more house noir
More of the House/film noir AU thing that I've been having way too much fun writing.
Watch for gratuitous use of jazz age slang, Yiddish curses, and more mysterious references to Cuddy's dark past.
Gosh. I'm tired. 2am already? Too much coffee today, methinks.
Thanks to jerico_cacaw for the lovely advice, and for pointing out that Jewish detectives in 1930 probably didn't say "Jesus!"
I need a Cuddy icon for this fic. Or maybe the cover of a lesbian pulp novel?
She walked into my office on a sweltering day in late September. Summer had apparently rebuffed autumn's siege, digging in its heels and vowing not to go down without a fight. Meanwhile, all citizens in this corner of Manhattan had to sweat it out until summer gave out to the cool rains of fall.
Work had been slow of late. They say that crime never sleeps. This may be true, but when it's that hot, crime is as willing as the rest of us to take a mid-afternoon siesta.
I was wearing my khaki light cotton pencil skirt and a black silk camisole. My fourth floor walk-up office was roasting hot, and I'd ditched the collared shirt, tweed vest, silk stockings, and black pumps almost as soon as the door had shut behind me. I'd opened all two of the working windows in the office, hoping for a breeze from the nearby river and not caring one bit that there was a line of kids in the tenement across the street trying to catch a glimpse of a dame in her underwear.
The door opened and she walked in. Her auburn hair was done up in a tight bun, drawing attention to the soft curves of her cheekbones. Even in this weather, she was wearing a too-modest, dark gray skirt that came down to her calves, and long sleeved blouse with the collar buttoned up to the hollow of her throat. She had creamy skin, a few freckles sprayed across her nose Her eyes were a blue that the sky could never manage, at least not in Manhattan.
Those eyes, with their brilliant shocking color, took my state of undress in, and widened. Before five seconds had elapsed, this lovely woman turned tail and fled, slamming my door with the words Lisa Cuddy, Private Investigator painted on the opaque glass, behind her.
"I'm sorry, Miss Cuddy!" my secretary wailed, her Irish accent turning the vowels in my last name on their heads.
"It's fine, Allie." I sighed. Allison Cameron had been working for me for three weeks. She was a whiz with paper work, keeping books, and scheduling appointments, but she seemed a little uptight. Too much time with the Catholic church, I thought. Who else would wear a collared blouse and a long wool skirt in this weather but someone who had spent entirely too much around nuns?
You'd think it would be a turn-off, this kind of diehard modesty. My kind of women tended to have low-cut dresses, loud laughter, and less morals than your average Jane. But despite being easy to shock and too firmly set on the straight and narrow, I was sure there was more to Allie than met the eye, and I wanted to see it.
Not that I had any cause to complain about what did meet the eye.
"Are... are you decent, Miss Cuddy?" she whispered through my door.
"There's plenty who'd say otherwise, Allie."
She coughed. I was never sure on her opinion of my romantic preferences, though others had made it loud and clear. Could be that she really didn't care, or it could be that she hated it but needed her job too bad. After all, there weren't many in this city that would hire a fresh-off-the-boat Irish girl. Of course, there weren't a lot of girls lining up for a job with the one private dick in the city who was Jewish, female, and of the Sapphist inclination.
I could feel her blushing even with a wall between us. I stood and walked over to the door and opened it. She flinched.
"Look, sweetheart. It's nothing you haven't seen before," I said, trying to make my tone more kind than irritated. "Now what is it?"
She was looking at the floor, the dingy beige walls, my office, anywhere that wasn't the general direction of my chest. "Detective Wilson is here to see you," she mumbled.
"Send him in," I said, turning back to the office.
"Should I give you a moment to-"
"It's too hot, and he's seen me in less," I replied, wanting to see how she'd respond.
I wasn't disappointed. That blush on her cheeks as she turned to leave was just too damn pretty. Oh, I was going straight to Hell for teasing my Catholic secretary like that.
I sat back down behind my desk, not bothering to put on my shoes or the blouse. It was true what I'd said. Detective James Wilson, my former partner at the 112 precinct, had seen me in less, just not the way that my naive secretary thought. When your partner takes a slug in the shoulder, it's not out of lust that you tear her shirt open. It's to stop the bleeding.
The man of the hour walked through the door, impeccably dressed as ever in a three piece suit and tie.
"Nice bit of calico you got working the front," he said by way of greeting. "You dressing that way for her?"
"Of course. It's got nothing to do with it being hotter than hell in here." I missed the precinct. The cool marble floors and the ceiling fans especially, right now.
Wilson snorted, then pulled out a pack of Lucky's. "Smoke?"
I nodded. "Butt me."
He flipped a cigarette towards me, lit both of ours of the same match. His hand was shaking, and it was then I knew something was wrong. This wasn't just a social call from my former partner.
"So how's life, Jimmy? How's House treating you?"
"Actually, House is the reason I'm here."
I sighed. News of House was hardly ever pleasant. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
He fiddled with the cigarette in his fingers. "Somebody tried to bump him off last night."
"Oy gevalt," I sighed. "Is he okay?"
"He's all right. Looks like some bimbo used him as a punching bag, but he'll be okay. Thing is, he can't remember much of what happened."
I sighed again. House was the district's medical examiner. He was a bitter old bastard, a brilliant doctor with the worst kind of chip on his shoulder, the kind of man who made a lot of enemies without particularly trying. He'd been a medic in the Great War, lost part of his leg to infected wound, and a lot of his compassion after seeing the damage people happily inflicted on each other. Now, he worked as an M.E. because dead patients were the only kind he could stand to be around. Some people constructed walls around them; House's were eighteen feet tall, made of granite, and were topped with jagged glass. God only knew how James Wilson had managed to sneak past them. Or why he'd even decided to try.
I knew I was setting myself up for a headache for getting involved with House, but I owed it to the both of them to try. Jimmy and I went way back, and House...
Well, suffice it to say, I owed him. He was the reason I was still in the land of the living, teasing my secretary and taking cases, instead of pushing up daisies.
"All right, spill the story."
Normally calm brown eyes flashed in fury as Wilson recounted the events. The man was generally even-handed and practical, but he had a possessive and protective streak when it came to House.
The good doctor (and I use the term loosely) had been at home. Wilson had been heading there after his shift. He'd used the key House had given him-
I raised my eyebrow. "House gave you a key?"
For the first time, my mostly unflappable former partner looked a little flapped. "Yeah. I... uh... been spending some nights there." He blushed.
"Oh yeah?" I grinned. This was too good.
Wilson shrugged, skin still flushed. He and House had been stuck on each other for years now, but there was only three people in the world that knew that; two of them were in the room, and the other was laid up at Bellevue, no doubt driving every nurse and doctor up the wall. Wilson and House had finally gotten together after the previously mentioned shirt-ruining incident. House had been the one to patch me up and comfort Jimmy. I'll never let either of them forget that the first thing I saw when I regained consciousness was the two of them necking like a couple of kids.
Wilson cleared his throat. "Anyway, they must have heard me, because next thing I know, somebody's shoving me aside and lamming it down the stairs. I pulled my piece out, fired a shot, but he was gone. I was going to go after him, but got a little distracted by seeing House bleeding all over our new Oriental rug."
"Oy vey. But he was okay?"
"Mostly. Bruising all around the face, and chest, minor concussion. Whoever was there really put the boot in, Lisa. My guess is that they were taking their time with him."
I stubbed my cigarette out and stood. I opened the door and leaned out. "Allie, would you be a saint and get us a couple of sodas downstairs?"
"Sure thing, Miss Cuddy," she called back.
Wilson at least had the decency to wait till I closed the door before snorting in amusement. "Miss Cuddy? Boy, you must get a kick out of that."
"Aw, applesauce." I wasn't blushing. Damn it, I wasn't. Hardboiled private eyes do not blush. "She's just old-fashioned."
"Riiight," Jimmy said, leaning back in his chair and smirking at me.
"Anyway, so House was bleeding all over the rug, and then?" I prompted.
He gave me That Glare that I remembered so well from working together in Homicide. "I called for an ambulance, and then I called the precinct. Tried to report it as an attempted murder. Thing is-"
Allie knocked on my door, two sharp raps against the glass, then entered. She set down the two bottles of soda on my desk. She nodded once to me and Wilson. Wilson tipped his hat to her, and she left.
"Thing is," he said once the door shut, "most of the precinct hates his guts."
I nodded. Cops had a lot of pride. They didn't take well to a gimpy know-it-all M.E. calling them idiots every time they came down for autopsy results.
Wilson continued, after sipping at his Coca Cola. "It's been filed as an attempted robbery, and nobody has much inclination to go any further than that. And I can't make too much of it, or it'll look suspicious."
Yeah. A prominent detective shacking up with the annoying M.E was not a story you wanted splashed on the front page of the local gossip rag.
"So," Wilson said. "You gonna take this?"
"You gonna pay me? You know I'd do it for free, but my rent won't pay itself this month, Jimmy. Neither will my secretary."
"Yeah, it's hard times all over," he commiserated. Then he looked back over his shoulder towards the door. "You could offer her other compensation," Wilson said with a smirk.
I gave him That Glare.
"Just saying," he said with a laugh. "Yeah, I can pay." He drained the rest of his soda and stood. "I'm heading up to Bellevue to visit House. You want to tag along, get the story from the horse's mouth?"
"Yeah. Let me get dressed and I'll meet you downstairs," I said. He nodded and left, and I began to gather up my discarded clothes.
"Allie, I'm going down to Bellevue. I'll probably be back in a couple of hours, but you can knock off whenever you like."
"Thank you Miss Cuddy," she said. She looked up. "Oh, your collar is crooked. Just let me..."
Before I knew what was happening, Allie had stood and come round to the other side of the desk, her hands going to my shoulders.
Jeepers creepers. For a girl who averted her sight and blushed the moment another woman's bare knees came into view, she sure didn't have any qualms getting into somebody's space when they were dressed. Not that I was about to complain.
She fussed at my collar for a moment, then seemed to freeze, her gaze somewhere between my neck and my shoulder. I didn't have to ask what she was looking at. My scar. I gently cleared my throat and Allie released me, blushing again as she took a step back.
"Sorry, Miss Cuddy. I didn't mean to-"
"It's all right. No need to apologize. Is my collar straight?"
"Only thing about you that is," came the unwelcome reply from the doorway. Wilson was standing there, amusement written all over his face.
"You're one to talk," I shot back at him. He acknowledged the fact with a wry shrug, and I turned back to Allie. "Anyway, I'll be back," I said. "But you can leave as soon as you're finished."
"Thank you, Miss Cuddy." Her eyes darted up to me, before they returned to their accustomed spot on the floor.
"You're welcome, sweetheart." I turned and walked out the door, Wilson quickly falling into place beside me on the stairs.
"Not one word," I warned him.
"Yes, Miss Cuddy."
"I hate you."
"I know."
****
Bellevue was a welcome relief from the heat and glaring downtown sun. Its tiled walls were cool, muffling the noise from the streets. Wilson checked in with the matron at the front desk, and then led me down to the ward where House was being kept.
The guy was a mess. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his face was a mass of bruises, with a big gash above his left eyebrow. There was a bulk of bandages on his chest, visible under the thin robe. Whoever had done this had known how to cause the most damage to a person, and had taken full advantage of that knowledge with House. This wasn't a robbery gone wrong, some hood panicking and taking a swing. I was only happy that Wilson had come back when he did.
"See something you like?" House grunted, startling me.
"Oh sure," Wilson replied. "That shiner really sets off the blue in your one remaining eye."
"You would know. You're such an Ethel, Jimmy."
Wilson smiled, but it was strained.
"Hey, doll," House said, turning to me. "How's Manhattan's resident Sapphist Jewish detective?"
I smiled. "She's fine. Fighting the good fight."
"Jealous wives and missing husbands keeping you in the green?"
I shrugged. Tracking down drunk husbands and documenting spousal affairs wasn't noble, as House loved to remind me, but it paid the bills. I couldn't be picky. "How you feeling, House?"
"Copacetic," he replied with a lopsided grin. "They've got some good dope here. Much better than chasing the dragon in Chinatown."
I rolled my eyes. "What do you remember?"
"I remember coming home and listening to the Yankees game on the radio. That's about it. I don't even know if the boys won. See this?" He pointed to the gash above his eyebrow. "Blunt trauma, causing a grade four concussion and, unfortunately, retrograde amnesia."
I leaned in closer to take a look, and saw House's eyes drifting downwards to the open neck of my shirt. "Eyes front, soldier," I said, leaning back. Turning to Wilson, I asked, "Can't you get him a leash?"
"A muzzle would be better." Wilson said affectionately, lighting a cigarette and passing it to me.
"Throw in a whip, and we could sell the act to Barnum. Jimmy Wilson, fearless tamer of heartless bastards. You'd look good in sparkly tights," he said with a wink, smirking when the other man flushed.
"Public ward, Greg," Wilson warned in an undertone.
"Go bribe the nurse to get us a private room, then," House replied, tugging on Wilson's tie.
I cleared my throat. "Fun as it is to listen to you two flirt, can we get on with this?"
"Killjoy," House muttered. "I got pistol whipped, is my guess; size is about right for the barrel of a .38 revolver. Perp was right-handed, male, a couple inches shorter than me."
"I thought you said you couldn't remember anything."
House sneered at me. "Medical Examiner, remember? Angle of the trauma suggests he was right handed, and not quite level height. And, current company excluded, there's not a lot of women that can inflict this much damage."
"You'd be surprised what we're capable of."
"After what happened with you, there's not a lot that can surprise me," House shot back.
A tense, awkward silence swooped over us. I could feel the scar in my neck throbbing in time to my pulse, a constant reminder of that night.
Finally, House looked around. "Who does a fella have to kill to get some more dope around here? Nurse!"
It was as close to an apology as I could expect. I supposed it was good enough.
"I gotta get back to the station," Wilson said, after the nurse had come, curtly turned down House's request for more morphine, and walked away. "The doctors said you'll be ready to be discharged tomorrow."
"Fine," House said dismissively. I had a feeling he'd be walking out of here tomorrow regardless of what the doctors said. "You bringing me dinner or am I going to be forced to eat the gruel they serve here?"
Wilson smirked. "I'll be back." He adjusted his hat and turned to me. "You wanna share a cab back uptown?"
"All right. I'll catch you later, tough guy," I said to House.
"See you later, doll." House smiled as he said it, affection masked as disdain. About the best anybody could expect from the guy.
***
I fanned myself as Wilson flagged down a cab. "So, who're you thinking? I know you got some theories."
Wilson frowned. "I gotta be honest, Lisa. There's not of lot of people I don't suspect right now."
"Well, give me the list. I'll try and narrow it down best as I can. That's what you hired me for, isn't it?"
"All right. First that comes to mind is Tritter-"
"He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night," I said in Yiddish. It had been one of my grandmother's favorite curses.
"He should have Pharaoh’s plagues sprinkled with Job’s scabies," Wilson agreed. Less poetic, but more satisfying to think about. "Yeah, him. Tritter's been carrying a grudge for House ever since that one time-"
"Oh, God, don't remind me."
"Yeah, well. We all know the good Lieutenant isn't much for 'forgive and forget.'"
"The good Lieutenant isn't good for much, aside from making Jew jokes and accusing people of being Reds," I said darkly, remembering. Michael Tritter had been a thorn in my side since I'd made detective.
"And then there's Vogler." Vogler was a mobster who ruled half of Harlem. When House had refused to be bought off or scared off testifying at Vogler's brother's trial, the angry sibling had declared House a dead man.
"There's always Vogler. But that was what? Two years ago? Why would he do this now? And anyway, I thought the Arnello's had intervened on that one." I had never gotten the full story on what House had done to be under the Arnello Gang's protection, but Vogler hadn't tried to make an overt move since Bill Arnello had declared him off limits.
Wilson shrugged. "I dunno, that's the thing. My source in Vogler's gang went and got himself killed a month ago. I don't have any contacts in the Arnello family. Maybe something new developed. Maybe House's protection ran out."
"All right. I'll check into it. Who else?"
Wilson frowned. "Well..."
I recognized that tone. That was the "You're not going to like this, and I really hope you don't bit my head off for saying it" tone.
"Cough it up, Jimmy. What?"
"There's Stacy."
I glared at him. "No there's not."
"I know you two had something, Lisa-"
"You don't know from nothing, Jimmy, so just shut your trap," I hissed at him.
Wilson held up his hands in silent placation. I took a deep breath. "Sorry, Wilson. It's just-"
"It's all right, Lisa. I'll go talk to her if you don't want to, but one of us needs to."
I sighed. He was right, unfortunately. "She's still working at Mona's. I'll talk to her. You shouldn't be seen going into a place like that, and you never know when the bulls might be watching."
"What about you?"
"You got a reputation to protect. You're a prominent homicide detective. Mark my words, you'll make sergeant by the end of the year, no matter what Tritter says. I'm just a private eye with nothing left to lose. Who cares if I'm seen going into a gay speakeasy?"
A cab pulled up in front of us, and Wilson held the door open for me. I climbed in, Wilson sitting down next to me. I could see he was winding himself up to apologize for that night, for the hundredth time.
"Lisa-"
"It's a rough old world, Jimmy," I said, cutting him off. "None of what happened was your fault, and it's water under the bridge, anyway."
I leaned forward and spoke to the cabbie. "You can let me off here."
Watch for gratuitous use of jazz age slang, Yiddish curses, and more mysterious references to Cuddy's dark past.
Gosh. I'm tired. 2am already? Too much coffee today, methinks.
Thanks to jerico_cacaw for the lovely advice, and for pointing out that Jewish detectives in 1930 probably didn't say "Jesus!"
I need a Cuddy icon for this fic. Or maybe the cover of a lesbian pulp novel?
She walked into my office on a sweltering day in late September. Summer had apparently rebuffed autumn's siege, digging in its heels and vowing not to go down without a fight. Meanwhile, all citizens in this corner of Manhattan had to sweat it out until summer gave out to the cool rains of fall.
Work had been slow of late. They say that crime never sleeps. This may be true, but when it's that hot, crime is as willing as the rest of us to take a mid-afternoon siesta.
I was wearing my khaki light cotton pencil skirt and a black silk camisole. My fourth floor walk-up office was roasting hot, and I'd ditched the collared shirt, tweed vest, silk stockings, and black pumps almost as soon as the door had shut behind me. I'd opened all two of the working windows in the office, hoping for a breeze from the nearby river and not caring one bit that there was a line of kids in the tenement across the street trying to catch a glimpse of a dame in her underwear.
The door opened and she walked in. Her auburn hair was done up in a tight bun, drawing attention to the soft curves of her cheekbones. Even in this weather, she was wearing a too-modest, dark gray skirt that came down to her calves, and long sleeved blouse with the collar buttoned up to the hollow of her throat. She had creamy skin, a few freckles sprayed across her nose Her eyes were a blue that the sky could never manage, at least not in Manhattan.
Those eyes, with their brilliant shocking color, took my state of undress in, and widened. Before five seconds had elapsed, this lovely woman turned tail and fled, slamming my door with the words Lisa Cuddy, Private Investigator painted on the opaque glass, behind her.
"I'm sorry, Miss Cuddy!" my secretary wailed, her Irish accent turning the vowels in my last name on their heads.
"It's fine, Allie." I sighed. Allison Cameron had been working for me for three weeks. She was a whiz with paper work, keeping books, and scheduling appointments, but she seemed a little uptight. Too much time with the Catholic church, I thought. Who else would wear a collared blouse and a long wool skirt in this weather but someone who had spent entirely too much around nuns?
You'd think it would be a turn-off, this kind of diehard modesty. My kind of women tended to have low-cut dresses, loud laughter, and less morals than your average Jane. But despite being easy to shock and too firmly set on the straight and narrow, I was sure there was more to Allie than met the eye, and I wanted to see it.
Not that I had any cause to complain about what did meet the eye.
"Are... are you decent, Miss Cuddy?" she whispered through my door.
"There's plenty who'd say otherwise, Allie."
She coughed. I was never sure on her opinion of my romantic preferences, though others had made it loud and clear. Could be that she really didn't care, or it could be that she hated it but needed her job too bad. After all, there weren't many in this city that would hire a fresh-off-the-boat Irish girl. Of course, there weren't a lot of girls lining up for a job with the one private dick in the city who was Jewish, female, and of the Sapphist inclination.
I could feel her blushing even with a wall between us. I stood and walked over to the door and opened it. She flinched.
"Look, sweetheart. It's nothing you haven't seen before," I said, trying to make my tone more kind than irritated. "Now what is it?"
She was looking at the floor, the dingy beige walls, my office, anywhere that wasn't the general direction of my chest. "Detective Wilson is here to see you," she mumbled.
"Send him in," I said, turning back to the office.
"Should I give you a moment to-"
"It's too hot, and he's seen me in less," I replied, wanting to see how she'd respond.
I wasn't disappointed. That blush on her cheeks as she turned to leave was just too damn pretty. Oh, I was going straight to Hell for teasing my Catholic secretary like that.
I sat back down behind my desk, not bothering to put on my shoes or the blouse. It was true what I'd said. Detective James Wilson, my former partner at the 112 precinct, had seen me in less, just not the way that my naive secretary thought. When your partner takes a slug in the shoulder, it's not out of lust that you tear her shirt open. It's to stop the bleeding.
The man of the hour walked through the door, impeccably dressed as ever in a three piece suit and tie.
"Nice bit of calico you got working the front," he said by way of greeting. "You dressing that way for her?"
"Of course. It's got nothing to do with it being hotter than hell in here." I missed the precinct. The cool marble floors and the ceiling fans especially, right now.
Wilson snorted, then pulled out a pack of Lucky's. "Smoke?"
I nodded. "Butt me."
He flipped a cigarette towards me, lit both of ours of the same match. His hand was shaking, and it was then I knew something was wrong. This wasn't just a social call from my former partner.
"So how's life, Jimmy? How's House treating you?"
"Actually, House is the reason I'm here."
I sighed. News of House was hardly ever pleasant. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
He fiddled with the cigarette in his fingers. "Somebody tried to bump him off last night."
"Oy gevalt," I sighed. "Is he okay?"
"He's all right. Looks like some bimbo used him as a punching bag, but he'll be okay. Thing is, he can't remember much of what happened."
I sighed again. House was the district's medical examiner. He was a bitter old bastard, a brilliant doctor with the worst kind of chip on his shoulder, the kind of man who made a lot of enemies without particularly trying. He'd been a medic in the Great War, lost part of his leg to infected wound, and a lot of his compassion after seeing the damage people happily inflicted on each other. Now, he worked as an M.E. because dead patients were the only kind he could stand to be around. Some people constructed walls around them; House's were eighteen feet tall, made of granite, and were topped with jagged glass. God only knew how James Wilson had managed to sneak past them. Or why he'd even decided to try.
I knew I was setting myself up for a headache for getting involved with House, but I owed it to the both of them to try. Jimmy and I went way back, and House...
Well, suffice it to say, I owed him. He was the reason I was still in the land of the living, teasing my secretary and taking cases, instead of pushing up daisies.
"All right, spill the story."
Normally calm brown eyes flashed in fury as Wilson recounted the events. The man was generally even-handed and practical, but he had a possessive and protective streak when it came to House.
The good doctor (and I use the term loosely) had been at home. Wilson had been heading there after his shift. He'd used the key House had given him-
I raised my eyebrow. "House gave you a key?"
For the first time, my mostly unflappable former partner looked a little flapped. "Yeah. I... uh... been spending some nights there." He blushed.
"Oh yeah?" I grinned. This was too good.
Wilson shrugged, skin still flushed. He and House had been stuck on each other for years now, but there was only three people in the world that knew that; two of them were in the room, and the other was laid up at Bellevue, no doubt driving every nurse and doctor up the wall. Wilson and House had finally gotten together after the previously mentioned shirt-ruining incident. House had been the one to patch me up and comfort Jimmy. I'll never let either of them forget that the first thing I saw when I regained consciousness was the two of them necking like a couple of kids.
Wilson cleared his throat. "Anyway, they must have heard me, because next thing I know, somebody's shoving me aside and lamming it down the stairs. I pulled my piece out, fired a shot, but he was gone. I was going to go after him, but got a little distracted by seeing House bleeding all over our new Oriental rug."
"Oy vey. But he was okay?"
"Mostly. Bruising all around the face, and chest, minor concussion. Whoever was there really put the boot in, Lisa. My guess is that they were taking their time with him."
I stubbed my cigarette out and stood. I opened the door and leaned out. "Allie, would you be a saint and get us a couple of sodas downstairs?"
"Sure thing, Miss Cuddy," she called back.
Wilson at least had the decency to wait till I closed the door before snorting in amusement. "Miss Cuddy? Boy, you must get a kick out of that."
"Aw, applesauce." I wasn't blushing. Damn it, I wasn't. Hardboiled private eyes do not blush. "She's just old-fashioned."
"Riiight," Jimmy said, leaning back in his chair and smirking at me.
"Anyway, so House was bleeding all over the rug, and then?" I prompted.
He gave me That Glare that I remembered so well from working together in Homicide. "I called for an ambulance, and then I called the precinct. Tried to report it as an attempted murder. Thing is-"
Allie knocked on my door, two sharp raps against the glass, then entered. She set down the two bottles of soda on my desk. She nodded once to me and Wilson. Wilson tipped his hat to her, and she left.
"Thing is," he said once the door shut, "most of the precinct hates his guts."
I nodded. Cops had a lot of pride. They didn't take well to a gimpy know-it-all M.E. calling them idiots every time they came down for autopsy results.
Wilson continued, after sipping at his Coca Cola. "It's been filed as an attempted robbery, and nobody has much inclination to go any further than that. And I can't make too much of it, or it'll look suspicious."
Yeah. A prominent detective shacking up with the annoying M.E was not a story you wanted splashed on the front page of the local gossip rag.
"So," Wilson said. "You gonna take this?"
"You gonna pay me? You know I'd do it for free, but my rent won't pay itself this month, Jimmy. Neither will my secretary."
"Yeah, it's hard times all over," he commiserated. Then he looked back over his shoulder towards the door. "You could offer her other compensation," Wilson said with a smirk.
I gave him That Glare.
"Just saying," he said with a laugh. "Yeah, I can pay." He drained the rest of his soda and stood. "I'm heading up to Bellevue to visit House. You want to tag along, get the story from the horse's mouth?"
"Yeah. Let me get dressed and I'll meet you downstairs," I said. He nodded and left, and I began to gather up my discarded clothes.
"Allie, I'm going down to Bellevue. I'll probably be back in a couple of hours, but you can knock off whenever you like."
"Thank you Miss Cuddy," she said. She looked up. "Oh, your collar is crooked. Just let me..."
Before I knew what was happening, Allie had stood and come round to the other side of the desk, her hands going to my shoulders.
Jeepers creepers. For a girl who averted her sight and blushed the moment another woman's bare knees came into view, she sure didn't have any qualms getting into somebody's space when they were dressed. Not that I was about to complain.
She fussed at my collar for a moment, then seemed to freeze, her gaze somewhere between my neck and my shoulder. I didn't have to ask what she was looking at. My scar. I gently cleared my throat and Allie released me, blushing again as she took a step back.
"Sorry, Miss Cuddy. I didn't mean to-"
"It's all right. No need to apologize. Is my collar straight?"
"Only thing about you that is," came the unwelcome reply from the doorway. Wilson was standing there, amusement written all over his face.
"You're one to talk," I shot back at him. He acknowledged the fact with a wry shrug, and I turned back to Allie. "Anyway, I'll be back," I said. "But you can leave as soon as you're finished."
"Thank you, Miss Cuddy." Her eyes darted up to me, before they returned to their accustomed spot on the floor.
"You're welcome, sweetheart." I turned and walked out the door, Wilson quickly falling into place beside me on the stairs.
"Not one word," I warned him.
"Yes, Miss Cuddy."
"I hate you."
"I know."
****
Bellevue was a welcome relief from the heat and glaring downtown sun. Its tiled walls were cool, muffling the noise from the streets. Wilson checked in with the matron at the front desk, and then led me down to the ward where House was being kept.
The guy was a mess. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his face was a mass of bruises, with a big gash above his left eyebrow. There was a bulk of bandages on his chest, visible under the thin robe. Whoever had done this had known how to cause the most damage to a person, and had taken full advantage of that knowledge with House. This wasn't a robbery gone wrong, some hood panicking and taking a swing. I was only happy that Wilson had come back when he did.
"See something you like?" House grunted, startling me.
"Oh sure," Wilson replied. "That shiner really sets off the blue in your one remaining eye."
"You would know. You're such an Ethel, Jimmy."
Wilson smiled, but it was strained.
"Hey, doll," House said, turning to me. "How's Manhattan's resident Sapphist Jewish detective?"
I smiled. "She's fine. Fighting the good fight."
"Jealous wives and missing husbands keeping you in the green?"
I shrugged. Tracking down drunk husbands and documenting spousal affairs wasn't noble, as House loved to remind me, but it paid the bills. I couldn't be picky. "How you feeling, House?"
"Copacetic," he replied with a lopsided grin. "They've got some good dope here. Much better than chasing the dragon in Chinatown."
I rolled my eyes. "What do you remember?"
"I remember coming home and listening to the Yankees game on the radio. That's about it. I don't even know if the boys won. See this?" He pointed to the gash above his eyebrow. "Blunt trauma, causing a grade four concussion and, unfortunately, retrograde amnesia."
I leaned in closer to take a look, and saw House's eyes drifting downwards to the open neck of my shirt. "Eyes front, soldier," I said, leaning back. Turning to Wilson, I asked, "Can't you get him a leash?"
"A muzzle would be better." Wilson said affectionately, lighting a cigarette and passing it to me.
"Throw in a whip, and we could sell the act to Barnum. Jimmy Wilson, fearless tamer of heartless bastards. You'd look good in sparkly tights," he said with a wink, smirking when the other man flushed.
"Public ward, Greg," Wilson warned in an undertone.
"Go bribe the nurse to get us a private room, then," House replied, tugging on Wilson's tie.
I cleared my throat. "Fun as it is to listen to you two flirt, can we get on with this?"
"Killjoy," House muttered. "I got pistol whipped, is my guess; size is about right for the barrel of a .38 revolver. Perp was right-handed, male, a couple inches shorter than me."
"I thought you said you couldn't remember anything."
House sneered at me. "Medical Examiner, remember? Angle of the trauma suggests he was right handed, and not quite level height. And, current company excluded, there's not a lot of women that can inflict this much damage."
"You'd be surprised what we're capable of."
"After what happened with you, there's not a lot that can surprise me," House shot back.
A tense, awkward silence swooped over us. I could feel the scar in my neck throbbing in time to my pulse, a constant reminder of that night.
Finally, House looked around. "Who does a fella have to kill to get some more dope around here? Nurse!"
It was as close to an apology as I could expect. I supposed it was good enough.
"I gotta get back to the station," Wilson said, after the nurse had come, curtly turned down House's request for more morphine, and walked away. "The doctors said you'll be ready to be discharged tomorrow."
"Fine," House said dismissively. I had a feeling he'd be walking out of here tomorrow regardless of what the doctors said. "You bringing me dinner or am I going to be forced to eat the gruel they serve here?"
Wilson smirked. "I'll be back." He adjusted his hat and turned to me. "You wanna share a cab back uptown?"
"All right. I'll catch you later, tough guy," I said to House.
"See you later, doll." House smiled as he said it, affection masked as disdain. About the best anybody could expect from the guy.
***
I fanned myself as Wilson flagged down a cab. "So, who're you thinking? I know you got some theories."
Wilson frowned. "I gotta be honest, Lisa. There's not of lot of people I don't suspect right now."
"Well, give me the list. I'll try and narrow it down best as I can. That's what you hired me for, isn't it?"
"All right. First that comes to mind is Tritter-"
"He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night," I said in Yiddish. It had been one of my grandmother's favorite curses.
"He should have Pharaoh’s plagues sprinkled with Job’s scabies," Wilson agreed. Less poetic, but more satisfying to think about. "Yeah, him. Tritter's been carrying a grudge for House ever since that one time-"
"Oh, God, don't remind me."
"Yeah, well. We all know the good Lieutenant isn't much for 'forgive and forget.'"
"The good Lieutenant isn't good for much, aside from making Jew jokes and accusing people of being Reds," I said darkly, remembering. Michael Tritter had been a thorn in my side since I'd made detective.
"And then there's Vogler." Vogler was a mobster who ruled half of Harlem. When House had refused to be bought off or scared off testifying at Vogler's brother's trial, the angry sibling had declared House a dead man.
"There's always Vogler. But that was what? Two years ago? Why would he do this now? And anyway, I thought the Arnello's had intervened on that one." I had never gotten the full story on what House had done to be under the Arnello Gang's protection, but Vogler hadn't tried to make an overt move since Bill Arnello had declared him off limits.
Wilson shrugged. "I dunno, that's the thing. My source in Vogler's gang went and got himself killed a month ago. I don't have any contacts in the Arnello family. Maybe something new developed. Maybe House's protection ran out."
"All right. I'll check into it. Who else?"
Wilson frowned. "Well..."
I recognized that tone. That was the "You're not going to like this, and I really hope you don't bit my head off for saying it" tone.
"Cough it up, Jimmy. What?"
"There's Stacy."
I glared at him. "No there's not."
"I know you two had something, Lisa-"
"You don't know from nothing, Jimmy, so just shut your trap," I hissed at him.
Wilson held up his hands in silent placation. I took a deep breath. "Sorry, Wilson. It's just-"
"It's all right, Lisa. I'll go talk to her if you don't want to, but one of us needs to."
I sighed. He was right, unfortunately. "She's still working at Mona's. I'll talk to her. You shouldn't be seen going into a place like that, and you never know when the bulls might be watching."
"What about you?"
"You got a reputation to protect. You're a prominent homicide detective. Mark my words, you'll make sergeant by the end of the year, no matter what Tritter says. I'm just a private eye with nothing left to lose. Who cares if I'm seen going into a gay speakeasy?"
A cab pulled up in front of us, and Wilson held the door open for me. I climbed in, Wilson sitting down next to me. I could see he was winding himself up to apologize for that night, for the hundredth time.
"Lisa-"
"It's a rough old world, Jimmy," I said, cutting him off. "None of what happened was your fault, and it's water under the bridge, anyway."
I leaned forward and spoke to the cabbie. "You can let me off here."