House of Blues

knife.
    "Oh, shit."
    One of the kids, the one without the knife, held out
his hand for her purse. She slipped it off her shoulder, but instead
of handing it over, she swung it so it smacked him in the groin. The
one with the knife lunged, but she smacked him too. Because her gun
was in the purse, both hits were a lot harder than the average mugger
had a right to expect.
    "She's a cop, guys," a voice said.
Jeweldean's, from her balcony. The two kids took off.
    Skip knew she could call in a 27-64—attempted armed
robbery—but it would only be a waste of time unless she could find
out where the kids lived.
    "Hey, Jeweldean," she yelled. "You
know those punks?"
    " Uh-uh. They just some kids."
    "Come on. They must live around here."
    " I don' know 'em. Why I got to know 'em?"
    Skip was pretty sure she did.
 

    14
    She fumed all the way back to the office, partly at
her bad luck in getting mugged, partly at Jeweldean for protecting
the punks. She wasn't even sure Jeweldean was going to give Biggie
the message about Delavon, much less that Biggie would deliver it if
she did, or that Delavon would call if he did.
    What a shitty, shitty day, she was saying to herself
as she walked into the detective bureau.
    The minute she stepped in, she realized it had just
gotten a lot worse. The quiet she hadn't noticed that morning had
fallen. People's faces looked contorted. One man was wiping his eyes.
Cappello walked out of her office, her face a grim white mask.
    " Skip . . ."
    " Jim died."
    "We just got the call."
    Skip nodded, to show that she had heard, and walked
to her desk on legs of Jell-O. She sat down, feeling a strange
distance between herself and the world, as if the air had solidified,
so that it formed a barrier around her.
    She wasn't going to cry. There was no question of
that at all.
    She didn't even feel sad, just vaguely miserable, as
if there were news of war from far away.
    What she had to do was make herself believe this.
Understand that Jim Hodges no longer existed, that she wouldn't be
joking around with him, wouldn't be working with him anymore.
    She thought of Jim's two wives and four children—and
how they were going to feel. His death seemed cataclysmic to her, yet
out of reach, ungraspable.
    Nothing she seemed to be able to do was helping her
wrap her mind around it. Thinking didn't work at all—she couldn't
think. She thought of saying something over and over to herself,
something like "Jim is dead," to make it sink in, but she
couldn't bring herself to do it.
    She simply sat at her desk running her hand through
her hair again and again, disoriented, her mind a blank.
    "He wouldn't be dead if it weren't for you,
Langdon."
    At first she didn't think she'd heard right. She knew
the voice. It was the voice of a man who was perfectly capable of
saying that, but she couldn't believe he actually had.
    "Didn't you hear me, Langdon?" Frank
O'Rourke was standing over her now, too close, invading her space.
    She only stared, unable to answer, still
uncomprehending.
    " You stupid bitch. If it weren't for Joe
Tarantino, you wouldn't even be in Homicide—you'd be back in some
district, where you damn well belong."
    She felt her mouth fall open, was unable to close it.
    "I got no idea in hell why Joe puts up with
you—his idea of affirmative goddamn action, I guess. And now your
incompetence has finally gotten somebody killed, just like it was
bound to. How does that make you feel, Uptown rich bitch?"
    Skip stood, noticing her legs were still like Jell-O,
and struggled briefly to keep her balance. And she smacked him in the
jaw.
    Or rather, she noticed that she had.
    She hadn't meant to do it, couldn't remember moving
her arm, just felt the sting, as if she'd suddenly recovered
consciousness, and found herself staring into the furious eyes of
O'Rourke, but for only a split second. He hit her back. The blow
landed on her jaw and knocked her over, so that she sat down hard on
the floor. Three men were now holding O'Rourke, she saw, and she felt
someone grab her shoulders from behind. She heard shouting:
    "Hey, cut it out, you two."
    "Goddammit, O'Rourke."
    "Oh, shit."
    Crowd noises.
    Joe Tarantino, drawn by the commotion, emerged from
his office: "What the hell's going on?"
    Someone, a voice in the back, said, "O'Rourke
hit Langdon."
    Joe lost it. "Goddammit, Frank, that's it. I'm
getting you transferred out of here, and suspended if I can. That's
it, I swear to God."
    "Wait a minute, Joe. We've known each other