Chapter 21

"First," she said, "you were allowing me to take care of myself. I know you care for me, and would come to my aid if I needed it – but you have never smothered me, and you would not do so during the fight, no matter how much you might have wished to. As long as I could handle the situation, you allowed me to do so, just as you allow me to handle whatever else it is my task to handle."

"So far, so good."

"I perceive that the second reason was to build up my confidence. You have trained me, and I have practiced on my own these years." I'd guessed as much, as well as she'd conducted herself, though I'd never caught her at it. "But there is a world of difference between training and practice, and the actual event. I had a head full of knowledge when I received my degree, yet when I entered upon my first employment I found that knowing a set of facts was not the same as sitting down with clients and providing them with financial counsel. Your training and my practice were necessary, but having to actually lay violent hands on that – child, I suppose is as good a word as any – was quite a different thing, and by allowing me to do it alone, you let me prove to myself that I could in fact do it."

"You're right there as well," I said.

She gave me a small smile. "The third reason is the one which I propose with the least degree of certainty. I surmise that you were using me to make a point to those people: If my wife, who as you see is thin and apparently easy to dominate, can so handily put one of you on the ground, you really do not wish to attack me."

I nodded. "I'd have put it a lot less elegantly, but that's about it. Them punks put a lot of stock in what people call 'face.' They've got this deal they call 'mad dogging' – staring contests, where they glare at each other, trying to intimidate the other guy into looking away or down. Sometimes mad dogging can lead to killing, when one realizes that the other's not gonna quit and figures he's gotta win no matter what it takes. Well, here you are, skinny as a stick and looking like a wind would blow you away, and you weren't even trying when you put him down twice. If you're that capable of takin' care of yourself, they really didn't want to tackle me without shooting, and they weren't up to shooting."

She nodded. "That was my thinking. Of course you had no intimation that there would be violence."

"No, or I'd have left you at home. I ain't in this to get you hurt."

"Your fierceness comforts me, Darvin," she said. "I do not disdain your protectiveness, as some profess to do; I cherish it, for I know that if I am ever in a position where I need your aid, it shall be immediately forthcoming. But we both knew this could be a periculous venture when we began it, and neither of us is participating blindly."

I stopped and looked at her. "You know, that sort of talk just might get you off this case."

"It is honest talk, darling," she said. "I do not fear honesty – do you?" She shook her head. "I withdraw that question; it was, though unintentionally, a jibe, and I do not wish to carve wounds in your heart. I know you value integrity as much as I do. What I'm trying to say is that I cannot lie to you, not even to protect my part in this investigation – and that you know this, and I pray you will not use it as a weapon against me."

I grunted and started walking again. "You put it pretty well, C – if I didn't know you, I'd think you were manipulating me. But I do know you, and you're just being honest again, not trying to give me a guilt trip." I took a breath. "But when you put it like that, I can't kick you off the case, can I?"

"You are my employer in the investigatory agency; if you wish to order me back to my desk, to do the books and file the forms, I have but two options – obedience, or resignation from your employ."

"Yeah, that's the objective reality. The emotional reality is that you've got me in a corner, and I can't find a way out. Stick with it, C ... blast it all."

"Blast it all, indeed. Nothing about this is pretty, beloved – with the exception of your lovely face and beautiful heart."

"Yeah, that too."

"I have embarrassed you, and such was not my intention. I shall not persist in flowery language, however much I may find it far short of the mark. I shall, rather, suggest that we talk to that person over there."

I looked, and agreed. "That person over there" was a gangbanger if I ever saw one, and it was among gangbangers that our hope of finding Davey Powder lay.

It was getting toward evening by the time we located Davey. He was a dark Hispanic, the mark of a lot of Indian blood, and I guessed that instead of being a long time in the state his family had come up from Mexico in the more or less recent past. I could have been wrong, of course – guessing at things like that from skin color is a risky proposition. If you went by the way I look, you'd swear I was completely white, but the fact is I'm half Indian even if it doesn't show.

Davey was one of the people we asked about him, not knowing of course who he was when we walked up. He acknowledged his identity, and I smiled. "You're just the guy I need, then."

He looked at me like he'd just realized that I wasn't a fellow gangbanger, but surely he knew the difference. "What you need, man?" he asked.