Free Creekers by Edward Lee Page A

attention to the place. Vices, he’d learned on Metro, always tended to mix together. Booze begat dive bars, which begat strippers, which begat prostitutes, which begat drugs. Sallee’s would be the most logical place for Cody Natter to use as a distro point. Phil couldn’t imagine punks stopping by Bouton’s Farm Supply or Chuck’s Diner to pick up their weekend angel dust.
    He parked in the little gravel lot behind the station. First day on the job, he reminded himself. Look sharp. He adjusted his gunbelt and Sam Brown strap—Mullins had purchased good leather—and the starched uniform (navy-blue shirt, powder blue pants) fit pretty well. The gun on his hip, a Colt Trooper Mark III, dragged annoyingly; its hot dog six-inch barrel made it weigh more than the Smith 65 he’d carried on Metro, but of course it was better than carrying a lone can of Mace, which was all he had as a security guard. Just as he turned to enter the station, he heard a door chunk shut, and saw Chief Mullins coming out of the small brick building which sat on its own behind the station house—the town lockup. As Phil recalled, it had only three cells and was rarely used for anything more than a place for drunks to dry out.
    “All ready for work, I see,” Mullins remarked, loping heavily across the lot. His bald pate shined like a crystal ball of flesh. “Lookin’ like a regular Dirty Harry.”
    “I didn’t know Dirty Harry was a town clown,” Phil came back. “And who you got in the jail?”
    “The jail? Oh, no one,” Mullins said, hauling, open the back door to the station house. “For your info, whenever we book someone, we use the county lockup in Mayr now. You know where Mayr is, right? Down past the mobile home dealer on Route 3?”
    “Yeah, I know where County HQ is, Chief. And if we don’t use our own jail for prisoners, what’s in there now?”
    “Supply room. I was checking the inventory.”
    Inventory? Phil couldn’t imagine a small-town department like Crick City needing any significant supply space. “Oh, the SWAT and riot gear, huh? You keep the department helicopter in there, too?”
    “No, funny man, I keep the really important cop stuff in there, like coffee filters, which we’re out of, by the way. So that can be your first mission as one of Crick City’s finest. Sometime tonight during your busy and dangerous watch, run on by the Qwik-Stop and pick up a box of filters. The boss needs his coffee in the morning.”
    “Ah, so that’s why you hired me. Sergeant Straker the errand boy.”
    “Damn straight. Now why don’t you shitcan the jokes for a minute and let me brief you.”
    “Sure, boss.”
    Phil took a seat in the fold-down as Mullins rummaged through one of his desk drawers. The man’s stomach bulged to the extent that if he leaned over any further, his shirt would more than likely burst. “One thing you need to learn fast, Adam 12, is we use the county signal sheet, not the fucked-up codes you had on Metro.” He passed Phil a copy of the set of radio signal designations. “Learn it fast.”
    “Gee, Chief, I don’t know. I’ve only got a Master’s degree; this might take me a while to get in my head—like about thirty seconds.”
    “See how hard I’m laughing?” Mullins replied, poker-faced. “Just learn it and quit the wisecracks, unless you want to get fired your first day and go do amateur comedy for tips every Friday night at Rudy’s Tavern.”
    Phil smiled. “So we’re on the county commo band, huh?”
    “Fuck no. We’ve got our own frequency and our own dispatcher. Her name’s Susan, and she’s in the other room. Make sure you touch base with her before you start your shift.”
    “Susan, dispatcher. Right.”
    “She’s nice, so don’t break her chops like you do mine.”
    “Oh, one thing I wanted to ask. Does the department supply a bulletproof vest?”
    Mullins looked back in grim hilarity, “What do I look like, fucking Santa Claus?”
    Actually, with white hair