Hal Colfax was bored.
He was bored sitting behind the wheel of the squad car. He was bored of the constant rain. He was bored of the August heat. He bored of working the night shift, of listening to his partner’s jokes and the endless stories about the problems he had with his wife.
Hal could not care less about his partner’s domestic situation.
The only hope he had for this night was to end his shift without having to do any paperwork, and then get on down to the Gay 90’s before the last floor show began.
Hal was sweet on one of the dancers and he wanted to see her tonight. He wanted to buy her a drink, maybe have a dance and press his bone against hers while they moved together as if they were one.
He wanted nothing more than to be one with her, but she never let him go further than to have a dance at the end of the night, while she blew some sweet nothings into his ear, and planted a few light kisses on his neck.
If that was all he was ever going to get, Hal would take it and not complain.
Hal liked her strong arms and her long legs, he liked the unapologetic way she walked through the world, and the way her sequins shimmered like stars in the stage lights.
To watch her dance was like walking through a dream, his pulse quickened and his head got all swimmy, it was a fevered dream from the world of faeries.
When Hal heard the radio crackle, and his partner took the call, he spat a silent curse.
It was Lieutenant Standish’s voice over the radio and Hal really hated that prick, but Standish was one of the Commissioner’s heavies…the worst of them, a real sadist, and Hal had no intention of crossing him, or even appearing that he might.
A few years back, while in a sex club on Washington Avenue, he had watched Standish whip the skin of a trick’s back, just for the pleasure of it.
The boy almost died.
Standish didn’t know and never found out that Hal had been in the audience that night, and because of that close call Hal had tried to stay out of his business, but some nights it was like rolling the dice, when you were on patrol you had no say about what calls came in, whether or not you could take them, or what you might get asked to do in the course of your duties.
That was the way of life for one of St. Anthony’s Rangers.
Hal put the car in gear and followed his partner’s directions.
He tried to put Bobbi out of his mind…he would see her another night.
Hal was driving and only vaguely engaged with the mission they were on; they had been ordered to back up an investigation into an altercation in the Red Light District on Lake Street.
There had been a killing, and the notorious gangster, Karl Thorrson was involved, which meant that Standish was too.
Hal didn’t notice that there were two city cops huddled together under an awning, with their backs up against the wall of a storefront at the entrance to the alley when he pulled into it.
He didn’t recognize the plea for help that one of them cast in his direction, He couldn’t see their faces clearly through the rain splattered window on the drivers side, they were only two dark shapes huddled together, one man holding the other in his arms…and once and again Hal thought of Bobbi.
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