June 20, 2005
BUD

A turf war of sorts has broken out. We have been working double shifts and then some. Brass under lots of pressure. The press is on our collective asses.

Drugs are at the bottom of it. Doesn't matter. Two kids are among the latest victims. I was there watching the coroner zip the body bag on the last one.

It started with one group thinking an enforcer from the other group was getting too mean. He was shot dead while he was driving his car passing from his neighborhood into the other one. The two neighborhoods were separated by the elevated expressway. It's not much as far as boundaries go. It was more tradition than any kind of tangible boundary line that has kept them physically separated.

So he was shot. And then his side took out one of their couriers. So happened, she was sitting on her front stoop. They got her son, too. So her side went on a spree one night. Caught our guys by surprise. They had figured that since no one did any retaliation the day of the funeral and then the next day passed quiet, that maybe enough blood had been spilled to satisfy each side for a while.

They were wrong.

Four separate shootings. One night. One very bloody night. By the end of the night, we'd all been called in. Every detective who was on duty and not investigating an active priority case in his own precinct was taken out of circulation to investigate one of the murders in Hollygrove. Because the thing is, this turf war has to be stopped. It goes on and it will escalate. It will leak out and it will infect other areas of the city even if just because the tension level goes up.

Nate and I watch the kid get zipped into the body bag.

That does something to a man.

Without warning, Nate is pounding on doors. Uniforms have already done the canvas. But there is Nate, pounding away. Knowing that if he pushes the right way, that we'd have something more tangible to go on than someone whining to a Uniform, "they shouldn't done that to that baby."

Finally, this old man opens the door. It had happened across from his house. Sometimes, the old ways still work. We tag team the old man. We make him see that we are angry we have just watched a child get zipped into a body bag. We make it clear we are taking this personally. We make sure he understands, plain as day, that we will remember those who help us as well as those who don't but that, no matter what, we will find out the one who shot the kid. We get a license plate from the old man. It's a vanity plate; it's why he remembers. Nate asks, why didn't he offer that up right away ... why wasn't he singing it out to the Uniforms ... after all, this was a rival neighborhood that did this. Old man just looks at Nate. It's one of those questions for which there are no answers worth giving when you live in a neighborhood involved in a turf war that's escalated to shooting kids on the street.

The detectives in this division know the plate, know the player. His mom swears her boy was a good boy. Swears he was with her. We don't even bother showing her we don't believe her. She's trying to protect her kid and even if I think she's wrong, I still somehow have to respect that she is lying to us for just that reason. When we find him, hours later, cruising in his car over in the lower 9th, we don't need CSI to interpret the smell of cordite in the car and glint of juked-out eyes.

Annie has heard the news reports. She's juiced in enough to the way the NOPD works to know if we were on duty, we'd have been called into it. She also has heard a cop was shot during the canvas in the rival neighborhood, Pigeon Town. When we walk in her bar that night, I think I can touch her relief. I tell her, she has to stop being so worried or I'll take it personal. I like the way she smiles at me. But the way she blushes ... I could take that and live off it for a long time. Her blushing embarrasses her more than her being caught being so relieved that I have survived.

And then later, when I ask her to get coffee with me when her shift is over but we go to another bar instead ... she just listens while I talk about the sound of that body bag being zipped up. Her hand is on top of mine. It is small and cool. It rests there, without moving. As if she simply wants me to have the touch of another person to remind me that life is still all around me.

Her eyes study me. She doesn't try to cajole me or soothe me or tell me it will be all right. Things like that are never all right. They never should be.

Something happens between us in that moment. I am in need of a soft touch. I need a woman's ability to be tender. I need it as an antidote to what I have seen and felt that night in Hollygrove.

She knows it's what I need. She also knows she is the only person I am hoping to get that from.

But I won't take it if she won't offer it freely. There is this one fraction of a moment ... she hesitates ... and I know, deep inside in a place that's sure, that she wants to offer me that tender touch. That she feels something for me far beyond the friendship we have shared these past weeks and never pushed no matter what.

But in the end, she pulls back to within the confines of friendship. 

I don't think she does this because she is afraid of me or because she doesn't like men. I don't know why she does this but I am pretty sure it has to do with whatever really happened between that old world of hers and this one before I met her. So I have to respect that this is what she wants. Even if it's not what I want.

The one thing I suppose I am sure of is that Annie is in trouble. I have found the signs. They are subtle, but they are there. It is as much the way she never opens up to me about what's happened to her after she came here as it is the way she moves every conversation we have away from her and onto me. It is how her moods can swing so abruptly whenever I get close enough that she begins to smile at me in this particular way that I can only describe as real attraction. It's how she can disappear for days at a time and when she comes back, she laughs off my concern and gets defensive if I push a bit further to find out what the fuck is going on. It's how she can be so glad to see me come in the bar but how quickly she can draw back away from me if Nate teases her about it.

It's how there can be times when we are out together, just me and her, just hanging out at a movie or going for a drive somewhere in the country ... and I will try to work the talk around to her and to what happened to her in coming over to this world ... and she just will evade me. I know so little and she passes it off by saying that it's all boring and it's all in the past.

Never fails though, that this is just when she will ask me something about me and then will listen and ask more questions. And before I even really think about it, I am talking about work or the other cops I've fallen in with or even about high school or ... or even a few times, I have found myself talking about my mother. Little things, just memories of better times or details. About how she wore White Shoulders. About how she'd bring me comic books, sling 'em across the bare wood floor of the apartment when she'd come in from shopping and I'd be so excited that I couldn't even talk. About how seeing those comic books, all new and bright, how I only had eyes for them and I'd be lost in this other world while I devoured them. About her helping me build forts in the apartment on rainy days out of couch cushions and old blankets.

I told Annie that I don't understand why my memories of my mother are more often bad ones of things that happened to her ... not these kind of good ones of what she was like with me. And she said maybe it's because the bad ones were way too traumatic and so they block everything else. Bad memories, I told her, just never seem to die.

That's the thing ... it's not that I want mine to die. They are a part of who I am. I just want to start making better things happen so they aren't all I ever will be.

Sometimes, when it's just us, I find myself sharing these kinds of musings that I just don't do with people. And it never fails that I don't stop for just a moment to wish that a physical closeness between us will come out of that. I have only tried once to kiss her since that first night I showed up at her apartment.

She wanted it; a man can tell these things. But she got out of the car, walked up the stairs to her place and I didn't see her for two days after that. And when I did, she was nice enough, polite, but she was distracted and just a bit brusque.

So I watch over her as much as I can because there is no doubt in my mind that she isn't in some kind of trouble she doesn't want me to know about. Which gets to me, you know? All this time, no one was there looking out for her. If she's in trouble, then I figure I'm partly to blame because I didn't even once try to help her in that time when she was fending for herself in a strange world. And, yeah, I know I'm somehow atoning for that and that I'm also maybe trying to find the way to be the man I think I used to be, the kind of man that stood in there and fought for his friends when the cause was right and the cost could be high.

But it's impossible as far as white knight missions go because I am not always around. Even when I am not working, I can't just hang around her all the time.

She'd get suspicious.

I have wondered if it's drugs. If maybe she's doing coke or pills and maybe she's hiding an addiction she figures I will not approve of.

It could be.

Tonight, even as she is openly relieved that I made it through that tense cop drama, I wait for her mood to flip on me. For her to react to this moment of closeness, of almost intimacy. I study her eyes ... any signs of drugs there like small pupils? I don't really see any. Then again, her mood stays pretty mellow and she stays focused on me. Open to me. She asks me why I wanted to become a cop again, if I wasn't tired of seeing things that would affect me like when I saw this kid in the body bag tonight.

I put my hand on hers. I stroke over it with my thumb. I take comfort in the fact that she doesn't pull it away from me. I look in her eyes. They are clear. I have always thought she had beautiful eyes. I have always found them easy to look into.

"Some of us are just made for certain things. Like I'm made to be a cop. Maybe it doesn't go any deeper than that," I say to her. "But even so, I have low times as a cop, sure I do. This is one of them."

She blinks and looks away. Then down at where I'm holding on to her hand. "That's why I admire you, Bud. You never shirk from the fact that it's hard being a cop."

"You take the good with the bad. You do what you can to make a difference. In the end, I didn't become a cop maybe for the best of reasons. But I was made to be a cop."

"It is certainly intriguing, why you became a cop. All that Freudian stuff about you wanting to just get in position to find your old man, arrest him and make him pay for killing your mom." She is looking right at me as she says it; neither of us blink. It's not cruel, what she's saying. It's frank. And I don't mind that she says this because she still respects me, even knowing this. "But I can see that it's more than that. And besides, a lesser man with your background would have simply turned to a life of crime. He would not have taken the path you did because your path was so much harder."

"I ain't no saint, Annie."

"Well, I think you're the closest thing to a saint I know anymore, Bud." She slips her hand from mine but it's so smooth that I can't begrudge her that. "It's like how I don't like the way you're so casual sometimes about using physical force in your job. And yet, I admire that you won't deny that you do it. And that you honestly feel it has its place even if I can't see that."

"It's the reporter in you. Reporters hate cops and one reason is that we have to get rough sometimes."

"Okay, well first of all, I haven't been a reporter in a long time. Second of all, reporters do not hate cops. Not at all. We do, however, expect them to follow the law when they are upholding it. Novel concept, is it?"

"Annie, I don't break the law."

"Yeah. Well, you bend it."

"Justice, Annie, it can be a bitch."

"Look, I don't want to argue with you but I'm not ever going to be comfortable with violence and ..."

Her voice trails off. She takes this big breath and tries to recover her train of thought. There is something here and I can't place it.

"Anyway, what I mean is that casual violence wrought by a cop is just hard to justify, I think. And it's hard to keep contained. I mean, if we allow it, who is to judge when it's too much? Who gets to say what's okay and what's not?" She rushes on, hoping I didn't notice the pause, that I won't make an issue of it.

"Just don't go preaching how good Miranda Rights are ..." I say, easing into a safe place of disagreement. I can see her eyes spark with gratitude because she knows I've done this on purpose.

"Bud, you and Miranda Rights! Come on now, you have to come around to admitting we need them ..."

"To control us bad cops, is what you mean? Because cops are not to be trusted, right?"

And this is where we take it. A familiar banter ... something we have argued over often enough to know each other's position and what we may say next. But she surprises me.

"No, some cops are very much to be trusted, Bud."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes. I trust in your heart. I'm just sorry that your old heart has taken such a beating these last few months. You didn't deserve that."

I swallow hard. If I am not careful, I may reach for her and beg her to hold me for a while. At least as long as it may take me to stop being miserable over what I became. I realize now, only now in this moment, that I am seeking redemption in this woman. If she would only see that ... if she could see that in her, I may be able to be a better man, the kind of man I would like to think I am capable of being. I want to see reflected in her eyes someday an understanding that I am still the man capable of doing the right thing, like I once did in LA for no other reason than I wanted another woman to realize I was worthy of her love.

Not that Annie has to love me. I don't even know if I love her so much as I want to move her somehow, to gain her respect maybe. To make her reach for me. It's a test of sorts. A test of my worth. When this Annie met me, she assumed I was no better than the Bud she knew in her world. I am glad she has realized I am good enough to be her friend.

But will I ever be man enough to be more to a woman like this? It's a question of my worth. And I am not sure I have any anymore. Maybe that's all this is ... my selfish attempt to save her and prove I am still capable of being a good man.

Is this my personal war on the streets? If so, I already know the street where I'll be fighting.

June 23, 2005
ANN

This is going to sound so strange but I can't remember Terry's voice anymore. It seems to be slipping away from me. I try so hard to conjure it back up ... his voice, saying my name.

And I can't.

It's the one thing that makes me cry these days. I don't know why it hurts when it's so silly. But it does hurt me to forget. I suppose I could always call the Terry here, just call his phone, listen to him talk and then perhaps I'd be able to remember again ... except ... except it wouldn't be the same because he doesn't say my name like Terry does. He doesn't say it with love for me filling it all up, rounding it out.

And so this is how it happens. I am losing him more and more every single day as even my memories are leaving me in disgust. And no matter what, I am still convinced that I am not paid in full for my sin against him.

Hector came by to see me tonight. He wanted to see if I was up for another invitation. I said yes. He said the bruise on my jaw was barely noticeable in the bar's lighting; that probably it would be pretty well gone in a few days, just in time for the party.

I almost said no to the invitation. It'd only been two nights since the last time. And this one was in another three nights. That's only five nights in between and I'm not sure why but I'm growing more reckless. But Hector said there was a certain special man who'd asked about me and when he described him, I remembered who it was. So I said yes and there was a big part of me that was excited at the prospect of a return engagement, so to speak. How sad have I become? I tried to conjure up Terry in my brain to tell me not to do it, that enough was enough. But I couldn't. So I said yes.

Three more nights before the party. I could feel myself stoking up for it after Hector left. Building the fire. Gathering the kindling.

And then Bud walks in. I haven't seen him in three nights, not since that big hoohaw over in Hollygrove. But these have been my days off and I lied and told him I was going to Florida to visit friends. His eyes latch on to the bruise on my face but he doesn't say a thing about it until he is taking the last sip of his first drink. My guard is down by then; I had thought maybe he had let it go.

He strokes a fingertip on the bar; figure eights in time to the song on the jukebox. I reach for his glass to refill it. He pulls it from my reach; puts it to his lips; takes the last sip; does it slow; his eyes examining my face all calm and deliberate.

"What happened?" he asks me as he slowly hands me his glass.

I could string it out but that would just been more suspicious. I finger over the bruise and roll my eyes. "You know what a klutz I am. Fell down the stairs at the apartment a few days ago. Hurt my pride more than my body," I say.

"I see. Fell down the stairs."

I ignore the attitude. I refill his drink. I fill other drink orders. I tell the barmaid to man the bar while I go in the storeroom. I am in there maybe 20 minutes when he knocks on the door and just walks in. He finds me moving boxes around, sweating, trying to do something physical to work out the frustrations.

My sleeves are rolled up because I am sweating.

I shove them down when he comes in. He asks if I need any help. I say no. He takes the booze box out of my hands and asks where it goes. We just start working together. Reordering the perpetual mess of supplies and liquor boxes and stuff.

There is this thing about Bud I have noticed. I think it's all a part of his "cop-ness," for lack of a better word. Every cop I know has a style of interrogation. Depending on how sure they are that they actually already know the answers they seek, they will either be aggressive, passive, devious, threatening, seductive, superior or friendly. Bud is usually in-your-face aggressive, no matter what, unless you are a woman. With women, he can be swayed by the flash of a midriff or the slip of a tear or the softness of a bosom.

Swayed, not distracted. Because he enjoys being persuaded, like it's a form of seduction. Just nothing too overt.

But you corner me and I come out swinging. It may not at first appear to be that, but it is. I will evade and evade as long as I can but if you are going to come right at me and I have no other way, I will fight back. In my own way.

It's an instinct for survival that only really buried me twice and both times, it was my tendency towards active self-destruction that really ended up doing me in. It's an odd personality mix, isn't it? It's a flaw. A big one. And I know this. But in the heat of the moment, I find myself reacting without awareness of the fact that I have dropped over the self-destruct cliff. It only seems to happen when my heart is involved.

Maybe I have been wiser than I've realized that in this time in this world, I have found a way to keep my heart out of things for as long as I have. Once it's involved ... God ... I am rushing so fast toward the cliff and nothing can save me.

Nothing.

Bud has taken this task of moving boxes to be like some kind of quest a fine lady has sent him on. My too gallant white knight.

"So, about that bruise on your jaw," he says, grunting as he shoves a column of liquor boxes into alignment.

"Stairs and me ... what was I thinking moving into a place where I have to negotiate them so often?" I say, turning to dust down a now-cleared section of shelving.

"Must have been some fall, Annie. You got all those matching bruises on your arms."

"Yeah, it was no fun."

"You weren't embarrassed to be in a bikini this weekend but you cover the bruises up at work?"

Instantly, I react and it's an attack and it's way over the top this early in the cat-and-mouse game he thought we'd play. Too late. I'm feeling cornered. I skip a big step toward the cliff.

"What the fuck business is it of yours, Bud? You think you're my daddy now?"

We have both stopped any pretense of work in this closed storeroom. We face each other. His jaw works. I see sweat, beaded and fine, along his forehead. I picture it running in small rivulets down his neck, under his arms. I get this fleeting mental poser of whether or not confrontations like this would make him hard.

"I'm your friend, Annie. Last time I checked anyway."

"Friends don't usually accuse friends of lying."

"Did I accuse you of lying? I don't remember that."

I roll my eyes. Take a step forward. "You got an issue with me and my bruises. Why is that?"

"Because you didn't get them falling down no stairs. And we both know it."

"Even if so, it's not your fucking business."

"What's got you so worked up, Annie?"

I take a moment. I step toward the cliff. My toes are hanging over. I lick my lips, look down as if I can actually see that cliff. And then I very deliberately, if stupidly, step toward Bud, step over the cliff, step into my own self-destruction.

He doesn't back up. He doesn't back down. I am totally aggressive in this moment and he knows it. I thought he'd back down. I thought this would scare him. I thought he'd react differently. That he doesn't ... that he seems to find this arousing because, oh yeah, I do look at his trousers as my eyes are moving up to look in his ... well, there you go.

I take one more step and I am so close. He can probably feel the heat coming off me in waves. I can scent his masculinity so strong it's like an ice cream cone waiting to be licked. I stare in his eyes, searching for and finding his ability to flare up.

My chin rises of its own accord. I say, all throaty and animalistic, "What's got me so worked up, Bud? Oh my. You wish it was you that had me all hot and bothered ... don't you? That's what this is really all about, isn't it?"

He doesn't blink. He takes a tiny shuffling step toward me. I look down at his hands as they flex into fists and I know he's working to control an urge he has felt coming over him ... not at me, but at whatever faceless man he now knows has put the bruises on me. I can exploit this masculine anger over something personal and basic like the confusing things that happen in the name of love. I know how. This is my shame. It is my talent, first discovered on a cold night in London with Max.

"Is that it, Wendell?" I say, whispering from deep in my throat so he'll think about where he might want to take me. "You want me worked up over you? You want me to spread my legs for you? Go down on you? Yeah? You do. I can see it. It must drive you crazy that I won't. That I'm not like one of them."

When his voice comes, it is pent up malevolence ... but again, not at me. "I would kill any man who touches you like that. And you know it. Is that why you do it?"

"No." I say softly. I lean in, my breasts brushing up against his chest. He swallows, deep and hard. My lips find their way to his ear. "You've really got no idea? None? Oh, Wendell, are you really that tame now? You really haven't guessed that I do it because I like it that way? Are you sure? Because if I didn't know any better, I'd say that turns you on."

"I ain't turned on. Not by that," he says, his voice dark and it makes me feel powerful.

My hand is now on his crotch; he is hardening. I squeeze in; I'm looking in his eyes and I can see he's embarrassed to be hard at the exact same time he is proud that I am touching him and finding him so impressively hard. His hand drags mine away and he lets out this low growl.

"I think you're lying, Wendell. I think maybe you've been lying your whole life. I think maybe this white knight stuff is some kind of perversion of your real sexual desires. Maybe you want to hurt me like your role model used to hurt your mom? We can do that if you want. I'd like it."

His voice is almost strangled in its fury; I think it's aimed at me, finally. But he can't say all that this has really made him feel so he says, "Whoever he is, if I find out, I will teach him to hurt you."

This is the heat talking. I know this. So does he. And this is how I know ... he's primed and I can use this against him. I am about to mound up another sin for which I must atone at some point in my life. But I'm over the cliff and falling ... so it doesn't matter because maybe when I've fallen all the way, I will be crushed and I will finally hurt enough.

"I get so sick and tired of you and all your mooning over me," I say to him, my fingers now flexing in the hold he has of my hand. "And now you know, don't you? You'll never be what I want or need in a man."

He shoves my hand back atop his hardness. He presses it in; rubs until I palm his cock through his pants and stroke him even harder. We are right up against each other, both panting, both sweating.

When his eyes half shut and I think he's about to come, I shove him back into the wall behind him. And I launch myself at his body. It takes him about twenty seconds into a bruising kiss before he grabs my arms, spins me around until it's me against the wall and his body cruelly pressing mine against the hard surface. And his lips are rough and I love it ...

He's got his hands pressed in over my shirt, roughly pawing my breasts. He's got his knee between my thighs, jerking up. I can feel his livid passion ... it is lovely and it is misplaced but he isn't aware of that in this moment.

And then there is a tentative knock at the door. Someone jiggles the handle. I hear the barmaid's voice calling to me, joking that we better get our clothes back on and answer the door ...

I shove Bud's body off mine and slide out from where he'd held me captive. By the time the barmaid is in the room, I am only a step from the door. She's had an order she doesn't know how to mix. Can I come take care of it. I prod her out before me but before I walk out, I turn and look at Bud. Our eyes meet.

The fury in him is palpable. But so is the frustration, the emptiness, the resignation that this has happened.

My coup de grâce is a wink before I walk out.

Maybe ten minutes go by before he leaves the storeroom, walks around the bar and exits the building without so much as a glance at me.

That night, in my bed, I cry at what is in my soul.

He is a good man. Far too good for me. And look what I've done to him.

June 25,2005
BUD

The shift starts like any other. We are in a briefing room. The Lt. is up there, going through his spiel. Nate is half-asleep but he's still cracking a slow joke about the latest idiotic criminal stupidity. This one's about a burglar over in Mandeville who got stuck in the chimney of a building that housed a pizza joint. Next day, they fire up the oven and hear the guy hollering. Call the fire department, then the cops come. They drag him out after like three hours. And that afternoon, as they're doing a perp walk so the local media can get shots, the stupid burglar says he's going to sue the restaurant. Some reporter asks how he ended up in the chimney anyway. He says he was trying to rob the place but that didn't mean they had to set his ass on fire.

Everyone else snickers at Nate's impression of the dumbass burglar. I'm not in the mood for joking.

Nate says to Bobby, who's sitting near us with his new partner Carmen, that he fears the damage I am likely to do that night. 

He may be right.

I got a war inside me that is only looking for a battlefield.

Before we walk out to the mean streets and I'm left to drag Nate along with me to find my field of battle for that night, the Captain wanders in. He hands a sheet of paper to the Lt. From it, a list of names called out. Me and Nate are on it. Bobby and Carmen are not. We have to stay behind while the names not on the list leave.

There are four of us in the room. We are being detailed to a Vice-run task force for a short-run manpower drill, we're told. One Police Plaza, we're told. Get there and you'll get your briefing.

Nate says, driving over, how much he digs task force work. Your chance for more glory, he says, grinning at me. I just shake my head; look out the window. Notice some young woman standing all alone at a bus stop out in front of the main library. I hate when women do things like that.

Put themselves in danger, I mean. 

Say whatever you want about me. I'm a dinosaur. I've got a long way to go before I'd even be considered behind the times. I got no right saying a woman asks for it if she becomes a victim when she's doing something even an idiot should know is risky.

You can say it. I deserve it.

It don't bother me. Not one bit. Must be hard-wired in me or something. That bit about me being a white knight. When did that become a bad thing?

We get in there, to the conference room in Vice. They bring in briefing boards. Nate says, "Oh boy, a Vice raid" under his breath, leaning toward me. I frown at him. But he's right. It's a raid being set up for the next night.

Target is one of those huge old houses on Esplanade. It's some kind of kinky sex club, the Captain tells us. And drugs are involved. Maybe some prostitution. There's a gathering coming the next night and they want to strike then. As they tell us about the kind of people we'll be arresting, Nate says he don't remember the last time the NOPD took down a crowd this wealthy.

Up there, at the front of the room, some Vice dick is showing us a blow-up of the place and then going over the house's layout, all three floors and the back wing. He's showing us where we'll hit fast and hard, where we'll button everyone up, contain the situation. I feel sweat gathering in my armpits. I may have developed a new tic behind my right eye. My hands bunch and flex and I find myself holding my knees just to have to something to flex my hands over.

I recognize the house.

Nate is taking notes. He gives me the fisheye. I start taking notes, too.

In one ear, on my notepad, out my brain. All I remember is the guests include some high value targets. High value, I ask Nate. He smirks at me. Politicians, judges, he finally says. Political payback, he adds later, for enemies of the current administration. They pass around pictures, color, big ones, of people who've been at these parties over the past few months. Take a look at the circled faces, they say, because these are the ones to treat with kid gloves. These are the high value targets. Do not let them slip away, we are told.

There are sharp murmurs around the room. 

What about everyone else, someone asks.

Use plastic tags and bag 'em in the wagons, one of the Vice guys says. In other words, arrest 'em all. Put the high value ones in squad cars, regular handcuffs, treat 'em okay because brass wants them looking purty for the perp walk they'll have 'em do the next day. The rest get cuffed with the disposable plastic band cuffs, taken en masse to city prison for booking and for their hearings for bond before the night judge.

The file with pictures finally makes its way to Nate and me. Even I recognize most of the four clowns who are the high value targets. Nate knows them all.

Some pictures are overview shots of a few of the larger public rooms. There are a lot of people in some of the shots. These are shown to us, I suppose, to set the mood and to show us why they need lots of manpower ...

There is one of these pictures that I pause over; I work hard not to visibly react. The only good thing I can think of is that at least her face is not circled. At least she is not one of the targets.

I glance at Nate as he goes through the pics and he pauses the same amount of time on each picture. He doesn't react to the one that has Annie in it but maybe he wouldn't recognize her. Maybe I only do because I had followed her that night and I recognized the dress.

Later, after they've briefed us on the gambling and drugs and sex stuff we'll find there ... after they've shown us the layout of the house ... after we've been briefed on how the arrests will be coordinated and logged ... after that, we are told to assemble at the 5th Precinct the next night for our final briefing and for the raid. And later, after everyone is up talking and jiving with the juked up excitement of an operation of this magnitude ... after attention is anywhere but focused ... I go to where I'd last seen the file of pictures.

I look inside, casual, like I'm just taking another look. I steal the one with Annie in it. She's not clear; if they miss this picture, they will only think it was misplaced or that someone took it as a souvenir. I take it to save her and I hope it won't be missed. I'm banking that there's enough pictures they will not miss this one and they will never have reason to go looking for proof of her ever being there.

What has happened to her? I think on this late that night, lying in bed. Why is she involved in this? How did it happen? I cannot let it get worse. All those suspicions I had about her ... and it's this? Involvement in some place that brings in the fringes of sexual perversion and toys with them ... all these rich fuckers just looking for their next thrill and she's one of them?

The thought of how she's being used by them is like a pain gnawing at my gut.

A fragile, damaged woman pretending a strength that is her shield against every other person in the world.

I might not be able to help her but I can save her from being swept up into this raid. Whatever happens after that, that's a whole other ballgame. But here is something very concrete, very real, very important that I can do for her.

In the dark, I settle in, hoping for sleep. My eyes shut. Instantly, I am back in that storeroom. I can feel her body against mine. The way her voice was. The way she acted. How she reacted when I pushed back. If I think hard enough, I can remember the smell of her sweating. The way her hand felt on me.

More than anything, I can remember I was hard. 

In the mid afternoon, when I finally drag myself from the bed, I feel as if I've just come up from a bender. My mouth is dry cotton. My head throbs. I am covered in the stale sweat of a night of visits from old demons.

Before work, I drive by the house on Esplanade. The sun brims over the trees but it can't penetrate the canopy of oaks that shelter this place. In the daytime, it would never occur to me to think of it as anything other than some mansion owned by a rich family or as some well-maintained bed and breakfast for the gentry set.

What I'd taken for parties ... they were parties she was attending, but they were not what I'd thought. I'm not unaware places like this exist for people who want to play certain games. I've raided a few in LA. But there, it almost seemed more innocent. Or maybe it's just that I know someone caught up in this.

Just before I pull up to the 5th Precinct where we're gathering for the final briefing before the raid, I call the bar. A barmaid answers. I ask for Annie. I hear her call out for her; in a moment, I hear Annie's voice against my ear. Without saying a word to her, I turn off my phone and for the first time in two days, I breathe easy. If she's working at the bar, she won't get pulled in tonight.

Nate is waiting for me when I get to the briefing room. We are all there, all of us wearing our navy blue t-shirts with "Police" in white block letters that gleam and reflect light at night. Under those t-shirts, to a man, we've got our vests on. Over the t-shirts, we've got nylon windbreakers. On the back, "Police" in the same white lettering. On the front, "NOPD." And hanging around our necks are our badges on chains. We are ready for anything.

We are taking prisoners tonight.

I am wondering, though, about justice. Where is justice in all this? The answer comes to me in a moment of clarity. I was looking for a new personal war. I just found it.

June 26, 2005
ANN

The light is always fine inside. Like a beacon, with all these shiny, sparkly points of shafting glitter that fractures if you drink.

I do drink.

In a world like this, it isn't about whether you're doing something wrong or doing something right. Those value judgements don't matter. Maybe that's why I found my way in here. But even for all that, I never have committed. When Hector first asked me to come see, I said I'd play but I would not be a regular; that I'd only do it when I had a need.

I know the difference between wrong and right. But I live life on the fringe, somewhere in between the wrong and the right. The only person I know who is like that is a cop who, like me, understands that you can find yourself making a choice for survival that helps you make it through this shifting place between dark and light. It isn't always about wrong or right; sometimes it's about justice; sometimes it's about payback; sometimes it's about finding the way to atone. Sometimes it's just the way it is and no one can judge you for what you do when you find yourself making those kinds of choices.

Around me, inside this house, that cop would never move with any grace. Were he here, he would rumble and cut a swath; he would leave this place in ruins.

But me, I walk through, my head held high, and when I leave, I leave myself in ruins.

In this night, I picture that cop in the shadows. I think about how I'd explain myself to him if I stumbled into the same shadow with him. I think I wouldn't even bother. There are no explanations I'd want to give; no way I'd want him to draw a line from one point of my life to this.

I wish he were here. I wish I could expose my soul to him. I wish he could expose his to me. I wish ... I wish.

It drives me crazy.

I suddenly realize something as I look, furtive, inside a shadowed nook I pass as I walk down a hall. I am walking silently over carpet so thick I have to concentrate to keep from tripping. What I realize is this: if he were here, in that shadow, watching me? I would be humiliated. My face would flame. I would wish for the earth to open up.

My eyes close. I feel myself falling, falling, calling out ... reaching ... this time, it's not Terry I'm reaching for. It's Bud.

But just like the last time I fell away from a man I felt shamed before, there is no hope for me. I am still and always on my own to face the consequences of my actions.

Here in this place of celebrating hidden vices, I will sin again.

I am on the prowl for the man who told Hector he wanted me again. It isn't love, it isn't even sex, when you get right down to it. It is the hunt and it is the edge that cannot be blunted. And so I hunt for him as I know he is even now hunting for me in this house that harbors many rooms, many vices, many dangers, many delights.

Public room to public room. I see it all and yet I remain somehow naively above it all. I have very specific needs and they are not met here in the public areas. Here, where there are people who like ritual. People who like group displays. People who watch other people put into selective restraints that I used once and never again because I want to strike back. One room is just for posing but it always seems pitiful to me that there is some sort of division in there between those who are content just to stand being looked at and others who pass judgement on what is worth their time to view ... and touch, because they will touch but it's not a caress ... it's more like examining horse flesh. And maybe that's okay. I'm sure as hell not really criticizing whatever anyone might want as long as I'm not forced to do anything I don't want.

Some rooms are not obvious. They are more the kinds of rooms I tend to gravitate to if I'm still trying to make a selection to take with me to a private room. In there, anything seems possible and nothing seems overt. And you sense the sophistication of it all and you can lie to yourself that what you're doing is somehow artful or outre or avant garde and that some day when you are very old, you will look back and say to yourself that at least you never held back for conventionality's sake.

I never do anything too obvious in the public areas except that one time I got scared and let Hector talk me into the restraints. He thought it would help; I suppose it did because I never did it again. I didn't want to be passive or held back.

Explosion.

Like somehow it could blow every single thing about me totally away.

Anger.

I can stoke it for days until it is ready to snap at the first real scent.

My heels clack on tile now as I walk, following the scent I have picked up this night. He is aware of my presence now. I know he is. He's testing me. I'm testing him. We are both pieces of work.

I am in the room that reminds me of Japan. It has lacquer red walls, muted forest green pillows, threads of black leather furniture that is sparse and severe. I am not positive what it is that seems to be of Japan, but when I step in, I get that sense of a Shinto shrine's gate.

He is leaning against the far wall when I come in. I remember the first time I saw him; Hector pointed him out to me, whispered to me to go to him. That was back when I was too intimidated to move in this place without Hector's guidance.

I can almost see the waves coming from him ... this silent, smoldering fine haze of fury, leashed but capable of being unleashed.

And now that we have each other's scent and now that we understand, I let him chase me. I end up in a room of mustard yellow and honeyed reds. There are people performing. Bodies slickened. Gyrations. I get the momentary urge to tip one over and see if the entire group falls. But then they are beginning to writhe and I must admit, it is titillating and a bit shocking. It amuses me that I am so easily shocked in this place during the parties.

He touches me. His hand strokes across the bare expanse of my tummy. I lick my lips as he steps in behind me and mutters something crude in my ear. About my skin. About how it gives. About how he longs to mark it.

I long to mark you, I whisper back. It is just between us, these moves. The groans and moans in the room drown us out. I am watching what is happening before me, though.

Does that turn you on, he asks me, his hand now on my thigh, fingers digging in my skin.

I watch as a man penetrates a woman. Right before me. I never thought I'd be this woman but this is who I am. I watch as two women eat each other. I always imagined my life turning out differently but this is how it is.

You're wet, aren't you, he says. It should be a question, but it's not.

Quit fucking around, I say.

But before he can answer me, everything erupts around us in the house. He's got a grip on my wrist. He says it's a raid and I hear voices on loudspeakers and there is someone entering this big room who is telling us all to stay where we are. He lets go of my wrist and I don't look at him again.

It's a confusing swirl of panicked people and naked floundering limbs and people in uniform and men in sports coats and ties sweeping in around where I am caught numb and flatfooted on unsure terrain ...

Then I feel myself swept along, alone in a crowd scrambling for an exit.

A raid, I mutter over and over inside my brain.

I didn't think cops did this kind of thing in New Orleans. For a long moment, I press myself against a wall, out of the traffic of people scrambling away. I just look at everyone. I wonder if this is my final punishment. Will this be enough?

Maybe this was what I was really needing ... not to do the crime but to get caught and punished.

"Ann ... Jesus ... c'mon."

I feel a hand on my arm, dragging me. It's Nate.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Of all the fucking cops in the world ... it's him that is going to arrest me?

He's taking me down the hallway, looking around, people scattering before us ... other cops rounding people into groups ... someone shouts something at Nate; he grunts back and I don't understand what he says ... and then he's pushed me before him and I am facing a wall and he kind of leans in behind me. He mutters in my ear ... that soft slur of an accent that sounds like home to me ... give him my hands.

Warm steel around my wrists. I've been handcuffed by a cop once before and they were cold steel but maybe since it's summer, they are warm. And just like that, I am handcuffed and at his mercy. I feel the rise of panic. I can't fight back like this.

He drags me away from the wall. Edges me down the hall. Not quite nudging me but it's scary being out here where anyone could touch me, hurt me ... and it's not like I would have imagined. He keeps moving, prodding me before him. I can't get my bearings; I think this is panic. Down the back stairs. The light's dim here. I reach for the step down but I miss it and ... he's got such a firm hold of me that he stops me from falling just with brute strength. And then he is gentler, helping me a bit more.  Our eyes meet just before we make the bottom step. He's almost abreast of me and I turn to look at him and I think I see an awareness in his eyes that I am numb with fright. I haven't begun to process what I'm feeling, where I am, what's happened and yet I do know. I do. I'm not an idiot.

For the first time, I realize ... God, I can't believe someone from outside this house has seen me inside the house. I close my eyes; stumble into Nate as we hit the ground floor. He has to stop, turn, let me go just to shift his hold on me and help me right my balance. Just walk, he says. Let's go let's go let's go. Now. Shit. C'mon, girl.

I try not to see. I try to be invisible. I try not to have the instant vision that instead of Nate, it's Bud dragging me out of here.

And then my stomach kind of rolls over and dies. Oh God. Is Bud here? I look around ... feeling wild, feral. I would make a run for it, meld into the forest of bamboo that marks the boundaries of the landscaped yard of this mansion on Esplanade. But Nate is wise to me in that way cops always are with people they want to arrest.

Besides, there's the little matter of the cuffs.

Before it seems possible, Nate's parted the waves of confusion and we are edging around knots of people being arrested and someone says to him to get me over to some processing point but Nate says, no thanks, I've got this one covered and everyone's so busy they're looking the other way and before you can say 'hurt me' then we're outside and the air is dank with sweat.

He shoves me between parked cars of party guests. Uniformed cops part because Nate's got his gold badge around his neck swinging as if it's the key to forgiveness. Down the driveway we head. He's not saying a word to me. He's looking around, his eyes wide. No smile and I realize it's maybe the first time I've seen him just dead serious.

And then there's a car at the curb, parked all crooked. It's white. I know it's a cop car. Detective car. He shoves me up against it. I hear the door locks snap open and he shoves me in the back seat. I'm looking up at him, through the open door, and he's panting but I don't think it's exertion. He looking all around. I feel tears sliding down my cheeks and they seem to bounce off the expanse of skin at my chest.

He's talking to someone but I can't see past Nate because his body is blocking my view. And then he's walking around the car, getting in behind the wheel. He peels away from there.

I am sitting there, feeling the imbalance of my body, hunkered in that seat, keeping my cuffed wrists away from the leather seat back so they don't get hurt. He's driving faster than I wish he would.

"Don't be in such a hurry," I say to him. "Give me a few more minutes of not having a record here."

She was never arrested, I know this. But I have been. And it's no fun. It's pretty degrading to a nice middle class girl. Only I'm not so nice anymore, am I?

"I ain't taking you in." Nate clamps his mouth shut after he says that. Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror. I start crying with some combination of relief and despair; he shakes his head and looks out the side window. I think maybe he's embarrassed on my behalf.

When I can talk again, I try to wipe my wet face on my shoulders. And then I say to Nate and it sounds almost garbled, "Where are you taking me if not to jail?"

"Had to make it look good, Annie. I'll do a lot for a friend but I don't want to lose my badge."

"Why are you doing this for me? You're gonna get in trouble, Nate."

"Don't worry about it, kiddo."

I look out the window and watch the houses chase by. I think and I think and I think. I am so messed up. What am I doing? I can't believe he'd take this chance for me. I can't believe he knows this about me. Will he tell Bud? Bud would go crazy if he knew ... he has that whole schtick with him defending women who get beat up by guys. What would he say, though, about a woman who wants it rough and who doesn't mind a bit of that if it's part of it all?

Suddenly, I feel my throat clench. I let out this little whimper and look wildly up at Nate. "Does he know? Where is Bud? Was he there ... you're partners ... of course he'd be there."

"He was there. But I found you before he saw you. Cuz if he'd seen you, Annie, you'd never have made it out of there, would you?"

"No," I say, on this breath of a whisper as I get the image of Bud seeing me there. My heart slows a bit. My brain worries on other things. Finally, "You were looking for me, weren't you? That's what you meant. How did you know I'd be there?"

"I saw a picture in the first briefing. They passed them around. I recognized you in one of the crowd shots."

"God."

"Bud never noticed it. He would have told me if he had."

"Are you never going to tell him? About me?"

We are at a red light waiting to turn onto the expressway upramp. He turns and looks at me, full stop. "I'll make you a deal, Annie. You stop this crap. Stop it now. Whatever game you think you were playing there, it was dangerous. We clear? If you promise me you'll stop, I'll believe you because I don't think you'd lie about something like this right to me. And if you're gonna stop, right now, then there's no reason for me to tell Bud. He's got it bad for you. And you know it. I wouldn't do that to him. I wouldn't do that to you either."

I wait until we merge into traffic on the interstate. I think about what he'd said. He is right. I have to stop. Whatever I've been doing, it only worked if I did it in secret. And now someone in my regular life knows ... I can stop.

"It won't ever happen again," I say. "I want you to know ... I am really embarrassed that you know this about me and ..."

"Don't worry about it. What's a little kinky sex between friends?" he says, giving me a little grin I can see as he turns his head. "Besides, you and people like you weren't the target tonight. The target was a certain federal judge from Shreveport and a certain financial supporter of the mayor's next challenger."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

And there it is. Some things never change. They might never have raided the place if not for someone running up against the wrong political side.

We don't say another word until we pull up in front of my apartment building. Nate turns in his seat and looks at me. His face is softened by a wry smile and warm eyes. "Annie, you're a girl in trouble here. I may not be much, but I wouldn't desert someone who needs me. So it's your call. You want to talk to me? Or you want me to just let you out?"

I look down at my shoes. "I can't talk about this. I never was into the whole heart-to-heart thing. Although I appreciate you asking."

"Okay. Just be careful. You know? Don't make any big decisions or ... Annie ... give yourself a break, okay?"

His voice is so soft. I look up at him, leaning in over the front seat. He is a nice guy after all. I kept thinking it was all an act. I knew better. I had since our pseudo-date. But for some reason, I still harbor this distrust of men. "I really do appreciate you watching out for me tonight, Nate."

And just at that crystal moment as I've begun to feel like maybe the nightmare is ending ... I should have known better because I am not paid up yet for the bad karma I've brought with me from that other world.

We both hear it at the same time. We both jump. Someone, a big someone, pounds on the roof of the car and then that someone is whipping the back door open ... and I would fall out except two big hands are pulling me out ... not rough, but urgent.

And Bud enters my nightmare.