Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (23 page)

She had not known that Tom Chase was being de-
tained
at that address in Brentwood Park. Browning himself had been standing at that doorway waiting to quickly admit her and take her back to Tom's bedroom.
 
Possibly he'd sent the regular guards on some errand, or maybe he brought her in right under their noses while

they enjoyed a coffee break in the kitchen or something. Whatever, he sent Toni to the bedroom with the cocaine and ordered her to "also relieve the boy's tensions," possibly as a test of some kind.

Apparently Toni failed the test and Tom angrily knocked her around some before Browning stepped in and pulled her out of there. He took her to
Cherche's
and dropped her at the gate, not at all worried about any compromise to his "safe house" because he already had it wired to blow at seven o'clock anyway.

It was the finale for Toni, though. When she reported the incident to Maxwell by telephone, he immediately ordered her out of there and set up the "staged withdrawal" which played itself to a standstill at the airport that night.

By then, and maybe thanks to me, Browning had put Angelique and Toni into the same body so he knew that she was a definite threat. He'd come there to kill her, and probably me too. I can almost feel sorry for the guy. By this time he was in so deep and there were so many loose ends flopping about the cesspool, he must have been at the very end of his tether and going a little wild himself inside.

After the shooting, I surrendered his ID and gun to the airport cops and explained that it was a simple apprehension of a murder suspect. For some reason, guess they thought Browning's ID was mine because they handed it back to me and let me walk away after promising to make a full report downtown. I did that of course, and cleared the whole thing to everyone's

eventual satisfaction, but I waited a few hours to do that.

Had a date with Nicky, see, and I met him at the Beverly Hilton as promised. Gave him back his little black book but not the English translation—Maxwell had that—and I didn't bother to worry Nicky with knowledge of that. He was happy to get his "property" back, even insisted I take the ten grand although I had been kidding about that, and I heard later that he'd returned to Moscow the next day.
Cherche
is quite sad about that, but I'm sure she'll find another Nicky somewhere in the woodwork. As for Nicky himself, I guess I'll never know if he was buying coke for himself or trying to set up a diplomatic supply line to the Kremlin to grease some connections there, but the wonder of it has made something of a Kremlin-watcher of me; I keep looking for his name to surface in connection with purges or promotions and I'm betting on promotions. There is, after all, a whole new wind blowing across Mother Russia.

I guess those warm hours in front of the fire in that mountain chalet had not meant the same thing to Toni that they meant to me. She wants to live in Washington and play with cloaks and daggers. That's okay—life is more than a rose garden, after all. Toni is still very special to me, and I guess I will always think of her when I awaken in the night and the pillow beside me is bare. Course, that may not be happening too often in the future. I'm learning to take my special moments as they come, without trying to attach lifetime significance to

them, and that is working out pretty good with Alexandra's help. I'm sure there will be someone after Alexandra, someone after that, someone after that.

Meanwhile I have a couple of tantalizing offers to consider and probably eventually reject, but I'm having fun thinking about them anyway. General Maxwell wants to bring me into his corporate setup,
Cherche
LaFemme
into hers. Told
Cherche
she'd have to get out of the video business, too much insecurity there, but...

I'll probably just stay with my own.

I mean, what the hell, all I will ever be is a cop. It's enough.

About the Author

Don Pendleton is the author of
The Executioner
series featuring Mack Bolan, which has sold more than 60 million copies to date.
 
Copp
For Hire
, Mr. Pendleton’s debut hardcover novel, was published to critical acclaim by Donald I. Fine, Inc.
 
Joe
Copp
returned in 1988 with the popular encore novel,
Copp
On Fire
.
 
Don Pendleton and his wife, Linda, make their home in West Covina, California.

From First Edition, Donald I. Fine, Inc., June, 1989
 

Kindle Edition, February 2010