“Well, kinda. I also might have alluded to… sort of implied that….”Fuck.
“Spit it out, Officer.” Whatever else had been there before, anger now seemed to be the only thing the chief was experiencing.
“Well, I… I need you to keep this between the two of us, Chief.”
There was a long exhale of breath from the other end of the phone. “I don’t have time for this shit, Barton. Spit it out.”
Marlon wasn’t certain why he was trying to protect Andrew’s privacy. He hated the guy more than ever, but it still felt wrong to out another guy. “I pretty much told him I thought he was gay and that was the reason he set up Vahin.”
There was a long silence. Marlon didn’t check to see if he’d lost the connection. He was more than familiar with the chief’s pauses. They either ended with a quick wrap-up or an explosion.
Marlon figured this time would be an explosion.
“Well, that explains it.” While the chief still sounded angry, he seemed more pacified than ready to commit murder.
A host of thoughts bombarded Marlon’s brain, too many to begin to make sense of them. “Explains what? What happened?”
The anger was back. “Oh, I got a little call from a senator a few minutes ago. On. My. Personal. Cell. Number.”
“Oh.”Fuck.“Shit.”
“Yeah.” The chief’s growl reverberated in Marlon’s ear. “Shit.”
“Sorry, Chief.”
“You’d better be.” The chief’s tone lightened somewhat. “I almost don’t want to tell you this, because you’ll see it as a reward. But in some ways it is.”
Marlon tried to follow, but couldn’t. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Nothing new there.” The chief chuckled, though there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “It seems Officer Morris called his uncle and demanded a transfer, effective immediately.”
Marlon replayed the words multiple times, trying to make them mean something other than what they’d sounded like. He couldn’t. “You mean… he’s gone?”
“Yep.”
Holy shit!“But I thought there weren’t any more options and that I had to—”
The chief cut him off. “It seems the senator found another alternative. Or made one, is my guess.”
Marlon felt like he’d just won the lotto.
“I can practically hear you singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ in your head from here, Barton. I suggest you remember that the next time you don’t follow my orders, I’ll have your head on a platter, which I still might. The senator pretty much asked for it already.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can still hear you smiling, Officer.”
It was true. No way to stop. “Sorry, sir.” Another thought broke through Marlon’s relief. “Does this mean—”
Anticipating his next question, the chief cut him off. “It doesn’t mean anything. Yet. We still have to wait and see if the courts uphold the ticket against Mr. Arora.”
“Oh.” His joy subsided significantly.
“But”—Chief Schmidt’s voice had a lighter tone suddenly—“it can’t hurt.”
