Hustlers Haven - Elesdee - Episode 1

    Detective Slither couldn't believe what he saw when he arrived at the crime scene.  The blood, the reek, the bodies.  The full box of donuts just thrown into the dumpster like it was nothing.  He picked the box out of the dumpster, and looked at the rookie that was watching him with wide-eyed disbelief.

    "What are you looking at?"  The rookie turned around and walked around the corner, probably to vomit.  Slither turned to another cop, "You there," the detective said to an officer who was taking pictures of the crime scene, "hey you," he repeated when the officer didn't hear him.
   
    "Yeah you, idiot," Slither said when the officer finally turned around, "who was the first to arrive at the scene?"

    "I don't know, I came here to bring a camera after the first cam and the backup cam were found missing from a car." The officer went back to taking pictures of the bodies of the family that was murdered in a heinous shooting, and Detective Slither went on to question the other five officers on the scene.  A young rookie told him that it was a plainclothes cop that reported the bodies, and that he could be found in the cafe across the street.  Detective Slither started walking towards the street, cursing the young rookie and telling him to spread word that until he got a good look at the scene nothing was to be disturbed.

  While he was crossing the broad street that ran through the downtown area of Elesdee, a car screeched to a stop almost hitting him; honking its horn and cursing him.  Slither cursed right back, shook his fist at the driver, and smacked the hood of the beaten up Toyota before getting across the street.

  When he opened to door to the small cafe,  the strong, warm aroma of freshly brewed coffee and fresh baked goods greeted him.  It was a welcome reprieve from the chilly morning air outside, and the smell of exhaust fumes from the busy street.  A man, in his late twenties the detective guessed, waved him over to his table.  The detective sat down on the stool across from him at the small circular table, setting his donuts down in between them.

    "Donut?"  Slither opened up the box of donuts.

    "No, thanks for the offer though," the man replied.

    "Suit yourself. Alright, you were the first person on the scene, and the one who phoned in about the bodies, correct?" The man nodded, so the detective went on "Would you mind telling me what you were doing in the area this morning?" The man shook his head, and started to speak.

    "I'm supposed to be undercover, working a block away keeping an eye on the Free Agents, making a list of possible clientelle, pick-up sites, drop-sites, the works.  I was following someone whom I thought had just bought some bags from a new face in the neighboorhood.  I didn't know what the guy was selling, so when this guy started strolling casually away, and down this street, I decided to follow him.  I was going to act like a mugger and take his product, then I passed by this alleyway.  I just took a casual glance down it, just to see, you know, and I saw the bodies.  I came across the street and called from the payphone outside, then waited inside until now."

    "Any idea who did it?"

    "No, but if anything strange is going on in my neck of the woods today, I'll call it in, as usual."

    "Alright, good work officer."

    "Thank you detective. By the way, why weren't you taking notes during our conversation?"  The detective hesitated before he answered, and his complexion paled a little bit.

    "I've got a great memory officer."

    "I'll take your word on it."  The plainclothes cop got up from the table and walked out the door.


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    As the door to the cafe closed, Detective Littner was thinking about how odd Detective Slither's behavior was, when he noticed the man he was trailing earlier that morning stalking towards the crime scene with a racially mixed group of young men trying to act nonchalant with their hands in the pockets of their hooded sweatshirts.  Every single member of the group had on a hooded sweatshirt, and every single member of the group had at least one hand in the pocket on the front of that hoody. Something was about to happen.

  Littner sprinted across the street, and grabbed the first officer he saw, telling him to unsnap his holster, get his gun ready, and pass on the message.  The officer did as ordered, and warned the other rookie and two of the officers. Detective Littner told the remaining three officers, and looked around for Slither.  He saw him, then, standing in the window of the cafe eating one of his scavenged donuts, watching the crime scene.  Detective Littner hid behind the donut dumpster, and got ready.  All the other officers were right near something they could take cover behind if they had to.


    Littner hoped he was imagining the threat those teenagers and young adults could represent.


    The small group was now right across the alley. Littner could see them by peeking out around the edge of the dumpster.  They were watching the cops, who were acting nonchalant as if waiting for something from the station while keeping one hand resting on the guns in unsnapped holsters, while one went into the cafe.  Littner couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw Slither nod a little but, and the young gangster came out just a few seconds later.  He spoke one or two words to his group, and they all charged across the street, pulling their guns out of their pockets and raising them at the cops.

    The cops noticed the assault before it happened, thanks to Littner, and had their guns unholstered and firing before the gangsters could squeeze their triggers. Trained as the police were, it didn't help much when two of the gangsters were firing uzi submachine guns.  Bullets were flying through the air like confetti at a childs party, and the street and alley now had even more blood on the ground.  Littner fired, at one of the gangsters, dropping him dead, when he saw three of the seven cops go down with one sweep of an uzi.  Another officer dropped the second uzi man, and with a well placed second shot he took out another gangster with a glock. Littner fired and killed a fourth gangster with a shot through the heart, and the first uzi man swept his barrel towards Littner, and he heard a distinct "ping ping ping ping" as bullets collided with the other side of the dumpster.

    Littner watched two more officers drop.  It was just him and the one officer who took out two gang members, against five more gangsters.  They were both pretty much dead.  Just then, two young men with AK-47 assault rifles hooked up with ammo drums instead of standard clips ran out of an alleyway across the street.  A young woman strapped with two pistols followed them.  The white rags on their heads lit up brilliantly every time their weapons fired, and soon the gangsters that were firing on the cops were dropped from the knife-in-the-back barrage that the white banded gangsters gave them.  The gangsters with the white bandanas checked out the scene, and the girl spotted Detective Slither in the window of the cafe.

    The detectives face was a mask of terror as she raised her gun in his direction.  The frightened animal face never changed, even when he fell to the floor dead as her 9mm piece of hot lead left the barrel of her glock, broke through the cafe's window, and forced his brain onto a few of the cafe tables in a wild red spray.

    Detective Littner couldn't believe what just happened.  It was like his brain refused to process it all through the pool of adrenaline that was cradling it.  He was shaking with mixed emotions as he stopped his peeking around the dumpster and went to approach the trio of white banded gangsters.  He raised his gun.

    "Drop your weapons slowly and push them away from yourselves.  Drop to your knees and put your hands in the air."  The other officer was beside him repeating his commands in the same authoritative tone of voice.  The gangsters did as they were told.

    "This is how the fuzz treat the ones who just saved them?  Last time I help out someone with a badge."  The girl was on her knees, looking up at Littner.  He couldn't help noticing how her low cut top exposed the top flesh of her cleavage, as she glared at him with intense hatred in her brown eyes. "What are we being arrested for? Saving your life?"

    "You are being arrested for first degree murder.  The man inside of the cafe was a detective." Littner looked at her, wanting to hear her response.  After what he'd seen with the gangsters, he suspected Detective Slither was corrupt, but he wasn't going to let her know that.  "Do you have anything to say for yourself."

    "Yeah, that was a crooked ass cop I smoked.  I'm proud of what I did."

    "Do you have any hard evidence to back up your claims," Littner asked. The girl shook her head, "Cuff all three of them, I'm going to collect the new evidence.  Put them the men in your car, I'll take the girl in my car and place a call for another squad to come to the scene.  Once he gets here, I'll take her to the precinct."  The other officer, whose nametag said Barhard,  responded with a nod of his head and got to work. 

    Officer Barhard patted both the men down after their hands were cuffed behind their back, and politely assisted both of them into the back of his squad.  The young men were not happy with the officer, seeing that they were being arrested for saving his life, and they're comments were quite cocky as they refused to give any of their information to him.  The officer took it in stride, he actually was very glad that these two gangsters were here, because if they hadn't been here, he wouldn't be alive right now.

    Meanwhile, Detective Littner cuffed the girls hands behind her back and put her in the back of his car without patting her down.  She was just as cocky and uncooperative as her two consorts were, although she was more subtle about it and let her body language and tone do most of the smiting.  Littner just took it all in with a smile, his feelings were generally the same as Barhard's, and he even laughed at some of her comments.  He tried to ask her for her name, but she declined to say it, usually asking him his first name, if he had any kids, or the names of his mother and father in response.  He wasn't obliging her any more than she was obliging him, and when he was done bagging up their guns he sat in the driver's seat with his door open and waited for the other squad to arrive.  He looked into the rearview mirror and saw her looking down, but smiling.

    "What are you smiling about?" He asked, hoping she wouldn't just dodge the question.

    "You know, the irony here, is that we just saved your life and you won't even believe us when we say we have evidence that backs it up," she said, surprising him with her use of the word irony and her accurate assessment of the situation.

    "And the irony there, is that you claim to have hard evidence backing your claims, yet you can't show it to me," he replied in kind, expecting to hear her say touche.  Instead, she just looked down. "Look, this could all be much easier if I had some cooperation on your part.  I promise you, I'm not arresting you with the intent of you getting a life sentence.  You did save the life of me and one other officer, but at the same time, you shot a detective in the head, and he didn't even say a word to you."  His words rang true, and he hoped she would start to cooperate and give him some answers he could work with.

    "I shot one detective. Yeah, you're right, one detective.  But me and my friends shot alot more than one gangster that was trying to kill you and your friend," she spoke the truth as well, but it did nothing to help them come to any sort of compromise.  Just then, two squad cars pulled up with two officers in each.  They started taping off the road, so Detective Littner started to drive away before he got taped in.  The closest precinct was only a few blocks away, and they were there in a matter of minutes.  The detective got out of the car after telling the girl that he was going to find a female officer to pat her down before he brought her in.  She said something cocky in response, to the effect of "bitch better not be some butch tryin' ta feel me up."  He smiled at her response, and went inside.

    "Fuck." She said, as she searched around the police car for a way out.  Seeing none, she thought she was trapped, until an idea came to her head.  She slid her hand into the back pocket of her cargo pants, which hugged the bottom half of her shapely body very nicely.  She pulled out a bobby pin that had had the plastic stripped off of both of the ends, something she kept just in case she was put in cuffs, but had forgotten about until now.  She worked it into the lock of the left cuff using her right hand. "Fucker, it wouldn't be this hard if you put my fucking hands in front. Asshole." She cursed her luck, until the cuff sprung.  She brought her hands up to look at them, as if not believing she actually picked a pair of cuffs, then had an idea, and put them back behind her.  She clicked locked the left cuff together again by one click, so she could still get her slender wrist and hand back out.

    "Thanks for your time officer, she's right in the back of my squad here."  Littner said, as he was just coming back into earshot of the open window with a fairly large female officer in tow.

    "It's no problem at all, detective.  Just walk me through the procedure, and I'll be happy to help."  Littner opened the door, and motioned for her to step out of the vehicle.  She complied, grateful that the female officer was a corporal and had probably never had any real experience in the streets.  In fact, she thought, because of her size they probably don't let her do anything except for administrative work.  As she got out of the car, she inconspicuously placed herself in between the officers and the open bay door that led to freedom.

    "Alright then, let's begin.  Grab her cuffs and tell her to go to the back of the car."  As she heard this, she decided that she needed to act fast, before this mammoth woman got ahold of the chain binding her wrists together.  Just as the officer was reaching behind her she stepped back.

    "I'll take myself there, thank you," she said smoothly as she took slow steps towards the back of the car.  There was no way this woman was even touching her, let alone bending her over the back of the police car.  Working her wrist out of the cuffs took her a little longer than expected but by the time she got to the rear bumper it was free, and neither the detective nor the woman seemed to notice.  Apparently, her cooperation earlier had subdued them into a complacency, and they were about to be taught a hard lesson.

    She took her opportunity to run when the female officer turned towards the detective as in a way as if to ask if she should have allowed her to move freely, and bolted just as the officer was turning her head back.  She heard the officers body hit the ground as she apparently tried to dive after her, and then she heard the detectives footfalls resounding on the pavement as he gave chase.  She knew that he wanted to catch her, but as much as his determination forced his legs to move faster, her mixture of fear and adrenaline pushed her even farther.  She ran down the driveway to the police station, and just as she turned, she heard shots.  This guy was actually shooting at her!  She forced her legs to move even faster, and then ran into the closest alleyway that she saw.

    She would have stopped, but she noticed a two guys with green rags tied around their heads with the knots in front, and she decided this wasn't a good place to stop, so she just ran right past them before they even realized she was there.  She heard more shots, and shouts, but no footsteps, so apparently that door was important.  She kept going. She ran for a long time down that alleyway and all the ones across from it before she found came to a spot where there was no alleyway across the street.  She was in white rag territory, so she knew she would be safe from other gangsters, but the police would definitely be searching for her.  She stopped and looked around. There was a dumpster right next to a brown metal door just like the one greens were guarding, and from the music that she heard inside, it was either a bar or a club.  Other than herself, there was noone in the alley, so she sat down with her back on the dumpster facing the way she came.

    Back the way she came, across seven or eight streets, was the door the greens had been standing by.  She wondered why they hadn't come after her, why their shots didn't hit her even though she was running in a straight line and didn't hide behind anything, then she realized that they probably didn't want to draw attention to themselves.  She made a mental note of where the door was, and decided she would tell her superior if she ever saw him again, when the door opened up next to her.  She jumped up.

    "Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you," said a young man as he came out and let the door slam behind him.  He opened the black plastic lid on the green dumpster and threw the two bags of trash he was carrying inside, letting the lid slam shut again. "What are you doing by my dumpster anyways?"

    "Nothing," she said nervously, still trying to catch her breath, "please don't call the police."  He looked at her kind of funny, then shook his head, causing all of the small red braids in his hair to swing a little bit.

    "You better come inside.  Oh yeah, with an answer like that, you're lucky you ran into me.  If you had been outside of someone else's club, you'd probably be in cuffs right now." She highly doubted that, most of the club owners were involved with the gangs for some reason or other, and so were most of the bar owners and recording studios and even half of the cops and detectives for that matter.  This was a crooked city she lived in.

    He studied her for a moment, and then pulled a key out of his pocket and opened the door.  She followed him in and asked him his name.

    "Name's Enkay," he replied with a smile, "this is my club, and I'm guessing your not old enough to stay in here, so you better stay back here in my office.  Need a drink? It's on me."  She told him she'd like a cosmopolitan, than quickly changed it to a whiskey and coke when she noted his look of dissapproval. 

    "You sure you can handle a whiskey and coke?"  She nodded with a smile at his jest.  He left, and came back with a two drinks, offered her a chair, then sat down at his desk and took a sip of his drink. 
   
    "So this brings me back to my original question," he said as he set his drink down on the desk, and picked up the TV remote nonchalantly.  "What were you doing back there behind my dumpster? And before you try to lie to me, watch this." He hit the power button on the remote control, and the TV in the corner turned on, displaying the news channel. 

    And today in local news, a newswoman was saying, the citizens of Elesdee, a city which is plagued more by criminal and gangster activity than Las Vegas and LA combined, are frightened as a female gangster escaped police after being apprehended at the end of a shootout.  A local detective, who requested that his face be blurred and his voice changed, has this to say:

    "We had her at the station, and we were going through the procedure of patting her down when she somehow managed to get one of her wrists out of the handcuffs, and she ran out the bay door of the precinct heading east.  I gave chase, and fired several shots at her, but I didn't catch her or hit her with any of them."