Slide by Jason Starr Ken Bruen Page A

everything. There ain’t no secrets. So why don’t you tell me where that drug deal’s gonna be at?”
    “Can I ask why you want to know?”
    She wanted to go, “No, you can’t,” but went with, “Cause I just like to know where my man be at, that’s all....You are my man, ain’t you?”
    She saw the way he was looking at her and that was it, piece of cake. He told her everything she wanted to know about the drug deal—the time, the place, who was gonna be there, everything.
    Then he said, all scared and shit, “You sure you won’t tell The M.A.X., ma’am? I mean, I know it’s no big deal and all, but I don’t think The M.A.X. would appreciate it if he knew I told you something I wasn’t supposed to.”
    Yeah, Kyle had a big dick but Felicia had never seen a pussy like him her whole damn life. Never saw a sucker like him neither.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “Be our own little secret.” Then she climbed back on him and she said, “You like Britney?” Kyle said yeah and she said, “Then what you waitin’ for? Hit me one more time, baby.”

Ten
    Sideswipe
    C HARLES W ILLEFORD
    Joe Miscali was a good guy. You ask anyone and they’d go, “Joe? Yeah, he’s a good guy.” It seemed like everybody loved Joe and you had to wonder—where’s the flaw? what’s wrong with this picture?—since Joe was a cop and, yeah, a damn good one.
    He’d worked out of the 19th Precent so long that they called him Joe Nineteen. Even the bad guys kinda had a soft spot for Joey Nineteen. He was divorced—sure, came with the doughnuts and the buzz haircut—but even his ex old lady had nothing but nice things to say about him. She’d go, Joe? Oh, yeah, Joe, he’s a good guy.
    Joe didn’t work at being Mr. Nice. He was just one of those rarities, a good man in a bad situation.
    He was built like a brick shithouse—pug face, broken-veined complexion, hands thick as shovels. A typical Joe Miscali outfit: polyester pants with a nylon shirt and a plaid sports coat. Note to Norman Mailer: Good guys wear plaid. He was born in Queens, loved the Mets, Jets and Nets. He watched re-runs of The Odd Couple , like, a lot. He loved to quote from the show, insert lines into casual conversation even if no one understood what the hell he was talking about. Silly, yeah, but Joe got a kick out of it.
    His lineage was that old volatile mix of Italian and mick. So how’d he wind up with such a sunny disposition? Go figure.
    Joe had a pretty good record of closing cases. Not that he was a great cop but he was smart, knew snitches were the way to go. He’d been lucky, often getting to the right snitch at the right time. Thing is, like luck, snitches had a very short shelf life, so you got as much as you could from them before their mouths or dope took them off the board.
    If there was a sadness in Joe’s life, it was for Kenneth Simmons, an old buddy from way back. They’d gone to the Academy together and the son of a bitch had been a hell of a cop—relentless, never let go. Joe admired that, but it would turn out to be Kenny’s downfall. Last year, he was after Max Fisher, a smarmy, smug businessman who was on the hook for killing his wife and another woman. Over brews one night, Kenny’d told Joe, “The schmuck is guilty and I’m gonna nail him.”
    But someone’d nailed Ken before the case got up and running, and no one had ever really gone down for it. Joe kept an eye on the Fisher punk, knowing that somehow, in some goddamned way, he’d been the cause of Kenneth’s death.
    Kenneth had had a partner, a cocky mother named Ortiz. Joe could never figure the deal out—Kenneth, a sweetheart and Oritz, a badged prick. But, hey, like marriage, you never knew what glued people together.
    After Kenneth bought the farm, Ortiz had let the case go. Time to time, Joe would ask him if anything was breaking on the deal, but it seemed like Ortiz had given up. Then, one night, Ortiz was killed instantly in a smash-up on the Jersey Turnpike