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figure to have a long or distinguished career as a cop.
     
    “Damn!” she said to her bedroom ceiling, and tried to think about something else. Her mind was a merry-go-round she couldn’t stop. Maybe she should get out of bed and paint.
    Yeah, at eleven-thirty at night.
    It was one of the few times in her life when Pearl wished she had something other than her work. But she’d had several disastrous romances and had lost her faith in men. Most men, anyway. No, all men. The entire fucking gender. None of them seemed to be for her.
    Fedderman, being her partner, was the man she spent the most time with. A decent enough guy, married, three kids, overweight, overdeodorized, eighteen years older than Pearl, and more interested in pasta than sex.
    Not much hope there.
    The other men in her life, her fellow officers and men she encountered in other city jobs, sometimes made plays for her. None of them interested her. These guys were far more interested in sex than pasta, or anything else. Invariably, they talked a great game, but it was talk. The few guys she’d given a tumble couldn’t keep up with her in or out of the sack, and they tended to run off at the mouth. Pearl didn’t like that. Pearl figured the hell with them. When it came to what really mattered, they didn’t have it.
    Maybe she picked them wrong. Or maybe that was just men.
    She laced her fingers behind her head and closed her eyes. If she could only meet some guy who wasn’t all front. Who wasn’t shooting angles or afraid to care and act like he cared. Who wasn’t so dishonest with her.
    Who knows how lonely I am.
    Who isn’t so…
    She fell asleep thinking about it.
    Him.
    Like she sometimes did on nights when she didn’t drink scotch or take a pill.
     
    Lars Svenson wouldn’t let the woman sleep. Whenever he knew she was dozing off, he’d lay into her again with the whip. It was a short, supple whip, and about as big around as a shoelace, so it stung and left narrow but painful welts on the woman’s bare back.
    She couldn’t avoid the lashes, because she was lying on her stomach on her bed, her hands tied to the headboard, her feet to the iron bed frame’s legs. She couldn’t cry out, because a rectangle of silver duct tape covered her mouth.
    He lashed her again and she managed a fairly loud whimper.
    Lars stood back and smiled down at her. Through the web of hair over her left eye, she stared up at him. He loved the pain in her dark gaze and the message it sent.
    He gave her a few more, striking her just so, barely breaking the skin.
    It wasn’t the first time for her. He’d known that when he picked her up in the Village bar, where she wouldn’t have been if she wasn’t cruising for this kind of action. She was plump and dark, maybe Jewish or Italian, with a mop of obviously dyed blond hair and the kind of wide smile people called vivacious. He’d seen in her eyes what she wanted. She saw in his that he’d supply it. After only one drink she’d suggested they go to her apartment.
    When they’d undressed, he saw that she was even plumper than she’d appeared in clothes. Not exactly what you’d call fat, though.
    Lars knew where to look. He saw bruises around her nipples, faint scars on her thighs and buttocks. Her back looked fresh, though. He’d take care of that.
    Tiring of using the whip, he propped it in the crack of her ass and went over to the dresser, where he had a cold beer sitting on a coaster so as not to mar the finish. Lars respected furniture.
    The woman was sobbing now. He took a sip of beer and regarded her. It might be time to talk to her, softly tell her what else he was going to do to her. Then he realized he’d forgotten her name. It sounded Russian or something and was hard to recall.
    He grinned. She wasn’t in any position now to refresh his memory.
    She twisted her neck, trying to get him in her range of vision, wondering if he was still in the room. He shouldn’t have gone yet, leaving her bound and