Page 64 of Long Way Down

“I’m sitting right here.”

Pongo’s smile turned chagrined and he accepted Contreras’s shake. “Guess this is my clue to leave and let you guys get to it, huh?”

“If you don’t mind. Thanks for the food.”

“No sweat. Dix, I’ll see you later.”

He tossed her a wave that she didn’t return, and slipped out, leaving the food behind.

The latch clicked, and silence reigned for five…four…three…

“So that’s your acquaintance,” Contreras said.

She didn’t make eye contact – wasn’t brave enough to, at the moment – and instead stared at Pongo’s abandoned plate, nearly empty. He’d managed to choke down a shocking quantity of food in a short amount of time, a bottomless pit in the way of most young men. Unlike her, or most of the men she’d slept with in the last few years, he didn’t watch what he ate and frown at his waistline in the mirror. Ate, and drank, and smoked, and worked out, and looked great, and didn’t have a worry in his thick, pretty head.

“He’s not what I was expecting,” Contreras said. “Younger than I thought he’d be. Perkier. And there’s the whole Lean Dog angle–”

“Do we really have to do this?” She turned to him, finally, and let him see her pained expression.

He smiled, but not unkindly. “Your boyfriend is a cute, happy, freckle-faced puppy of a Lean Dog, and look at you, sitting there frowning like you bit into a lemon.”

She groaned and put her head down on the table.

“Seriously, though,” he said, tone sobering. “A Lean Dog?”

“It wasn’t on purpose. I was at a bar, and was…” Mourning the fact that Cole Morris didn’t seem to know that she was a woman, much less hopelessly crushing on him, she didn’t say. “Feeling sorry for myself. I’d had too much whiskey, and he got up on the next stool and started chatting me up. He was flirting, and he was – oh, damn, alright, he’scute. And I may be a bitch, but I’m not blind. I took him home. And now he’s the stray who keeps coming back again and again.”

“Clearly, you haven’t kicked him to the curb, though,” he pointed out.

She propped her chin on the back of her hand and glared at him.

“I’m not judging,” he said, showing her his palms. “In fact, I like him.” He grew serious, something softening dangerously in his gaze. “And you’re not a bitch. You shouldn’t call yourself that.”

She scrunched up her nose.

“Being tough and not putting up with bullshit isn’t a bad thing, honey,” he said, so paternal she could puke…so paternal she could bask in the sentiment. Ugh. “And if he’s good to you, that’s all that counts.”

“Stop trying to be my dad,” she said, without any heat.

He nodded. “For what it’s worth, I like him better than that artist guy.”

She pressed her face back into the crook of her elbow to the sound of his laughter.

~*~

Once her face no longer felt hot with embarrassment, she sat up, picked up her fork, and they resumed eating and piecing together their evidence – such as it was.

“He escalated,” Contreras said, gesturing toward her pad with his fork, bits of crushed peanut raining down onto the tabletop. “First it was saying the phrase – thanking Davey – during sex. Then, with the next two prostitutes, he gets more violent. Gets stabbed, and stops coming around. Maybe he backs off his fantasy, or maybe he starts going somewhere else, who knows.”

“And good luck getting anyone to come forward and tell us about it. Unless Pongo’s got more underworld contacts, we have to work off what we know.”

“And he’s right that nothing he told us is permissible, anyway. So he gets stabbed,” he said, picking up the narrative thread again. “Backs off. The next incident is the one with the girl on the street. He cuts her up, which is abigescalation. But then with Lana and Lynn he leaves handwritten notes instead, which is a de-escalation.” He frowned. “You don’t usually see violence ramp up, and then dial back like that.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a natural escalation,” she said. “Maybe he was just testing methods to see which he liked best.”

“Could be. Scarring someone like that, though, is an awful committed experiment.”

“I think we’ve established he’s a piece of shit, though.”