Page 14 of Mimosa (Murphy's Pub #2)

Chapter Fourteen

Mims was at the computer early the next morning, doing things he knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it.

Getting into certain sites posed a challenge, and there was little more in the world more enjoyable to Mims than that kind of challenge.

He searched out the men he’d met at the party, the woman too, and he got into the police database to see their records.

There was good reason that Franklyn was no longer a police officer. Six different cities, each one he’d been given chance after chance and still, they’d had to let him go.

Haze came in, surprising him enough to make him jump.

“Don’t scare me like that!”

“Sorry, baby. What are you doing?”

“Looking up those cops I met. The leader guy? Franklyn? He was bad from the start and instead of looking for other work, he just kept, I don’t know, precinct hopping. Six cities, ten station assignments, and he just kept being brutal.”

“Police brutality. Yeah, that power goes to their heads. Not all, of course, but some of them. They did a study once, called the Stanford Prison experiment, and they had everyday people go into this jail setup. Some were assigned to be guards and others were prisoners. The guards overwhelmingly let the power go to their heads and they became abusive and hateful. They did…terrible things. The experiment was cut short because of that, but…it really opened a lot of eyes to the prison system. Didn’t change much, if anything, though.”

“They think people deserve to be hurt and abused because they broke the law, but I saw an article once that said, with so many laws nowadays, we are all criminals that just aren’t getting caught,” Mims said as he stared at the screen. “But the truly bad ones, like the people in the BBC…”

“They’re the ones with a badge and who commit some of the worst crimes.” Haze moved to sit in the metal chair next to Mims and kissed Mims’s cheek. “Are you doing this safely?”

“Sure, yeah. Lots of bouncing. As usual.”

“Good. How are the rest of them.”

“I haven’t gotten past the leader yet. He was awful! Like over and over got busted for hurting people and he’d just get up and move on to another police station.”

“Yeah. That happens a lot.” Haze stared at the ground while rubbing his hands over his jeans. “Have you…looked up Sonny?”

Mims’s first instinct was to get angry, but he couldn’t. Haze had always been there for him. He was just being cautious. “Not yet, but mostly because I figure they buried anything to do with him because he’s UC.”

“UC? Cop talk already?”

“Shut up,” he said, laughing. “I guess I could try.”

It wasn’t twenty minutes later and he had to admit, he was impressed with the IA’s hiding of all of Sonny’s information. “It doesn’t even say his father was killed by a dirty cop, and it has him in some small precinct in Ohio. As far as I know, he’s never been to Ohio.”

“I’ll bet he’s studied everything that there is to know about it, and they’ve likely set a couple of cops there to vouch for him if anyone contacts them.”

“Probably. He’s never been in trouble, not since he’s been an adult. Or they’ve wiped all that too.”

“The way he feels about crime, I bet they didn’t have to worry about cleaning his record before or after he turned eighteen.”

Mims was staring at a picture of him in his police uniform. He was smiling, and young, not a day over twenty-one, and still, he wasn’t nearly as handsome as he was at the age he was when Mims met him.

“He was hot.”

“Hotter now.”

“That because you are all love struck, but he was hot then too,” Haze said. “Mims, you’re completely in love with him.”

“Yeah. I know,” he said, turning his head to Haze but unable to meet his eyes. “I’m dumb, and I always jump into things without thinking them out, but he’s everything I ever wanted, and I didn’t even know.”

“Those are the ones that rock us the hardest. Mims, look at me.”

His eyes moved up to Haze’s and he felt himself wanting to sink into himself for the confession. “I was stupid, wanting those men before, I know that. I knew it then, Haze. Someone to replace a man that never cared much for me, and they never did either. Care about me, that is. And maybe that’s why I liked them, fell for them and let them just keep breaking my heart over and over again. And all of you knew it. All of you saw and were so good to keep me safe while letting me figure it out, mostly on my own.

“But now, with Sonny, it feels different. He’s not old enough to be my dad. He’s not cruel to me, and doesn’t make me beg for his affection. He’s…beautiful and sweet, but no push over either. He’s different, but then again, he’s not. I think what I love about him is what I love about you all. Because he’s a little bit of you all.”

“He is?”

“Yes. He’s strong, he’s sweet, he’s tough. He has an appreciation for things, like you with art and Hippy with music. He sees things that most others don’t, like Cosmo, and he wants the moon and stars for me, like Abs. He’s protective, like you all are, and he’s…”

“He’s yours.”

Mims nodded and threw his arms around Haze’s neck. “You understand!”

“I always have,” he grunted as Mims strangled him.

Mims backed off and whispered, “I know but…I know you didn’t trust him. Probably still don’t.”

“I will one day, but that doesn’t mean I won’t always watch him.”

Mims preened at that and asked, “Because I’m yours too?”

“Damn right, you are! You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Mimsy. I adore you, so if he ever hurts you, I’m going to show him a criminal.”

Sitting up straight, he grinned. “Good.”

They sat looking up the others, and those still on the job had a few less charges than Franklyn had, but they were still pretty brutal.

“Should I show these to Sonny?”

“I’m sure he knows. IA is the cops for cops.”

“Then why don’t they do more about this?”

“It’s hard to fire a police officer. They have great protections with their union, and don’t get me wrong, I love unions, they do a lot for members, but for cops, there should be much more requirements for their duty. If you get three strikes, for example, you should be fired. I don’t know. If I knew, then I’d run for something, or I’d do more than be a bartender and an art thief.”

“You could do anything you wanted. Like paint your own paintings and get them into a gallery.”

Haze kissed his cheek again before he got up and started to head out of the room. “I’m good with what I do, babe.”

As soon as he heard Haze leaving the room, Mims called Abs. “Can you come down and bring Cosmo?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Just come to the basement.”

“We’ll be right there.”

As soon as they were sitting on either side of him at the computer desk, he told them his plan. “Haze spends so much time painting for the art jobs, that he might give up on his own soon. We need to give him a reason to keep going.”

Cosmo shrugged and said, “I know little to nothing about art. Why am I here?”

Sheepishly, he whispered, “I might need fast money, and…well, you…”

“Stealing a car is fast money. Okay, so my part is set, but what do you need money for? I mean, he’s got every kind of paint and pencil an artist could have hoarded in that room of his.”

Abs slapped Cosmo playfully. “Rude!” Then he explained, “Getting a gallery…that’s money. Plus, the money for the frames and a framer.”

Mims nodded crazily. “Exactly.”

“Okay, that sounds really expensive.” Cosmo thought on it, and said, “I know of a car that might fetch enough. Would have been better if we had the old fence, but we still might get enough.”

“We have to tell Murphy and the others,” Abs said.

“Do we? You know they’ll be mad, and we can’t tell Haze!”

“Just Murphy and the other guys then. Not Haze. I think they’d be on board if it was going to help Haze.”

Cosmo agreed, “Sure they would. I will for him.”

Mims heart warmed and it felt like it glowed in his chest. “Thanks. Maybe this is what we all need. There’s got to be life after the pub. I mean…you know what I mean.”

Cosmo said, “We know what you mean. We can’t shake our asses forever, and we can’t steal forever. There’s gotta be something after, but that doesn’t mean we all won’t still be close.”

Abs grabbed Cosmo’s hand and said, “Come on. Let’s go get the others, and I’ll keep Haze busy. I’ll tell him to draw me or something.”

“Like you need a new kind of selfie.”

When they were all gathered around the table, without Haze and Abs, Murphy heard Mims’s proposal and said, “Well, I guess you need something to keep you busy while you wait for your dude.”

“Paps!”

They all laughed with Murphy until Hippy said, “I know the framer he’s used before, you know for those two paintings we did a couple years ago. He can keep quiet, but it’s gonna cost.”

“We already figured that,” Cosmo said and pushed a paper he and Mims had printed from the computer while Abs was fetching everyone. “There are two there that will make us at least thirty thousand. Easy boosts, nice cars, but nothing that is gonna set off huge alarms. If we do it right, and make the two crime scenes totally different, they’ll think they’re two separate boosts.”

Murphy took the page and looked it over. “Not bad. I like when the research is started before we get going on something.” He handed the page to Goldie. “Check these out and have us the lowdown before next week, please.”

“Sure, Murph.”

“What else are we doing for this job?”

“I pulled up the list of owners,” Cosmo said. “None had special features installed, at least that they listed on the sales pages for them. And they would list them, they can charge hundreds and thousands more with those features. The security is practically nothing, so it’s in and out. Special keys for the Lincoln, but I can get those easily enough.”

“Good, get on that. Soon. We want to be prepared before Goldie gets finished with his research. What else?”

“I might have a guy who’d buy the Camero,” Hippy said. “I had completely forgotten about it, but he’s been looking for one, and the car lots, they want too much for what they have. If we gave a little on the price, we might be able to sell it free and clear.”

Murphy’s brows drew hard, like they did when he worried. His brilliant white hair, beard, and eyebrows were his crowning glory, but his brows told them Murphy’s moods much better than the rest of his face. “Who is this guy? We’re selling him a stolen car, Hip.”

“He’s no angel, believe me. He sells pot, but with it legal, he doesn’t do so well with that anymore, and he…well…”

“Drugs? Hippy, we’re not selling to drug dealers.”

“No! No, he runs credit card scams. Doesn’t hurt anyone except the companies, I swear. He doesn’t use real names.”

“How does he do that? You need credit ratings to get cards,” Murphy reminded him.

“He’s a little like Mims, can get onto the sites to make fake people. He used to do it for gangs that needed money laundered, but that got too dangerous for him.”

“I see,” Murphy said as his lips twitched into a smile. “As long as he’s not some asshole.”

“Oh, he’s an asshole. Turned me down twice to join his band, but this might help that too.”

Mims barked a short laugh, then snorted too. “Hippy’s got a hidden agenda.”

“Not hidden now,” he said grumpily.

“Fine, then the Lincoln can go to the fence, and hopefully, we’ll have enough to give Haze his dream. Why do I have a feeling I’m going to need a whole new crew soon?”

“Think of it like this, Paps. Maybe you’ll only need a new crew for the bar, and you won’t have to steal anymore. We can hope, right?”

He got a wink for that. “Sure, Mims. I do hope that.”