Black Cop

A slaughterhouse.

Summit Commons was definitely a slaughterhouse for lost souls.  It was like everybody was either hooked on dope or selling it.  And the poor kids.  "Damn," Trip Love thought hopelessly.  Then something brushed against her arm.

Love turned cautiously, her hand poised to snatch her 38 pistol if need be.

"What up Mav!"

It was Sheila.  Trip Love was known in the hood of Summit as Maverick, a renegade, ruthless drug queen that bullied her way into the drug trade of Summit Commons and had many enemies to attest to her successful infiltration.  So when Sheila swiped her hand along the side of Love's arm, a fear that thought only of self-preservation crept thru love's blood.

"Girl, don’t never sneak up on me like that!  You wanna get shot?"
Sheila bobbed her neck sassily, "Damn.  ’cuse me for breathing."  She twisted and cocked her head haughtily.  Offended.

Love knew Sheila’s feelings were hurt and immediately felt pity for her. She wanted to apologize but that wasn’t part of the character she had to perpetrate.  Love studied Sheila’s motions.  High again.  She was always high.  Had no job. Couldn’t sling a rock if she threw one.  Anything that came into her hands became a bargaining chip for more crack.  Even herself.  It didn’t matter.  Love had found out the hard way about Sheila.  When trip love first started her assignment in these projects, Sheila was still on top of her game a little bit.  She was still relatively clean and could pull of cons just with her looks.  She was a beautiful woman, which made her fall even sadder.  She was beautiful.  The dope boys of Summit had definitely taken advantage of that.  Love hit the scene at a time when Sheila was about to make that crossover from smoker to fiend.  Sheila befriended the newbie Maverick.  "We both females out here trying to get our hustle on." she had told Love.  "I can help you.  I’m from here and I knows these muthafuckas.  They ain't gon mess wit u as long as u wit me."  Love needed an in.  Someone who could show her the scene, provide her with the information she came to get.  Sheila had presented herself on the up and up.  Love fronted Sheila a package that day and didn’t see her again for 3 weeks.
By the time Sheila showed her face again, she had transformed from fiend to straight geek monster. 
“Was it good, ice-cream?”  Love had snuck up on Sheila at the bottom of some project steps sucking a dope boy’s stick.  “You can let me know when u get the dick out ur mouth.”
Love waited for Sheila to handle her business.  The dope boy threw her off a crumb of crack and left, smirking at Love as he passed by.  By now, it was common knowledge that “Maverick” had been got by Sheila.  Love rounded the corner.  The sight of Sheila’s cum stained sunken face made Love want to pull out her gun and badge and just start arresting everybody in sight.  Sheila hit her pipe right there at the bottom of those pissy steps.  Right in front of Trip Love, undercover narcotics detective.

Love had given Sheila the routine expected ass kicking for her transgression.  She had to.  If she showed any signs of being soft, the hood would be on to her.  But the ass kicking was relatively minor in comparison to what some other dealers would have done over a few ounces of hard.  After that, Love maintained her affiliation with Sheila purely on the tip of using her as a human mapquest through the wastelands of Summit Commons housing project.

“So what’s up wit u today Sheila?”  Love asked, trying to butter up the awkward situation she had created.
“Ain't nuthin up but this here piece a crack rock.”  Sheila answered and then cackled like a witch about to launch off on her broom.  Crack always made Sheila forgiving.  As long as she had some.  Otherwise…
Sheila pulled out her glass stem and, rolling it between forefinger and thumb, studied the residue that clouded the small tube.  “This mutha is packed too.  But I’m a save this rez for later and just go ‘head and add this cousin to the family.”  Sheila stuffed a pea-sized palmful of soft crumbs into the pipe.  Love glanced suspiciously at the substance.
“Why that shit so soft and crumbly?  S’pposed to be crack not cream.”
“You don’t even know.”  Sheila responded with empty confidence.  “This Jake’s shit right here.  This that shit that had Precious running ‘round the parking lot butt naked.  A ha!”  She laughed heartily.  “Some people just don’t need to smoke this shit.”
Love turned and faced Sheila with disbelief.  “Don’t nobody need to smoke this shit.  What is u talking ‘bout?”

There came the, by now familiar to detective Love, sound of the drug sizzling as Sheila heated it in her pipe.  Suddenly, some kind of instinct hit Love.  Sheila put the stem in her lips and began sucking with lustful fervor as she grazed the bic flame back and forth across the blackened tip of the glass tube.  Love’s sense of smell kicked in next.  It was only seconds that passed, but it seemed like minutes to Love.  That smell, like sulfur.  SULFURIC ACID!  Love lunged forward and smacked the pipe out of Sheila’s mouth.  Not wanting to let go of the smoke, Sheila held her hit deep in her lungs and gave Love the vicious look of a pit who had just had his bone snatched from his jaws.  Her eyes widened.  Her eyebrows furrowed.  Her glare seemed to tell Love to go to hell.  Then, as she fell backwards into a haze of desperation, her eyes widened in disbelief and fear.  Her lips parted releasing a thick stream of smoky ribbons.  “Oh, God,” were her last words.