“Braddock. Get up.”
The voice startled me, and I opened my eyes. I’d laid down on the bench and dozed off. As I tried to sit up, the stiffness in my joints and muscles slowed me. If the aspirin Ernie had given me had kicked in, I wasn’t feeling it.
Detective John Wellton was standing outside the cell. He wore an olive-green dress shirt, tan slacks, and a silver tie.
“Having a good time?” he asked.
“The best.” I managed to push myself to an upright position, but my back was arguing that it wasn’t a great idea. “Where’s Liz?”
“Trying to explain to the lieutenant why she’s got a private dick locked up down here with no charges filed,” he said, frowning.
“Am I out of here then?” I asked.
“In a minute,” he said, leaning back against the bars of the cell behind him. “Listen to me for a second, okay?”
“No thanks.”
“I don’t know what’s between you and Liz,” he said anyway. “And I could give a shit. But she’s covering your ass left and right and seems to care that you don’t die. Me, I think it would be easier if you were dead.”
I stood up and walked awkwardly over to the front of the cell.
“And you know what she gets for all her hard work? Nothing. A fucking headache, maybe, but not much else,” Wellton said. “You run around, pretending to be a tough guy and all, and she ends up picking up behind you. She wants the same thing you do.”
“And what’s that?”
He stepped toward my cell door. “To find out who killed your friend, you dumbass. You think she doesn’t feel guilty about what happened to her? You think it’s not keeping her up at night? Jesus. Everyone keeps telling me you’re a pain in the ass but a smart guy. Well, I see the first part, but I have yet to see the second.”
His words hung between us, as heavy as the iron bars I was holding on to.
“Why do you care?” I asked, not having anything else to say that seemed worthwhile. “I mean, about her.”
“Because she’s my friend,” he said. “And she’s my partner. You think it’s easy being partnered with a black guy the size of a sixth grader? She’s never said shit about it and never taken any shit from anyone about it. I mean, they tried to give her shit, but she wouldn’t have any of it.” He paused, staring at me. “I’d go to the wall for her because I know she’d go at least that far for me.”
I slowly began to feel like that guy in the cartoon where his head morphs into that of a jackass. I could feel the buck teeth and long ears sprouting.
“Get her,” I said. “I’ll tell her what I know.”
Wellton pointed at me. “Goddamn right you will. And then you’ll stay the hell out of her way. And mine. Because if you don’t, I’m going to make it so that the only thing I care about is seeing you go down.”
He stalked away, his angry footsteps echoing down the hall.