Crossing Lines (The Whole Story)

I stood with my body pressed hard against the brick wall. My hand held my gun tight, my finger ready to pull the trigger. Dante’s motionless body was in front of me on the ground. I didn’t dare step out to check and see if my partner was still alive.

“Hand over the drugs and the money Colton.” A voice I knew all to well yelled from the end of the alley.

I couldn’t do that. Lines that should have never been crossed had been crossed. There was no going back.

“You know I can’t do that Rib-Eye. I’ll be a dead man if I come out there. The law is on my side you should give yourself up.”

“To hell with the law. I’m the law now. If you don’t hand it over I’ll kill your sister.”

Sweat was pouring down my neck and back. I had to stall. Dante had radioed in for help before he was shot. Back up would be here soon.

“You mean you would kill the mother of your own child?”

“As I see it I would be doing myself a favor. This has to be done my way because that’s the way I roll.”

Finally the cruiser pulled up with its lights off. Suddenly two shots rang out. One bullet hit against the brick wall and a women’s voice screamed out. The second shot hit me in the side. My Kevlar vest didn’t let the bullet penetrate all the way through, but I felt the pain from my broken ribs from the impact. I held my side trying to breathe through the pain. I heard screeching tires and a siren pulling away into the distance. How did it get this far out of hand I wondered?

I met Rib-Eye at the academy. He was the biggest guy on the force standing six foot four and two hundred seventy pounds of rock solid muscle. He was known as Robert Buckley back then and the reputation of beeing a real ladies man. I was the one who gave him the nickname after he ate three rib eye steaks at dinner one night.

I was just a middle class kid from the suburbs. There is really nothing extraordinary about me. I'm five eleven, sandy hair and gray eyes. Rib-Eye came from a privileged family. His mother was a pediatrician and his father had just retired from the FBI. His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps. Rib-Eye was happy to be a beat cop in Brooklyn.

After our initial training we became partners. I remember the first night we stepped to the outside of the law. It was just a small bust. We came across a couple of teenage kids with some pot in an alley just like the one I'm in now. We confiscated the drugs, told the kids we would take it to the lab for testing and get back with them. Of course they gave us false information and we never went to the lab with it. Sometimes we used it and sometimes we sold it, but it was all small time stuff until about a year ago.

Around the same time Rib-Eye and my sister Gloria started living together. I noticed they were living large on the modest paycheck the city provided. When we were on the beat together Rib-Eye was constantly on his cell phone having quiet conversations and making unexplained stops in our police cruiser. I knew something wasn’t right, but didn’t have enough information to say anything. That is until Rib-Eye and Gloria had the big fight two days ago. She thought he was cheating on her. In a fit of rage Gloria took an ounce of coke and fifty thousand dollars from the house and handed it over to me. She told me there was more at the house in a hidden wall behind their bedroom closet. Beware of a women scorned I thought. It all started making sense; Rib-Eye was running his own cocaine drug ring. Gloria filled me in how he would either bust the competing dealers in the city or run them out of town with his gang.

A car pulling up interrupted my thoughts. It must be back-up coming to get me, though I couldn’t tell in the dark. Suddenly two figures were in front of me. They kicked Dante’s body out of the way. The bigger one punched me in the face slamming my head into the brick wall behind me. Dazed I felt myself being lifted and then tossed into a back seat of a black sedan. After a short ride I was hauled into a house, thrown into a chair and tied up. The two goons left me alone in the room. The fog was lifting from my head. I could see that I was in Rib-Eye’s house. I was in the den on the first floor. There was a window to my right. If I could get to it I could jump out. I tried to struggle free until a scantily clad Latino looking girl no more than sixteen walked into the room. She was waving a switchblade around my face. I could see remnants of cocaine under her nose.

“Don’t make any fast moves sucka or I’ll cut you up.”

She stroked the blade across my cheek and then stabbed my hand.

I winced in pain trying not to let out a scream. She turned around and walked over to a small table. A mirror with a straw sat waiting for her. She snorted a line and came back towards me. I had to try to distract her before she sliced me again.

“Did you do a music video for Fifty Cent? You look just like Carlita Zoom.”

“No I ain’t no Carlita. My name is Champagne. So you like what you see mistah?”

Before I could answer she lifted one breast out of her tank top and ran the flat side of the blade across her protruding nipple. She licked her pouting lips and took a step closer. Her breath was hot on my face.

“You wanna a little bit of Champagne mistah?”

“ You are very pretty.”

“Well you can’t have no Champagne because I’m Rib-Eye’s girl.”

She swiftly sliced the blade across my check. I felt the blood running across my lips and into my mouth. I spat the blood back at her.

“To bad Rib-Eye is just using you. My sister and him plan to leave here real soon. I know you’re not apart of the permanent plan.”

“Liar! Liar! He loves me. We’re leaving for Mexico tonight.”

With doubt and tears in her eyes she slashed me again across the other cheek. As I screamed out Rib-Eye walked through the door. I stared at him in disbelief. He had escaped from the police chase. Champagne ran to his arms.

“You loves me don’t you Rib-Eye. Tells me that you do.”

“Yeah baby I do.”

Rib-Eye slapped her ass and pushed her away.

“Now go get in the car with T-Ray and Bad Dog. I’ll take care of this guy.”

Champagne did as she was told, but not before turning around to stick her tongue out at me. Rib-Eye walked towards me and then started untying the ropes.

“If you had played ball buddy I wouldn’t have to do this to you.”

“You can’t believe that you’re going to get away with this?”

“I do and I will. As soon as I finish you and then your sister I’m out of here.”

He pushed me ahead of him towards the door leading to the basement.

I stopped and bent down pretending to tie my shoe. I grabbed the pistol I kept in my ankle holster and quickly shoved it down the front of my pants as I stood up.

“I wouldn’t want to break my neck falling down the stairs.”

Rib-Eye chuckled and shook his head. “I really hate to kill you man. You always had a way of making me laugh.”

When we got to the center of the dimly lit unfinished basement he had me kneel down and put my hands behind my head. The prick was going to kill me executioner style.

With my back to him I asked, “Can I ask you one thing before you this?”

“Yeah go ahead ask.”

I turned around with the pistol in my hand and shot him between the eyes.

I looked down on his twitching body on the floor and asked, “Were you doing this just to piss off your father?”

I took his gun and headed upstairs. From the open living room window I could see two big goons and Champagne hanging around outside the car. I picked off the bigger one with the gun in his hand first. As the other tried to jump in the driver’s side I got him with two shots. His body lay dangling from the front seat onto the concrete. Champagne was running from one end of the car to the other and then back around the other side. It was almost comical. I put my gun in my belt and headed outside, I had other plans for Champagne. When she saw me she stopped moving like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

“Get in the house.” I commanded.

When she was inside I walked up to her and ran my hands around her body.

Quietly she asked, “You want some Champagne mistah?”

I found the switchblade in her back pocket.

“No, I think I’ve had enough of Champagne”

I slit her throat and let her body drop to the floor. Suddenly I felt like all the humanity I had in me was gone. I went down to where Rib-Eye lay and grabbed his cell phone. I called Gloria and told her to get here fast. Together we cleaned out the house of all the drugs and money. When she was gone I called the station. I described the scene as it happened leaving Gloria out of the picture.

Six months later I was awarded the medal of valor by the police force. I was able to sell the drugs all at once to a guy in Jersey at a discount rate, a deal we were both happy with. I put all the money in an off shore bank account and sat on it for awhile. Right after Gloria had the baby I quit the force.

Today Gloria, Jayden and I are driving across the Fulton County line into Hamilton County. I paid cash for a quiet little farmhouse in the Adirondack Mountains. I hear it’s a good place to raise a kid up right.