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Darkly dreaming Dexter :: Lindsay Jeffry P.
Страница: 61 из 160“If this keeps up, I'll be a crossing guard in a year,” she grumbled at me.
“Nonsense, Deb,” I said. “Two months, max.”
“Thanks.”
“Well really. You can't challenge her openly like that. Didn't you see how Sergeant Doakes did it? Have some subtlety, for God's sake.”
“Subtlety.” She stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed me. “Listen, Dexter,” she said. “This isn't some kind of game here.”
“But it is, Deb. A political game. And you're not playing it properly.”
“I'm not playing anything,” she snarled. “There are human lives at stake. There's a butcher running loose, and he's going to stay loose as long as that half-wit LaGuerta is running things.”
I fought down a surge of hope. “That may be so-”
“It is so,” Deb insisted.
“-but Deborah, you can't change that by getting yourself exiled to Coconut Grove traffic duty.”
“No,” she said. “But I can change it by finding the killer.”
Well there it was. Some people just have no idea how the world works. She was otherwise a very smart person, truly she was. She had simply inherited all of Harry's earthy directness, his straightforward way of dealing with things, without latching on to any of his accompanying wisdom. With Harry, bluntness had been a way to cut through the fecal matter. With Deborah, it was a way of pretending there wasn't any.
I got a ride back to my car with one of the patrol units outside the arena. I drove home, imagining I had kept the head, wrapped it carefully in tissue paper, and placed it in the backseat to take home with me. Terrible and silly, I know. For the first time I understood those sad men, usually Shriners, who fondle women's shoes or carry around dirty underwear. An awful feeling that made me want a shower almost as much as I wanted to stroke the head.
But I didn't have it. Nothing for it but to go home. I drove slowly, a few miles per hour under the speed limit. In Miami that's like wearing a KICK ME sign on your back. No one actually kicked me, of course. They would have had to slow down for that. But I was honked at seven times, flipped off eight, and five cars simply roared around me, either onto the sidewalk or through oncoming traffic.
But today even the energetic high spirits of the other drivers couldn't cheer me. I was dead tired and bemused and I needed to think, away from the echoing din of the arena and the bonehead blather of LaGuerta. Driving slowly gave me time to wonder, to work through the meaning of all that had happened.
“Nonsense, Deb,” I said. “Two months, max.”
“Thanks.”
“Well really. You can't challenge her openly like that. Didn't you see how Sergeant Doakes did it? Have some subtlety, for God's sake.”
“Subtlety.” She stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed me. “Listen, Dexter,” she said. “This isn't some kind of game here.”
“But it is, Deb. A political game. And you're not playing it properly.”
“I'm not playing anything,” she snarled. “There are human lives at stake. There's a butcher running loose, and he's going to stay loose as long as that half-wit LaGuerta is running things.”
I fought down a surge of hope. “That may be so-”
“It is so,” Deb insisted.
“-but Deborah, you can't change that by getting yourself exiled to Coconut Grove traffic duty.”
“No,” she said. “But I can change it by finding the killer.”
Well there it was. Some people just have no idea how the world works. She was otherwise a very smart person, truly she was. She had simply inherited all of Harry's earthy directness, his straightforward way of dealing with things, without latching on to any of his accompanying wisdom. With Harry, bluntness had been a way to cut through the fecal matter. With Deborah, it was a way of pretending there wasn't any.
I got a ride back to my car with one of the patrol units outside the arena. I drove home, imagining I had kept the head, wrapped it carefully in tissue paper, and placed it in the backseat to take home with me. Terrible and silly, I know. For the first time I understood those sad men, usually Shriners, who fondle women's shoes or carry around dirty underwear. An awful feeling that made me want a shower almost as much as I wanted to stroke the head.
But I didn't have it. Nothing for it but to go home. I drove slowly, a few miles per hour under the speed limit. In Miami that's like wearing a KICK ME sign on your back. No one actually kicked me, of course. They would have had to slow down for that. But I was honked at seven times, flipped off eight, and five cars simply roared around me, either onto the sidewalk or through oncoming traffic.
But today even the energetic high spirits of the other drivers couldn't cheer me. I was dead tired and bemused and I needed to think, away from the echoing din of the arena and the bonehead blather of LaGuerta. Driving slowly gave me time to wonder, to work through the meaning of all that had happened.