a third strike? A guy so dumb he gets caught with smack because he forgets to turn his headlights on and turns snitch?” “Questions like that remind me why you made detective,” Luis replied.
It took five seconds for me to comprehend the insult in that compliment. “Nice,” I grumbled. “Why are we still sitting here?” We needed to be talking to Gaines about this and with him in lockup we no longer needed to follow Alvarado. And besides, I did not want to witness the makeup between Peter and Asshole, if there was going to be one.
Luis shrugged, stared at me too long, and way too intensely.
Then he made me choke on my own spit when he casually dropped his cigarette out the window and said, “I thought, since we’re here and all, maybe you wanted to ask Peter the whore for
a date. And maybe you could get a few questions in about his boyfriend, too.”
Oh, shit.
I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Man. Yet Silence followed. A long one. Not long enough for me to come up with an appropriate denial, but longer than necessary to seal any doubts Luis might have had at his assumptions.
“Did you pay that boy for sex?”
“It would seem that way,” I said with a lame attempt at humor which, unsurprisingly, fell flat when my voice came out tired and fatalistic.
“Meaning?”
“I didn’t have sex with him, or intend to.” I slanted my eyes, checking Luis’s reaction. That was the truth as I saw it. “Of any kind,” I added hastily at his unblinking stare. “But I did give him money for…contact.” Time moved too slowly, emphasizing my speed-of-light heart rate. At any moment I was destined to either throw up or drown in my own sweat.
“I don't have time for any of your bullshit, Glass. Did you compromise yourself and this case?” Every minute, every second of him studying me was a second closer to the end of my life as I knew it. Bite the bullet and trust him, or lie and twist things to a better light? At this point I could tell Luis that I had suspicions about Peter. That I paid him for information. But I would never do that to my partner.
Cop partnerships can be more intense than marriages. You ride along with this person, both of your guns weighing heavily on your belts, and you’re completely responsible for this other
human being for eight, ten, twelve hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. And not the kind of responsibility that means love and affection in compensation. With your partner, the compensation is protection. You leave the station house knowing that their life is in your hands, and that yours is in theirs. There’s no honeymoon stage, no adjustment period. There’s you and your partner, committing to an absolute trust. You can lie in a marriage and still make it work, but if you lie in a partnership, you put your partner’s career, their life in jeopardy. And if they think you’re willing to abandon that trust, how could they have faith in you?
Then there was the gay. The second part of the Austin Glass is Fucked equation. I wanted to tell Luis the truth, and while I trusted him implicitly, I was terrified. Lie or truth? Lie or truth?
Lie? Or truth? To me, both options could mean the end of my career, and of our partnership. So I just sat there, suffocating from the combined heat and silence. I didn’t know when or where, or even how, to begin. I wasn’t someone who lied about important things. Cheat, yes. Lie, no. A fine line, but distinct in my mind. Instead of lies, I used off-color humor to make the truth sound ridiculous, so I didn’t have to lie. But even after wracking my brain, I still couldn’t come up with a way to do that here. Or even use humor to diffuse the situation. I was too nauseated to be funny.
“Did you compromise this case?”
Did I?
“Probably,” I admitted. “Or, at least, my involvement in it.” I could have made excuses about how I didn’t know he was a prostitute. Or that he was involved with Alvarado. How I didn’t
sleep
It took five seconds for me to comprehend the insult in that compliment. “Nice,” I grumbled. “Why are we still sitting here?” We needed to be talking to Gaines about this and with him in lockup we no longer needed to follow Alvarado. And besides, I did not want to witness the makeup between Peter and Asshole, if there was going to be one.
Luis shrugged, stared at me too long, and way too intensely.
Then he made me choke on my own spit when he casually dropped his cigarette out the window and said, “I thought, since we’re here and all, maybe you wanted to ask Peter the whore for
a date. And maybe you could get a few questions in about his boyfriend, too.”
Oh, shit.
I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Man. Yet Silence followed. A long one. Not long enough for me to come up with an appropriate denial, but longer than necessary to seal any doubts Luis might have had at his assumptions.
“Did you pay that boy for sex?”
“It would seem that way,” I said with a lame attempt at humor which, unsurprisingly, fell flat when my voice came out tired and fatalistic.
“Meaning?”
“I didn’t have sex with him, or intend to.” I slanted my eyes, checking Luis’s reaction. That was the truth as I saw it. “Of any kind,” I added hastily at his unblinking stare. “But I did give him money for…contact.” Time moved too slowly, emphasizing my speed-of-light heart rate. At any moment I was destined to either throw up or drown in my own sweat.
“I don't have time for any of your bullshit, Glass. Did you compromise yourself and this case?” Every minute, every second of him studying me was a second closer to the end of my life as I knew it. Bite the bullet and trust him, or lie and twist things to a better light? At this point I could tell Luis that I had suspicions about Peter. That I paid him for information. But I would never do that to my partner.
Cop partnerships can be more intense than marriages. You ride along with this person, both of your guns weighing heavily on your belts, and you’re completely responsible for this other
human being for eight, ten, twelve hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. And not the kind of responsibility that means love and affection in compensation. With your partner, the compensation is protection. You leave the station house knowing that their life is in your hands, and that yours is in theirs. There’s no honeymoon stage, no adjustment period. There’s you and your partner, committing to an absolute trust. You can lie in a marriage and still make it work, but if you lie in a partnership, you put your partner’s career, their life in jeopardy. And if they think you’re willing to abandon that trust, how could they have faith in you?
Then there was the gay. The second part of the Austin Glass is Fucked equation. I wanted to tell Luis the truth, and while I trusted him implicitly, I was terrified. Lie or truth? Lie or truth?
Lie? Or truth? To me, both options could mean the end of my career, and of our partnership. So I just sat there, suffocating from the combined heat and silence. I didn’t know when or where, or even how, to begin. I wasn’t someone who lied about important things. Cheat, yes. Lie, no. A fine line, but distinct in my mind. Instead of lies, I used off-color humor to make the truth sound ridiculous, so I didn’t have to lie. But even after wracking my brain, I still couldn’t come up with a way to do that here. Or even use humor to diffuse the situation. I was too nauseated to be funny.
“Did you compromise this case?”
Did I?
“Probably,” I admitted. “Or, at least, my involvement in it.” I could have made excuses about how I didn’t know he was a prostitute. Or that he was involved with Alvarado. How I didn’t
sleep
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