Nobody so much as blew his nose in this place but that Billy didn’t tell ’em it was okay to take a Kleenex.

And he loved what he did, even if it got wicked weird sometimes.

Like first thing this morning. Six a.m. He’d booked a white female who’d been wearing a pair of Coke cans as pasties, the two aluminum numbers glued at the bottoms to her boobs and sticking straight out. He had a feeling that mug shot was going to end up on The Smoking Gun.com and she was probably going to enjoy the exposure: Before he’d taken her picture, he’d offered to get her a shirt or something, but nah, she wanted to show off her . . . well, cans.

People. Honestly.

Turned out the rubber cement was easy to get off, but they were serving her drinks in a single paper cup just in case she got another bright idea—

As the steel door opened down at the end of the hall, Billy sat up a little straighter in his chair.

The woman who came in was a sight to see, all right, but not for the reason most of the freaks here were. She was about ten feet tall and had blond hair that was always up in a twist on her head. Wearing a perfectly fitted suit and a long, formal coat, he knew without asking that her purse and her briefcase were worth more than he had in his 401(k).

To say nothing about that huge gold rope around her neck.

As a couple of guards passed her, they also stretched up their spines and dropped their voices . . . and immediately looked over their shoulders to get a look-see at the back of her.

And when she came up to the Plexiglas partition in front of him, he was glad he’d already slid the thing back, because he got to smell her perfume.

God . . . it was always the same. The scent of rich and expensive.

“Hi, Billy, how’s Tom doing at the police academy?”

Like a lot of Beacon Hill types, Grier Childe’s intonation made a simple question seem better than something Shakespeare had written. But unlike those tight-asses, she wasn’t a snot and her smile was genuine. She always asked about his son and his wife and she really looked at him, meeting his eyes like he was so much more than just a desk jockey.

“He’s doin’ great.” Billy grinned and crossed his arms over his puffed-up chest. “Graduating in June. Working out of Southie. He’s a marksman like his pops—kid could take out a tin can from a mile away.”

Unfortunately, that reminded him of Coke Girl, but he pushed the image right out of the way. Much better to enjoy the view of Ms. Childe, Esq.