A Wasted Life

           Glancing at his cheap watch, the detective sighed at the digital readout of two hours past midnight. Jesus, Mary and the fucking goat. He uttered a weary sigh while patting his belly. To hell with the paperwork, and to hell with the captain.The officer shook his head, unable to fathom the new captain's obsession with reports. "Twelve arrests in one night and she'll still chew my ass for not dotting the I's." Sharp pain from an old hip-pointer caused him to grimace while rising and walking away. "I'm too old for this."

         Squeezing his slight paunch between a maze of empty desks obstructing a direct path, the weary cop meandered his way to the women's restroom, now the co-ed bathroom because of a bad pipe. In the triple-stalled bathroom, the officer stared at a pathetic image in the mirror while washing his hands. Tired, sunken, azure eyes stared back. A wrinkled hand traced the lines along his clean-shaven face. One more and you can turn me into a raisin. Combing over an ever-expanding bald spot in a futile attempt at concealment, he once more contemplating shaving all of the silver hairs and being done with it, and once more rejecting the insanity. Look like one of those Saturday Night Live Coneheads if I did. Straightening the chestnut tie, the vice detective pursed reed-thin lips as a chocolate stain revealed itself. Fifty-bucks down the drain. That's enough for one day. Time to go home.

         Three minutes later, the officer began the journey home in a standard issue, ebony Expedition. He decided to check in on his partner, busy stashing away the cocaine from the earlier bust. The senior detective pressed the autodial on his Nokia. "How's my investment, Ernie?"

         "We got a problem, Duvall." Mandrel sounded strained, and not from his forty-year-old smoking habit.

         Duvall assumed the worst and leaned for the half-empty bottle of Rolaids stashed in the glove compartment. It never ends. He sighed, a mingling of weariness and preparedness. "What's up?"

         "I got mugged. They took the key to the safe."

         "Shit," Duval squeezed the leather padding of the steering wheel as his mind reeled off plans and counterpoints, rejecting each one in an instant, making new ones and tossing them as well. Not yet, maybe it's not as bad as I think- just coincidence. "They take your wallet?"

         A huff answered, then a gasp for oxygen and a sigh of relief, "No."

      Damn! Two state troopers occupying an unmarked Chevy riddled with wires along its roof passed by, peered at his tinted windows, giving him twin nods of recognition before speeding by. Duvall Broward almost ducked, and chastised himself for the foolishness. Think, think- a coincidence? "Gun? Badge?"

         "No, boss. Just the key. They knew what they wanted. They're on foot, couple of homies- Crips."

         Not a coincidence. Pulling over beside a hydrant, Duvall paused to assess the all too familiar situation. They were in the shit again, and the duty belonged to him to pull them out- again. "What's your twenty?"

         "East 28th and Stanford."

         He gave the nearest streetlight a habitual glance, already realizing that they jumped Ernie a couple blocks from the station, not to mention a spits throw away from their bust a few hours prior. Assholes are bold, or desperate. The dueling hypothesis warred in his mind as recent events flashed by. The Crips broke their neat arrangement, thought they could expand out of the black neighborhoods. I had every right to bust them. They broke the rules. A sole, unanswerable question lingered. Why? Why break the deal? Why assault a cop? Anger swelled within as Ernie's voice requested an E.T.A. over the cell. "Get off your ass and follow them."