Hooked

fingers as if he were a sleight-of-hand artist manipulating a silver dollar. He’d quit smoking years earlier, and the constant twiddling was more habit than the need to smoke. The owner of the restaurant had stopped worrying that Harry would light up, a no-no in restaurants and bars in New York .
    “With those demands, I’d think Bondell would probably love to do that,” Harry said, fingers working furiously. “Who the hell’s in charge here? If the Marshall woman hadn’t been fished out of the harbor, Tawny Dell would be up on charges right now.”
    Linc raised both hands, palms out, in protest. “Don’t take it out on me, Harry. I’m just the messenger.”
    “The NYPD could bust Cooper’s place wide open right now. Get him for running a prostitution ring and put his ass in jail till his dick fell off. If he had anything to do with the girl’s death, he’d be begging to tell anyone who asked.”
    Harry had lost a lot of money in the stock market and cited Benny Cooper as a target of revenge, even though Benny retired from his Wall Street gig years earlier. For Harry, Cooper was a symbol of the economy’s downfall, no different than the scumbag mortgage lenders and heads of the major financial institutions who used his money to pay themselves huge bonuses. Linc probably understood Harry better than anyone. They went back a long way.
    “We could,” Linc said, “but what we have on Cooper is pretty slim. What’s he going to get? First-timer, rich guy, on a charge of procurement? Good lawyer, which he’d have, probably a big fine, maybe a year or two. More likely probation. But if we nail him for blackmail or make a murder charge stick, he’d lose his dick in prison for sure, probably to someone named Sweetcakes. Until then, we might have a hard time getting one of his people to roll on him. He buys loyalty with lots and lots of money. I’m sure everyone on his payroll will have a prepared story detailing why they’re there and what they do when they are there. Cooper’s a jerk, but he’s not stupid. Harvard degree, made millions in the 90’s boom. We go in too soon, he’ll slap a harassment suit on the department that’d cost a bundle and precious time to defend, and the notoriety would mess up other investigations.”
    At the rate Harry was twiddling his cigarette, the paper would disintegrate before lunch was over. He threw it down in frustration at the same time the waiter brought their food to the table.
    “Damn, I hate those guys. They think they can get away with everything, even murder.”
    “If Tawny can connect Cooper to something worse than running a whorehouse, we can nail him. If not, we can still shut him down.” Linc picked up a set of chopsticks and offered them to Harry in lieu of the discarded cigarette. “What do we have to lose? Another week or two?”
    “This lady knows how to tie up a guy’s balls, doesn’t she?”
    Linc didn’t say anything, particularly since his balls tightened at the thought of her tying them up.
    He knew when he put Tawny’s demands to the captain it would have been a good time to get off the case. Right now, Linc, he said to himself at the time. But he let the moment pass until it was too late to bring it up. Instead, he endorsed Tawny. It wasn’t difficult.
    Clipping a potsticker with his chopsticks, he dipped it in the sauce. “She’s smart and cautious. She’d have to be to have stayed under the radar this long.”
    “And from every account I heard,” Harry said, “a real stunner.”
    The heat of Harry’s stare made Linc uncomfortable. He didn’t look across the table, afraid he’d give himself away. Harry knew him well enough to read his vibes. “She is that.”
    “You trust her?”
    Linc hesitated. He didn’t want to anxiously sing her praises. “Yes, I do.”
    “She trust you?”
    “Hmm, probably not.” An understatement. “But she’ll work with me.”
    “I’m sure Bondell will tell you to get everything straight with her before she goes in.”
    “You’re federal. You think they’ll give her what she wants in return?”
    “Depends how bad they want Cooper.”
    Linc wanted to say he didn’t want Tawny hurt, but he let the time pass to mention that too.
    * * * * *
    W alsh’s call took Tawny by surprise.
    “All the parties agreed to your terms,” he said, “and we got the state’s attorney to sign the contract. Can we get together?”
    “Okay.”
    “I can come to your place.”
    The idea of Lincoln