Dan rested his head on my shoulder. “You don’t know what this means to me. I was so worried you’d leave me when you found out how big a phony I am.”

“You’re not a phony. You just got hooked on this lifestyle the way your customers got hooked on coke. And it’s not like you’ll have to go cold turkey. We’re going to do fine once you sell this stuff.

“And it is only stuff,” I said, but I didn’t mean that.

I was still working the call-girl sting and busting johns kept me away from Dan for a week. I didn’t like the work. To tell the truth, it made me feel sleazy. Most of the poor bastards we arrested had never been in trouble with the law before. They looked so pathetic when I flashed my badge. I guess it was the futility of it all that got me. We were never going to stamp out prostitution. It was the world’s oldest profession for a reason.

I felt the same way about drugs. People were always going to want something to make them feel better, even if it was only for a little while, and they were going to buy coke or a hooker even if it was illegal. I thought they should legalize drugs and prostitution and let us concentrate on murderers, con men and armed robbers, but no one in the state legislature cared what I thought, so I spent most of the week after Dan told me about his problem dressed like a high-priced tart.

I spent the other part checking up on Dan. I cared for him, but I’m not naive. He’d lied to me about dealing and I wanted to know if he’d lied about anything else. I used the usual Internet sources to find out what was on the Web. He was quite the socialite and the history he’d given me checked out. Then I ran a check on the house, his cars and everything else he had ever owned. Everything he’d told me checked out there, too. Finally, I used my computer to tap in to federal and state law enforcement files that are only available to cops. All I found was a DUI from his sophomore year in college that was resolved when Dan went into a diversion program. All in all, I was satisfied that Dan was being straight with me, so I set up a meeting with some people I know.

I told Dan my idea after dinner at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood. Dan joked that I was trying to break him into our new life, but I really liked the place and I liked being able to wear jeans to dinner and not having to worry about not knowing what the dishes on the menu were.

I kept the conversation at dinner about police work, telling Dan war stories about some of the weird things cops encounter on the job, and I waited until we were back at the house on Pine Terrace before I told him what I’d been doing.

“How’s everything going?” I asked.

“How’s what going?”

“You know, selling the house, the Rolls?”

He looked sad. “I’ve talked with a few Realtors to get an idea of what it will bring. The Rolls and the Lamborghini will go next week.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I felt as if I was standing on a ledge about to jump. I had no idea how Dan would react to what I was going to propose or whether we’d still be together after I had my say.

“There may be a way to save the house and everything else.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I might be able to put you in touch with someone.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“You’re not the only one with secrets,” I said nervously. “I’ve been doing a few things I shouldn’t, too.”

Dan stared at me openmouthed. “You don’t mean…?”

“I’m not gonna be a cop all my life. I’ve seen how cops live and what cops make. I want to be someone, Dan. I was working narcotics until we started this call-girl sting. About a year ago I was involved in a big bust. Peter Pride.”

“You were in on that?”

I nodded.

“Pride walked.”

“Yes, he did. Want to know why?”

Dan didn’t say anything.

“Key evidence disappeared and I started a Swiss bank account. Nothing huge, but something for my old age.”

“Didn’t some cop get busted for that? I thought I read…”

I nodded. “That was the one part I didn’t like. Bobby Marino. I had nothing to do with that. Pride hated him and he set him up. It doesn’t matter now and there’s nothing I can do about it. But, I can fix you up with Pride. What do you say?”

Dan’s tongue flicked out and he wet his lips.

“I don’t know. These guys I was dealing with…They were bad but Pride’s a killer.”

“They’re all killers, Dan, but Pride’s a killer who pays well. I’ve been tipping him off for a year now. He likes me. You need this,” I said, waving my hand at the view, “and I need you. What do you say?”

“Let me think. Pride is a whole new ball game.”

Dan called me a week later and we met for lunch. While we waited for the waitress to bring our order he held my hand.

“I’ve been thinking about Pride and I’ll do it.”

“Oh, Dan,” I said, because it’s all I could think to say. He smiled and tightened his grip and I squeezed back. I was that happy.

“One thing, though,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“From now on, you’re out.”

I started to protest, but he cut me off.

“I mean it. I didn’t like getting arrested, even for a misdemeanor like prostitution. I don’t even want to think what would happen if they arrested a cop for what you’re doing.”

“I’m a big girl, Dan.”

“I’ve never doubted that, but I’m sticking to my guns. From now on, I’m the one taking the risks or the house goes on the market, as planned.”

Sergei Kariakin was Russian Mafia, which meant he didn’t just kill babies for fun, he ate them, too. The only place he was called Sergei or Kariakin was on his rap sheet where his name was followed by “aka Peter Pride.” Sergei loved America, which he called “the land of criminal opportunity,” and he had adopted an alias he thought sounded like the name of a movie or rock star. The fact that he was as ugly as his crimes and couldn’t carry a tune didn’t faze him and no one dared point out these problems.

Normally, there were several firewalls between Peter and the narcotics and sex slaves that were his bread and butter, but he’d made a mistake two years ago and had faced certain conviction until the key evidence in his case disappeared from the police evidence locker. I had a gambling problem back then and someone had told Peter’s lawyer about it. One evening, a very polite gentleman who never gave me his name made me a proposition. Within a week, my gambling debt had been retired and Peter’s problem had been solved. I stopped gambling cold turkey, but I stayed on Peter’s payroll, dropping timely tips about raids and snitches when I could get away with it.

My meeting with Pride took place in the dead of night in a deserted industrial park. Neither of us could afford to be seen socializing with the other. At first, Peter was reluctant to bring Dan into his organization. Even if he hadn’t been picked up after Alberto Perez was arrested, Pride worried that Dan was on the DEA’s radar screen. I told him I’d poked around and, as far as I could tell, the DEA didn’t know Dan existed. I pitched Dan’s upper-class clientele and the opportunity it presented to Pride to broaden his market.

A week later, Dan and I met Peter in an abandoned warehouse at three in the morning. The meeting ended with Peter agreeing to front Dan a kilo of cocaine. If everything went well, there was a promise of more to follow. I was so pumped up on the way back to Pine Terrace that I didn’t feel the effects of being up for more than twenty-four hours. As soon as we were inside the house I started ripping off Dan’s clothing. I don’t even remember how we got from the entryway to the bedroom.

The next afternoon, I was so beat I had trouble keeping my eyes open. I staggered into police headquarters and found a note asking me to see Sergeant Groves. Groves was a handsome black man with a trim mustache and a serious demeanor. It was rare for him to lighten up and he looked even more tense than usual when I walked into his office and found him sitting with Jack Gripper and a man and a woman I didn’t recognize.