“Thanks, I think.”
Morales put his blinker on to follow Harry right down Stark Street. He slowed and pulled over as Harry came to a stop in front of the Green Faerie. “Well, would you look at that?” He pulled his siren from under his seat. “Our friend just parked facing the wrong way.”
He lowered his window, popped the light on the roof, and hit the gas. Two seconds later, we pulled in hot behind Harry’s car. The kid had been leaning against the driver’s door of the car, his arms crossed as he talked to a girl. She wore torn fishnets, a plaid miniskirt, and a halter top that said she either went to the sluttiest private school in history—or she was one of Aphrodite’s girls.
When we pulled up, Harry stood and turned to face us. His mouth curled into a sneer. He took one last drag off a cigarette and tossed it into the gutter. It was hard to tell from my vantage point, but I’d bet big bucks it was a Vice Royal.
When we got out of the car, the girl’s eyes widened and she took off at a speed I would have thought impossible in her stiletto Mary Janes. We let her go since we had bigger fish to fry.
“Afternoon, officers,” Harry said. “You lost?”
Morales lowered his aviators and smirked at the guy. “Are you aware that you’re parked illegally, son?”
Harry frowned and glanced back at his car. “No, I’m not. The car’s still on. I’m idling.”
“You can take that up with traffic court.” Morales made a show of pulling out a ticket notebook. Where he’d gotten his hands on that, I didn’t want to know. “License and registration?”
Harry’s look was full of piss and vinegar. “Why are you harassing me?”
Morales looked at me. “Are you harassing anyone?”
I shrugged. “I thought we were doing our part to prevent a traffic accident.”
Harry swiped his license from his wallet and threw it on the ground.
Morales’s posture went from loose and jokey to alpha cop. “Pick it up,” he projected. “Slowly. Keep your hands where we can see them.”
Harry sighed and did as instructed. He handed the card to me, his eyes scanning me up and down in what I guess he thought was an intimidating manner. “The registration?” I asked. “Insurance?”
“Left ’em in my other pants.”
“Uh-oh,” Morales said. “We’re going to have to write you up for that, too.”
“Unless they’re in your glove box,” I said. “Maybe we should check just to be sure.”
“They aren’t in there,” he said, his voice dripping venom.
“I’d feel better if we checked.” I nodded at Morales. “Anything in there you want to tell us about before he goes digging?”
Harry’s chin came up. “I got nothing to hide.” But his milk-white cheeks reddened.
While Morales began his search, I smiled at Harry. “He’ll just be a minute.”
He looked down at the ground and kicked a rock with his boot.
I glanced through the windows of the car and saw Morales duck his head under the seats. To distract our uncooperative friend, I started chatting. “So how’s your dad?”
His head came up, forcing his white hair to sway. “Do you have any idea what he’s going to do once he finds out about this?”
I cocked my head. “I’m dying to know.”
He muttered something under his breath. I made out the words “die” and “bitch.”
I put a hand to my ear. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”
He looked at me with hot eyes. “Enjoy yourself now, Kate.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Are you threatening me, Harry?” If I could piss him off enough to lose it and threaten me directly, we’d have him.
He looked away, obviously realizing how close he’d been to slipping up.
“Well, well, well,” Morales said, standing up with something in his hand. “Let me guess: You left your permit for this in your other pants, too.” He raised the pistol high, balancing it on the end of a pen so he wouldn’t get his prints on it. It was one of those flashy numbers. The overly large, shiny chrome barrel and inlaid mother-of-pearl handle were probably compensating for Harry’s low-caliber pocket pistol.
“That ain’t mine,” Harry said in a bored tone. “I think you planted it.”
Morales laughed. “Then why are your initials engraved in the barrel?” He nodded at me. “Also found these.” He held up a purple and gold cigarette box.
“So what? Smoking isn’t illegal.”
“Neither is being an asshole, but we’re taking you in anyway,” Morales snapped. “Cuff him.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, I looked in the rearview mirror, expecting to see red and blue at any second. Morales was in the back with Harry and I was driving. We were miles from the precinct and getting farther away by the second.
“You’re going the wrong direction.” Judging from his bored tone, he knew exactly what we were doing, but he wasn’t about to let us see him worry about it.
“Oops,” I said, “sorry. I get so turned around down here.” Which was bullshit, of course. I’d learned to drive on these streets just as Harry had.
“Turn right here,” he said.
I turned left.
“What the fuck?” Harry said, finally losing his cool. “Where are you taking me?”
“We told you,” Morales said, “the precinct.”
Harry looked as if he were ready to spit acid. “When my lawyer finds out about this he’ll have your badges.”
“Since when is it illegal to have a poor sense of direction?” Morales said. His cell in the console started buzzing. “Hold on, Harry.”
Our guest gritted his teeth and muttered, “Hieronymus, asshole.”
Morales ignored that and spoke into the phone. “Yeah, we got him. Yep, almost. See you in a minute.” He looked up and nodded to me. As agreed beforehand, I turned toward Lake Erie. “Hold tight, Harry, we gotta see a friend about a thing.”
Two minutes later, I turned the SUV into a weedy parking lot near the water. This section of town hadn’t felt the healing touch of Volos’s money. Instead of high-rise apartments and expensive boutiques, the shore was lined with cardboard condos and littered with dirty needles. A beige Camry was already parked in the lot. I pulled up alongside the driver’s door. Gardner rolled down her window. “Any problems?”