“Ah, ah, ah…”

Decker stopped and hissed out, “Go ahead and shoot me, you god-damn son of a bitch! I’m not dancing for your amusement!”

“I’m not making you dance, Lieutenant. I’m turning you into a real live hero.” The next shot grazed his hip. Decker doubled over in pain.

“I think that’s enough.” Donatti switched hands, keeping the semi-automatic on Decker’s face. Swiftly, he bent down, wrapped Merrin’s dead fingers around his pistol, and depleted it of ammunition. When he got up, he wiped his pants with latex-gloved hands, the Beretta pointed somewhere within the vicinity of Decker’s groin.

“You should lie down. Losing blood can make you light-headed.”

“Fuck you!” Decker stood up straight for spite. The air reeked of sweat, waste, and blood. His head was on fire. Sparkles danced before his eyes, but he concentrated on his breathing and refused to succumb to the nausea in his stomach and the dizziness in his brain. He’d go out like a man, in full consciousness, face-to-face and eye-to-eye.

Donatti was analyzing the scene. “Well, it looks to me like Lieber and Merrin shot each other, Lieutenant. Not to mention these two dodos, Merrin’s two top runners for ecstasy in the local high schools.”

“Philip Caldwell and Ryan Anderson.”

“You’ve done your homework. Yes, Caldwell and Anderson. And yes, you’re right. They knew Shayndie from hanging at the raves.”

“They took her out of hiding to call my brother,” Decker panted out. “They figured that… that my brother would tell me about it. And that would throw me off for a while. They murdered her…but figured I wouldn’t even look for the body for a couple of days because of the phone call. It was a good idea except they dumped her in a public place where she was easily found.”

Donatti rolled his eyes. “Idiots.”

“The boys knew where you had her stashed.” Decker’s eyes traveled to Donatti’s ice-blue orbs. “That means you had to have known them. Did they work for you?”

“Just the opposite. Caldwell had been one of those pains in the ass who had passed through my portals when I used to take in straight boys. Cocksucker abused my hospitality. Such rudeness has its consequences.” He shook his head. “He killed Ephraim Lieber in my style, thinking all he had to do to be me was pop the trigger. Well, they say that imitation is the highest form of flattery.”

The room was silent except for heavy breathing.

Decker spoke softly. “Now what?”

“Well, you can spin it any way you want, but I’d tell it like this: a distraught father / brother avenging the deaths of his daughter and brother from evil drug runners and a corrupt police chief. Let the pissant die a hero. Or you can tell the cops the truth, that Lieber was scum—a sniveling, weak, groveling piece of shit who got blow jobs from hookers and who set up his own brother and his own daughter. Then he tried to cover his tracks, bringing out some hick L.A. cop to pump NYPD for information. When the cop got to be a pain in the ass, he attempted to clean him. But the hick cop happened to be just a little smarter than Lieber thought.”