Chapter Five
"You and your wife wanna come out with me and Annie Friday?" Terry asked. They were walking into an arena full of karate champs and fans, but they weren't there for fun.
Jimmy shook his head, scanning the sidelines. "Christie has a dinner."
"Another one?"
"Always." He kept his eyes on the crowd. Lately, every time he mentioned Christie, his face got pale and drawn, he looked sick.
"Everything okay?" It seemed to Terry that Christie was always busy when it came down to doing things with her husband and his partner. She almost never made it to police functions. Even though Terry'd been partnered up with Jimmy for almost two years now, he'd only met Christie a handful of times, and she never stayed long. Beautiful yes, but Terry was getting to see that she could be hard to live with.
"She's a hard person to love sometimes, that's all." He looked up at Terry and smiled. "Don't worry so much. Let's go find this guy."
Terry looked away, thinking. He'd just seen Christie recently at a party less than a week before. She'd stayed by Jimmy's side for a half hour, then found another cop's wife and disappeared, probably to disparage their lot in life. Jimmy'd watched them from the bar for a while, had a few more drinks than usual. Terry'd caught him glaring at Christie once or twice. Then, amazingly, he got over it.
"Who was that girl you were talking to at the party the other night?"
"Who? Oh, Anne Donnelly? She works at the 25."
"You're not…?"
"No!" Jim laughed. "It was just nice to be able to talk to a woman for once. One-on-one, equal footing." He pushed through the crowd. "Do you and your wife talk?"
"Yeah." Terry ducked his head and lowered his voice. "You're lucky Christie didn't see you."
"There was nothing to see."
"Maybe you were too drunk to remember. You were all over her, flirting…"
"Terry, you're really not a very good detective. See, my wife, if she so much as catches a whiff of another woman around me, she freaks out. And she never even mentioned it."
"Just be careful, Jimmy."
Jimmy turned suddenly and strode up into the stands. "Come on!" He turned back and laughed at Terry still standing there on the floor. Terry ran up after him. "Let's catch a free fight while we're here; it's too crowded to work right now." He plopped down on one of the benches and Terry slid in next to him. "You worry too much."
"I just—"
"You worry." Jimmy looked him over with a smile. "I know you too well, Terry. You can't put anything past me."
"Yeah, I worry," Terry said glumly. Of course he worried about Jimmy, and about Annie, the two people he respected most in his life.
"See, what'd I tell you?" Jimmy looked out over the sea of heads down to the fighters. He had a smile on his face as he surveyed the arena, and a little bit of envy. "Look at all this." He shook his head. "I'd love to get down there right now and just pop one of those guys in the head."
"They aren't boxers, Jimmy. They're experts in martial arts. Totally different."
"I know. I think I could hold my own, though. I doubt any of them could take a punch." Jimmy held out his fist. "They're good, though." They watched the people getting flipped, kicked, thrown around the floor. Jimmy didn't stop smiling as he watched. "I should have taken up karate, too," he said wistfully. "I can throw a perp, but I don't have this finesse."
"That's the last thing we need," Terry said with a groan. "Jimmy Dunbar street fighting like Jet Li."