Sparkle by Rudy Yuly Page B

He was only—what, four, five years old?”
    “Yeah, well,” Pinky said, pointing her thumb at Joe, “I think you’re looking at one of them.”
    “Holy shit.”
    Pinky swallowed hard. “Talk to him, would you? I need to go to the ladies’. See if you can help the poor guy out.”
    “Did something bad happen to you and your brother when you were kids?” Louis asked.
    Subtlety had never been one of his strong points.
    Joe looked at him as though he’d been slapped. All he could spit out was that he wasn’t going to talk about it. He threw a business card on the desk and scurried out of the station.
    Although Louis hardly knew her back then, it was Pinky who convinced him that they should give the brothers a chance. Ever since, for almost five years, Louis had given Sparkle Cleaners’ contact information to each new distraught landlord looking for someone to blot out what was left after homicide, forensics, and the DA had finished up—at least on the small jobs. It was possibly even a conflict of interest, although Louis didn’t get anything for their trouble. In fact, he hardly even got any appreciation. Joe sounded put out half the time.
    Joe was consistently rude without even being aware of it, but that didn’t faze Louis or Pinky. As long as Sparkle got the job done right. When you worked for homicide you got used to guys who didn’t say much, who kept their problems to themselves, who did tough jobs and didn’t worry about being polite. You gave support where you saw a need, and your reward was seeing things hold together that might otherwise fall apart—or blow up. Joe probably had no idea he was even getting a favor. That was fine, too.
    Louis was hard to read when it came to Joe and Eddie. He wasn’t sentimental, the way Pinky could be. At least nowhere near the surface. He still had the card Joe had dropped on his desk. But he kept it well hidden in the depths of his overstuffed wallet.
    No doubt about it, though, Joe and Eddie were unique. Despite the fact that they had grown up to become strange, strange boys, they were nice looking and clean cut, and gainfully employed fulfilling a necessary, if gruesome, function. For some reason Pinky hadn’t worried much about what their performance would be like, but Louis was greatly relieved that they had always done one hell of a job. He had to agree with Pinky when pressed on the point: he’d never once regretted the decision to lend them a hand.
    After the last of Joe’s extremely rare visits to the station, a burly young detective walked up to Louis’s desk just after Joe had shuffled out with Eddie silently bringing up the rear.
    “None of my business, Louis, but I’m pretty sure you just talked to the wrong guy,” the cop said. He looked serious.
    “What are you talking about?” Louis glanced up from the paperwork that seemed to make up eighty percent of his job.
    “That Eddie. He’s the guy you need to talk to. He’s obviously the brains of their operation.”
    “Gimme a break.” Louis glued his eyes back to his papers, determined not to get drawn in.
    “No, seriously.” The cop raised his voice and looked around the room for allies. “You notice how he never takes off his sunglasses? Huh? You see how his face never changes? Good posture, clean pressed clothes. Unlike his brother. Am I right? I’m telling you, that goofball Joe is just a front. That Eddie, now there’s a man you don’t want to play poker with. How many times did you have to remind that other dumb ass that he couldn’t light a smoke in here?”
    A couple of other cops chuckled.
    “Yeah,” Louis said, without looking up. “Good point. Now get back to work.”
    “No, seriously, Louis. I mean it. I think you got your retards mixed up.”
    Everybody laughed at that. Even Louis couldn’t completely suppress a smile. It was locker room stuff, completely rude but not really malicious. The only one who didn’t seem to think it was funny was Pinky. Unlike Louis, who