The first time I noticed her she was coming out of city hall. She was very
noticeable. Tall, good looking, and dressed nicely. She had a look of sophistication about
her. You know the type. Cool, calm, and collected. We passed, I nodded, and she ignored
me. Bitch!
I’m Mitchell Crawley, also known as Mick and sometimes as Mick the dick because I’m
a detective with the city police department. Just so you know, I’m not fond of being
called Mickey. It’s a bit too mousey for me.
The next time I saw her was at a social function hosted by the mayor, John Hall. My
invitation was not really an invitation. I was told to be there so like a good little
civil servant I went. That time she was in the receiving line standing beside his honor,
the mayor, and was introduced as his wife, Tiffany Hall, the city’s first lady. That time
I got a glance and not much more. I had the feeling she was warming up to me. Tiffany was
a tall blond of around forty, but well preserved. Unless you looked at her eyes she could
pass for under thirty with no trouble.
The third time I saw her she was being escorted into a motel room by Milo and his
hand was on her ass. Milo whose real name is Harold Carter, is not someone most people
would consider a nice man. In fact no one would consider him a nice person.
I first ran across Milo just after I joined the police department. I was in uniform
back then. I had just started being allowed out on the mean streets by myself. I was in a
neighborhood where smart cops didn’t go by themselves, but I was young, big, strong, and
carried a badge and a gun. I was so full of myself I was certain I couldn’t be hurt or
killed. That crap was knocked out of me soon thereafter. Getting shot will knock that
nonsense right out of a person. But that came later. That night I was still super cop,
crime fighter.
I turned the patrol car’s lights off and was alley crawling. Easing down first one
dark alley and then another. I figured if you were going to fight crime you had to go
where crime was. I saw three men beating the shit out of another one. Two guys were
holding one while a third was beating the victim. They all were black, but that wasn’t
any surprise because I was in the heart of the ghetto.
I jumped out of my car and used my baton to distract the man doing the beating. A
hard jab to his unprotected kidney did the trick. Then I turned my attention to the two
men doing the holding. One got rabbit in his feet and he ran down the alley. The other one
should have ran. I cold-cocked him and he dropped like a rock.
The victim had slumped down and was only barely conscious. I called for the wagon
and they hauled him off to the emergency room while I loaded the other two dudes. Since
one was only semi-conscious from the love tap I had bestowed on him, I took him to the ER
to get checked. I dropped the other one off at the jail so he could get started pissing
blood.
While I was waiting for my man to get an okay to go to jail, the victim came out of
the examination room. I called him over because needed his statement so I could get the
arrested into the system.
“I’m Milo,” he said through puffy lips. His face was nearly covered by the bandages
the docs had put on him. He was going to need some dental work also, because one of his
front teeth was missing. “I owe you, man, and I never forget a favor.”
I got the information I needed and let him go on about his business. I knew the odds
were against him showing up in court, but you do what you can do. I didn’t expect a
seventeen year old to be civic minded, but he surprised me by showing up and I got a
conviction on the two men I arrested. Not that it did much good. The fuckers beat my back
on the street.
That trial came almost two months later and Milo looked a lot better than he had in
the ER. He had a shiny gold tooth to replace the one he lost in the alley. After the
hearing he came up to me in the hall outside the courtroom.
“What can I do for you, my man?” he asked. “What you need?”
“I need for you to call me Officer Crawley,” I said. I was a pompous son of a bitch
back then. “I don’t need anything, Mister Carter. Just go have a good life.” Maybe pompous
doesn’t describe it.
“I’ll do that very thing, Officer,” he responded giving me a flash of his new gold
tooth. “You need anything, you find me. Milo pays his debts.”
It a funny thing how some people’s lives keep getting intertwined. Milo and I kept
running into one another over the next several years. It seemed that I was always pulling
his chestnuts out of the fire. Twice I saved him from a beating and once I saved him from
sure death. I have no idea how many times I could have arrested him for one infraction or
another. He was always into something illegal. I don’t know why I never arrested him, but
I didn’t. Other cops did, but not me.
Over the next few years, Milo got smarter. He was streetwise and strong so he carved
out a place for himself. I mean literally carved out a place. Milo got a reputation as a
knifeman and one to be reckoned with. I still didn’t understand why I kept giving him
slack, but I did.
After I made detective Milo proved to be a valuable asset. There was no crime from
Sixteenth Street to the river he didn’t know about. When he wasn’t actually involved, he
was a source of good information. I cleared a lot of cases using Milo as an informant.
Our symbiotic relationship was in its tenth year. I think symbiotic is the right
word. We used each other to survive and even to prosper. It was information from Milo
that got me the rank of detective first grade.
That was what I was doing when I saw her. I was detecting. I was doing a solo
stakeout watching the motel from my car in hopes of locating a car-jacker who was
supposed to be staying there.
The fact that Milo was with a white woman came as no surprise. He had an attraction
for white chicks. Maybe it was the other way around, but he scored with them constantly. I
was aware he ran a string of white call girls catering to gentlemen of color. But Tiffany
Hall? That was a puzzler.
For a moment I thought it was a case of mistaken identity, but when they got closer,
less than twenty feet, I knew there was no mistake. That was the city’s first lady,
Tiffany Hall, without a doubt. As they approached I scooted down so they couldn’t see me.
She couldn’t see, but I knew Milo probably had. He didn’t miss much. I raised up and
watched them disappear into the room.
I knew I was in procession of some valuable information, but I didn’t have a clue
how it could benefit me. I continued the stakeout for another two hours. I had to wonder
what the hell Tiffany Hall and Milo were doing all that time. I was absolutely positive
they couldn’t be fucking all that time. I had to think that for my own peace of mind.
I planned on staying there until the car-jacker showed up or Milo and company came
out, but fate intervened. There was a robbery in progress call that I couldn’t ignore and
I rolled on it.
I got tied up on the robbery thing for several hours because the silly bastard took
a hostage and it took a while to convince him he was not getting a jet plane and a million
dollars. When he came down off of whatever had him flying high, he gave up, but it was too
late for me to go back to the motel. I went home to rest and get as fresh start on the
morrow.
Again fate got in the way. I got busy fighting crime and stayed that way for a few
days. I wasn’t in any big hurry to find Milo. I knew where he could be found and that was
where I found him when I got the time to look.
Milo maintained a quasi-office in a bar at the edge of the black community. That’s
what we call the ghetto these days. Milo set on his throne, which actually was a chair at
a back table, in the dark stinky bar called the Ace of Spades. If a white man had opened a
bar for blacks and called it that, he would have been run out of town on a rail. I was
one of the few whites that knew Milo actually was the owner of what most locals simply
called ‘The Spade’. That’s where I found him.
“Dick…tective Crawley,” he said when he spotted me. I was standing just inside the
door trying to get my eyes adjusted to the gloom. “What brings you to this part of town?
Not that I’m unhappy to see your smiling face.”
Somewhere along the way, Milo picked up a decent education. He could talk like a
college professor or a street thug depending on his audience. “Jimmy, get my friend a
beer!” he called to the bartender.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I said after I fumbled my way to his table and
sat down.
“I have been accused of it, but to what do you refer?” he said.
“Shacking up with Tiffany Hall,” I hissed quietly, mindful of all the highly tuned
ears in the place.
“I’m afraid I do not know of whom you speak, my good man,” he said showing me his
gold tooth. “I am not acquainted with a Tiffany Hall.”
“Knock off the fake British accent, Milo. I saw you with her three days ago at the
no-tell motel over on River Street. That’s the fucking mayor’s wife, you fool.”
“Motel? Three days ago? Hell, Mick, I wasn’t with the mayor’s wife. I had one of my
ladies out for a spin, but her name is Melody. I acquired her recently and wanted to know
if she was any good. She was, by the way. Very good.”
“Acquired her from who?”
“Little Bobby had her last and I think he got her from old man Howell. Howell died
some time back. Little Bobby is nowhere as good a poker player as he thought. I won the
bitch.”
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