to meet you,” I said.
He smiled. “You, too.” He started for his car and turned when he reached the driver’s side door. “Stay out of trouble,” he said, chuckling.
The rain began to fall, a light mist that clung to my uncombed hair and eyelashes. “I will. Thanks again.”
He stood next to his car, swinging his briefcase back and forth. “So, you’re dating Captain America, huh?” he asked, amused.
“I prefer to think of him as Detective Hot Pants,” I said.
He started to say something else, thought better of it, and looked at me one last time before he got into the car, a silver minivan with a car seat in the back. He gave me a wave as he drove off, merging onto the Saw Mill Parkway at the base of the barracks’ driveway.
I watched him drive off, marveling at my luck at meeting a man who would not only bail me out of jail but who would enlist members of his family to do the same. I was just glad that it was his brother, and not his mother, or sister, who was the crack attorney. Women are far less forgiving of failings in their male relatives’ lovers.
Even I knew that it was never good to meet your boyfriend’s mother while handcuffed to a chair.
Jimmy called Crawford right before he and Carmen left for lunch.
“Your girlfriend’s out on bail,” he said, laughing loudly. “They had her on reckless driving, harassment, and resisting arrest. That’s the trifecta of arrests.”
Crawford didn’t think that was very funny but that was what separated him from his brother—Jimmy’s sense of humor. “Thanks, Jimmy. How much do I owe you?”
“I’m just kidding. There’s no bail. I got most of the charges dropped but she’s got to take one of those moronic defensive driving courses at the local high school. Her and every teenage DUI in Dobbs Ferry.”
Crawford felt the tension drain from his body, relief replacing it. “Thanks, Jimmy,” he repeated.
“I gotta tell you, man, she’s cute. Even in wet pajamas and without her hair combed. I can see what you see in her.” His cell phone cut out momentarily. “…gotta stay out of trouble. The Staties won’t cut her any slack next time.”
“Jimmy, I owe you. I’ll call you later.” Crawford hung up and ran his hands over his face. Owing Jimmy was the last thing he needed; Jimmy had a lead foot and his other car was an eight-cylinder BMW. If he didn’t have a brother with connections, Jimmy would have a suspended license from all of his speeding tickets, a fact that didn’t stop him from doing eighty on the local highways. He turned to Carmen, still sitting at her desk doing paperwork. “She’s out, Carmen.”
Carmen took her hands, but not her eyes, off the keyboard of the typewriter and began clapping. “Can we eat now?”
“One second,” Crawford said, picking up his ringing phone. “Crawford. Fiftieth.”
The breathing was labored and heavy, the voice husky. “Crawford.”
Crawford sat down. “Alex?”
“I got something for you, Bobby. On the hands and feet.”
Crawford felt his pulse quicken. “Shoot,” he said, picking up a pencil.
“Not on the phone.” Alex sneezed loudly.
Crawford expected the stalling; Alex had been an informant for the last five years and was known for that as well as his inability to follow a logical thought from point A to point B; years of abusing his body had taken its toll on his mind. Crawford pushed the point of the pencil through the legal pad, agitated. “Alex, I don’t have that kind of time. Help me out here. Give me something.”
Alex sneezed again. “I’m real sick, man. I’ve been hiding. I’ve been outside for a while.”
“When I see you, I’ll buy you lunch. But give me something to make me come out, Alex.” Crawford heard the squeal of train brakes and suspected that he was in front of Maloney’s on Broadway, his favorite spot to pan-handle. “Why have you been hiding?”
“I’m scared, man. I saw the hands and feet.”
“Where? What did you see?”
Alex coughed and mumbled something Crawford couldn’t understand.
“What do you have for me, Alex?”
“Well, the guy who got killed was a college professor at St. Thomas.”
Crawford rolled his eyes. “I know, Alex. I read the papers. I’m working the case. I saw the body.”
Alex dropped his voice to a whisper. “I saw the guy who threw them away. He was with a blond lady. She was little.”
Crawford sat up straighter. “What did the blond lady look like?”
Alex paused. “She may have been blond. She