"Why? What'd you do?"

"What'd / do?" He blew smoke angrily. "I didn't do dick."

Roy Panos helped him with the explanation. "They suppressed his evidence on some hooker he brought in for dope a couple of months ago. Said he planted it on her."

"So?" Holiday was all sweet reason. "If you didn't, what's the problem?"

Sephia's dark eyes went to slits, his temper ready to flare at any indication that Holiday was having fun at his expense, but he saw no sign of it. "Guy made me look like a fucking liar, is the problem. Like I'm supposed to remember exactly what I did with this one whore? She's got junk in her purse; another one's got it in her handbag. Who gives a shit where it was? Or how it got there? It's there, she's guilty, end of story. Am I right?"

"Fuckin' A." Julio Rez, a medium-built Latino, spoke without any accent. All wires and nerves, he'd probably been a good base stealer in his youth. He'd lost the lower half of his left ear somewhere, but it didn't bother him enough to try to cover it with his hair, which was cropped short. "She goes down."

"But not today. Today they let her go." Panos spoke to Holiday. "They suppress the dope, there's no case."

"Were you down at court, too?"

Panos shook his head. "No, but Wade was. My brother? He is pissed off."

"Not at me, I hope," Sephia said.

Panos patted him on the arm. "No, no. The lawyers. Bastards."

"Why would your brother be mad at Nick?" Holiday sipped again at his tumbler of bourbon.

"He was working for him at the time, that's why. It makes Wade look bad. I mean, Nick's doing patrol for Christ sake. He busts a hooker, she ought to stay busted at least. Now maybe they start looking at the rest of the shop."

"Judge reamed my ass," Sephia said. "This prick lawyer-he had the judge talking perjury, being snotty on the record. 'I find the arresting officer's testimony not credible as to the circumstances surrounding the arrest.' Yeah, well, Mr. Hardy, you can bite me."