Free Spiral by David L Lindsey

faced the wall and had its own desktop, shelf, light, CRT, and telephone. It was easier to stake out your own territory and protect it, if you were inclined to do that sort of thing. But there were still no windows.
"So this gal drove a sandwich wagon out around East Gulf Bank Road where those office parks are, those little mini-warehouses andshit. You ever look inside one of those sandwich wagons?"
Mooney paused to take a swig from the mouth of the half-pint carton of milk. He was trying to save his ulcers from the barbecue and hot sauce, onions and beer.
"They're not your luxury-mobiles. And in this one, Lolly's old man had let the air conditioner go out, so she drove around in that little van sweatin' like a Baytown whore."
There were four men in the office, Martinez and Clavo from the Chicano squad, Weaver from robbery down the hall, and the old veteran Dick Small—a name that had not been easy to live with— who had already heard the story three or four times, but liked it so much he listened every time Mooney told it. Haydon had memorized it too, but it sounded as if Mooney had been polishing it.
"Lolly, she always wore these jeans that looked like they were a threat to her circulatory system. Tight as a Jew banker." Mooney sat his milk carton on the edge of his cubicle desk. Keeping his face straight, he said, "And she always wore a white T-shirt. Nothin' underneath." He looked at everybody in the room, then cupped both pudgy hands just above his Buddha stomach, and began a slow grin. "Now, Lolly was blessed with a coupla jugs that had a life all their own. I mean, these puppies wagged their tails, and sat up. Nipples the size of Susan B. Anthony silver dollars. When she walked up to you and stopped, it took those babies a full minute to settle down, and I guarantee you, you couldn't look at anything else for the next sixty seconds."
Haydon nodded to the room in general, took off his Beretta, and put it in his carrel drawer. He got his blue coffee mug from the back of his desk, and while Mooney continued he walked outside to the coffee machine. He saw Dystal through the glass window in the lieutenant's office. He was talking to one of his detectives sitting across the desk from him, and he was saying something he wanted the detective to take to heart. Dystal's massive shoulders were hunched around his neck as he leaned on his log-sized forearms and slowly moved a thick index finger laterally back and forth, his eyes locked onto the detective as he made his point.
Taking his time with his coffee, Haydon stirred it more than he needed to, hoping Mooney would make it short. Then he decided he didn't want to wait. He walked around the perimeter of the squad room until he found an empty office and went in.
The first call was to the Harris County clerk's office. It didn't take long. The second one was long distance, to the office of the Texas secretary of state. He took a lot of notes, and asked for clarifications of spellings.
Just as he put down the telephone after the second call, a burst of laughter came from the corner office across the squad room. Mooney's punch line. He waited a minute longer until everyone had drifted out of the office before he walked back.
Mooney was stuffing his milk carton down into a trash can already overflowing with old computer printouts. His face was still flushed from laughing. He always laughed at his own jokes, no matter how many times he told them.
"You missed some good barbecue, Stuart. Shoulda gone with
us."
"Next time," Haydon said, sitting down at his carrel. "I just called the county clerk's office. That old house over there is owned by a business. The Teco Corporation."
"Whatever that is," Mooney said, uninterested.
"Then I called the secretary of state's office and got the names and addresses of the officers of the corporation. They're all Mexican nationals."
Mooney looked up. "No shit?"
"The registering agent has a Mexican name, too. His office is over on the Southwest Freeway.