A bouquet of roses and lots of thanks to Solo and SHaron for all their help scanning and proofing these classic stories of Constance Collins! This story originally appeared in the zine Indigo Boys 2, a mixed-media zine, and can also be found in The Collected SH Stories from The Indigo Boys. Both zines can still be obtained from In Person Press.
Comments about this story can be sent to: VenicePlaceAngel@aol.com
"Get your own damn coffee, " I snapped at H, sitting down at my desk.
H didn't even look up, just kept typing. "I don't recall asking you for a cup of coffee. Now why don't you just shut up and get back to work?"
Well. Sometimes the element of surprise works and sometimes it doesn't. "I'm gonna sit here and drink my coffee, then I'll finish my report."
"Slacker."
Name-calling? Two could play that game. "Yeah, well, why don'tcha go tell Dobey? Tattletale."
"Deadbeat." How could he do that and not miss a key? I can't even touch type in an empty room.
"Stool pigeon." I took another sip of coffee.
"Go fuck yourself."
We'd moved into dangerous waters now -- H embarrasses easier'n me. "Yeah? Why don'tcha show me how?"
That last produced the desired effect: H burst out laughing, stopped typing and tossed me a quarter.
"Thanks."
"Shut up."
"Sore loser."
"Game's not over. Twit."
Twit? I bit my bottom lip hard to keep from laughing at that one. "That's pretty lame, Hutchinson."
"Yeah, I know. That's what makes it appropriate for a bozo like you."
Cap'n was standing in the doorway, staring at us, trying to figure out just what was going on. We seemed to be having an argument, but there was no heat in the air.
Actually, it was an old game -- insults and name-calling till one of us broke up, a quarter paid out by the loser until something more important came up and we lost track. Mostly we spent our time trading the same quarter back and forth.
Cap'n gave up trying to figure us out (which I thought he'd done a long time ago). "Are you two about finished there?"
"Just about," H replied, "if Starsky will hurry up."
"All I gotta do is sign these and I'm all done," I told him. "So shut up."
"Well, get them signed and hand them in and get out of here." Cap'n went back into his office and slammed the door.
"See, now look what you did, you made him mad."
H ignored that and pulled pages out of his typewriter. "Who'd you get to do your typing for you?"
"None of your business."
"Are those signed? Because if they are, I'll take them in with mine."
"Don't do me any favors."
H took the reports off my desk with a martyred sigh. "I don't know how I put up with you."
I stood and headed for the door. "Better haul ass, Blintz, 'cause I'm takin' off in 10 minutes." It was an idle threat -- I wasn't allowed to drive yet, after the shooting.
It was a beautiful spring day, so I stood in the sunshine next to the LTD and waited. It took him 20 to get to the car; he did it on purpose and I knew it, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it, even when he glanced at his watch and said, "Ten minutes on the nose."
"Wish to hell I was driving," I told him, and got no response. Not that I'd expected one. There was no question of my driving, my shoulder still hurt too much.
"I marked the route on the map," H told me, handing it to me.
"You need maps to get from one place to another; I have instincts."
"As I recall, it was your instincts that got us lost on our last vacation, and my map that got us back on the right track."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Big fucking deal." I started to walk around the car to get in, but H grabbed my arm and stepped in front of me so we were facing each other. He picked up the three little coins I was wearing around my neck. "So, where'd you get these?"
There was something sweet in his face, something that made me want to kiss him really bad. That being out of the question, I answered him. "From a magician."
His look became sublimely skeptical. "A magician."
"Uh-huh. Reynaldo the Magnificent. He used 'em in his magic act."
"And are they magic coins?" He was still holding them; his fingers were warm resting against my throat.
I shrugged. "I dunno. I think he used 'em instead of quarters so he wouldn't have to give 'em to the people whose ears he pulled 'em out of."
That sounded so reasonable it made him frown. "But he gave them to you?"
"Yep."
"How come?"
I knew he didn't believe me; that I'm-only-humoring-him tone was a dead give away. I shrugged again. "I guess he trusted me. I busted him and he gave me the coins for safekeeping while he's in the joint."
Now he wasn't so sure I wasn't telling the truth. "What did you bust him for?"
"Making a diamond brooch disappear from Dailey's Jewelry Store and reappear in his pocket. Dailey didn't see it as magic so much as grand theft."
H was really frowning; he knew I'd made a couple of busts during the last two weeks I'd been back on duty and he'd been tied up in court.
"And even though you busted him, he gave you his magic coins?" Sarcasm dripped off his tongue; he said "magic coins" like it was magic beans and I was trying to sucker him out of a cow.
"Well, I'd seen his act before, and I told him how much I liked it. He didn't want to leave his coins in Property with his other stuff -- well, he didn't really have any other stuff -- and he didn't want to risk gettin' 'em ripped off in jail, so he gave 'em to me. 'Cause I got an honest face." I added smugly.
H gave me a disgusted look at that and let the coins drop back on my neck. "Well, I just hope they don't have a curse on them."
I shrugged once more; it was a nice effect, but it was beginning to hurt. "We've got the next 3 days to find out, don't we?"
The "hotel" he'd picked out was really a cabin, with just barely the comforts of home, let alone any additional comforts like room service. I wasn't thrilled, and even less so because we were sharing a room. Feeling this weird way about H made me want some privacy at night: laying across the room, listening to him breathe, was rough.
Nothing magical happened that weekend; we fished -- well, H fished, I laid in the rowboat and caught up on my reading. He never did catch anything and I told him I do just as well without a fishing pole as he does with one, which pissed him off considerably. We did find a great restaurant a couple miles down the road, called the Sea Side Inn, so we ate good. And by the second night I started finding the sound of H's breathing relaxing.
But on the ride home something happened. We were playing the radio -- I was tuning it, looking for songs we wanted listening to. H kept telling me to stop at songs I' d gone past, and making me turn up the volume when I found something worth singing along to. After a couple hours I got sleepy and quit playing the radio, just left it on kind of low and put my head back and kind of dozed off.
I don't know how long I slept, but I woke up slowly. H was singing along with the radio.
"'Baby, I' d love you to want me, the way that I want you, the way that it should be. Baby, you' d love me to want you, the way that I want to, if you'll only let it be.'"
His voice was sweet and clear and sad as the song he was singing. I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder. I could hear him smiling as he sang the rest of the song.
end