Free Alone by Loren D. Estleman Page B

ON YOUR FUCKING CELL.
    P.
     
    Padilla’s hand was as jagged as his personality. Valentino checked his phone, saw it was indeed turned off, and made the correction. It rang.
     
    “Where are you?” Padilla said.
     
    “At the office.”
     
    “Stick. I’m on my way.”
     
    “Lieutenant?”
     
    “Yeah?”
     
    “What’s the Z stand for?”
     
    “Xylophone.”
     
    The cell went dead. He turned it off and touched his right eye. It was tender. He asked Ruth if he could trouble her for some ice.
     
    “The nearest machine is in the student center. I can’t leave my post. Been brawling?”
     
    “I got punched out by a reporter.”
     
    “What are you, dyslexic? That’s supposed to be the other way around.”
     
    He went into the bathroom he shared with Broadhead and Ruth—if she ever used it—and assessed the damage in the mirror above the sink. A crescent of white showed between the swollen lids; the skin around the socket was turning the color of the eggplant in Broadhead’s margaritas. He folded his handkerchief, wet it with cold water, and held it to the bruise. He could feel the heat drying the fabric. He let the tap run longer and wetted the handkerchief again, but it was already warm when he got to his office.
     
    He cleared a pile of musty movie magazines off his chair and dropped into it, leaning back and propping the damp cloth in place. It was the Monday of Mondays in a week that promised nothing but.
     
    At least the throbbing kept him from dozing off. He’d gotten a little more sleep Sunday night, but not enough to catch up with what he’d lost Saturday. He’d awakened at 4:40 to see a blade of light under his door and gone out to find Broadhead asleep in his armchair with a Japanese quiz show playing on TV with the sound off. Broadhead, the world’s foremost authority on the history and theory of film, showed little interest in the subject in private, preferring reality television to the timeless gems of world cinema. Valentino suspected that connecting with nonfictitious characters in credible situations helped the professor put in perspective the time he’d spent in a foreign prison charged with espionage. Broadhead maintained he’d been innocently engaged on a search for the 1912 version of Quo Vadis?; but his reluctance to discuss details caused his friend some doubt.
     
    Valentino had made the mistake of turning off the set. This had stirred Broadhead, who had insisted upon making espresso for them both. He’d drunk three cups to his guest’s one, regaling him with off-color anecdotes of the personal lives of the great European directors, told to him in confidence by the directors themselves. His guest had been too enthralled to interrupt him; when he’d finally packed it in, shortly after six, the caffeine in his system had stood all his cells on edge. The beeping of his alarm clock had come as a relief.
     
    Broadhead, of course, had left the house by then. Valentino had made a note to ask him if he ever got to work early enough to catch Ruth combing her native Transylvanian soil out of her hair.
     
    His intercom razzed. His instincts told him it had been going on for some time. He took away the handkerchief, which was dry as parchment, and looked at the toggle, working up the courage to press it. Padilla had undoubtedly returned to grill him further about Rankin, and he’d be more difficult to put off than the media.
     
    He pressed the toggle. “Yes, Ruth.”
     
    “I was about to come banging on your door. What do you do in there all alone?”
     
    “Movie stuff. You wouldn’t understand.” He was just frazzled enough not to care if she was offended. Whatever she lacked in motion picture scholarship she more than made up for in industry gossip. She’d known Rock Hudson’s secret before Rock Hudson had, and possessed all the dope on Mel Gibson’s DUIL bust before the sheriff in Malibu read the report.
     
    She didn’t rise to the bait, shaming him with her