A Friend in the Glass (An Auden & O’Callaghan Mystery #3)

Chapter Thirteen

When they stepped out of the hotel, the city was like sandpaper on raw nerves. Cars alternated between accelerating at full speed and then stopping suddenly in a screech of brakes. A FedEx truck was double parked, prompting an old woman in a Lincoln to lay on the horn. A guy with light brown skin and Jheri curls wore nothing but a t-shirt and baby carrier in which a Beagle was riding, glancing around and barking loudly enough to compete with the horn.

Sam remembered the feel of Lew’s shirt, the cloth between his fingers.

A white kid on a skateboard whizzed past, clipping Sam with his elbow.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam muttered and sucked in a breath. “Can I get out of this fuck-hole for five seconds?”

Rufus shot Sam a critical look, but all he asked was “Want lunch?”

Sam nodded.

They ended up in a taqueria called Diabla, which was set down from the sidewalk. The peeling paint on the door and the ancient soaped letters on the windows spelling T CO T DAY were not promising, but inside, the air smelled like seared pork and cilantro and onion, and the warmth and relative humidity made it feel like walking into a steam bath. While Rufus secured a two-top against the wall, Sam ordered, and by the time he’d paid, his tray was ready. He carried it to the table, passed Rufus an empty foam cup, and said, “I got everything. I’m not—I’m not exactly in a place to make decisions.”

“It’s fine,” Rufus said, sounding like he was trying very hard to not be short. He went to the counter with the cup, asked for it to be filled with Pepsi, and returned to the table. “You know,” he began with a forced casualness. “If you tell them you don’t like ice because it hurts your teeth, you get extra soda.” He sat, tugged his beanie off, and tossed it onto the tabletop.

Sam bit into a taco. He wasn’t sure what the meat was. It was brown, anyway. And the onions added a nice flavor. Too much cilantro. After a moment, when Rufus hadn’t sucked up half the food like a human vacuum cleaner, Sam nudged the tray toward him.

Rufus obediently took one of the tacos and downed it in two bites. Seemingly in-sync with Sam’s own culinary thoughts, he said, “I read a book that claimed there’s a gene responsible for why so many people say cilantro tastes like soap. OR6-something… 6A2, maybe?” Rufus grabbed a second taco, took a bite, and said, “Thankfully, my OR-whatever works just fine.”

“Are we not going to talk about Lew? Is that the plan?”

Rufus chewed and swallowed. He stared at Sam for a long minute before saying, “I don’t know. I wasn’t the one who tried to assault him. Can you talk about him without seeing red?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I told him what I’d do to him. There’s no doubt in my mind what happened: the colonel spotted us, called Lew, and sicced him on us. Lew knew what I was going to do, and he came anyway. That’s on him.”

“I want you to use your imagination for a minute.”

Sam raised his eyebrows.

“Pretend I’m in a full-blown panic attack,” Rufus started.

“Ok.”

“And you love me—remember that. Now, I just said everything you did. Am I freaking out, or is there something there worth listening to?”

For a moment, Sam considered this. He set down a half-eaten taco. “It would be hard to know. You’re not always wrong when you’re panicking, but it’s hard to follow your reasoning, and you’re often too upset to see alternatives.”

“Yeah, sometimes. I know. So what would you say to me?”

The plastic straw tore easily, and Sam peeled it into strips. “I don’t know.”

Rufus let out a sigh as he leaned back in his chair. “I guess this is me having trouble with your reasoning.”

“What part?”

“All of it, maybe. I used to think, for a street rat, I was pretty smart. But being around all these people at MoDe—I don’t know if I’m ignorant or just plain stupid. Can you tell me why you think the two of us are a threat worth calling in backup over?”

“Because of Stonefish. Because Lew knew I didn’t believe the bullshit story they told about Went. Because he must have known Shareed would contact me and tell me what she found. I don’t know all the pieces, Rufus, but they’re all involved in it, and Lew didn’t show up at this hotel by accident.”

Rufus picked up a third taco. “Was Went more than a friend?”

“He’s dead.”

“That wasn’t my question, Sam.”

“He was… Christ, I don’t know. He wasn’t my boyfriend. We didn’t even have sex. But he was sweet, and he—I don’t know.” Sam struggled, working his jaw. “I cared about him. He wasn’t cut out for the Army, but he worked damn hard, and if he’d lived, yeah, maybe.” He pushed the tray away again. “Does that help with your line of reasoning?”

Rufus shrugged. “You don’t need to keep it a secret.”

“And now you know. Can we talk about something important now? Like what we’re going to do about this mess?”

Wryly, Rufus suggested, “Run away to Nebraska?”

“Wouldn’t that be a dream. Lew’s a lot of things, but he doesn’t make empty threats. If he says he’s going to come after us, he’s going to come after us. We need to figure out how we’re going to handle it when he does.” With a grunt, Sam gathered their trash. “What are we going to do now?”

“I think we should try to find out if Del was telling the truth about not yet being in the city when Shareed died. At least it’d narrow our focus a bit.”

“Right,” Sam said. “Here we go.”