Mike glanced over at Leshaun, but his partner was ostentatiously not listening. Leshaun was doing what he was supposed to be doing, which was staring at the alley. There wasn’t much chance that the prick they were waiting for, Two-Two O’Leary, was going to show up, but given that he used as much of the meth as he sold, and had wounded an agent in a bust gone bad the week before, it probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have one of them paying attention.
“All I can do is keep apologizing.” He glanced at Leshaun again and decided he didn’t care if Leshaun was listening or not. It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about his relationship with Fanny—or Leshaun and Leshaun’s ex-wife’s relationship—more than he had ever talked about it with his therapist, or, for that matter, with Fanny. Maybe if he’d talked about things with Fanny as much as he had with Leshaun, things would still be okay. “You know I’m sorry. About everything. I’m sorry about everything. Not just being late.” Mike waited for Fanny to say something, but there was only silence. He went on. “I’ve been talking with my therapist about it, and I know that I’m late saying this. I mean, I guess I’m late with everything, but I’m trying to say I should have told you I was sorry a long time ago. I didn’t mean to let things fall apart, and even though I’m not really happy about it, I am happy that you’re happy. And you know, Dawson—Rich—seems like he makes you happy, and I know that Annie loves him. So, you know, I’m sorry. I’m doing my best to be a different kind of guy, a better man, but there’s always going to be a part of me that’s just the way I am. And that goes for the job too.”
“Mike.” Fanny’s voice seemed faint, and Mike shifted again. He couldn’t tell if it was his shitty phone cutting out or if she was talking more softly. “Mike,” she repeated. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What? You going to divorce me again?”
Leshaun straightened and then leaned a little bit out the open window. Mike sat up in his seat. There was a car pulling into the alley. A Honda, which wasn’t really Two-Two’s ride of choice, but it was the first action they’d seen for a while. The car stopped with its trunk hanging over the sidewalk, and then a black teenager, maybe fifteen or sixteen, got out of the passenger-side door. Mike relaxed, and Leshaun sat back. Two-Two was selling guns and meth, but he was also big time in with the Aryan Nations. There wasn’t much chance he was rolling with a black kid.
“I want to change Annie’s name,” Fanny said.
“What?”
“I want her to have the same last name as me, Mike.”
“Just a second.” Mike put the phone down on his thigh and rubbed his face with his free hand. He wished he still smoked, though it wasn’t as if Leshaun would have let him light up in the car. The car. The goddamned car felt so close and hot. With his bulletproof vest over his T-shirt, he was sweating. Couldn’t they run the engine just for a few minutes, have a little fucking air-conditioning? He needed to stand outside for a minute, to stand up, to get some fresh air. He opened the door. He needed a blast of cold air like they had in those gum commercials, but it wasn’t any cooler outside the car.
“Mike?” Leshaun was looking at him. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing man. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to stand outside, okay? I just want to take this call outside the car for a minute. Is that okay with you? Do you mind?” He realized his voice had gotten loud and hard, and he knew that when he was done talking to Fanny he was going to have to apologize to Leshaun. Leshaun was a good partner, a good friend, and he’d understand, but still, it made Mike feel like an asshole. Like more of an asshole. Leshaun nodded, and Mike got out of the car. He shut the door behind him, not that it mattered with the windows open.
He lifted the phone back up. “What are you talking about, Fanny?”
“Come on, Mike. You had to see this coming. Didn’t you see this coming?”
“No, Fanny, I didn’t see this coming.”
“Oh, Mike. You never see anything coming.”
He heard the brush of the phone against Fanny’s cheek and then the low murmur of her saying something to Dawson. He pressed the phone hard against his ear. “You’re not changing Annie’s name. She’s my fucking daughter, and she’s going to be Annie Rich, not Annie fucking Dawson.”
“Mike,” she said. “Annie’s my daughter too. It’s weird, having her have a different last name from me.”
“You didn’t have to change your name to Dawson,” Mike said. Even as he said it, he knew it was the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t help himself.
Fanny sighed. “We can talk about this later, but it’s going to happen. I’m sorry, Mike, I am, but things have changed.”
“I’m trying to change too,” Mike said.
“I appreciate that. I do,” she said, and then neither of them said anything for a few seconds. Mike could hear Fanny breathing. Finally, she said, “Do you want to talk to Annie?”