Mean Woman Blues

the newspaper article. I know what she looks like.”
    “Why did you put it up on the board?”
    He was about at the end of his patience. “Karen, for God’s sake! I got bigger fish to fry than some woman’s petty jealousies.”
    She made a little sound like a whimper and stared for a moment, pupils dilating. Then, apparently getting it, she whirled and fled, sandals flapping lightly on the slate floor.
    For a moment he felt badly at having snapped at her, wondered briefly if he shouldn’t have been a bit more politic under the circumstances. “Bullshit,” he decided. “She’s just gonna have to learn.”
    He decided to forget about breakfast. He went to a pay phone, dialed Bettina’s cell number, and let it ring once. Then he phoned back and let it ring twice— their emergency signal. Not very imaginative, but it worked. Hell, any more complicated and Bettina probably couldn’t handle it. As it was, half the time she picked up.
    He went on to the office and awaited her call, which ought to be coming in approximately forty minutes from the time of the signal. An hour at the most. He was lenient about this because he didn’t want her panicking and getting careless.
    This time the call came in twenty-eight minutes exactly. “Hey, baby,” he drawled. “Been missin’ ya. How’s little Jacob?”
    “Our baby fine, Daddy. He a beautiful little man.”
    Again, she had said “our baby,” something he’d forbidden her to do, but he decided to let it go this time. He had much, much bigger fish to fry. She seemed to sense it. “What you need, Daddy? What you need from little Bettina?”
    “Bettina, I’m over these dog-killing incompetents of yours. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I need to deal with our man directly.”
    “You mean Lo—”
    “For Christ sake, Bettina. No names. How many fucking times do I have to tell you? Give me his number.”
    “All he got’s a pager, Daddy. You know you never mess with that kind of shit. It’s disrespectful to ya.”
    “You don’t have the number, do you, Bettina?”
    “Daddy, I—” her voice was panicky. “Daddy, I didn’t know you wanted it, or I woulda.”
    “Bettina. Listen, honey, it’s all right. Your Daddy’s proud of you. Everything’s just fine. You just get me the number by noon.” He rang off.
    That would give him time to get a new cell phone under a name he’d never used before. He’d have to use a different one every time with Lobo.
    When Bettina called with the man’s number, he dialed it immediately, not wanting to keep Lobo waiting. If Lobo had caller I.D., the name he’d used to get the cell phone would ring a real bell with him; it was somebody Lobo’d executed.
    Lobo answered the page in about fifteen minutes, keeping him waiting, David thought, to show disrespect, gain a little power. Well, hell. Money was power. He threw some at Lobo immediately.
    “Lobo, my bro’. You know who this is?”
    “I got an idea.”
    “Ya want another chance at that ten grand? Same money you would have made for the job you fucked up?”
    “It ain’t over yet. I’m gon’ get the bitch.”
    “Yeah, sure. Meanwhile you got five thousand dollars of my money, and I got nothin’ but promises.”
    “Look, just forget about it, okay? I’ll send you ya money back. I never did want to hit no cop; it was a favor to Bettina, tha’s all.”
    “Hold on, Lobo. We worked together before, and it turned out fine, right?”
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    “This isn’t a hit. It’s a little more complicated than that.”
    “Well, what is it, then?”
    “Let’s just call it Plan B.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
    Overnight Skip had the highest profile in town. Once again, she was everybody’s favorite Good Girl, an extremely ironic development, in her opinion, for a chronic Bad Girl. She would have gone out to smoke some weed with Jimmy Dee, just for balance, if they hadn’t both given it up when his sister died and the kids came to live with him.
    Sheila huffed around, mightily unimpressed, but Kenny asked Skip to come speak to his class about police work. It was the kind of thing that made her grit her teeth. But it had to be done, and not just because the chief and Abasolo wanted it, but because Kenny had taken Napoleon’s death hard. He loved the monster. What a sweet-tempered boy like Kenny— or like Steve, for that matter— saw in that vicious animal…
    Unable to solve the problem of who had poisoned the beast, she did penance by going to