Dust To Dust Read Free

Tippen curled his lip. "Is there another kind?"
    "Sure. The kind who go out with you," Liska said. "Masochists." Tippen flicked a corn chip at her.
    Kovac regarded himself critically in the mirror of Liska's compact. The split in his forehead had been cleaned and patched by an overworked resident in the Hennepin County Medical Center ER, where gangbangers were regularly patched up or zipped into body bags. He'd been embarrassed to go there with anything less than a gunshot wound, and the young woman had given himthe attitude that treating anything less was beneath her. Sexual attraction hadn't been a part
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    of the picture.
    He assessed the damage with a critical eye. His face was a quadtangle punctuated With stress lines, a couple of scars, and a hawkish, crooked nose that made a nice accompaniment to the crooked, sardomc mouth lurking beneath the requisite cop mustache. The hair was more gray than-brown. Once a month he paid an old Norwegian
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    barber ten bucks to cut it, which probably accounted for the fact that it tended to stand up.
    He'd never been handsome in the GQ sense of the word, but he'd never sent women running either-at least not because of his looks. One more scar wasn't going to matter.
    Liska studied him as she sipped her beer. "It gives you character, Sam."
    "It gives me a headache," he groused, handing the compact back to her. "I already had all the character I needed."
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    "Well, I'd kiss it and make it better for you. But I already kneecapped the guy who did it. I think I've done my part."
    "And you wonder why you're single," Tippen remarked.
    Liska blew him a kiss. "Hey, love me, love my ASP. Or in your case, Tip, kiss my ASP"
    The front door swung open and a gust of cold air swept in, along with a new pack of patrons. Every cop's eye in the place went instantly flat, and the tension level cranked a notch.The cop collective guarding against outsiders.
    "The man of the hour," Elwood said, as recognition rippled through the crowd and a cheer went up. "Come to hobnob with the unwashed masses before his ascension."
    Kovac said nothing. Ace Wyatt stood in the doorway in a doublebreasted camel-hair topcoat, looking like Captain
America, master of all he surveyed. Square jaw, white smile, groomed like a fucking game-show host. He probably tipped his hairstylist ten bucks and got a complimentary blov'Job from the shampoo girl.
    "Is he wearing makeup?" Tippen asked under his breath. "I heard he gets his eyelashes dyed."
    "That's what happens when you go
HollywoodElwood said. "1
    'd be willing to suffer the indignity," Liska said sarcastically. "Did you hear the kind of money he's getting for that show?"
    Tippen took a long pull on his cigarette and exhaled. Kovac looked at Captain Ace Wyatt through the cloud. They'd worked on the same squad for a time. it seemed a hundred years ago. He'd just made the move from robbery to homicide.Wyatt was the top dog, already a legend, and angling to become a star on the brass side of things. He'd succeeded handsomely within the department, then branched out into television-maintaining his office as a CID captain and starring in a
Minneapolis cross between
America's Most Wanted and a motivational infornercial. The show, Crime Time, was going national.
    "I hate that guy."
    He reached for the Jack he wasn't supposed to Mix with his painkillers and tossed back what was left of it.
    "Jealous?" Liska needled. "Of what? Being a prick?"
    "Don't sell yourself short, Kojak. You're as big a prick as any man here."
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    Kovac made a growl at- the back of his throat, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but here. Why in hell had he come?. He had three parts of a concussion, and a perfect excuse to beg off and go home. So there was nothing to go home to-an empty house with an empty aquarium in the living room. The fish had all died of neglect while he'd pulled nearly seventy-two hours straight on the Cremator case. He hadn't bothered to replace them.
    Sitt*for Ace