You’ve heard of guys who go through life following their own dick, and that was Walbeck. He said himself that he’d screw a snake if somebody would hold its head, and I’m not entirely certain he was exaggerating. He’d roust hookers and let them off in return for a quick blow job-it’s safe to say he wasn’t the first cop who thought of that one-but his real specialty was the wives and girlfriends of criminals.

That’s a little harder than getting a hooker to go down on you, but not by much. The first time I saw Mike in action, we had busted a guy who was cooking crank in his double-wide out on the edge of town. That’s methamphetamine, also known as speed, and it’s about as tricky to make as chili con carne. And cooking it’s a felony in fifty states, and we had this poor bastard dead to rights. His rights were what Mike was reading him, as a matter of fact, but he stopped in midsentence when he got a look at Cheryl.

I don’t know if she was his wife or his girlfriend, and I don’t remember her name, so for all I know it could have been Cheryl. Doesn’t matter. She was a blowsy girl, and in a few years she’d be a real porker, but now she was in her early twenties and she looked hot and sluttish. She had a wrapper on, I remember, and it needed laundering, and you could pretty much tell she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

“ Nice looking girl,” Walbeck told the mope. “You know, I wonder if there’s a way we can work something out.”

The guy got it before it touched the ground. “You see anything you like,” he said, “it’s yours.”

“ She’s got to do us both,” Walbeck said. “Me and my partner here.”

“ You got it.”

“ Eddie-” the girl said, whining.

“ Shut up,” he told her. “Like you’re gonna miss it?”

“ She’s got some shape on her,” Walbeck said. “She does us both, including we get to fuck her in the ass.”

“ No way,” the girl said.