The Coke Whore

CHAPTER ONE

The essences of Steve Menlo's precise world were polished leather, strong coffee, and danger, and as he walked slowly through the outer office he saw holsters, gun handles, power in shoulders, fecundity in hips, and all of it, to him, was rich and normal.

He bummed a cigarette, and stepped to Evan Dart's door. 'Mornin...pal.'

Surprised Eric Nodder was there, with his ashen face and heavily bandaged left arm, Steve smiled, nodded, and said...

'Healing?' Nodder had been shot three weeks earlier.

'Yeah,' Nodder said, patient with pain.

Menlo understood. Gunshot wounds healed slowly, and Nodder's shoulder had been nearly blown off.

But Steve was used to early recoveries...hadn't Jenny been back in two weeks after taking a slug directly in her stomach?

As he walked on, someone handed him a sheaf of papers.

'From Sacto...it's all they could get for us.'

A young woman bumped him as she pushed back away from her desk and he stopped, both surprised.

'You've got to meet my daughter some time,' Steve smiled.

'We're real lookalikes, I've been told,' the young woman said.

'You're not going to believe it,' Steve thought as he moved on.

He came to a man's desk, waited as the man hung up the phone. 'That'll please you. It's all the proof we need,' the man said, pointing to the sheaf under Steve's arm.

'Good,' Steve said. 'Just got it and haven't read it. I was wondering.' Had they closed another case?

Steve stamped his smoke, nodded, smiled and walked on, impatient to read the note again that Al Stonnart had given him a few minutes before.

The sheet of yellow paper with Stonnart's precisely printed note lay where Steve had left it on his desk. He had read it several times earlier and even talked with Stonnart about it, but it seemed to have a hidden meaning. It had arrived by phone from Cade, one of their street informants, and Cade was reliable. The note said...'Your investigation is getting too close to one of Newport Beach's most prominent citizens. Any closer and you'll be killed.'

Steve and Stonnart had reached a point of seniority where they didn't have partners, but they were working together on this investigation.

An unusually strong lead regarding the city's major drug distributor had launched the investigation, but, by itself, it was not strong enough. Their probing, now over two weeks along, was slightly productive, but the note suggested they were closer than they thought. Steve pushed Stonnart's number.

'Stonnart.'

'Al, who, outside the department, knows what cases I'm working on?'

'Nobody, far as I know. Why?'

'This Cade message tells me somebody sure knows...and they are trying to frighten me.'

'I'd agree and have been thinking...maybe we should back off a little. Give it time, you know.'

Steve scoffed that down with his typical hardness, but both agreed that being careful was in order and they hung up.

From his desk he could see the woman who looked like his daughter, and picked up the phone...Sarah wouldn't have gone to the beach yet.

The scar tissue on his right forearm itched and he rolled up his sleeve for the thousandths time and idly scratched at the lumpy tissue. The knife had hurt, but his memory was of his catapulting rage as his attacker died.

'Sweetie here...right on time, pops.'

Damn...it could have been Sarah's mother. Sarah sounded exactly like her, a thing he'd never recognized when his wife was alive. Now, and for all eight years since she'd been gone, his loneliness was lacerated for the instant it took him to adjust.