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of control."
    "Drugs?"
    "What else?"
    "How long had she been blowing crystal?"
    "Long enough for me to say good-bye."
    "When you two met, was she using?"
    Minors sank down on a chair, drooped like a water-starved plant. "Nothing heavy."
    "Pot?"
    "Occasionally."
    "Why'd she turn to a heavier case load?"
    "Who knows?" Minors muttered. "It's this damn city. Takes over your life."
    Poe said, "She was turning tricks."
    Minors muttered, "Case in point."
    "Is that why you beat her up?"
    Minors blushed brightly. "I didn't beat her up—"
    "You smacked her around, Trent. Save us both some energy and don't play Mr. Who Me?, all right?"
    "So I got pissed a couple times—"
    "A couple of times?" With dubious eyes, Poe gave him a look. "Who was really out of control?"
    Minors blurted, "I didn't give a flying fuck about her whoring! Okay?"
    Poe licked his lips, tapped his pen against his notebook. "Why not?"
    Quietly, Minors said, "'Cause we had this understanding."
    "What kind of understanding?"
    The dealer got anxious. "Just that we didn't butt into each other's business."
    "Each other's business," Poe repeated. "Do you mean personal or professional business?"
    "Both."
    "So her whoring was okay because it brought in money?"
    "It was her thing, Sergeant!" Minors exploded. "Her business, her money. I didn't have a thing to do with it. I wasn't her pimp, okay ?"
    "But you knew about it."
    Minors was quiet.
    "If you had this understanding about her whoring, Trent, why did you toss her?"
    "Who told you I hit her?"
    Poe ignored his question. "Did you beat her because you thought she was holding money back?"
    "I told you I wasn't her pimp!"
    "Then who was?"
    A heavy sigh. Minors said, "She told me she was set up by hotels."
    "Havana?"
    "All of them." He swallowed hard. "She got around."
    "And you didn't care?"
    "I didn't say that," Minors whined. "I just said I knew about it and tried not to interfere."
    Poe said, "Can we go back to my original question? If you knew about it, had this understanding…why did you beat her?"
    Minors said nothing, leaving Poe to wonder what information he was sitting on.
    "Did she take up with someone else, Trent?" Poe asked.
    Minors stiffened. "Hey! I kicked her out. Not the other way around."
    "After you found out she was shagging…who?"
    Minors bolted upward. "I don't have to talk to you—"
    "Sit down!" Poe commanded. He put the mug on the coffee table. "Stop acting so…emotional."
    A long silence. Then the dealer sat down.
    Poe stated, "Brittany had gotten involved with someone. Tell me who it was, and then I don't drag you downtown. You make my life easy, I don't have to say it came from you."
    Minors cleared his throat. "She took up with the boss."
    Poe paused. Did he mean Havana's pit boss? "Are you talking about Pete Delatorre?"
    "Bigger than Havana." Minors hitchhiked his thumb in an upward motion. "And higher up."
    "A casino manager—"
    "Higher still."
    Poe tried to keep cool. "This isn't twenty questions, Trent. Give me a name."
    "How about Parker Lewiston?"
    Poe opened his mouth and closed it. Lewiston owned half of downtown Vegas. Generally his taste in women ran a little older—mid-twenties and a hell of a lot more classy than Brittany Newel. Honey had been one of Parker's ladies. Before he had put Honey out to pasture, he had fixed her up. The papers to a condo plus a yearly stipend. So what had happened with Brittany? And why would Parkerboy be attracted to a cheap whore like her in the first place?
    A pause.
    Of course, to paraphrase Virginia Hill's statement to the HUAC, Newel, in her prime, could have been the best cocksucker in America.
    "Hard to believe, huh?" Minors had turned acerbic. "Brittany with Parkerboy ."
    "Lewiston takes care of his women, Trent."
    "I told you. Brittany was out of control!"
    But Parkerboy never allowed his women to get out of control. If they used, he provided for them…kept them happy and content. Poe was suspicious.
    Minors was saying, "…threw it in my face