Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

stood to face with the Chief.
    There were patrol cars on the street behind him. Five uniformed cops were scattered around us. Their sticks were still in their hands, their chests heaving.
    I looked at the Chief. I was wavering like a drunk. He looked at me for a while, then at Augie. There was something in the way they stared at each other, a kind of brief recognition, that led me to believe that they knew each other. Or maybe had once. Augie had grown up out here. So had Frank. Had the Chief as well?
    The Chief looked away from Augie then, turning to where Jean-Marc Bishop lay on the sidewalk. He looked down at him without expression. I watched the man’s profile till he turned back to me. His eyes were hard.
    He said to me, “You give a guy enough rope and he’ll hang himself with it eventually.”
    I didn’t say anything to that. The Chief nodded toward the Saab and said, “Did you see this?”
    I nodded. He gestured behind me, toward the doorway of the Hansom House and the people in it.
    “Did they?”
    “You’ll have to ask them.”
    The Chief stared at me for a moment more, then waved a uniformed cop over. The cop rushed to the Chief’s side. “Get statements from all these people over there,” the Chief said. He raised his voice and announced to the other uniforms around him, “This is by the books, gentlemen. Do we understand this? This is by the books. Dot and cross, dot and cross.”
    The Chief took a step toward me. We locked eyes. His jaw was clenched shut.
    “Get out of here,” he said softly.
    I stared at him dumbly and didn’t move.
    “Get out of here.” His anger broke through the tight clamp he held over it, his voice louder now. When I still didn’t move, he looked over my shoulder and yelled to someone standing there, “Please take your boyfriend and get him out of here.”
    I looked back. Tina standing on the lawn several feet behind me. She looked frightened, unable to move. She looked from me to the Chief and then back at me.
    The Chief regained his temper and said in a calmer voice, “Please, Tina, get him out of here.”
    She walked to me then, her eyes blinking, her mouth opened slightly. She came up beside me and propped herself against me like a crutch, wrapping her left arm around my waist and draping my right arm around her neck.
    But I still didn’t make a move to leave. I looked at the Chief as if the sight of him might help me understand.
    He stared at me for a moment, breathing short through his nose. His face was set in a wince, as if the sight of me caused him discomfort.
    “You did me a favor,” he said flatly, “and now I’m doing you one. Nothing has changed between us, nothing at all. Now get out of here, MacManus. Get out of my sight while I still have my dinner. Get out of my sight before I have a chance to change my mind.”
    I still didn’t move. The Chief turned to Augie then and said, “Get this son of a bitch away from me.”
    Augie started toward me. I saw Frank behind him, slipping through the crowd of cops and heading toward his Seville parked in the middle of the street. He wasn’t going to stick around. I didn’t really expect or want him to.
    Tina tugged on my arm, then whispered, “C’mon, Mac.” I had nothing with which to fight her. Augie came up on the other side, and together the three of us turned away from the Chief and headed across the lawn toward the Hansom House.
    My legs were shaky, my knees buckling a little with each step I took. Tina held her hip tight against mine, bracing me, holding me up. Augie’s arms were like tree limbs.
    I had to stop for a second, to catch my breath. While I rested, I heard a car door close somewhere behind us. I turned and saw Long walking from a patrol car through the maze of cop cars on the street. He met the Chief. The Chief spoke to him for a moment, then walked past him. Long just stood there and did nothing as the Chief got into his Crown Victoria and drove away.
    I looked for Marie then but couldn’t see her through all the cops gathering around the Saab. All I could think of was that I wished there was a way she could know how sorry I was. I wished there was a way that I could tell her that now. But of course there wasn’t. Of course she could never know.
    “Mac,” Tina said. “Mac, c’mon. Let’s get you inside.”
    I maintained my morbid watch, hoping for one last look of Marie. But Tina tugged at me gently and I turned to look at her.
    “You’ve got blood on your hands,