Black Notice

7

Lucy and Jo seemed apparitions, physical presences that could not be flesh and blood. Both of them had been riding the streets of Miami barely eight hours ago. Now they were in my arms.

"I don't know what to say," I said at least five times as they dropped duffel bags on the floor.

"What the hell's going on?" Marino boomed, intercepting us in the great room. "What do you think you're doing here?" he demanded of Lucy, as if she had done something wrong.

He had never been able to show affection in a normal way. The gruffer and more sarcastic he got, the happier he was to see my niece.

"'They fire your ass down there already?" he asked.

"What's this, trick or treat?" Lucy said just as loudly, tugging a sleeve of his uniform shirt. "You trying to make us finally believe you're a real cop?"

"Marino," I said as we went into the kitchen, "I don't think you've met Jo Sanders."

"Nope," he said.

"You've heard me talk about her."

He gave Jo a blank look. She was an. athletically built strawberry blonde with dark blue eyes, and I could tell he thought she was pretty.

"He knows exactly who you are," I said to Jo. "He's not being rude. He's just being him."

"You work?" Marino asked her, fishing his smoldering cigarette out of the ashtray and drawing one last puff.

"Only when I have no choice," Jo- answered.

"Doing what?"

"A little rappelling out of Black Hawks. Drug busts. Nothing special."

"Don't tell me you and Lucy are in the same field division down there in South America."

"She's DEA," Lucy told him.

"No shit?" Marino said to Jo. "You seem kind of puny for DEA: "

"They're into quotas," Jo said.

He opened the refrigerator and shoved things around until he found a Red Stripe beer. He twisted off the cap and started chugging.

"Drinks are on the house," he called out.

"Marino," I said. "What are you doing? You're on duty."

"Not anymore. Here, let me show you."

He set the bottle down hard on the table and dialed a number.

"Mann, what'cha know," he said into the phone. "Yeah, yeah. Listen, I ain't joking. I'm feeling like shit. You think you could cover for me tonight? I'll owe ya:'

Marino winked at us. He hung up, hit the speaker button on the phone and dialed again. His call was answered on the first ring.

"Bray;" the deputy chief of administration, Diane Bray, announced in my kitchen for all to hear.

"Deputy Chief Bray, it's Marino," he said in the voice of someone dying of a terrible scourge. "Really sorry to bug you at home."

He was answered with silence, having instantly and deliberately irritated his direct supervisor by addressing her as "Deputy Chief." According to protocol; deputy chiefs were always addressed as "Chief," while the chief himself was called "Colonel." Calling her at home didn't win him any points, either.

"What is it?" Bray tersely asked.

"I feel like hell," Marino rasped. "Throwing up, fever, the whole nine yards. I gotta mark off sick and go to bed."

"You certainly weren't sick when I saw you a few hours ago.,,

"It happened real sudden. I sure hope I didn't catch some bacteria thing…"

I quickly dashed out Strep and Clostridia on a notepad.

"… you know, like strep or Clos-ter-ida out there at the scene. One doctor I called warned me about that, because of getting in such close proximity to that dead body and all…

"When does your shift end?" she interrupted him.

"Eleven."

Lucy, Jo and I were red-faced, strangled by laughter we were fighting to hold in.

"It's not likely I can find someone to be watch commander this late in the shift," Bray coldly replied.

"I already got hold of Lieutenant Mann in third precinct. He's nice enough to work the rest of tour for me," Marino let her know as his health failed precipitously.

"You should have notified me earlier!" Bray snapped.

"I kept hoping I could hang in there, Deputy Chief Bray."

"Go home. I want to see you in my office tomorrow."

"If I'm well enough, I'll drop by, I sure will, Deputy Chief Bray. You take care, now. Sure hope you don't get whatever I got."

She hung up.

"What a sweetheart," Marino said as laughter leapt out.

"God, no wonder," Jo said when she could finally talk again. "I hear she's pretty much hated."

"How'd you hear that?" Marino frowned. "They talk about her in Miami?"

"I'm from here. On Old Mill, right off Three Chopt, not too far from the University of Richmond."

"Your dad teach there?" Marino asked.

"He's a Baptist minister."

"Oh. That must be fun."

"Yeah," Lucy chimed in, "kind of bizarre to think she grew up around here and we never met until Miami. So, what are you going to do about Bray?"

"Nothing," he said, draining the bottle of beer and going into the refrigerator for another one.

"Well, I sure as hell would do something," she said with hu;e confidence.

'You know, you think shit like that when you're young;' he remarked. "Truth, justice and the American way. Wait till you're my age."

"I'll never be your age."

"Lucy told me you're a detective," Jo started talking to Marino. "So why are you dressed like that?" `-Story time," Marino said. "You want to sit on my knee?"

"Let me guess. You pissed somebody off. Probably her."

"DEA teach you to make deductions like that, or are you just unusually smart for someone almost grown up?"

I sliced mushrooms, green peppers and onions, and pinched off pieces of whole-milk mozzarella while Lucy watched. Finally, she made me look her in the eye. `'Right after you called this morning, Senator Lord did," she quietly told me. "It about shocked the entire field office, I might add"

"I bet it did."

".`He told me to get on a plane immediately and come here…"

"If only you minded me so well." I was getting shaky inside again.

"That you needed me."

"I can't tell you how glad I am..:' My voice caught as I tumbled back down into that frigid, dark space.

"Why didn't you tell me you needed me?"

"I didn't want to interfere. You're so involved down there. You didn't seem to want to talk."

"All you had to say was, l need you."

"You were on a cell phone."

"I want to see the letter," she said.