Free The Informant by Marc Olden

street.” His grin was wide, and both palms were upturned.
    Katey, angry, humiliated, stared up at the ceiling, hearing music and conversation around him, wondering how he could be conned by a fucking drag queen. How? In this fucking darkness, there had been no way of knowing.
    He looked across the table at a still-smiling Bad Red. I owe you, jungle bunny.
    Neil, sensing what was happening, stood up, an arm around Katey.
    “Let’s split.”
    The cop didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes from Bad Red.
    “Katey?” Neil squeezed the cop’s lean shoulders.
    Katey eyed the black dealer as if staring at him through cross hairs.
    “When we get what we came for.”
    “It’s gone down already. Time to split.” Neil leaned against Katey, forcing the cop to stand up. Now was not the time to be uncool.
    Neil grinned, an arm around Katey’s shoulders, a hand raised in farewell to Bad Red. “Later.” Best get Katey outside.
    Bad Red nodded, grinning. “Check me out agin, y’all.” Lydia kissed him on the cheek and kept smiling while pushing his hand down, keeping it from going up her dress.
    Outside, the three of them walked in the chilly October night toward Sixth Avenue. Katey, still angry at having been taken in by Bad Red and the blond drag queen, spat on someone’s car. He snorted, jamming both hands deeper into the pockets of his gray topcoat. One day, he wanted to get Bad Red in the back of a precinct house and lean on his black ass for an hour.
    Neil sighed. “It’s over, man. You ought to thank Lydia for jumping in.” He knew Katey’s pride was hurt. Macho time. Cops didn’t like being made fools of, and the way Katey had been looking at Charisse, anything could have happened.
    Katey turned to Lydia. “Thanks.” He meant it.
    The buy had gone down on the dance floor. Bad Red had slipped the package to Lydia, telling her to give him the money under the table. It had all been happening in front of Katey while he was drooling over the drag queen.
    “Trouble is,” said Neil, stopping and forcing the others to stop and listen to him, “we can’t go into court with this buy. Lydia made it, and if we do, it’ll be thrown out by the defense. Her record. Sorry, Lydia.”
    She nodded, her lower lip caught between even white teeth. “I understand. I am sorry. I could not get out of it, and if I make a fuss, if I say somethin’, maybe it all goes wrong. I had no choice, I had to do what Bad Red say.”
    Neil smiled, both hands on her shoulders. “You did fine. You were beautiful, right, Katey?”
    The cop nodded, in no mood to smile yet. “Yeah, beautiful. Fucking beautiful. Where you know Charisse from?”
    Lydia smiled. “He’s all over town, mostly at night, ’cause the light hides things, you know? Easier for him that way. He’s saving money to go to Europe for a sex change. Couple times he’s been a mule for some people. Nothing much, a key, half a key at a time. Something like that. Took his name from Cyd Charisse. When he gets a customer, he says he’s having his period and can’t do certain things, so he does it another way, you understand?”
    Katey nodded. “I understand. Thanks.”
    Lydia said, “What we do with this buy?”
    “Same thing.” Neil patted the left pocket in his topcoat “We see what the lab says. We’ve got us some names. Bad Red, we know, is dealing something. How pure it is, who knows? And Lonnie Conquest and his friend Julius and that mysterious man who charges a hundred thousand dollars to introduce people. We’ve got us some names, and we get busy on them tomorrow. Anything more from your cousin on the big one? Anything more on Cubans and blacks getting together?”
    She shrugged her shoulders, shivering with the October chill.
    “Ummmm, we only spoke once this week. He’s in Canada with his girlfriend. She’s a social worker he met in Attica.”
    “Nice,” said Katey, looking around at nothing in particular. Somehow he felt dirty. Charisse. Charisse my