Dead Dog Girls Don’t Bark
Chapter 2
Ten-nineteen. That was the time Gino saw on his wristwatch when he walked through the front door entrance of the 66th precinct of the Gamma City Police Department.
Ten-nineteen meant that Gino was nineteen minutes late, and nineteen minutes late meant he didn’t have time to stop by the Suzie-Suck-All for a quick morning blowjob before the start of his shift. No morning blowjob meant a shitty beginning to the day.
Gino told himself before going to bed last night to get up early. He knew after a night of bad beats and bad booze, a morning blowjob would be the only thing to set the next day off on the right foot. And the only way to get a good blowjob from the precinct’s Suzie-Suck-All before the work shift started was to show up early, because the later in the day it got, the longer the lines became.
By eleven in the morning, the line to get a blowjob was absurd, with sometimes a guy having to wait two hours in line to get a suck that didn’t last longer than two minutes.
But that was how it was in this broke-ass precinct.
He heard of other well-funded precincts in fancier parts of the city that had multiple Suzie-Suck-Alls and even the more deluxe Fanny-Fuck-Alls for their employees. Here in the run-down shoestring budget of the 66th precinct, there was only one Suzie for the whole police force. So getting up early to beat the lines was a must.
But the best-laid plans of mice of men always go to shit when you’re three sheets to the wind.
So instead of getting out of bed early like he had intended, Gino kept hitting snooze on his alarm clock until he realized no extra amount of sleep was getting rid of his massive hangover and finally rolled himself out of bed twenty minutes past the time from the first alarm beep.
Now the result was he was nineteen minutes late.
He walked up to the turnstile that every officer had to pass through before being admitted into the bowels of the precinct. He put his gun, badge, holophone, and apartment keys in a plastic tray and then placed the tray on a moving conveyor belt that fed the items through a metal detector. Then he returned to the turnstile and stood at attention while the retina scanner placed there did its work on his eye.
The retina scanner consisted of a small camera lens attached to a thin fiber optic pole that automatically rose and lowered depending on the height of the person it was scanning. Gino, like he had done a million times before, stood at attention while the camera lens positioned itself to his eye height and scanned him through. The whole process took no longer than two seconds.
A green light on the turnstile showed and Gino took a step forward and just like the camera, the turnstile automatically responded to the motion, and turned itself as Gino passed through.
Just next to the camera and turnstile was a desk, where, like always, a uniform officer sat. Today that officer was one of the younger officers, a black kid who had been on the force for just under two years, whose name was either Tony-Charlie or Charlie-Tony. Gino wasn’t quite sure. He had heard the kid called by both names. and seen the kid respond to both names equally.
Today, Tony-Charlie or Charlie-Tony, or whatever hell his name was, was watching a newscast on a holo display from his holo phone.
The newscast was currently showing highlights of the big headball game from last night. The one that Gino had lost half of his paycheck on and caused him to drink away the pain of the financial loss long into the night.
The reporter on the newscast could be heard saying, “Last night, headball fans were treated to an instant classic that has many already calling it the best headball game to ever be played.”
“Best game, my ass” Gino muttered to himself.
Gino’s muttering voice was loud enough for the black kid behind the desk to hear. He looked up from the holographic display at the sound of Gino’s voice and smiled with rows of perfect white teeth.
“Hey detective,” the kid said while holding the toothy grin that could only be produced by the bloom of youth. “That was some game last night, eh?”
“Wasn’t so special if you bet on it,” Gino said dryly as his gun, badge, keys, and holophone came out of the other side of the metal detector in the little plastic tray/
The corners of the black kid’s smile folded downward into a sympathetic frown. “Hopefully, you didn’t lose too much money, detective.”
“Lost enough for a poor man,” Gino said as he took his gun holster out of the plastic tray and put it back in place on the side of his hip.
“You know detective, they say that headball is rigged. That’s why I never bet on it, Now, dog girl racing, on the other hand… that’s a sport where a fella can make some money.”
Gino scoffed. “Like I don’t get enough shit about dog girls at work, I gotta go looking for more dog girl problems on the race track?’
The young black kid hit his head as if he had said something stupid. “Oh yeah, I forgot, detective. You’re a dog catcher. My bad. I’m sure the last thing you want to do when you get off work is deal with dog girls,” the officer chuckled. “Well, you have a good day detective,” the black kid nodded and then returned back to his holophone display and the newscast being projected there.
“Yeah, you do the same,” Gino muttered and made his way to the elevator banks on the far wall.
Betting on dog girls, that’ll be the day, Gino thought to himself as pushed the elevator call button.
The kid had a point though. Headball was most likely rigged. Everyone said it was. The science behind the whole thing was dubious at best.
The National Headball League swore up and down that it was all legitimate. That the decapitated girls, whose heads were encased inside the translucent balls that payers kicked and chased around the pitch like soccer balls, were in fact moving the balls with the mere power of their thoughts.
And they said that none of the girls whose heads were inside the balls were in on it.
The majority of them didn’t even know that their heads would be put inside a headball. The heads were chosen at random from the pool of girls who at eighteen years of age were denied wife status and subsequently chose death over being transformed into a dog girl, human toilet, or something like a Suzie-Suck-All.
Because the severed heads could only stay alive for five hours maximum, even with the life support augmentations, the girls were decapitated only an hour before or sometimes just before a game kicked off. This way the heads were ensured to be “alive” and “fresh” for the game.
Once decapitated they were given electronic life support augmentations and a control chip was surgically sewn onto their brains. This control chip transmuted their thoughts into the ball’s movement.
It was not clear how conscious the girls were during the game or even aware that their severed heads were being kicked around a grass pitch. But they were conscious enough to produce brain activity. And these jolts of brain activity transformed their thoughts into the motion that moved the ball.
According to the National Headball League, the girls weren’t thinking: move left, and then the ball went rolling left. No, the system functioned much differently than that.
Once again, according to the NHL, the girl’s emotions and thoughts of things like fear, anger, confusion, or hurt, created electrical impulses in the brain, and these cerebral electrical currents would be processed by the chip implanted into their head, transmuted into a mathematical permutation, and then be sent into the motor of the ball which would move the ball in a certain direction based on the mathematic permutation. and thus send the ball rolling in a random direction.
This was all according to the NHL, though. It’s not like the girls themselves could vouch for the authenticity of any of these claims the NHL was making. First off, once their heads were removed from their bodies, they lost all ability to speak. And secondly, the majority of them were dead by the end of the match in which they had served as the ball. The head trauma they received from being kicked over and over again, despite the fact they were ensconced in a protective mesh of ball was too much for one girl to survive. It was for this reason multiple balls were used in one match.
But not everyone bought what the NHL was selling when it came to the ball movement.
The conspiracy theorists, and there were a lot of them, said it was all bull shit. That the decapitated heads didn’t move the ball by the power of thought. That what was in fact moving the ball was corrupt referees with remote controls in their back pockets.
These people said that when you saw a player kick the ball like a rocket towards the goal, and then saw the ball veer off to the right or left at the last second that it wasn’t the electrical impulses of disembodied young women, that it was actually corrupt referees and the National Headball League commissioner moving he ball by remote control and rigging the game
But the counterargument was the expressions and facial changes of the girls inside the balls. The people who said the games weren’t rigged, pointed to these facial changes of the girls in the ball, saying that it proved they were capable of making brain activity, and therefore capable of moving the ball with the power of their thoughts.
At the end of the day, no one really knew if the games were rigged or not.
One thing Gino did know, he thought to himself, as he got on the elevator and hit the button for the third and uppermost floor of the precinct building, was he had lost more money than he had won by betting on headball. But like a true gambling addict, he couldn’t quit, because the highs of the few times he did win were too good to let up on.
The elevator reached the top floor with a ding and Gino stepped off of it into the squad room.
The squad room was the wide open space that was the nexus and heart of the precinct. It had desks all about it where witnesses and perps alike were seated across police officers. The perps and witnesses told police officers, lies, invented alibis, half-truths, and in rare cases, honest testimonies, while the police officers and detectives typed what came out of the perps and witnesses’ mouths into their holo computers.
Elsewhere in the squad room, There were criminals handcuffed on benches awaiting interrogations, their moment in a lineup, or the transport that would take them to their prison. There were cops and detectives socializing among each other in the squad room. Shooting the shit, laughing at ribald jokes, or talking about the great headball game from last night. And of course, there was a long line waiting to get into the break room to have a go at the Suzie-Suck-All that was located inside.
Gino looked at this last line forlornly as he crossed the squad room.
The line as usual was long. He estimated from the length of it, it was about an hour’s wait to get a blowjob right now. The line and wait time would only get longer as the day went on.
Gino liked getting his dick suck as much as the next guy, but an hour was too much of a wait for him. So he kept on past the break room and reached a closed door that had the words PETTY THEFT DIVISION stenciled on it.
He pushed open the door, expecting it to be empty like it always was when he showed up late for work. But to Gino’s surprise, Frank, the detective who had worked the night shift in the Petty Theft Division, was still there.
Protocol dictated that a detective couldn’t leave his post till the guy relieving him showed up for his shift. Gino had relieved Frank hundreds of times and he had been late for the majority of those times, and never once had he seen Frank stick around to wait for him. replacement as the book said he was obligated to do.
Honestly, that didn’t bother Gino. He didn’t like Frank that much. And Frank didn’t like him either. Still, they kept it professional. Frank pretended to recognize Gino as his boss, which on paper Gino was; and Gino pretended to recognize that Frank was a human being, which on paper, Frank was.
Still, it was strange seeing Frank, especially this late after his shift. On account of Frank’s presence, Gino had to double-check his watch to make sure he was actually late. It was twenty-five minutes after ten. Usually, Frank was long gone from the precinct when it was one minute after ten. What the hell was he doing here twenty-five minutes after his shift ended?
What made Frank’s presence even stranger was that he smiling was at Gino.
Frank never smiled. Especially not at Gino.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
The guy was always wearing an ugly scowl on his ugly pug-nosed pig-shaped and pock-marked face. And usually, after a long night shift, the only thing he looked fit for was a mortician’s makeover. But not this morning.
This morning Frank looked chipper. His eyes had a healthy glow to them and his face which usually looked like burnt scrambled eggs, had a healthy rosey-like complexion to it.
Gino’s curiosity got the better of him. He couldn’t let a mystery like this go without being answered
“What the fuck are you still doing here?” Gino muttered as he walked over to one of the four desks that made up the petty theft division’s four workstations
There was a desk for each detective that was assigned to the division. But even though there were four desks, at the present moment, there were only three detectives assigned to petty theft.
Abner, a guy who had been older than the world’s first skeleton even when Gino was young, which was four or five epochs ago, finally retired two months ago, leaving the petty theft division with only three detectives now: Frank, Gino, and a third guy everyone called Harry the gimp.
Gino had put in a request to replace Abner even before the fossil had retired, but the higher-ups didn’t give two shits about the petty theft division, so the request never got answered. But as head of the division, it was Gino’s job to keep filing the request
“What the fuck am I doing here?” Frank said, with his voice still full of good humor and smiles. “I thought it was protocol to wait till relieved before you could leave your post. Or am I wrong?”
“When the fuck did you ever care about protocol?” Gino muttered as he booted up his Holo computer.
“What’s with all the ‘fucks’ Gino? What the fuck am I doing here. When the fuck did I care about protocol. You know Gino that’s no way to talk to a guy. Especially first thing in the morning,” Frank said in an affected holier-than-thou reproving voice.
Gino shook his head and didn’t even bother answering. He hoped this silence would be enough to get Frank to scram
It wasn’t. Frank went on talking.
“Let me guess, you’re in a bad mood because of that headball game last night, right?”
Gino still didn’t bother vocalizing a response. He just gave Frank a sidelong glance that conveyed the message: “I hate you,” very clearly
Frank kept on talking, his voice still sugary and sweet, completely at odds with his true personality of sour and spoiled. “I’m telling you Gino, that shit is rigged,” Frank said with a wag of his finger like he was admonishing a child. “Those decapitated bitches ain’t alive, you know? I saw a whole video on HoloTube about it. It’s rig city. Even those ‘oh I’m so scared,’ facial expressions they make when they are getting kicked around are fake. It’s animatronics. Or at least that’s what the video I saw said.”
Gino didn’t have the tolerance for Frank’s bullshit this morning. Not with the headache he was having. “Frank,” he said, his voice calm and steady as he rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. “Go home.”
“Gino I know you’re the boss,” Frank continued in his tone of superiority, “but I’m off the clock. Which means you aren’t the boss of me right now. And besides, from what I hear, you might not even be the boss for much longer, especially, considering the big shit you’re in,” Frank grinned like the Cheshire cat.
“Big shit?” Gino said with a surprise jerk of his head. “What the hell are you on about?”
“Well, I don’t know, exactly,” Frank said sheepishly, losing some of his bravado. But he quickly regained his arrogance and said, “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Frank grinned and paused for effect. Gino looked at him with a face full of confusion. Now that he had Gino’s full attention, Frank dropped the bomb: “The boss came in here looking for you about half an hour ago. Looked reeeeal pissed too. So I figure ‘Uh oh, my boy Gino stepped in it now. The big honcho wants to see him. I better stick around to see if I can be of help.’ Yep, that’s what I said to myself. And that’s why I’m still here. For support, you can say. To make sure things go all good between you and the jefe, you know?”
“Big honcho? The jefe?” Gino repeated confusedly. “You mean, the chief?”
“Yeah, who else is the big honcho? Not you of course. You’re a little honcho. Just the head of the petty theft division. I’m talking about the BIG honcho,” Franbk pointed skyward. “The chief of the whole damn 66th precinct. The guy who sits on the right-hand side of God. The guy who only talks to little nothings like you, if he’s going to fire your ass or bust you down to writing parking tickets. That big honcho.”
Gino paused considering the import of Frank’s words and studying Frank’s smug face. Frank’s smile had somehow gotten even slimeier and creepier than before. It was giving Gino the creeps seeing such an ugly bastard like that smiling. But now he at least knew why the son of a bitch was smiling and why he hadn’t gone home.
Frank was the kind of guy who enjoyed watching car wrecks, orphanages burning, and birds struggling to get out of plastic six-pack holders.
Gino being in trouble with the chief was the kind of entertainment that was right up Frank’s alley. The only thing was, Gino couldn’t understand what the hell he had done to be in trouble with the chief. And Frank was right, the chief only came to see low guys on the totem pole like him if there was trouble a foot and an ass chewing to hand out. Gino had thought those days were long behind him.
That was the whole point of Gino joining the Petty Theft Division. To stay out of trouble. It was the most insignificant division in the entire police force. So insignificant that trouble was supposed to be impossible to get into while working the petty theft division. No one gave a shit if you came to work late. No one gave a shit if you did any work while at work. And no one gave a shit about you in general.
But here the chief was looking for him, and the chief never went looking for someone unless it was to stomp you like a bug.
“What the Chief say he wants?” Gnoa asked, his voice losing its surliness and becoming more circumspect.
“Didn’t say,” Frank said with a grin, enjoying watching the nervousness overcoming Gino. “But whatever you did, it must’ve been bad. He came in here twice already, looking for you,” Frank emphasized the word twice not only vocally, but by holding up two of his pudgy fingers as well.
“Twice?” Gino said with startled surprise. Chief coming by once for him was bad enough. But twice? In the same morning? That meant the chief wanted to see him bad.
“Yep,” Frank nodded, “You steal money to pay off gambling debts or something?”
Gino was about to tell Frank to fuck off, but before he could get the words out of his mouth, the door to the office flung open like it had been pushed in by a hurricane.
It was the chief and he looked harried and flustered. He turned wide and exasperated eyes at Gino. A look he had never seen the chief give him or anyone else for that matter.
“Christ, Gino,” the chief said with a tinge of relief in his voice. “There you are. Fucking hell, I was getting worried you wouldn’t show.”
The chief and Gino were the same age, both in their mid-fifties. But unlike Gino, the Chief had a well-kempt face. A combed mustached, strong slender jaw, and a big mop of sandy hair sprinkled in with grays. “Are you always this late?” the chief said with a frown and glance at his watch.
“Uh, sorry, chief, there was a problem with the train this morning,” Gino answered rapidly with the first lie that came to his head.
“Bullshit,” the chief replied. “Come on, you need to follow me,” he nodded toward the open doorway he had just burst in through.
Gino felt like he was being told to follow an executioner to the gallows, so he prevaricated, keeping his ass glued to his chair, and said: “Uh… is there something wrong?”
“Yeah, Gino. The mayor is waiting to see you. Now come on, get a move on it.”
“The mayor” Both Gino and Frank cried out in unison with wide eyes and gaping jaws.
“The mayor? Like, that broad on TV?” Frank asked with amazed excitement.
The chief turned to Frank, looking at him as if he was surprised he existed. “Yeah, that’s the mayor, ain’t it?” Then the chief cocked his ear towards his shoulder, looking at Frank perplexedly. “What are you still doing here?”
“Sorry, boss,” Frank said, getting out of his chair. “Just had some stuff to finish up.” Frank picked up his jacket. Then he turned to the chief. “So what is she like? She looks smoking hot on TV. Wouldn’t mind shoving my cock up her keister.”
The chief rolled his eyes. “Get lost. Frank.”
Then he turned to Gino, who was still stuck in his chair. “And you, come the fuck on, she’s been waiting for you for,” he looked at his watch, ‘almost a half hour now,”
Gino snapped out of his reverie. He was flabbergasted that the mayor wanted to see him. It was already strange that the chief wanted his presence, but the mayor as well made it feel like being summoned by the Pope and Pope’s cobbler.
And this was no simple mayor, this was the most famous mayor in America, because not only did she preside over one of the largest cities, but she was also the country’s only female mayor. Probably the country’s only female politician or woman of any authority at all.
Getting over the shock that such an esteemed person would want to see his lowly mud slime ass, Gino got out of the chair.
As Gino fell in behind the Chief as they crossed the squad room floor and turned down a hallway that led to the Chief’s office, the Chief spoke up again. “Listen,’ he said in a cautioning almost conspiratorial voice, if she asks why you were late, tell her you were working a case. That’s what I told her at least. None of that train bullshit, okay?”
“Sure, chief,” Gino said.
After a turn down another corridor, they came to the chief’s office and the chief opened the door for Gino like he was a bellhop. Fuck, the chief never opened the door for anyone, that was another bad sign.
Gino walked into the office and almost fell unconscious at what he saw. A woman, a fully clothed woman, was standing there. She was looking out the window of the chief’s street view but when the door opened she turned and smiled at Gino. She was an attractive middle-aged woman. Gino assumed she was probably just a bit older than thirty-five.
She looked even more beautiful in person than she did on the i-holonet broadcasts Gino had seen her on. A vibrant and full mass of long brunette hair, a face to die for, captivating hazel eyes, and a set of full red lips you wanted to kiss. She had long legs, covered in stockings, with a knee-length skirt. The blouse she wore was snug on her body, revealing the outline of her large voluptuous breasts, and the skirt accentuated the endless curves of her hips, thighs, and buttocks.
She smiled at Gino as she crossed the room to him and stuck out her hand. “Detective Vincetti?” she asked, with her hand extended.
Gino took her hand. Damn, that was weird. Shaking the hand of a woman.
In today’s world, most women you meant were free use to fuck. You didn’t shake their hands. Hell, you didn’t even talk to them. Women were universally understood to have nothing to offer in the way of interesting conversation. You normally just dumped a load of cum in them and wet on with your day. But here he was, shaking a woman’s hand like she was a man. And from the looks of it about to have a conversation with one. It had been a long time since Gino actually took the time to converse with a woman, and the last time it happened, it was definitely nothing like this.
“Yes, I’m Detective Vincetti, uh… mister mayor?” he said, not sure what the correct honorific was for a woman. Just like a female conversation, a man could go his whole life without addressing a woman by an honorific. One usually just called them, ‘bitch’ or ‘slut’, if one bothered to address them at all.
“Madam Mayor,” she corrected. She was used to people when they met her for the first time calling her Mister Mayor. And she loved the opportunity of correcting them and educating them on the use of the word “madam.” She felt like a trailblazer bringing back an outdated word into style once again. According to the history books the last time there had been a female mayor was in the 21st century, almost a hundred years ago.
“Detective Vincetti, there’s someone I like you to meet,” the mayor said indicating one of the chairs in the room.
Giono had been so blown away to see a fully dressed woman in the office, that when he entered the room he had walked past the chairs without even noticing that one of them had an occupant in it. He turned toward the chair the mayor had indicated and was shocked out of his senses for the second time in the space of a minute.
There was another woman there! This one was no looker like the mayor, but she was just as much of a woman. It was obvious to see why he had walked right past her without noticing her. She was small, thin, and mousey. If she wanted to she could hide behind a lamppost.
She was much younger than the mayor. Probably by a decade. Not much older than twenty. And unlike the mayor, her aesthetic was much more masculine than feminine. She was all straight lines, with no tits or hips to speak of. And the clothes she was wearing were like a man’s.
She had on a men’s blazer, over a white button-up and tie. The slacks she wore were just as masculine and were navy blue like her blazer. Even her dark raven-colored hair was cut like a man’s. Short on top and buzzed on the sides. But no amount of shortened hair or clothing could hide the aspects of her very feminine face with its thin lips, high cheekbones, and small button nose.
But the real striking femininity was in her wide round eyes that were so blue they were almost violet in color. And she looked at Gino with them as if she was the one looking at an extraterrestrial instead of the other way around.
“This is Detective Rose Valentine,” the mayor said indicating the young woman.
Gino, thanks to nearly three decades on the police force was great at reading people, and could tell right away that this girl had a superiority complex and extending his hand to shake hers would not be well received, So he didn’t bother with it and just gave her a curt nod and said, “Nice to meet you.”
True to Gino’s assessment of her, she didn’t even say anything back to him. She just returned Gino’s nod with a nod of her own that was partly filled with disdain. Like the mere act of having to acknowledge Gino was beneath her.
Great, Gino thought. A woman with an ego. A part of him wanted to bend her over and show her what he thought of her ego. But he could see just above her collar she wore a white choker with a silver pendant in the center. That choker was the symbol of a free woman. Women who had the white choker with the silver pendant could not be treated like a common woman that you could just bend over and fuck without consequence. It was considered a crime to fuck them without their permission.
The fact that she wore a free woman’s choker made him turn back to the mayor to see if she was wearing one too. She wasn’t. It figured. She was the mayor, ordained to the position by the authority of the Congressional Directorate. Why did she need to wear something like that to prove she was a free woman? Everyone in the nation knew who she was.
At that moment, the chief shut his office door and crossed the room to sit behind his mahogany desk. There was a second chair in the room, right next to the stuck-up tiny bitch, and the chief nodded to it, “Might as well sit down Vincetti. There’s some things that need to be explained to you.”
Gino followed the chief’s instructions and plopped down in the seat next to the tiny little stuck-up bitch.
The mayor for her part sat down on the edge of the chief’s desk looking at Gino from on high with an air of a queen sitting on her dais. She acted as if she owned the place, and being the mayor, she kind of did. She literally had all the power of the directorate contained within her, Her word was law, Her person just as inviolable and infallible as the directorate itself.
“I’m sure you’re aware of the Free Women Act, Mr. Vincetti?” the mayor asked.
“Yeah, I heard of it,” Gino said. Who hadn’t heard of it? Some smart muckity muck had convinced the Congressional Directorate that women were needed to shore up the unemployment problem in the nation. So certain women, supposedly completely chosen at random, were emancipated and able to go to school, get jobs, and even own property. It was passed about two decades ago when Gino was a younger man. There had been a lot of fear that it would ruin society, but the Directorate and the ones behind the push explained, that it would be a very small amount of women. Society would keep its patriarchal values. Free-use fuck sluts would still be around for any man that needed to blow his load. Just, certain women, would not be free use. Instead, they would be free. Free to even say no to having sex with a man.
“Well, Detective Valentine and I are products of that law,” the mayor continued. “The world is changing, Detective Vincetti,” she grinned triumphantly. “And you’re lucky Mr. Vincetti, because you get to be a part of that change.”
“Do I, now?” Gino said without any excitement or disappointment in his voice.
“Yes, Detective. Your department, the uh…,” the mayor looked behind her at the chief, who was now chewing sunflower seeds and spitting the shells into a paper cup as if the whole situation taking place in his office bored him, and having free women take control of his office was something that was run of the mill. “What’s it called?”
The chief responded with a bored tone that matched his bored demeanor: “The Petty Theft Division.”
“Yes, that’s it,” the Mayor beamed. “Your division, the Petty Theft Division, detective Vincetti, will have the distinct honor of having the first-ever female detective in Gamma City’s history on it. Exciting, no?”
Gino wanted to tell her, ‘No. it wasn’t exciting.’ That it sounded like the stupidest idea he had ever heard. But he knew that this woman could have him fired in the blink of an eye. So he agreed with a laconic, “Yes, very exciting.”
His tone or the way he agreed was apparently not to the mayor’s liking, because her face became very serious and her eyes narrowed like a hawk’s and bore into Gino. “You don’t sound excited, detective. Am I detecting sarcasm? Does being a part of history bother you, detective?” the mayor asked
Gino wanted this whole meeting to be over right away and without any trouble. So he just feigned compliance and said, “Sorry, mayor, I was just surprised that’s all.”
“And what do you find so surprising, detective? Please enlighten me.”
Damn, this bitch was not going to let him off the hook easy, Gono realized, This may have been Gino’s first time in the presence of a free woman, but it was not his first time in the presence of a boss with a stick up their ass. He knew how to play this game. Just sing and dance and agree to whatever they say. It was the only thing these types, male or female, wanted from the employees beneath them “You’re right mayor, being a part of history is exciting, I’m sorry if I made it sound otherwise.”
Gino’s response did nothing to dissipate the mayor’s displeasure. Gino was right about sucking up to bosses, but he had no idea about women with a mind of their own. A man had to go miles and miles to make them happy, and even then, that sometimes that wasn’t enough. In the case of the mayor, Gino had gotten on her bad side, and it was going to be impossible for him to ever get back on her good side. A thing he was about to find out in short order.
“I know your type detective, ” the mayor said acidly.
“You do?” Gino said, feeling uncomfortable with the way things were going.
“Yes, you’re the type of man who thinks that just because you have a dick in between your legs, you’re special. And how could you not? Every woman you’ve met has been a brainless amputee fuck doll. And the ones who weren’t lobotomized, and still had functioning legs and hands were somebody’s wife, running around making their husband sandwiches, and making sure his glass was never empty. Now, here you are with a woman that will be on your team. And it burns you up. How can someone without a cock be a detective, you’re thinking. Right, detective? Or am I wide of the mark?”
Gino took a deep sigh. He realized this woman wanted him to speak his truth, so he figured he give it a shot and hoped by the end of his spiel that he still had a job.
“That’s not the issue I’m having Madam Mayor,” Gino began. “I know the world is changing. I know women are getting more and more rights every day. Shit, there might be a day, when we have a woman president of the congressional directorate…” Gino paused thinking of the most artful way to put his next sentence. “I just find it strange that’s all. I mean, having someone as a detective who has never done a day of police work in her life. Like, has she even walked a beat? Or even been on patrol? And if she hasn’t, then how the hell will she be worth a shit as a detective without knowing how to do the basic things?”
“That’s because she’s educated, Detective Vincetti,” the mayor answered readily as if she had the answer already prepared. “Too educated to waste time doing mundane police work,” she said as if she were explaining an overly simple concept to a child that was too simple to grasp simplicity.
“Educated?” Gino said the word like it was a foreign word and he needed to say it slowly in order to pronounce it correctly. “Educated, how?”
The mayor kept her eyes on Gino, but when she spoke she was addressing Detective Valentine. “Rosie, please give Detective Vincetti your curriculum vitae,” she grinned.
Like a machine that had just been giving a prompt, Velntine spoke up. “Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Pathology. Bachelors in Criminal Psychology. Masters in Criminal Fenscics. And I’m currently studying right now to get my law degree.”
The mayor grinned smugly at Gino. “Not bad, eh?”
“Yeah, I guess not,” Gino replied in a bland indifferent tone, obviously not impressed.
“What about you, hot cock?” the mayor snapped at Gino. Not appreciating his lack of enthusiasm for the list of degrees Valentine had just rattled off. “You got a diploma in anything other than how to stick your dick in a Suzie-Suck-All?”
“No,” Gino shook his head in the negative. “Don’t even got a Suzie-Suck-All degree.”
“That’s what I thought,” The mayor said with a sneer. “Rosie here has more brains than this whole precinct put together.”
Gino noticed that the mayor continued to call Valentine, Rosie, even though she had first introduced her as Rose. Gino could tell that familiarity meant something, but how much it meant or what it signified he wasn’t quite sure. But it definitely meant their relationship was more than just professional.
“One day, Rosie might be running this whole police department,” the mayor said waving her hand in the air. “But before that day, she’s with you. Whether you like it or not. I want her to get a couple of cases under her belt. Solve a few petty robberies. Get some convictions. And once she has that down, we’ll bump her up in the hierarchy and get her out of your hair.”
“Solve cases? Get convictions?” Gino repeated, obviously confused. Those words and concepts were definitely not in Gino’s vocabulary.
“Yeah, I want her to have a good record,”.the mayor said, not noticing that Gino was implying getting convictions and solving cases were not things that ever happened in his line of work. “You can help her do that, can’t you? Let me put it like this: the quicker she gets some convictions, the faster your little Petty Theft Divison can return to being an all-boys circle-jerk club again. Am I understood?”
“Sure,” Gino nodded. “But uhm, madam mayor, with all due respect, Petty Theft isn’t prosecuted in Gamma city. No one ever gets convicted for it.”
“What do you mean, no one is convicted or prosecuted for petty theft?” The mayor shot back, almost livid.
Before Gino could respond, the Chief spoke up. “The district attorney has discretion on which crimes go to trial or not. And petty theft does not meet his bar for prosecutable crime. I don’t blame him. Our city leads the nation in murders, narcotics trafficking, illegal firearms sales, and grand larceny. The district attorney has bigger fish to fry than people who steal candy bars, pilfer mail-delivered packages off front porches, and snatch up dog girls. And that’s basically the entire petty crimes division. Stolen package deliveries and dognapped dog girls. Hell, that’s why we call the petty theft division ‘the dog catcher division‘ and the detectives who work it, we call ‘dog catchers‘, because their caseload is just that, chasing after missing dog girls.”
“Shit!” the mayor shrieked with a ferocity that took both Gino and the Chief aback. The only person unfazed by the outburst was Valentine. She was used to the mayor’s capricious mood swings. “What are you trying to tell me? You arrest the guys and the DA lets them go?”
“Basically,” the chief said with a shrug. “The DA only prosecutes cases that will make him look good. And no one gives a shit about dog girls being stolen.”
“Fuck!” the mayor said, pounding her fist on the chief’s desk, her face becoming red and herves more unsettled by the moment. It was clear no one had ever told this woman to behave herself and she had no shame in acting petulant and wild in front of others. If she wasn’t who she was, Gino would’ve sapped her on the spot. But as things stood, he just watched her continue to rage.
“Well, send Rosie to a different department!” the mayor screamed. “Something with more pizazz. Somewhere where she’ll grab headlines and show people the world over that women can be cops too. “
“I’m sorry Mayor, but the petty theft division is the only detective spot we have open at the moment,” the chief said both apologetically and in a tone that was not interested in arguing. The mayor was his boss in many ways, but the chief had friends in high places too, and he knew the mayor knew it and he was not someone that she could just bowl over.
The mayor took a deep breath, getting a modicum of control over herself. Once she had calmed a bit she said: “Well move someone else over there, and give their spot to Rosie. I want my girl making headlines, Chief. You know how important this is to me.”
The chief sighed. “Look, mayor, I understand this project is important for you. But I still have a police precinct to run. Not a vanity project. I can’t put a rookie in something like narcos or homicide. That’d be a good way to get her killed. Gamma City has about twenty officers killed a year. A rookie, like Valentine, would just be another dead one to add to the statistics if she worked a headline grabbing job like narcotics or homicide. The street gangs out there have no problem killing bigger and badder men than her. If they see her around, they’d go out of their way to flay her alive, and I mean literally flay alive. There are a lot of sick bastards out there. Sick bastards who love killing cops. And they would love nothing more than killing the first-ever lady cop. I guarantee it. The best thing for her is Petty Theft. That way she can learn the ropes for a bit without being in too much danger. But even Petty Theft is not completely safe. All Gamma City cops have a bullseye on their backs. Cop killing is how these young punks get their stripes. But, petty theft will at least keep her on the safer side of the streets… for the most part. Once she has a good handle on things, then we can move her around. Besides, she’ll be with Vincetti, which is, no offense, a better education in police work than any school could give her.”
“Yeah, if hot cock is so special why is he in the limp dick dog-catching division?” the mayor scoffed.
“Because it’s like you said,” the chief grinned, smiling for the first time since the meeting began, “he’s a limp dick. But he’s also one of the best detectives on the force. He worked in homicide for twenty years before choosing to go to the dog catchers. And frankly, he was the best damn homicide detective we ever had.”
“Homicide eh?” the mayor looked at Vincetti with newfound appreciation. “Why’d you stop?”
“Got old and my dick went limp,” Vincetti replied.
That made the mayor chuckle. But only for a brief second. She quickly followed up the levity with a long sigh. She then put her hand on her chin, thinking something over. Then finally she stood up off the chief’s desk and resignedly said, “Fine, then. Stick Rosie with the dog catchers. But only for a little while. I want her to do more exciting stuff soon enough. But if you think it will help her in the long run, so be it. But I still want her to make arrests. I’ll light a fire under the DA’s ass to make sure he prosecutes whoever Rosie beings in, okay?”
The mayor then walked over to the coat rack in the corner of the chief’s office pulled off a jacket and a purse that were hanging there and began to put them on. “Well, I ‘ve got another meeting I need to get to and I’m running late as it is.”
When she slipped on her jacket and purse she walked over to Valentine. “Give us a kiss sweetheart.”
Valentine rose up out of her chair and the two women then began embracing one another. It was no simple peck on the lips either. It was a full-on snog with tongue and spit swapping. Both men, the chief and Gino, were surprised by this but kept their peace.
After the lewd kiss was done, the mayor looked down at Gino and said menacingly: “You harm one hair on my girl’s head, and I’ll feed that limp dick of yours to one of your precious dog girls, eh?”
Gino didn’t respond He just looked at her impassively, imagining how good a slap across the face would be for the mayor.
The mayor grinned, knowing that Gino was impotent before her authority and power. She loved that about her job. Putting men in their place and gleefully watching them as they squirmed from being chastised by a woman. She let out a low self-pleased laugh and then straightened the purse on her shoulder and walked out of the office without even a goodbye for the chief.
Gino watched her leave and then turned back to the chief. The chief shook his head as if he was waking from a bad nightmare. He looked at Gino like he wanted to say something, but then he looked at Detective Valentine and held his tongue.
He didn’t want any stray comments of his landing in the ear of the mayor because of Valentine.
So he grunted and said, “What the fuck are you two hanging around here for? You heard the mayor, go solve some crime and catch some criminals”