Knock Me Off My Feet

Chapter 5

Stanny-O was obviously thrilled that Audie let him behind the wheel of the Porsche that night. Though his knees were nearly in his nostrils, it didn't seem to detract from the driving experience.

"What year is this beauty?" he asked, pulling into the southbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive.

"A '96." Audie unwrapped her shin guards and fluffed out her hair. "Helen had the dealer custom-paint it this lovely champagne pink. It's your color, Stan."

"Baby, don't I know it," he said, shifting up and taking the curve a bit too fast.

"Hey, careful. There's always a cop waiting for speeders up here to the right."

He shot her a toothy grin framed in goatee and kicked up the speed.

"You're bad, Detective," she said, laughing. They drove for a few moments in friendly silence. During the past week, Audie had come to enjoy Stanny-O's shy, earthy personality. They frequently argued about Cubs statistics and Chicago politics and listened to loud rock and roll on the car radio. They went out to Baccino's for deep-dish pizza one night. And another night they went to a movie, and tonight he escorted her to her game. She felt safe with him.

"Hey, listen, Audie. I'm supposed to tell you that I'll be hanging out with you for the next couple of days at least. Quinn's still got a bunch of other stuff he needs to do."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you mean you're supposed to tell me? Did Quinn ask you to say that? He's hiding from me, isn't he?"

"No! No! That's not what I meant. Ah, shit." Stanny-O looked over at her a bit nervously. "Look. He's busy with work, that's all. Our commander told us to make your case a priority, but we had to clear up a whole bunch of other cases, that's all. Quinn told me to explain that to you and tell you he'd see you soon."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Audie stuck her hand out into the summer night wind and inhaled the lake air. "Does Quinn hit on women a lot?"

Stanny-O's head spun around. "What? God, no. Not at all." He grinned again. "He don't have to."

Audie laughed. "No, I imagine he doesn't," she said softly. "Has he had a lot of girlfriends?"

Stanny-O adjusted himself in the leather seat. "That's the kind of thing you'll need to ask him about, OK? It's not my place."

"Fair enough."

"But not many. He's picky. The last one lasted about three years. I always assumed they'd get married, but she broke it off with him."

"Really?" Audie tried to hide her smile.

"She ran off to Miami with another guy."

"Oh."

They were quiet for a moment, and Audie leaned back against the headrest to watch the endless geometric blocks of light pass by, buildings clustered along the lakefront shoulder to shoulder in the night sky. "He's a good man, isn't he?"

"Quinn?Yes, he's a good man." Stanny-O looked a bitsurprised by her question. "And a good cop. Why did you ask that?"

Audie shrugged. "I'm just trying to figure him out, I guess. Is he always so quiet? He just doesn't seem to talk very much when we're together."

Stanny-O chuckled under his breath. "He's mostly quiet, but that's because his brain is working overtime and he's listening real careful and keeping his eyes sharp.

"But I've seen him hammered and he can let it rip then, let me tell you. He gets all sappy and tells stories that don't have no endings as far as I can tell, and he sings those gut-wrenching Irish songs that make my skin crawl.

"And you definitely don't want to let him near his pipes when he's like that. God! The sound of those things makes me want to shoot myself in the head even when he's sober. But when he's hammered he can't play worth shit and it sounds like somebody's being tortured."

Audie stared at Stanny-O in confusion and disbelief, laughing. She'd just been handed a huge amount of information that didn't jibe with what she knew of Quinn. And what the hell are pipes?

"What the hell are pipes?" she asked.

"Bagpipes." He turned toward her. "You don't know about his pipes?"

She laughed again. "Guess not. You going to fill me in?"

Stanny-O smoothed down his mustache and looked up at the streetlights along Lake Shore Drive. "He plays with the Chicago Garda Pipe and Drum Band," he said. "His dad does, too-it's the official Chicago Police Department pipe band. They do police and fire funerals, parades, weddings, festivals, stuff like that. I think their shows sound like a whole herd of cows being slaughtered myself, but some people seem to like them."

"Bagpipes?" Audie shook her head. "Like with a kilt and everything?"

"Oh, yeah. Whenever I give him hell about that, he tells me only real men have the balls to wear a skirt." He winced at his choice of words. "Sorry."

Audie laughed loudly. "Well, what do you know?" She took a few moments to try to imagine the masculine Stacey Quinn in a kilt. She just couldn't do it.

"So what's Garda mean?"

"Quinn told me it's the name for the police in Ireland or something."

"Oh."

They drove for several minutes in quiet. "Hey, Stanny-O?"

"Mmm?"

"What about the women that Quinn meets in his work? I mean like me-one of his cases. Does he… hook up with, you know, get involved… with women he meets by being a cop?"

Stanny-O was slowing down to take the exit to Audie's apartment building, looming huge and bright against the dark lake.

"No. Not that I've ever seen, except maybe you," he said, giving her a shy glance. "You're pretty much the first one I've seen him interested in."

"He gave me a really nice present the other day. Did you know about that?"

Stanny-O smiled broadly. "Yeah. They were his mother's."

"What?" Audie nearly jumped out of her seat. She stared at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Oh, crap," Audie whispered, letting her head fall back against the seat. This was too bizarre, and she didn't know whether to be appalled or flattered-and wasn't that just perfect? Wasn't that the perfect gift from Stacey Quinn, the most exasperating man she'd ever met?

"Has he said anything to you about me?"

"He don't have to." Stanny-O pulled into her parking garage. "It's obvious what he thinks of you."

Audie turned to him in the bright fluorescent light of the underground ramp and huffed with impatience. "And what is that, if I may ask?"

The detective sliced into Audie's assigned parking spot and cut the Porsche's engine. He grinned at her, his small blue eyes glittering. "That's another thing you'll need to ask him yourself."

Quinn opened the door to Keenan's Pub and immediately sensed the soul of the place: the incense of cigarette smoke and spilled ale, the celestial choir of laughter and jukebox reels, the reverence for something transcendent, larger than life.

"Over here, Stace!"

Quinn's eyes adjusted to the dim light and dark paneling to find the smiling face of his youngest brother, Michael, and then, as the other head turned, the grin of his middle brother, Patrick.

"Good evening, Stacey." The bartender had already drawn his pint of Guinness and placed it on the bar to sit. Quinn knew he'd repeat the process three times before he'd achieved the perfect balance of foam and liquid.

"Matt! Good to see you. How have you been?"

"Grand. Just grand."

And Matt did look grand, Quinn thought to himself-the same little spark plug of a bartender he'd known nearly all his life. He gazed around him-the whole place looked wonderful. Most of the usual Friday night flock was already assembled, and as he moved toward the booth he waved at a few of the patrons, slapped the backs of a few more, and shook hands with the rest.

Quinn reached into the booth and briefly tugged at Pat's shoulders before he joined Michael.

"Is Da coming?" Pat asked.

"What? The two of us aren't good enough for you?" Michael edged over in the booth as Quinn pushed harshly against him as a greeting.

"Move your wide ass," Quinn said.

Then he winked across the table at Pat and settled in with a sigh of pleasure. "Da stayed a little late at practice tonight," Quinn said. "He'll be here eventually."

"So is the band ready for CityPest?" Pat asked. "I hope to God you've got some new sets, because we're getting tired of the same old crap every year. Have pity on your fans, Stacey."

Quinn smiled at Pat, realizing it had been six years since his ordination, but it was still sometimes jarring to see his smart-aleck brother in a priest's collar.

"Sure, Pat. We thought we'd do some gangsta rap this year. Maybe a few calypso tunes."

Pat and Michael snickered for a moment before they launched into their favorite pastime-arguing with each other. Quinn sat back and expected to be entertained.

As he observed, he remembered how there'd been more than a few broken hearts in the neighborhood the day Patrick went into the seminary. It was as if God decided only one child would get the very best from the union of Patricia Stacey and James Quinn-and it had been Patrick.

He had Da's eyes-like Quinn himself-but Pat's were softer, kinder, and shaded in lashes that in a fair world would have gone to a girl. Pat's shock of light brown hair was thick and heavy, but it balanced out the elegant bone structure of his face. He had Da's ability to draw you into a tall tale like a lamb to slaughter. He had his mother's soft heart and curious mind but none of her idiosyncrasies.

Those had all gone to Quinn along with her family name, as he'd heard often enough.

Quinn looked over at his baby brother Michael, now vehemently pressing his case about something or other, and smiled. Michael had gotten Patricia Stacey's quick tongue and quicker temper, as well as her pale blue eyes. Yet all those traits dwelled in a carbon copy of Da's big, open face and husky body and were served up with a depraved sense of humor.

Lucky for all of Chicago, Michael had found his niche as a Cook County assistant state's attorney, where his fine brain and wicked lip helped keep the streets clean.

As Quinn half-listened to his brothers, he thought about where he fit in. He was the oldest, the quiet one, as he'd heard all his life. He was the one with his father's stubbornness, fierce sense of loyalty, and love of music-all wrapped up in his mother's need for order.

How many times had Quinn heard it? "If one of those boys were to be a priest, my money would have been on Stacey!" He never quite knew if that was intended as a compliment.

The Quinn boys were now men, ranging in age from thirty-three to twenty-nine, and as Da always told his pals: "My lads can bust 'em, prosecute 'em, and forgive 'em all in a day's work."

Michael and Pat's argument had deteriorated into a dispute over the name of a short-lived family dog from the late seventies. These two could argue about the color of the sky, Quinn knew.

"The damn dog's name was Caesar," Michael said, looking shocked. "I can't believe you don't remember that."

"Caesar?" Pat laughed. "Do you really think our father would have allowed an animal with that fruity name into our house? The dog's name was Jake."

"What are you, nuts?" Michael said, laughing. "If we ever owned a dog named Jake, then my dick is the size of the Space Shuttle… "

Quinn shook his head and wondered again what it would be like if John had lived, if he could sit here in the booth in the empty space across from him, where he belonged. As he did every day, Quinn wondered what it would be like if he hadn't let his baby brother die, and said a small prayer for everyone concerned.

Quinn was jolted out of his melancholy by Matt Lawler's delivery of his beer. "Perfect, Matt. Thanks."

He felt the dark, rich stout slide down mellow and smoky at the back of his throat and sighed. A pint was always best at Keenan's, in the company of his brothers and in the memory of John.

"So, how's lifestyles of the rich and fatuous, Stacey?" Pat smiled at him.

"Oh, it's rough," Quinn answered.

"Tell Pat about the household hints chick. He's gonna love it." Michael's eyes flashed above his full cheeks. "He's working on a stalking case with Homey Helen. Can you believe it? Is that perfect or what?"

"Really?" Patrick took a reverent sip of his own pint and eyed his older brother. "The new one or the dead one?"

"The dead one would be easier to handle." Quinn raised an eyebrow as his brothers laughed.

"The dead always are," Pat said broodingly. "It's the living that piss me off to no end."

"Bad day in the confessional, Father Pat?" Quinn asked.

"The usual." He waved his hand and sighed. "So somebody's stalking Homey Helen? What the hell for, to get their hands on her secret recipe for window cleaner?"

"Haven't quite figured that out yet," Quinn said. "Could take a while."

"I've seen her on TV," Michael offered. "She's a complete babe. Now tell Pat who she used to date."

Quinn leaned across the booth and whispered, "Timmy Burke."

Pat nearly spit out his beer. "Jaysus! No way!"

Quinn nodded. "A little over a year ago. Just after he oozed his way into City Hall."

"My God, is the poor woman daft or just a rotten judge of character?" Pat asked.

Quinn shrugged. "I think Timmy pulled his usual on her. She didn't hang around long. She's too good for him."

"My shit-stained drawers are too good for Timmy Burke," Michael quipped.

"Yeah, well I had to go talk to the man this morning."

Both Pat and Michael went silent.

"He's a possible suspect, like all her old boyfriends," Quinn continued. "Would you believe that bastard made me wait outside his office for twenty minutes?"

Pat cleared his throat. "How long had it been since you talked to him, Stace?"

"I don't know. Mom's funeral, I guess, so a couple years."

Pat nodded silently, feeling Michael kick him under the table. "What?" he whispered, scowling at Michael. "Stop it, you eejit."

Quinn shook his head at his brothers. "We were quite civil to each other, as far as Timmy and I go. No bloody noses or anything. He just threatened to fire me." He smiled. "Of course, I'd like nothing more than to arrest the dickhead, but Audie seems to think he's got nothing to do with the threats."

"Who's Audie?" Michael asked, confused.

"Oh. Homey Helen. Her real name is Autumn Adams-people call her Audie."

Pat set down his beer and smiled at Quinn, relieved to direct the conversation anywhere other than Timmy Burke. He wanted to enjoy himself tonight.

"So did you tell this Audie person how important she was to Mom? How she made our lives an anal-retentive hell?"

Quinn laughed at Pat. "That was her mother, really, but I may have mentioned it. I kind of had to. She saw Mom's box."

Michael jerked back as if Quinn had slapped him. "The box at your place?"

"Shit… " he hissed to himself, rubbing a hand over his face. Quinn was toast now and he knew it.

"Need I remind you you're under oath, Stacey?" Michael draped a big arm around his brother's shoulders and grinned. "You had the squeaky-clean babe in your house and I bet you weren't reorganizing the linen closet."

"So he likes her, so what?" Pat said, frowning at Michael. "It's not a big deal. Leave him be."

"The hell it's not a big deal!" Michael's eyes went wide. "I think it's the first time he's brought a woman to his house since Laura took off. Am I right?"

Pat's eyebrows shot up. "Really? Is that true, Stace?"

He wasn't responding to his brother's taunts in his usual brusque fashion, and Pat wondered if Stacey still hurt over Laura-it had been more than a year since she'd had a fling with Timmy Burke and then left with the radio disc jockey. And good riddance to her, Pat thought. She wasn't right for Stacey, not that anyone in the family ever dared say so to his face.

Pat studied his older brother carefully, almost hearing the gears inside his brain as they clicked into place.

"Uh-oh," Pat whispered, turning to Michael, suddenly making the connection.

"Hel-lo," Michael said in singsong.

"Shut up, both of you," Quinn said, looking down into his pint glass. "I like her."

Michael's lips flapped together in a sudden burst of laughter and Pat joined in. "Well, of course you'd like her, Stacey!" Michael said. "She's your fantasy woman!"

"Martha Stewart… " Pat began.

"And Carmen Electra," Michael finished for him.

"So we were wrong-she does exist," Pat whispered respectfully, before he and Michael began laughing again. "No, really, I think that's great, Stace," Pat said. "So how much do you like her?"

Good question, Quinn thought to himself. What did it mean when a woman you'd just met monopolized your thoughts? What did it mean when you stayed away from her because you didn't trust yourself in her presence? What did it mean when you wanted her to have your grandmother's handkerchiefs and saw her face every time you closed your eyes?

"A lot, I guess." Quinn took another gulp of Guinness as his brothers exchanged glances.

"Have you winterized her yet?" Michael asked, and Quinn saw the glint in his eye.

"Jaysus, Mike. I've only known her a couple weeks. I think it's a little early for that."

"You can never do it soon enough," Michael said, quite serious. "I'll never forget what happened with Bridget Feeney-gorgeous woman, but she went totally psycho on me that winter. It was like a five-month-long case of PMS. I should've tested her in the fall, but I forgot. I was distracted by her ass."

Pat frowned. "What the hell does winterized mean? I have a feeling you're not talking about antifreeze."

Michael and Quinn nearly busted a gut.

"Actually, it is kind of like that," Quinn said.

"Look, Pat," Michael explained patiently. "You can never really know a woman until you go through a Chicago winter with her, OK? The cold, the wind, the flu, scraping ice off the car, shoveling out your parking space-from November to March, that's when the real woman comes out.

"Incredibly bad things can happen during that time, let me tell you," Michael continued. "Ugly things. But if you can stand her during winter, you've got a good one. Sheila passed with flying colors. It's one of the reasons I married her."

Pat's mouth hung open. "Lovely. But that doesn't explain why in God's name the woman married you, Michael." Then he turned to Quinn, frowning. "Are these lucky gals aware they're being tested?"

"No," Quinn said. "That would skew the results."

Pat scowled at him.

Quinn held up his hands in defense. "It's nothing awful, Pat. All you do is ask a couple basic questions, like what she'd enjoy doing on a Sunday afternoon in February."

"And this accomplishes what?" Pat asked.

"Well," Michael said thoughtfully, "the best answers involve food, televised sports, beer, and sex in any combination."

"There's a range of good answers," Quinn added. "But if she mentions sex and beer, things are looking up."

Pat shook his head. "Good God, I'm glad I'm a priest."

They all felt him before they saw him-the room pulsed with energy when the door opened and Jamie Quinn strolled in, exchanging warm greetings all around.

"Hello, boy-os," he said, eventually sliding his big, sturdy body in next to Pat. "Did I miss anything?"

Pat nodded and gestured with his pint glass. "We were just talking about Stacey's new girlfriend, Da."

Jamie leaned toward his oldest and tapped a beefy fist on the table, grinning. "It's about damn time, lad," he said, settling back in the booth. "Well now. Let's just hope she's not the pain in the arse that Laura was, shall we?" He winked at Pat and Michael. "That woman gave me pontab of the gullet every time I saw her."

Audie lay sprawled out on the Italian couch, realizing yet again that she hated the feel of leather against her skin, especially in the summer, realizing yet again that for all its glitz, she hated this apartment.

It was sleek and huge and she felt insignificant and uncomfortable in it. The city lights and the dark lake were beautiful at night, beautiful and big and powerful-but all it did was make her feel small.

She thought of her old apartment in Wrigleyville, with the big oak tree in the backyard, its crooked little back porch, the neighborhood sounds and the cooking smells, the old clawfoot bathtub, the cozy bedroom. It fit her like a favorite sweatshirt-warm and comfortable and not trying to be anything it wasn't.

Why she let Marjorie convince her to move to Helen's place was anyone's guess. She was making a lot of stupid decisions around that time, if her memory served her correctly-one right after the next. She took on a job she didn't want and couldn't do. She agreed to pretend she was somebody she wasn't. She started living a life that belonged to someone else.

All for her mother. All for a woman who never loved her.

Audie closed her eyes at the awful memory of her mother's last hour. Her face was swollen and bruised from the attack and her hair was matted with blood. And the terror in her voice, the pleading…

It was the desperation that was Audie's undoing. The woman who was always perfect, polished, and poised was gone, and in her place was an old lady who was bleeding and trembling and could barely speak.

"I'm counting on you," her mother had whispered as they rolled her down the hallway. "Swear to me. Don't disappoint me, Autumn."

She was twenty-eight years old the night her mother died, but Helen could still slice her to the quick with those familiar words: Don't disappoint me. She said it, then reached for Audie's hand and died.

In her more self-pitying moments, Audie realized she had become Homey Helen to prove to her mother that she was worth loving, that she could be something other than a disappointment.

Stupid decisions, certainly.

And now what? Was a year long enough, Audie wondered? Did Helen ever look down from the Elizabeth Arden salon in the sky and feel rotten for putting her daughter in this position?

"Can I bag the Banner renewal and go back to my old life?" Audie asked out loud. "Will you forgive me if I at least try to be happy, Mom?"

Audie sighed. The woman was dead. She couldn't hear her and she couldn't love her. If Helen had ever wanted to do either of those things, she would have done them while she was alive.

With a sudden burst of energy, Audie hopped up from the couch and kicked a soccer ball down the long, dark hallway, hearing it smack dead center against the far wall.

"She scores," she mumbled to herself, "and the crowd goes wild." She heard her feet shuffle over what seemed like acres of carpets and wood floors before she reached the kitchen.

She walked around the long curved counter of teak and stainless steel and reached for the refrigerator handle.

"Gross." There were things in there that scared her.

"Crap." There was nothing to drink except water.

"Oh, hell." She opened the pantry to discover she was even out of tea bags.

Audie turned around and put hands to hips over her nightshirt-one of Griffin 's soccer jerseys from his pro days. What was she doing? Was she nuts? It was a balmy Friday night in the big city and there she was-a reasonably attractive, pseudo-successful, still somewhat young woman, alone in her dark castle tower, talking to dead people, with nothing to eat or drink.

She was pathetic. She should be out enjoying her life.

Oh, wait. She had no life.

Her life lately consisted of following Marjorie's business plan, hanging out with Stanny-O and eating way too many Frango Mints, and waiting each day by the mailbox for the next death threat.

Oh, and let's not forget the best part about her life-Stacey Quinn! The intensely sexy cop who kissed her until her spine fused, then disappeared with some lame excuse, then sent her a gift so inexplicably sweet and personal that it made her cry.

Enough of that, she told herself-no more thinking of Stacey Quinn tonight. She'd see him Sunday. That would have to be enough. She was sexually frustrated. That was her problem. And Stacey Quinn was simply the hottest thing she'd ever seen in her life!

She covered her face in her hands and groaned. "You're such a jerk, Quinn," she whispered. Then she smiled in the dark.

It was beyond her control, so she gave in and wondered what he was up to right then, who he was with, what he was wearing, and whether he thought of her. She wondered who got to hear the sound of that gravelly voice and who was lucky enough to hear him laugh.

She hoped to God it wasn't a woman.

The buzz of her doorbell nearly sent Audie through the ceiling. She ran across the wide living room to the foyer and flipped on the light, slamming her eyes shut in the brightness. She peered through the peephole to see the smiling face of-Tim Burke?

"Tim Burke?" she whispered to herself, dropping her eyes from the door. It was beyond her how he thought it was OK just to show up here. It was beyond her how he got beyond lobby security. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

"What do you want, Tim?" she shouted through the heavy double doors.

"Hey, babe! I was just at a dinner party in the building. I wanted to drop by to say 'Hi.'"

"Not a good time, Tim." As if there ever was a good time for Tim Burke.

"Oh. Well, sure. Not even a cup of coffee?"

"I don't have any coffee."

"Oh. Right. How come you haven't returned my calls, Audie? I miss you. You know I care for you."

She huffed. She leaned her forehead against the cool, smooth wood and began a light banging at a slow, even tempo.

"What are you doing, Audie?"

"Bashing my head in," she muttered to herself. "Nothing! Look, I've got company, Tim, all right?" She didn't like to lie, but this was an emergency. "Good-bye."

Audie was turning away from the door when she heard him say, "Is Stacey Quinn in there with you?"

"What?"

"He came to see me today. I'll give you a little advice, Audie. The guy's a hothead and a womanizer and nothing but trouble. Watch yourself."

Audie stuck her eye back on the peephole, but Tim Burke was gone.

She shook her head. Obviously, there was no love lost between Quinn and Tim Burke, and she wondered what had happened so long ago. She could just picture them in a playground scuffle, hurling insults and punches at each other, shoving andtearing at each other's little white Catholic school dress shirts.

She was rooting for Quinn.

"Men," she mumbled, heading for her bedroom. She might as well go to bed for the night. That way, when Marjorie asked her on Monday if she was getting enough sleep, she wouldn't have to lie.