c. 2000–2002 · Fragment — breaks off mid-story.
He stared down the corridor. The walls were slightly sticky, yet sickly slick and the air smelt sweet with sweat. The sounds of sex seeped beneath doors and through walls, reminding the detective of an all too familiar situation that had happened three years before…
Only then he had been twenty-two. Still somewhat a fresh face within the force, Fred impressed even the older and more experienced officers, and so he had been hand-picked for this assignment. Charlie Gallagher was a notorious pimp, drug dealer, and all-around piece of shit. Fred and his partner Ned (who had been in the force for fifteen years) were supposed to get a little concrete evidence of some of the more heinous activities Charlie was involved in so as to ensure a long sentence when the punk was finally brought in. It was a big assignment, and Fred’s glands were pumping out adrenaline at a feverish rate. Nervous energy carrying him on, he half-listened to Ned’s instructions. I want you to go up to the bitch that runs the desk, ok? Stay cool and tell her you’re interested in a little action. You know, you’re lookin’ for a dirty woman—someone who can satisfy your primal needs. Tell her that you’ve got some cash, but that you ain’t spending any money on some trashy crack-whore. Tell her you’ve got standards, and that a friend said this is the place to have ’em fulfilled. Hey, Freddie, you listenin’ to me? He was listening, oh yeah… But he knew what to do already, and besides, who the fuck was going to get hurt if he screwed it all up anyway? The way he looked at it, this was his show, and he was going to be sure it ended with a big bang. Hopefully he’d end up with a nice piece of ass to boot… …
Ultimately he ended up with a dead partner, a demolished tenement in the deep of Hell’s Kitchen, and a vengeful Charlie Gallagher on the loose racking up with a bunch of his arms dealer buddies. So that was why he was where he was now… Hand-picked this time only because the Captain didn’t have anyone else in the department to allocate to the assignment.
Composed 2001 · part of the Short Stories collection · authorship documented on the Provenance page.