Operation: Power Grab (DG - Ep. 4)

"On top of the misses" Bruce begins laughing, "talking about kickin' me to the curb last night, now I gotta…" The chief loses his focus and gives Bruce a fierce glance, who is standing against one of the windows of the chief's office. "What's so funny, Bruce?" he says sternly.

Normally Simon would have at least been grinning at the joke the chief inadvertently made, but on this morning he was especially somber and concerned about losing his job, or at least receiving a serious demotion. Had the killer he was following struck at the heart of his professional life, now, as well, by practically framing him? Whoever it was was deliberately trying to frustrate the already frustrated one-eyed detective. 

The two detectives glance at each one another, pushing the other with their looks to come clean on the childish joke and move on. Bruce chimes in first, realizing he's on the chopping block.

"Well, Skip…It's just… you said… 'on top of the misses.'" this time Bruce is not even smiling as the phrase enters his head again. The chief looks at him disapprovingly.

"Let's move on, children." the chief straightens up and crosses his arms. "Last night I had to deal with that shit at home and now, this morning, I get this call, putting Internal Affairs directly on my ass wondering first, why two of my top guys left a drugged-out witness's house moments before she was murdered, and second why one of those detectives has a constant target on his back from either a copycat or the original 'scarring killer'. You're too close to all this, Simon." Simon puts his head in his hand, and Bruce straightens up.

"So, here's what we're gonna do, fellas." Simon looks up gravely. "I talked to Internal," the chief turns concerned for the two, "and we came to an agreement. First, is that the two of you cannot work together anymore. As much as it pains me to see my little project fail, you two are sort of a liability individually--for quite a few reasons--but definitely a fucking liability when you're working together."

"Finally!" Bruce lets out a partially-sarcastic gasp.

"Oh what-the-fuck-ever, Bruce!" Simon shouts, "Good riddance… I've put up with your bullshit for so long. you're holding me back." The chief begins looking at both of them fake-patiently, waiting for their childish argument to seise.

"Holding you back?!?! Change that shitty record already, I'm tired of that old disco tune." Simon begins imitating the Bee Gees, making his own melody. "Holding me back!…He's holding me back!" The chief's stare continues, but gradually changes to astonishment at the two for ignoring him and continuing to be fixated on their own petty quarrels.

"A big joke. Everything's a big joke! It's all so fucking hysterical." Simon attempts to imitate Bruce but instead imitate's Connor Rooney from Road To Perdition, and almost loses his edge, but doesn't, clearly having upped his morning dose of FG-5.

"It is pretty funny, though, right, Skip," he looks to the chief for approval, as he attempts to complete his thought, but, upon seeing the boss's face, begins to trail off simultaneously, "that we are both losing really and…"

"Are you two dip-shits ready for number two?" Bruce fights laughter again but becomes stern seeing that the chief got this joke and that his patience, again, is starting to wear very thin.

"The second change is that--despite my greatest efforts to keep the thristy detective from the drug teat--we gotta transfer Simon here to the FG-5 division." Simon's eye narrows, as he looks directly into the chief's.

"You can't be serious chief." Simon says confidently, defiantly, and quietly.

"Right… I mean don't they have, like, some policies about a user of the drug not being about to catch the guys peddling said drug, Skip?"

"It seems their restrictions have become slightly less strict, and they want to use cops addicted to FG-5, like our friend here, to infiltrate larger FG-5 gang rings, as detectives seemingly in other departments simply trying to score the drug--and a little cash--for themselves. Apparently they've had their eyes on Simon here for quite awhile." The chief suddenly looks like he's surprised himself. "Shit, I've said too much with Bruce here already. I'm just so damn excited to get this four year mess you two might call a partnership off my hands."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Skip, you mean you're marriage?" The chief gives him a defiant and violent look.

"Fuck you, Brucie boy! And remember, you still work for me." he walks to Simon and puts his hands on the cyclops's shoulders. "Simon, it was nice to work with you, and you know my door is always open to you. Hopefully, before that time you won't get your damn head blown off, BADDA BING!" he makes the apparent Godfather reference "all over your shitty-detective, cigarette-smelling, FG-5-bullshit suit." he loses his train of thought and releases his grip on Simon. "Now get out of my office both of you, I've got murderers to capture and shit." He points to Simon. "Oh, and Simon?"

"Yeah, chief?"

"Remember what I always told you." Simon nods. "And here." He hands him a thick manilla envelope with the words "Operation: Power Grab" written on it in permanent marker.

Strange Reflections: Cracked Mirror (EP 2)

“Not my face.”

Grab the bottle. Take a swig.

Steady the nerves.

Slowly put bandages back on face.

“Am I really who I am?” Milo’s mind is set ablaze. Whiskey burns down his throat; liquid fire coursing everywhere else, who the hell is the man underneath the series of the wrappings?  The greatest joke ever played the dis-figuration of a disgrace that is in fact not a dis-figuration but a physical reconfiguration capable shattering the mind but it can’t shatter something that wasn't entirely there in the first place.

Milo Denton feels sick in a good way… or is it good in a sick way?  Goodbye to the old life? Hello to something new? Paying for the hell of vintage wrath in a never-ending cycle of torment contained in a flaming bullet-train, full of screaming retarded children and blaring horrific electronic dance music. Something like breakfast, which is really just phlegm laced with uranium infused tobacco, stomach lining and whiskey hits the immaculate white toilet.

Bonnie keeps the place as clean as one of those old 1950’s sitcom settings. She’s a real mothering type, despite the slight indiscretion years ago it was like a mother and son relationship but Bonnie just wasn't missing her son and Milo wasn't just missing his mother and needed something more than nurture for his carnal nature. She was just as carnal as well but when all was said and done, nothing was ever uttered or hinted at again and both liked it that way and Milo entered high school that year as a man or was it the piano that actually raised him and took him to the glowing celestial skull altar where he knelt to vomit and weep with leather belts lashing at his back?

FG-5 alters perceptions. Creates memories and implants what you don’t want because it is secretly what you want and where you need to be in order to push the boundaries of intellect and body, which is what FG-5 does or what drug allows the user to do. You don’t like the drug but the drug likes you because you are the in itself the drug.

Knock. Knocking at the bathroom door, a gentle rapping, Denton, get the head out of your sickness. Cock the hammer. Don’t wait and pull trigger. Slugs chew through wood and paint in order to devour the meat on the other side.

Never expect company when on the way to suicide.

Kick the door off the hinges, gun points left and right.  Look down. Two men dead, not leaving the world any poorer; young men, yellow smiley-face masks, baseball bats, one sawed off shot to the side, black leather jackets. Smiley-Face Kids, local gang thinks they can create a new reality through building a chaotic empire out of crime while constantly operating on FG-5. 

This is bad. Hell is coming, as if Hell itself wasn't bursting through the payment and not stopping; a portal is opening up and swallowing the lives of everyone on this street and soon the whole damn city.

Don’t overreact. Go see the gypsy woman at the back of Blue Angel.

Boots stomping up the stairs, office door is swings open and there’s a hulking mass built like a mountain pretending to be a man in a gorilla suit. It’s not funny. The gorilla suited maniac grunts, and pulls a samurai sword out of its sheath.

Click. Click. The gun is empty.  Death wears combat boots, a gorilla suit and wields a samurai sword. Milo Denton considers the other side of eternity.

Or Can I Assume it's the FG-5? (DG - Ep. 3)

"And, would you say you've had any enemies, Mrs. Frost? You, your family, your husband?… your daughter?" Bruce lights up a cigarette, as he and his one-eyed partner sit a little too cozily on a small love seat in the living of the Frosts, A suburban type family: Mother's a drug-addict empty-nester housewife and father's a law professor. They live on the prestigious lower-west side of Petrina City, where the dogs are quite small and the egos are (among some other parts of people) are quite large.

"Would you say your daughter ran with any strange sorts of people?" Simon asks, as Mrs. Frost lights up a smoke, no doubt under sedation from FG-5, staring blankly at Bruce, who has yet to say a word, but decides to take over.

"What we are trying to do here, Mrs Frost, is make connections between your recently dea--" Simon bumps Bruce hard, and Bruce clears his throat, "your recently deceased daughter, and whoever would have taken her life." He clears his throat again. "What we are trying to do is" he begins dividing an imaginary pie in front of him, as if showing blank Mrs. Frost presentation, "develop what sorts of motives somebody might have for murdering your daughter." She continues to give Bruce the FG-5 trademarked hopeless stare, he throws his hands up as if giving up, and turns to Simon, both standing suddenly "I can't take this." he says, "I gotta finish my smoke outside. She must have been pretty damn good at losing touch and being frighteningly silent before the drugs… and now she's just…" He makes a motion with in the air of one hand taking off from the other quickly makes "PJJJJWWWIIIIIOOOO" noise with his lips.

 They stand, backs to her, and lower their voices as well as their demeanor, "If she won't give us information that could solve her daughter's homicide, then we're wasting our time here."

"Give me five minutes with her, Brucie. She is one of the closest ones to the victim." Simon lights up a cigarette. "Besides, maybe she'll warm up to me once you leave." He puts his arm around his partners shoulder, somewhat condescendingly, "I don't think she likes you very much. She's giving you the death stare." They both look directly at Mrs. Frost, who is pushing Bruce to leave her house with her eyes.

He gives Mrs. Frost a cold, frosty stare of his own and states matter-of-factly, "Ma'am, you need some serious deliverance," before leaving the house.

Simon sits on the couch again, and Mrs. Frost almost immediately opens up. "I really don't like his types."

"Not many people do," Simon smiles and gets out his pad, ready to jot down Mrs. Frost's words.

"He has an evil way about him."

"Yes, he does, Mrs. Frost." He puts his warm smile away and begins to look more frustrated, before clearing his throat. "Now, can we talk about your daughter, please?"

"Sure." She looks coldly across the room at the Frost's prized family portrait, now lying about its members. 

His mannerisms become more welcoming again. "You don't seem too concerned about your daughter's death, Mrs. Frost, you mind telling me why? Is it a bad relationship thing, or can I assume it's the FG-5?"

"I know you're on it too," she says, pointing at Simon. "Everyone on it seems to be able to pick out whoever else is, so how do I know I can trust your amplified characteristics, Mr. Murphy?"

"It seems you can't." Simon uncomfortably adjusts his tie. "Can we at least rule you out on being the murderer, because she's your daughter, and assume that you would feel remorse if you weren't popping so much amp?" Her eyes begin to well up the slightest bit, which concerns Simon, who knows she will soon need a new pill. "Do you need another pill, Mrs. Frost?"

"No, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure, I have some."

"I only take my own, I mix 'em myself. I just ran out, so I might try to quit." She tries to light another smoke, but cannot because her lips, hands, and eyes are beginning to shake rapidly. "Starting now" she faintly and tiredly whispers.

She begins sweating profusely, and Simon gets off the couch, rushes to the front door side of it, and backs away. "You're not supposed to do that, Mrs. Frost. Either of those: mixing your own or quitting suddenly. You know what the immediate withdrawal can be like, Mrs.--" 

Before he can continue, she snaps her neck from side to side and she begins yelling mostly useless babble at him, with an occasional "you don't know him, he's different," or a, "she was supposed to be our little princess." She starts throwing some of the family's expensive trinkets at Simon, as he throws a pill at her and urges her to take it, without success. Bruce hears the racket and looks in the front door, only to have a chair thrown at him. "Get that lunatic out of my house!" she screams pointing at the door Bruce has already exited again.

Simon quickly eases towards Mrs. Frost to grab his coat off the back of the couch, nabs it and runs out the door yelling, "Thank you for your time!"

On the way to the car, Simon says, "I don't think she's fucked up enough to murder her own daughter."

"Who knows, Simon," He pushes his index and middle finger pressed together onto Simon's chest, "you can't trust the statements either way with an Amp-head." He releases Simon from his gaze, straightens out his coat, begins to smirk, walks towards the car. "I'm surprised I trust you as much as I do."

"Shut the hell up, Bruce," Simon pops another pill quickly, this time washing it down with whiskey from a flask from his inside pocket, "before I decide to kick your ass." They both get into the car. "I need to get home and get some sleep."

-----------

Simon is awoken suddenly from his slumber by his cell phone ringing. "Huuulo?" he answers thinking about going back to sleep and reading 4:55am on his bedside clock.

"This is the chief, Simon."

"Do you sleep at all?"

"not as long as people get murdered."

"What's happening?"

"Mrs. Nancy Frost was found dead late last night."

That's a Good Motto, Chief (DG - Ep. 2)

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SOME MILDLY FOUL LANGUAGE.

"You have any idea how frustrating this is, Murphy?"

"I'm starting to get a clearer picture, chief." Simon smirks a little, and swallows hard, "the larger the vein on the side of your forehead gets."

The chief just sighs, looks at Simon with puzzlement, and crosses his arms again. His gaze changes from Simon to Bruce, then back to the somewhat nervous, one-eyed detective.

"I'll break it down a little more for you fellas." The chief begins talking in his daddy-knows-best voice, and throws a thick manilla folder down on his desk. "I get this report this morning about a victim discovered last night, and what this killer did to this guy looks so eerily similar to all that S*** that whats-his-name did when he was copycatting the killer you were following, Murphy." He begins to look confused as Simon's eye widens, "or, is the guy we didn't find the copycat. I can't keep all this straight myself, and I'm the d*** chief of this bureau." The chief leans on the front of his desk, picks up his handgun from the top of his desk and fingering it with his trigger hand, signals to Simon to close the blinds, which he does, and faces Bruce, who's snaps back to attention from checking out Melinda, the detective many in the department gingerly call the hottest crime-fighter in Petrina. When he sees that the gun has gotten Bruce's attention, he puts it back on his desk.

"Do you remember, Brucie boy, when you lost your finger paying homage to that guy, Larry Gardini, while off duty, might I add." He says something demeaning under his breath and with such gruff that neither detective can understand him and continues. The two look at each other with puzzled faces. "And you came to me for help because the bureau you were in was going to transfer you to where was it…again…?…my mind's blurry from all the drugs I'm not doing." He snaps his finger at Simon without breaking his stare on Bruce.

"Waterton, chief."

"WATERTON! That's right! No room to move up. Career cops 'aplenty in Waterton and not a hard crime happening as far as the eye can see!"

"That's a good city motto, chief." Simon hardly states while fingering the blinds and briefly looking out the office window.

The chief quickly points to Simon. "You're d*** right it is, champ." He crosses his arms and faces Bruce again. "Do you remember all the S*** I was saying before we got off on that awful tangent about that S***hole town down the road?" Bruce nods. "Good. So here's my problem. I took you in ooo…How many years ago?" Simon begins responding like he did for the first question, but the chief silences him with two fingers and low eyebrows, "I got this, buddy."

"Four years ago I took you on and all you had to do was catch bad guys who kill people, and keep an eye on our man, Simon, here, and from my estimations, you've done a piss-poor job at both, but 

I pay you a high salary because you continue to have potential. So now, I have a murder case that I need both of you on, but I have dumb-a$$ number one here," he points to Simon, "who can't see any homicide case clearly because his head's so far up the a$$ of a serial killer--who may either be in jail already or dead." Almost imitating a robot, the chief changes his pointing from one to the other, "and dumb-a$$ number two here, who can't do the job he should be doing anyways, that is," he begins imitating himself from earlier, "…Catching the bad guys and keeping an eye on his partner, blah blah blah," he begins a shooing motion with his hands. "Quit wasting my time, fellas. I got a killer to catch."

At this, Simon's intrigue about the case turns to anger and childlike disappointment, and he can't help himself from getting extremely close to the chief, "We can't be on this one, chief?!?" 

"Not until you clear your head."

"I think that's a brilliant call, skip."

"Shut the h*** up, Bruce. We need this, chief..." Simon pauses and looks frantically around the office,"I need this!"

"It really chaps my ass that I can't put my best guys for this case on this case, but you two are too much of a liability lately to me and the Bureau."

"You boys need to show me that you can handle the big cases again, and until you do, I'm going to give you the smaller ones." he throws a different, much thinner, manilla folder down on the desk, "Like Rebecca Frost, age 22, killed this morning. Looks pretty cut-and-dry." The cheif's cell starts ringing, he looks at it, and his face turns dark as he mutters, eyes still on the phone, to the two detectives, one pleased and one angry. "Now take the folder" he begins raising his voice "and GET the H*** out of my office."

Bruce grabs the folder and the men exit his office. The chief answers his phone "Hi, honey…I told you not to bother me at work…" and quickly slams the heavy metal door in their faces as they stand in the doorway.

The Cracked Mirror (CWO - Ep. 1)

It was a Raymond Chandler kind of evening where you really thought the body on the stairs could be your's. Milo Denton didn't care. He sat on the toilet fingering the bandages on his face and sipped from a whiskey bottle, an inexpensive copper liquid that really wasn't the good expensive gold kind. He wanted to strip the mummy-like wrappings off his face to determine if what was underneath, even resembled what used to be his.  The only thing Milo certainly knew wasn't his was, Petrina City and how the rain hitting the windows  was God mocking the world with something that was certainly not tears.

Everything the past three decades had been a fluorescent film-strip motion, lightning fueled haze; from being boiled hard in one of the cities toughest neighborhoods to working up in the ranks of the police force (the press loved him, even called him "Dangerous Denton") only to be disgraced by a minor affair with the wrong girl. Forced to work as a sleazy PI catching husbands and wives cheating on each other (sometimes with one another in crazy costumed get-ups) yet not really giving them accurate information to retain the "privilege of  being on their payroll with promise of "an explosive oncoming revelation".

Then the real explosion came. The opening of the envelope and then the voice of the fire.

He remembered his hands shaking for the anonymous envelope, certain that it was a check from one of his well known and distinguished clients. He needed the alcohol to keep the tremors at bay to hold the real suffering that was dealt his brain from the withdrawal of what made him smarter and stronger from the rest of the members on the force (then again, wasn't everyone on it?). FG-5 didn't just arouse paranoia and anger but kept stuck in a particular moment in time with no place to go and that was a place , he needed to steer clear of, no matter how fast he drowned his brain cells in bottled hilly-billy dishwater, acid water with a tinge of honey bought at the Taylor and Tyler Drug Store across the street.

He didn't care about the reason this was done to him.  The scars bothered him. He was perfectly content to die in disgrace a slow miserable of death of loneliness and substance abuse, taking pictures of  random prostitute's and john's rear-ends until the wrong man or woman put a syphilis into his brain.

Venereal disease wasn't going to be serving his warrant for death in the evening, tonight it was going to be pure ugliness and indignity. So what, if it was a little rushed, he never had to pay for tail with the looks of a slum-dog archangel, why start now?

No point to living if you can't get what nature entitled you to get for free.

Another drink. The final drink. From a crystal shot glass. Hand carved bumps put in by child laborers from wherever. Reminder of the girl that got away or rather the girl that did away. The drink courses a fiery river through vessels and arteries and the wicked montage goes clockwork with the opening of the yellow envelope sealed with a kiss, a white burning,  bright lights, scalpel hitting bone, he doesn't know what was done or what actually ravaged his flesh. All he knows, is "doctors cut my face" and he woke up with Bonnie, the motherly secretary sitting next to his bed weeping and apologizing for something she couldn't prevent.

He pretended that after this weekend of recovery, it would be "business as usual", he dismissed Bonnie after accepting her home-made meals sitting in his fridge. He bought a crate of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes to last him the weekend. Then decided just to meditate on existence, while sitting on the toilet with a bottle of whiskey and  a gun on top of the sink.

The medicine cabinet has seemingly been raided, all that remains is shaving supplies and anti-ich cream. Milo closes the cabinet and looks in the mirror. Cracked like a spider web, like the web of lies his police career was mostly based on. Time to die with the greatest indignity: pants at the ankles, ass on a toilet with a bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey in hand, with an unwrapped face resembling a surrealistic pus filled meat-sculpture done by the Devil himself  blown apart by a bullet in the mouth.

Hammer cocked. Set it down. Eyes shut. Unravel. Gun in mouth. Eyes open.

Gun in the sink. Take a swig from the bottle. Lean in that mirror. Touch the Grecian hawkish features and fish-hook half smile.

Milo "This isn't my face." It's a whisper and an empty prayer for wanting that suicide even more.

Murder Most Fowl (JWK - Ep. 1)

Are you…kidding me? Anna Porter stood just inside the chicken coop, her eyes and mouth wide open. On a second level nest Margarite, a five-time blue ribbon prize winning black Cochin, stared back, her curvy drumsticks spread in a full split like she had jumped straight up and landed, splay-legged. Daniels is going to effin kill me.

She walked back to her car and speed dialed the office. Then, in a flash of brilliance, she hung up and dialed another number.

“Chuck! Good lord, you’re never going to... Daniels sent me to the farmhouse to feed his chickens and Margarite is dead! Just dead! …I don’t know, but it’s weird like – I don’t know! …He’s going to murder me and then fire me and then murder me…no... Oh, would you? And maybe a little wooden cross? I’ll suggest a nice funeral, maybe a pot luck…Oh you’re the best!” Anna hung up and redialed the office number.

“Sharon, hey, it’s me. Could you put me through to the boss?” Anna brought her hand up to her forehead, pushing her hair back. “Hey, hi, so I came to feed them and I only saw two out in the yard so I checked the coop and, I’m so sorry, but Margarite is dead.” She let a little silence grow, letting the news sink in. “But listen, Chuck has offered to build a nice chicken-sized coffin and I thought maybe the office could have a potluck or something in Margarite’s honor. How does that sound?”

Daniels cleared his throat. “That’s very kind of you, Anna, but I think you should just toss her out.”

“What?”

“There are some grocery bags in the kitchen and the garbage barrel is in the garage. Use the black one with the lid.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. And I meant to tell you earlier, but you don’t need to come back in today. I’ve got a dentist appointment, so,” his voice trailed, like it did whenever he became distracted by his computer screen.

“OK. All right. Don’t you worry. It’ll be all taken care of for—”

“Great, thanks, kid.” Her boss hung up.

Anna found the bags in the kitchen and carefully selected two without holes in the bottoms. Thank-You! was printed in big loopy script on both sides. She fit one inside the other, lining up the words and smoothing the creases, then went back into the coop and gently slid Margarite into the bags. She pressed the bundle against her chest and pushed out the air before tying the handles into a neat bow. She carried Margarite like a chicken on a platter out into the bright sunlight and clean mountain air.

The two remaining chickens, Beatrix, an Appenzell Bearded Hen, and Duffy, a pretty little Dominique, followed her to the garage at a discreet distance. Anna laid the bundle on top of the garbage bags already in the bin and slowly closed the lid. She thought maybe she should say some words, but then thought better of it. What do you say to chickens about a chicken?

The three of them ate under a gnarly apple tree in front of Daniels’ wide wooden steps. After lunch, Anna leaned her head back against the trunk, trying to dislodge a piece of turkey with her tongue, but only managed to push it further under her gums. Regardless, she was content, comfortable, and warm. It was nice out here. Nice and calm and quiet, clean and clear.

About two and a half hours west from this idyllic little farmscape lay Petrina City. There, bikes zoomed between tightly jammed cars and exhaust made up thirty percent of the atmosphere. Petrina City. More like Putrid City. Petrified City. Fetrina City. Anna smirked. Ah, the cleverness of me. What was that from? Oz? Alice?…whatever. She stood and brushed away the crumbs. Beatrix and Duffy followed her to her car and watched it with bright little eyes as it headed back to the city. 

Anna climbed the three landings to her apartment, frustrated about being bogged down in traffic and irritated at the asshole who double parked outside. Even with half a day off she only ended up with her key in the lock thirty minutes earlier than usual. But half an hour early is still early and how fortunate for Mikey Schultz, since it’s his murder Anna’s early entry interrupts.

Once Saved, Always Saved (DG - Ep. 1)

WARNING: THIS CONTAINS SOME MILDLY FOUL LANGUAGE.

    "Earlier a woman was found dead in her apartment near the intersection of 45th and Alvin st. Police have refused to release further details, including the woman's identity," Simon leans in to turn up the radio on the center console. Bruce, who's driving, turns the radio off as soon as Simon's hand is clear.

     "When are you going to let this s*** go, anyways?" Bruce asks Simon as they cruise down 65th avenue in their beat-up black 1980s Grand Am.

     "I'll let it go when I catch the guy--"

     "--or guys, you don't know if there's just one or what, the media's been blastin' that damn case of yers for years now, there hasn't been a related homicide in years, and the skip took you off the damn thing so you could get your head straight and move on." Bruce lights a smoke and takes a long cool drag as he cranks the window down, letting in the crisp autumn air.

     "But the connections--"

     "--SCREW THE CONNECTIONS!" Bruce exclaims, now swerving the car the side of the busy two-lane bridge, and stops the car completely, cars behind them honking, and drivers yelling. Bruce turns to Simon and grabs the sides of his face with his rough hairy hands (one missing an index finger), looking straight into Simon's working eye. His voice diminishes to a whisper, "You need to move on, Buddy." 

     Simon, whose one eye is quickly becoming blood-shot, shakes his pale hand down to his pocket to grab a pill, still looking into Bruce's eyes, and pops it into his mouth. Cars line up behind the two detectives, who are quite busy working out their crisis, and a man in the car directly behind them gets out as if to fight the two. Bruce instantly lets go of his partners face with one hand, reaches into his overcoat, pulls out his badge, and holds it out the window without looking. The man backs up slowly and gets back into his car as Bruce returns his hand to Simon's face.

     He raises his voice a little. "You need to move on." both men swallow loudly, almost in unison. "It's bad enough you've been putting that poison into your body for more years than you can remember," Bruce says matter-of-factly, speaking slowly as if talking to a dope fiend, "but what's worse is that you've been following some criminal's stench for nearly a decade now and haven't come up with S***."

     "You're right." Simon attempts to concede a little, as Bruce lets go, and puts the car in "But how do you explain the feeling I've had that someone's watching me?--"

     "--paranoia, pop a few more ah' 'dem pills, pal."

     "And the messages left on my car sometimes?"

     "Simon," Bruce begins laughing a little. "You're a detective in Petrina City, you're bound to have thugs, hookers--hell, I don't know, even eligible single females--writing you notes and putting them on our car." His laugh becomes a steady arrogant smirk, "and do you remember when you swore that they were written in blood and we took 'em to the lab and they abruptly put the kibosh on that nonsense, do you remember that?" Simon nods and Bruce continues.

     "All I'm saying is that in this city, notes and feelings don't mean S*** to anyone with any sort of power." Bruce looks at his phone and back at Simon before looking back to the road, downtown Petrina ahead. "Now get your head in the game, we got a meeting with the skip, and you know how I like to make the best impression." He begins to smirk again. "Plus, he said its important, so maybe its a promotion for me and a demotion for you!" He looks to Simon for re-assurance, but only receives a tremendous lack of amusement, "Cheer up cupcake, I'm sure you're rival, or villain, or whatever you call him is dead in a gutter by now. And even if not, you're one damn fine detective," he changes expressions to mimic a damsel in distress, "so I'm sure you'll figure somethin' out."

     "Let's just get to the station," says Simon, now crossing his arms and leaning back, as if forfeiting the conversation, "we're late as it is."

     Bruce cups his hand over his mouth and tries to sound like Darth Vader, futilely attempting to get a smile from Simon "As you wish, my lord."

     As Simon and Bruce pull into the parking garage at the downtown police station, Bruce turns to Simon and says, "seriously, my one-eyed friend," while reaching over to ruffle Simon's hair as Simon swats his hand away. "Don't blow it in this meeting like you have been lately. This is the homicide bureau chief, buddy,--homicide, the biggest bureau in the city--and although you may know him well--sordid past taken into account, yadda yadda yadda--I was transferred in no more than, what, four years ago now?" He begins to sound sarcastic, and Simon rolls his eye, "And why was it again that I got assigned to this bureau again? You remember, buddy?" He raises his voice, "to keep an eye ON YOU!"

     Simon looks at Bruce with a scornful, resentful, and bitter expression as they find a spot, get out of the car and tread up the cement stairway corridor to the 5th floor and a single metal door with the city's police logo, the words "Petrina City Bureau of Homicide" arched over the logo, and the words "Once saved, always saved" spray-painted under the logo. A sick joke, no doubt, but no one has ever known who sprayed the motto on the door or why.

     They open the door, go through the metal detector--not a machine, in fact, but a semi-retired gumshoe named Emilio with a metal-detecting wand and a box of donuts that seems to refill itself every two hours. He says "you know the drill, fellas" every time any one enters, without fail. 

     "We most certainly do." Simon says, somewhat sarcastically, as they take their handguns out, place them on a large metal tray, and raise their hands to make their bodies into lower-case tees.

     Once through inspection, the men walk to their spot, two small desks facing each other at the far corner of the large, hanger-style corridor, Simon always taking his sweet time to say "hello" when walking by the receptionist's desk near main the entrance. They put their coats down on their chairs, and Bruce tightens his tie as Simon quickly checks his email on his laptop. 

     "I got another email from that lead…?" he exclaims, accidentally questioning his own statement halfway through, as his eye widens. Suddenly Bruce slams his laptop shut, startling Simon, and causing him to suddenly reach down to his side, not for a gun but for a pill. "I have to go to the bathroom."

     Bruce becomes smug. "Oh, why don't you just take it here and save us the time. Everyone here knows you do FG-5--hell, half the force does it--and even if someone questions you do what everyone else does. Say its for heartburn, or kidney stones, or anxiety, which it sort of is in a way" Simon quickly pops the pill, smells a half-empty (or half-full) cup from his desk with water in it, shrugs, uses it to wash down the pill, tightens his tie a little, and turns confidently to Bruce.

     "Alright, Brucie. I get it. Let's go see what the chief wants."

     "That's more like it!"As they walk closer to the chief's office, which literally a very large sectioned-off cubical in the center of the corridor with large windows on all its walls (part of internal affairs's attempt at transparency), usually covered with blinds installed by the chief himself, many of the other detectives look up from their desks or briefly pause their conversations to look at the two, before going back to their business. 

     This doesn't bother either of them, until Simon looks at his wristwatch and exclaims, "Damn! We're late!"

     "Whatever, bud, we'll be fine."

     "No, we're like really late. about a half hour."

     Their faces seise to be casual and quickly turn to troubled excitement as they begin to power-walk to the center office, blinds now open on the window facing them, and the chief--a darker, burley man who looks like he watched Gangs of New York too many times--is standing in the window, arms crossed, staring down the two detectives. He breaks his crossed arms stance to powerfully point at the two with one hand. They put their tails between their legs and knock on his door.

     "Come in, you two." Bruce slowly turns the doorknob. "We need to talk."