Chapter Twenty-Six: Smoker

Eight years ago, Chase Smoker met a woman who changed his life.

Now, the woman he met, Belle LaFemme, would tell anyone and everyone that would listen that it was the opposite of that case; that he was the one who changed her life. But Smoker knew that without meeting Belle, he would not be the best prosecution attorney in all of East Blue, and possibly All Blue, if his former commander Garp's praise was to be believed.

Despite all that, he was not proud of himself. No, Smoker now knew that he was the one who had sealed Nami's fate. When he thought back to that time, when he'd first met Belle, he used to think of it as a bitter sweet time of his life. Bitter to see the end of his career on the police force and sweet to start the beginning of his prosecution attorney days with Belle. Now, those memories were simply bitter.

Chase Smoker had been long becoming disenchanted with the law. Well, not the law itself, but those who enforced the law with him at East Blue Police Department. Too many times had he seen new cops turn bad for some money or power, and as of late, even some members the good old crew he had started with were beginning to get a little shady. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

Garp pleaded with him daily to stay with the force for a little while longer. He needed men like him to blah blah blah, so on and so forth. Smoker had stopped listening to even his superior as of late. The idea of turning state's attorney had crossed his mind once or twice and Smoker had even gone so far as to take some night classes at the local college in the law program. He was far from passing the bar but he was also more than half way the first time he considered writing a resignation letter.

Garp saw his disenchantment, or at least must have guessed it, because he began putting Smoker on solitary detail, doing work that Smoker thought was pointless but Garp assured him was pivotal to cleaning up the endless crime and corruption on the streets of East Blue. Garp was at least right about one thing: Smoker was much less pessimistic about his job when he didn't have to be around his coworkers.

At first, Garp had him simply finding some perps who were selling dope while under cover and buying off of them to get them to trust him. He would then integrate himself into the lower rungs of the drug cartel and identify the bigger fish that needed to be fried.

It worked. For awhile. For like, six months. Then when the big sting went down and the task force Garp had assigned made arrests and busts, it was all for naught. At least, in Smoker's opinion. The so called big fish, some asshole named Chew or something, got off scot-free on a technicality. Someone in the forensics department had contaminated evidence.

Smoker lost it. He lost his shit very non-politically-correctly at anyone and everyone in the department that day. He accused new comers and long time officers of corruption, and even cited the chief of police as taking bribes from the mafia. It didn't go down well, unsurprisingly.

Garp took him aside and reminded him that he needed evidence to support his accusations and Smoker nearly decked his own superior for thinking so little of him. Smoker walked out of the station and didn't return for three days. When he did, he had a briefcase full of the evidence Garp had wanted. This time, when Smoker rocked the police station, heads rolled.

In retrospect, maybe that's what Garp wanted all along. Garp was, if nothing else, a manipulative bastard when he wanted to be. Garp was observant and must have seen the same corruption that Smoker had, and the insult to Smoker's pride had been the goad to get Smoker to do what Garp wanted.

Regardless, Smoker was typing up his resignation. He was done with this place. It didn't matter how many new faces came and went, the corruption was still going to run rampant as long as the crime syndicates carried as much favor in the right political places as it did. Every man could be bought for a price, Smoker had once heard.

Well, not him. Not fucking him. He was out of this crappy station and finishing up his law degree (he was in his last semester at this point and was working on his dissertation) and getting the hell out of East Blue. He'd head somewhere less criminally tainted, like North Blue, and get a practice started.

"You can go ahead and delete that, Chaser," Garp told him as he sat down in the chair across from Smoker. Smoker ignored Garp and continued typing up his letter of resignation on his laptop. "I have one last detail for you to work and you've got two months left before your pension kicks in."

"I'll survive," was Smoker's anticlimactic response.

"Not without a pension, you won't," Garp told him. "And don't you have a few weeks left in your last semester? Then there's the Bar Exam. You were planning on using your savings to open up a practice, weren't you? It would be a big dent in that if you had to drain money out of it because you got pissy and decided to quit early like a toddler throwing a tantrum."

Smoker snapped the laptop shut and shoved it across his desk irritably.

"What do you want, Garp? Besides for me to do exactly what you fancy, which is probably run around in pointless circles for the next two months," Smoker predicted. Garp kept up his irritating grin and didn't seem ruffled at all by Smoker's harsh words.

"Last detail. Just for two months, and then I'll write the recommendation myself for early pension to the new police chief," Garp bartered. "It's not the same shit detail you were on before. It's a little more…cushy, I guess you could say."

Smoker sighed and stared down his superior, waiting for the big reveal.

"One of the new yakuzas or mafias, or possibly both, is looking for women tight on money to prostitute for them," Garp told him. "You just need to find one of their prostitutes and convince her to testify against the cunt-bucket employing her and boom, we knock out a major player in the criminal underworld. Or at least, his bank."

Smoker sighed again, this time more in contemplation. He had heard the rumors going around that the Don Krieg mafia was looking for women for prostitution when he'd been infiltrating the drug cartel. But at the time, Garp had been more interested in the Sawshark yakuza supplying drugs to the city than the possibility of prostitution.

"Why is this important now? Why not before?" Smoker asked. Garp grinned, as if Smoker had asked the right questions.

"It's a game of who do we want in power," Garp replied. He grabbed a blank piece of paper and a pen and drew a circle on the paper. He then divided evenly in to six parts. The first part he labeled Black Cat Gang and drew an X through them. The second name he wrote was Alvida's Heartbreakers, then the Sawshark. Fourth, he wrote the Clown Gang, then Don Krieg's Mafia, and lastly Golden Lions and drew and X through them as well.

"Based on our intelligence gathering, these are the major players in the East Blue crime syndicates, wouldn't you say?" Garp asked. Smoker nodded. "As you can see, two of them are down for the count. The Golden Lions were the first to go down, brought down by Roger before his last days. Secondly, the Black Cat Gang, though we didn't catch the major players, is out of the picture. We just punched a big hole in the money supply train for the Sawshark's yakuza. Now we have a chance to hit Don Krieg in the same place. You and I both know that Alvida's and Buggy's gangs are barely worth mentioning, but are still players in the game. Still, that hit will bring all of the remaining criminals to the same level. What do you think will happen then?"

Smoker didn't have to think about it. He already knew. "There will be a vying for power and one of them will come out on top."

"Exactly," Garp agreed. "And all we have to do is have men in place in each syndicate to know which one, as well as what's going on in the big one. Then it's just a matter of time before we get them into a choke hold and strangle off the last major criminal element in the East Blue. The others will be cowed by the big fish and won't be able to recover before our men inside take them down."

"It all sounds pretty," Smoker told him. "But no one is incorruptible."

"No one, Chaser?" Garp goaded. Smoker flipped him off.

"You know what I mean," Smoker snapped.

"I do," Garp nodded. "And I know that the best man for the infiltration job would be you, but you're more important in a different role."

Finally. The reason for all of this heavy-worded bullshit.

"You will be my prosecution attorney," Garp instructed. "The only incorruptible one in the entire East Blue. It's going to make you the target for every asshole and bastard born in this town, but you'll put them away for good, and won't let some fuck up in forensics spoil your catch, am I right?"

Damn it, Garp knew him too well now.

Smoker sighed a third time. "So I just gotta find a trick that will testify? You do realize the one I find will probably find her way into the ditch with her throat cut as soon as she hits the stand."

"We've got protection," Garp assured him, but Smoker didn't trust Garp's 'protection.' Men were too easily bought these days. All someone would have to do was 'accidentally' look away at just the right moment…

"All the same, you may want to try to find someone with just as nasty of a background as Don Krieg and a strong wish for revenge against him, just in case," Garp added. Smoker snorted.

"And when am I supposed to find a prostitute when I go to college at night?" Smoker posed, interest to hear what solution Garp had for this one. Most prostitutes worked the five in the evening to one in the morning shift. And Smoker wasn't all that interested in switching to third shift.

"Tequila Wolf," Garp answered, non-pulsed. "Plenty of working ladies in that area in broad daylight."

It was true. The decrepit old bridge that was closed off to traffic due to hazardous conditions was still open for pedestrians, though most of those pedestrians were of the unsavory sort. He'd definitely find a trick or two there. The question was whether or not they'd be the right criteria for what Garp wanted.

"And I'm just supposed to pick up a prostitute and bust her and hope she knows a thing or two about The Don?" Smoker surmised. Garp smiled in response. Not a nice smile either. A smug, all-knowing, somewhat arrogant smile.

"I told you, Chaser, a cushy detail," Garp reiterated. "This one requires you to gather deep intelligence. No one said you were busting anything. Except maybe a nut. You get to fuck these women and earn their trust just like when you were buying dope off the uglies in the Sawshark's gang."

What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

"The fuck are you saying?" Smoker asked, unable to control his brain-to-mouth filter. "You want me to go out there and lay every whore between Tequila Wolf and Conomi? Just to find a stool-pigeon?"

"You get a thirty thousand berry per day stipend," Garp told him with a shitty grin. He tossed an envelope onto Smoker's desk. "Don't use it all in one place."

Garp got up from his chair and left Smoker in his shocked silence. Smoker was still trying to process it. Fuck some prostitutes? Not arrest them? Come on, he wasn't going to go fuck just any hole. There were plenty of nasty twats out there that he wasn't going near.

But that was the point, wasn't it? Garp knew him too well. Smoker would do his homework on these women before he approached them and know what their situation was before 'fucking' them. And fucking was in mental quotations because he sure as hell wasn't going to do it literally. He'd know the right woman to use for this job before he even said two words to her.

Smoker took up the thirty thousand berries and sneered at it. Ten-to-one odds it was Garp's own pocket money and the department hadn't allowed shit. Hell, the department probably didn't care what Smoker did for the next two months as long as Smoker was out at the end of those two months. Garp…fuck, if that man ever decided to become a criminal…

.o0o.

It took only nine days for Smoker to identify his mark.

Putting some pressure on some old contacts in the drug cartel, Smoker found out where the Don was holding his 'auditions' for prostitutes. For three days, Smoker watched women of disturbingly old ages and sickeningly young ages come and go from this location. He always knew when one had been accepted. They left with a man from the Don's mafia, probably their new pimp.

On the third day of watching, nine days into his new gig, Smoker saw a mid-twenties looking woman with dark red hair, almost magenta colored, walk through the doors of the Don's brothel. He mostly took notice of her for the color of her hair, but what made him notice her later was how she departed.

She knocked the doors open by punching out the man that was presumably her pimp. She then promptly stomped on the man's nuts and yelled at him as he cringed on the ground holding his groin. From his vantage point across the street in a vacant upstairs apartment, Smoker could hear her.

"Listen, fucker! I may be a prostitute now but that don't give you liberties to touch me anywhere I don't want," she told him. "You pay for that shit, just like everyone else. Got it, piss-ant?"

"The Don—" the man started to say Smoker thought, but he couldn't hear him that well over his groaning.

"I don't give a shit what the Don said, and he won't care as long as he gets his money," the woman spat. "You want me to go in there and tell him you're trying to get a piece without paying?"

Another groaning word from the man on the ground.

"That's what I thought," she sneered. "Now I'm going home. You keep your skanky ass away from my home and I'll show where I'm supposed to tonight at nine. I see your ugly mug where I shouldn't and I'll do some dentist work on your face."

And then she left.

This woman was it. She hated the Don but was completely okay with being a prostitute. She was certainly not law abiding, and had a violent streak in her. Smoker just had to find out where she'd be at nine o'clock.

.o0o.

Tequila Wolf. Go figure.

Smoker supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that was where the new tricks were being sent. It was no secret that the working women were there. Anyone who wanted to pay for a date was going to look there first. Smoker didn't have to look, though. He'd been tailing the magenta-haired woman for the remaining afternoon and entirety of the evening.

Forgoing his evening class (they were just reviewing dissertations and Smoker's was almost ninety percent done), he'd followed the woman back to her suburban residence in time to watch her go pick up two kids from school and bring them back to a tiny apartment. At first, Smoker thought she was just nannying the girls. Neither of them looked alike, nor like her. But as Smoker watched the house and the evening hours went on, no other adults came for the children.

Eight-thirty came and saw the magenta-haired woman leave the apartment and lock it, clothed in a long trench coat. She heeled it to the train station and headed for Tequila Wolf. Her pimp was there, looking rather beaten and ridiculous as he gave her orders to start walking the bridge. Smoker parked his car a few blocks away in an enclosed parking garage and started to heel it himself.

The two kids bothered him. A lot. This woman had kids. It was the first inkling that Smoker had that she wasn't right for the position he wanted. But it was just a feeling. It didn't stop him from perusing the strip of Tequila Wolf as if assessing the meat on display there but just trying to be nonchalant before picking up his mark.

She was straight stalking down Tequila Wolf and looking in no way like she was trying to attract the attention of a buyer, he noted with amusement. As if she were angry to have to listen to her pimp's direction, but determined to do it nonetheless. She made a quick turn at the end of the bridge and came stalking back, staring disdainfully at the murky water under the bridge. She didn't even notice him until she ran into him.

Smoker had deliberately put himself in her path so she would notice him. Well, she certainly did when she bounced off of him. He put a hand out to steady her but she evaded his touch as she stumbled to regain her balance. She sent him an icy glare.

"Watch it, will ya?" she snapped.

Wow. She was terrible at this.

"I apologize," he said, giving her a nod. "I was just exploring the selection of ladies walking Tequila Wolf tonight. I had my eyesight elsewhere."

She gave him a look full of scrutiny.

"You a cop?" she asked balls out.

Smoker laughed. "What makes you think that?"

"Because nobody in their right mind of sanity would come down here talking like that. You'd either get shot or mugged or both."

"So, without sanity, I must be a cop?" Smoker surmised.

"You must be stupid enough to be one," she clarified. "Bringing your arrogant swagger talk down here where the whores and pimps are. If you wasn't, you'd have replied to me with a 'fuck off, cunt,' or something the like."

"Would you prefer me to call you a cunt?" Smoker asked, amused by her assessment.

"I'd prefer you to take your pig self somewhere else," she told him. Smoker shrugged.

"If you insist," he relented. "But if this is where the whores and pimps are, what does that make you?"

"Out for a breath of fresh air," she quipped. "The air off the river is so nice this time of year."

It was February. A brisk, almost cold enough to freeze the river February. She was still wearing the trench coat, but it was open now and he could see that she wore a tiny little black dress that left her legs exposed to the cold and they were starting to turn red.

"Well, since you're out for a breath of fresh air, let me treat you to some coffee," Smoker offered. "Since I must be a cop and you're definitely not a whore."

She gave him a look that was halfway between a sneer and a smirk. She was trying not to smile. Smoker had a harder time trying to ignore the warning signs going off in his head. This was just a mark. He had to pump her for information and then get her to testify. He couldn't get stuck on the touchy-feelies.

"I don't drink coffee," she protested. "But I do shoot whiskey. You game?"

Admittedly, it would be easier for him to forget he was going to use her like a condom and toss her when he was done if he had a few drinks in him, and she'd probably be more pliable too.

"Sure. But not in this district. Let's get out of this shit-hole area," he suggested. They had been walking back to the East Blue side of the bridge and were within eyeshot of his car. He pointed to it. "Beats walking if you'll trust a ride out of me."

The woman gave a glare to the man who was her pimp and nodded briskly to Smoker. "A heater would be nice."

As they climbed into his car, Smoker made one last cursory glance to make sure he hadn't left anything incriminating in it. He specifically drove an older mid-sized sedan that looked very non-conspicuous and made sure there were no computers or radios and other paraphernalia that usually occupied an unmarked when he was going undercover. The car was clean, as it had been a few days ago when he'd cleaned it out, but Smoker was feeling paranoid now. This woman was not stupid and if he didn't keep his wits about him she might see through him.

Maybe liquor wasn't such a good idea after all…

"So what's your whiskey of choice?" he asked, turning the heat up full blast as he started the car. The woman unconsciously put her fingers up to the heater.

"Jim Beam, if you're buying," she replied. "Otherwise, whatever's on special."

"Of course I'm buying," he returned. "What kind of gentleman would I be if I made a lady buy her own drink after inviting her out?"

"The kind of man who is never referred to as gentle and walks the bridge of Tequila Wolf," she answered. "So what should I call you, Mr. Gentleman?"

He didn't know why, but he told her his name. His real name. Or at least the nickname made from his real name.

"Call me Chaser," he told her. "What about you?"

"Bella."

Bella? Well, whatever. The Don was Italian so maybe he got his kicks naming his girls in Italian. Bella was Italian for beautiful and Smoker could see a rough kind of beauty in the woman that made her deserving of the name.

"You're really not a cop right?" the woman who referred to herself as Bella asked suddenly, sounding panicked. "Not that there's anything wrong with accepting a ride and a drink from a cop, but I don't need no trouble."

"I'm not going to give you trouble," he lied, looking straight ahead. "We're just going for a drink. And if you want, after I will take you back to Tequila Wolf, alright?"

She took a deep breath and released it slowly. "If you're lying to me, I'm going to cut out your nuts and fry them up and serve them to you oyster style."

Smoker believed she was serious and had to force himself not to adjust in the seat as his nuts tingled.

"What lovely imagery," was all he managed to reply.

"If you're not a cop, then what do you do for a living?" she asked. Again, Smoker told her the truth, which was actually a part of his cover story.

"I'm going to school right now. Working on my Master's," he told her. "In my last semester, in fact. Got my dissertation in the back seat I think if you're looking to fall asleep reading."

She did look into the back seat and saw the books lying there.

"I knew you were too schooled to be on Tequila Wolf," she said. "Fuckin' Masters. Go figure. What the hell were you doing out there? Trying to find a way to celebrate your last term?"

He laughed. "What were you doing? Looking for a way to catch pneumonia?" he returned. "I'm a man. I have needs. And the Master's program doesn't allow much time for dating. I was trying to give my right had a break."

She laughed this time. Heartily too. "You should have used your left, then."

Damn, was this woman entertaining. They took a few more shots at each other while he headed to a dive bar in a less unsavory part of town. As he parked, he did another cursory glance around to make sure none of the scumbags he had associated with on the Sawshark case were around to narc on him.

"So we've established that I'm having Jim Bean, so what are you having, Chaser?" she asked.

It was odd to hear her say his name. Like they were really acquaintances rather than a mark and her future ruin.

"I go a different direction when I want to indulge," Smoker told her, slipping his hand into his jacket pocket and pulling out a Cuban cigar. Her eyes went wide.

"Do you have another one of those?" she asked, mesmerized. "'Cause I'd take that over the Jim Beam in a heartbeat."

Ah, a woman after his own heart—

Chase Smoker, what the fuck are you thinking? Get your fucking head back in the game!

"Of course," he told her, handing over the one he'd supplied and pulling out another. "And you can still have your whisky."

She smiled brilliantly at him as she brought the cigar up and clenched it between her teeth. Smoker had another argument with himself as his mind warred with being awed by the woman and trying to remember he was using her.

"Well then let's get in this shit-hole and get a buzz on," she goaded, grabbing his arm and towing him along with her. She yanked him through the door and then hauled him up to the bar and sat on one of the stools. Smoker's inner monologue wouldn't quiet as he took a seat next to her.

The bartender was with other patrons so they took care of the business of lighting the cigars and taking those long, first drags. It helped to calm Smoker's nerves and clear his head a little, but the internal war was still there.

Bella kept on looking around for some reason that became clear when she suddenly put her cigar in his care and took off to the corner of the bar. There he saw the dimly lit sign for the restroom. With his brief moments of alone time, Smoker tried to harden his resolve while simultaneously knowing that it was useless. He liked the woman too much to use her the way he and Garp had planned.

"What can I get you?" the bartender asked as he sauntered over.

"A Jim Beam for the lady," Smoker answered, switching out his cigar for hers. If he didn't puff on it once or twice, it would go out.

"And for you, sir?"

"Nothing, unless you've got something that will make my mind shut the fuck up for the next couple of hours," Smoker returned petulantly. The bartender raised an eyebrow at him.

"You want a mind numbing drink or a mind erasing drink?" he posed in return.

"Whichever is stronger," Smoker dismissed, knowing that it didn't matter what he got; he was about to get cold feet for his damn assignment.

"So where did you find some Cubans?" Bella asked as she returned. Smoker switched out the cigars again and handed her the one she'd claimed.

"Got them from a guy when I was working," he answered, and immediately regretted it.

"So you do work," she observed dryly.

"Hey, you asked what I did for a living," Smoker tried to recover. "School is my living, and right now it doesn't pay. So I do odd jobs on the side between reference papers."

"Like what?"

Of course she wouldn't drop the subject. That'd be too easy.

"At the time, I was doing security," he told her. It wasn't a lie. He'd been the hired muscle to protect the drug cartel. It just so happened that he wasn't around the day the bust went down.

"I was trying to get a job in security," she admitted. "I have a friend that does it. But the company that Genzo works for, Yotsuba Security, has some stupid ass problem with hiring women. Fuckers."

Smoker was going to have to look into that. Smoker knew a few guys over at Yotsuba Security but didn't realize that they had a thing against hiring women. That was illegal. But that was also for later.

"It wasn't much my thing. I quit not long after that," Smoker told her. Just where the fuck were the drinks? Was that bartender out distilling the fucking whiskey? Smoker looked down the bar and saw the bartender messing with some odd looking fluted tap. The hell was that?

"Looks like it could be your thing," Bella commented. "You're kinda beefy looking."

She poked him in the upper arm for good measure.

"Thanks. I just prefer not to turn into a potato as I grow older," he replied, which was mostly truth again. "What about you? Legs for days and a rocking body but I don't see you walking a runway."

"I prefer bridges I guess," she snorted.

Fucking finally, their drinks arrived. Her whisky in a glass with ice ball, his…whatever it was in some crystal goblet looking thing.

"The fuck…" he began, looking up at the bartender.

"Absinthe," he replied. "The Mind Eraser. It was the stronger of the two."

Bella shook her head and shrugged her shoulders as she sipped her whiskey. Smoker bit the bullet and tried the liquor. It tasted somewhat like black licorice. Not something he enjoyed.

"Next time I'll take the other thing," Smoker replied to the bartender. He laughed.

"You won't need a next drink, sir," the bartender assured him. Smoker doubted his words.

"I don't know how you can drink that," Bella told him. "I hate black licorice."

"Not my favorite either," Smoker admitted, though he took another drink. Still was awful.

"Need a chaser, Chaser?" Bella offered, snickering.

"I'm afraid to mix the two," Smoker admitted. Actually, the absinthe and the cigar weren't going too well together either. After a few moments consideration, he cut off the burning end and saved the rest of the cigar for a later date in his pocket.

"That bad?" Bella asked, cringing.

"You wanna try and see for yourself?" Smoker offered. She looked skeptical for a moment before taking the crystal goblet.

"This drink is so weird. Why does it need a crystal goblet?" she asked, sniffing the drink. Her upper lip wrinkled.

"Fuck if I know," Smoker answered, watching her take a drink. It almost came right back out. Somehow, Bella swallowed and came up coughing.

"That's awful!" she croaked, chasing the swallow with whiskey.

"Don't mix anything with the Absinthe!" the bartender warned from down the bar.

"Oops," Bella muttered, taking another swallow of whiskey.

"Time to get rid of this shit," Smoker deduced, lifting the crystal goblet again. He downed the drink in three swallows that burned and threatened to come back up. He tried covering up some coughs as he put the goblet back on the bar. Bella passed him her whiskey. He took a gingerly swallow to clear out the licorice taste.

"Never getting that again," Smoker decided, handing back the almost gone whiskey.

"How much did that shit cost?" Bella asked. Smoker raised his hand to signal the bartender.

"We're about to find out," he murmured. "Can we cash out?"

The bartender nodded and after ringing at the register came over with a little white receipt. Smoker eyed it quickly and placed a bill in the bartender's hand.

"No change," he told the bartender. The man nodded and went away to cash up.

Bella was eyeing him warily. "You handed him a two-thousand berry bill. Why didn't you ask for change?"

"Because there would have been very little," Smoker admitted, blinking rapidly. He was starting to see white around the edges of his vision.

"My whiskey couldn't have been more than seven hundred fifty berries," she deduced. "You're telling me that drink was at least a thousand berries?"

"Yep," Smoker replied, realizing the whiteness wasn't going away.

"Fuck," she murmured, downing the last of her whiskey. "Let's get outta here. Where do you wanna go now?"

Smoker, who was not a light weight, actually waivered when he stood up.

"I don't care," he told her, handing her the keys. "You drive."

"Uh-huh," she agreed, eyeing him warily. "Note to self, never drink Absinthe again in my life."

"Same here," Smoker agreed. He made it to the bar entrance without wavering or tripping anymore but he wasn't moving very fast.

"Chaser, are you alright?" she asked with concern in her voice.

"I think I need to sit back down," he decided, walking to his car very carefully. He sat down in the passenger seat and laid his head back on the head rest. Now his head was swimming.

"Maybe I should take you home," Bella contemplated. "Where do you live, Chaser?"

Smoker didn't think he answered her. Actually, he couldn't remember much of anything after that. When he did come to and start remembering again, it was an hour or so later by the time on the clock next to the bed that he was fucking the hell out of the magenta-haired woman in.

Consciousness came back to him slowly. At first, he realized he was no longer in the car. Then he realized he was somewhere that had a bed. Next was when he realized he was screwing the woman called Bella rather roughly. And lastly was that he shouldn't be doing it.

Of course, that thought came right before he did, so it was a moot point.

With a heaving sigh, he blasted a load into the woman and went limp over her. It took a couple seconds for him to recall his mind again, but when he did, he looked at the woman called Bella in trepidation. She was breathing heavy too, but not looking all that upset at being in bed with him. At worst, she looked a little put out that the show was over.

"Well, at least you're not a two-pump chump," she quipped. "But you've obviously never heard the expression 'ladies first.'"

His mind was running a little slow still, so he didn't quite get the pokes at his pride at first.

"If you're asking for a round two," he began. Bella laughed.

"I doubt you're up for it," she guessed. "You look ready to pass out again. I thought you might in the car and when you kept on giving me this weird address on Goza Street when I asked where you lived."

Smoker felt a jolt of anxiety at the mention of the Goza Street address. It was the address where he'd been watching the Don's prostitute job fair from. He obviously wasn't there now, since that place was just an empty apartment above a convenience store.

"So, where'd we end up?" he asked when it was clear she wasn't going to elaborate any further.

She gave him a worried look. "I took you to a hotel, just like you asked."

"I don't remember much after the bar," he admitted. It finally occurred to him that he was lying on top of her still and he slid off and out of her.

To his surprise, Bella laughed. "You don't remember? Really?"

He felt like the world's biggest ass. "No. I don't. When did we…"

She laughed harder. "You kept on saying, 'we gotta have sex now.' Over and over. I thought you were going to make me do you in the car. Finally, you just told me to go to a cheap hotel and once we were in the room, you were stripping. I suppose you seemed a little off, but I just thought it was the booze."

"The Mind Eraser," Smoker recalled. "Holy fuck. I just fucked you and don't even remember most of it."

"Glad I'm so memorable," Bella muttered, her mood turning at that last comment. "Look, just give me my ten thousand berries and I'll be on my way and you can contemplate on how good or bad it might have been."

She started to get up from the bed but Smoker reached out and grabbed her hand. She gave him an annoyed look.

"What?" she asked.

What was he going to say? He just didn't want to let her go yet. Not because he wanted to fuck her again or because she was so intriguing or because she was about to get herself wrapped up in a hostile prostitution sting. It was because he didn't want her to leave feeling insulted.

Shit. He was such a moron.

"Look, I'm about to say something that will probably be very disturbing to you, but I would appreciate if you could keep an open mind, okay?" he requested. Bella looked suspicious and pulled her hand out of his grasp.

"You're not going to tell me you've got syph are you?" she retorted. "That's why I insisted on a condom—"

"It's not that," he denied. "Look, I can't give you your money."

Her face went from suspicious to livid in a heartbeat. "You son of a—"

"I can't give it to you because if I do, then you'll be considered accepting payment for sexual services rendered and I would have to arrest you," he got out. Her eyes went wide. "Because I'm a cop."

She panicked. She was up and off the bed in a second and running around the room in a flurry looking for her clothes.

"No! You said it! You told me you weren't a cop!" she hissed, though he could hear more fear in her voice than anger.

"I never said I wasn't. I avoided the question. You made the assumption," he reminded her.

She paused a moment to reflect on that as she pulled her underwear on. "Fine. I made a bogus assumption. But if I don't take your money, that means I'm not a prostitute, right? I can leave here, no harm no foul?"

She was half begging as she asked, slipping the dress back on. He felt terrible for fooling her.

"Bella will you sit down for a second so I can finish explaining myself to you?" Smoker requested, but he had a feeling it was in vain. Damn, maybe he should have stayed lying on top of her for this conversation…

"Why should I listen to you?" she panicked on. Shit, she was headed for the door!

Smoker hopped out of bed buck naked and ran to the door to intercept her. She had a look of incredulity as he blocked her way.

"Are you going to hold me against my will?" she asked. "Isn't that unlawful imprisonment?"

"Just for a minute," he promised. "Please listen to me, alright?"

She gave him a look that suggested that she would hear his words but not listen to a thing he said. Smoker sighed heavily. He had to try.

"I have a different proposition for you," he told her. She looked incredulous again. "Hear me out. You go back to that pimp on Tequila Wolf and tell him that you just can't do this job. Then I take you back to the precinct—"

"Oh, hell no!" she hollered, dropping her face in her hands. "I can't be arrested! I have to get home to my kids!"

So they were her kids. Smoker felt another stab in his gut.

"To the precinct to interview you," he finished a little louder than her wails. "Just interview. I need some info about the Don Kreig Mafia from someone who's been in it. That's all. Then you can go home to your kids. I promise. Unless you agree to another offer."

Don't ask about the offer. Don't ask about the offer. Don't ask about the offer.

"What offer?" she asked, sounding almost listless. Looks like shock had set in.

"To—" he stumbled, and then crumbled. He couldn't do this to her. He couldn't make her a target for the Don Krieg Mafia for testifying. She was a decent person. She had kids. She didn't want to do what she was doing, he knew from how she'd acted on the bridge. There had to be a better solution for her.

"To—to go to school," he offered. "At night. To become a paralegal. To work for me when I get my law office open."

She peeked up through her fingers. "That wasn't a bullshit lie?"

He shook his head in denial. "I'm graduating in May. Hopefully passing the Bar Exam in June."

"I can't go to school," she muttered, but he could see that she was crumbling too. "How would I support myself and kids? I lost my job two days ago and we're living off my daughter's paper route money."

Ouch. No wonder she had been desperate enough to agree to being a prostitute.

"I'll talk to the guys at the security place you're looking at, Yotsuba Security, and ask them to pull a few strings for me," Smoker told her. "I'm pretty sure I can manage to get you in somewhere. And it'll only be temporary. I'll be opening my practice soon, probably in the next six months or so, and you can come be my personal assistant."

The plan was formulating in his head faster than caution wanted to allow, but he couldn't help it. There was something about Bella that drew him. She was unlike any other woman he'd met before.

"I don't even know you," she pointed out.

It was true. They'd met on Tequila Wolf, gotten (ridiculously, on his part) drunk together, and fucked. That was it. They didn't even know each other's last names. If the names they had given were real names.

"My name is Officer Chase Smoker, EBPD," Smoker introduced himself, holding out his hand. Bella smiled in spite of her anxiety. "Chaser is my nickname."

"Do you always work in the nude, Chaser?" she asked, shaking his hand firmly. Smoker had forgotten his nudity and went bright red. He could see the redness on his own nose from his peripheral vision. "The name's Belle LaFemme. Bella is what that idiot Krieg wanted to call me."

Of course. Her name meant beautiful lady in French. The name was well deserved.

Wait, you're naked. Don't think about things like that. She'll be able to see when you get hard.

Smoker raced over to the bed to put his boxers back on, followed quickly by his pants. When he looked back at Belle, she was smirking at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Nice birth mark," she remarked, trying not to laugh.

"It's a scar," he sighed in exasperation. He had a heart-shaped scar on his butt that many people mistook for a birth mark, but it was far from it. In his first year as an officer, Chase Smoker had taken a bullet—in the tush. Damn it, he wished she hadn't seen that. Couldn't he keep just a shred of his dignity while begging this woman to work for him?

"Fooled me," she sniggered.

"Look, are you going to take the offer or not?" Smoker snapped. He didn't much like being the butt of a joke, especially when the joke centered around his butt.

"It's a nice offer," she started, and Smoker could hear a different kind of 'but' coming.

"Then take it," he urged. "What have you got to lose? A prostitution job? One that will get you arrested in three weeks if I get my leads? What have you got to gain? A degree in something you can use later if you decide you hate working for me?"

She wavered. He could see it. He had to sweeten the deal.

"I'll give you the rest of my Cuban," he offered. He hoped she liked smoking them as much as he did.

"Half," she countered.

"You want half of my Cuban?" he asked, perplexed.

"No, I want half of all the Cubans you come by in the future," she bartered with a small smile. Yes! He had her!

"Deal," he promised, holding his hand out again. They shook on it.

.o0o.

Smoker looked down at his hand. Fuck, if he'd only known what that deal would eventually cost, he'd have never made it. He would have just sent her on her way to look for a job on her own. But he was idiotically and unwaveringly in love with Belle, as he had been the day he'd met her, and there was no going back from that. Only forward.

Somehow.