“We every one of us got baggage,” Preacher said, turning back to her. “Don’t hafta be a cop for that. Three hundred years people have been coming here to be somebody else. It’s not new, what you feel.”
Maureen was sure he thought she meant she was feeling some boy, maybe some family drama. What would Preacher do, she wondered, if she flat out told him she’d killed people in her past? Imagine saying it, she thought. Imagine spitting out the story like a mouthful of bad milk. She couldn’t do it. Not yet, if ever. “You don’t want to hear this sentimental shit.” She shrugged at him. Smiled. “You’re in the car with me, so you get the blowback.”
“And that’s why you are in the car with me,” Preacher said. “So no one else gets the blowback. I don’t know who else could handle you.”
Maureen turned in her seat to face him, hands in her lap, her chin raised to him. Work was what they should be talking about. Work. “The store on Washington, you have something you want me to do.”
“I want you,” Preacher said, “to track down Little E. Tomorrow night, you’ll be back in the saddle on your own. Find out what he knows about the guy with the white pit bull. Little E’s dealt with you before. He knows you have my trust. He’s my best informant. Green as you are, you’re the only one on this squad I trust with him. If he’s got any info, he will give it to you.”
“Gotcha. And thanks for that,” Maureen asked. “What do I do for him?”
“Slip him a couple of bucks,” Preacher said. “He won’t need any more than that. I’ll get you back for the money.”
“I got it,” Maureen said. “No worries. Where’s he staying these days?”
“No idea.”
“Okay. Where do I find him?”
“Your best bet is gonna be somewhere he’s looking for work. Dinnertime, maybe one of the new cafés on Oretha Castle Haley. They don’t know him yet. Late night, check the bars. They’ll usually let him help clean up at the Fox Den because of his father and the Indian thing. He drinks at Pop’s House of Blues, or the Sportsman’s Corner. Maybe the Big Man. Chances are he’ll work at one, spend it at another. He moves in a small orbit.”
“I got it,” Maureen said, grinning.
Preacher frowned at her.
She grinned again. “Indeed.”
Preacher stared at her.
“What?” Her throat was dry and tight. Why was he doing this to her? “Why you looking at me like that?” She willed herself to leave her hair alone. She set her hands on her thighs, and immediately started kneading her quads like a cat. Her palms were sweaty. “Big Man. Fox Den. OCH.” She gave him a thumbs-up, a gesture she was fairly sure she had never used in her life. “I got it. I’m good.”
Preacher continued staring, narrowing his eyes. He was close to breaking her, and Maureen knew that he was aware of it. She didn’t even know what it was he wanted her to confess. She broke eye contact with him. Her foot began thumping on the car floor again. She looked at it like it was a sick small animal, like she had no control over it or attachment to it. She felt sorry for it. She thought for a split second about shooting it.
“Out with it, Coughlin,” Preacher said. “You mentioned New York. Did you get bad news? Something’s got you squirming in your seat like a dirty-diapered toddler. I wanna know what it is. Is it this FBI thing? If you’re not ready to be on the job, we need to talk. You have no more room for error out here. None.”
She reached for her pack of cigarettes on the dash. She lit up, checked the time on her phone, stalling as she reviewed her options. Where to start?
She could confess that roll call and this night shift now added up to the longest stretch of hours she’d gone without a drink or a pain pill in six weeks. That she could feel the information he’d given her moments ago dissolving in her brain like sugar in hot water. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry and her eyes itched and the chemical void in her bloodstream had her feeling like someone had slipped sandpaper between her skin and her muscles. She hated moving. She couldn’t not. Her legs jumped with a twitchy life of their own. Since they’d parked the car, her brain alternated shouting lame excuses to stop by her house with growling bitter admonitions for leaving the pills at home. She had found herself glad and relieved when Preacher’s back had started hurting him, and she hated herself for feeling that way.