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“Valence is dead.”

“Yeah, but him an’ Anton had connections that want all that shit they did kept quiet.”

“Can you tell me who?”

“I don’t know no names, but even if I did I wouldn’t be sayin’ ’em.”

“Who’s this Billy Makepeace?”

“A cop I was bangin’.”

“He was your lover?”

Lana smiled at me.

“If it was nothing, then why would he help you with a dangerous man like Valence?”

“He couldn’t come with a condom on and sometimes we’d get a little high so maybe I’d let him.”

“And then came Cecilia.”

“Manny didn’t want me seein’ no cop, but I needed things that Billy wanted to give me. He paid my rent half the time and fooled himself to think he was in love with me. After I had the baby he had the test done and he didn’t want his daughter’s mother killed.”

“He knew about what Valence and Pratt were doing?”

“Everybody knew,” she said, as disgusted with the human race as Laur had been with men.

“You think he’d consider making some kind of testimony about that?”

“Would you?” she sneered.

It was such a good question that I fell out of my role as investigator for a moment or two. In order to be a cop, a good cop, you have to be ready to put your life on the line at any moment. Most cops had families and futures to think about. They acted as if those who broke the law had put themselves in jeopardy. But that wasn’t the case with me. Melquarth could tell that; so could my daughter.

“They don’t have no cameras in here,” Lana said.

“The assistant warden told me.”

“You wanna do it sittin’ in that chair?”

The question on my face made her smile. She stood up, sat on the table, and spread her trousered legs.

“We could do it like this if you want?”

“I’m old enough to be your father,” I argued in spite of the sweat at the back of my neck.

“You could be my baby daddy too.”

“What about Billy?”

“He ain’t here.”

“I don’t have a condom.”

“They got this thing called the Family Centered Program at Bedford Hills. If I get pregnant I get nine months’ care and then get to spend at least a year with my baby. Cecilia need a little brother or sister. After that I be out in less than two years.

“Billy’s marriage went dry,” Lana coaxed. “He cain’t say nuthin’ ’bout me gettin’ laid. Shit. Do you know what it’s like up in here?”

I certainly did. My breath came funny and I was certainly aroused. But the thought of Aja kept my zipper up. I was old enough to be Lana’s father—and I would act the part. I took seven hundred dollars of Augustine Antrobus’s money and handed it to the young woman.