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It’s your fifth day on The Hanged Man case when you realize you’ve met Harrier Du Bois before.
Not so surprising, honestly. Joint operations aren’t uncommon, this current one being case-in-point. But this black hole of a man in the disco blazer and snakeskin shoes, who pulls information out of thin air like he’s panning for gold…he doesn’t feel real enough to spark a memory. He is a wraith of Martinaise, who could only ever exist on this crumbling, salt-encrusted spit of an island. This tiny gasp of history.
Sometimes you wonder if you are the crazy one. Maybe you dreamed Harry up, and you’ve spent a week wandering the coastline and talking to yourself. That sounds about as likely as the man existing under his own steam.
This morning you are late to your check-in at Harry’s seaside shack. You’d been waylaid by an old woman who wanted to make a formal complaint about the state of the roads since the union began their strike. You dutifully take down her information, promising to do your utmost to make sure the complaint reaches the proper authorities. Which isn’t the RCM. The police aren't in charge of public works. But it will ease her mind knowing that someone has listened to her concerns.
You are running about a half hour behind by the time you reach the marshy stretch beyond the canal. The grotesque monument of the beached motor carriage gleams in the weak winter sunlight. Detective Du Bois sits on a bench outside a half-demolished building, slumped forward with exhaustion. Perhaps he hadn’t slept well. Or he’s just talking to his tie again.
The slow drift of snow paints the village over in soft, placating strokes. Frost crackles beneath your boots, and Harry looks up at you and smiles.
Not the bemused grimace he’s turned on everyone—suspects and citizens both—over the last few days, but a genuine grin. Like you are the person he is most hoping to see in the world.
You are, you realize. You are this man’s sole port in the lightning storm of his life.
It’s the smile that hits you somewhere deep in the chest, igniting an echo of memory. You remember blue smoke in the grey evening and heat sparking under your skin. Bright, recent pain behind your eye.
Was it 15 years ago? Must have been 20, at least. In the fall on Boogie Street. Jamrock’s pungent, decaying heart.
You are 25, but regularly pass for 18. It’s the bulk of your job, coming up on half a year in the juvie section. Your first few months on the beat had been dull but consistent. But it’s mostly just drug-deals and chasing down graffito artists. Petty stuff. You’d never gotten along well with teenagers, not even when you were one yourself. You spend one memorable week infiltrating a group of crypto-communards on a college campus, who are rumored to be hoarding a weapon’s cache in their clubhouse. The guns turn out to be theatre props, and at the end of the week all you have to show for your time is a forming ulcer from the terrible campus coffee and a deep, abiding hatred for karaoke bars.
It’s not the sort of work you joined the force for, but you won’t climb the ladder through insubordination. Especially when you see the world through eyes like yours.
Those eyes are the reason you are dressed in tight jeans ripped at the knees and a tank top far too large for you, gaping at the collar and armpits. You’ve foregone your usual pomade, letting your hair fall across your forehead. You’ve got this down to an art. You even wear a different aftershave when you’re trying to pass for jailbait. By the end of the evening you’ll smell like nothing but cigarettes and spilled beer, with just an edge of nervous sweat.
“The guy’s got a thing for pretty Seolite boys,” the chief had told you earlier in the day. “The 41st doesn’t have any, so I told them we’d lend them one of ours.”
The chief’s cigar smells like a dead animal. “I’m only half Seolite.”
“You think he’s gonna ask to see your birth certificate before he takes out his dick?”
You go very still.
The chief hasn’t bothered to lower his voice. Other officers are listening in. “Lighten up, Kitsuragi. Just get him to flash some product and we’ll have boots on the ground. We won’t leave you alone with that cocksucker.”
That cocksucker turns out to be a small-time Jamrock pusher. Barely worth the effort, in your opinion, but you follow orders. The 41st most likely has reason to believe he is connected to bigger players. That’s not in your purview. You aren’t a detective.
He is not handsome but not ugly, not kind but not cruel. You’ve met worse people. You’ve met worse cops.
He pulls you into a back room and does a line off your palm. He kisses your throat, gently, and tells you you’re too pretty to bruise up. If you let his hands linger on your sides, his fingers dip below the waistband of your jeans, well. No one is going to believe anything he says.
You manage to get the handcuffs on him without much trouble beyond an elbow to the face. The tequila shots mean you barely feel it at all.
You feel it a little more out on the street in the drizzly evening. Pain radiates behind your sinuses on the left side. You’d caught a glimpse of yourself in the bar window; you’ll have a black eye by the end of the night.
The 41st had brought a motor carriage to the sting, but there’s only room for two officers—one driving and one managing the suspect. You are too junior to do either. The senior officer of the operation mangles your name and then asks you if you’ll be alright on your own. Admittedly, you aren’t armed, and even knowing your battered waif presentation is a farce, she is unable to see you as anything but a victim.
The 41st is within walking distance and Jamrock doesn’t scare you, but you aren’t about to traverse it alone at night, without your glasses. Your eyes aren’t as bad as they will one day be, but you don’t trust yourself in the dark. They aren't part of the disguise; you look too old with them on. Weighed in the balance, they weren’t worth it when all you have to be is a piece of meat.
You pull out a crumpled pack of Astras. These and your cuffs had been the only things you’d managed to get into the back pockets of these jeans. You hadn’t put them on it years. You aren’t sure how to feel about the fact that you haven’t changed shape since you were 16.
A man comes out of the bar. You tense for a moment before you realize he is RCM, one of the 41st narcotics guys. Broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and the biceps of someone who works for them. He looks at you and offers what might be a smile. He’s too far away for you to tell.
You click your lighter, only to realize that your hands are shaking so badly you can’t transfer the flame to your cigarette.
You’re too pretty to mark up.
You bang a closed fist against the brickwork behind you.
This was routine. This was nothing. Get ahold of yourself.
“Hey, you okay?”
The officer from the 41st holds out a lighter. You look at him for a few bewildered seconds. Up close he is handsome and buoyant, probably around the age as you. You lean in to the flame, taking a long drag.
“Thank you,” you say, “Officer—.”
“LaFleur.”
“Office Lafleur.”
Lafleur motions to his eye with his own cigarette. “That’s nasty. You got someone to take a look at that for you?”
You frown. Does he think the 57th doesn’t have medical staff?
“You were great in there, by the way.” He nudges you with his shoulder. “Really brave.”
You realize, like a slow sunrise, that he does not know that you are a police officer. He believes you’re an informant, one of of the working boys pulled off the street and roped into duty to beat a drug or solicitation rap. Just another unfortunate.
“I’ll be fine,” you assure him. “I’ve had worse.”
“Fucking bastard.” Lafleur leans back against the brick. His shoulder brushes yours, and despite the chill your skin goes prickly hot. Is he trying to pick you up? Surely even a Jamrock cop would know better than to fuck a snitch. Sex is cheap. Cheaper than reliable information, at least.
You study him out of the corner of your eye.
He doesn’t want you, exactly. But he wants something. To lean close to a cliffside and feel the vertigo clutching at his lungs. To stick his fingers closer and closer to the candle flames until his skin starts to scorch.
He’s powerful enough to pin you back against the brickwork.
His fingers could easily grip your throat.
He could pick you up with one hand.
You pull in a lungful of smoke and hold your breath, letting the buzz suffuse your blood. If you asked him to take you home, he would do it.
You exhale. You want this job more than you want a quick lay.
The wind blows sad and quiet down the alleyway. You shiver, gooseflesh popping up across your arms. Lafleur follows its progress with his eyes.
A motor carriage in dire need of a tune up clatters up to the curb.
With just a hint of mischief, you lean in close. “Thank you for the light, officer.”
His eyes dart down to your mouth. The tequila in your veins tells you to take the invitation. He smells like allspice. Your coworkers are watching, and you want to kiss him anyway.
You don’t kiss him that night.
You do, 20 years on and a lifetime later, in a shabby walk-up while disco music plays. He is destroyed almost beyond recognition, his body showing years of hard use. You can chart the slow, ravaging effects of misery on the topography of his face.
You should tell him you met years ago. That he looked at you and saw a prostitute, gave you a false name, and you wanted him anyway. That the knowledge burned under your skin when you went home that night, impossible to ignore.
Maybe you will tell him. But for now you hold the memory close to you, like an ace up your sleeve.