Kill the Messenger by Tami Hoag

at Fourth and Flower,” Chew said. “I just thought maybe you might have run into them.”
    “I mind my own business,” Jace said, fronting attitude over the fear. “Can I go now? Am I under arrest?”
    “Any reason you should be?”
    “Yeah. I robbed the Mint,” he lipped off. “I’m just hanging around here for old times’ sake. Can I go? It’s fucking raining.”
    The cop considered for a moment that seemed like half an hour. Jace kept his perturbed, defiant gaze steady and right on Jimmy Chew’s eyes.
    “In a minute,” the cop said.
    Jace watched Chew go back to the car, and wondered if running wasn’t his best option. The cops would probably just think he was a homeless kid who didn’t want a hassle. Or maybe Chew had taken Jace’s trembling hand as a sign he was on something, maybe had some rock cocaine in his pocket to smoke or to peddle.
    If the cop decided to shake him down, looking for drugs, he would find a package with the return address of a murder victim.
    The muscles in Jace’s calves and thighs tightened. He centered his weight over the balls of his feet, hoped the bum ankle would be able to support him in a sprint.
    The cop stuck his head inside the car, said a few words to his partner, and came back out with something in his hand.
    Jace lowered his center of gravity a couple of inches, so he could dodge either way, wheel, and run.
    “Here, kid.”
    Chew tossed what he held in his hand. Jace caught it on reflex. When he looked at what it was, he almost wanted to laugh. A blue disposable rain poncho from the 99 Cent Store.
    “Better late than never,” the cop said. “You can get dry clothes at the mission, if you need them.”
    “Sure. Thanks,” Jace mumbled.
    “Sure you don’t want a ride? We can drop you—”
    “No. That’s okay. Thanks anyway.”
    “Suit yourself,” the cop said, shrugging him off. Jace knew Chew hadn’t bought any of his crap but had just deemed him not important enough to bother with. “Habib, you’ll call if you hear something?”
    “You’ll be the first to know, Officer,” the clerk’s delighted voice crackled over the speaker.
    Maybe he thought he would hear something that could break the case. Maybe the killer would confess as he prepaid for his gas. Then Habib could write a screenplay about that and maybe star in the movie, or at least see his name roll in the credits. LA. Everybody wanted to be in show business.
    The patrol car rolled back out onto the street and took a right at the corner. Jace watched them go as he chugged his Mountain Dew. Then he tossed the can in the trash, threw a casual “See you” to Habib, and walked away as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
    Five blocks later, his knees were still shaking.

                             7
    “What a creep.”
    Parker walked into the bedroom naked with a glass of wine in each hand. A nice, full-bodied Cab from Peru. He had hardly touched the hard stuff since about two months after he had gotten sent down from Robbery-Homicide. In those two months he had downed enough booze to float a boat. Then he woke up one day, said enough was enough, and took up tai chi instead.
    “Was it something I said?”
    The woman in bed didn’t take her eyes off the television. Her face was sour with disgust. “Rob Cole, that piece of dirt. I hope he gets the needle. And after he’s dead, I hope we can dig him up and kill him all over again.”
    “That’s what I like about you, Diane. Overflowing with the milk of human kindness.”
    He handed her a glass, set his on the night table, and slipped between the covers.
    He and Diane Nicholson had what they both considered to be the perfect relationship. They liked and respected each other, were a pair of animals in bed, and neither of them had any interest in being anything other than friends.
    Parker because he didn’t see the point in marriage. He’d never seen one that worked. His parents had been engaged in a cold war