Page 106 of Long Way Down

Pongo’s turn to frown. “Don’t make it sound cheap.”

“Isn’t it?” When Pongo didn’t answer right away, he said, “Oh.”

“No. Notoh.”

“What, then?”

“It’s…” He sighed. Raked at his dew-damp curls. “Maybeoh. I dunno. It’s just…she’s not a pain in the ass cop. Not one of the ones who give us hell, you know? Like the guys with a high school grudge to settle against the world?”

He had other metaphors lined up, but Toly gave a single nod of understanding.

“She’sgood,” Pongo continued, wanting, maybe even needing to convince him. “She wants to make a difference. To help people and put creeps behind bars. All that cliché shit. I’m not trying to push a cop agenda, but Dixie’s different.”

Toly’s look plainly said,Get to the point.

“Twice today” – he held up two fingers – “guys who are in the business of making other people miserable asked me about her. Gave me thislook, you know.” He tried his best to mimic it, though he knew he failed. “They were all ‘your detective friend,’ and gave me the look, and the threat was there, even though they didn’t say it.”

“That’s usually how threats work,” Toly said, dryly.

“Yeah, I know.” The other man’s flat look was getting under his skin; agitation bled into his voice. “But when friends are threatening somebody I care about, that pisses me off.”

Toly’s brows drew together. “Friends?”

“Fucking Shaman and that fucking Alpine guy, thePrince. And Shaman acted like he spoke for the club, like he was the boss or some shit. Allwethis andwethat.”

Toly frowned.

“And now I’m thinking that the next time I go by Dixie’s place, I’m gonna find her hanging off her shower rod with a note on the goddamn mirror.” His voice cracked at the end, and he realized that his breathing had grown quick, harsh pants through an open mouth. He raked his hands back through his hair and made an effort to calm himself. “I just…all the shit we’ve got going on, all this worry about what’s going to happen now that Abacus is blown up, and I’m getting warnings about my fucking girlfriend, of all things. Like, ‘Yeah, sure, let’s save all these women they were holding as slaves, but oops! No-no, bad Pongo, nobody gives a shit aboutyourwoman, she’s a threat to our organization.’”

Toly’s head cocked, hair sliding against sharp cheekbones and black-clad shoulders, studying him as an alien would study a human, and that was when Pongo registered what he’d said. And Toly picked that moment to become interested in his plight for the first time, the bastard.

“Girlfriend?”

He wondered how Dixie would react to that word. She’d have a coronary, probably.

“A lot of guys have girlfriends,” he said, too defensively. “A lot of them havewives. It’s not like it’s weird or anything.”

“It is when she’s a cop.”

He pushed to his feet and was swamped by a wave of dizziness: too little food, too much Scotch, too little sleep all catching up to him. “Whatever, asshole,” he muttered, and headed for the hallway.

“Pongo,” Toly said, and he halted, out of shock, mostly. When he glanced over, he saw that Toly had twisted in his chair so they faced one another, and his expression had become unusually thoughtful. His head was a busy place, Pongo had always figured, but he so rarely showed it. “It doesn’t matter what Shaman or that Alpine bastard said. You only have to convince Maverick she’s ‘good,’ and if he took a chance on me, he’ll take a chance on anyone.”

Pongo blinked at him. Stuck his pinky in his ear and wiggled it around. “I’m sorry. It sounded like you were being…encouragingjust now.”

As quickly as it had dawned, Toly’s thoughtful, open expression folded back up and was tucked out of sight.

“Aw, c’mon, it’s okay to be encouraging. In fact, I would even…”

“Shut up.”

“…encourageit.”

“You’re a bad person.”

~*~

When Contreras walked into the bullpen at seven-thirty a.m., bearing a paper and umbrella tucked under his arm, Melissa was already at her desk. She clocked his raised-brow look of surprise and slid a tall caramel latte, still steaming, across the ridge between their pushed-together desks toward him.

---