Cops - A Duology

Cops

A Duology

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Dick N’ Dirty

Maybe Baby

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Kassanna

Copyright © June 2015, Kassanna

Cover art by Dreams2Media © June 2015

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

FlavorFullove Unlimited

Florida, USA

www.Flavorfullove.com

Dick N’ Dirty

Chapter One

Indiana Mixon wiped away the excess ink and pressed the needle to her client’s skin. The intricate detail of swirls flowed across the customer’s skin in a bounty of black and pink lines. Blended through the design were the words
survivor
.

She lifted her head and glanced at the slim woman sitting in her chair. Downy soft-looking tufts of hair were close cropped to her head, her cheeks were hollow and her eyes were sunken. Long lines fanned out from her eyes, and weariness was evident in her stare. Deep indentations flanked her mouth. Indiana offered her a half smile and continued to work on the tattoo.

Faint music from the local radio station, combined with the buzz of the machine next to them, gave her the white noise background she needed to focus. Somewhere in the shop beyond the little room she occupied the phone rang, stopped, and rang again. She kept her head bent and spoke above the din of noise. “Almost done.”

“I have survived a double mastectomy and three rounds of chemotherapy. I think I can handle this.” The customer chuckled softly.

“I’ll be as gentle as I can.” Indiana lifted the needle and wiped at the design, studying the image. “Your design is going to be really nice when it’s done.”

The client simply smiled and let her eyes drift shut.

Marty, Indiana’s friend and partner, slid the door to the side and stuck his head over the threshold. “Hey, Dirty, Calista’s on the phone.”

“I’ll call her back.” Indiana pressed her finger on the trigger to continue working and turned her back to her buddy. From the initial conversation she’d had with her customer, she knew the woman was going back into the hospital again soon. She was determined to have the large upper-torso tattoo completed first.

“No. Sorry, but you need to get this.” Marty spun her around in the chair and thrust the phone into her free hand. Bright pink ink smeared the casing. She drew her brows together and peered up at her best friend. He held her gaze and pressed his lips together in a firm line.

Briefly, panic flared in her gut.  She looked down at the handset in her palm before gazing up at customer. “Excuse me, LeAnn; I’ll be back in a sec.” She rose from her seat as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Listen, Cali…”

“Aunty Di, you gotta come now…It’s bad. Daddy’s high…Marva’s not moving. They got in a…fig…I’m locked in the bedroom with the Caiv—” Banging and her nephew’s wails drowned out some of her niece’s words. In the background, Indiana could hear her brother Kevin yelling.
Damn it, Calista, open this motherfucking door. You poured my shit down the toilet and I’m going to beat your ass.

Cali whispered, her voice fading in and out as if she was moving. “Shhh, Caivin, I got you. Aunty, you have to come. Please…” There was a crash, then stomping, followed by Cali’s screams.

Dead air filled the line.

Indiana stared at the phone in her hand.
Damn
. She spun around and peered at LeAnn. A thread of guilt weaved through her psyche. “I am so sorry, LeAnn. A family emergency has come up. Marty…” she hollered as she trotted down the hall, peeling off her gloves.

“Need me to go with you?” He hovered in the doorway of the reception area.

“No, this is a family matter.” She stopped at the counter in front of the shop and bent to pull out the baseball bat she kept near the base of the stand. Wrapping her fingers around its neck, its hefty weight was reassuring.

She rose and snatched her keys off the hook by the cash register, then she hesitated and peered down the hall.

“Kevin won’t be your brother in this state. Right now he’s just another junkie.” Marty pressed his point. “You might not be able to calm him down this time.”

“I’m sure the police are on their way.” She kept moving. “Apologize again for me and reschedule for whatever date LeAnn wants to come back. Offer her a discount or something.”

“Take care of your business. I got you, babe.” Marty followed her through the front door. “Do I need to secure bail money?” he joked.

She stopped and faced her partner. His half-smile withered. “Call the police to be on the safe side, and collecting money isn’t a bad idea. After I beat some sense into my brother’s fucking head, I’ll probably need a good lawyer.”

“Don’t say that.” Marty let go of a heavy sigh. “He can’t help himself. Drug abuse is a disease.”

Indiana threw the bat into the passenger seat of her Jeep. “He made the choice to get high. No one put a gun to his head and said take a puff.” Anger bled into her voice. “I’m making the decision to kick his ass.” She ran around the front end, and jumped into the driver’s side.

Memories flooded her as she turned the key. Their parents were transients—always on the move for one reason or another. In high school she’d learned the term “functioning alcoholic,” and after several hours in the library researching the definition, she realized that label described her dad with scary accuracy.

Her mom skipped out on them somewhere between Boise Idaho and Davenport Indiana when she was eleven. She woke up one morning and Sheila was gone. Her father George packed them up that morning, and they were on the road again. Never once did her father ever look back. The tasks of getting her and her brother enrolled in school and other mundane, parental responsibilities always seem to fall on her shoulders anyway. She mastered the art of shoplifting at the age of five so Kevin would have formula.

George wasn’t an angry drunk—he was actually mellow—but he spent all the money he made at whatever temp job he found on booze, gambling, and women. She lost count of how many times she had to listen to grunts and moans as her father had sex in the other bed in the room. After a while, it just became easier to bundle Kevin up and find a nook or a stairwell somewhere to sleep in until morning. Then the process would begin again. Until the day she woke up and found her dad gone. Stuck in Little Rock, she was sixteen with an eleven-year-old to take care of and no means to actually do it.

Eventually she made a deal with the sleazy hotel owner to clean rooms in exchange for living in one of them. Still, it wasn’t enough. They had to eat and live, so she did a few extra things that still made her shudder sometimes. Survival was the goal; she did what she could to make sure Kevin didn’t suffer for their parents’ choices. Obviously, she’d failed. She brushed away tears that rolled down her cheek.

Her saving grace was art, and the discovery that she had a moderate amount of talent. Lost in the pages of whatever blank paper she could scrounge up, she created worlds birthed from the recesses of her mind. Those places allowed her to hide, if only for a few hours, from the shit happening around her. Minimum-wage jobs flipping burgers, and panhandling in the park by drawing portraits got her through her senior year. She didn’t walk in graduation, but she got a diploma.

Taking care of Kevin had slowly become an issue. No matter what she did, he always needed more. Name-brand shoes, designer clothing…she made sure he lacked nothing, even if she had to go without. He was the most popular kid in school. Scrounging and counting pennies, she got her brother through most of high school, intact mentally, emotionally, physically. At least she thought she did. He dropped out right before his senior year.

The light changed to red. She dropped the gearshift into neutral and stomped her foot on the brake. Tires squealed and wisps of smoke rose from her tires as the vehicle screeched to a stop.

Indiana peered down at the steering wheel. If she ever found out who introduced Kevin to cocaine, she would gladly do the time because the SOB would be dead.

Red switched to green. She blew out a breath and put the vehicle in gear.

At some point, her brother discovered crack, and now he was following in their daddy’s footsteps; only his favorite pastime was smoking or shooting up drugs. Addiction was the bitch to whom he answered.

She’d hoped his children’s mother would be the anchor that he needed to get clean. All he did was drag the woman down with him. They lived in a run-down one-bedroom apartment with their two children, and it was like watching a movie on repeat. Indiana saw the parallels of her life in her niece’s, and it was painful to acknowledge the similarities.

Indiana pulled into the pothole-riddled parking lot of her brother’s decrepit apartment building. The damn nonsense ended with her, right here and now. She’d already warned Kevin if he fell off the wagon again, she would take the kids. The documents to end his parental rights were in her glove compartment.

She reached for the bat. If she had to beat the signature out of him and Marva, then so be it.

****

Dodging the potholes, Rick Livingston pulled into the miniscule parking lot of an apartment building that had seen better days. The two-story building with the peeling green exterior reminded him of a cell block. Patches of grass burst through hard-packed dirt that filled in the missing patches of crumbling concrete and added color to the worn surface.

He reached for the handset before pulling out his badge from beneath his shirt. In plainclothes, he wouldn’t be recognized as the authority. Technically, he probably shouldn’t have answered the call, since he worked for the office of the prosecutor. But when no one responded to dispatch, he felt compelled to take it.

Maybe he had the wrong address; his hand hovered over the radio as he studied the area. Nothing appeared to be amiss. A few folks stood at the corner of the structure; they glanced his way before slipping around the side.

A crack rent the air, and his attention was drawn to the building itself. A door on the first floor slammed open and a tall African-American man stumbled out backward. He landed on his ass sending a plume of dust rising around him from the small area of dirt off the walkway. His clothes were dingy; flecks of white dotted his pants hems next to ratty tennis shoes and his T-shirt was torn at the collar. He hurriedly sidled backward, away from the open door.

A petite woman stepped into Rick’s line of vision. She wielded a metal bat like a sword, the sun’s rays gleaming off the polished surface. Sleeves of tattoos covered both arms, and something shimmered from the vicinity of her belly button. Her tank top clung to her figure and barely reached her midriff. Jeans torn at the knee looked as if they had been poured over thick hips. Her biceps bulged as she swung again and the guy scrambled to his feet, covering his head with his arms to deflect the blows.

The woman was yelling, which drew Rick’s attention to her face. Her skin was the color of toffee. Small, slightly slanted eyes, a slim nose, and succulent lips, the tendons in her neck were stark as she opened her mouth. She swung again and connected with the man’s arm. The guy quickly dropped it against him and cradled it to his chest.

Domestic dispute—damn, he hated these calls. Rick picked up the mic and requested backup.

He opened the door to exit the automobile, and oppressive heat beat down on him.
How the hell did it go from a freeze-your-ass of winter to a hotter-than-hell spring?

Rick rolled his shoulders and announced his presence. The fighting couple stopped long enough to turn and stare at him before the woman swung again aiming for the guy’s legs. He dropped like a sack of rocks.

“That’s for hitting me. Next time you raise your hand to a woman, you will remember this ass-whipping.” She brought the bat down again across the guy’s stomach. “You and Marva are two of the sorriest excuses for parents I have ever seen and that’s saying a lot, considering who raised us!” She extended her arms.

Rick pulled his stun gun free of the holster. “Lady, I’m going to need you to put the bat down,” Rick shouted as he inched toward her. He glanced down at the man laid out on the ground. The fella moaned and rolled to his side; at least the guy was alive. Rick tightened his grip on the butt of the weapon. “I’m not going to ask again.”

She twisted to face him. Blood dribbled from her bottom lip and the dark outline of a bruise was forming on her cheek. She twirled her wrist, sending the bat in a complete arch. She stopped and held up her finger, glancing over her shoulder before returning his gaze. “Dude, my idiot asshole brother deserves a few more blows to the head. It might knock some sense into him.”

“Put the weapon down,” he yelled, moving forward.

“Aunty!” A child, dragging a toddler behind her, rushed out the door.

The injured guy behind her suddenly sat up. "Damn it, Di! You’re a cunt-eating bitch!"

The kid moved, trotting toward the couple.

“I got your bitch!” In a flurry of movements, the woman swiveled on her toes and brought the slugger around.

There was no time; minutes slowed. Rick aimed and fired. Wires burst out from the muzzle of his gun. One barb was deflected by the bat, but the other connected with her shoulder. The woman dropped to her knees, trembling, as the voltage coursed through her body.

“No!” screamed the little girl, sprinting toward her. Neighbors appeared in their doorways, and some exited their apartments, forming a small crowd.

Where the hell was his backup?

An old woman pushed to the forefront of the group and snatched the children back. “You got it all wrong.”

Sirens blared in the background.

The woman he’d tased writhed on the ground between him and the crowd. She was still clutching the bat. The man she attacked staggered to his feet and lumbered between people to get lost in the crowd. This situation had become a major cluster-fuck as the group of onlookers closed in around him.