Read Online Cop Town by Karin Slaughter - Free Book Online Page A

run down enough false leads to know the truth behind her statement. “How is shutting down the streets wasting time? It worked with Edward Spivey.”
    “Did it?”
    Maggie shrugged. Terry had gotten Spivey’s name off a snitch by using the same tactics. There had to be some worth in that.
    “Lemme lay it out for you,” Gail said. “We’re looking for some working gal who saw something in the Five last night, right? We’re hoping maybe she’ll give us a name?”
    Maggie nodded.
    “So, this is how day one goes down: Our boys are gonna throw everypimp they can find into the slammer. Lock up the pimps, then the girls spend all day getting high and sleeping.”
    Maggie nodded again. That was exactly what had happened the last time.
    “Day two rolls around: The pimps bail out, they beat up the girls for being lazy, the girls rush into the street to make up for lost revenue.” She lit a fresh cigarette. “Which brings us to day three: Our boys come in and lock up the whores.” She spun her lighter on the table. “It’s a revolving door, in and out, in and out—day four, day five, however long it takes, they’re gonna keep up this giant pissing contest until finally, somebody turns snitch so that everybody can get back to work.”
    “That’s what we want, though. We need somebody to talk.”
    “Yeah, but does that seem like the smart way to do it?” She leaned across the table. “What did I get up to, five, six days? Meanwhile, whoever killed Don Wesley’s already melting the murder weapon in a vat of acid and getting the hell outta town. Or worse, hiring some fancy lawyer from up north who thinks he’s gonna take a walk.”
    Edward Spivey again. Everything they did today would be cast in the man’s shadow. Maggie asked, “What’s the faster option?”
    “We find out the name of the pimp who’s running girls where the murder went down, then we get the pimp to set up a meet with his girls so we can talk to them. You know how it is. Them whores won’t take a shit ’less their pimp tells ’em to. And most times, he charges some freak to watch it.”
    Maggie almost laughed. “It’s that easy? Just go to the pimp and he’ll let us talk to his girls?”
    “It’s easy if we do it. If the boys do it, then we’re looking at our very own Tet Offensive.” She shrugged, like it was a foregone conclusion. “Chicks are better at de-escalating the situation. You know that.”
    “Yeah,” Maggie said, though this was a lot coming from a woman she’d seen crack open a suspect’s head with her Kel-Lite.
    Gail asked, “You ever break up a fight between two guys?”
    “Sure.” Maggie did it at least five times a week.
    “They don’t stop beating the shit out of each other because they’re scared of you, right?”
    “No.” Sometimes, all it took was the sight of her squad car to break up a fight. “After the first couple of punches, they want somebody to stop them before they really get hurt. I’m just the excuse.”
    “Correctamundo,” Gail said. “So, why go through all this trouble and drag it out with our boys banging up their boys and their boys banging up ours when we gals can just talk like semi-reasonable people?”
    “What gals?”
    “We gals.” She indicated the space between them.
    Maggie tried to think it through. “How do we know they’re not lying?”
    “How do we know the snitches are telling the truth?”
    She had raised a good point. “Have you told this idea to the bosses?”
    “Yeah, Mack and Les and Terry and them all fell to the floor and kissed my feet for being so damn brilliant.”
    Maggie grinned at the joke. “Five Points. A million girls work that area.”
    “We’re not talking Five Points. We’re talking Whitehall. And not just Whitehall, but the section near the C&S Bank where Don got shot. Them whores working that strip are older bitches. Most of ’em are shootin’ coke and horse eight balls. Not much life left. Which makes this time sensitive.”
    Maggie