Неизвестный - 4. Justice In The Shadows

“Me or what—traffic patrol?”

Rebecca grinned. “Something like that.”

Catherine sighed. “Rebecca, darling—”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. I said she could see anyone she wants, and that whether she did or not was up to her. I wouldn’t check up on her.” Rebecca brushed her fingers over Catherine’s cheek. “Okay?”

“It sounds like a done deal.” Catherine rolled onto her lover and kissed her, a kiss that soon deepened and grew hungry. “Oh, dear,” she gasped.

“Uh-huh,” Rebecca muttered, wrapping her arms around Catherine and turning until she was on top. “Oh dear indeed.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sandy asked.

“What?” Mitchell picked up her chop sticks, then set them down with a sigh. “Not really.”

Sandy tipped her beer bottle back and drained it. “So. What’s up?”

Mitchell met Sandy’s inquiring gaze with worried blue eyes. “Look, will you just please promise not to go off to some meeting with this porno guy without checking in? Just do that?”

“Ah, jeez, Dell. Not that again.”

“What if something happens, and we don’t know where you are?”

Sandy put her hand on Mitchell’s leg and leaned close. “Nothing’s going to happen. Trudy will take me to meet the guy. I’ll say, Oh yes, I’d love to take off my clothes and suck your dick, and then he’ll say, Great, I’ll pick you up at such and such a time blah blah blah. Then you and Frye and Bluto will kick his ass.”

Mitchell smiled despite the unease that was burning holes in her gut.

“I’m a big girl, rookie. Don’t worry.”

“I know,” Mitchell said softly, playing with Sandy’s fingers. “Will you just try, really try to call Frye if anything goes down. I…I can’t take thinking about you getting hurt again.”

“Okay, baby, okay.” Sandy leaned into Mitchell and kissed her, her hand sliding to Mitchell’s stomach and then around her waist. As her tongue met Mitchell’s, she whimpered faintly and half climbed into Mitchell’s lap.

“Home,” Mitchell gasped when Sandy finally broke the kiss. “Home—Jesus, we gotta go home now.”

Breathing hard, Sandy rubbed her hand over Mitchell’s middle, then down the front of her jeans. “Yeah? To do what?”

Mitchell fumbled for her wallet, her hands shaking. “Take off our clothes, roll around—you know.”

“Oh, that. Okay.” Sandy tugged lightly on Mitchell’s waistband, grinning at the hazy need in Mitchell’s eyes. “Then we can dress Mitch.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Mitchell moaned.

Laughing, Sandy tugged her from the booth by the hand. “Come on, rookie. You got business to tend to.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Mitch? Mitch, you okay?”

Mitch blinked and focused on the bare breasts two feet in front of his face. Quickly, he averted his gaze and turned to Jasmine. “Yeah. Fine.”

“I have a feeling she’d like you to look a little more interested.” Jasmine studied the drag king with some concern. “You look a little bit out of it.”

“Just tired.” It was after three in the morning, and he hadn’t had much sleep the night before. Knock-down, drag-out sex with Sandy had pretty much taken everything he had left. After Jasmine’s show at the Troc, Jasmine and all the kings had gone barhopping. Ziggies was their last stop and by then, Mitch was bleary-eyed with fatigue.

“You need to be sharp,” Jasmine said as she leaned close and rested her hand on Mitch’s thigh. With her lips close to Mitch’s ear and her hand roaming over his leg, anyone watching would have thought they were lovers, which was just what she intended. “You lose focus, you’ll be in trouble.”

Mitch tilted his chin and kissed the corner of Jasmine’s mouth. Then he moved his lips along her jaw and murmured, “I got it. I faded out a little, but I’m okay now. Thanks.”

Jasmine nuzzled Mitch’s neck. “Frye would have my ass if anything happens to you.”

“Mine, too, if there was anything left of it.” Mitch blew softly in Jasmine’s ear. “You can probably take your hand off my dick now.”

Jasmine laughed and settled back in her seat. “I never get to play with any of the boys.”

Laughing, Mitch stood and stretched, then pulled a dollar from the pocket of his leather pants, reached out, and tucked it into the barely-there red G-string of the woman dancing just in front of him.

“You coming back, hot stuff?” she purred as she swiveled her hips suggestively.

“I will if you’ll still be here.” Mitch glanced at the other kings and Jasmine. “I’m gonna grab another beer.”

I need to get someone to talk to me, not just flirt with me. I need to make something happen.

“There’s so many things wrong with this picture, I don’t even know where to start.”

Rebecca balanced her third cup of coffee since midnight on her knee and gave Watts a wordless stare.

He returned her gaze with righteous indignation. “I’m a detective second grade, and I’m sitting on my ass out here in the cold while a wet-behind-the-ears rookie is inside where it’s nice and warm.”

“You’d look…” Rebecca shuddered, “out of place in leather pants. So you’re with me out here in the cold, and if you want to make detective one, you’ll act happy to be along.”

Watts snorted, his good sense having vanished with the last ten degree temperature drop. “And another thing…I’m freezing my nuts off while the kid with the fake johnson gets to watch the girls hump those shiny steel poles. Probably can’t even get a decent hard-on.”

Rebecca rubbed at the blistering headache that pounded between her eyes. “I don’t want to hear about your ass or your nuts or any other part of your anatomy, freezing or otherwise. I just want you to sit there and shut up. We’re on surveillance here, not Entertainment Tonight.”

“At least I’d be able to appreciate all the bare tits getting thrown around in there,” he grumbled. “So, can I smoke? It’s a department ride.”

“No,” Rebecca replied for the fifth time in an hour. She lifted her coffee cup, halted with it half way to her face, and squinted at two figures approaching from the far end of the block. Softly she said, “Oh, oh. What’s this?”

“So,” Mitch said casually to the bartender when he passed him the beer, “how do I get some action around here?”

The bartender seemed not to have heard, his attention focused on something across the room. Mitch turned in that direction, and his heart stuttered to a stop while his stomach convulsed with shock. A pretty Asian girl wended her way between the tables, followed closely by Sandy.

For an instant, Sandy looked in Mitch’s direction, and when their eyes met, there was nothing in Sandy’s expression to suggest that she had ever seen Mitch before in her life. She looked back to her companion. “What did you say this guy’s name was?”

“I didn’t.” Trudy shrugged. “I don’t think he ever said. He’s got some kind of accent…I don’t know what. Italian. Russian. Something like that.”

“I’m gonna get a drink. You want something?”

“Nah.” Trudy sat at one of the tables opposite the kings and Jasmine. “He should be here soon.”

Sandy sauntered to the bar and edged a hip up onto a stool six seats down from where Mitch still leaned with his back against the bar. The bartender took his time approaching, and when he got within earshot, she said, “Would it be too much trouble for you to get me a beer?”

“Would it be too much trouble for you to suck my dick?”

“Not if the price is right.”

He laughed. “You think in a place like this I have to pay for it?”

“If I told you what I think, I might not get my beer.” Sandy lifted a shoulder, a slow easy smile on her face. “And I’m very thirsty.”