Blue Smoke

her first year on the force to be partnered with someone built like a truck. And as a Baltimore native, he knew the city as well as—or better than—she did.
    She could see the crowd on the sidewalk as they turned down the block. This area ran more to art galleries and historic homes than the street brawl she realized was in progress.

    Indeed most of the people watching the two men roll around on the asphalt were dressed in style—a lot of bold colors and New York black.
    She got out with Smithy, moved with him through the crowd.
    “Break it up, break it up.” Smithy’s voice boomed, and people flowed back. But the two men kept pummeling each other. And not very skillfully, Reena noted.
    Designer shoes were getting scuffed, and the Italian-cut jackets were going to be trash, but there wasn’t much blood.
    She reached down, as Smithy did, to pull them apart. “Police. Cut it out.”
    She had her hands on the smaller of the two, and he rolled when she gripped his arm. His other came up, fist clenched. She saw the swing coming, had a moment to think, Shit, and blocked it with her forearm.
    Using his momentum, she shoved him over on his face, then yanked his hands behind his back. “You swing at me? You’re going to take a punch at me?” She cuffed him while he rocked his body like an upturned turtle. “That’ll get you popped for assaulting an officer.”
    “He started it.”
    “What are you, twelve?”
    She pulled him upright. His face was a little scraped up, and she judged him to be mid-twenties. His opponent, in basically the same shape, and of approximately the same age, sat on the ground where Smithy put him.
    “Did you take a swing at my partner?” Smithy pointed to the second man. “Stay,” he ordered and stepped up into the first man’s face. It was like a redwood towering over a sapling. “Did your dumb ass swing at my partner?”
    “I didn’t know she was a cop. I didn’t know it was a she. And he started it. You can ask anybody. He started pushing me inside.”
    “I don’t hear an apology.” Smithy tapped his ear. “Officer Hale, do you hear an apology out of this dumbass?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “I’m sorry.” He didn’t look sorry, but he did look mortified, and on the verge of tears. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”

    “You didn’t hit me. You punch like a girl. You people go about your business,” she ordered the onlookers. “Now, you can tell me your side of it while he tells my partner his. And I don’t want to hear you say he started it again.”
    A woman,” Smithy said with a sigh when they drove away. “It’s always over a woman.”
    “Hey, don’t blame my breed for the stupidity of yours.”
    He turned his head, widened his eyes. “You a woman, Hale?”
    “Why do I always get the wise guys?”
    “You did okay. Handled that fine. You’ve got good reflexes, and you kept it chilled when he tried to pop you.”
    “If he’d connected, it might’ve been a different story.” But satisfied with a job well done, she eased back. “You buy the doughnuts.”
    T he apartment was empty when she got home after her shift. A note in Gina’s large, flowery hand was stuck to the fridge, along with the snapshot of her extra-large aunt Opal. Gina’s deterrent to snacking.
Out with Steve. We’re at Club Dread if you want to hook up. Hugh may swing by, too.
     
    XXXOOO
    G
    She thought about it, actually stood in the kitchen running through her head what she could wear. Then she shook her head. She wasn’t in the mood for a noisy club.
    She wanted to get out of uniform, stretch out and do some studying. John passed her old case files, let her go through them and try to determine accident or incendiary, and the hows and whys.

    When she moved to the arson unit, those hours of reconstruction would come in handy.
    Instead, she wandered into the bedroom. The reflection in the mirror caught her eye, made her stop, study herself.
    Maybe she didn’t look particularly female in the uniform, but she liked the image she projected. Authority and confidence. Though there’d been a moment on the street today when she’d gotten a jolt, actively realized how easy it could be to be hurt. Even just a fist to the face.
    But she’d handled herself. Having Smithy say so meant a great deal.
    Even if she considered herself more at home with books and files and study, she could handle herself on the street. She was learning to, anyway.
    She took off her cap, put it on the dresser.