Page 10 of We Could Be So Good
Other reporters have started to refer to them as a single unit—NickandAndy or RussoandFleming—and Nick has to fight not to smile whenever he hears it. He has to remind himself that this is temporary, that soon Andy is either going upstairs to do whatever publishers do, or he’s going to leave to work somewhere else. He’s not spending the rest of his life covering minor police corruption stories with Nick, and the fact that Nick has any feelings about that whatsoever is a problem.
“Right,” Nick agrees. “So we need to know the last time anyone noticed envelopes and guns in the safe, and also who was assigned to the office since then. Who gets assigned to the Property Clerk’s Office, anyway? What did they say?”
Andy flips through their notes. “‘Officers assigned to light duty,’” he reads.
“Okay. The first thing I want to know is whether that’s a fairy tale. Are these cops really too sick or injured for regular duty, or are they the problem cops that no captain wants to deal with? Usually light-duty officers do desk work in the precinct.”
“Really?”
“According to—” Nick nearly saysaccording to my brother, but stops himself just in time. He doesn’t want to talk about Michael. He doesn’t want Michael’s presence to intrude on this space that he’s made for himself. “According to a source. But possibly not an accurate source.”
“A cop?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you call him and get a statement?”
Nick almost laughs. “Not that kind of source.”
Andy raises his eyebrows but doesn’t pursue it.
“We should go home,” Nick says. “Tomorrow we’ll find someone at the Property Clerk’s Office who wants to talk. One of the civilians.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“They’ll be working.” Nick stops pacing and looks at Andy. “Sorry, you probably have plans.”
“Yeah, to go to the Property Clerk’s Office with you.”
Nick bristles. “You don’t need to. I can handle it on my own.”
“Nick, stop being stupid. It’s been eight months. Do you really think it’s a hardship for me to spend time with you?”
His phrasing makes Nick look hard at him.Spend time with you, notchase possible leads, notcover an interesting story. Not evendo my job. Of course they enjoy spending time together, but that doesn’t mean anybody has to say so out loud.
Except—why the fuck not? Is Nick so mired in gay paranoia that he can’t even admit to being friends with another man without thinking vice cops are about to crawl out from under the desks and arrest him? Is he so used to being lonely that even companionship feels dangerous?
Or maybe it’s just that he knows that his friendship with Andy isn’t the sort of thing you can talk about in public. At least not on his side.
It’s late, and he’s tired in every possible way. His guard is down, and maybe he’s feeling things that in the light of day won’t amount to much.
Or maybe he’ll wake up and be stuck with the knowledge that he’s in far, far over his head.
Andy sighs and looks away. “Sometimes you look at me and I wonder what I did wrong,” he says.
“What?” Nick asks, appalled and a little hurt, but it comes out angry, as it so often does. “You don’t do anything wrong. Ever.”
“Sometimes I say something that puts your teeth on edge, but I don’t know what. I wish I did so I could stop doing it.”
“If I’m thinking something stupid, that’s my problem.”
“It really isn’t.” Andy actually sounds frustrated now, and a little cross, which he never does.
Nick gets ready to fight that point, but then he replays the last few minutes in his head. He looks out the newsroom windows, over the tops of the trees in City Hall Park and the empty courthouses. “You’re my best friend,” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound too babyish, hoping it isn’t a nail in his coffin.
He turns around in time to see Andy’s face light up. It’s the brightest thing in the shadowy newsroom, the brightest thing in the city, and all Nick can do is stare.
***
