Page 50 of Under Cover
“He was having trouble because he was carrying all of it,” Garcia said dryly. “Look at those shoulders. Think he doesn’t know how to carry a chair?”
“What about my shoulders?” Manny asked, but they were disappearing out the front door and toward the freight elevator, so Crosby didn’t hear Garcia’s reply.
He did hear Manny’s chuckle, though, as they waited for the freight elevator.
“What?” Crosby asked.
“You’re going to find yourself wearing orange shirts and turquoise slacks,” he said. “And I’m here for that shit. Gail and I will bring popcorn. We’ll all watch you guys come in arguing and sing the theme fromThe Odd Couple.It’ll be great.”
Crosby had no comeback to that. He chuckled, and the elevator got there, and they had other things to do, but inside he was starting to adjust to the idea, the hope, of him and Garcia in the same house. In the same bed. Nobody would have to know. The things that happened to couples—quibbling, spending time together, knowing the same jokes—that had happened already. They were partners. They were already a couple.
And he wasn’t moving to prison. Garcia wouldn’t mind if he made the guest room his—stacked some of his books, used his bedding, used the weight equipment when he was restless. And if this—this thing between them—faded, the other stuff—the banter, the chatter, the trusting the other to have his back—that would stay, wouldn’t it?
Toby was a good friend, would always be a good friend, but suddenly the idea of having somebody there who got him, got the job, got the pressure, and could hold him through the shakes after a day like the one before seemed like something so good, so perfect, he should have been dreaming about it all along.
But first, he thought, as he and Garcia piled behind Manny and Gail, letting the other car hold the big stuff, he had to tell his team what had really gone down before he’d been forced to leave Chicago.
They moved shit in, and Calix was on the horn to get pizza and beer delivered before every item was pulled out of the vehicles. By the time they’d set everything down, more or less in an appropriate place, the food had arrived, and they made a rough circle around Calix’s coffee table, some people on the floor, some of them on the furniture, and Crosby settling in happily to his big-and-tall chair.
And it was sort of amazing how everything fit.
After two of the pies disappeared and everybody was down to the last two, the serious eating tapered off and glances more and more drifted to Crosby.
Garcia was sitting on the floor at his feet, and he bumped Crosby’s knee with his shoulder and gave him a neutral glance.
Crosby nodded.
It was time.
“So,” he said on a big exhalation, setting his paper plate down on the nice pine coffee table. “I know that when you all started, you read everybody’s jacket, and when you read mine, you saw a couple of things. One was the Brandeis case, and the other was the shooting in Chicago.”
All his friends—his entire team, save Harding and Denison—all stared back at him, except Calix Garcia, who knew this story and was still there.
In the end, that was what gave him the courage to go on.
“The jacket told the truth,” he said and then sighed. “But not the whole truth. And now that McEnany is here and you guys are all signed on to help me stay out of IA clutches, you need to know the whole truth. If I take a round to the back of the head in the next week, I want you all to know why—ouch!”
Calix glared at him from where he’d elbowed Crosby in the thigh. “Jesus, think of another way to put it,” he muttered, and Crosby resisted the urge to rub his knuckles along Garcia’s cheek to calm him down. Instead, he ruffled his hair, buddy style, and told his story.
It had helped, that terrible moment in the car with Harding and Denison and then the quiet moment of absolution with Calix. He was still girded for the worst, but hopeful… so hopeful… that these people here, whom he’d trusted with his life and who had trusted him in turn, wouldn’t turn their backs.
When he was done, Manny was the one who let out a low whistle. “Man, that’s fucked up.”
“Fucking twisted,” Joey said, the low light from Garcia’s lamps throwing his cheekbones in stark relief, reminding all of them that he’d grown up on a Native reservation in upstate and had seen his own share of racism firsthand.
Gideon blew out a breath. “Yeah, fucking white people, man. I mean, I’ve got the rich white people in my family, and they’re not as blatant as the blue-collar racists, but boy, do they know how to exclude someone who ‘doesn’t quite fit in.’ This is like a nasty mix of both brands of awful, you know?”
Crosby nodded. “It was bad enough,” he said softly, “but the thing to remember is that the guy who dared me not to report a murder is the guy who’s trying to put me away for the shoot yesterday. He showed up here with the assumption that Harding would simply hand me over, but even though that’s not happening, we think he wants me for a reason.”
There was a general nod. “And we should be figuring out what that reason is,” Gail said. She gave Crosby an astute glance. “We love you, Judson, but this is even bigger than our love for you.”
Crosby laughed, as she’d no doubt intended him to. “I know it,” he agreed. “This Sons of the Blood thing—it goes bigger than just my precinct or the department. If it’s up here in the alphabets, or even in New York, we need to find it, and we need to kill it dead. Look at the firepower, the technology, the toys we’ve got. Nobody should have all that at their disposal if they’re hunting people down out of sheer prejudice. I mean, the prejudice is awful….” He shuddered, remembering making the shot the day before, and for a moment… for a moment he had a strobing impression of the perpetrator’s head shattering before the body hit the ground. “So awful,” he whispered. “But higher up—that’s gotta be the first place we kill it.”
There was a general assent, and then Joey spoke up.
“I get why you didn’t tell us,” he said. “There’s a stink on that shit. My buddies at school didn’t know my mother was Delaware. You just sit there through the dumb jokes and the Pocahontas bullshit and the ‘I’m gonna make that girl my squaw’ bullshit because your dad’s Irish Protestant, and that protects you. Keeps you safe. Lets you not fight so damned hard every day. And whether they’re degrading you or people you think are okay, sometimes it goes right over your head because you’re not ready for it. We’re not raised to listen for hatred. We don’t always recognize it because, you know. When you’re a kid, you think your dad is the best person in the world. You have to see him from other people’s eyes to know he’s not.”
Crosby nodded. “But then you see it,” he said. “And you can’t unsee it. And you hate yourself for being so blind.”
