Clean: A Mindspace Investigations Novel by Alex Hughes Page A

anything.”
    “Doesn’t mean anything? I got a guy to talk today about seeing our killers. On tape. You put a monkey in front of a suspect and get the information on tape, it’s admissible. Isn’t that what you keep telling me?” I asked her, furious.
    She ignored me. “Killers?”
    I was overreacting. I put my hands in my pockets. Nodded. “Says there’s two.”
    “And what do these two killers look like?”
    At least she was asking. “Two white guys from the north side, rich, no discernible accent, one younger and one older.”
    “Well, that’s only forty percent of the population.”
    “It’s better than we had.”
    She blew out a breath. “How reliable is the witness?”
    “He’s a beta for the area surrounding the scenes. Joey the Fish? He claims the murders are bad for business, and he wants the guys to go away.”
    She stumbled on an uneven sidewalk. In the back of her mind, I got a glimpse of a name connected to Joey, and a worry that the thing he was connected to—and the case—would interfere with her ceremony next week.
    “Who’s Fiske?” I asked her without thinking. Crap, double crap, I was reading her again without meaning to.
    Cherabino stared at me as we passed out of the area of one streetlight and entered another. Her face flashed with surprise, disbelief, irritation, and something that on anyone else I would have called vulnerable. “Keep your mind to yourself! That name—which you should forget—is Joey’s connection to Them.” She meant the Darkness. What used to be called the Mafia back when it was still a small-time Italian job. That much was obvious. I mean Joey was the beta, right?
    “This guy is his boss?”
    “I can’t talk about an investigation for the Feds,” she said firmly. “Try to forget you heard it. And stop snooping! One of these days you’re going to end updead for having the wrong information. That and it’s rude. Really rude.”
    I moved forward at the same time that Cherabino grabbed the restaurant’s door, and somehow we ended up nose to nose.
    “I’ve got the door,” she said.
    I didn’t move away and neither did she. Her eyes widened. I looked at her mouth. She couldn’t hide the buzz of reluctant interest, but she looked away, a rebuff.
    “You go, then.” She relinquished the door.
    I hesitated before moving inside the restaurant, suddenly confused. I put my name on the list.
    Cherabino waved to some of the other cops already seated. This was a popular hangout for the second-shift “lunch.” The parking lot had almost as many cop cars as the department parking lot.
    The waitress seated us in a booth. We’d been here more times than I could count, but suddenly it felt different.
    “Good interviews today?” Cherabino asked. She studied the menu like it was the key to the universe, but this was not new. For a split second I wondered if I’d only imagined the attraction in her mind.
    As the waiter arrived, I tried to smile; I’d waited tables for maybe two weeks somewhere in my slide to the streets. I’d been a shitty waiter. It was a hard job, and much harder when you were doped up to your gills. I ordered for us both.
    “You know, I might have wanted something different this time,” Cherabino said.
    “Did you?” I asked her. She always got a plain quesadilla, no meat, no salsa, nothing fun at all. “I can call the guy back.”
    “That’s not the point.”
    I knew I was stepping in it, but I had to ask. “Well, what’s the point, then?”
    “The point?” She smiled wryly. “You have heard of feminism, right? Respect? Women making their own choices?”
    “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. The downside is when you get predictable. Efficiency, you know?” I smiled back, unable to help myself, glad for once to see her happy.
    “Efficiency is it?”
    “Yes,” I said solemnly. “Much faster when hungry he-man needs to eat.”
    “He-man?” She started laughing, and I let her, my tension dissipating as hers did.
    The food arrived