Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Thirty-four

Java Java was my kind of coffee bar. It served fresh brewed coffee really strong, with real cream and turbinado sugar. It also had a large patio currently teeming with warm bodies. I didn’t need a field guide to spot the poets. They were the ones practically vibrating.

The cops were an easy spot too, especially the uniformed officers at the door, but I was betting a plainclothes or two lurked in the crowd. I didn’t have Trey’s eye for picking them out, but my gut told me they were there.

Especially one of them.

I came up behind Garrity. “Don’t look now, but I’m about to blow your cover.”

He turned. He had a beer bottle in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and he wore blue jeans and boots.

I eyed the beer. “Wait a minute, you can’t drink on duty.”

“Good thing I’m not on duty.”

“What are you doing here then?”

“Watching poetry.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am.” He took a swig of beer. “Also watching you in a proxy sort of way.”

The meaning of his words crystallized. “You’re not working, you’re here to spy on me.”

“Not spy. Watch.”

“Not much difference.”

“Sure there is, in Trey’s mind.”

“I don’t—”

“Look, he’s got it in his head to look out for you, so let the man do it, okay?”

Trey looking after me. An intriguing if patronizing concept. I put my hands on my hips, but couldn’t fight the smile.

“And this is the best he could do, a smoking, drinking, off-duty cop with a chip on his shoulder?”

“That’s what happens when I’m stuck with you—all my bad habits come out at once.” He sucked on the cigarette, let the smoke curl out the corner of his mouth. “You watched the DVD yet?”

“Didn’t get around to it. Was it supposed to smarten me up or something?”

He didn’t reply. I held out my hand, and he passed me the beer, keeping the cigarette to himself. Rico appeared from the crowd and joined us at the bar, vodka and cranberry juice in hand.

He looked Garrity up and down. “You being all detective-like?”

“Nah, I’m strictly a civilian tonight. Not that the APD didn’t take Ms. Frankie Styles and her serial killer theory seriously. Hence the uniforms out front.”

“You ain’t lying. There was talk of canceling the open mikes, all of them, but they haven’t yet. I guess it’s wait and see.”

All around the city, five venues—including Java Java—were hosting Performance Poetry International open mike events. I did the math. With two cops at each event, there were at least ten visible patrol on the job, plus the undercover units.

“Wait and see,” I repeated. “Not my strong point.”

Garrity stubbed out his cigarette. “So what’s an open mike anyway?”

“Short for open microphone,” Rico explained. “You got poems you wanna share, there’s a place for you at an open mike, no experience required. This one tonight is also a slam, which means there’s judging and a little prize money.”

“So what are you doing here?”

Rico grinned. “Didn’t you read the poster? I’m the feature poet. I emcee, do a few poems, keep things moving.”

“And the rest of the team?”

“They’re handling the other events. Part of our duties as the host city team.”

I elbowed Garrity in the side. “Why so curious? You interested in sharing some verse?”

He gave me the look, the one like a garrote. “No, but Debbie Delray was. She’d been tweeting about it all week.”

Debbie the poet wannabe. Of course she’d been planning on being here. I scanned the crowd. Cops and poets and perhaps a serial murderer sipping some espresso? I suddenly missed my gun, even if I wasn’t a poet.

Garrity checked his watch. “This was supposed to start thirty minutes ago.”

“Poets are always late. But look, the judges are in place. That’s a good sign.”

Three rather disoriented-looking citizens were taking their chairs at the judges’ table. I could tell that not one of them had judged a poetry event before. This was typical—as poetry of the people, spoken word was judged by the people, literally right off the street. The results rested in the hands of Lady Luck, an even more fickle mistress than the Muse.

Onstage, a technician checked the microphone and pronounced it good. She shot Rico a thumbs up, and he pulled out his phone. He tapped the screen, and a three-by-three grid popped up. As he tapped, each grid filled with a digital video feed.

“Tonight’s the trial run of the public access video.” He pointed at the middle square and the square to its left. “There’s the main stage at the Fox, one angle from the orchestra, one from the balcony.”

“It’s deserted.”

“Nothing’s happening there until Friday night. But look, here’s Java Java.”

He pointed at the grid in the upper right hand corner. I squinted at the screen. Sure enough, there was the technician performing a mike check on stage. Rico tapped that part of the grid, and the image filled the entire screen.

Garrity whistled. “I’ve been hearing about this downtown. Like having two dozen eyes in the back of your head.”

“And a thousand eyes on you. Ninety percent of the cameras will be accessible online, which means all the world can get a backstage pass. Assuming everything works like it’s supposed to.”

On the actual Java Java stage, a woman in an orange and yellow dashiki walked up to the technician and handed her a clipboard. The tech nodded and caught Rico’s eye, then held up two fingers.

Rico grabbed my hand. “It’s showtime.”

Garrity followed us behind the stage. At this angle I saw the tables crowded elbow to elbow, the bleacher seats along the sides filled as well. The patio was sweaty and sultry and smelled of coffee and liquor and human bodies, like an ancient spice market. The noise gelled into a solid thing, as dense as the humidity, mixed of crowd murmurings and the passing cars and the electronic hum of speakers.

I felt the pull then, the stage lights bright and hot, a different hot than summer. And I understood how it burned away all the unnecessary dross, clean as bone. I squeezed Rico’s hand. He squeezed it back. And then he stepped up to the microphone.

“Hey there, Atlanta!” he said, and the cheers and applause rolled over him like a wave.

***

Afterward, he walked me back to my car. In less than forty-eight hours, he’d be on stage at the Fox Theatre with Frankie and Cricket and Vigil in the team competition. Twenty teams from around the country, eighty poets, an insane six-hour marathon of poetry. I linked my elbow with his, and he pulled me close.

“Come celebrate.”

“Have you forgotten that we’re operating against a forensics deadline?”

He shook his head. “I wish I’d never told you about the shoes.”

“Well, you did. So now I’ve got a ream of research at home to go through, assuming Trey hasn’t filed everything somewhere only he can find it.”

Rico looked at me seriously. “How long has it been since you and me closed down this town?”

“Not since we hooked up with our homebody boyfriends.”

He flashed the smile, the one like bourbon and molasses. “I don’t know about you, baby girl, but there’s no boyfriend waiting up for me tonight.”

“Me either. He’s been asleep for hours.”

Rico slinked his arm around my waist. Across the street, somebody called his name, and he threw up a hand. In the summertime haze, the whole street was a dazzle of sensation. He leaned in close.

“Let the girl detective have the night off. It’s the last of the dog days, and we’re young and good-looking. We own this night. What do you say?”

I knew that way up on Trey’s thirty-fifth floor, the lights of Buckhead resembled a liquid flowing blur. But on the street, down in the dirty, it was loud and sweaty and irresistible, magnetic and pulsing. I could taste it, and it tasted like the first warm inhale, like a stolen kiss in a dark corner, like a hand on my thigh under the table.

I linked my arm with Rico’s. “First round’s on you.”