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in the NYPD who didn’t think Quinn was guilty of raping a minor. Fedderman had paid for it, in wisecracks and dirty looks and shitty assignments. The word was, he still believed in Quinn. “Fedderman’ll do. What about Kasner?”
    Renz shifted on the sofa cushion as if he’d just noticed he was sitting on something sharp. “She’s got kind of a reputation in the department, but she’s also got great skills.”
    Uh-oh. “Reputation?”
    â€œShe’s got what you might call a temper. Not so unlike yourself. She gets in the same kinda trouble you used to.”
    â€œShe in any of it now?”
    â€œYes and no.”
    â€œWhat’s the yes part?”
    â€œVince Egan made a play for her in a hotel lobby, and she knocked him on his ass.”
    Quinn stared incredulously. “A working cop swung on an NYPD captain? She’s on her way out, then.”
    â€œLet’s just say she’s on the bubble.” Renz explained to Quinn that Egan was drunk at the time and there were witnesses. It was the kind of trouble the NYPD didn’t need aired in public. An IA investigation had been spiked before it could get under way. “It’s the kinda process you should understand,” Renz said.
    â€œEgan’ll get her some other way.”
    â€œNot if you, Pearl, and Fedderman break the Elzner murder case.”
    Quinn understood Renz’s angle better now. He jammed his hands in his pants pockets and paced in his stocking feet. “I don’t like this. Too many last chances. How about Fedderman? He got something big riding on this, too? Will solving this case somehow cure him of a fatal disease?”
    â€œYou’re the one who might be cured of a fatal disease, Quinn. Loneliness and rot.”
    That one got through. Quinn stopped pacing and turned to face Renz.
    â€œYou oughta know last chances aren’t so bad,” Renz said. “In fact, they’re what life’s all about.”
    Quinn felt the anger drain from him. Renz was right.
    â€œYou can meet with Fedderman and Kasner tomorrow morning,” Renz said. “You name the time and place. I didn’t figure you’d want the meet here, since the apartment’s not set up for entertaining, even without the orange peels.”
    â€œTomorrow’s supposed to be a nice day,” Quinn said. “We can meet just inside the Eighty-sixth Street entrance to Central Park, say around ten o’clock.”
    â€œThat’ll work. They’ll be in plain clothes.”
    â€œI’ll watch for Fedderman. What’s Kasner look like?”
    â€œYou should know Fedderman’s put on some weight, mostly around the middle. Kasner’s short, a looker with brown eyes, a lotta dark hair, and a good rack.”
    â€œAnd a good punch, apparently.”
    â€œA short right,” Renz said, grinning as he stood up from the couch. “I got the story from a bartender I know at the Meermont. She knocked Egan ass over elbows. You and Pearl, you oughta get along fine.”
    â€œLike salt and pepper,” Quinn said, liking Kasner a little already, even though he knew she might be playing a double game, reporting to Renz as well as to him.
    â€œMore like pepper and pepper,” Renz said, going out the door.
    Quinn listened to Renz’s receding footsteps on the creaking wooden stairs, then the faint swishing sound of the street door opening and closing.
    He wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into, but at least his life was moving forward again.
    Or some direction.
    Â 
    Pain!
    It would never stop. Or so it seemed.
    The woman continued crawling toward the door, and the whip continued to lash her bare buttocks, her meaty thighs, and sometimes, to surprise her, her bare back.
    She’d known what she was getting into—so this was her own doing, as her father used to say. She was to blame. She bore the guilt like invisible chains. When she’d