"Hallelujah! Now you've stopped pissing about on the job, maybe we can get some fucking work done around here."
Jazz's angry tones cut across Derek's good mood as soon as he walked back into the office after saying goodbye to Casey. He had climbed into the car with her and let her drive him around the block a couple of times (literally!) before he let her go off to meet Bea. It had allowed him to see how she could handle the car – and meant that he got to say goodbye to her in peace and away from prying CCTV. It had been a long goodbye and intense, consequently, Derek was in a fantastic mood – even if Jazz wasn't.
Jazz's anger was uncalled for, however, because Derek had been gone just forty minutes - prior to which he had been in the office since 8am. In contrast, when Derek left to take Casey down to the underground garage, Jazz had yet to make an appearance.
Derek scowled at him. "What the fuck? This from a guy who only just got here?" he reminded his friend. "What's eating you?" He had a pretty good idea.
But Jazz didn't relent. "I had places to be this morning. I don't have time to waste arguing and mud-slinging with the girl I should be married to the way you seem to think you can."
Derek shrugged. "I wasn't arguing with Casey. I was demonstrating the new car to her. And I've been here three hours already this morning." He frowned. "What places? What things to do?"
Jazz didn't answer. The reality was he had been nursing the hangover from hell in his bathroom at home.
After they had left Bea the previous night, he had gone onto a club to try and drown himself in alcohol and ass. The alcohol he had managed. The ass had been harder. Every time he looked at something female her features had rearranged themselves into Bea's patented pissed off look. Correction: Bea's passion-killing, patented pissed off look. Consequently he had fallen into bed, alcohol saturating his system, and two deep aches: one south of his belt, the other rather more central to his core.
The remembrance of the previous night must have clouded Jazz's face, because Derek eased up on him.
"Jazz. You look like shit. Lose the attitude, grab a coffee and we'll go over the report on that bank heist." Derek offered an olive branch as he walked around to take a seat at his desk.
Jazz shook his head, but when he spoke his tone was more measured.
"We don't have time. One of those items off the Blackwell robbery came up."
Derek swivelled his head quickly, to regard him. This was definitely good news. The Blackwell robbery was a major home invasion they had been waiting for a break on for six months.
"What did we get?" He asked eagerly.
"Hock shop called in with an ID on one of those piss-ugly toby jug things."
Derek nodded. "Which one?"
"The one that was supposed to be Richard III but looks more like Celine Dion got put up the spout by Barry Manilow."
His friend chuckled and glanced at Jazz who looked away quickly trying to hide the tiny slither of amusement which had cracked his god-awful mood.
"We sent anyone down there?" Derek asked. Jazz shook his head.
"Nah. I thought we could deal with it. You know what this lot's like; can't tell their Wedgewood from their Wordsworth."
Derek shook his head as he pulled his gun from his desk drawer and began strapping it on. "You know Jason. I'm beginning to think you are far more educated than you would have us believe."
Jazz shook his head. "Nope. I just got hot and heavy with an antiques chick once. Nice girl, shame about the dust." He smirked.
"I always knew you went for the grandmas."
"Not "antique chick" you fucker, an antiques chick. Like on that programme from the TV…" and they made their way to the car bickering softly.
The "hock shop" concerned was a small independent store rather than one of the big chain pawn shops and it was off the beaten track. That gave Derek plenty of driving time to try and get the bottom of Jazz's blow out this morning. He didn't waste time asking what was wrong because even if he wasn't as intuitive as his nosy girlfriend, the tension the previous evening had been such that even Derek had got the message bouncing back and forth between his friend and the mysterious Bea.
"Bea seems…"
"Whoa!" Jazz shot back. "Seriously? You're channelling Casey now?"
Derek snorted. "Jazz. I don't need to be a meddling romantic to know that what crawled up your ass last night was female, short and dark-haired with an unhealthy interest in British rock bands."
"Hey! What's unhealthy about Muse?"
Derek looked at him. "Nothing until they started writing crap for lame chick flicks."
Jazz shook his head. "Hmmm…okay, maybe you have a point."
Derek smiled. Jazz turned his head away but Derek heard him mutter.
"A point about the music, not that cold-hearted bitch from hell."
Derek frowned. "She seemed nice enough to me."
"That's coz she didn't jilt your ass." Jazz pointed out quietly.
"She…you…what?" Derek gasped.
Jazz was a good friend and in the short time since the Papillion case he and Derek had become even better friends and shared some of their life stories. In the even shorter time since Jazz had found out about Derek's true identity, Derek had even begun to talk a little about more specific things. He thought Jazz had been pretty honest with him, sharing details about his childhood and up-bringing.
He had never mentioned anything about being engaged.
Derek found it really hard to believe. Jazz was just so straight-forward when it came to relationships – he didn't have them. He respected women – they always knew that the hook-ups weren't going anywhere- but he just wasn't interested in the whole hearts and roses thing. Derek didn't consider himself to be particularly sappy, but even he thought Jazz was peculiarly detached when it came to relationships. It just didn't make sense that he had once been engaged.
Derek glanced at his friend as he drove.
Or maybe it made perfect sense.
"She broke your heart." Derek said softly.
Jazz laughed a loud but humourless bellow.
"I don't have a heart, Venturi. Not anymore." He took a deep breath. "Dude, we're friends you and I, okay? So I'm going to ask nicely. Drop it. It isn't up for discussion."
Startled, Derek nodded. "Sure."
And the rest of the journey passed in silence.
The pawn shop was one of those Aladdin's caves of items, stuffed floor to ceiling, making a mockery of the adage that one person's junk is another person's treasure. Junk is just junk. Trash is just trash. Sometimes the two terms are synonymous.
The proprietor was a tiny wizened old man who looked as though he was short-sighted; a fact that was confirmed when he misread their warrant cards as Dirk and Mason. When he disappeared into the back of the shop to retrieve the toby jug, Jazz whispered to Derek that it was a miracle the guy had ever managed to identify the jug at all. Derek made a passing comment that clearly the protruding nose was too big for even this guy to miss.
The short-sightedness didn't help the guy's ability to find the toby jug in the mess at the back of the shop and they were left to wander the small space with its mis-match of tables, bureaus and tallboys for some time. There was so much junk in the place that the tallboy's drawers were pulled open and items had been stuffed inside; a big jumble of costume jewellery, broken watches and those little silver bottle stops you get from high-end Christmas Crackers – but never know when to use.
Jazz was not one to resist touching things and he plunged his hand in an open drawer and rummaged around.
"What are you doing?" Derek asked, slightly embarrassed by his friend's behaviour.
"Have you seen all the crap in here?" Jazz asked. "Shit! It's like a hundred years worth of Christmas throw-outs."
"I guess some people have to hock even the contents of their odds and ends drawers." Derek said sadly.
"Weird though."
"I guess."
The proprietor made some sort of noise out the back of the shop and Jazz jammed the handful of junk back into its drawer in a hurry. Something pinged across the room, and rolling his eyes at Jazz, Derek darted after it. The tiny item had come to rest against the foot pedal of a tatty old upright piano that was missing half of its keys. Derek bent down to pick it up.
It was a small silver ring, tarnished so badly it looked almost golden in colour, its large glass stone so grubby you could barely see its colour.
Almost.
Derek picked the ring up and stared at it. He chuckled.
"What?"
"It's Casey's ring!" He laughed.
Jazz snorted. "Casey's what?"
Derek grinned and walked over to the light. "Casey's dream ring." He glanced up at Jazz and saw the look on his friends face – he couldn't blame him. He thought the idea was insane too.
"When we first met, when Casey and I were fifteen, she was a bit of a romance geek."
Jazz coughed. "When you were fifteen? Dude. You seriously think she's outgrown that? I mean I've met the woman and girls like that? They never lose the romance geek from their psyche. She probably dreamed in Barbie pink for her youth, ditched it for "Amethyst" in her pre-teens, chose "lilac" for her teenage years and "purple" for her goth phase."
"Goth phase?"
"Hmm…yeah you're right. With Casey it will have been her "mildly rebellious, stay out fifteen minutes past curfew, tell mom she's being "unreasonable"" phase."
Derek stared at him. "Did you eavesdrop on my teenage years?"
They both laughed.
"I'm right about the romance geek though?"
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, she had this "vision" of her ideal ring: white gold with a massive pink diamond. She used to draw pictures of it in her journal."
"You read her journal?"
Derek looked at him. "Duh? We were fifteen. I went through everything of hers on a daily basis while she was at those dance classes of hers. Blackmail was how I supported myself through high school…well, blackmail and a certain entrepreneurial flair."
Jazz laughed. "And?"
"And this ring is what she drew."
"I'm assuming you mean without all the crap on it?"
Derek nodded. "Yeah." He smiled indulgently. "I wonder if this stuff comes off."
Jazz leaned over to look. "Yeah it does. You can buy these pots of chemical gunk to dip it in at most jewellers."
"How the fuck do you know that?"
Jazz shrugged. "My grandma liked costume jewellery. Stick it back in the drawer Derek. Buying girls jewellery…even when it's cheap metal and plastic…it's a slippery slope. Particularly if you aren't even dating them."
"You think I should buy it?" Derek asked distractedly.
"No. I said you shouldn't."
"Okay. I'll ask the guy when he comes back." Derek ignored his friend. Jazz shook his head in disbelief.
The proprietor arrived a few minutes later and the business of the toby jug was soon sorted out. Jazz took custody of the item and gave the proprietor a receipt. He turned to leave to find that Derek was holding out the dirty ring.
"This up for sale?" Derek asked.
The proprietor squinted.
"Yes…" he replied, surprised and doing a poor job of hiding the fact that he thought it was junk but would clearly accept the maximum price that he could get Derek to pay.
"How much?"
"$100." The old guy stated.
Derek snorted. "It's a piece of crap."
"You want it, it's $100."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why $100?"
"It's silver and semi-precious stones."
"It's silver-plate and glass." Derek replied. "$20"
"$75" The other man fired back, losing his frailty in his eagerness.
"It's disgustingly dirty." Derek said. "$30"
"$65"
"$50"
"Done."
Back in the car, clutching his prize Derek grinned at Jazz who rolled his eyes.
"He saw you coming."
Derek shook his head. "Casey will love this."
Jazz tilted his head. "Enough to get you laid?"
It was Derek's turn to roll his eyes. "Not everything is about sex."
"Seriously Derek, what else is there?"
Derek sighed. "She did that good a number on you?"
Jazz rubbed at his stubbly chin with his hand. "Yeah. She did."
They were quiet for several minutes and Derek swore there was an unusual glassy look to his friend's eyes.
And then Jazz surprised Derek by diverting them from the expected route back to the office and pulled up at the nearest coffee house. Derek frowned.
"Come on." Jazz said, getting out of the car and then leaning back in. "You wanna know the sad ballad of Jason and Beatrice? This is a one time deal."
Derek was out of the car like a shot.
Later, when they were once again heading back to the office Jazz broke the silence.
"You see now why I keep telling you not to screw things up with Casey?"
Derek nodded. "I'm not screwing things up with Casey. We have a healthy relationship."
Jazz groaned. "You call that bed-sharing, argumentative rapport "healthy"?"
Derek nodded. "It works for us." He said with a smirk. "Besides, this morning, when I was out of the office for forty minutes?"
Jazz nodded.
"The car wasn't the only thing I was test-driving."