nights. What else can a man do with our excuse for a pension?”
“The shit you made, you lucky you even get a pension.”
Vernon fixes his smile in place. “Come on, Dino, nobody got nothing on me.”
Erasmus sniffs through his double-barrels, scanning the almost deserted club. The cop van outside was scaring away the early punters, who are timid anyway—desperate and furtive and not yet filled with booze and come-lust.
“What you know about this little piece of shit Faro?”
Vernon shrugs. “He used to deal to some of the girls. Small-time.”
“He ever hassle you?”
Vernon laughs. “Me? He wouldn’t try.”
“So when last you see him?”
“When we closed, round three. He was walking down to his car. I went the other way, to where I park back of the club.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Vernon leans in closer to Erasmus. “Dino, why you on this anyway? Who cares about that useless little fuck?”
Erasmus shakes his head. “Man, whoever sorted out Faro did the world a flipping favor but I wish to Christ he done it across the railway line. This side we got some whitey local politician making a noise about community policing and all that bloody bullshit, so now SI gotta do window dressing.”
This knocks the gleam off Vernon’s smile. Special Investigations is a new outfit, supposedly incorruptible, formed to clean up the image of the cops. “Since when you with SI?”
Erasmus shrugs. “Few weeks.”
Means he’s still on probation. Way it works at SI. Means this dumb cocksucker is gonna be all hot and sticky to prove he’s worth the bump in pay if he goes permanent. Vernon doesn’t like this. Not one fucken bit.
Costa, looking harassed, dims the lights and cues the DJ. Loud bass pumps out, distorting through the crap sound system, Costa too cheap to upgrade, and Dawn’s coming through the curtains, in her jeans and white shirt, not even looking at the handful of men who sit around the ramp. In her own little world, that one. Same to her if it’s ten losers or ten thousand. She stares into space, moving her ass, shedding her shirt and bra.
Erasmus is all eyes. “What’s her name, that thing?” Leaning in close, shouting into Vernon’s ear, breath heavy with KFC and cigarettes.
“Dawn.”
“You fix me up with her in one of the rooms?”
Vernon shakes his head. “She don’t do that.”
“Why not? She think she something special, her with that bushman hair?”
Vernon shrugs. “She just don’t do it.”
Dawn loses the jeans and has her thumbs hooked into the waist of her panties, sliding them down far enough to show some pussy fur.
Even with the racket of the music, Vernon can hear the wheeze of Erasmus’s breath. Then the plainclothes clears his throat and reaches into his pocket and hauls out his flashing cell phone, covers one ear, and shouts something into it.
“Got to go,” he says, and grabs the uniformed cop by the collar of his shirt and walks him to the door, the pimply kid almost breaking his neck to look back as Dawn steps out of her panties.
Vernon limps up to the ramp and sits in the front row, massaging his bad leg that’s paining like a fucker, watching Dawn dance, her eyes closed, unaware of his presence, moving her bare naked body in time to some sticky R&B. She kneels and bends backward, her thick corkscrew curls brushing the ramp.
Her box is level with Vernon’s face, and if he leaned forward he could bite the clit peeping at him like a little pink tongue through the concertina folds of cunt meat. Means nothing to him. Zero. But when Dawn lifts her head up from the floor and her eyelids flicker open and she stares straight at him and he sees the terror in her eyes, now that’s when he’s turned on.
Chapter 15
It is very late—closer to daybreak than to midnight—and Exley, riding the wave of adrenaline the battle with Caroline pumped into him, has completed the model of his daughter. He takes Sunny out of the
“The shit you made, you lucky you even get a pension.”
Vernon fixes his smile in place. “Come on, Dino, nobody got nothing on me.”
Erasmus sniffs through his double-barrels, scanning the almost deserted club. The cop van outside was scaring away the early punters, who are timid anyway—desperate and furtive and not yet filled with booze and come-lust.
“What you know about this little piece of shit Faro?”
Vernon shrugs. “He used to deal to some of the girls. Small-time.”
“He ever hassle you?”
Vernon laughs. “Me? He wouldn’t try.”
“So when last you see him?”
“When we closed, round three. He was walking down to his car. I went the other way, to where I park back of the club.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Vernon leans in closer to Erasmus. “Dino, why you on this anyway? Who cares about that useless little fuck?”
Erasmus shakes his head. “Man, whoever sorted out Faro did the world a flipping favor but I wish to Christ he done it across the railway line. This side we got some whitey local politician making a noise about community policing and all that bloody bullshit, so now SI gotta do window dressing.”
This knocks the gleam off Vernon’s smile. Special Investigations is a new outfit, supposedly incorruptible, formed to clean up the image of the cops. “Since when you with SI?”
Erasmus shrugs. “Few weeks.”
Means he’s still on probation. Way it works at SI. Means this dumb cocksucker is gonna be all hot and sticky to prove he’s worth the bump in pay if he goes permanent. Vernon doesn’t like this. Not one fucken bit.
Costa, looking harassed, dims the lights and cues the DJ. Loud bass pumps out, distorting through the crap sound system, Costa too cheap to upgrade, and Dawn’s coming through the curtains, in her jeans and white shirt, not even looking at the handful of men who sit around the ramp. In her own little world, that one. Same to her if it’s ten losers or ten thousand. She stares into space, moving her ass, shedding her shirt and bra.
Erasmus is all eyes. “What’s her name, that thing?” Leaning in close, shouting into Vernon’s ear, breath heavy with KFC and cigarettes.
“Dawn.”
“You fix me up with her in one of the rooms?”
Vernon shakes his head. “She don’t do that.”
“Why not? She think she something special, her with that bushman hair?”
Vernon shrugs. “She just don’t do it.”
Dawn loses the jeans and has her thumbs hooked into the waist of her panties, sliding them down far enough to show some pussy fur.
Even with the racket of the music, Vernon can hear the wheeze of Erasmus’s breath. Then the plainclothes clears his throat and reaches into his pocket and hauls out his flashing cell phone, covers one ear, and shouts something into it.
“Got to go,” he says, and grabs the uniformed cop by the collar of his shirt and walks him to the door, the pimply kid almost breaking his neck to look back as Dawn steps out of her panties.
Vernon limps up to the ramp and sits in the front row, massaging his bad leg that’s paining like a fucker, watching Dawn dance, her eyes closed, unaware of his presence, moving her bare naked body in time to some sticky R&B. She kneels and bends backward, her thick corkscrew curls brushing the ramp.
Her box is level with Vernon’s face, and if he leaned forward he could bite the clit peeping at him like a little pink tongue through the concertina folds of cunt meat. Means nothing to him. Zero. But when Dawn lifts her head up from the floor and her eyelids flicker open and she stares straight at him and he sees the terror in her eyes, now that’s when he’s turned on.
Chapter 15
It is very late—closer to daybreak than to midnight—and Exley, riding the wave of adrenaline the battle with Caroline pumped into him, has completed the model of his daughter. He takes Sunny out of the
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