then by acceptance. Cortez was nothing to her now, just the voice of a minor official with very few cards to play. At the end of their conversation, he handed the phone back to me. I hadn’t liked what I’d heard him say. Susan’s version wasn’t any better. I was going to be stuck at Krome for a while.
“Listen to me, Jack,” she said. “They’re going to hold you there at Krome over the weekend. Then they’ll transfer you down to federal court. They want to charge you with smuggling illegal aliens. The charge is bullshit and won’t hold, but Ruben has to cover his ass on this one. Even so, under normal circumstances I could get you out on bail, but not till they send you downtown for arraignment. They’re not in any hurry to do that. I can make a few calls, but it will be Monday at the earliest. That means you have to sit tight and wait.”
“I can’t stay here that long,” I said.
“You don’t have a choice. I can’t do any better than Monday, and even that soon will require some maneuvering. By the way, do you have any idea how much I charge?”
“I guess food stamps are out of the question, but don’t worry. I’ve come into a little money.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I bill at three hundred an hour. Listen, Jack, I have to go now. Can you behave yourself for a few days?”
“I doubt it. There’s a lot of shit happening.”
“I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
I didn’t say anything. My mind was on other matters.
“I said I’ll see you on Monday,” Susan said.
“All right,” I said. “Monday.”
Susan hung up. I handed the phone to Cortez, who spoke into it for a moment before realizing she was gone. He looked disappointed, then set the phone back in its cradle.
“I guess you’re going to be here for a while,” he said.
“So it would seem.”
“I see the bitch still holds a grudge,” he said.
“What do you expect? You were screwing her friend. Women tend to take things like that personally.”
“You’re right. I was an asshole. I’ll admit that.” He stared down at the desk for a moment, as though seeking either his own reflection in the scorched mahogany or else some revelation that eluded him. He shook his head and looked up at me.
“Her voice—did you notice it? I don’t know. I mean, it didn’t sound quite right. Like there was something under it. You know what I mean? You used to be a cop, right? Up in New York. You tell me.”
“She wasn’t to glad to hear from either of us. That