"Captain?" I still had the gun raised. "What are you doing here?"
"It's my house. What are you doing here?" Wincing in pain, he pulled that trusty, old Zippo lighter -- embedded with a smoking slug -- from his bullet-seared front pocket. "This thing made it through both Gulf Wars and sixteen years on the job but couldn't survive one night in Mexico with Cherry Culpepper."
"Why are you following me?" I said, my mind reeling. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry I shot you.""You wouldn't be the first," he said, ripping off his tattered shirt to reveal a muscular chest -- glistening with lighter fluid and marbled with a roadmap of scars. "I was dodging friendly fire when you were out selling Girl Scout cookies."
"Hands up. Come any closer and you're a goner." No idea where that came from, or how I came to be starring in my own gangster film as I reached out to pat him down. My guess is there's something about sexual interest and accidental gun play that turns you into Bonnie Parker. Blasted out of her drunken stupor, Jane came running outside stark naked. She backed it up when I pointed her own weapon, which was starting to feel really good in my hand. "Cherry, I need you to give me the gun," she said. "This is how things go bad."
"They're already bad. Get back or you're next." She smiled weakly, hands up, covering herself in the curtain.
"I'm guessing Muñoz isn't here yet," the captain said, cool as a cucumber -- despite his having more and more trouble breathing as he sank on top of a cooler."Bad-Ass Muñoz?" I asked. "I knew it."
"You knew the boys were going wahoo fishing this weekend?" he said, wryly. "You're way smarter than you're looking right now." He tapped his crushed cigarette pack and put a fluid-dampened smoke in his mouth. "Anybody got a light?"I looked at Jane, narrowing my eyes. "You told me he knew we were here. You claimed it was his idea."
"I, I, I can explain," she stuttered. "I should probably get to a hospital," the captain said. "If there's a lot of internal bleeding, you've already killed me and we just don't know it yet."
"Sir, I am so sorry about how all of this is going down," Jane apologized. "Surely you realize I'm not the one calling the shots in this operation and whatever happens I hope we can can find a way to keep all of it out of my file."
"Yeah, about that," the captain repeated, "we're looking at a possibly armed Los Angeles police officer due on the scene right along now. We miss our two thousand dollar charter and it's on you."
"Shut up. Start talking."
"Okay, but those are two different things." I fired the gun in the air. BOOM! "Alright!" he said. "It's pretty obvious I don't know what the hell is going on here any more than you do. This is the Federal Bureau of Investigations we're dealing with, very difficult folks by nature. Trust me, I'm married to one."
Since he brought that up, I sucked in a breath and demanded the only thing a girl ever really wants from a guy, even if she has to get it at gunpoint. "Admit you're in love with me." He chuckled. "Oh, grow up. Of course I'm in love with you." "Ditto," Jane said.
"What? I thought you were in love with his wife!"
"Yeah, I guess I just think you're really hot," she waffled. "Lesbians get attached when we make out with someone."
"You two made out?" the captain asked.
"What's it to you if I make out with a lesbian, you big married jerk?" I shot back. "I want the truth about what happened to Rita. I want to know who killed her, what the cops had to do with it and why everybody's been trying to shut me up."
"Is that all?" Jane said. "Let me make a call."
"Wait. I also want the diamonds, free and clear. I want a dinner date with him -- plus his so-called wife's public blessing -- and I want to keep my job," I said. "Is any of that going to be a problem?"
"Police, drop the gun." Matt Muñoz calmly ordered. He had sneaked up behind me with a twelve-pack of Corona in one hand and his service revolver in the other. "I mean it now, Cherry. Don't think I won't blow your head off just because we used to date."
"Well, this is awkward," the captain said, with the crumpled cigarette still dangling from his dry, bluish lips. His face had grown so pale it glowed like a newly discovered planet in the stubborn light of the lingering moon. "Will somebody please give me a goddamn match before things get ugly?"
