Assume Nothing by Gar Anthony Haywood Read Free Book Online Page B

three-to-five days of curing. The clothes had been nice: high-end slacks and a silk sport shirt, the shoes soft leather loafers that had Norman drooling. A TAG Heuer watch was on the dead man’s left wrist and a gold ring was on each of his middle fingers. He carried no wallet, no ID, no cash.
    It was way too soon to rule out homicide, but nothing at the scene had suggested it. The body bore no obvious wounds and neither blood nor a weapon – nor shell casings, for that matter – had been found anywhere around it. It looked as if the guy had just wandered into the mouth of the storm drain and collapsed in a heap. The idea seemed far-fetched, but Finola knew she had seen much crazier things happen, more times than she cared to admit.
    Still, the incongruity bugged her. The deceased and the river just didn’t jibe. Whoever he was, he wasn’t the kind of person one regularly saw down here – vagrants and gangbangers, indigent poor folks scavenging for recyclables. This guy had money, and probably, somewhere, a home. Why come down here to die?
    The barrel-chested black woman with the LAPD detective’s badge clipped to her belt, neatly corn-rowed head shining in the sun, scanned the river’s cluttered floor for answers. Not knowing what she was looking for, or why she was bothering to look for it.
    ‘What are you doing, Finola?’ she asked herself again.
    No sooner had their waitress set their coffee cups down than Dana said, ‘I’m going to see a lawyer next week, Joe.’
    ‘Yeah? What about?’
    ‘Don’t. Please don’t. This is hard enough for me as it is.’
    He thought about saying something smart, despite her warning, but it had taken him all week to get her to agree to this lunch meeting and he was afraid she’d storm out before he’d even had a chance to speak.
    ‘You don’t want to do that, Dana,’ he said, and the words came out sounding just as pathetic as he felt.
    ‘No. I don’t. But I don’t know what else to do.’
    ‘You could give me another shot. That’s something you could do.’
    She shook her head. ‘I’ve tried. It’s just too hard.’
    ‘And being alone would be easier? Raising my son on your own, without his father?’
    ‘His father’s a crazy man. A hot-tempered headcase who’s going to get him seriously hurt someday – or worse – if I don’t do something to stop him.’
    She was losing her own temper, the way she always did when Reddick refused to admit he was demented. He thought he saw the guy in the booth behind her turn his head, her sudden anger drawing his attention, but Reddick wasn’t sure. The coffee shop was just too damn crowded to suit him.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Dana said. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
    ‘Yeah, you did. But you’ve got it all backwards. I’m the reason Jake hasn’t been seriously hurt yet. And as long as I’m around, he never will be.’
    ‘You can’t say that. Nobody can. That’s your problem, Joe. You’re trying to guarantee something you can’t possibly control.’ She waited for two women headed for the cash register to pass their booth, then went on, making a concerted effort to be kind. ‘People get hurt. Bad things happen to them. It’s life, and you can’t make Jake and me exceptions to it, no matter how hard you try. It just isn’t possible.’
    ‘That’s what you say. I say, it’s better to attempt the impossible than do nothing. Life’s a rigged game, Dana. The man who doesn’t try to improve the odds for himself and everyone he cares about gets fucked. That’s your “guarantee.”’
    The man sitting behind Dana visibly flinched, and now Reddick was sure he was listening in. Reddick was going to give the asshole ninety seconds to mind his own business before getting up to suggest he have his lunch somewhere else.
    ‘Look,’ Dana said. ‘I didn’t come here to argue with you. I just wanted you to know what I plan to do. I’m going to file, Joe.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Separation is just delaying the inevitable. You