Serial

39

When Quinn got back to the office, Weaver was waiting for him.

Pearl had banished her to a chair over by the coffee brewer.

“You got an emissary from Renz wants to talk to you,” Pearl said.

Weaver had seen Quinn and stood up. She’d helped herself to coffee and walked toward him, the steaming mug held in front of her in one hand, with her thumb on top of the rim to help hold it steady. Quinn smiled inwardly when he saw that Weaver was using Pearl’s personalized cup with Pearl’s initials. Weaver was holding the cup so the initials were plainly visible.

Deftly, Quinn moved into Pearl’s line of vision so she might not notice the mug, and motioned for Weaver to take one of the chairs angled toward his desk.

She swiveled neatly on a high heel and settled into the chair. She was wearing dark slacks and a white shirt, a blue blazer. It was an outfit Pearl often wore. Not today, though, thank God.

Weaver wasn’t a classic beauty, but she was attractive. Compactly built (something like Pearl only not as busty) and easy to look at, with a twinkle in her brown eyes that suggested she was up for anything. As Quinn sat down behind his desk to face her, he noticed a cinnamon scent of perfume.

“I understand you’ve been doing things behind my back,” Quinn said.

“Sex is sex,” Weaver said. There went that twinkle.

“Don’t smart-mouth me. I’ve got Pearl to deal with, and that’s enough.”

“Okay, you made your point and I’m sorry. What I’ve been doing is obeying the orders of my superior.”

“Meaning?”

“I had no choice. But that part of my assignment is over. I came here to tell you that from now on I’m acting as a liaison officer reporting to Commissioner Renz.”

“Isn’t that another way of saying informer?”

“Not in this case. Now all our dealings will be aboveboard, and I’m to be an integral part of the investigation. The commissioner figured you needed help.”

“We met this morning,” Quinn said, “and he didn’t mention anything along that line.”

“I know. He briefed me on this morning’s meeting.” Weaver took a sip of coffee, then leaned to the side and set the mug on the floor so it wouldn’t leave a ring on the desk. “Listen, Quinn, I don’t want to cause you grief. I like you. You were one of the few friends I had on the force. I’d like for us to stay friends. You always understood me. I’ve got an active libido, but so what? Other people have red hair or are left-handed. There are plenty of male cops who lead active love lives and it doesn’t seem to harm them or hurt their chances for advancement. There’s a double standard.”

“Sure there is. I thought you’d learned to live with it.”

“I have. That’s how I made lieutenant.”

Quinn didn’t want to know the details. “So Renz understands you?”

“He understands my ambition.”

“Because he’s ambitious?”

“Because we’re ambitious in the same way.”

Quinn leaned back and looked her in the eye. “Can I trust you, Nancy?”

“Of course you can’t. We both know I’m working for Renz and I’m always going to have to come down on his side of the fence. But I can promise I’ll walk that fence carefully and try to do you as little harm as possible.” She gave him a wan, helpless smile. “Those are the positions we find ourselves in.”

Meaning you can’t trust me completely, either.

“I understand,” Quinn said. He gave her a smile much like hers in return. “We can learn to coexist.”

“I would like one condition,” Weaver said. “I don’t want you to use me to feed misinformation to the commissioner.”

“We’ve got a deal,” Quinn said.

“And I do have a question right off,” Weaver said.

Quinn waited.

“Fedderman over there. Why’s he dressed like he’s graduating from primary school?”

Quinn smiled. Weaver didn’t miss much.

“His old suits finally wore out,” he said.

Part of the truth.

That was what made the world go round. Partial truths.

Quinn and Weaver talked with their heads close together at Quinn’s desk and then left for an early lunch. They asked if Pearl wanted to join them. She said only if she could bring her own knife.

Quinn gave her the look, as if he was headmaster and she was twelve years old and had been caught reading porno with the school janitor.

After deciding to dine alone, Pearl left the office and walked toward the Eighty-first Street entrance to the park, where she could get a hot dog and Diet Coke from a street vendor and sit on a bench and brood while she ate. Mostly because of Nancy Weaver’s arrival at the office, she was in a dark mood. Moody. She felt a twinge. Her mother had always described her that way when she was a child. Pearl would overhear her talking to some of her lady friends: She’s such a smart child, but so moody. Some days she’s so prickly she shoots quills.

The man she loved (most of the time) and lived with (part of the time) was having lunch with a professional sex machine, and here was Pearl thinking about her mother.

And, as so often happened-or seemed to happen-when she thought about her mother, her mother called her on the phone.

When Pearl heard the first four notes of the old Dragnet TV show theme and fished her cell phone from her purse, she wasn’t at all surprised to see that the caller was Golden Sunset Assisted Living.

She sighed, or maybe it was a growl. She flipped the phone open and pressed it to her ear so hard that the side of her head hurt.

“Hello, Mom.”

“Pearl, I’ve been calling and calling here from the wilds of New Jersey and your message machine is making that shrill sound like it does when it’s stuffed too full of messages and I was worried sick about you. For all I knew you were lying dead on the floor.”

“You should have called my cell phone number, Mom.” Before jamming up my answering machine.

“Which at this time I am doing, Pearl. I saw on TV here at the nursing home-”

“Assisted living,” Pearl corrected.

“Way station on the road to death. What I saw on the TV was a doctor explaining how, when a woman gets into her forties, it becomes more and more complicated, which is to say dangerous, for her to have a child.”

“You mean grandchild,” Pearl said, driving to the point. “ Your grandchild.”

“Yes. Little Rebecca, waiting in the wings, in a manner of speaking.”

“My wings,” Pearl said, wondering how many other women were walking around not even pregnant with the child they weren’t going to conceive who was already named. Already Pearl was sick of Rebecca, and the kid hadn’t even been born.

“Not that you aren’t my own darling angel, Pearl. A mother’s love encompasses and forgives.”

“Forgives what?”

“So many things.”

Pearl squeezed the phone, causing the built-in camera to activate and snap a picture of her hair.

“As for Captain Quinn-”

“He’s no longer a captain, Mom.”

“He’s not getting any younger, either.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Oh, he’ll understand. Your Captain Quinn is a mensch and would, I am sure, make a fine father. You two have been romantically involved for a while now, so I know that marriage is on the near horizon-”

“Not that I can see.”

“-and once that happy event occurs, God willing, there still is time, if barely, to create that which you will hold as dear as I hold you.”

“Quinn and I are content as we are, Mom.”

“You think you’re content, dear. As did your father and I, until you came along, and like little Rebecca-”

“Mom, stop it. If I get pregnant, you’ll be the first to know.”

“No, you will be the first, and then you’ll understand every word I’m telling you now of a mother’s best wishes for the daughter she loves. In an instant it will become clear to you.”

“I really don’t have time to talk, Mom. I’m helping to track a killer who’s murdered-”

“Your eggs, Pearl.”

“My what? ”

“Have you checked to be sure you’re fertile? I mean, with a doctor, of course.”

“I don’t want to talk about my eggs.”

“I think we can be reasonably sure that the virile Captain Quinn-”

“You’re starting to break up, Mom.”

“There is someone I want you to talk with, Pearl.”

“About what?”

“You and Captain Quinn. And your… arrangement.”

“What arrangement?”

“Shacking up, Pearl. To put it crudely but not without accuracy. After all, if you’re going to have a child-”

“But I’m not pregnant, Mom. And I don’t intend to get that way. And Quinn and I aren’t living together.”

“Cohabiting, then.”

“Sometimes,” Pearl said.

“Meaning your clothes are in his closet. I shrug, Pearl.”

“Mom-”

“As a favor to your mother, and it’s seldom enough that I ask for one, will you just talk to this person, Pearl?”

“Who is this we’re discussing?”

“Rabbi Robert Gold.”

“I thought you said a person.”

“A rabbi is a person, Pearl.”

“Rabbi Gold and I have nothing to discuss.”

“You can say that never having met the man?”

“I can,” Pearl said. “I did.”

“Pearl, someday Rebecca-”

Pearl flipped the phone closed, breaking the connection.

Talking to her mother was like a debate with the Spanish Inquisition. Win or lose, it was torture.