José forced his eyes to focus, yet they weren’t unclear—and then he heeded an internal conviction that he had to talk fast because Butch wasn’t going to last. Or rather, this dream wasn’t going to last.
Yes, this was totally a dream.
“I’m retiring,” he blurted.
“You are?” Butch seemed shocked, his eyes bugging. “Wait, for real?”
“Yeah. I’m tired of getting calls in the middle of the night, and I’ve gotten too stuck in my head. Plus I’m old, now.”
“You’re not old.” There was a desperate edge to that familiar voice. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I got my pension, you know. I’m staying one month after it kicks in—hey, you look great, by the way. I mean, so healthy. You’ve turned your life around.”
This was a good dream, he decided. Considering the raw material, he was lucky it wasn’t a heartbreaking nightmare involving a lot of blood.
“I met someone,” Butch whispered. “I fell in love and I married her. She’s too good for me.”
José smiled even as his head really started pounding. “I swear we’ve had this conversation before—but then I’m asleep and imagining this, aren’t I. I always hoped you’d find a nice woman and settle down.”
“You’re a good friend, José.”
“Why do you look so sad if you’re happy?”
“I miss you.”
Such simple words. That went through José’s chest like a scalpel.
“We were a good team.” José shut his eyes and then rubbed them. “God, my head hurts.”
“I think you better go.”
“Why do I feel like we’ve done this before?” he mumbled. For the hundredth time. But that was what happened in dreams, wasn’t it. Things were always a little skewed, a little wonky . . . real, but unreal.
He’d wanted to see Butch one last time before he retired, before José wasn’t out in the downtown at night anymore. Like maybe his retiring would stop these dreams from happening, like they were the same as his badge and his service weapons, something he had to turn in at his exit interview.
“We have done this before.”
Opening his eyes, José nodded. “I think we have.”
Butch’s hazel stare shifted to the left, and he focused on something over José’s shoulder. “I gotta go, too.”
Pivoting, José did a recoil, even though . . . he somehow wasn’t surprised. Two men had arrived at the trap house’s front door and they seemed to be waiting for Butch. One was huge and blond and looked like a movie star. The other had black hair, tattoos at one temple, and a goatee. Both were dressed in leather.
José turned back to his old partner, a strange feeling coming over him. “We have done this before, haven’t we.”
“Yeah, we have.”
“And this isn’t a dream, is it.”
“Life is a dream, José. The whole thing is one long fuzzy fiction, and I’m glad you’re getting out of homicide. It’s dangerous on the streets—”
“You need to come find me,” José cut in. “I’ve been running into you out here, haven’t I. But no more paths crossing after I step down. So you need to come find me.”
Okay, this was nuts. Because even as he repeated himself and struggled against confusion, which was very dream-like, he felt the need to communicate with his old partner like the guy was actually in front of him, and he was still at the trap house, and they were together for not the first time, not by a long shot.
“Promise me,” he gritted out through his teeth.
“Sure, I’ll find you. Now you better go. Your head hurts wicked bad.”
“God, yeah, it does.” José stepped back. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“Me, too,” came the sad reply.
As he took another step away, and another, Butch just stood there.
“You better pick one side or the other,” José said. “Or you’re going to get hit in this street.”
“I’ve already picked my side,” the guy whispered. “I had to—”
An argument back at the curb brought both of their heads around. Over on the sidewalk by the building’s entrance, the blond-and black-haired men were going back and forth.
“Are those two your friends?”
“Yes,” Butch said. “And I know they look like they’re about to kill each other. Don’t worry, it’s unlikely there’ll be any permanent damage. Well . . . pretty unlikely.”
José stared at his old partner. “Where did you go, Butch. I need to know. Please, just tell me something that I can live with every day. You were the big cold case I never solved.”
“You won’t remember this, José—”
“You’re wrong.” Shaking his throbbing head, José grabbed Butch’s arm and mumbled through the pain—a panic he couldn’t lose dogging him. “You have to tell me. Because . . . I do remember these meetings. And it’s killing me.”
As Vishous watched his roommate and that cop meet in the middle of the street, he literally wanted the homicide detective to get sideswiped by a school bus. Then run over by a garbage truck. And maybe after that . . . something that involved an Army tank. A troop transport vehicle lineup that was fifty units long.
Oh, wait. How about a whole span bridge’s components on their Wide Load motor-mattresses.
It was such a satisfying fantasy, the end result being that human homicide detective bag of carbon-based molecules laid out so flat that he’d be a stain.
Too bad four-wheeled hardware on that scale was not often seen in neighborhoods like this one. Or anywhere, all at once, ever. It’d be like winning the automotive Powerball and getting to point to where the parade drove through.
The thing was, something about that José de la Cruz guy bugged him to all get-out and he could feel the rank-and-nasty rise in the center of his chest. Again. Caldwell was a big city, but a small place, when you were talking about the underworld parts—where the Brotherhood hunted their enemies and humans woke up dead from lead injections, stabbings, and drug overdoses all the time.
Which meant homicide detectives, like Butch’s old partner, crossed the paths of the brothers, if not on a regular, monthly basis, at least once or twice a year.