Tough Customer

CHAPTER 25

THE SON OF A BITCH HAD BEEN AS SILENT AS A PANTHER. Dodge hadn't realized Albright had returned until he was there. But in fairness to himself, the oscillating movement of Crystal's unfettered breasts beneath the bright red shirt had been a distraction.

Albright snarled as he grabbed her messy topknot and yanked her off the counter. He pulled the bottle of beer from her hand and hurled it into the wall. Broken glass and beer showered them. Still holding Crystal by her hair, Albright shook her like a terrier with a rat and called her a cunt, then sent her reeling into the table, on which lay a wrench, purchased just that afternoon. Albright snatched it up and applied it to Dodge's head.

Or tried. If not for Dodge's excellent reflexes, honed even sharper by years of street fighting and police training, he'd probably have been brained with the wrench. Instead he ducked just in time to catch the tool on his shoulder bone, which hurt like bloody hell but wasn't a lethal blow.

Albright threw down the wrench and attacked Dodge's face with his bare fists.

Ordinarily Dodge would have fought back and probably killed the guy, but he was role-playing. Marvin wasn't supposed to have deadly fighting skills. It was hard to take a beating and do nothing. Dodge's restraint was really tested when Albright flicked open a switchblade, grabbed Dodge by the hair--he must like hair--and pulled Dodge's head back, exposing his throat and nicking the thin flesh over his Adam's apple with the tip of the blade.

"You ever come near her again, I'll slit your throat. You sabe me, Marvin?"

Dodge had no doubt the felon meant what he said and wanted to take him out right then and save the taxpayers of Texas a lot of expense. Because this guy was bad, and eventually he'd wind up convicted of killing somebody, possibly this misled girl, who had bad judgment but didn't deserve to die for it.

However, they didn't have solid evidence against him yet, so Dodge rolled his eyes wildly, whimpered, and stammered that he understood the warning.

Albright released him, spun him around, and kicked him in the kidney, which sent him flying out the back door. He fell facefirst onto the driveway and skidded a few inches, leaving a trail of his skin on the concrete. Then he crawled to his car.

He made it home without passing out. But by the time he got there, every cell in his body was throbbing in agony. Upon seeing him, Caroline actually screamed and dropped a folder of paperwork. Real estate documents scattered unheeded across the living room floor. Moving with as much alacrity as her eighth month of pregnancy would allow, she rushed toward him.

Words tumbling off her lips, she demanded to know what had happened, how badly he was hurt, if he'd seen a doctor. When he told her no, she said, "I'm taking you to the emergency room."

"I don't need to go to the emergency room. Some squirts of Bactine, a few aspirin, I'll be fine in the morning."

"Please let me call an ambulance," she pleaded, practically weeping as she examined his flayed face.

He refused by adamantly shaking his head, which made him dizzy. He figured one of Albright's blows had given him a slight concussion.

"It was the Tabu woman's boyfriend, wasn't it?" Caroline asked as she helped him undress.

"Caroline, I--"

"Can't talk about it. I understand. But I know this beating has something to do with her. Her boyfriend didn't like you hugging her any more than I did. He's a criminal, isn't he? No, don't tell me. I know you can't say, but I know he did this. He could have killed you." She began to cry in earnest.

Dodge drew her to him and held her close, painful though it was. "Shh. He didn't kill me. He won't."

"Please don't get killed. If anything were to happen to you--"

"Nothing's going to happen to me."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"You can't be sure."

"Shh. This crying can't be good for you or the baby."

"I'm scared."

He kissed her hair. "You don't need to be scared."

She set herself away from him and looked up into his swelling eyes. "What good will making detective do you if you're dead?"

He chuckled at her logic, but it hurt all over when he laughed. "I know how to take care of myself."

"I know that. I saw what you did to Roger that night outside his gym. You could have defended yourself tonight, but you didn't."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I've gotta be convincing in my role. A lot is riding on it."

"Getting detective."

"And getting the bad guy."

"One and the same thing."

"Right. So this is a small price to pay."

"Not so small, Dodge," she cried. "Look at you!"

He dropped his flippancy and cradled her face between his hands. All seriousness, he said, "You gave up a rich guy for me, Caroline. I gotta do this and I gotta do it right. I can't let you down."

"Or Jimmy Gonzales."

He said nothing.

"I know this is important to you," she said in a quavering voice. "How important, Dodge?"

Matching her tone, he said, "This isn't just important. This is everything."

Dodge was sore, swollen, and bruised for days after Albright's attack.

However, the discomfort was worth the reward.

The mission hadn't been as successful as it would have been if he'd been able to get into the attached apartment and discovered what Albright was hiding. But while Crystal had been getting their two beers from the fridge, Dodge had successfully planted a listening device, courtesy of Doris, on the underside of the kitchen table.

Even on short notice, Doris had provided him a whole setup. He'd had with him several more bugs, which he'd hoped to put in key areas of the duplex, but having successfully placed one was better than nothing.

The surveillance had not been sanctioned by his superiors. Officially, their strong hunch that Albright was their culprit didn't amount to "just cause." Not yet. But it was enough for Dodge. If anyone found out that he'd planted a bug without authorization, he would be removed from the task force, if not drummed out of the Houston PD altogether. But if it paid off the way he predicted it would, it was worth the risk.

The day following the beating, he called in sick at the tire plant. As soon as Caroline left for work, he drove to within a block of Crystal and Albright's duplex and gave the equipment a test run. He was able to pick up snatches of their breakfast conversation. Most of it consisted of his yelling at her and calling her ugly names. Crystal tearfully denied that anything sexual had transpired between her and Marvin.

Dodge couldn't catch all of Albright's response to that, but he picked up the word eunuch, which pissed him off. He lived for the day when the ex-con realized he'd been had, not by the nerd infatuated with his girlfriend but by Dodge Hanley.

When he returned to work at the tire plant, his brutalized appearance shocked co-workers. He fielded questions about what had happened to him and created a fender bender, saying it had been severe enough to push his face into his windshield and teach him a hard lesson about wearing his seat belt.

Crystal avoided him. At lunch, she joined a table of other women, and, after giving him one shamefaced, sympathetic smile, she steered clear. It went on like that each following day. They made eye contact, but she never gave him an opportunity to get close to her.

His captain was on his ass about it. Other cops on the task force considered his attempted penetration of Albright's duplex a complete bust.

In the evenings, after dinner, he contrived reasons for leaving the house. He drove to the duplex. He parked near enough for the receiver to pick up any transmissions from the bug, but not so close that he risked being spotted by either Albright or Crystal.

Only once did he hit pay dirt. He heard Crystal asking Albright what he was doing next door. Why was it such a big secret? Why couldn't she go in there? If the landlord found out that he was using it for extra storage, they'd be kicked out of the apartment. She asked if he was dealing drugs. If so, she threatened to move out.

Albright told her that she would move out when he ordered her out and not before. Then he shouted for her to shut the hell up and not to meddle in his business.

Having heard that exchange, Dodge returned home pumped, only to become alarmed when he caught Caroline sitting on the edge of their bed, stroking her mounded stomach with one hand and massaging her lower back with the other.

He rushed to her side. "Oh, God. Is the baby coming?"

She affectionately ruffled his hair. "Not for another couple of weeks at least. I'm having Braxton Hicks contractions."

"What the hell is a ... what you said?"

"They're perfectly normal. Really just twinges."

"Looks like more than twinges to me."

"The doctor says to expect these contractions until the real thing comes along."

"How will you know it's the real thing?"

She laughed lightly. "Oh, he says I'll know."

For the rest of the night, even while she slept, he kept his hand on her belly, wondering how she could possibly sleep with so much activity going on inside her womb.

Worry gnawed at him. If her uterus was in proportion to the rest of her, it was tiny. He thought it was a miracle that a frame as small as hers could carry a child of any size, but what if their baby was extraordinarily large? He couldn't remember if he'd ever been told how much he'd weighed at birth, but even if he had been told, he didn't know what the standard was. He'd have no gauge of comparison. What if he and Caroline had conceived a giant? His offspring could bust something up inside her. She could be ripped apart.

He lay awake all night, fearing an anatomical catastrophe. Consequently, he was out of sorts the next morning when he reported for work at the tire plant. His mood didn't improve when he realized Crystal hadn't clocked in that day. Was she sick? Had Albright made her leave the job because of her friend and co-worker Marvin? Had he started thinking about the plumbing episode, got angry all over again, and taken his abuse to a new level?

At the end of his shift, Dodge quickly made his way toward the employee exit. He was anxious to get home, reassure himself that Caroline was all right, and then see if he could pick up anything untoward going on in the household of Franklin Albright. He practically mowed down a female co-worker who planted herself in his path.

"Hi, Marvin."

"Hi. Excuse me. I'm in a hurry."

"I have a message for you from Crystal."

He stopped in his tracks.

Crystal's friend passed him a slip of paper. "She wants you to call her at this number."

"Is she okay?"

Either the co-worker didn't know or she wasn't saying. "First chance you get, she said."

"Okay. Thanks."

He called from a pay phone. Crystal answered on the second ring. Her hello was faint, hesitant. "It's Marvin. Are you all right?"

At the sound of his voice, she began wailing. "No, no, I'm not! I'm scared."

Dodge cooed and consoled and finally got out of her that she'd left Albright.

"More like escaped," she sobbed. "He's ... he's..."

"Where are you?"

She told him, and, twenty minutes later, he was at the motel, knocking on the door, glancing over his shoulder and hoping that Albright didn't have a bead on the back of his head.

Crystal looked a fright. Her face was splotchy and bloated from hard crying. She was also a mess emotionally. Sitting beside her on the bed, Dodge held her until she stopped shaking. Brushing the hair off her damp cheeks, he urged her to tell him everything.

"I can't help you if I don't know what's going on." The first thing he wanted to know was if he had to worry about Albright crashing in on them again, wielding his switchblade and making good his promise to slit Dodge's throat. "Does he know you've left him?"

"I'm sure he does by now," she said, hiccuping. "He went out and said he'd be gone for a few hours, but I didn't trust him not to come right back. Not after the other night when he tricked me. As soon as he left, I called a taxi. I packed only what I could carry, and all the time I was waiting for the taxi, I was frightened he'd come back and catch me before I could get away."

"You didn't leave a note or anything telling him where you were going?"

"No! I've left for good, and I'm not going back. Oh, Marvin, if he catches me, he'll kill me."

"No he won't, because I won't let him."

She clutched him tighter and said she didn't know what she would do without his friendship and protection. Out of gratitude, she kissed him on the lips.

"Listen, Crystal," he said, setting her away from him. "Do you have any other reason to be scared of Franklin?"

She blinked the gummy eyelashes. "Like what?"

He cautioned himself not to blow it, to go easy. "Like ... I don't know. Do you think he's planning another crime?"

She averted her eyes. "Maybe. He's up to something."

"Jesus."

"He's been on the phone a lot. With the cousin in Mexico. Remember I told you about him?"

Heart racing, Dodge nodded.

"I think they're planning something." Here her eyes began to leak again. "And if they go through with it, I'm afraid the cops will think I'm an accomplice." She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "My parents tried to warn me. Why didn't I listen?"

"Maybe you ought to talk to the police."

She raised her head and looked at him with alarm.

"Yeah," he said, pressing her hands between his. "If you tip them to what Franklin's planning, then they'll know you're not in on it. See?"

He kept at her for half an hour, trying to worm out of her the nature of the criminal plot, but she wouldn't say anything specific, nothing useful that he could convey to the task force. Her eyes continued to produce fresh tears, and she bewailed the day she'd ever become involved with Franklin Albright. Why hadn't she been fortunate enough to meet Marvin first? Her parents would have approved of him. If only she'd met him before becoming involved with Albright, she wouldn't be living in fear of the police, in fear of reprisal from a jealous, violent ex-convict.

"Oh, God, my life is in such a mess! You're the only thing in it that's good, Marvin. You're the only person I can trust."

The second time she kissed him, it wasn't out of gratitude, and Dodge knew enough about women and kisses to recognize the difference. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, and, when she fell back onto the bed, he let himself be pulled down with her.

As she nuzzled his neck, he said, "Franklin is all talk and bluster, Crystal."

"You're so sweet to me." She took his hand and placed it between her thighs.

"Albright will land in prison again as soon as he's caught, and then we can be together without any fear of him. The sooner the better. You should help the police catch him in the act of committing a crime."

She arched up, into his palm. "I want to be with you."

"Then let's go to the police together. I'll be right there with you."

She demurred. "I'll think about it."

"I think we should go right now. Before Franklin has a chance to do whatever he's planning."

"Maybe tomorrow." She unzipped his pants.

"You promise?"

"I promise to think about it. But I don't want to talk about it anymore."

So they didn't talk.

Not until after, when she was curled up against him like a kitten, making mewling sounds in admiration of the hair on his chest, which was damp with their combined sweat.

Only when she was drowsy and mellow from sex would she be led into further conversation about Franklin. Then she spoke freely. Because if a woman will trust you enough to share that, she'll trust you with her deepest, darkest secrets. That had been Dodge's experience, anyway. That tenet was what his reputation in the department was founded on.

Crystal spilled all she knew. It was terrific insider information gleaned from overheard conversations between Franklin and his cousin in Mexico that included buzzwords like "getaway car" and "semiautomatic" and "popping anybody who gets in the way" and "the twenty-fifth," a date that was only two days away.

Eventually she fell asleep.

Dodge stretched the motel room phone cord as far as it would go, taking it into the bathroom and closing the door. He called his captain at home, woke him up, and reported what Crystal had told him.

To his surprise and irritation, the captain was skeptical. "How reliable is she? Maybe she's onto you, feeding you bullshit to throw you off. Saying stuff just to get you to sleep with her."

Dodge opened the door a crack and peeked through. Crystal was sleeping the peaceful slumber of the unburdened. "I don't think so, sir. She's scared of Albright. I'm certain of that. She also said she was afraid she would be considered an accomplice because she's been living with him while he plotted the crime. Besides, she didn't tell me anything of substance until ... later."

When his superior said nothing, Dodge plowed on. "She's not tooling me around. She's using lingo she wouldn't know unless she'd heard it from somebody like Albright. I know I'm right."

After a thoughtful pause, the captain sighed. "Okay. I have to trust your instincts, Hanley. As well as your experience," he added drolly. "You've had your last day at the tire plant. Report to task force headquarters first thing in the morning. The twenty-fifth is only two days away, which doesn't give us much time to plan the sting."

Dodge thanked him for the confidence he'd placed in him, then, as quietly as possible, he washed up and put on his clothes. He left a note on the bureau for Crystal, telling her not to report to work again until she'd heard directly from him. He told her that he would take care of everything. All she had to do was trust him and stay where she was until he got back to her.

He drove through the empty, predawn streets, wondering how he was going to explain to Caroline why he'd stayed out all night without calling. Even when the task force briefings had kept him late--and never till five o'clock in the morning--he had called to let her know so she wouldn't worry.

He'd just have to say, truthfully in fact, that something urgent had come up, they'd got an unexpected break in the case, and he hadn't had an opportunity to call until it was too late for him to do so without disturbing her sleep.

He had it all sorted out in his mind, which went into a tailspin when he reached their house and saw that her car wasn't in the garage.

"Oh, Jesus."

He didn't even take the time to turn off his car's engine. He shoved it into Park and left it idling as he bolted for the back door, where he fumbled his key, then, when he managed to get the door unlocked, practically fell across the threshold.

He ran through the house, crashing into walls, stumbling on the rug in the hallway, barreling through the door of their bedroom, then drawing up short when he saw the blood-tinged stain on the bedsheet. It was still damp.

He was breathing so hard, his lungs actually hurt. His heart was pounding. He went to the closet and flung open the door. Her suitcase, the one they'd packed together a few weeks ago so it would be ready when needed, was gone.

He retraced his path through the house, moving even more recklessly than before. He plopped the cherry on the roof of his car, uncaring of his undercover status. With the red light flashing, he sped to the hospital.

He left his car in a loading zone and raced inside. He pounded the call button for the elevator with his fist until it finally arrived. When he reached the nurses' station on the maternity floor, there was no one there.

"Where the hell is everybody?" His shout echoed off the sterile surfaces of the deserted corridor as he ran down it.

Each door was decorated with either a blue or a pink wreath and a complimentary stuffed bear. Finally, a nurse came out of one of the rooms. He almost collided with her. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Caroline King?"

"You are?"

"The ... the father."

She smiled. "Congratulations. You have an awfully sweet baby."

He felt like he'd been turned upside down and slam-dunked into the tile floor. "It's here?"

"She's here," the nurse said, laughing. "Would you like to see her?"

Dumbly, he nodded and followed her along the hallway to a window blocked with drawn blinds. "Wait here and I'll bring her over." She was about to enter the nursery when he said, "Wait. Where's Caroline?"

"Room four eighteen."

"Is she okay?"

"She had a short labor and easy delivery. I'm sorry you didn't make it in time."

He'd been tupping Crystal when Caroline's water broke, when she went into labor, when she had to carry her carefully packed suitcase to the car and drive herself to the hospital, when she'd given birth to their daughter.

His breath hitched until he was actually gasping. He couldn't imagine self-loathing more wretched than what he felt for himself. He stood staring at the slats in the blinds until they were opened, and there stood the nurse on the other side of the window, holding up the tiniest human being he'd ever seen.

Her face was red, her nose was flat, her eyes puffy. She was wrapped up like a papoose. A pink knit cap was on her head. The nurse removed it so he could see the red peach fuzz covering her scalp. Her pulse was beating in the soft spot on the top of her head.

Tears came to his eyes, and, if he'd found it difficult to breathe before, it was impossible to do so now.

He gave the nurse a thumbs-up and mouthed Thank you through the glass, then he turned away and went in search of room 418. When he reached it, he smoothed back his hair and dragged both hands down his face. He took a deep breath.

The door was heavy. He opened it only partially before slipping into the room. The light above the bed was on, a mere glow, but enough to see by. Caroline was lying on her back, her face turned away from the door. Her tummy was flat, and that looked strange now. When she heard the soft swish of the door, she turned her head toward it.

She looked at him with full knowledge of his transgression.

He made the long walk to her bedside. He, always the smooth talker, didn't know what to say. Words failed him completely.

She was the first to speak. "When you didn't come home, and I didn't hear from you, I called the police department. I told the man I spoke to that it was an emergency, that I needed to reach you right away. Since you're on a special task force, working undercover, he told me he would try to get word to you to call me.

"But you didn't. So I called a second time, more frantic than when I'd called before. The man said he'd been unable to reach you but told me that, if it was any comfort, you hadn't been reported killed or wounded in the line of duty."

Both her voice and her eyes were expressionless. "You slept with her, didn't you? To catch your crook, you had sex with his girlfriend."

He would have preferred screamed invectives and tears. He wished she would reach up and slap him. That kind of fury he was prepared to handle. This controlled rage terrified him.

He opened his mouth to speak but still couldn't think of anything to say. He didn't even consider denying it. He wouldn't heap lying onto his betrayal, adding insult to her wound, and, in any case, it would be futile.

"I want you out of the house before I bring the baby home."

Panic shot through him. "Caroline--"

"I mean it. I want you gone. Out of our lives. Hers, mine. You're to have nothing to do with either of us. Ever again, Dodge."

"You can't--"

"Yes I can. I am."

"I--"

"You ruined it."

"I did something stupid."

"Label it any way you like. You abused me worse than Roger Campton ever did."

Those words were like a lance straight through his heart. "How can you say that?"

"How could you do it?" Her voice cracked, and that was telling. "How could you do it?" she asked again, emphasizing each word.

He was asking himself the same thing. He could offer her no excuse, because there was none.

She turned her face toward the ceiling. "You've seen me for the last time, Dodge. I want nothing to do with you. Our daughter will never know you, or you her. Enjoy being a detective. Have a good life. Now get away from me."

He stood there beside the bed for a full two minutes, but she didn't look at him again. He left the room, and then the hospital, because he really would be a brute to stay and hassle a woman who'd just given birth. He didn't want to cause a scene and further humiliate Caroline in front of hospital personnel and other new mothers whose partners had been with them when their babies came into the world.

He went out to retrieve his car and practically came to blows with the hospital parking Nazi who accused him of impersonating a police officer. Because he couldn't carry ID around Crystal and Albright, Dodge couldn't prove the guy wrong. So he shoved him out of his way, gave him the finger, said "Sue me," then sped away with the guy threatening legal repercussions.

In the house he'd been ordered out of, he stripped the soiled sheets off the bed and replaced them with fresh. He vacuumed the living room rug. He emptied all the trash cans and scrubbed the bathroom fixtures till they were sparkling. While carrying out these chores, he planned what else he could do to win back Caroline's favor.

On the day she was due to come home, he would put flowers in the bedroom. In the baby's room, too. Pink ones. He'd stock the fridge and pantry with Caroline's favorite foods. He'd leave chocolates on her pillow every night. He'd get up with her each time she had to nurse the baby. He would fetch and carry. He'd give her back rubs. He'd buy the baby stuffed toys and lacy outfits that Caroline would call extravagant but would secretly adore. He'd do anything and everything, whatever it took to change her mind.

He had to have her in his life, or his life wouldn't be worth shit. It was as simple as that. He must convince her to take him back. But first, he must prove himself worthy.

When the house was as perfect as he could make it, he showered, shaved, dressed, and drove to the task force office. There was only one guy in the large room, and he was on the phone. Seeing Dodge, he hung up. "Where have you been? Why didn't you answer your page?"

"I--"

"Doesn't matter. He hit a bank at eight oh seven this morning. Right after it opened."

"Jesus! You're kidding. Crystal told me the twenty-fifth. Albright must've--"

"Albright? Forget Albright. Our guy's some dickweed executive for a pharmaceutical company. No priors. We never would have looked at him. Not in a million years. Can you believe it?"