Sugar -- A Tale of the Runoffs(0)

B

roken Heart Street is a stub that tees into a neighborhood of recent two-story houses set as close to one another as used cars on a back lot. There are no addresses on Broken Heart Street.
         I sat parked with my rear tire on the curb while I updated accounts on my tablet and waited for the beat cruiser to pass. It was followed by a three-box Infiniti M45 with upgraded wheels, in beautiful condition for its age.
         The forfeiture car peeled off and slid past me, then performed a fire-concentration maneuver that put its front tire on mine and the driver’s side window conversation-close.
         “You’d be Meric.” The driver was a detective who wore her plainclothes with a comfort that spoke of long tenure. Pocross had spoken of “her” and “my lieutenant”.
         So I said, “Bottle of water for you, Lieutenant?” The passenger door swept upward and a middle-aged one-time track athlete stood and folded his arms on the roof.
         "Let me see. What's it called?"
         "'Bleech', with two 'e's'."
         "Is it safe? Or did you bottle it at your storage locker?"
         "Less than one-point-five parts to the million. It wouldn't kill your cat."
         “Maybe later." She tucked the sealed bottle into a crevice in her seat. "My cat. You know me, then?”
         “Not by name.”
         Her arched eyebrows collapsed in puzzlement. She opened her mouth to ask, then thought better of it. “Okay-y. I’m Shaney.”
         “Pleezda meecha, Lieutenant Shaney. What hey, Pocross?”
         “Fuck you, Meric.” He sounded tired, as always. “Quit running your head game on my supervisor. She came to make nice, insisted on it.”
         I nodded, cocked my head to listen.
         “I came today to thank you in person for your invaluable assistance in the capture of a … Well, you caught us a really evil bastard, Meric. There’s no reward money, and I wouldn’t let my name out any sooner than you. All I can say is --”
         “You owe me one.”
         Pocross bridled. “Meric! I warned--”
         “Sergeant!” He subsided. “So, what do you want, Mr. Meric?”
         “Sign a card for me.”
         “‘Sign a card’, hm? Okay, I can do that.”
         Cops hand out a half-dozen or a hundred cards a day. Not one of them is worth a cup of coffee – unless it is signed. Shaney was surrendering her written promise to speak for me to an arresting officer. Once. That was all.
         Shaney clicked her pen closed and tucked it away as she passed me the token. “Don’t waste it on a traffic ticket or a murder charge.”
         “We go our own ways from here.”
         “Y’know, I was told to ask if you’re ready yet to go straight.”
         “Y’know, they usually con some rookie into asking me the same stupid question as the last one.”
         Shaney shook her head, muttered under her breath. “All right, Meric. But if you ever start to care --”
         “Pocross does that.”
         “Does what? Cares?”
         “He’s always tired. We meet up and he’s just weary, every time. Are you always going to be sad when you see me?”
         “You think that’s, umm … unfair?”
         “I think it’s pointless.”
         “I think passive aggression and opaque rage are pointless.”
         “Okay, well … I have a business to run and you have fugitives to run down.”
         “Meric, don’t lose my number.”
         “Because?”
         “Ask me next time, okay?”
         “Sure.”

500 words