A New Dawn Ch. 06

"I thought about that," the chief said. "You and Meyer have been on deep undercover assignment, approved directly by my office. Even your captain would have been unaware. So you're back now, all badged up."

"Really? What were we doing undercover? Usually coming back from that is accompanied by a big-assed story of wrongs being righted."

"I can't talk about it. Neither can you. It involves the feds and national security."

"Convenient," I said. "And pretty good thinking."

"So... are you in?"

I knew that I could speak for Meyer. "We're in," I said.

I heard the chief sigh. "Thanks, Johnny," he said. "Can you come in today?"

"Okay," I said.

We hung up and I called Meyer and filled him in.

"Oh, great," he said. "I always wanted to be a cop."

"Did you always want to be a rich cop?"

"Never crossed my mind," he said. "I have no idea how to get rich on my own. It was useful to have a little help from my friends."

"The Beatles lyric was better," I said. "Any idea how to approach this?"

"Well... we could sit back and relax and do cop work for a couple of years until we work a case that somebody doesn't want to see go all the way."

"True," I said. "But I'm not sure I still want to be a cop that much, for that long."

"We've got to find out who's been getting into the evidence room, and who's been making rookie mistakes on cases, and figure out why."

"Agree. Let's talk to the chief this morning. We need to know what to come back as. I'm not sure Robbery Homicide is the best job for us to figure this out."

We talked strategy a little more and agreed to meet at PAB at 8:00.

"Oh, and Johnny..."

"Yeah?"

"You might want to shave the beard before you rejoin the force. You look like an Asian hippie."

"It's my undercover beard, asshole. It'll lend a stamp of verisimilitude."

"Sure. Don't your girls find it scratchy?"

"Your girl doesn't," I said, and hung up.

---

I told my girls what was going on. They were less than thrilled that I was going to be a cop again, even if it was just for the length of this assignment. There's a certain amount of everyday risk that goes along with the badge, even if you're a detective, and even if you're just pretending to be a detective. They didn't like it.

"This is going to be major boring shit," I said. "Going through logbooks and case files, talking to other cops, trying to figure out patterns."

"You have a way of taking boring shit and turning it into shit that gets you hurt," Dawn said.

"Not this time," I said. "Besides, Meyer will be with me. What could possibly go wrong?"