Page 3 of Mimosa (Murphy's Pub #2)

Chapter Three

When two in the morning came, Sonny felt like his head was going to explode with the headache nagging him. Everything piled up in his mind to the point it was physically hurting him.

It couldn’t be helped. It was the nature of the job, and he’d wanted the job since he could remember. Hearing all the stories from his uncles and cousins, how his father had been killed by a dirty cop…

Santiago Aguilar Sr., killed ten days before Sonny’s birth. Raised by these stories, it was no wonder he’d wanted to be a cop over the cops, to find and burn those who used their badge as a shield to hurt people instead of protecting them.

His mother had remarried and he had a new father, the only living one he’d ever known, but he was raised with a picture of his real dad next to his bedside, those dark eyes wrinkled at the corners from his smile, and he never forgot.

The worst of the worst, that was the BBC. He’d been asked to go undercover when he first applied. It was well known in the city who killed his father. The man had been a plague and he died by a bullet when Sonny was nineteen. Just out of junior college, headed to the police academy.

With his mother devastated by the loss of her husband, it was up to Sonny’s Uncle Ben to try to sue the city for the death of his unarmed brother. It was Ben who’d made all the right contacts that led Sonny not only into IA, but also into undercover work, so he could bust the worst of the worst.

Sonny didn’t hate those that took a little drug money off the top of a bust. He didn’t fault those that did a few side jobs that weren’t exactly legal. What he couldn’t stomach, however, was those in power exploiting people to the point of selling them to scuzz bags who forced them to rent out their bodies. Killing people, threatening, prostituting and using power to take and take, never giving unless it was fear and pain.

He looked out of the window of the cheap apartment near the highway, seeing little more than the wall between the residential homes and the noisy four lane. The tops of the trees to the west, the starless city sky and far from them were the mountains where his family would camp each summer.

Uncle Ben called, knowing his nephew would still be awake even as Ben was getting up for work on the city street crew. “Hi, Uncle.”

“My little nephew, what have I told you about sleep? If you don’t get enough, you can’t keep your wits around you.”

“I know, Uncle. I know, but…what I’m in right now, it’s bad. It’s real bad.”

“I don’t need to know. Anyway, how’s my sister-in-law?”

Finally, a smile crossed his lips. “Mom’s good. Shirley is giving her a new grandbaby, so she’s over the moon.”

“Shirley. That sister-in-law of yours loves making those babies. That’s five now?”

“Six. The last birth was twins, remember?”

“I can’t keep up with my grandkids, let alone hers. Your dad would have been over the moon to have so many little ones. He liked babies.”

The smile faded quickly. “Well, Mom’s sure happy.”

“What’s wrong, honey? What has IA got you doing?”

“You know I can’t say. But…it’s what I need to do. That’s enough for me.”

“I’m proud of you, kid. And I know your dad is too wherever that asshole ended up landing after he passed. Listen, I just wanted to check in, but I gotta get to work. Traffic is nasty already over here on the west side.”

“Be careful, Uncle Ben. I’ll talk to you soon.”

As he sat the phone on the little table near the tiny kitchen, he sighed and decided to forget trying to sleep. He got a pot of coffee on and watched the sunrise a couple hours later, wondering if it would snow.

Snow, at least, made all the dirt in the city clean, at least for a little while.

Before noon, he was traveling with Sandy to the city where they’d meet again with Taran. They went into a little bistro after feeding the parking meter for two hours worth of parking, and found Taran smiling like he’d won the lottery.

“What are you so happy about?” Sandy asked him.

“Finally got time with my guy,” he said simply. “I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

Sonny felt a surge of jealousy and that wasn’t like him. “At least you have one.”

Sandy whispered, “Wow, that was…”

“Sorry. I didn’t sleep and I’m in a mood. This entire fucking thing is getting to me.”

Taran’s voice was warm and kind, and it made Sonny hate him more. “I get it, the things these assholes are doing is super bad. The longer it takes to bust them, the more people suffer.”

Ignoring the empathy, Sonny demanded, “When are we meeting with the pub people?”

“Soon. I promised them I’d keep them up on everything. I was skeptical to tell them about you and Sandy, but they need to know. If anything happened, they’d know they could depend on you.”

“Plus, maybe they don’t shoot us,” Sandy said.

“They don’t use weapons often, but they’re all carrying now. I pushed through their conceal carry permits.”

Sonny became enraged. “You pushed it through? You do know that cops know about that? All they have to do is wonder why a bunch of felons suddenly have conceal carry permits?”

“One, not all of them are felons. If they were, they wouldn’t be able to live and work together. Most have little more than juvenile records, not a felony among them, including my boyfriend. He had his record expunged because it was when he was underage. The judge did it to help give him a new life after Murphy pulled strings. And two, my name isn’t the one on record.”

Sonny was enraged, and he didn’t know why. Well, he did, it was a culmination of reasons. “Sorry. I just…if anything bad happens while we’re waiting for enough proof for RICO, then, is it worth it?”

“No,” Taran said, shocking him. “But our superiors want it this way, and so do yours. They want these men and women away for the rest of their lives.”

As Sonny sipped his double shot cappuccino, he felt his anger wane enough to be able to say, “I’m sorry.”

“There,” Sandy said. “We’re all on the same page.”

Both Taran and Sonny glared at him.

“Sorry! God, but now that the fists are unclenched, as well as the assholes, can we talk?”

“Yeah,” Sonny said. “Okay, I need to meet them before I’m given the assignment to watch them. How do we do this?”

“You don’t need to meet them all. Once you meet a couple key players, they will go back and talk to the others. We’ll provide a picture of you, and they can let the rest know that you’re on our side.”

“Fine. Can we do this today? I mean, part of why I can’t sleep is that I feel like we’re in limbo. I hate being stuck.”

“I can arrange it today. I’ll get Murphy and Cosmo.”

“Oh, your boyfriend.”

“Why not?”

Sonny knew he wasn’t thinking right, but there was one of the men he wanted to meet. “I need the computer guy. I can give him a few ways to get into the right systems. For one, the dark net site that the BBC uses, with the passwords to get into the stuff I can’t get.”

“You can do that?”

“No, but I can get it. I plan to hit up Marion, the cop that knows just about all of it, to let me do this gig. While I’m at it, I can ask if I can get on the main computer to look up other things on the men at the pub. Once there, I have a flash drive that I can use to get whatever I can, and I can hand it over to Mimosa.”

“How are you going to secure the gig?”

“I have the stash of money I get as my part of the cut of the jobs I do. I’m not allowed to spend any of it because I’m supposed to keep it for evidence, but if I can talk my superiors into letting me use it to bribe Marion, then I’m in.”

Sandy knew all this, but Taran had no idea. “What are you going to say? I mean the reason you want that certain gig?”

“I’m gay. Why not enjoy the eye candy while I’m doing my job for the BBC? None of the other men will want it.”

Taran smiled, then laughed silently. “That’s…good. Yeah.”

“Even if I’m caught with one of them, I can always say I’m getting a piece of ass and trying to infiltrate the enemy camp.”

Sandy laughed, and it was anything but silent. “That’s my boy right there.”

“I have to admit, that is perfect. Alright, then, go for it on your end. I’ll get Murphy on the phone and have him bring Mims over.”

“Mims? The nickname of his nickname?”

“You got it. The only ones that don’t have one are Cosmo and Haze, and really, it’s Purple Haze and Cosmopolitan, so I guess they do.”

For the first time in weeks, Sonny felt as though he could breathe. “That’s…that’s kinda funny.”

“Hey, Sandy,” Taran whispered. “There’s something wrong with your partner.”

“What?”

“He’s smiling!”

“Fuck off, fed.”

“I hear that a lot,” Taran said, laughing.

Sonny paced some, but his legs were getting tired. He must have walked fifty miles a day with his pacing and it was finally catching up to him. Perfect. Right before he met that guy he’d been crushing on all week.

Taran got off the phone and told Sonny, “He’s coming too, but he doesn’t want to meet in public. He’s a little fearful of who might see.”

“Opposite of what we thought he’d be scared of,” Sandy commented. “We could go to that office you and Camp use.”

Sonny had known they rented a small office in a mini-mall to keep from having to head to the real FBI offices in the Denver region. He often wondered if they couldn’t share the place. It was as good a time as any to ask. “Sandy, follow Taran and me in my car. Taran, you okay with driving me?”

“Sure,” he said, suspicious. “No problem.”

As soon as they were on their way, Sonny asked, “This office, it’s nice and…innocuous, right? I’m running out of room in my apartment, and besides, if anyone followed me there, I’d be up shit creek.”

“We have a sign up and everything. We’re CPAs and we charge a lot more than normal, so if we ever do get someone come in, they don’t last long.”

“What if they did?”

“We have an agent that is a forensic accountant. She can come in and handle it.”

“Good. It’s a good cover. If I’m seen there, I’m bullying you and Camp into laundering for me, and seeing how good you are to help the BBC with theirs.”

“I like a good cover, for sure. Listen, Sonny, I understand perfectly why you’re anxious to get further in this case. I know your dad’s story, and if it were me, I’d want every dirty cop in the city in prison. And, well, I do, but if we don’t find a good enough amount of dirt on them, they could walk. The lawyers for the fraternal order of cops are nasty snakes. The best case scenario is their records follow them if and when they get out of jail, but that’s not the usual case. They leave one department for another and their record doesn’t follow. Or it’s ignored.”

“If that happened to these mother fuckers, I’d…well…”

“Kill them. I’ve thought the same. I just haven’t been comfortable saying it out loud,” Taran said.

The shock Sonny felt was shaking him. “You?”

“You don’t think I hate them as much as you do?”

“I guess, sure, but…that?”

“Yeah. That. And don’t think I won’t turn in my credentials and do it. Go ahead, hate me too, but I won’t be a dirty agent, I’ll quit first.”

“Nah, man. I don’t hate you. I’m hoping you’ll bring me along.”

Taran nodded and said, “Welcome aboard.”

At the office, Sonny saw that the place didn’t look much like an accounting firm, but he hadn’t been to any except one, to set up a trust for his nieces and nephews.

Taran seemed to notice Sonny’s eyes moving around the room. “Camp is coming back with a coffee maker. He’s tired of buying from the place down the block. We can get more computers, if needed, and we have file cabinets in the two small offices.”

“Can Sandy and me maybe share one?”

“Sure. Camp and me can share. You keep the cop shit in one and we keep the fed shit in another. Sounds perfect.”

Camp came through the door, smiling. “Got one that makes thirty cups. That might work.”

“Camp, Sonny and Sandy are gonna move their stuff in here. They need a base, too, and the cop shop isn’t providing it.”

“Funding for tanks and rocket launchers, right?” Camp asked after sitting the pot down.

“That’s pretty much it,” Sandy said, looking over the box with the coffee maker. “This is nice.”

“We’ll split the cans of coffee, sugar and creamer. Deal?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Okay,” Sonny yelled. “Can we get with what we’re actually here for?”

The three just stared at him until Taran said, “I’ll get Camp to move my desk and white board into the other office, and Cosmo, Murphy and Mims are on the way.”

“Thanks,” he said, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Sorry.”

“I get you, Sonny.”

“Yeah, we do too,” Camp said.

After the room was cleared for them, Sonny was standing inside the empty room, staring out of the one small window into the alley.

Across the alley was a backyard for a home with a swing set with one swing hanging by only one chain and a plastic playhouse. They were both covered with vines, and it was obvious the children that had once played on them were long since grown.

“You okay, Sonny?” Sandy asked him.

“I’m…not okay. I can’t get the faces out of my mind. All those people being harmed by this one organization. It’s just weighing on me.”

“Well, maybe meeting your crush will help. They’re parking now.”

Sonny turned around, intrigued. “I’ll be right out.”