Double Espresso (A Loretta Kovacs thriller) Read online

  Double Espresso © 1998, 2008, 2010 by Anthony Bruno. All Rights Reserved

  For Harry Dawson,

  the one teacher who made all the difference

  1

  I won’t die, Parole Officer Loretta Kovacs told herself for the fiftieth time that day, and it was only nine-fifteen in the morning. A person can live perfectly well without it, she kept thinking. I don’t need it. I won’t die.

  She was sitting at her desk in the basement offices of the Jump Squad—more formally known as the State of New Jersey Parole Violators Search Unit—flipping through a law-school brochure that had come in the mail yesterday. But her mind wasn’t on going to law school, and it wasn’t on her job, which was tracking down parole violators. Her head was tilted down toward the brochure, but her eyes were glued to her partner, Frank Marvelli, who was standing over his desk with his back to her. Nice butt, she thought.

  Marvelli was sipping a cup of hot coffee as he perused the sports section of the Ledger. His back showed a broad expanse of the black-and-white houndstooth sports jacket he was wearing. He was muscular with big hands but not terribly tall. The back of his head was as square as a cardboard box, but his hair was thick and dark. She just wished he wouldn’t gunk it up with whatever goop he used to keep it combed straight back. A cheese Danish with one bite taken out of it sat on a napkin at the edge of his desk.

  Yes, Marvelli did have a mighty fine butt, Loretta thought with a sigh, but at the moment she couldn’t decide what she wanted more: his butt or his coffee. It was Monday morning, and today was her first caffeine-free workday. She’d decided over the weekend to give it up.

  Loretta ran her fingers through her long wavy dirty-blond hair and squinted her lozenge-green eyes as she tried to focus on the print in the glossy law-school brochure. She felt woozy and disoriented, and she could feel a headache coming on. Her hands were shaking slightly. She’d never imagined that withdrawal from caffeine would be like this. It was only coffee she was giving up, for God’s sake. What if she were hooked on crack or coke? Or diet pills, God forbid.

  Without thinking, Loretta sucked in her gut and bloused out her ivory-colored shirt from the waistband of her black slacks, and instantly she hated herself for doing that. So what if she was a little overweight? There’s nothing wrong with that, she thought defensively. She’d been trying to cool it with the self-deprecating attitude lately, but sometimes it just snuck up on her like a ninja. She was trying to think positively about herself. After all, it wasn’t as if she were the fat lady in the circus. One hundred and seventy-eight pounds is not an outrageous weight, especially at five foot six. She wasn’t built like a bowling ball. And besides, this was not something to obsess about, she told herself. Obsessing about weight only promotes negative mind.

  But that cheese Danish on Marvelli’s desk was calling out to her like a snake-charmer’s flute. It would go so nice with a cup of coffee, she thought. Her head started whirling like a dervish on cold medication. She closed her eyes to make the room stop spinning. She didn’t need coffee, she kept telling herself. Her doctor had told her that it was bad for her health, that among other things, caffeine worsens PMS attacks. And she certainly didn’t need that cheese Danish either.

  But Marvelli, on the other hand, was a habit she wouldn’t mind getting into. He was a genuinely nice guy who really seemed to care about people. Unfortunately, in her heart of hearts, Loretta knew that the chemistry just wasn’t right between them, and she had a feeling she’d be better off not thinking about him—not that way. She forced herself to concentrate on the law-school brochure.

  Her phone rang, and she reached over to pick it up. “Parole Violators Search Unit,” she said in deadpan voice. “Kovacs speaking.”

  “Loretta?” the voice on the other end said. “It’s Bonnie.”

  “Hi,” Loretta said, sitting up and changing her tone. Bonnie was her sister, who had her own law practice in Chicago. “What’s up, Bon?”

  “I can’t talk long,” Bonnie said. “I’m due in court in fifteen minutes, but I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you apply to some law schools out here? You could work part-time with me while you go to school. God knows, I’ve got plenty of things you could do.”

  Loretta glanced at Marvelli’s back and wondered about leaving Jersey. She hadn’t considered that. “It’s an idea, Bon. I’ll have to think about it, though.”

  “What’s to think about? It would be a perfect arrangement for you. Or don’t you want to work for your little sister?”

  “Don’t be silly. I don’t have a problem with that.”

  “Then do it. Look, Chicago is a great town, and we’ve always talked about going into practice together. You could do the criminal work, and I’ll take the civil stuff. Kovacs and Kovacs. It’ll be great.”

  “Yeah … maybe.” Loretta was trying to adjust to the notion of moving to Chicago. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that much change in her life. Of course, there was nothing holding her here.

  “I took the liberty of calling a few law schools in the area for you,” Bonnie said. “You’ll be getting applications from Loyola, Northwestern—”

  “Hang on a minute, Bonnie.” Loretta covered the phone with her hand and frowned at the shouts coming from the long narrow hallway that lead to the holding cells out back.

  “Jumper’s wild! Head’s up, people!” Loretta recognized the voice. It was her boss, Julius Monroe, the head of the Jump Squad.

  A “jumper” suddenly emerged from the hallway and burst into the main office, a tall, dark-skinned black man. He was built like a running back and was good-looking despite the hardball expression, with a shaved head and a thin mustache outlining his upper lip. A pair of handcuffs dangled from one wrist. Marvelli had apprehended him that morning. When the jumper spotted Marvelli, he stopped dead in his tracks and gave some serious eye-balling to the man who had arrested him.

  “I got him,” Marvelli called out.

  “The hell you do,” the jumper said. He was gripping the open end of the handcuffs between his index and middle fingers like Captain Hook.

  “Come on, Rashid,” Marvelli said wearily. “Let’s not be stupid.” He walked toward the man with his arms extended, palms up. Rashid was more than a head taller than Marvelli.

  “Get the hell away from me,” Rashid warned, showing the whites of his eyes. The hook was poised over his head. “You crazy, man.”

  Marvelli kept moving toward him. “Don’t make it any worse than it already is, Rashid. Put your hand down and I won’t have to add resisting to your sheet.”

  Rashid frowned deeply. “What the hell you talking about, man? I resisted you all the way down Broad Street. I resisted you like hell.”

  Marvelli shrugged it off. “You call that resisting? That wasn’t resisting. Not really. I woke you up and got you out of bed. You were just mad.”

  Rashid scowled. “What do you mean, I wasn’t resisting? We must’ve been going at it for a half hour at least. And that was just in my bedroom.”

  Marvelli shrugged. “I wasn’t watching the clock, Rashid. Now just put that hand down.”

  “No way,” Rashid said. “I’m out of here, man.” He dashed for the door, but Marvelli quickly dove over a desk to block Rashid’s path. The body block threw Rashid backward, and he banged his head on a file cabinet. Marvelli quickly sat on Rashid’s stomach and pinned the wrist with the handcuffs to the floor. In the meantime Rashid got his free hand around Marvelli’s thick neck, thumb on the Adam’s apple.

  “Don’t make me mad, Rashid,” Marvelli croaked. “It’s bad for my biorhythms. You mess up my biorhythms, there’s no telling what I might do.”


  Rashid gritted his teeth and struggled to get Marvelli off him while Marvelli hammered Rashid’s hand against the nearest file cabinet, trying to break his grip on the loose handcuff. Their tussling on the floor was shaking the whole room, threatening to topple the stacks of case files that were perched on top of the row of file cabinets.

  Loretta noticed Marvelli’s coffee cup tottering on the edge of his desk next to the cheese Danish. She glanced down at the two men wrestling on the floor. If Marvelli wasn’t going to eat it, she wouldn’t mind having a little bite, but not if it was drenched in coffee. She was already two days into her break from caffeine, and she’d be damned if she was going to start this ordeal all over again.

  “Bonnie?” Loretta said into the phone. “I’ll have to call you back tonight. I’ve got a situation here.” She hung up the phone.

  “Hey!” she yelled, annoyed with the ruckus. “Break it up, you two.” The three other POs in the room hardly took notice. This kind of stuff happened every day at the Jump Squad.

  Rashid ignored Loretta’s warning and kept trying to strangle Marvelli.

  She raised her voice. “Hey, Rashid. Rashid!”

  He curled his lip back and bared his teeth. “Get outta my face, woman, before I—”

  That’s when he saw the gun.

  She was standing up in the triangle position—feet apart, knees bent, both hands on her weapon. The barrel of her .38 was leveled on his head.

  Rashid smiled like a movie star. “Now, what’re you gonna do with that thing, sugar pie?”

  “Ventilate your skull if you don’t settle down.”

  Rashid’s eyes rolled toward Marvelli. “She serious, man?” he whispered.

  Marvelli nodded. “Very.”

  “Who the hell is she?”

  “My partner,” Marvelli croaked.

  “The new one?”

  “Yup.”

  “The one who shot Bootsie Burnside through the bottom of his foot while he was running away from y’all?”

  Marvelli nodded. “From fifty yards. She knows how to use that thing, Rashid.”

  “And she ain’t afraid to use it, huh?”

  “Does she look like she’s afraid, Rashid?”

  Rashid narrowed his eyes and looked her up and down, then focused on the muzzle staring down at him. “You the lady who took Moolie Jefferson while he was in bed with his woman?” he asked her.

  Loretta nodded.

  “He keeps a goddamn Uzi duct-taped under that bed. You know that? That boy is stone-cold. He could’ve killed you good.” “He didn’t get the chance,” she said. “How’s he doing?”

  “Still in the hospital ward at East State as far as I know,” Marvelli said. “He’ll be all right … eventually.”

  Rashid looked at Marvelli, then looked at Loretta again, thinking it over.

  “She really took down Moolie, huh?”

  Marvelli nodded. “All by herself. I was downstairs.”

  Rashid thought about it some more, then after a while he let go of Marvelli’s throat. “Sorry about your biorhythms, man,” he apologized to Marvelli. Rashid clicked the open handcuff around his free wrist and got to his feet. “I know the way back to the pen. You don’t have to take me.”

  Marvelli stood up and clapped the big man’s shoulder as they walked back toward the hallway. “I’m proud of you, Rashid. You’re doing the right thing. And you’re showing some good judgment. That’s very important. That means your energy is starting to flow in the right direction.”

  “Cool it with the spiritual stuff, man. You sound like a damn Muslim.”

  “Aren’t you a Muslim?”

  “Nah. I just like the name. Muslims got too many damn rules.” He walked down the hallway. “I’m back, boss man,” he called out. “And I’m not resisting neither.”

  Loretta put her gun back in her handbag, shaking her head. Marvelli certainly did have a way with people. Loretta envied him. He managed to stay relaxed in the most stressful of situations. Maybe when she kicked the caffeine habit, she’d learn how to relax, too.

  Suddenly Marvelli’s phone started to ring. He trotted back to his desk to get it. She watched him pick up the receiver and put it to his ear. There were wisps of dark hair on the back of his hand. She’d never noticed that before.

  “Marvelli,” he said, then his face relaxed. “Oh, hi, Annette. What’s up?”

  Annette was his mother-in-law, the Godmother. Loretta had met the woman only once, and she seemed nice enough. Just a little bit bossy and very Sicilian.

  Loretta listened to Marvelli’s voice as he spoke into the phone. It was a nice voice but a little on the high side.

  Marvelli furrowed his brows. “Did you talk to the lawyer?” he asked his mother-in-law. “What did he say?”

  Marvelli turned around and leaned against his desk, and Loretta quickly looked down at the brochure. Marvelli was stocky—just an inch or two taller than Loretta—but he was trim and muscular. He had small eyes—a little too close together—but they sparkled whenever he smiled, which was most of the time, especially when he was eating, which was also most of the time. The only thing she’d really like to change about him was his style. He was pure Guido, an Italian-American dinosaur from the age of Fabian. Dark slicked-back hair. Black knit sports shirt with white trim on the collar and down the front. Pegged forest green pants. Black pointy-toed imitation-alligator shoes. On most days he looked like an extra in a Martin Scorsese movie.

  “No, Annette, that’s not acceptable,” he said into the phone, his voice getting higher and his face turning grim. “If the guy doesn’t want to take our case, then we’ll just get another lawyer.… No, Annette, that’s not what I’m saying. The hospital didn’t kill Rene. She was very sick—we all knew that. What I am saying is that the hospital could’ve done more for her at the end. They could’ve made her more comfortable, given her something else for the pain. Instead they just sent her home to die like a dog. These goddamn hospitals have to start treating people like people, for crying out loud. Someone’s got to show them that they just can’t get away with this kind of crap. So you just call up that shyster bastard and tell him he’s fired. I’ll find us another lawyer.”

  Loretta sighed. This was the real problem with Marvelli. He was still stuck on his wife. Rene Marvelli had died three months ago. Breast cancer. But he wouldn’t let her go.

  Marvelli didn’t have a case against the hospital, and Loretta suspected that deep down he realized that. Mounting this crusade was just his way of keeping Rene’s memory alive, convincing himself that he could still do something for her.

  Loretta’s gaze drifted to the cheese Danish on Marvelli’s desk. Except for that one bite, he still hadn’t touched it. That wasn’t like him at all. Usually he’d eat a half dozen pastries in one sitting and still have room for more. When Marvelli didn’t have an appetite, that meant something was radically wrong, and Loretta knew that it had to do with Rene. Loretta also knew that unless he could let her go, no other woman would ever stand a chance with him.

  Not that Loretta ever thought she stood a chance with him. Not really.

  But maybe this was all for the best, she thought. Even if she were serious about Marvelli—which she wasn’t, not anymore-starting up something with him would be a terrible idea. She was still on probation with this job, so an office romance would not be very smart. Not that this job was all that great. To be honest, it pretty much sucked. The people who worked here were fine, and Marvelli and Julius were great, but she just couldn’t see herself hunting down parole violators and hauling them back to prison for the rest of her life. But since she’d managed to work her way down the ladder in the Department of Corrections from assistant warden in a women’s correctional facility to just a regular old PO on the lowly Jump Squad, she figured no matter how horny she was, she’d better behave herself.

  Loretta scanned the bull pen of Jump Squad’s basement offices. Along one wall a series of grimy, iron-barred windows looked out on a Newark sidewa
lk where a lot of legs and feet walked by. On the opposite wall twenty-six jam-packed file cabinets stood shoulder to shoulder, each one balancing a precarious stack of case files on top. The eight metal desks in the big room each hosted a few more stacks, and there were even more stacks on the carpeted floor. Each case file represented a parolee who’d jumped, disappeared without notifying his or her PO. There were seventeen specially assigned parole officers in the Jump Squad, but only a handful of them were in the office this morning. The rest were out on the street looking for jumpers, which was normal for a weekday morning.

  The overwhelming number of case files was enough to discourage anyone. Everyone on the Jump Squad knew that most of these jumpers would never be caught. Still, they had to try, particularly when it came to the dangerous ones, and Loretta was determined to have as perfect a record as she could. So far, she and Marvelli had brought in sixteen of the twenty-two jumpers they’d been sent out to find, which for the moment sort of made them the Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the office.

  But Loretta realized that she hadn’t been on the job all that long, and her streak could end in a flash. She was still pretty green compared to Marvelli, who’d been doing this for eleven years. He actually claimed that he liked it here, but she thought he was just stuck in a rut. This was the only real job he’d ever had.

  Loretta tried to focus on the law-school brochure in front of her, but her eye kept going back to Marvelli’s desk, the cheese Danish on the napkin, the steaming cardboard cup of coffee, the chrome-framed photo of Rene. That picture had been taken before the woman had been diagnosed. She was very pretty—even with the big hair and the raccoon mascara. Loretta had met Rene once, and even though she had been going through hell with radiation treatments, she still looked pretty good. Loretta stared at the photo and wondered what Rene had been like when she was well. According to Marvelli, she was his everything.

  Loretta abruptly looked away, annoyed with herself for dwelling on Rene and Marvelli. She had other things to worry about. When she had first started this job, she’d made up her mind that she was going to overhaul her entire life—professionally, personally, and romantically. She was planning to apply to law school in the fall. She was also working out more, watching what she ate, and now she was giving up caffeine in the hope that it would alleviate her raging PMS. She was finally getting her act together.