“You need a self-confidence course.” Conn grinned as he turned a shoulder into Shane’s halfhearted punch. “This one lasted three.”
McCormick and McCool. In every elementary school classroom they’d been seated in the same row, Shane with his shock of white-blond hair, angelic face, and burning desire to repair cars like his dad. He sat in front of Conn, with his dark hair, motor mouth, and burning desire to race cars like his dad. After a while all they knew was that if they came up with the idea together, it was a bad one, but they’d sure as hell have fun until the shit hit the fan. Until he left the army and joined the LPD, Shane was the only person Conn trusted, the only person Conn counted as family.
“I’m off today. We’ll freeze our balls off together.”
“They’re your balls,” Shane said. “I’m out for lunch,” he called to the two mechanics who worked for him, the words barely audible over the air compressors. Thumbs-up from both of them, then Shane pulled on a Carhartt jacket, grabbed a travel toolbox, and clomped after Conn. They drove out to the junkyard and spent an hour searching for the part, then another hour getting it out. By the time they finished, Conn had grease all over his hands and clothes, and Shane’s face was as white as his hair.
They drove to an East Side dive diner known for giving customers heart attacks and ordered chicken fried steak lunches, warming their hands around cups of coffee while they waited for the food.
“Have you ever considered that you just might not be able to do it?” Shane said finally.
He knew exactly what Shane meant. “All the time,” Conn answered. “Can you get the fuel pump in by the race this weekend? “
“Yeah, only because you’re buying lunch. And because I like your sorry ass, for reasons that still aren’t clear to me.”
“Thanks.”
Shane wiped his mouth with his napkin and stretched one arm along the back of the booth. “What’s new?”
“I worked security at some concert over the weekend.”
“The Maud Ward concert?” His eyebrows popped toward his hairline. “You worked that?”
“Yeah.”
“How was it?”
Conn shrugged and shook pepper all over his fries. “It was a girl singing pop songs. I was working.”
“You do know who she is, don’t you? She’s from Lancaster. Spent years going from club to club, singing for anyone who would listen, posting videos online. Some famous manager saw her performing on the street one night and got her a recording deal.”
Conn swallowed his mouthful of fries and signaled the waitress for more coffee. “I just work security.”
“You work security at concerts all the time—”
“It’s an off-duty job that pays good,” Conn interjected.
“And you never pay attention to the concert.”
“I’m working,” Conn repeated patiently. “Surveilling the crowd for threats. Making sure people are safe. You know. Being a cop. A drunk guy somehow got through security and headed for her backstage. He was halfway into his declaration of undying love and devotion, but we took him down before he could, you know, show her his songs.”
Shane laughed. “You stood in the way of true love?”
Conn snorted.
“I bet she probably hears that all the time,” Shane said. “What’s she like up close? Pretty?”
Conn considered this. Sleek, poker-straight hair. Wide brown eyes rimmed with enough eyeliner to make her look like a manga character. Skin and bones. “She looked like every other celebrity you see,” he said. “Hair, makeup, clothes, they all look like they ordered from the same shiny catalog. She handled herself pretty well, though. Kept him focused so me and Dorchester could sneak up on him.”
“You have all the fun,” Shane said.
“You want to do this job?”
“No way,” Shane said with a chuckle. “I’m happy where I am.”
Shane didn’t need the police department like Conn did. Shane had four brothers and extended family spread out all over Lancaster. His mother had been including Conn in family holidays and big celebrations since junior high school, but while Conn always went, his real family was the police department. All the dynamics were right: brothers and sisters doing the job every day, father figures in his training officers, stern maternal ones in the women who’d fought the first battles for equality, the offbeat ones you avoided. The McCools included him, but the department was like the McCools on crack, and steroids. Most cops felt the same way. Family was family, but the department was blood. It’s why working the job tended to run in families, sons and daughters following in their fathers’ footsteps. It drew you in, formed your thinking, your feelings. Once you were in, you stayed in. Very few cops quit for other jobs, because very few jobs provided the same high, or the same connection.
It was the only family Conn counted as his own.
As if he could read minds, Shane said, “Mom’s expecting you for Christmas.”