Free Shadow Men by Jonathon King Page A

equally eclectic keyboard work. The street was in its late-night lively mode. With restaurants and clubs on either side, the concept of a crosswalk was long forgotten. One of the corner bars had stainless coolers filled with iced beer for sale right out on the sidewalk. Cocktail chatter floated on the warm night air, and somewhere a saxophone wailed. All along the way, patrons stood with one foot in the street and the other up on the curb, as though it were a bar rail.
    We crossed to the other side and were a door away from Creolina’s when Richards was greeted by a pair of guys with brown beer bottles in hand. I tried to read them, but the signals were mixed. The clear eyes and expectant demeanor said friends. The longer- than-regulation hair and comfort in street clothes said maybe cops, maybe not.
    “Hi, Sherry,” the tall, better-looking one said.
    “Hey,” she responded, and stepped forward to give him a kiss on the cheek. “How’re you doing?”
    I could read a slight hesitation in her voice, and automatically watched the eyes of the other one, who was doing the same to me. I nodded. He nodded back.
    “You’re not working?” Richards asked, using an innocuous tone in the question like it could have been posed to anyone.
    “No, no, I’m sorry. No, we just finished a job over in the isles. Just stopping off,” the friendly one said. Richards relaxed.
    “Dennis Gavalier, Max Freeman,” she said in introduction. I shook his hand.
    “The P.I. from the Eddie Baines case? Pleasure. This is Russ Parks, transferred in from robbery last month,” Gavalier said, bringing the other guy in. “Sherry Richards from MIU.”
    The guy smiled one of those twenty-five-year-old “glad to have you meet me” smiles. Richards asked about the job. Gavalier was vague but obviously pleased. The conversation stopped and the four of us shuffled our feet.
    “We were just heading in for dinner,” Richards finally said.
    “Hey, good to see you, enjoy,” Gavalier said. “Good to meet you, Max.”
    I nodded. “You too.”
    We stepped away in different directions. “Dennis is narcotics, probably one of the best undercover guys in the country,” Richards said. “I’ve never seen him in uniform, and you never know how to say hello to the guy because he might be working something.”
    “Partner’s nice,” I said.
    She just looked at me, then shook her head.
    “What?”
    She shook her head again. I opened the door to the restaurant.
    “You guys and your alpha-male thing. You all get the same hydrant out there?”
    I just smiled. What could I say?
    Rosa put us at the corner table, by the front window with the wall at our backs.
    “Mr. Max. You out with this fine young lady again? You keep this up, baby, I’m a get jealous you cheatin’ on me.”
    Rosa is a big, joyful, teasingly profane woman. She is a special spice at Creolina’s, and you let her have her way.
    “Ms. Rosa, I would never take the chance of hurting you and be denied your gumbo,” I said.
    “Its all right, honey,” she stage-whispered to Richards. “All the mens lovvve my gumbo.”
    Richards laughed with her and ordered the étouffée. I got the jambalaya. We opened a bottle of wine. Richards took a sip and I caught her thinking.
    “Guy with Dennis,” she said.
    “Yeah, Parks?”
    “I think he’s a friend of McCrary’s.”
    “Your friend’s control freak?” I said, digging the name out of my head. “How’s that going, anyway?”
    Rosa brought out our plates. The smell of andouille sausage and spice rose in the steam. Richards waited until after her first bite of the thick étouffée.
    “She’s pissed that I confronted him,” she finally answered.
    “He come back on her?”
    “Not that she would admit. No. She said he apologized and told her again how much he cared about her and couldn’t she see that.”
    It was my turn to finish a bite. I tasted the wine.
    “There’s nothing so romantic as a contrite lover,” I said. “And he’s