how do they get the details? Call the officers on the case? I mean, they got to go ask somebody. Know what I mean?”
::::::None of that’s an actual lie, is it… but what if Hernandez or Nuñez or Flores asks me straight out? Can I just keep double-talking these guys? Probably none a them even reads the Herald. But suppose they add it up… John Smith plus John Smith plus John Smith.:::::: Quite aside from feeling paranoid, he felt guilty.
Just then came a vibration from the left breast pocket of his checked flannel shirt: Nestor fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and says, “Camacho.”
A girl’s voice on the other end: “Is this Officer Camacho?”
“Yes, this is Officer Camacho.” He used the “Officer Camacho” to show the Sergeant, Nuñez, and Flores that this was a line-of-duty call.
“Officer Camacho, this is Ghislaine Lantier. We were talking yesterday?”
“Uhhh… of course.” The sound of her voice gave him a lift he couldn’t have explained to himself. It just did.
“I probably shouldn’t be calling you, because this isn’t your responsibility, but I… I need some advice.”
“About what?” He could see her as if she were standing right in front of him… the pale, pale skin, the dark hair, the big, wide, innocent… anxious eyes… and her legs. Her legs popped into his head, too.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened yesterday. It’s sort of complicated, and I couldn’t think of anybody else to call, and then I saw that big story about you in the Herald this morning, and I thought I’d try. I still have your card. Until I read the paper this morning, I had no idea you were the same officer I’d seen on television carrying that refugee down from on top of a mast.”
And the angel sang! Nestor said, “Hold on a second.” He covered the cell phone with his other hand and said to his mates, “I gotta take this call. I’ll be right back.”
With that, he got up from the booth and stepped out the door and onto the sidewalk and said into the cell phone, “I’m just going someplace a little quieter. There was too much noise in there.”
Someplace was the big CVS down the block. There was a heavy pair of automated plate glass sliding doors at the entrance. About six feet inside was another pair, creating a vestibule of sorts. Nestor leaned against a side wall and said to Ghislaine Lantier, “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but this is a lot better.”
“Better” had nothing to do with noise, however. “Better” referred to the way this girl’s call had extracted him from Hernandez’s inquest into his relationship with John Smith. No use trying some flagrant lie, such as I don’t even know the man. Who knew who may have seen him with John Smith the night they went to the Isle of Capri restaurant and he crashed at John Smith’s apartment? Suddenly he had a dark vision: a departmental investigation of the collusion of a cop and a periodista. Come on! A twenty-five-year-old bottom-rank cop feeding information to the press without any authorization from above? ¡Dios mío! Grimmer and grimmer fates began to slither through his thoughts. He hung on for dear life to this conversation with Ghislaine Lantier… inside a CVS air lock.
“Now, you say you need some advice,” he said to her, “but it’s not about yesterday. Do I have that straight?”
“Yes… it’s about—I’m taking such a chance even bringing this up with you, with a police officer! But somehow I know I can trust you. I wish I could tell my father… I mean, I’ll tell him, but I can’t just, you know, throw it in his lap and say, ‘Here!’ Am I making any sense?”
“Uhhhh… no,” said Nestor with a laugh. “You haven’t even told me what this is about. Can’t you tell me something?”
“I don’t think I can explain this over the telephone. Is there someplace I could see you? When we were talking after you had that fight—I can’t explain it, but I knew you might be sympathetic. I knew you weren’t there just to arrest people. It was a feeling I had—”
Nestor interrupted. “All right, why don’t we meet for coffee somewhere, and you can relax and tell me all about it. Okay?” Good idea, but mainly he wanted to get her off the character analysis. She was beginning to make him feel like… he didn’t know what—all this business about how nice he’d been…