Undercover Tales

by Blayne Cooper

  Mystery solved! Tim didn’t have a problem with her police work; he didn’t like her choice of bed partners. Too damn bad she wasn’t dumpy and ugly. That might have helped … me, at least. She probably preferred being tall and beautifully built and gorgeous. I’m sure it’s easier getting dates that way.

  There’s one little thing I haven’t told you, and it’s key to Tim’s dislike of gorgeous lesbians. When I was in college, I had a year-long love affair with a woman. I don’t regret it, even though she broke my heart into a billion pieces. What I do regret, and I’ll regret to my dying day, is telling Tim about it. I know now that you should never tell your husband about any of your past dates. Heck, you shouldn’t let him know you think heartthrob movie stars are good-looking. But I was just twenty-two when Tim and I met. I was a fresh-faced girl from Charleston, Illinois, just out of the police academy. A good-looking, mature, cool, calm, low-key guy and I start dating and he asked about my past experiences. No one told me I should have told him I’d never noticed a man before him.

  How was I to know that his substantial self-confidence would be shaken to the core by my having loved a woman? I still don’t get it. I don’t think I ever will. But I honestly think he’d rather I’d slept with the entire roster of the Bears than with that one woman. It’s been six years since I’ve kissed a woman, and Charlotte was the only woman I’ve ever kissed, much less had sex with. But Tim still has a nagging suspicion that I’m secretly eyeing every pair of boobs pointed in my direction.

  Now, don’t get the wrong idea. He doesn’t give me a hard time about it; I can just tell that it bothers him. He’s not the type to bitch at me about things. I couldn’t stand that. I wouldn’t stand for it. But sometimes he’ll sneak a quick look at me if a beautiful woman’s on TV or in a movie. It’s like he’s expecting to find my tongue hanging out and my eyes popping out of my head, like they do in cartoons.

  The truth is that even though I loved Charlotte, the sex wasn’t great. Dang, I might as well be honest. It wasn’t even good. We both wound up with men. Actually, Charlotte dumped me for a guy. It was more … a romantic friendship, if you know what I mean. We touched each other sweetly, carefully, gently ... infrequently. But sweet and infrequent aren’t the adjectives I want to use for my sex life.

  It wasn’t all her fault. I was slow to mature and hadn’t done much of anything in high school. I looked very, very young in high school. Guys thought of me as a pal … a little sister type. But when I was nearly seventeen I grew into my body, and things started to turn around.

  Charlotte was my roommate freshman year in college, and near the end of the year we started to … go to another level. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I thought about her constantly that summer while I was working on my grandfather’s farm. As soon as we got back together we started to sleep in the same bed, and eventually we started to kiss. After months of kissing and holding each other, we finally had sex, but it was never a red-hot love affair. Heck, she didn’t even want to call it sex. One time I told her I wanted to talk about our sex life and she laughed at me! She said we couldn’t really have sex. We just touched each other because we loved each other. I was stumped. It felt like sex to me, but she was quite sure it wasn’t, and who was I to argue? So we snuggled in a twin bed, hugged and spooned and kissed. And every once in a while our hands would stray, and we’d have what I was pretty sure was sex. Not hot, wet, messy sex, but we gave each other orgasms ... and that felt pretty darned good to me.

  The problem was that Charlotte would get a little distant after we did that, so I started waiting for her to make the first move. One day, she did. She started going out with a guy named Jeff. She was honestly puzzled that I didn’t want to sleep with her anymore. I don’t know what went on in her head, but she thought she could have me as her best friend, cuddle-buddy while she was dating and probably sleeping with Jeff. After a few heated, pointless arguments, I found a new roommate, and spent months trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. I finally decided that romantic friendships weren’t for me. I wanted sex. Good sex. Great sex. And I found it with a guy who knew how to make me hot … and he knew how to cool me off.

  Three boyfriends later, I found Tim, and I’m darned glad I did. He’s not my best friend, but I’ve found I don’t need that from a man. Women are better at being best friends. Tim’s a man I respect and admire, and I’m very, very hot for him. Thank God he feels the same about me. I know he’ll never be the person I get everything from, but he doesn’t get everything from me, either. That’s why we each have friends. My girlfriends understand me in a way that no man probably ever could. I listen to them and they listen to me. Sometimes my friends go to things with me that Tim would go to, but only under protest. But that’s not a big deal. He loves me and he satisfies me and I know he’ll be a wonderful father to our kids.

  Before we can be parents, we have to figure out a way to make our marriage as strong as it can be. I don’t want him supervising me, but I also don’t want to upset him. So I withhold little things from him. Nothing huge … really. But there aren’t many men who’d want to know the little details of their wife’s day when she’s working for a bunch of slimy drug dealers.

  I’ve seen some things in the past six months that have opened my eyes to a whole side of the world I wish didn’t exist. But it does exist, and I do my best to put a dent in the sleaze. I know it’s a losing battle, but every little bit helps.

  I’ve never told Tim that Chris invariably sticks a generous tip into my cleavage, rooting around in my bra like a pig in slop. It gives me the creeps, but telling Tim wouldn’t make it less creepy; it would just worry him and piss him off.

  Which brings me to my big lie. Yesterday my sergeant told me that Sergeant Randolph was going to make the bust today. I’m sure Tim found out as soon as he got to work this morning, and he’s not gonna be happy if he finds out I knew about it yesterday. I know I should have told him, but I wanted to save myself the lecture about being safe and staying out of the line of fire, and all of the other things I do instinctively. I wish I could have shared my excitement with him, but sometimes he doesn’t treat me like a fellow cop. He treats me like his wife—someone he loves and wants to protect. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it takes some of the fun out of it. I know it sounds silly to someone who isn’t in this kind of work, but this part of my job is equivalent to a huge, noisy, scary roller coaster, and I’m so excited I’m ready to jump out of my skin. I guess I need a girlfriend on the force. No, not that kind of girlfriend. Just the kind who’d understand what it’s like to do this for a living, and be happy for me.

  The rats began to scamper as I turned into the alley. One of the bolder ones was standing right behind the door, and he slapped me on the butt when I crossed the threshold. “Hi, sweetcheeks,” he oozed.

  “Hi, Chris.” I managed a smile, not caring that it couldn’t have looked sincere. I’d learned that Chris didn’t care about sincerity as much as he did about tight clothes. As my wardrobe went from a size ten to an eight, my tips went up significantly. Today I had on a size six skirt that would have prevented me from taking a full step if it hadn’t been so short. Thank God my parents have never seen me at work. Pop would have a stroke and Mom would be too busy whipping me to give him CPR.

  Spiro, another swell fella, walked into the kitchen and snapped his fingers at Chris. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Without another word to me, Chris nearly ran after him. Huh. I usually get a goodbye pinch. I guess they know something big is going on today. They must not be as in the dark about Sonny’s business as they should be … given that they’re both morons.

  Yet another of my fans, Sonya, slapped down an order on the pass-through and narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t even think about trying to take any of my tips. You’re due at eleven, and not a minute before.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “My bus was early. I had to go somewhere.”

  “You can stick your thumb up your ass, for all I care.
Just keep your mitts off my tables.”

  I held up my hands, hoping Sonya understood sign language better than English. “I won’t touch your tables. I’ll just fill condiments until your tables clear.”

  She turned, muttering, “That little whore better not steal my tips.”

  Now that was just uncalled for. She didn’t know whether or not I was a whore. I’m not, by the way. But it’s darned annoying when a woman assumes you’re loose just because you dress like a slut, wear too much makeup, let sleazy guys paw you, and make good tips.

  I put on my change apron and went to the booth closest to the kitchen, the one where a cook or a busboy or a waitress is usually reading the paper or eating. Maybe I’ve been going to the wrong kinds of restaurants, but if I were the owner, I’d frown on that kind of behavior. Especially since we have such a nice combination break room/coat closet. Granted, there weren’t cameras and microphones trained on the booth, and no one had been threatened to within an inch of her life to stay out of the booth when any of the big guns were there, but still, I thought it was bad business to be sitting down filling salt shakers when there were customers being ignored.

  My idea of customer service and Sonny’s—he’s the owner of this fine establishment and a major drug importer—clearly differed. He didn’t care that the place was often empty, or that many of the customers seemed like relatives or relatives of relatives. It was almost like working at someone’s home … if their home was a dirty, health code-violating Greek diner.

  I’d been dying to sneak a peek at Sonny’s special table, but I didn’t want Sonya to see me. But as she went to the pass-through to pick up an order, I caught sight of the sergeant, making small talk with the Great Triumvirate. Everything looked like it was going just fine, and for no reason at all, I found my confidence soaring. We were trying to pull off a major drug buy from a major dealer, and we were doing it inside his place of business. I still don’t know how this whole thing was arranged, but I was impressed. Guys didn’t usually allow deals to go down in a public place. But from what Tim tells me, Sonny has enough cops on his payroll to field one entire team in our imaginary softball league.

  Yes, it’s sad, but true: cops get dirty. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re already slime when they first start, or it comes over them over time, but they are slime. They don’t belong in my family. And, yes, I mean family. There are people I’ve worked with who I could learn to hate, but they’re still members of my family and I’d do anything to keep them safe. It’s just like at home. My great-uncle Charlie is a drunk, and he’s tried to grope every girl in the family as soon as she starts to grow boobs. But everyone keeps an eye on him, and we’ve all been instructed to never be alone with him. Even though he’s a sloppy letch, we’d all give him a kidney if he needed one. He’s family. Just make sure you turn your head when he kisses you goodbye or you’re gonna regret it.

  The Bust

  I’d been watching Sonny’s table out of the corner of my eye, and not much was happening. Sonny was a big talker, and I figured he’d bore her for a while before they got down to business. I wasn’t carrying, but when Spiro abruptly grabbed Sergeant Randolph’s suit jacket and yanked it hard, I instinctively reached for my weapon. When Sonny slapped Spiro’s big meat hook away, my heart rate slowed down a little bit.

  I’d done the salt and pepper shakers, so I started to fill the Heinz ketchup bottles with the watery sludge they bought from some third-rate supplier. I was so intent on not making a mess that I almost missed seeing Spiro stand up and gesture for the sergeant to walk in front of him. What in the hell? They were heading for the break-room, but I couldn’t figure out why. Damn! I couldn’t decide if I should make up a reason to go into the room, or just wait until I heard a shot. I could claim I didn’t know there was anyone in there, but I’d been warned in no uncertain terms that I was never to go in there if Sonny or the boys were in the restaurant.

  Sonny moved to Spiro’s seat and stood a menu in front of the napkin dispenser. I’d never been allowed to touch anything on Sonny’s special table, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out he had a camera in the break room and a monitor hooked up in the napkin dispenser. Napkins just aren’t that interesting. I’ve never seen a man’s eyes widen at the sight of napkins, either. Sonny grabbed Chris and snapped, “Go stop that idiot!”

  Dang, I hope Spiro isn’t doing anything awful to the sergeant, ’cause there’s nothing I can do to stop him. My heart was racing again, and my hands were shaking so badly that I spilled the watery ketchup all over the table. I was making plans to run for the front door to call in the troops after Spiro shot the sergeant … not the ideal time to come to the aid of a fellow officer. Don’t let anyone tell you police work isn’t nerve-wracking. The problem is that it’s nerve-wracking for three minutes, then boring for hours upon hours. But those three minutes really do drag on.

  My intestines were in a knot by the time the door opened and the sergeant walked out, bracketed by both thugs. I’d never been so glad to see anyone, and I didn’t know her from Adam … or Eve.

  Before Spiro could even sit, Sonny slapped him across the face. I could see Spiro struggle to keep the anger he felt from showing. It must have been hard to let a man slap you and not even be allowed to look pissed-off. I didn’t feel a bit guilty about the pleasure I took at seeing him humiliated. I couldn’t count the times he’d “dropped” something and asked me to pick it up. He didn’t usually paw me, but it was still degrading to be forced to show a creep your butt.

  I have no idea what had pissed Sonny off, but he was plenty angry. He slapped Spiro again, much harder this time. I could see the big lug hold on to the table, probably to keep himself from snapping Sonny’s neck with his bare hands.

  Whatever happened, they must have made up, because Sonny started talking again. Sonya eventually told me to get off my ass and wait on a table. Gosh, she was nice! I was in the kitchen, trying to explain to the cook that the eggs he’d given me weren’t dry enough when the sergeant and Chris disappeared. I figured they were in the break room, since Sonny was watching the napkin dispenser again. Now what?

  This time I wasn’t as nervous, since it would have been Spiro who killed her if there was killing to be done. Chris was rumored to be relatively clean since he was engaged to Sonny’s daughter. But everyone stepped aside when Spiro walked into the room, and I didn’t think that was just because of his cologne … although it could have been. The guy reeked!

  Sergeant Randolph and Chris were back before I could get too anxious, but she didn’t look right. I don’t know what he did to her, but she looked … a little vacant. I didn’t have long to consider her, because I heard a loud snap and I looked up like the trained pet I was. “You,” Sonny said, pointing right at me.

  Numbly, I put down my tray and approached the table, feeling like I was stepping into a pit of vipers. What if she’d told Chris something?

  But Sonny looked strangely friendly as I drew near. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Brittany.” No, that’s not my real name, but my sergeant thought it was funny to name me after Britney Spears. I changed the spelling just for a little revenge.

  Sonny smiled at the other men. “That’s a nice name, isn’t it?”

  Chris and Spiro nodded, something they did a lot.

  “Why are you working here, honey?”

  “To make money,” I said, hoping that wasn’t the wrong answer.

  Sonny laughed. “There are thousands of restaurants in Chicago. Do you live around here?”

  “Uhm … not too far. Near Printer’s Row.”

  “Restaurants over there pay a lot more than I do.”

  I nodded, even though I had no idea how much restaurants paid. “But I go to school at UIC. I was in the neighborhood one day and saw a sign in your window saying you had a job available. I thought it made sense to be closer to school than home.”

  “And how do you like it here?” Sonny asked. “You’ve been here a while, rig
ht?”

  “Six months. It’s fine. Nice people. Regular crowd.”

  “Notice anything funny?” His dark eyes fixed on mine like magnets to iron.

  I had no idea what to say! What was the right answer? “Uhm … like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You look like a smart girl. Perceptive. A young girl like you would probably only work here if she wanted something.”

  “Wanted something?”

  “Yeah. Like an introduction into the business, or to meet a guy with a load of cash or to … get information.”

  I had to admit to something or look like I was blind and stupid. A guy didn’t intimate you were spying on him and not expect an answer. “I, uhm … I … guess I did notice some funny things going on.”

  “Like what?” He was talking to me like my grandfather did when I visited his farm.

  “Like …” Figuring that he was already in trouble, I looked at Spiro. “I’ve seen Spiro grab a towel and put ice in it and wrap it around his hand. He looked like he’d been in a fight or something.”

  “Uh-huh. What else?”

  “Well … like you said … some of the guys have a lot of money on ’em. Sometimes they’ll give me a really big tip, even when I haven’t waited on ’em.” I didn’t mean to, but I shot Chris a look. It was just a reaction. I swear.

  “So … men in fights … lots of cash … big tips. What do you think? Is this just a regular restaurant?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “I think it’s a front.”

  Sonny laughed and slapped both Chris and me on the arm. “A front!”

  I nodded, hoping his laugh was genuine.

  “What kinda front?”

  “Probably drugs or some other kinda crime.”

  “But you’d still rather work here than near Printer’s Row.”

  I nodded again. I hadn’t been shot yet, so I figured I might as well stick with my stock response.

  “Why is that? Shouldn’t a nice girl like you wanna work someplace full of young lawyers and legitimate businessmen?”