The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel by Laura Resnick Read Free Book Online

have a big bust to supervise?” Lopez said to him.
    “
You’re
the one who insisted on doing this tonight,” Napoli shot back. “
I
wanted to wait a couple of days, when we’d have more staff available for this and it would be easier to find a sober judge. But noooo, you pushed and pushed until—”
    “Fine, this is all my fault,” Lopez snapped. “
Everything
is my fault. Okay?”
    “Well,
there’s
something we can agree on,” I said.
    “But as long as we’re here now,” Lopez prodded Napoli, “maybe you’d like to go arrest someone.” He nodded toward the wiseguys who were lined up next to Stella.
    “No, that’s all right, we can wait,” said Tommy. “Don’t put yourself out.”
    “Shut up,” Lopez and Napoli said in unison.
    Then Napoli glared at Lopez, gave a disgusted shake of his head, and turned to the arresting officers, whom he urged to stop gaping at us and get this bust back on track. He crossed the floor and started assisting them.
    Lopez looked around uncomfortably at the crowd for whom we had been providing a free floor show. “Look, can we talk about this later?” he said to me.
    “No, there’s nothing left to talk about!” Immediately contradicting myself, I said, “How could you do that? What kind of a person
are
you?”
    “He’s a loser, that’s what kind!” said Freddie as he was being escorted out of the restaurant by two cops, his hands cuffed behind his back.
    Napoli told Freddie to mind his own business.
    “What were you
thinking?
” I raged at Lopez, getting it all off my chest now. “You insensitive, self-centered, callous—”
    “I was busy!”
    I was so furious I could barely speak, but I forced the words out. “You were . . .
busy?
”
    Lopez lost the last shreds of self-control. “
Yes
, goddamn it!”
    So did I.
“BUSY?
”
    “Lame,” said Jimmy.
    “Priceless.” Ronnie was laughing again.
    “And so were
you,
it turns out,” Lopez shouted.
    “What does
that
mean?” I demanded.
    “It means I got here, at the end of a week made in
hell—
”
    “Oh, now you remember it’s been a week!”
    “—to find you
dancing on tabletops!
Having the time of your life—
and
giving a bunch of wiseguys a good long look under your skirt!” He was beside himself now. “So don’t pretend you’ve been sitting around waiting for me to call!”
    Since that was
exactly
what I had been doing, this was too much. Just
too much.
Before I knew it, my hand was whipping across his cheek in a loud, stinging slap. Lopez fell back a step, startled. So did I. I’d hit him so hard my hand burned, and a white palm print stood out sharply against his dark skin for a moment.
    Stella and the Gambello crew were cheering.
    “Way to go, Esther!”
    “Good for you!”
    “That’ll teach the bum!”
    Lopez and I stared at each other, both caught off guard by what I’d just done. I heard harsh, rasping breaths—and realized they were my own.
    “That does it,” said Napoli. “Put your hands behind your back, Miss Diamond.”
    “What?” I said distractedly. It seemed a peculiar request.
    “Pete, no,” Lopez said suddenly.
“Don’t.
”
    “I warned her,” Napoli said. “Hands behind your back
now,
Miss Diamond.”
    “Huh?” I said in confusion.
    Lopez stepped close to us and said to his colleague in a low voice, “Come on, don’t do this.”
    “You know I can’t let it go,” Napoli replied, also in a low voice, as he pulled out his handcuffs. “Slugging a cop during a bust?”
    “Wait a minute,” I said, realizing what was happening as Napoli snapped a cuff around my right wrist. “No!”
    “Hitting an officer in front of witnesses,” Napoli continued to Lopez. “And in front of
these
witnesses. I can’t give her a pass on this one.”
    “Oh, come on, Pete, you
know
why she hit me.”
    “Ow! That’s pinching!” I tried to wriggle out of Napoli’s grasp.
    “Hold still,” he said tersely to me. “Don’t make things worse for yourself.”
    Lopez