Free Playing God by Kate Flora Page B

probably I heard some of it from Lulu."
    "Heard what?"
    She flung it at him the way you'd throw a stick to a dog to make it go away. "That people got drugs from Dr. Pleasant."
    "Talk to me," he said.
    She stood looking out at a view which was the side of another brick building. "Nothing to tell," she said. "I just heard people got drugs from him... or through him... that's all. You know me. I don't do drugs, don't want to get close to the people who do. It's the quickest way to hell I can think of, and I'm trying to put hell behind me."
    "Remember who you heard it from?"
    She shrugged, her back still toward him. "No."
    "Who I should talk to?" Silence. "What drugs?"
    "Painkillers. Oxycontin." Silence again, then, exploding, "Jesus, Joe, we're talking bad people here. You don't care what happens to me if it will help solve your murder."
    "Alana..."
    "Just leave, will you. Go sweat some of the others. You're good at getting people to talk. Find that big prick, O'Leary, and sweat him."
    "And leave you in peace, right?"
    "Right. I've got a living to make. Unless you want to shuck the rest of those clothes and let me show you how it feels with a real woman."
    "As opposed to what?"
    "Your hand," she snapped, turning away from the window. "Go bother someone else. Rhianne. Or that old hag, Polly. She knows more about drugs than the rest of us put together. Or find that mystery woman and ask her what happened. You ask me... and, yes, Copman, I know you didn't... she's the key to this. Your mystery lady. I may be the best, but I'm not the only girl in this city."
    "How am I going to find her? You got any ideas?" But Alana was in one of her snits. "Mind if I use your phone?"
    "Would you care?"
    He picked up his shirt and pulled it on, buttoning it with one hand while he dialed Kyle with the other. "You pick up a cute little black-haired number named Lulu?" Kyle made an affirmative sound. "What about her pimp, guy named O'Leary?"
    "Kevin O'Leary? No. You want us to?"
    "If you can. And hold her until I get there. Maybe she knows about the party with Pleasant last night. Alana says O'Leary set it up. How's it going?"
    "Vince was right. It is like a roomful of cats around here."
    "Getting anything?"
    "Got offered a year's worth of blowjobs."
    "With respect to our late doctor."
    "He was well known. Nothing about last night, though. You coming in?"
    "On my way." He put on his sweater. Alana was still at the window. "Hey," he said, "I'm going. Thanks for the massage."
    "I'm still waiting for the day you say you're coming." She didn't turn around. "You know, Joe. I met somebody once who says she had sex with you. She's a burned-out old hag now, so it must have been a long time ago. But I can't help wondering. Why her and not me?"
    This was the heart of the matter. Why she'd been so difficult. Not that Alana was ever easy. He shrugged on his jacket and left, crunching down the empty street through the gray cloud of his own breath. He got into his cold, dark car and sat, not turning on the engine. He wanted to be cold right now. It took time to get over being that close to Alana. Alana, who thought he was messing with her mind while she was messing with his.
    She was right about the sex. It had been a long time ago, his first year on the job, but it was the kind of a mistake that could come around someday and bite you on the ass. He was just back from Vietnam. Still having nightmares. Night sweats. He could go the range, gunshots all around, and be cool, but a random shot in the night, a firecracker, a car backfiring, and he'd be face-down on the pavement, shaking.
    Just a brand-new baby cop, doing a door-to-door about a barroom brawl that had spilled into the street and left someone dead. A steamy summer night, full of noise and food smells, people bringing their hibachis out on the sidewalk. He remembered radios blaring "Summer in the City," long-haired girls in tank tops and cut-offs, guys without shirts. Bare skin, musk and incense