53. Goodbye, Earl

As soon as I saw the blue-serge straining, pop-eyed, red-faced figures come into the bar, I knew it would be Azazael who would bear the brunt of Virginia’s Finest’s efforts at community policing. They looked just like the brawlers would have done with a shave and a haircut. One of them had his night-stick out. I was hoping Ms Cansino would keep her mouth shut. The guys pushing brooms and mops kept their eyes on the job, even when the night-stick tapped at the handles near their hands. One or two gripped their broom or mop tighter, but that was all.

They must have been new on the patrol, because they asked me if I was the boss. Likely because they couldn’t find a white man without a broom and I was the next best thing.

‘That’d be me,’ said Az.

The cop with the stick gestured around the wreckage, Az jerked his head out of the way. ‘You often have trouble like this?’

Az shrugged, ‘No trouble. Just Saturday. Some folks like to let off a little steam.’

The other police nodded at Margarita and Sam, ‘and some folks like to stoke the boiler, huh?’

The redhead batted her eyelashes at him, but it was Night-stick who blushed.

And it was Sam’s mouth that got us into trouble.

‘’T’weren’t nuthin’ to do with us.’

‘I think it was,’ the older cop said.

‘What she means-’ I got no further.

‘I’ll get to you, Son.’ He held a hand up, not at me, but at his sidekick.

Azazael opened his mouth and got as far as ‘But-’.

The night-stick hit Az behind the knee and he fell like a shot deer.

‘Sorry, Earl...’, Night-stick said. Maybe he’d been warned about that before.

The cop in charge bent down and leaned into Az’s face,

‘What we have here is a breakdown in communication...’

The cop was showing his age. I wondered if he knew that line was uttered by the movie’s villain. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t care.

‘So, you two ladies here in a-’ Old cop sucked his teeth, ‘per-fession-al capacity?’

Cansino put a hand on Sam Sara’s forearm, ‘It’s our day off, we charge double on days off.’

If the cops saw Sam’s eye-roll they didn’ t show it.

‘Got anywhere in back, Mr Azayell?’ The redhead asked.

Az looked up from the floor, ‘got a cot in the back.’ He threw a single key with a padded love-heart for a fob upwards. Ms. Cansino slid off the stool and caught the key in a fluid movement that kept the cops’ attention. She walked the walk toward the back of the building and the third door at the far end.

Younger cop pointed his night-stick at Sam Sara,

‘Whut about you?’

It was the redhead who answered, looking back over her shoulder, ‘You’re both mine, boys...’

Both cops followed. If they’d been dogs their tongues would have tripped them up.

Twenty minutes later. Margarita came out, licking blood off her fingers. I knew it was blood 'cause though it didn’t show up so well on the dress it did everywhere else. She walked up to Sam and kissed her full on the lips. Then she turned to Az,

‘You might need more than a mop and a broom in there.’