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CHAPTER THREE
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FALCO
My first morning began smoothly and uneventfully. Hicks drove me the full length of the beat, describing each community, letting me know what the major businesses were, and where the chronic offenders hung out.
The small community of Brentwood, Tennessee, a southern suburb of Nashville, had the most appeal to me. I was living in a temporary apartment there, just until I got a feel for the territory.
Brentwood was flanked to the south and east by beautiful rolling hills. It was, in fact, one of the wealthiest towns in the US relative to the population’s cost of living, and that was a deterrent on a cop’s salary. However, at first glance, a simple efficiency or one-bedroom apartment did not seem all that ridiculously priced, and the community undoubtedly had the nicest restaurants and the hottest bars around.
She drove for a few seconds in silence, finally looking my way, “So, our little agreement . . .”
“I haven’t said a thing to anyone, not even Nico,” I interrupted.
“Good, let’s keep it that way.”
“You got it.”
“So, can I offer you some advice?” Hicks said to me.
“Of course,” I replied.
“If I were you, I’d keep a low profile for a while, you know, until you get the lay of the land.”
“Why is that?”
“Because our precinct is a little Peyton Place,” she said. “Everyone is always talking about everyone else and people are always fucking each other.”
“That’s pretty common,” I said. “My old precinct was like that, too.”
“I doubt it was as bad as here,” she told me. “There are only two female officers but there are four lady detectives and a whole host of admin assistants and file clerks. Just about all of them are either currently fucking someone, had earlier fucked someone or will soon be fucking someone—all in the precinct. You don’t want to get swept up in that, trust me.”
“Good advice,” I told her. “What about you? Have you gotten swept up in it?”
“More than my fair share of times, I won’t lie,” she said. “I learned the hard way . . . no pun intended.”
I chuckled lowly, “Understood.”
“And whatever you do, stay away from Shawna,” she told me. “She has her sights set on you already.”
“Really?” I replied as though I hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, please, Falco,” she replied with a dismissive tone. “That woman would have sucked your dick in the locker room this morning if you offered her any encouragement.”
“Don’t worry, I already made a pact with myself to not shit where I eat.”
“Good,” she replied. “You know Falco, in the academy . . . after our . . . mistake, I grew to respect you a lot. You and I, we were very good together . . . uh, professionally, I mean.”
“I knew what you meant, Hicks,” he said, “and I agree. I was very excited to hear you were going to be my partner. I think we made a great team back at the academy. It’s always good to have someone you already know, someone you are comfortable with . . . professionally speaking, of course.”
She chuckled and gave me a quick glance. I saw her eyes look down at my crotch for a split second. I looked out the window, deciding it was time to move away from the conversation.
“What’s that area under the viaduct?” I asked.
“We call that hobo’s palace,” Hicks replied. “It’s where all the homeless people live.”
I looked closer at the area. They were using the freeway as a shelter from the rain. Underneath the viaduct, I saw several dozen people milling about. Old shopping carts and makeshift tents circled a center section where several fifty-gallon steel drums were placed. The drums were filled with burning scrap wood, being used as a central fireplace.
“It looks large.”
Hicks nodded, “And growing. We have to move in and shake it down every so often and disperse the people. The local residents hate them there. They have no place to go and always end up back here again. For the most part, they live peacefully there. There’s usually anywhere from seventy to a hundred people at any given time. You probably don’t have a homeless community like this in Franklin.”
“We certainly have street people and we find small groups of homeless in the alleyways of downtown Franklin, but nothing like this.”
“So, what made you decide to move to Nashville?” Hicks asked.
“I’ve wanted to work Metro since the academy,” I told her. “Franklin is a nice town, but to be honest, if I had to answer one more domestic disturbance call, I think I was going to vomit. I need more action.”
“Not a lot happening in Franklin, I take it?” she said.
“Simple drug busts, a few hookers, punks knocking over convenience stores, the occasional child abuse, date rape, that kind of shit,” I told her.
“I knew Franklin had a low crime rate,” she said.
“Yep, less than a hundred violent crimes total last year, way below the national average for a town Franklin’s size.”
“Well, we are definitely more exciting than that, but if you want real action, you’ll need to transfer to the Midtown Hills Precinct. You draw a three-mile circle around Printer’s Alley and they’ll give you all the action you can handle.”
“I’m aware,” I told her. “I’d like to get there eventually. But I really wanted to move to Nashville as soon as possible, and this was the gig that came up first. You grew up here, didn’t you?”
“All my life,” she said. “I grew up in Antioch, just up the road. Went to school here. I love it. I’ve been a cop for six years, now. They offered me Midtown and there was an appeal to it, but I like it here, so I stayed.”
Hicks signaled for a left turn, looking away from me. I took the opportunity to check out her body again. The side view of her breasts made my junk tingle. They were large for her body frame, round and natural looking. She turned back quickly. Oh, damn, I thought. I was pretty sure she busted me checking her out. I turned my head away, feeling my face reddening. I needed to stop that shit and now. One bad report, and I’ll be back in Franklin writing up jaywalking citations and dodging plates thrown by middle-aged housewives who’d caught their fat husbands cheating with the mail lady.
If she indeed busted me checking her out, she didn’t show it. I looked out the passenger’s window like I’d noticed something interesting. I never had a problem getting women. Almost any night if I was in the mood for a little strange, I could find it. I didn’t even need the uniform, although there was no shortage of women who found the shiny badge to be hot.
In Franklin, I had enough women on the string, that on any given night, I could make a booty call somewhere. Sometimes I’d get a taste for something specific: goth chicks, skinny chicks, alt chicks, bored housewives, big tits, big ass, college girls . . . whatever I wanted, really. Part of it was indeed, the uniform, and part of it was the total lack of available selection for the women in Franklin. I knew women found me attractive, though, and yes, over the years, I’d learned how to work it. I’m not proud of it, but I did it.
The point was, I didn’t need to be working Hicks, especially with our history and especially with a person who could probably kick my ass and could certainly get me bounced off the job.
After about three hours of driving the beat, we got our first call. Hicks pulled into the Global Mall in Hicks’s home town of Antioch.