Free Creekers by Edward Lee Page B

and a beard… “Hey, you know, cops get shot at all the time,” Phil pointed out.
    “You’re a Crick City cop, not the warrior of the apocalypse. Only thing you need a vest for around here is to keep the mosquitoes from stingin’ your tits when cooping out by the swamps. You want a fucking vest, buy it yourself.”
    “Hey, I was just asking.”
    “You want to ask questions, fine. Just don’t ask dumb questions.”
    “Okay. What’s the department policy on impeachment use of statements obtained without Miranda warnings during spontaneous field situations after probable cause has been previously determined?”
    Mullins glowered. “Just whatever they taught you in the academy.”
    Phil kept his smile to himself. He steps on my tail all the time, it’s only fair that I step on his every now and then. It seemed only fitting. Plus it was a lot  of fun.
    Mullins packed a pinch of Skoal under his lip, then spit into the old coffee cup he was using for a spittoon. Phil hoped to God that the chief never actually drank out of it by mistake. “What I want you to do,” Mullins said, “is refamiliarize yourself with the town first couple of nights. That shouldn’t take too long considering you grew up here, unless of course all that smog you breathed on Metro for ten years rotted your brain. After that, everything’s pretty routine. First part of your shift, keep on your ass. Cruise all the TA’s and residential areas real slow, let the lokes know we gotta night cop again. And keep an eye on the Qwik-Stop ’cos it’s open all night. And whatever you do, don’t fuck up the cruiser. It’s brand-new, and it took me years to get the mayor and the town council to requisition it.” Mullins spit again into his cup. “And I guess that’s about it.”
    Phil’s eyes narrowed. “That’s it? I thought you were going to brief me.”
    “I just did.”
    “Yeah, sure, Chief, but you must have some particular operating procedures you want me to follow.”
    “For what?”
    Phil sighed. “For the PCP thing. You say that’s your biggest problem in town. What ideas have you got? How do you want me to handle it?”
    Mullins looked momentarily confounded. “Oh, yeah, well naturally I want you to check it out. Buzz around, look things over. Just do all that good cop shit you did on Metro.”
    Phil wanted to laugh. Was the man naive? If the town’s biggest problem was Natter’s PCP ring, didn’t Mullins have any kind of plan? He seemed not to have thought about it at all. Phil could see he would have to use his own initiative; waiting for Mullins to come up with a strategy on his own would be less productive than waiting for his own hair to turn gray. “Well, the way I see it,” Phil began, “is we have to isolate Natter’s distro point, and the most logical distro point in Crick City is probably Krazy Sallee’s. I mean, what else have you got here? Not only is Sallee’s your only watering hole, it’s your only strip joint, and chances are half the girls working there are turning tricks, so it’s a good bet that’s where the local dustheads go.”
    “Right,” Mullins conveniently agreed. “Sallee’s is where you’ll want to keep your biggest eye out. So start staking the place out each night close to last call. What, I gotta tell you everything?”
    This guy’s something. Must be getting too old for the job. Phil didn’t bother shaking his head. “You want me to stake out Sallee’s every night in the patrol car?”
    “Sure. Why not?”
    Now Phil did shake his head. “Chief, if Natter and his people see a cop car sitting in the parking lot every night, they’re just going to move someplace else and make it that much harder to step on their tails.”
    “All right, smart boy, big city narc, what’s your plan?”
    “You want to catch these guys red-handed, I’ll have to go undercover. First couple of weeks why don’t I check the place out in plainclothes and my own car? Nobody’s going to remember me