Free Night Game by Kirk Russell

play-swung like a baton coming at Marquez’s face. “Real cops too, not fish cops, and no reason for it. Just didn’t like his Asian face. What do you think of my face?”
    “I see tension.”
    “I’m tense because this is getting old.”
    “You told us you went to parties in Placerville with your cousin. You mentioned a woman with black hair.”
    “Already answered that.”
    Marquez tried a few more questions, then crumpled the paper trash from the burger, pushed open his door, and said, “Thanks for seeing me today.”
    “Anytime.”
    A couple of hours later, after he was home, Marquez got a call from their seller, the mechanized rasp coming through his cell. “They carried it too far,” the voice said. “A mistake, humiliating for you, it shouldn’t have happened that way. I’m delivering the galls. I’ll tell you where to find them.”
    “This isn’t working for me. You make it too hard.”
    “I can get you as much as you want.”
    “Why don’t you personally bring me what I bought the other night?”
    The line clicked, and he was gone.

11
    That night Marquez walked with Katherine along Stinson Beach. Blue starlight reflected off the waves and surf foamed over their bare feet. He loved the salt smell, the long crescent of sand empty in front of them, walking with his hand on the smooth skin of her upper hip, feeling the rhythmic flow of her muscles, the warm heat. They caught up on things, talking about Maria first. More tales about Maria’s driving too fast, having close calls, inches from one accident, and Kath feeling that he needed to have a serious discussion with her. Then talking about the bedroom they were going to add onto the house and a deal Kath had found on the Internet for a week’s stay in a Kauai condo on a website called CondoBob.com. It was so cheap she wondered if they couldn’t go at Thanksgiving.
    She was making pretty good money with her two coffee bars in San Francisco, not great money but better money than they’d seen, though they both knew it was going to take everything theyhad and then some to do the bedroom addition. A lot of the work he’d have to do himself, and they wouldn’t be able to afford to travel, but tonight it was nice to talk and dream.
    They left Hawaii and talked about the house addition in more detail. Driving around Sausalito she’d seen the work of an architect named Barbara Brown and thought it was great. She wasn’t saying change architects but wanted to show their architect some of the details she was interested in.
    Marquez had hired Josh, a young architect whose plans the county bureaucrats kept sending back for revisions. Though both he and Kath had been enthusiastic about Josh at the start, Katherine had started to talk like she wasn’t directly involved with him. But he knew Josh would get it done, and even if they had a permit now they couldn’t start building.
    All this second-guessing Josh made Marquez think of his grandfather and the patience his grandfather had shown him when he’d been an unhappy kid with a lot of nervous habits, an unintentional loner uncomfortable at school and distrustful of adults. Alongside his grandfather he’d learned the little bit of construction he knew, principles he hoped would help him build this bedroom addition. With his grandfather he’d built a dry rock wall along a dip in the driveway, the deck off the dining room, and a number of other small projects. His grandfather had shown him how doing something well shaped your whole life. Marquez figured his ghost would look over his shoulder as he worked out how to do this addition. He knew also that the architect would eventually deliver an approved set of plans, and the timing would be fine.
    As they left the beach and walked to the truck the conversation turned toward the bear operation. He’d already told her the FBI crime lab hadn’t pulled any fingerprints and had only trace DNA that came off the CD jewel box, probably a combination ofthe man