Phil fumed. “Straker, Philip, ID 8, reporting 10-6 from eight-to-eight shift. Out of service,” he said. “Now, where’s Mullins?”
“If you mean Chief Mullins, I believe he’s back in the supply building—”
Probably checking coffee filters, Phil thought,
But Susan Ryder continued from her console, “And one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you. What kind of service ammunition are you loading…Sergeant Straker?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It seemed like a pretty cut-and-dry question to me. But just let me remind you that sabot, teflon, liquid- filled, and especially quad ammunition is illegal for all law-enforcement use in this state.”
So that’s it, Phil realized. That’s why the Ice Bitch hates me. “I get the gist of what you’re saying, Ms. Ryder, and not that I’m in the habit of reporting the nomenclature of my service ammunition to radio girls, I’m loading Plus P Plus .38 wadcutters, which is what I’ve always loaded.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” she said, and redirected her gaze into her textbook.
“Yeah, well, you’ve probably also heard that I’m a kid killer, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you’ve heard that Jesus Christ is really an astronaut from another solar system and that Elvis is alive and well and has lunch regularly at Chuck’s Diner, nor would I be surprised if you actually believed those things.” Phil leaned over her console desk. “But let me make a suggestion, Ms. Ryder. I really think it would be prudent for you to not only get your snooty nose out of other’s people’s business, but you also might find life a lot more agreeable if you put a lid on that outrageous ego of yours, and—” Suddenly Phil pounded his fist—BAM!—down on her desk, whereupon Susan Ryder’s derriere lifted at least an inch from her seat in complete surprise. “—and let me tell you one more thing. I’ve never loaded quads, and I never killed a kid. That whole Metro mess was a sham, Ms. Ryder; I was set up. And if you don’t believe that, I don’t give a flying fuck. But I do have one more suggestion, you rude egomanical bitch. Don’t make judgments about people until you know all of the facts.”
Then, in utter calm, Phil turned around, walked into Chief Mullins’ office, and closed the door very quietly behind him.
God, I hate women so much sometimes, he told himself. Through the window, he saw Mullins coming out of the lock-up-turned-supply building and the man did not look happy.
When the back door swung open, Phil beat the chief to the punch. “Look, Chief, I’m sorry, but I forgot to pick up the coffee filters. Bust me.”
“Christ, you kids,” Mullins griped and sat his girth down behind his desk. “Can’t trust ya to take care of your own bowel movements, huh? Looks like I’ll have to waste valuable tax-dollar-time getting the friggin’ filters myself.”
“Guess so,” Phil said. “But I suspect the world will still continue to revolve while you’re gone.”
“That’s what I like about you, Phil. You’re a smartass after my own heart.” Mullins raised a paper cup and spat tobacco juice into it. “You stake out Krazy Sallee’s in plainclothes last night?”
“Yeah,” Phil replied. “Got some tag numbers, descriptions, stuff like that. It’s a good start.”
“You see that ugly fuck—Natter?”
“Yeah, Chief, I saw him.”
“You see anyone else?”
Phil rubbed at minute stubble on his chin. “Yeah, Chief, I did. And right now I got a burning question for you.”
“Lemme guess, hot stuff,” the chief said, “You saw Vicki Steele coming out of there, and now you’re pissed at me ’cos I didn’t tell you she was stripping up there.”
“Bingo,” Phil said.
Mullins spat again. “Well, I figure there’s things a man has to learn on his own, especially when it’s about a woman he’s still got the hots for.”
“I don’t have the hots for her. But I think it would’ve been pretty civil for you to warn me in advance. And you expect me to believe that Vicki Steele quit the department to do a strip show at Sallee’s?”
“No, I don’t expect you to believe that,” Mullins said very quickly. “So let’s make a little bit of an amendment to what I told you beforehand. Vicki Steele didn’t quit like North and Adams. I fired her.”
“For what?”
Mullins let out a stout chuckle. “Shit, Phil, you’re the one who dated her for five years. I gotta tell you?”
“You’re losing me, Chief. And you’re pissing me off more.”
“I fired her for dereliction of duty on the grounds of overt sexual misconduct.”
“Bullshit,” Phil said at once.
“Believe what ya want, son. But it’s true. You think I wanted to tell you about the shit she pulled?”
“Tell me,” Phil asked.
“She was fucking her boyfriends on duty, Phil. And since you asked for it, she had a lot of boyfriends. Or maybe I’m using the term ‘boyfriends’ out of respect—”
Phil glowered. “Be disrespectful, Chief.”
“She was fucking just about anything that moved,” Mullins pulled no punches. “Hey, you’re the one who asked. She was picking up guys at the Qwik-Stop and doing them right in the patrol car. She’d pull rednecks over at night for speeding, and she’d wind up fucking the guys. You want more?”
“Sure,” Phil said.
Mullins shrugged. “One night I came in and caught her blowing a prisoner in the lock-up. I got half a dozen complaints that she was rousting patrons at Sallee’s, pulling them over and threatening to DWI them, and then fucking the guys and letting them off. You want more, son?”
“Sure,” Phil said, a bit less enthusiastically this time.
“I have good reason—documented reason—to believe she was actually turning tricks while on duty. Threatening to write guys up for drinking behind the wheel, then fucking them for money in exchange for not writing them up. Christ, one night she even put the make on me, and I haven’t had a hard-on in about fifteen years.”
Phil sat back in his chair, reflecting. Vicki? A sex maniac? A…whore? Then he reflected further. She’d always been pretty feisty—and sometimes downright kinky—in bed. But that doesn’t mean she’s a nympho, he thought. Mullins seemed straight up about this—at least as straight up as he could be—but Phil had a hard time seeing Vicki Steele changing so drastically that she would actually blackmail traffic offenders into a scenario of prostitution.
“I just can’t believe it,” Phil said. “I just can’t see her doing things like that.”
Mullins’ brow raised as he took another spit. “Neither could I, until she told me the reason. And please don’t ask me to tell you what she said.”
“Tell me what she said,” Phil directed.
“You can’t handle it, Phil.”
“I can handle it. So quit fucking with me, will ya?”
Mullins set his jaw. He appeared genuinely distressed, which was something Phil had never recalled seeing. He cleared his throat, did a fidget in his seat, and said, “When I fired her, she said it was all because of you. You taking off without her. You dumping her.”
Phil stared. Could this really be? I cannot believe this, he told himself very slowly. Then his words grated, “I didn’t dump her.”
“Bullshit, Phil. When you leave a girl for a job, and she doesn’t want to move with you, that’s the same as dumping her. After you left she went nuts. She turned nympho. And when I shitcanned her, the very next week, she was stripping up at Sallee’s and turning tricks every night. Still don’t believe me?”
Phil’s voice turned black when he said, “No.”
Mullins, with a sour look, hoisted himself up, retrieved a folder from one of his file cabinets, and turned. “Buck North, Pete Adams, before they quit for the other departments, this PCP headache was just starting up. So I had them doing the same thing you did last night. Staking out Krazy Sallee’s, trying to get a read on what’s going on up there. Only these guys didn’t just take down tag numbers. They took pictures.”
Phil gulped as if a chunk of broken glass had stuck in his throat…
“Take a peek at your own risk,” Mullins warned. “But don’t get pissed at me for showin’ ya, ’cos you’re the one who asked.”
Then Mullins dropped the folder in Phil’s lap.
It was some presage, a hideous one: Phil refused to believe any implication, yet his hands hitched toward the
