Free Assault on the Empress by Jerry Ahern

I never even made it on the squad.” There was a hint of sadness in her voice. She set the coffee down on a small table behind the piano and just looked at him.
    â€œIf you’d been on the cheerleaders, it would have been the only high school with enough team spirit to beat the Chicago Bears. Trust me on that.” He didn’t sit down at the piano yet. “Want a roll?”
    She just looked at him, startled.
    â€œI mean a Danish.” He grinned.
    She looked down at her shoes for a second and he thought he saw her smile. “Do you always come on to girls like this?” she asked after a moment.
    His mouth was half full of danish. He shook his head, swallowed, almost choked. “I’ve never met a girl who looked like you. Sounded like you. Smiled like you.” He took another bite of his danish and she sipped at her coffee, blowing across it first like a child might try to cool a cup of hot chocolate.
    Cross finished the first Danish—pineapple and light as air—and took a swallow of coffee. It wasn’t all that hot. He’d forgotten the napkin, so wiped his fingers clean on his handkerchief. “Don’t want sticky keys,” he told her. “Do you play piano?”
    â€œI can pick out a few things. But I don’t play very well. I played in the high school band and kept up in college.”
    â€œWhat instrument?”
    â€œThen promise you won’t make any jokes about it. You’ve got to,” she insisted.
    â€œPromise,” Cross agreed.
    â€œThe flute.”
    â€œI can see where flute jokes might be awkward on the ear. I’ll keep my promise.” Cross adjusted the seat—his predecessor had apparently been shorter than Cross’s own plus six feet—and flexed his fingers, then tried a few arpeggios to check for tune. He had imagined that with all the subtle movement of a ship and the constant humidity of the salt air, there might be a problem with the tune. But it was more than acceptable, almost dead on pitch. “What can I play for you?”
    â€œWhy don’t you just play something your way and I can get your style before you try to catch mine. It was just when I came to Europe that I heard you in that hotel in London.”
    â€œI know the perfect thing. ‘You Go to My Head’?”
    She smiled as she said, “I know that,” and Cross wondered if she really knew it like he’d meant it.

Chapter Seven
    General Argus was as on time as a Swiss stopwatch. At precisely 9:00 A.M. Eastern time, the telephone rang and Darwin Hughes, fresh back from a longer than usual run, wiped the towel draped over his neck across his face as he picked up the receiver.
    â€œHello.”
    â€œYou wanted a way to reach your friend in Chicago. Well, I’ve got that for you. Got a pencil?”
    â€œRight here. Yes.”
    Hughes copied down a hotel address and two phone numbers. From the hotel, it was obvious that Lewis Babcock still believed in going first class.
    â€œGot it?”
    â€œYes. I’ve got it. Know what he’s up to?”
    â€œIf you feel comfortable about your line.”
    â€œComfortable enough for this I think.”
    â€œAll right,” Argus began. “Nine days ago, two Chicago police officers were assigned to transport a substantial street value’s worth of cocaine to Central Police Headquarters at Eleventh and State Street. It had been seized in a raid the night before. The car they were driving never reached Headquarters. It was found a couple of hours later. The cocaine was missing of course and one of the officers was dead, shot six times in the chest with the revolver left on the seat beside him. The revolver belonged to the second officer. He was found wandering around the West Side, no memory at all of what had happened, his gun missing of course. He was arrested and there’s a pre-trial hearing on first-degree murder charges and a number of other charges