Same shit, different day. Matt dropped Carlucci from his awareness, started a new case file, and began composing the report describing his interview with Eve Webber.
At fifteen thirty hours I approached Ms. Webber in her place of business. Subject is female, Caucasian, approximately five feet six inches—
… mostly slim, toned legs.…
—green eyes, black hair—
… that kept falling in her eyes …
That memory halted his fingers on the keyboard. Touching hair was often a subconscious gesture expressing interest in a man. Eve Webber’s just wouldn’t stay out of her face, sliding free from its mooring behind her ear, shadowing an eye, but he didn’t think she was coming on to him. A woman prepared to tell a potential bartender to keep his hands off the customers or face retribution akin to the wrath of God wouldn’t bother to flirt. She’d name a time and place, and bring her best game.
And flirting didn’t explain that strange, humming connection that revved into the red zone when their fingers met.
“What’s this all about, anyway?” Carlucci asked.
The informant offered the job contingent on satisfactory performance tonight.
Delete.
Matt reached for the distancing language of a police report to describe the bar’s interior, the possibility of alternate exits upstairs or in the back.
“The operation with the FBI and the DEA to get Lyle Murphy. He’s moving home and bringing bad news with him,” Jo said when it became apparent Matt wasn’t going to bother answering Carlucci.
“What kind of bad news?”
“The Strykers.”
As he reread the report Matt heard Carlucci’s faint whistle. Much better. Calm, logical, focused on the case at hand. No mention of hair or legs or eyes, as if describing features could sum up the sheer femininity radiating from Eve Webber during a simple job interview. Ten minutes with her and he’d felt something. Still felt it thirty minutes later. Not desire. He understood desire, dealt with it. This was different, more visceral, deeply buried, long-forgotten, and leading him to make two mistakes when the acceptable error rate was zero point zero.
Lieutenant Ian Hawthorn walked down the aisle between the detectives’ desks. “Well?” he said to Matt.
“I’ve got a trial shift tonight,” Matt said. “If she’s happy at the end of it, I’ve got the job.”
Hawthorn folded his arms. “The FBI’s been running this operation for over a year, and getting nowhere until a couple of weeks ago, when Ms. Webber walked in off the street and said Murphy approached her about using her bar to launder the money they’re making in the region. She agreed to be an informant and help us get him. She’s the connection the Feds need to get the whole chain, from the buy-and-busts on street corners right up to the top guys.”
Carlucci whistled again.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that somehow word got back to Murphy. McCormick was booking a Stryker when she walked in. Maybe he saw her, and reported back to Lyle Murphy. It doesn’t matter,” Hawthorn said. “She managed to talk her way out of it, but people who inform on the Strykers have a nasty habit of dying in a drive-by, or worse, disappearing off the face of the earth. So Detective Dorchester just got himself a job as Eye Candy’s newest bartender.”
“This is a big fucking deal. Shouldn’t we put in plainclothes officers?” Carlucci asked. “Hang out in the bar, keep an eye on the situation?”
Jo shoved her keyboard tray under her desk and looked at Carlucci, her gaze flicking over the buzz cut, slacks, and suit jacket. “Even plainclothes cops look like cops. They walk and talk and think like cops, and a ten-year-old in that neighborhood can pick us out of a crowd. Matt, on the other hand, looks like the kind of guy who’d bounce from job to job, city to city. Just the right amount of bad boy,” she said consideringly. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Matt said. He knew exactly how he looked, how to make it work for him, how to switch things up when it wasn’t working. It worked for Eve Webber. Anyone with eyes could see that.
“She refused a police presence in her place of business,” Hawthorn said. “Which works in our favor. If she knows Matt’s a cop, she might make a mistake, tell someone, give the whole thing away before we even get started. Murphy would kill her without thinking twice about it. She doesn’t know exactly how high we’re aiming, either. All she’s thinking about is the East Side, not bringing down the whole Strykers pipeline. If she makes a mistake, we lose the whole case and look like boneheads in front of the feds.”
Hawthorn wasn’t telling them everything. “You don’t trust her,” Matt said. That’s emotion talking. Besides, you can’t go back now and tell her who you really are, then ask her out.
“I don’t trust anyone,” Hawthorn said. “One, we offered her a police presence. She refused. Two, I know Eve from high school. She’s impulsive, tends to act before she thinks.”