Page 111 of Long Way Down

A long, tense moment passed, in which Titus breathed in his face like a bull, heaving all over with barely-leashed aggression. Then he pulled back with a curse and stalked away, muttering under his breath.

“Goddamn it. Goddamn cop-fucking, motherfucking–”

“Hey,” Pongo barked, tone going sharp now that there was no longer a knife at his throat. Titus lumbered back around, disbelieving. “Dixie’s none of your damn business. If you’re gonna come to me with a problem, you don’t get to choose how I fix it. I’m not some dumbass, low level pissant.” He gestured sweepingly to the room around them. “I’m a Dog. Do you honest to God think I’d go rat you out to the five-oh? You don’t think I’ve got bigger fish to fry than your stupid ass?”

His face darkened. “Watch your mouth, you–”

“Watch your knife,” Pongo snapped. “Raise a hand to a Dog again, and there’ll be awhole lottacops fishing you out of the Hudson. Understand?”

Titus fumed silently.

“Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” he gritted out, finally. He turned toward the bottle on his desk.

“Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll let you know what I find.” Pongo didn’t wait around for acknowledgment, but backed out of the door and kept his head turned on the sidewalk, one eye on the building until he’d rounded the corner.

Then he made two phone calls.

The first was to Kat. “There’s a new complication,” he said in response to Kat’s monotone “yeah?” “April’s missing.” He didn’t need any clarification, just said “understood” and hung up. Usually, Pongo found his bluntness annoying and charmless, but today was glad of the quick exchange.

Then he called Dixie.

He was surprised when she actually answered – he couldn’t think of a single time the line hadn’t rung out to voicemail – and even more surprised that she said a quiet “shit” and then “hold on.”

Noise swelled on the other end of the line, overlapping voices, ringing phones, the scrape of chairs over tile. Then there was a click and all he could hear was her breathing, slightly elevated. He could picture her eyes dilating as adrenaline flooded her system. “You’re sure?” she asked. “She hasn’t just quit?”

He hadn’t thought of that. “I dunno, honestly. But her – employer – doesn’t think so.”

She sighed. “Pimp, Pongo. You can say pimp.”

“No, I can’t, because nobody involved in this bullshit wants to come forward to the police,” he said, more snappish than intended. He was getting frustrated, at this point. He braced himself, then, for a curse and a hangup. But he was again surprised, because Dixie stayed on the line.

“I know, I know,” she said on a sigh. “What do you think happened?”

“No idea. But apparently we – you and me – were seen in the club the other night. People know we talked to her.”

“Shit,” she said, with feeling. “Did she get spooked and bolt? Maybe she has a little spider hole somewhere; maybe she skipped town.”

“Maybe. Or maybe Mr. Note-Leaver caught up with her again.”

“Yeah.” She made a frustrated sound. “Damn it, I can’t go looking for her, at least not officially. I can’t use any of the databases, or flash my badge to get anyone talking. Not if she won’t come forward.”

“I know. I’m looking into it and so is…a friend.” Kat would probably gag if he heard him throwing that word around, but so be it.Nephew of this new crime boss we’re taking under our wingdidn’t have quite the same ring to it.

She sighed again, and sounded tired. “Yeah, okay. Thanks. Let me know if you find anything out.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward moment followed, before they hung up. This moment of expectation, like something more needed to be said. He would have blamed it on his own sense of whimsical romance; he had learned in the past few months that he was more tender-hearted than he thought. But she held on the line, too, waiting. Perhaps chewing over words the same way he was.

Finally, he said, “I’ll let you go.”

“Yeah. Bye.” Hanging up was a disappointment, one he didn’t have the time to parse out right now.

~*~

Melissa had shut herself into a dark, currently unused conference room to take the call, and sagged back against the tabletop when they disconnected. She took a moment to regret hanging up. And then another moment to wonder why that terribly soft thought had entered her mind. It had, though, no denying, rushing straight ahead of worry for April or frustration that she couldn’t bring the full force of her resources to bear on the situation.