Chameleon 2

"We've got a runner." Jim said, while his knee pressed into the neck of a man lying face down in the alley.

"On it." Chuck responded, taking off after the second member of the break-in at O'Murphy's pub.

It is 3am the day after St. Patrick's Day, and O'Murphy's had been hit last year at about this time, losing half of their income from their busiest night of the year.  Shay O'Murphy is a believer in the saying, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'  He hasn't been fooled twice in a long while.

Chuck races down the dimly lit alley, closing the distance between himself and the second perpetrator.  They turn a few corners, weaving in and out of alleys and streets.  The perpetrator is aware that the police officer is closing the gap, so he begins knocking over trash bins and whatever else he can get his hands on to slow down his pursuer.

"Get down on the ground!" Chuck yells, reaching for his gun as he continues running after the man.

The man doesn't stop, still a few hundred feet ahead of Chuck, and makes a sharp right turn.  Sharp turns in a pursuit are always dangerous, you never know if the bad guy has kept running, or set up an ambush.

Chuck takes the corner wide, in case the man had gotten tired of running and planned a surprise.  To Chuck's amazement, when he rounded the corner, pistol drawn, the perpetrator was lying face down alongside the original perpetrator.

"Well, god damn!" Chuck says, out of breath.

"Bright eyes here decided to round the corner and give you a little surprise with this." Jim says, showing Chuck a switchblade with his right hand.  "Apparently he wasn't very aware of his surroundings, so I gave him a tap on his head with Billy." Jim says, holding up his billy club in his left hand.

---

Jim liked his life, he had things pretty good.  He enjoyed his routine of snoozing the alarm clock once and rolling out of bed and into the shower on the alarm's second beep--it rarely got off more than one beep.  Jim always showered in under four minutes, a habit of growing up poor in Oklahoma.  He didn't need to save water, living in Seattle, but just because it rained ten months out of the year, didn't mean he couldn't still save a penny and some water at the same time.

The coffee pot had been set to an auto-start the night before, and was grinding away as Jim started breakfast sandwiches for he and his wife, Sally.  No kids yet, and no plans for kids anytime soon.  Jim and Sally were both 32, and kids were something they had talked about, but still had so much in their lives they wanted to do before that big commitment.

Sally walked downstairs in her cotton bath robe, preferring to eat before showering and heading to work as a 3rd grade teacher.  She heard the coffee still grinding and walked outside to get the morning paper.  Jim was just making the finishing touches on the breakfast sandwiches, sliding the two over-hard eggs on top of thick slices of cheese atop crispy toasted english muffins.

She tossed the sports page at Jim, while she started at the beginning of the paper.  The Seattle Times had gotten so thin over the past decade, there were only three sections left during the week.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Jim said.

"What's it, honey?"

"No way.  The Mariners traded away Felix to... guess who?"

"I don't know, Portland?" Sally said.

"Portland doesn't have a baseball team."

"Oh. Wait, yes they do! We went down to watch the Sounders last year and you said they played at the same place as a baseball team."

"No a professional baseball team, that is only a double-a team."

"Still a baseball team..."

"Okay, okay, you're right.  But which baseball team do I hate the most?"

"The Yankees?"

"Bingo! I can't believe we traded Felix to the Yankees! He has got to be the eighth or ninth hall of Famer we have traded to those damn Yankees."

"Oh God." Sally said, shocked enough to cover her mouth with her right hand.

"I know! It is like we are their farm team."

"No... not your baseball." she said.

"What is it?"

She pushed the paper over to him.  On the second page a story about a shooting in the Central District, involving a family.  The photo showed the intersection of Yesler and MLK, Jr, with a bullet-ridden red Jeep Grand Cherokee.  The same exact model that Jim's partner on the police force, Chuck Granger, drives.

((owe 2200))

Central District Chameleon (start 1)

((need 2000, missed a few days!))

1972, Seattle, WA

On the beat, South 52nd and Rainier.  A cop car pulls into a street parking spot, siren and lights off, in front of a dive bar named "Bulldog".  The white officer steps out of the driver's side door.  He is over six feet tall, but not by much.  Athletic build, in his mid-thirties, but he walks with some experience.  A younger, black officer steps out of the passenger door.  He is shorter and heavier than his partner, but looks fit and carries his weight well.

It is a typical early June night in Seattle--wet and in the high 50s.  A call had come into the station from the Bulldog, two drunks having a fist fight out back.  Usually the owner, Rufus, would let the drunks settle their disputes, but he had started to hear glass shattering, and after an eventful Memorial Day weekend, he didn't need to have any additional fun.

The two cops walked into the bar, and Rufus nodded them in the direction of the alley exit.  A quick scan of the bar showed that everything was in order, not many patrons on a Sunday evening of the three-day weekend, only the diehards.

In the alley, the cops found one man lying down along the back brick wall of the bar, holding his blood-soaked white t-shirt to his forehead.

"Mind telling us what you're doing out here in the rain, sir?" The white officer asked.

"Mother fff... fucker hit me with a bottle!" said the man.

The white officer took a step back from the man as the smell of alcohol made him cock his head back.

"Who would that be?" said the black officer.

"What?  I don't... I don't know his name.  We did... we didn't!  We didn't exchange... pleasantries." the man said, as he made a poor attempt at a bow while slurring his last word.

"Did he run off somewhere?" the white officer asked.

"Yeah, he ran that way." the man said, waving his left arm to the south.

"I'll check it out." said the black officer.

The white officer studied the scene for a minute, eventually reaching down and picking up an object.

"So, any reason why this other fella decided to hit you with this thing?" he said, holding the largest remaining portion of a Budweiser beer bottle.

"How am I supposed to know?  Big black fucker just didn't like me, I guess.  I didn't like him either, but shit!"

"Mind telling me what happened?"

"I was talking with Rufus about how bad the Supersonics played this season, about how we ought to get a new coach.  All of a sudden, this big black son of a bitch appears out of nowhere and fucking asks me if I want to take it outside.  I had a couple Buds in me, didn't quite size him up yet, but next thing I know we're out here and I've got a two inch gash in my head."

"Hmm.  When Officer Johnson gets back, why don't we take you in to Harborview and get you patched up."

"Yeah, sure."

Darius Johnson walked a few hundred feet down the dimly lit alley, not hoping to find much of anything.  He didn't expect the other drunk to hang around after shattering a beer bottle on someone else's head.  A dumpster overflowing with garbage and cardboard boxes was the only interesting thing in this alley.  He pulled open the lid for a quick inspection, but nothing out of the ordinary.  He walked back to his partner.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." Officer Johnson responded.

"Alright, let's get Slick here patched up."

As they walked back through the bar, the white officer asked Rufus a question.

"So, what did you think about the new coach idea Slick here suggested?"

"Probably right, probably right.  The Sonics need to do something.  That was probably what got George all riled up, when Ernie here started bad-mouthing Lenny." Rufus said.

"George the name of the other fellow in this little scuffle?" the white officer asked.

"Yes sir, first time I seen him."

"And Lenny?"

"Oh, Lenny Wilkins, Ernie doesn't particularly like the idea of having a black as a coach of the Sonics.  Me, well, I guess I think he's a better player than a coach, should probably just stick to playing ball.  Pity we can't afford a coach." said Rufus.

"Ah, yeah.  Well, we're going to drop off our new friend at Harborview and then call it a night."