Free Hungry Ghost by Stephen Leather Page B

travel, undercover work, the real Miami Vice stuff. Trouble was there were only forty officers and the competition to get in was cut-throat. When Dugan had applied he’d been told it would be three years at least until there’d be an opening. Dugan reckoned they were giving him the brush off, that they thought he was too valuable for A Division to lose.
    Eventually his patience had snapped and he’d decided to break with CCB completely and try to get back to real police work. But nobody seemed to take his application to join the anti-triad squad seriously – and now he knew why.
    Bellamy noticed his silence, and reached over to clink glasses with him. ‘How’s life?’ he asked.
    Dugan shrugged. ‘Nothing changes. I’m still pissed off with CCB.’
    Burr and Holt were back to back now, moving the girls further and further apart. They’d pulled, all right, and done it without talking, too, because they couldn’t be heard over the driving beat. Dugan drank deeply. He didn’t care any more that it was the wrong time, wrong place.
    ‘I’ve got to get out,’ he said.
    ‘Music too loud?’ said Bellamy.
    ‘You know what I mean,’ said Dugan. ‘Out of Commercial Crime.’
    Bellamy shook his head slowly. ‘You’re better off where you are, Dugan.’
    ‘No,’ hissed Dugan. ‘I want out.’
    The two men looked at each other over the tops of their glasses. Dugan wanted to push it, even though he knew by the older man’s silence that he was going to be disappointed. Like phoning to ask a former lover if she’d give it one more try, knowing that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted but determined to try nevertheless, even though the pain of rejection would be worse than maintaining the status quo .
    Dugan explained about losing the computer case. ‘I want to move to the anti-triad squad. I have to get back to real police work.’
    ‘Commercial Crime is real police work,’ answered Bellamy, avoiding Dugan’s eyes.
    ‘I don’t understand why they’re making it so difficult for me to move,’ Dugan drove on stubbornly, knowing the answer. He saw Bellamy’s lips move, but the words were lost in the music.
    ‘What?’ he shouted.
    ‘You know why,’ Bellamy yelled. ‘Your bloody brother-in-law. That’s what’s stopping you. Simon bloody Ng and your sister.’
    Dugan sighed and felt alternate waves of anger and frustration wash over him. The computer case was the first he’d lost because of Ng, but it was obvious that it wouldn’t be the last. And now it was clear that the powers that be would not allow him to move out of Commercial Crime. Bellamy looked away, embarrassed.
    ‘Fuck it,’ said Dugan, and forced a grin. ‘Let me buy you a drink. And then I want to get laid.’
    When he turned to the bar, she was there. Small and cute and looking up at him with an amused grin on her face. Had she heard him? Dugan hoped not. He smiled. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I saw you upstairs, didn’t I?’
    She nodded. ‘And I saw you. Small world, isn’t it?’ She giggled. Pretty mouth, thought Dugan.
    ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he asked, switching into Cantonese and enjoying the look of surprise on her face.
    ‘I’d like a soft drink, something long and cool,’ she said quickly in Cantonese and he knew he was being tested.
    ‘How about me, will I do?’ he asked, and she laughed again.
    ‘How come your Cantonese is so good? You a cop?’
    ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘What do you really want to drink?’
    ‘Perrier,’ she replied.
    Dugan ordered himself a beer and a fizzy water for her, and then felt a thump in the small of his back.
    ‘Don’t forget your friends,’ Bellamy growled.
    Dugan ordered a lager for Bellamy and handed it to him without looking. His eyes stayed on the girl, worried in case she moved away.
    ‘How about an introduction?’ Bellamy asked.
    ‘How about riding off into the sunset and letting me and this young filly get acquainted.’ He talked in English, quickly, and he used