Last Breath

10

Down the street from Newton Station was a coffee shop run by Philippine immigrants. It was a hangout for cops, though it did less business than the local bars. Cops saw a lot of things that encouraged drinking. C.J. herself avoided alcohol, but she sometimes wondered how long her resolve could hold out against the daily assault of drive-bys and arson fires and craziness.

She led Adam to the coffee shop, past a legless beggar on the curb rattling a tin cup, an image out of Calcutta.

The shop was small and close and crowded. The air conditioner made a great deal of noise but produced little change in temperature. There were biscuit crumbs and horseflies on the Formica surface of the nearest available table. C.J. shooed the flies and sat down.

“Nice place,” Adam said with a wince as he settled into a wobbly-legged chair. “Come here often?”

“Believe it or not, I do. Mr. and Mrs. Salazar are good people.” She saw his questioning glance and added, “They run the place.”

“Keep it nice and clean too.” Adam swept some of the crumbs away with his sleeve.

“They don’t have enough help. This is the busiest time of the day-right after shift change.” She caught Mrs. Salazar’s eye and held up two fingers. “Two lattes,” she explained to Adam. “That okay?”

“Sure.”

“It’s the best thing they serve. Stay away from the frappuccino.”

“I’ll remember that if I ever bring a client here.”

She indulged him with a laugh. “I guess it’s not the greatest place in town, but you know, I’m used to it.”

“How long has it been since you transferred to Newton?”

“A year. I moved over here just after-well, you know.”

“After you filed for divorce.”

“Right.”

“You can say the words, C.J. I’m a big boy.” He leaned back in his chair, which creaked ominously. “You know, I used to think you were nuts.”

“Did you?” She felt a spasm of irritation at him and hid it behind a smile. “How so?”

“Doing this job. When I hear gunshots, I run the other way. You go toward them. There’s a certain element of insanity in that behavior, don’t you think?”

“We can’t all be lawyers,” she said peevishly.

“I’m not being confrontational. I just mean, what you do is so foreign to me. Always has been.”

“Sometimes it feels foreign to me too. When I hear gunshots, I’d like to run the other way, just like you.”

“But you don’t. I admire that. I don’t profess to understand it, necessarily-but I admire it anyway.”

The compliment silenced her. She was not accustomed to kindness from him.

The caffe lattes arrived, carried by Mrs. Salazar. C.J. sipped the foam in silence and considered what Adam had said. Did he admire her? Had he ever? She suspected his actual feelings were closer to contempt-not for her alone, but for people in general, all those people who were not smart enough or flashy enough or suave enough to rise to the heights he was scaling. She might be wrong, though. She hoped so.

“C.J.?” Adam asked. “You still here?”

She looked up, remembering where she was. “Sorry. Guess you kind of startled me with that little testimonial.”

“I’ll take it all back if it makes you feel better.”

She smiled. “No, I liked hearing it. Except, you know, there are times when I think you might be right about the insanity part. I wonder if maybe there’s not a kind of death wish in what I do.” The words came out before she had time to consider them.

Adam leaned forward, frowning. “Crisis of confidence? That’s not like you.”

She wished she hadn’t said anything. But that was how it had always been with her and Adam-his simple presence seemed to bring out her innermost thoughts.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m not myself today, that’s all.”

“Why not?”

“Well, there was this situation-” She stopped herself, thinking, There I go again.

“Situation?”

“We don’t have to talk about this.”

“It’s okay,” Adam said.

She wondered if it really was okay-to open up to this man who had betrayed her. It felt wrong, and yet he was here, and she needed to talk to someone.

His blue eyes watched her, patient, waiting.

“It was a hostage situation,” she said slowly. “My partner had called for backup. We should’ve waited for SWAT.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No.”

“You and your partner went into some kind of SWAT situation without backup?”

“Not my partner. Me.”

“Alone?”

“Yup.”

“Christ, when you said you had a death wish-” He cut himself off. “Sorry, that didn’t come out too well.”

“It came out fine. You’re right. It was a stupid thing for me to do. Except, see, there was a child involved. And I thought he’d be safer if I went in alone.”

“Isn’t SWAT trained to handle these things?”

C.J. looked away. “Their training doesn’t always work out so well in the real world. I didn’t want a bloodbath in there.”

“Bloodbath?”

“It happens.” She had never told him what she’d seen at Harbor Division, and she wasn’t going to share it with him now.

“I thought SWAT were the elite, the pros.”

“They are. But… well, sometimes things go wrong. You know, everybody says this city is a war zone, and they’re right. But maybe we shouldn’t fight on those terms-or at least we shouldn’t be so gung ho about it. These SWAT guys-you haven’t seen them. They get all dressed up in their paramilitary duds, and they go in with their machine guns and their flash grenades, and civilian casualties become acceptable losses…”

She realized she was babbling and shut up.

“Is the kid okay?” Adam asked after a short silence.

“He’s fine.”

“And you?”

“Didn’t lose any fingers”-she waved her hands at him to demonstrate-“or toes, or any other vital parts.”

“You shouldn’t take risks like that, C.J.”

Someone has to, she almost snapped at him, but she knew her anger was inappropriate, an aftereffect of stress. “Well,” she said lightly, “it turned out all right, anyhow. You know, I hate talking shop. Let’s change the subject.”

“Fair enough.” Adam finished his latte and set down the mug. “How about Emmylou Harris?”

“Emmylou Harris?”

“You still like her?”

“Sure,” she answered warily.

“Well, she’s playing at a club in the Valley. Some honky-tonk cowboy saloon, the kind we used to go to. How about it?”

She was grateful to have an excuse. “Sorry, I can’t. Tonight’s my volunteer work, remember? Every Wednesday night, at the junior high, the at-risk kids program-”

“I’m not talking about tonight. I meant this Friday.”

“Oh.” Her excuse evaporated.

“Come on, let’s do it. You and me, sipping some brewskis, listening to some C ’n’ W from the pre-Shania era.”

Her heart sped up a little, and she realized that what she felt was fear. “That sounds almost like a date.”

He sensed her alarm and tried to wave it away. “No, not a date. A little reunion, that’s all. You know, for old times’ sake. Frankly, I wouldn’t have brought it up, except there’s nobody at the firm who goes in for country-western, and I hate going to a show alone.”

Is that it? C.J. wondered. Or is it that you hate being alone, period?

“Maybe she’ll play our song,” she said quietly, watching Adam closely to gauge his reaction.

“As I recall”-his expression was bland-“our song was ‘She’s Always a Woman.’ That’s in Billy Joel’s repertoire, not Emmylou’s.”

“I didn’t mean our, uh, official song. I meant the other one. The one that was playing when-never mind.”

Had he really forgotten? Or was his studied blankness only a mask to hide what he was feeling? There was a time when she had thought he couldn’t deceive her, but events had proven her wrong.

“So it’s not a date?” she asked, returning to the main issue.

Adam lifted his shoulders a little too casually. “Just two pals out on the town.”

“Two pals,” she echoed.

“Right.”

“Who used to be married to each other.”

“There’s no law that says you can’t be friends with your ex. I’m an attorney, I ought to know.” That smile again. What was Tanner’s word? Rakish. “Anyway, I want to catch up on what’s been happening in your life. And I, well, basically I want to brag some more about my career. So you want to do it?”

Some part of her wanted to say no, but she couldn’t decide if it was her more sensible self or merely the dull, cruel side of her that nursed a grudge.

“Well,” she said finally, “as long as you understand-”

He held up both hands in mock surrender. “I understand. Just friends.”

“Okay, then.”

He flashed another smile, his teeth very white against the tanned planes of his face. “I’ll call you with the details later this week. It’ll be fun, C.J.”

“Fun,” she repeated. She hoped so.

Adam insisted on paying for the lattes. Outside the coffee shop, she said good-bye to him.

There was no hug when they parted. He sketched a salute, a habit he’d picked up the first time he saw her wearing a uniform, and she returned it with a smile. Then he disappeared down the street, and she stared after him and wondered if she should have listened to the inner voice that had wanted to turn him down.

But he couldn’t possibly think there was any chance of reconciliation… could he?

Well, one night with Adam wouldn’t kill her. And she had always liked his company, even if, in the end, he’d shown himself to be someone other than the man she’d thought he was.

Her car was in the station house parking lot. She walked back to the station and entered through the lobby.

Delano was still at the desk. He smiled when she came in. “That’s your ex, huh, Killer?”

“None of your business, but yeah.”

“I was talking to him before. Seems like an okay guy.”

“He is an okay guy. As long as you don’t trust him too much.”