Bulletproof Bodyguard

What a joke.

Hodges had found out he was in town, and Marcus had spent the better part of Friday and Saturday being grilled by Internal Affairs and his boss. He could still smell the stale cigars in Hodges’s airless office.

The lieutenant had ranted and raved for hours with one of those same cheap, unlit cigars hanging out of the corner of his mouth, his bald head shiny from perpetual perspiration.

“I understand your hesitation to testify against your partner. But hear me now. You are on a very short leash. You even sneeze funny, IA will be all over you like white on rice. Do this assignment by the book or there won’t be a job to come back to. You got it?”

Yeah, he got it all right. What was he going to do? Internal Affairs was breathing down his neck.

He’d tried to tell them he had no testimony to give. Hell, he’d gotten shot during the raid and taken away in an ambulance. How could he know anything about what had happened afterward? And regardless, there was no way he was testifying against his partner. He’d quit before throwing Asa under the bus. Besides, Marcus had his own demons to deal with on the Simmons case.

After the “quality time” with his lieutenant, he’d gone back to his apartment and stared at a glass of Scotch for ten minutes before pouring it down the drain. Oblivion had never seemed more appealing, but he’d promised himself never to go there again.