Page 9 of Newly Tied

“Oh, that’s right,” I said, delighted suddenly because he was double-dating with one of his best friends, Malik Sanderson. I liked Malik, he had a dry sense of humor and was often sarcastic, and I really respected his absolute faith that his soulmate was out there, and he was prepared to find her by any and all means available to him, be that online or in person. Now normally, Lang dating was not cause for the aforementioned delight from me, but everyone knew going on a double one was the kiss of death. “Well, it looks like I will have to hit Bartoli’s by myself.”

“Yeah, but…we could go tomorrow,” he suggested, gesturing for Vargas so we could take him into one of the interrogation rooms.

“Saturdays we do laundry and have breakfast. You know this.”

“It doesn’t have to be breakfast. We had lunch…what, two weeks ago?”

“We had breakfast and then later had lunch as well, as you recall.”

“Why? We don’t usually eat both?”

“We went and played tennis after laundry and annoyed the crap out of everyone there because we yelled at each other the whole time.”

He thought for a moment. “Yeah, that’s right.”

Always with me and Lang, there was the whole back-and-forth over the question of was the ball in or out. When other people went along with us, like the time before last, his friend Omari and his wife, Siobahn, stopped playing at some point and instead stood there, laughing. I was betting most people argued less and at a lower volume. “But eatin’ before or after isn’t important, the task is and the task takes time.”

“I hate laundry day,” he muttered.

“But think, what if you meet the woman of your dreams tonight?”

“Even if I do, that doesn’t preclude us having pizza tomorrow.”

“If you fall in love, maybe you’ll wanna spend the day in bed.”

“I’m not falling in love on a date,” he said like that was ridiculous, “and even if we don’t do laundry, we still have to eat breakfast.”

He was missing the point completely. “Maybe you’ll make her breakfast in bed.”

“Who eats breakfast in bed? You’ll get toast crumbs everywhere.”

“I’m still hungry, so can you stop talking about food?” Vargas whined.

Once the three of us stepped into the hall, we were faced with a glowering Ian Doyle, but that was par for the course. What was new was Chris Becker with a similar expression, and finally, for an extra-special horror, Sam Kage, the chief deputy himself.

“Sir,” I greeted him.

“Sir,” Lang echoed me.

Redeker walked around Doyle and over to us, informed Vargas that he needed to go with him, and took hold of his arm. Leading him back down the hall, he passed Becker and Doyle, who moved out of the way, then immediately stepped back beside the chief deputy, who, of course, had not moved an inch.

“What happened in the strip club?” Sam Kage wanted to know.

I could tell from the way he asked the question that he already knew; he just wanted to hear our side of things.

“Marshal Pazzi,” I began diplomatically, “didn’t in any way want the fugitive to construe that we were violatin’ his constitutional⁠—”

“No,” Kage stopped me, then looked at Lang.

“Pazzi didn’t think we had enough evidence that Vargas was Vargas, so he didn’t feel he should be cuffed. My partner and I disagreed. On scene, Pazzi had seniority, so we deferred to him, and then Vargas told us he had to go to the bathroom and we were off to the races.”

Kage nodded. “Seniority or not, if you disagree, you call it in, there and then, and get confirmation on procedure from your supervisory deputy.”

Chris Becker pointed to himself.

“Or your deputy director, whoever is free.”

Doyle looked bored and mad at the same time, which was impressive.