Free When It All Comes Down to Dust (Phoenix Noir Book 3) by Barry Graham Page A

water, then ground some beans and brewed coffee.
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    C offee. Coffee, coffee, coffee, Frank was drinking coffee and it felt so good.
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    S he took a shower while the coffee was brewing. She toweled herself dry, put on a robe, used her hair-dryer. She poured two cups of coffee and went to the bedroom. David still wasn’t fully awake, but he looked like he was getting there.
    “Hey,” she said. “Want some coffee? It’s Fair Trade, so even a hippie like you can drink it.”
    “Thanks,” he slurred as she handed him a cup. He took a sip. “Damn, that’s good.”
    “Glad you like.”
    “You’ve had a shower already? I wanted to take a shower with you.”
    “You snooze, you lose. I not only have taken a shower – while your lazy ass was hogging my sheets, I was running up A-Mountain and doing fifty push-ups.”
    “Please tell me you’re kidding. Please tell me you can’t really do fifty push-ups after running up a mountain.”
    “Sure can. Wanna feel my muscles?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Jealous?”
    “Damn right. Life has thrown me my share of humiliations, but I never thought I’d have a girlfriend who could beat me at push-ups.”
    “Girlfriend? You think of me as your girlfriend, huh?”
    “Not really. That just kind of slipped out. But I’d like to.”
    “Like to what?”
    “Think of you as my girlfriend.”
    “Oh.”
    “ ‘Oh’ ? That’s all I get? I open my little heart, and all I get is an ‘Oh’ ?”
    “Calm down, you goddamn drama queen. I got up and made you coffee. Doesn’t that count for something?”
    “Hmph. Maybe.”
    “Also, you think I always have Fair Trade coffee?”
    “Don’t you?”
    “No. I normally donate to exploitation of the Third World as a matter of routine. I got the Fair Trade stuff so I wouldn’t have to listen to your hippie bitching.”
    “Seriously? You got it for me?”
    “You sure you never went to college? Yeah, I got it for when you come over. And I got a big bag of it.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I guess what that means is that if you want to consider me your girlfriend, it’s cool with me.”
    They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.
    “Wow. I can tell people I met my girlfriend when I exposed her history of criminal violence and abuse of power.”
    “I can tell people my boyfriend is a muck-raking scumbag who helped ruin my career.”
    “At least you didn’t beat me up.”
    “Not yet.”
    Later, after David had taken a shower and they were heading out to have breakfast, she asked him what he was doing the next day.
    “Tomorrow’s Friday... Shit, I’m meeting a source.”
    “Will you be available for a booty call later in the evening?”
    “That’s definitely possible. What you doing Saturday?”
    “Going to the Rhythm Room with some people you know.”
    “Who?”
    “The people you bugged the hell out of to try to get them to talk about me. My erstwhile colleagues.”
    “Ah.”
    “They’re having a kind of belated going-away party for me.”
    “Well, I don’t imagine they’d be very glad to see me.”
    “It’d be cool. I’d like it if you came along.”
    “Okay, I will, then.”
    “But if you’re gonna be around these guys, I better warn you about what they’ll ask you. I’ve been avoiding this, but... how do you feel about the death penalty?”
    “It varies. If I’m at a crime scene, I’m for it. If I’m at an execution, I’m against it.”
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    F rank was eating bacon and eggs and hash browns and toast and he was drinking orange juice and he was looking at a family in the restaurant who had a little girl and her face reminded him of the face of a little girl he had once known, but that little girl was dead and this one was alive and Frank was glad she was alive and he hoped that no one would ever do anything to hurt her.
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    A s Laura and David walked from her apartment to his car, David’s cell