The car ride back to the office was silent, and Gary didn’t make any more demands for me to pull over. I wondered whether it was because his business was done for the day or because he was too worked up to handle anymore. Either way, he stayed resolutely quiet, glaring out the window.
When we pulled into the station parking lot, he practically jumped out of the car. I scrambled to follow him, not wanting to get left behind. I had more than a few questions to ask him.
We moved through the department quickly, and I nodded at people as I passed, though I knew almost no one’s names yet.
Finally, we made it to the second floor and into our joint office. If it wasn’t enough to share a patrol car with Gary, we also had to share an office. There was no respite, and for the moment, I was glad. I closed the door behind me, immediately turning to him.
“What in the hell was that back there?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, letting him know I wouldn’t be so quickly dismissed. “At the shop, Gary. What was all of that about? Photographs and Joey Brancati? What were you doing meeting up with Joey Brancati? And who was that guy at the door?”
I felt myself growing agitated, the words pouring out of my mouth faster and faster, but adrenaline had been building in my veins since we were in the shop, and it was finally being released.
Gary put up his hands in a show of surrender, and probably in an attempt to get me to be quiet for two seconds. I forced myself to quit speaking, though I had a million other questions.
“Yes, that was Joey Brancati. The lunatic guarding the door was his brother, Zico.”
“What do they want from you?” I asked.
Gary shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just a little police business I have with them. It’s not a big deal, and the whole operation is hush-hush.”
“Operation?” I asked, allowing myself to feel the tiniest amount of relief. “So, this is police business?”
“Of course,” Gary said, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Do you think I’d bring you along if I were handling my personal business with the mafia? I’m not an idiot.”
I sighed, audibly, and hoped Gary didn’t notice. I didn’t want him to think I’d suspected him of being a dirty cop, though, truthfully, that was exactly what I’d expected. What else was I supposed to think? I mean, he showed up at what I now understood was a cover for the Brancati’s mafia dealings and started whispering to the second guy in command about some photographs. It looked fishy.
Though, coming from a small town, I guess I had a lot to learn about the big city. Of course, the police had to work with the mafia occasionally. That made sense. Right? Despite my desire to trust Gary, a small seed of doubt was still taking root in my mind.
Gary sat down at his desk, and then immediately shot up, his hands flying to his pockets. In rapid-fire succession, he checked every pocket in his coat and his pants and then slumped into his chair, dropping a fist on his desk. His mug full of pens rattled. “Shit!”
“What?” I asked, trying to figure out what was going on. The whole day had felt like one surprise after another and I was beginning to feel tired. Would every day be like this? If so, I didn’t know if I could handle it.
“I must have dropped my notebook.”
“We can retrace our steps,” I said. “I’m sure it will turn up.”
“No, we can’t,” Gary said, turning to his computer, clearly done with the conversation.
“It has to either be in one of the places we stopped today or in the car. It won’t be hard to find.”
“Enough,” Gary said, snapping at me as if I were a disobedient child. “I had it with me at every place we stopped, but I didn’t check my pockets before leaving the cigar shop. It must have fallen out during the scuffle.”
“Then it isn’t lost. We can just go back and get it.”
Gary rolled his eyes. “It’s not that easy.”
I wanted to understand why this was such a big deal, but Gary refused to offer up any more details. Everything with him was so cryptic. So dramatic. “Sure it is, we can just—”
“We can just,” Gary said in a high-pitched, girlish voice, mocking me. “We can’t just anything. You’re new here, so trust me. Leave it alone. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
I wanted to yell at him, defend myself, explain why he couldn’t talk to me as if I were dumb. We were partners, after all. He was supposed to respect me. We were supposed to be equals. I said nothing though. In the end, I knew it would change nothing. The only way I’d earn Gary’s respect was with time and patience. I couldn’t talk him into giving it to me. I turned to my computer and, despite my frustration, tried to get some work done.
At the end of the shift, Gary stood up from his desk and quickly slipped into his jacket.
“Have any big evening plans?” I asked, trying to break the tension that had grown between us during the silence.
“I need a drink,” he said, offering up nothing else.
“Amen to that,” I said. Honestly, I’d never been much of a drinker. I drank a bit at weddings, a touch at birthday celebrations, but otherwise, the price of alcohol was too high, and the taste was too mediocre for me to become a habitual drinker. If my new partner invited me out for a drink, however, I would have drunk him under the table.
Gary grunted and threw me a lazy wave as he walked out of the office, the door slamming behind him.
Admittedly, I’d been naïve to assume Gary would invite me anywhere with him. He clearly found me annoying and barely tolerated me during working hours. Why should I have expected he’d want me tagging along with him after hours? I’d hoped spending time away from the office would let him see that perhaps I wasn’t such a drag after all, but it seemed unlikely we’d ever hang out outside of work, so I’d have to think of a new approach.
Immediately, an idea came to me. His notebook. I could get his notebook back. Whatever was in it must have been important because he’d been furious about losing it, and if I could return it to him tomorrow, he’d have to respect me.
I’d been in the cigar shop before, and it hadn’t been so bad. In fact, Joey seemed nice, and the old man behind the counter was clearly enamored with me. If I went in there with a winning smile and some charm, surely, I’d walk out with what I wanted.
Quickly, before I could lose my nerve, I shut down my computer, grabbed my coat, and grabbed the keys to my beat-up pickup truck.