Edward Lee - Creekers

Paul frowned after him. Kevin went out with that kid he’d seen talking to him earlier, who Paul guessed must be a Creeker too, on account of the funny-looking head. And… Did the kid have two thumbs? It looked like it. Ain’t that the dumbest shit I ever heard, Paul thought, and drained the foam out of his last Carling. The juke cut off then, the last dancer stepping drunk off-stage to not much applause, and the house lights went on. “Last call!” shouted the barkeep, a thin balding guy in a T-shirt which read Shut Up And Do Me. “Order up or get out!”

I’ll get out, Paul decided. He was, after all, a drug dealer possessed of a professional sense of responsibility. Got a big drop tomorrow, got to get up early. Ain’t got no time to be fuckin’ around with whores. Sometimes he just couldn’t figure Kevin out. The guy was a wild man. And who the hell would want to fuck some deformed Creeker girl with four tits? Now that redhead, Paul surmised. That’s different, that’s natural. But…a Creeker? That kind of kinky shit just wasn’t Paul’s speed…

Paul shuffled out through the thinning crowd. Headlights swarmed the parking lot as one pickup after another started up and pulled out. The hot night seemed static; the big blinking KRAZY SALLEE’S sign winked off. The moon peeked over the tree tops just past the ridge, an ugly, cheesy yellow like the color of his daddy’s skin when the old fuck had checked out from pancreatic cancer. Paul got into his own truck and idled out of the lot. He looked around for Kevin’s truck but didn’t see it anywhere. Guess he’s already gone, him and his Creeker whore with four tits.

And Paul Sullivan was right about that. Kevin was gone, all right.

Kevin Orndorf was gone forever.

««—»»

For the next week, Phil did pretty much the same thing: he’d maintain a visual surveillance of Krazy Sallee’s—in plain clothes, and in his own car—until after closing, snap a few pictures, and log every tag number in the lot each night, for a future cross-reference. Then he’d change into his police uniform, and finish his night shift in the department’s patrol car. Routine police work in Crick City was unsurprisingly dull, but at least this stake-out operation each night helped breakup an otherwise gruelling 12-hour shift. On a few occasions he’d caught glimpses of Vicki Steele, leaving Sallee’s with Natter in the mint Chrysler Imperial. But at no time did he witness Vicki or any other woman engaging in any parking-lot prostitution. Still, though, the snapshots Mullins had reluctantly shown him continued to stick in his mind…

Between rounds, he’d hang out at the station and shoot some bull with Susan, whom he was beginning to like. She seemed made from a different mold, not a typical Crick City woman at all, but enlivened to pursue an education and career that would one day take her away from this place. (And he hoped she had better luck than he had.) The variety of her intellectual facets intrigued him; she was very smart, she knew a lot about lots of things, yet she clearly possessed a persona which transcended her bookishness. She was sassy, opinionated, even hot-tempered at times; when they disagreed on a particular topic, she wouldn’t hesitate to be in his face about it. Phil admired that.

He also admired her looks. She’s beautiful, it occurred to him every time he’d come in for a coffee break. She struck him as idyllic in a way; her beauty—a very real, unassuming, and unaugmented kind of beauty—made her shine in his eye. How do you crack a woman like this? he wondered almost constantly. He’d asked her out three times, and three times she’d politely declined, citing her evening classes would not permit it. Perhaps Phil was paranoid, but it felt to him as though she liked working with him, but had no desire to date a municipal cop. He could only hope he was wrong.

Chief Mullins remained typically oblivious, chewing his tobacco, chugging atrocious coffee, and bellyaching about anything that suited his redneck fancy. He never seemed to ask much about what was going on, but this was typical Mullins: as chief he didn’t expect to have to ask, he expected to be told, and in all honesty, aside from a few SRO’s and traffic citations, Phil had nothing to put on the so-called “blotter.”

But after his second week on the job, Mullins did indeed ask one morning: “So how’re things going with your stakeout?”

“All right, I guess,” Phil answered, transferring his surveillance notes to an official log. “Too early to get a decent read on things just yet.”

“Yeah?” Mullins seemed to grumble, pouring the black ichor he thought of as coffee. “I thought you were supposed to be moving on this.”

Phil frowned up from the desk. “I am. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”

“Bugger Rome. This is Crick City. You making any headway out there or just gandering your ex-girlfriend through the binocs?”

Sometimes I could kill him, Phil thought. “Chief, I’m doing this the way we talked about. I’m logging the plates of the regulars so we can eventually get a decent cross-reference. Things like this go slow.”

“Yeah?” Mullins packed a wad of Red Man, then chased it with coffee. “Too slow if you ask me.”

Phil all but threw his hands up. “All right, boss. You’re the one who wanted me to check out this PCP net in town. You think I’m doing this wrong, then tell me how to do it right.”

“Don’t bust out into tears yet, Phil. I didn’t say you were doing it wrong. I just said you’re taking too much time.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Phil repeated and got back to his writing.

“You’re right, it took a thousand years, which is fine for Rome. But I ain’t got that kind of time myself. You sure you’re not stalling a little?”

This time Phil’s frown creased his face. “Stalling on what, for God’s sake?”

“Well, you’re sitting out in Sallee’s parking lot every night, writing down tag numbers like a good little boy, sure. But don’t you think it’s time for you to get a move on? I mean, how many tag numbers can you write down before your hand starts to hurt?”

Phil leaned back in the chief’s office chair, arms smugly crossed. “Chief, save us both some time, will ya? What are you implying?”

“Implying? Me?” Mullins chuckled, scratching his formidable belly.

“Yeah, you.”

“Well, maybe I’m merely suggesting that it’s time for you to move on to the next step. After all, this whole procedure was your idea.”

“Fine. The next step. What have you got in mind?”

“See? You are stalling. You’ve got enough tag numbers, Phil. You’re staking the lot in your POV, you’re in plain clothes, and nobody knows you’re back in town, and even if they did, nobody would remember you anyway. It’s high time, ain’t it?”

Phil still didn’t know what the chief was talking about. “High time for what, Chief? For the Yankees to win the pennant?”

“No, high time for you to get your ass into Sallee’s and check things out from the inside.”

“Sure,” Phil agreed, “but don’t you think it’s still a bit early for that?”

“Hell no. Why don’t you just admit it, you’re stalling. You don’t want to go in there ’cos—”

“Because why, Chief? Because I know I’ll run into Vicki? Is that what you’re driving at?”

“Well, yeah,” Mullins said, and spat into his ubiquitous paper cup. “I think you’re a little bit chicken to run into her again. Christ, you dumped the poor girl like a load of heavy diapers.”

Phil simmered in his seat. “I did not dump her, Chief. And keep in mind I’ve been a cop for over ten years. I do know how to keep my personal past separate from my job.” Phil felt convinced of this, but he also felt…a sudden distant queasiness. “You want me to go in there, Chief. Fine, I will.”