The Program by Danny R. Smith

Author:Danny R. Smith [Smith, Danny R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

22

Dickie walked in and put his suit jacket and hat on a wooden coat tree that stood next to his desk, pulled his chair out and plopped down into it with a groan. He glanced back and forth from Josie to Lopes as he said, “What’d she want?”

Lopes said, “She was looking for you.”

While Josie said, at the same time, “An update. Where were you?”

He likely knew Lopes was being facetious, Josie figured, since he ignored Lopes and said to her, “I saw her headed this way and suddenly needed an emergency cup of joe. But see? This is what I was talking about. She needed an update. As if we suddenly need a lieutenant to monitor our progress on a case. I can’t stand that broad, and I don’t understand why your captain wants her involved in our cases.”

“Case,” Lopes said, pushing out of his chair. “Just this one.” He stood behind his desk, hands on his hips, his crisp white shirt sleeves turned up at the cuffs, his collar unbuttoned and the Windsor knot on his plaid tie loosened. Everyone always seemed exhausted here, even at the start of the day. He unwrapped a stick of gum and shoved it in his mouth, began chewing around his words. “This one piece of shit that’s probably a big nothing. Guns turn up after other cases are adjudicated all the time. Usually doesn’t change the outcome of any prosecution.”

Dickie nodded but didn’t say anything, clearly still stewing over the whole bit.

“Also,” Lopes continued, his eyes now on Dickie, “we no longer refer to our female companions and coworkers as ‘broads’—this isn’t the fifties, Dickie, as much as you hate to admit it.”

Josie grinned. “Dickie’s a relic.”

“I don’t see how ‘broads’ is so bad,” Dickie defended. “These asshole rappers call ’em all kinds of bitches and hoes and nobody says a word about it—not the broads from NOW or anyone else. And that’s when they’re not rapping about killing cops.”

Lopes started in on rappers, naming a few of the more popular ones who he felt should be in prison. One was a former dope-slinging, cap-busting gangster who had become an American icon, performing at the Super Bowl and appearing in beer commercials alongside dudes he would’ve robbed for their shoes when doing time in the county. That got Dickie started, and he’d be hard to stop, off the subject of the lieutenant for the time being. The two of them solving society’s ills in Unsolveds.

Josie had other things on her mind, primarily the list of things to do on the councilman case she’d compiled during her case review over the weekend while her mother had worried about Pepe Cadena and the drug cartels and periodically telling her, “Mija, you need a life besides that job. You need to find a good man, get married, raise some kids.” Of course, all of this said in a mix of English and Spanish with no discernible reason for the blending of languages. And Josie

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