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then…anyway. What did you find out?”
    “Nothing,” I say. “And you?”
    “Wait a minute. Nothing? How many people did you talk to?”
    “Beaucoup.”
    “And nothing?”
    “Oui. Rien.”
    She shakes her head, but I’m not sure she believes me.
    “Well,” she says as she gestures me out the front door, “while I was standing around, waiting for a certain someone I won’t name, I texted a contact in Vice, who gave me access to some of their files. And I have a theory.” Detective Burke begins to speak more quickly now, but she still sounds like a first-grade teacher explaining simple arithmetic to the class.
    “There have been three call-girl murders in the past three months, including Maria Martinez. All Vice cops posing as call girls. The first was…”
    I cannot keep quiet. We’ve already looked into this.
    “I know,” I say. “Valerie Delvecchio. Murdered at a construction site. A rénovation of a hotel. The Hotel Chelsea, on 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue. The second cop was Dana Morgan-Schwarz. She was offed in a hotel on 155th and Riverside. A drug-den SRO so bad I wouldn’t go there to take a piss.”
    This does nothing to dampen Burke’s enthusiasm for her theory.
    “Don’t you see, Moncrief? You’re not putting the pieces together. This is a pattern. Three Vice cops posing as call girls. All of them murdered. This is—”
    “This is ridiculous,” I say. “This is not a pattern. It is at best a coincidence. The Chelsea murder is unsolved, yes. But the detective’s body was dumped there after she was murdered. And Morgan-Schwarz was probably involved in an inside drug deal. No high-class hooker would go to that hotel.”
    But Burke is simply not listening.
    “I set up a meeting for us with Vice this afternoon at four. We’re going to get the names, numbers, and websites of every expensive call-girl service in New York.”
    “Good luck with that,” I say. “That should only take a few weeks.”
    “Then we’re going to meet all the people who run them. I don’t care if it’s the Mafia, Brazilian drug lords, Colombian cartels, or other cops. We’re going to see every last one.”
    “Great. That should only take a few months. ”
    “You’ve got a bad goddamn attitude, Moncrief.”
    I’m not going to explode. I’m not going to explode. I’m not going to explode.
    “I will see you at four o’clock for our meeting with Vice,” I say calmly.
    “Where are you going till then? We’ve got work to do.”
    “I’m going to work right now. Want to come along?”
    Burke folds her arms and frowns. “You lied to me, didn’t you? You did find out something.”
    “Come with me and see for yourself.”

Chapter 16
    “Welcome to the Roaring Twenties,” I say to K. Burke as we enter Fitzgerald’s Bar and Grill, on East 68th Street.
    “Not much roaring going on,” Burke says. The room is empty except for the bartender and one female customer.
    The same girl I watched through the window earlier.
    The lone woman at the bar is young. She’s blond. She’s pretty. And after we flash IDs and introduce ourselves as detectives with the NYPD, she’s also very frightened.
    “Try to relax, miss,” says Burke. “There’s a problem, but it’s nothing for you to worry about. We’re just hoping you can help us out.”
    I’m astonished at the genuine sweetness in Detective Burke’s voice. The same voice that was just loud and stern with me is now soothing and gentle with the pretty blonde.
    “Could you tell us your name, please?” I ask, trying to imitate Burke’s soft style.
    “Laura,” she says. Her voice has a quiver of fear.
    “What about a last name?” Burke asks.
    “Jenkins,” says the girl. “Laura Jenkins.”
    “Let’s see some ID,” I say.
    The girl rustles around in her pocketbook and produces a laminated card. Burke doesn’t even look at it.
    “You’re aware, Ms. Jenkins, that in the state of New York, showing a police officer false identification is a class D