Creekers (23 page)

Between rounds, he’d hang out at the station and shoot some bull with Susan, whom he was beginning to like. She seemed made from a different mold, not a typical Crick City woman at all, but enlivened to pursue an education and career that would one day take her away from this place. (And he hoped she had better luck than he had.) The variety of her intellectual facets intrigued him; she was very smart, she knew a lot about lots of things, yet she clearly possessed a persona which transcended her bookishness. She was sassy, opinionated, even hot-tempered at times; when they disagreed on a particular topic, she wouldn’t hesitate to be in his face about it. Phil admired that.

He also admired her looks.
She’s beautiful,
it occurred to him every time he’d come in for a coffee break. She struck him as idyllic in a way; her beauty—a very
real,
unassuming, and unaugmented kind of beauty—made her shine in his eye.
How do you crack a woman like this?
he wondered almost constantly. He’d asked her out three times, and three times she’d politely declined, citing her evening classes would not permit it. Perhaps Phil was paranoid, but it felt to him as though she liked working with him, but had no desire to date a municipal cop. He could only hope he was wrong.

Chief Mullins remained typically oblivious, chewing his tobacco, chugging atrocious coffee, and bellyaching about anything that suited his redneck fancy. He never seemed to ask much about what was going on, but this was typical Mullins: as chief he didn’t expect to have to ask, he expected to be told, and in all honesty, aside from a few SRO’s and traffic citations, Phil had nothing to put on the so-called “blotter.”

But after his second week on the job, Mullins did indeed ask one morning: “So how’re things going with your stakeout?”

“All right, I guess,” Phil answered, transferring his surveillance notes to an official log. “Too early to get a decent read on things just yet.”

“Yeah?” Mullins seemed to grumble, pouring the black ichor he thought of as coffee. “I thought you were supposed to be moving on this.”

Phil frowned up from the desk. “I am. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”

“Bugger Rome. This is Crick City. You making any headway out there or just gandering your ex-girlfriend through the binocs?”

Sometimes I could kill him,
Phil thought. “Chief, I’m doing this the way we talked about. I’m logging the plates of the regulars so we can eventually get a decent cross-reference. Things like this go slow.”

“Yeah?” Mullins packed a wad of Red Man, then chased it with coffee. “Too slow if you ask me.”

Phil all but threw his hands up. “All right, boss. You’re the one who wanted me to check out this PCP net in town. You think I’m doing this wrong, then tell me how to do it right.”

“Don’t bust out into tears yet, Phil. I didn’t say you were doing it wrong. I just said you’re taking too much time.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Phil repeated and got back to his writing.

“You’re right, it took a thousand years, which is fine for Rome. But I ain’t got that kind of time myself. You sure you’re not stalling a little?”

This time Phil’s frown creased his face. “Stalling on what, for God’s sake?”

“Well, you’re sitting out in Sallee’s parking lot every night, writing down tag numbers like a good little boy, sure. But don’t you think it’s time for you to get a move on? I mean, how many tag numbers can you write down before your hand starts to hurt?”

Phil leaned back in the chief’s office chair, arms smugly crossed. “Chief, save us both some time, will ya? What are you implying?”

“Implying? Me?” Mullins chuckled, scratching his formidable belly.

“Yeah, you.”

“Well, maybe I’m merely
suggesting
that it’s time for you to move on to the next step. After all, this whole procedure was your idea.”

“Fine. The next step. What have you got in mind?”

“See? You are stalling. You’ve got enough tag numbers, Phil. You’re staking the lot in your POV, you’re in plain clothes, and nobody knows you’re back in town, and even if they did, nobody would remember you anyway. It’s high time, ain’t it?”

Phil still didn’t know what the chief was talking about. “High time for what, Chief? For the Yankees to win the pennant?”

“No, high time for you to get your ass
into
Sallee’s and check things out from the inside.”

“Sure,” Phil agreed, “but don’t you think it’s still a bit early for that?”

“Hell no. Why don’t you just admit it, you’re stalling. You don’t
want
to go in there  ’cos—”

“Because why, Chief? Because I know I’ll run into Vicki? Is that what you’re driving at?”

“Well, yeah,” Mullins said, and spat into his ubiquitous paper cup. “I think you’re a little bit chicken to run into her again. Christ, you dumped the poor girl like a load of heavy diapers.”

Phil simmered in his seat. “I did not dump her, Chief. And keep in mind I’ve been a cop for over ten years. I do know how to keep my personal past separate from my job.” Phil felt convinced of this, but he also felt…a sudden distant queasiness. “You want me to go in there, Chief. Fine, I will.”

Mullins packed a pinch more Red Man into his jowl—if it was tobacco, he chewed it: snuff, leaf, plugs. “Glad to hear it, Phil.” Then he spat a big one. “Get your ass in there tonight.”

— | — | —

Eleven

“What are you nervous about?”
 Susan asked behind her Motorola station base.

“I’m not nervous,” Phil asserted. He’d just changed into his street clothes in Mullins’ office, then came out to the commo room. It was just past midnight.

“Not nervous, huh?” Did she smile? “Looks to me like you’re about to tinkle in your jockey shorts.”

“How do you know I don’t wear boxers?” Phil quickly changed the topic. He changed it, he knew now, because he was nervous, and he also knew why.

Evidently so did Susan. “It must be the girl, huh? Vicki what’s-her-name, your ex-fiancée?”

Phil seethed. “No, it is not. Christ, can’t Mullins keep his mouth closed about anything?” He shuddered to think what else the dubious chief had told her.

“Did you really dump her ’cos she wouldn’t move?”

“No, I did not! Jesus!”

“Don’t get whipped up. I was just asking,” she said, adjusting the frequency modulator on the radio. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, you make a great-looking redneck.”

“I’ve never been more flattered.” But he supposed she was right. Tight, tapered Levis over pointed shit-kicker boots, a big buck knife on his belt, and a black-and-red flannel shirt. It astounded him how the societal contingent colloquially thought of as “rednecks” insisted on wearing flannel shirts even in the middle of summer. He’d also slicked his hair back with Score.

“Look at the bright side,” Susan added, cueing her mike once. “How many guys actually get paid to sit in strip joints?”

“Hmm, you’re right. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. Might as well be me. Anyway, I’m out of here. I’ll be back around two.”

“Wait, wait,” she was suddenly complaining. She got up from behind her console. “Don’t you know
anything
about redneck fashion? You’ve got to show some hair.”

“Pardon me?”

She walked right up to him, so close he could smell her herbal shampoo. Phil was six-feet even, while Susan stood about five-seven. He looked down at her, instinctively noting the lean compactness of her body, the sudden proportion of her waist and hips, and the stunning white-blond hair. In the small “v” of her blouse, he spied a breast satcheled in a plain beige bra. The simple, beautiful image nearly shook him.

Then she began unbuttoning his shirt.

“What, uuuuuuh,” he asked, “what are you doing?”

“I told you. You have to show some hair. It’s the redneck’s version of a tie.”

“Oh,” Phil replied.

She unbuttoned his shirt all the way to his solar plexus, then fluffed it out some. “There, that’s much better,” she said. “Now you look like a true Crick City redneck.” Her eyes thinned momentarily, and her mouth turned up in the slightest grin. “Nice pecs, too. If you don’t mind my saying so.”

Jesus, he thought as she went back to her commo cubby. “That’s all? Just
nice?”

“Get out of here,” she said, laughing.

««—»»

Nice pecs. Well,
he thought. He hadn’t touched a barbell in five years, but at least Susan’s remark, even if she hadn’t been serious, offered him a welcome diversion during the drive. He realized, most fully now, that what Mullins had accused him of this morning was absolutely on the mark.
I’m a fucking nervous wreck,
he admitted after parking in Sallee’s dusty gravel lot. And he realized two things more, just as fully:

Vicki’s going to be in there, and she’s going to see me.

He left his off-duty Beretta locked in the glove box; the last thing he needed was some, drunk redneck spotting his piece printing in his pants. And there was another consideration: Vicki knew that Phil had worked for Metro; he had a phony line all planned about a new job—a non-police job. Another thing he didn’t need was everybody in the joint knowing a cop lurked amid the clientele. That would blow the whole stakeout right then and there.

KRAZY SALLEE’S, the high roadsign blinked as he disembarked. His boots scuffed gravel as he traversed the lot. Lurid light bathed him in the entry; a bull-faced bouncer gave him the eye at the door, then let him pass through. Phil expected thunderous—and awful—heavy metal or C&W. Instead he walked into a half-full bar full of similarly flannel-shirted ’necks talking over tables flanked by beer bottles and ashtrays.
I thought this was a rowdy stripjoint,
he reminded himself when he took note of the empty stage. Loud music and near-naked women were what he had prepared himself to be in the midst of. What he found instead was a lethargic gathering of good old boys shooting the shit over bottles of Black Label and Schmidt’s.