TAKE A CHANCE ON ME

  That's why Thomas liked her.

  She winked at him. "Hey, hot stuff. Wild date last night? Looks like you need a nap."

  Thomas rolled his eyes. She'd been giving him a hard time for more than a decade, first when he was with the Baltimore County State's Attorney's office and then with the task force. It was part of their routine.

  He took a steaming sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup and watched Regina get settled in the chair next to him, smoothing down her silk trousers and adjusting the belt at her trim waist. She sent him a flirty smile, her dark eyes flashing.

  Thomas shook his head. "I'm putting the finishing touches on my sexual harassment complaint against you, Reg. I should have it filed this week."

  She hooted with laughter. "Oooh, Tommy honey, you know I get all tingly when you use my name and the word sexual in the same sentence."

  He glared at her—if anyone else had called him that, they'd be in pain now.

  "Watch it, Reg." Chick Abels dropped his stack of files on the table with a thud. "He's got nothing against hitting women—remember the Amelia Pilcher case?"

  "Sure do." She was still grinning. "Three years for trying to make sure her church choir director never sang again."

  "I elbowed her in self-defense," Thomas growled. "She was going for my eyes with a paper clip."

  Regina sighed dreamily. "You've always had a way with the ladies, Tommy."

  Within minutes, all members of the Maryland Murder for Hire Task Force were gathered around the conference table, Captain Vince Stephano at the far end. The head of the Maryland State Police special operations division unceremoniously tossed a white bakery bag into the center of the table.

  "Help yourself to some bagels," he said, and the grins spread around the table like a contagion. Thomas long ago learned this was how the captain apologized for bringing everyone in on a weekend—by providing a selection of the world's worst bagels—dense, inflexible O-shaped objects not fit for human consumption.

  As Paulie often pointed out behind Stephano's back, it wasn't really the captain's fault—God never meant for Italians to shop for bagels.

  "All right, people, we've got a lot of territory to cover and it's a beautiful Indian summer day and I know we all want out of here so let's get to it."

  "You mean a Native American summer day," Manny Chaudury said.

  "My apologies to your motherland," Stephano said. "And as you can see we have the pleasure of Lieutenant Regina Massey's company this morning. The lieutenant will be updating us on the Slick homicide." Stephano abruptly swung his gaze toward Thomas and smiled. "But first I gotta know—how's your special friend this morning, Tobin?"

  Regina's head snapped around. Everyone else began to chuckle.

  "Did she recover?" Stephano asked way too nicely. "She sure was a pretty little bald thing."

  "The thing is a he and he's fine." Thomas saw Regina's eyes fly wide in shock. "It's a dog," he muttered.

  Regina's mouth fell open. "You got yourself a bald dog, honey?"

  "No. Yes. Sort of." It suddenly occurred to Thomas that this could be the break he was looking for—Regina was good with living things. She'd given birth to two kids and they were still alive, as far as he knew. So maybe she'd take Hairy. "You want it?"

  She frowned. "What kind is it?"

  "The real ugly kind," Paulie whispered, and the whole table cracked up.

  "It's a hairless toy breed," Thomas muttered, dropping his gaze to the fascinating scarred wood of the table. "Scott Slick's dog."

  The room went utterly silent. Stephano cleared his throat. "You didn't tell me you took Slick's dog to your place. Why didn't you tell me that thing was Slick's dog?"

  "You never asked," Thomas said. "I waited for somebody to claim him, but as we found out, Slick didn't have anybody."

  "So how did you end up with it?" Stephano asked, staring at Thomas in disbelief.

  Thomas shrugged and nodded to Regina. "Once you guys showed up and the evidence techs got there, you said you wanted him out of the apartment."

  Regina nodded. "I sure did—he'd already contaminated the crime scene something fierce."

  "He wouldn't leave Slick's side and I kind of felt bad for him. So I took him home with me."

  The silence was deafening. All eyes were on Thomas, and he felt like the featured attraction in a circus freak show. He looked from face to face. "What? What's the big deal?"

  Stephano cleared his throat. "It's just … well … that was kinda nice of you, Tobin, that's all. It was a nice thing to do."

  Regina's hand brushed his. "I didn't know you kept him, Thomas. That's very sweet."

  "Whatever," Thomas muttered, horrified by the compliments.

  "Maybe we wouldn't have given you so much shit last night if we'd known the thing was Slick's," Chick said. "I mean, who would have thought Slick would have a dog like that?"

  "Who would have thought Slick was gay?" Paulie chimed in.

  "True enough," Stephano said. "So, Lieutenant, care to bring us up to speed?"

  "My pleasure." She opened up the manila folder in front of her. "At this point, we're thinking Slick had another residence somewhere. We're operating under the assumption that he had an alias we don't yet know about."

  Her eyes met Thomas's, giving him a chance to chime in. He did.

  "Slick was actively running a bookmaking operation and we all knew it. There—it's on the table." Thomas looked at Stephano, and the captain nodded for him to continue. "As supervisor for this task force, I made the decision to keep working with him even with that knowledge. His information was just too good, and I wanted to keep it coming. I take responsibility for sidestepping regulations on that."

  Nobody said anything.

  "But it looks like Slick was doing a few other things I didn't know about. The apartment I'd been to a couple times and I thought was his home was … well, it probably wasn't his primary residence. It was like a hotel room. It didn't look very lived in."

  "Some gentlemen like to keep a clean house," Paulie offered.

  "You ought to know," Manny said.

  Regina shook her head, disgusted. "You boys are the biggest bunch of homophobes I've ever seen in my life. If you all weren't so insecure about your own sexual orientation you wouldn't have to—"

  "Bite me, Reg," Paulie said.

  "Enough!" Stephano smacked his palm on the table. "God, people! I want to get out of here, so let them finish. What else have you got, Reg?"

  Thomas sighed, rubbed both hands over his tired face, and let his thoughts wander back to Slick. He'd met him about twelve years before, his rookie year with the state's attorney's office. Slick got busted for bookmaking but worked off charges by becoming an informant for a variety of cases. One of them was the first murder-for-hire Thomas ever handled.

  A few months later, Slick came to Thomas on his own with another possible murder solicitation. Then another. And pretty soon, Thomas realized that Slick was the best informant he'd ever worked with, and pretended not to notice that his informant—who was supposed to stay on the good side of the law—had turned a little sideline into a thriving business.

  He'd seen Slick in action many times over the years. He treated each of his customers like royalty, listened to their lame excuses and blatant lies like it was the most fascinating shit he'd ever heard, and gave people every opportunity to set things right with him. The result was that Slick had customers throwing money at him year-round, even desperation bets in baseball season, and made more tax-free income than he knew what to do with.

  As Slick often explained with a smile on his face, guys who bet money on sports lost that money. Not with every bet, but at the end of the season or the year, they'd lost a ton of money. And it became his.

  Like taking candy from a baby, he used to say.

  They developed an understanding. Thomas would do what he could to keep the cops off Slick's back—no promises—and in exchange, Slick would tell Thomas what he heard in the course of doing business, an
d for some reason, people tended to confide in Scott Slick when life got ugly.

  He had a nice, open face. He listened. He smiled. Then he ratted on them.

  One of his customers asked Slick to find someone to whack his law partner. A waitress asked him to find someone to pull the plug on her comatose husband. A junior high school basketball coach up to his eyebrows in gambling debt wanted to collect on his own teenage daughter's life insurance policy. It seemed people believed Slick had connections.

  He did—connections to Thomas and the Maryland State Police.

  In the years of their partnership, Slick's tips were consistently on the mark—almost all had resulted in felony murder solicitation charges that ended in guilty pleas or trial. And Thomas liked the guy.

  But when Slick came to him in July and said he planned to close up shop and wanted out of their arrangement, Thomas wouldn't let him do it. He listened to Slick tell him his customers were getting more unreliable and collection was becoming a real pain in the ass. He told Thomas he had enough cash now to last him three lifetimes, and it was time to cut his losses and relax.

  But Thomas talked to him—okay, maybe threatened him a little, with Stephano's blessing—until Slick agreed to keep the operation going through the college football season. Then bam—a week later Slick was lying on his kitchen floor with his head bashed in, little doggie footprints of blood all around his body.

  As Thomas had stood there looking down at what used to be Slick, he wondered if his informant had known he was in danger, and that's why he wanted out. If that was the case, then it was Thomas's fault Slick was dead.

  And now that he was gone, Thomas realized Slick hadn't just bullshitted his clients or the poor SOBs who came to him for help—he'd been lying to Thomas, too.

  Thomas never once suspected Slick was gay. He never doubted that the apartment he'd visited was his home. He never knew he had a weird little dog.

  Did everybody have to be a liar? Did everybody have to pretend to be something they weren't?

  Thomas was only half listening to Reg review the case. He'd been unofficially helping out with the investigation all along. It was the least Thomas could do for Slick, who, thanks to him, was now the main entrée at the worm buffet.

  "Cause of death was blunt trauma to the head, inflicted by impact with the left front corner of the base of a KitchenAid blender," Regina read from the file. "The blender was found next to the victim's body on the kitchen floor, still plugged in, its engine burned out. The victim's skull was crushed above the left temple, under the rim of a cap. Bone fragments in the brain tissue. Massive hemorrhaging, lots of external bleeding."

  "I wonder whether the blender was set on chop or liquefy?" Chick asked.

  Thomas threw him a severe look but Reg continued unfazed. "Frappé," she said. "And the apartment showed no signs of forced entry. The lock wasn't picked. So it may be that Slick knew his attacker and let him in."

  "Usually do," Manny muttered.

  "Prints were found all over the blender and the counter-top but they came up unknown. Traces of skin and hair found under Slick's fingernails, signs of struggle. DNA analysis is pending. There was a variety of shoeprints found in the plush carpet in the living room, some Thomas's—he was first on the scene—some matching the shoes on Slick's feet at the time of death, others not. They pulled one intact print of a male Reebok running shoe, size ten, a model stocked at nearly every mall in America this year. The rest were a jumble."

  "What's the backlog for DNA testing these days?" Stephano asked, taking a few notes.

  "At least six weeks for a case without a suspect." And before anyone could say anything Reg shook her head. "I know. It's the worst it's ever been, but there's nothing I can do. Believe me, I'm in limbo on a bunch of cases just waiting for the lab to come through for me."

  "So what's this about another residence?" Stephano asked.

  Thomas looked up. "There were only three changes of clothes in Slick's closet, right, Reg?"

  "Mmm-mmm." Regina skimmed the file. "An overnight toiletry bag in the bathroom along with a few dog care supplies. A bare minimum of food in the cabinets and refrigerator. No magazine subs, no newspaper delivery, junk mail only, no phone or Internet service. Utilities were under his name. But—" She looked up with a grin. "There was an unopened economy pack of condoms in the bedside table, a lovely assortment of gay erotica, and a state-of-the-art entertainment center. Lots of CDs, too."

  "All of them disco," Thomas said under his breath. "What a waste of perfectly good technology."

  "So we're thinking it was his love shack," Regina said. "So if his murder wasn't related to his work with you guys, it may have been a lovers' spat."

  "Where's that taking you?" Stephano asked.

  "We've been digging around the Baltimore and Washington gay communities, trying to figure out how Slick fit into the scene, what kind of relationships he had."

  "And what have you got?"

  "Not much at this point, but we're still looking. If Slick went to the clubs, nobody's saying. If he had any significant others, they're being real discreet."

  "My God," Chick said. "Can you imagine how many customers he would have lost if it got out that he was light in the loafers?"

  "He'd have lost 'em all," Thomas said, watching Regina close the file. And then he wondered to himself if that's why Slick had really wanted out—so that he could finally stop pretending.

  Regina left the meeting at that point and Thomas took over. He reviewed the cases coming to trial, the pending indictments, and the list of possible new cases.

  Stephano turned to Thomas. "And where do we stand with our man Leo Vasilich?"

  The men around the table gave a collective sigh.

  "The judge is supposed to have her decision tomorrow on the motion to suppress, but Manny and I went by the book and there's no way they're going to get that surveillance tape thrown out. I'm afraid our friend Leo is fucked."

  "The man was just not using his head," Manny said.

  "Sure he was—the smaller one," Chick said.

  "There but for the grace of God go I," Paulie sighed.

  Thomas laughed at that. "Oh, yeah? You're a self-made multimillionaire immigrant who married a beauty pageant queen turned con artist, too?"

  Paulie blew out air. "You know what I mean, man. You just never know with women—none of us ever really know."

  "My wife wouldn't embezzle from me and give it to her lover. I trust her completely," Manny said.

  "You have nothing to embezzle, my friend," Chick pointed out.

  "Still, I trust her."

  "Leo trusted his wife and she cleaned him out," Chick said. "I don't blame him for wanting to kill her."

  Thomas shook his head. "See, Chick, it's all right to be so angry that you want to kill someone. The crime is when you decide to go ahead and do it—or in Leo's case, hire someone to do it. That's kind of the whole gist of our line of work."

  Chick smiled. "Oh. Now you tell me."

  At Stephano's urging, Thomas wrapped up the meeting by making assignments for the weeks to come. He divided up the background research, assigned undercover backup positions, and reviewed electronic surveillance equipment needs for each new campaign. It was going to be a busy couple of weeks.

  Driving home, Thomas realized he had a deposition on Monday and needed to stop at the dry cleaners to pick up his suits. It sometimes amused him that he had to plan his wardrobe ahead of time. There were days he'd appear in court in the morning and have to show up at a biker bar to meet a guy for a beer after work—and that required black leather. Other nights called for his cheap sports jacket and polyester slacks, and still others called for jeans, a flannel shirt, and a Jeff Gordon ball cap.

  He never went overboard with his undercover wardrobe, but he was aware that a man his size needed to do whatever he could to blend in.

  Thomas sighed as he pulled out of the dry cleaners. He couldn't put it off any longer. What choice did he have, seeing that Ha
iry had peed all over his car that morning?

  He took a stabilizing breath and grabbed a parking spot in front of the CYS drugstore. He told himself he could do this. He was an adult, an officer of the court who worked with violent criminals on a daily basis. He could certainly summon the courage to purchase maxi pads.

  He entered the front door like any normal customer and began scanning the aisles. He saw the sign hanging there as big as anything—Feminine Hygiene and Family Planning. Bingo. He'd hit the motherlode. Two, three minutes tops and he'd have those pups in a plastic bag and be outs there.

  Thomas strode down the aisle—and stopped. He stood before the shelves in a state of awe. Just how many different types of pads and tampons did the female race require? Dear God. Then his eye strayed toward the array of products apparently necessary for the proper functioning of the female reproductive system—douches, yeast infection creams, anti-itching ointments, personal lubricants, pregnancy tests, spermicides. His heart began to race. He struggled to keep his focus.

  Thomas scanned row after row. What should he buy? Wings or no wings? Heavy flow or light days? Curved edges or straight? He tried to imagine which of these pads would work best inside a tube sock tied around the tiny waist of a six-pound neutered male mutant dog, but was drawing a blank.

  He felt like he might need a hit off the oxygen canister he'd spied in the front window.

  "Is there something I can help you find, dude?"

  Thomas turned around to see a teenage stock boy staring at him with a smirk. He was leaning one elbow on a doily full of even more feminine hygiene products—cartons and cartons of them!

  "Your girlfriend send you on an errand?"

  Thomas gave the kid a smile that positively dripped with courtesy, then said, "At least I got a girlfriend, punk ass." He turned back to the wall of paper products and removed the first thing he saw. At the cash register, he realized he'd selected a forty-eight-count box of extra long pads for nighttime flow.