Done for a Dime by David Corbett Page B

me?”
    “First, don’t feed us dropsie stories.” Murchison shook the bottle again, watched the fluid cloud, a little lava lamp. “Second, the Thigpen kid, he’s not young enough. This is Long Walk Mooney’s crew. He’s got kids to handle product. You tell me you found a wad of cash, I’d believe you.”
    “Cash,” Stluka said. “You know, it’s fungible.”
    “You accusing me of taking this kid off?”
    Neither Murchison nor Stluka answered.
    “Look, I’ll run this down again, though I guess you heard it the first time.”
    “Sure,” Stluka said, “practice makes perfect. Except it didn’t happen that way. You had the kid cuffed, your wrist is goofed up, God knows how—and don’t tell me he stomped you, I don’t wanna hear it—regardless, you’re pissed. You plant him in the car, see some juvies sending the fuck-you eye from up the street. You charge, they book, and either you find their stash spot or they get sloppy, leave that bottle behind. Either way, you can’t tie it to your collar without being a hell of a lot more clever than you’ve been so far.”
    “What is this?” Gilroy did the shoulder thing, the one lifters do. “You guys think you’re IA now?”
    “If we were IA, Dumbo, one of us would be teamed up with that pudge you just cuffed.”
    Murchison dug an evidence bag from his pocket and dropped the popper vial inside.
    “Hey.” Gilroy puffed up, red in the face. “What the hell is with you two?”
    “Some advice.” Murchison pocketed the bagged vial. “You write something up, make sure it can pass the smell test. And back to the subject of cash, you’ll be logging into evidence every single cent you found on that kid when you apprehended him. So how much was there?”
    Gilroy’s eyes flitted from one face to the other.
    Stluka said, “Tick tock.”
    “Two hundred.”
    Murchison looked at the floor. Stluka said, “You wanna lie about how much you stole off a suspect, don’t pick a round number.”
    “I was guessing.”
    “Yeah?”
    Murchison looked up and held out his hand. “Empty your pockets.”
    The blood left Gilroy’s face. “I don’t have to do that.”
    “You’re absolutely right,” Murchison said.
    “Five.” Gilroy licked his lips. Glancing at Stluka, he added, “Five-twenty.”
    “He didn’t say pick a number, Dumbo. He said empty your pockets.”
    Gilroy froze, nothing moving but his eyelids as he blinked. He stuck his hand in his pocket, withdrew a money roll with a hundred showing on the outside, bound tight with a rubber band. Murchison took it from him as Stluka said, “Unless that’s a sucker roll, I’d say it’s a grand easy.”
    Murchison counted it, rolled it back into a wad, and fastened it tight with the rubber band, then took out his notepad and jotted down the amount, saying it aloud as he wrote. “One thousand three hundred and forty dollars.”
    Stluka let go with a soft whistle. “Viva Las Vegas.”
    Murchison handed the roll back to Gilroy. Gilroy took it, put it away, then nodded toward Murchison’s pocket. “The bottle?”
    Murchison thought it through. Can’t save the world, choose your fights. “Sure.” He grabbed it from his pocket and handed it back to Gilroy. “I’ll be following up. Remember.”
    Stluka turned back toward the intake desk. “I’ll go track down where they’ve stuck our witness.” He started to walk away, singing under his breath:

    “You got the eggs, I got the bacon.
    But it ain’t breakfast that we’re makin’.”

    Gilroy’s eyes followed Stluka’s exit, his face still pale. Turning back to Murchison, he said, “Nothing I can do or say to keep all this ten-twelve with you guys, is there?”
    Murchison felt like choking him. “You want to rethink what you just said to me?”
    Gilroy coughed up a bitter little laugh and dropped his head. “I’m gonna get ass-fucked on this.”
    “I’m willing to overlook this other nonsense you were trying to pull. Even the money. But you go