9
If corrupt cops had better tastes it would be easier to spot them out. The nursing home style floral couches and the corner glass cabinet might have been antique or just plain old. The abstract paintings on the walls might have been investments or products from the kids’ art classes. If the price tags were still hanging off them, Furn would have had a better idea as to which. As it was, the only criminal charges he could have confidently laid here was for the poor Golden Retriever puppy being decked out in a purple and green striped satin coat: surely that was a case of animal cruelty. Furn patted the puppy sympathetically. It turned quickly away, however, dragging its tongue along to the hand that fed it: Detective Sergeant Joe Pinter.
‘I don’t have anything you want to hear,’ said Detective Sergeant Joe Pinter of the Victorian Criminal Investigation Bureau’s Armed Robbery Unit, his Carlton Draught stubby held to his chest, ‘but let me say I like what you boys do.’
He had a hard, box-shaped jaw and his sandy brown crew-cut sat high up on his crinkled forehead. He was sitting tensely in one of those nursing home couches, the cushions at his back pushing him forward at an uncomfortable angle.
‘Thanks,’ said Furn, with a beer and a couch of his own. ‘Thanks a lot, but let’s not change the subject ‘cause you’re a no good coward and that’s worth talking about.’
Pinter frowned. ‘What the hell?’
‘You might not like the style, so it’s just too bad the size fits so well.’
‘You think you know me?’
‘I’m only guessing. But if a cop runs from a threat he must know who made it.’
Pinter drank with a frosty smirk. ‘I’ve got kids, a wife, a dog and a badge. Together they are my third kidney and no matter how murky and putrid things are when they go in, they get pissed out clean and pure.’
‘Well, maybe it wasn’t a threat at all that got you running. Maybe it was a bribe. But if the next directive involves you getting in my way, I’d recommend you join Wershakov down the coast with a fishing rod. I wouldn’t want your third kidney getting overworked.’
A hot, dangerous light flickered in Pinter’s eyes and then it dissipated with a smile. He gestured with the Carlton Draught. ‘This stuff will fuck up the only kidneys you’ve got, my friend. Would you like another one?’