Parallel Lies by Ridley Pearson

pockets. “You’re aware that state troopers clear these camps on a regular basis?” She nodded. “That animosities may exist over that?” She shrugged, seeming not to care. “We—yes, we—both need either a witness or someone in custody. That’s what we’re here for.” He glanced around, feeling as if he were on the dark side of the moon. “We blow this, maybe we don’t get a second chance. Maybe whatever happened in that boxcar goes unexplained. That hurts both of us, especially once the press gets it. And they may have it already, courtesy of our friend Banner, or Madders, or someone looking for a free meal or a future favor. The men in these camps are not the most stable.” He banged his feet onto the icy pavement. “I suggest we team up. I suggest we get a good solid plan and do this once and do it right.”
    “Are you done cheerleading?” she asked.
    “You know, I don’t care if you botch this up for yourself,” he said. “You have a nice, steady job. Cushy even. But my situation is a little more precarious. I
need
this one in the win column, okay?”
    “Chester Washington,” she said, revealing that she knew all about Peter Tyler and his unfortunate past. Mention of that name hit Tyler hard. He hated that she’d run a background on him.
When? During the drive from St. Louis?
And why hadn’t he thought to do the same for her?
    She added, “Don’t you find it amazing that a black woman such as myself would even exchange words with you, much less contemplate working a raid, at night, with possible weapons involved?”
    “It wasn’t like that,” he blurted out. The media had painted it all one way, had painted
him
as a racist, a bad cop, and aman with a violent temper. None of it true, but he would live with it forever. Her comments were proof.
    He stepped back from the Suburban, wounded. He motioned for her to drive on, but he never took his eyes off her. He was struggling for his dignity.
    “It’s warmer in here,” she said, indicating her passenger seat.
    “You do whatever it is you planned on doing,” he said. “Just tell me which of the two camps you’re hitting. I’ll stay well away, believe me. And I’ll take the other one.”
    “Hurt your feelings, did I?” she asked in a teasing tone that infuriated him. She maintained eye contact. “Chester Washington was a pig,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “What happened to you was reverse discrimination. It was unfair and inappropriate. I bet you’ve heard this before, but if you’d killed the son-of-a-bitch, none of this would have happened.”
    “I’ve heard it before,” he confirmed.
    “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said.
    “There’s nothing to tell.”
    She turned up the car’s heater, the cold air from the window beginning to bother her. “Get in the car,” she said again. Tyler circled, lit silver by the headlights, and climbed in.
    “Talk,” she said.
    “No, thanks.”
    “I’m a good listener.” She added, “How many chances have you had to explain this to an African American?” “Another time, maybe.”
    “These camps,” she said, seeming disappointed. “How would
you
do them, exactly?”
    “Get either the local law or the staties to help us with a roundup. They’ve done it before; they know what to expect.”
    “At eleven o’clock at night?”
    “We at least tell them we’re going in there. If they want to provide backup, fine. If not, at least they’ll come looking for our bodies tomorrow morning.”
    “Very funny.”

    To his embarrassment, Tyler’s authority as a federal agent failed to rally the Illinois State Police. The desk sergeant, answering his call, proved unwilling to wake up anyone in a position to do any good, and the one lieutenant Tyler reached informed him that the homeless camps were “pretty much deserted” in the winter and that, in any case, the staties seldom raided a camp with fewer than four uniforms and a supervising officer, which he