“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.”
“Great,” Jo said.
“Three, she needs money. We ran her financials. Opening the bar has her in debt up to her eyeballs. People have been tempted for far less than what Murphy offered her. I’m not looking to get double-crossed. This way we keep our cards close to our chest, provide protection, and keep her on our side. Best-case scenario, nothing interesting happens and she never finds out. We get the evidence we need, Matt quits when this is over, and everyone goes away happy.”
That was classic Hawthorn: get intel and trust no one, not even a high school friend. And the only thing Matt had to sacrifice was his honor. He was the expendable point man out in front, getting the most up-to-date, accurate information about a situation. Like walking point, undercover work was the department’s riskiest assignment, requiring ice water for blood and an ability to juggle identities over long periods of time. But they were dead wrong about her. No way would she take money from a guy like Murphy. He knew an honorable person when he saw one. He just didn’t see one in the mirror much anymore.
“Matt, what’s your read?”
“The bar’s right in that borderline neighborhood between the river and civilization. Two blocks north and you’re shopping for high-end goods in SoMa. A block south and you’re in those abandoned warehouses the city wants to knock down for the new business park. The building’s a basic cinderblock exterior with a very expensive, upscale interior and about as girl-oriented as you can get. Murphy’s smart. We’d never look twice at this place.”
“Did she ask for references?”
“I used Gino as my current employer. She knew the bar, so she might call him.”
Gino was a retired cop now managing his family’s bar. “I called him just after you left and explained the situation. He’ll verify your cover.”
“We’re taking a risk with my undercover identity,” Matt said. “She was carrying an iPhone like we’d have to pry it out of her cold, dead hands. I guarantee pictures from inside Eye Candy are all over the internet.”
“Everyone has a cell phone with a camera these days. It’s never bothered you before,” Hawthorn said. “She doesn’t hire women—”
“Thank God,” Jo said under her breath. Matt huffed. He’d spent plenty of time on the other end of a mike feed listening to Jo banter with johns.
“—and you’re our best.”
Hawthorn’s phone rang. Carlucci wandered off. Matt slumped in his chair and opened the top drawer of his desk, rummaging through the assortment of paper clips and pens in the pencil tray.
Across the desk, Jo was working her way through an arrest report. “What did you do to your knuckles?” she asked without looking up.
“Went at the speed bag a little too long last night,” he said.
That got him raised eyebrows, Jo’s version of mother hen clucking and fussing.
“Luke didn’t get the job. He’s pretty frustrated.”
His brother had graduated from college in May and still hadn’t found a full-time job in his field of biology. Matt told him not to worry about it, but with each near-miss Luke’s temper frayed a little more. Tensions were high in the small house.
“And that sent you to the speed bag because…?”