Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) by Don Pendleton

credit, too, to the fact that I have been officially inside many such investigations over the years, so maybe I just don't have your confidence in the system. Sure, there is a tendency at such times to want to just crawl away and find some place safe and comfortable where you can lick your wounds, say to hell with it all, let things take their course. I thought of that, yeah. Trouble was, things were already taking their course and sweeping me along with it. Get swept into a cesspool, pal, and you'd better get busy trying to find a way out if you don't want to get buried in it, inch by creeping inch, while waiting for someone to come along and pull you out.
    I could feel it creeping past my chin and knew that I had to get very busy indeed.
    That does not mean that I knew the way out.
    But I did know that I would rather swim than sink into that mess, so I started stroking.
    We had determined that neither of my cars was in the impoundment yard, so I said goodbye to my lawyer on the jailhouse steps and took a cab to the last place I'd seen the Cadillac, since it was the closest. It was still there and still intact, with a wad of parking tickets lodged into the wiper well.
    It started right up, and I drove straight to Cherche's joint in Beverly Hills. I thought it very bizarre that she would go my bail unless somehow that would serve her own best interests. We'd been friends, sure, but what she'd done was far above and beyond the call of the very tightest friendship and we were a long way from that.
    I had it by official record now that her real name was Elena Sarastova and she owned the Beverly Hills property unencumbered except for this new lien by the bail bondsman. It was valued at two and a half mil— which just goes to show, girls, what one can get by just doing what one does best. The name had thrown me a bit because I'd already settled onto it as belonging to Gina, since the FBI agent had referred to Gina's apartment as "the Sarastova woman's" and also because of questions regarding the young lady's true identity.
    So I had hoped to get the answers to several questions in Beverly Hills. As it turned out, I got quite a bit more than I was expecting, and also quite a bit less. What I got was a new client. What I did not get was a lot of comfort regarding my own situation.
          
           It was four o'clock in the afternoon and she was having breakfast beside the pool, looked about the same as the last time, dressed about the same—a remarkably good looking woman for any age. I accepted an invitation to join her with toast and coffee, and I'd had two cups of coffee and all the dry toast I can tolerate before another word was spoken. I guess each was waiting for the other to start. She outwaited me. Finally I said, "Thank you, Cherche ."
    She showed me a solemn little smile as she replied, "No thanks are necessary, Joseph. You know that I would share my breakfast with you any time."
    "You know what I mean," I growled.
    She leaned forward to lightly pinch my cheek, then shook it gently before letting it go. "Why are you always such a tough gorilla, my darling?"
    "You should've seen me an hour ago," I told her. "Have you ever seen a gorilla cry?"
    "I would like that very much," she replied teasingly.
    "Want you to know I appreciate it."
    "Very well, I know it. And . . . ?"
    "And what?"
           "What else did you come to say?”
    "Don't know quite how to put it," I said uncomfortably. "But . . . why?"
    She smiled at my discomfort and said, "Why not?"
    "What do you want from me, Cherche ?"
    "Aha. The table is turned, is it not? Usually between us the question goes the other way."
    I said, "Okay, so I owe you. How do I square it up?"
    "You are a very good policeman, no?"
    "I try to be."
    "A very tough cop, they call you. How tough are you, Joseph?"
    "Depends. Tough as I have to be, I guess. How tough do you need?"
    "How tough is Mother Russia?"
    I said, "I don't understand."
    "She has been thought dead these