Dragonfly

"Any idea why he'd have called her that?"

The guy shook his head.

"No, but he didn't call anybody by their real name. My name's Howard, but he always called me 'Toro' because he said I looked strong as a bull."

I left then and went back to my desk. I was pretty sure the woman living in Carlos' apartment was the Dragonfly I was looking for. What I needed to prove that was catching her involved in drugs. Since Clarence had told me this Dragonfly sent a man on Sunday to deliver more drugs and to pick up the cash he'd collected, it made sense that her Sunday shopping trips were to oversee that operation and to collect the money.

I set up twenty-four hour surveillance on the building to start that night just in case she decided to deviate from past practice. She didn't, so that Sunday at about ten in the morning, I was parked in my unmarked sedan in the lot of the apartment complex across the street. I had an unmarked car at each end of the street ready to follow her when she left. Once I caught up with them the first car would back off and I'd take over for a few blocks before handing off the tail to the second unmarked car. We'd keep switching the tail every few blocks just in case she was as smart as Clarence thought and figured out she was being followed.

About one, I saw an Asian woman walk out of the building and get into a black Cadillac SUV. I radioed the vehicle description and license number to the other officers, and when she turned North, told Aaron she was headed his way.

Apparently, she didn't realize we were following her because she didn't make any odd turns or run though any red lights. She just drove to a self-store place out on Gallatin road, pulled in through the electronic gate and then sat in her SUV. I left Jerry ready to block the exit and Aaron and I parked in the lot in front of the place.

About five minutes later, a black Ford van pulled through the same gate and parked beside her. A guy got out of the sedan with a gym bag, and after the woman opened the door to the storage building, they went inside. When they came out, the woman was carrying the gym bag. I radioed Jerry to block the exit. Aaron moved his car to block the entrance and I joined Jerry.

The SUV pulled through the exit gate first and then beeped the horn when she saw Jerry parked there. The guy in the sedan pulled up behind her and stopped, then got out and walked up to the SUV. I'd joined Jerry by then, and yelled at them both.

"Metro Police. Put your hands up, turn around, and walk backwards toward the sound of my voice."

I figured at least the guy would try to run, but neither of them did. The guy turned around, put his hands up, and started walking backwards like I'd told him to. The woman didn't turn around but she started walking towards Jerry. I told her to stop and get on the ground, but she wasn't listening. She kept walking toward Jerry.

I didn't see Aaron come up to the guy from the sedan, push him down on the asphalt and cuff him because I was watching the woman's eyes. She looked like she was getting ready to do something. She was about thirty feet from Jerry when her eyes flicked down at the purse she was carrying. Just like Bart always did during our gunfights, she was looking to make sure where her purse was. That probably meant she had a gun and was getting ready to use it.

I pulled my Glock and leveled it at her, then told her to get on the ground. Instead, she quickly jammed her hand inside the purse. I saw the blade flash in the sunlight as she pulled it back out and started running at Jerry.

There's a rule they teach you at the academy, and that rule is if you're being attacked by a perp with a knife, you probably can still draw your weapon and put the perp down if he's at least twenty-one feet away when you start to draw. That presupposes the officer can draw and connect with a basically un-aimed shot in less than two seconds. In reality, a perp hopped up on adrenaline can sometimes run faster and unless you practice instinctive pointing of a weapon a lot, you're likely to miss. The woman was a small target and she was fast.

I already had my Glock aimed at her chest, but the woman was only about fifteen feet from Jerry before I could touch off the first of three rounds. Jerry got off two before stepping to the side in case she kept running.

When my first round hit her in the middle of the chest, the force of the impact made her drop the knife and slowed her down a lot, but didn't stop her. Jerry's first round hit her high on the right shoulder and spun her around. My second round hit her on her left shoulder and Jerry's missed. My third round missed too, because she was falling to the ground when I fired. She'd covered the last ten feet before she did, so if either of us had missed, she'd probably have gotten at least one swipe at Jerry with her knife, and she'd have been too close to Jerry for me to risk a second shot.

She was still alive when we got to her, so Jerry ripped open her blouse to try to stop the bleeding from the chest wound. I keyed the mike on my radio and requested the EMT's and a patrol car. After dispatch confirmed both were on their way, I got the first aid kit from my trunk and ran back to Jerry.

She'd stopped breathing and Jerry was doing CPR, but I knew it was useless. Her eyes were blank and staring off into space. My shot had hit her dead center in the chest and probably had punched through her heart. It was only the adrenaline and her momentum that kept her going until Jerry's shot spun her around. We both knew it wasn't going to do any good, but we kept trying to bring her back until the EMT's got there and pronounced her dead. It wasn't until they put her on a gurney for transport to the morgue I saw the dragonfly tattoo over her right breast.

Jerry and I surrendered our weapons to the patrol officer who got there a minute or so later, gave him our statements, and then drove back to the station. We'd be on administrative leave until the board cleared the shooting. We weren't worried because Aaron had witnessed the whole thing, but procedure is procedure. I'd be out of the case for at least a week, so another detective would take up where I'd left off.

Jim Conners was that detective, and after he interrogated the guy from the sedan, he told me what he'd found out.

The guy admitted to being the intermediate between Susie and Clarence. She knew of Clarence through his old supplier, none other than Carlos Pena. The guy also said he was glad Susie was dead. She'd told him that if he ever breathed a word about her operation to anybody, if he ever stopped working for her, or if he ever stole even a dollar, she'd cut off his dick and balls and laugh while she watched him bleed to death. He believed her because he'd heard from a guy in Mexico that Susie had killed Carlos.

When she came back from Mexico, she kept living in the apartment like Carlos was coming back, and she also took over his business. Carlos had done all the drug deliveries and money collection himself, but Susie was too smart to take that risk. Instead, she hired this guy to do that for her. He knew if he got caught he'd end up dead, but it was really Clarence who was taking the biggest risk so he stayed on as her courier.

Every Sunday afternoon, he'd meet another guy behind the high school and pick up a new supply of drugs, then drive to Clarence's house and drop off the drugs and pick up the cash. Then, he'd meet Susie at the storage place, give her the money, and get paid.

He said when we busted Clarence, Susie wasn't worried. She had another house and had found another guy to run it. He was good enough to give Jim the guy's name and the address of the house. When Jim and half a dozen officers raided the place, they found about the same thing as I'd found at Clarence's.

That guy was in custody and was talking as well. Apparently, Susie's method of keeping her employees loyal was to pay them well and tell them if they ever crossed her she'd smile when she killed them. Once the guy knew Susie was dead, he was trying to save his own ass from life in prison. Jim staked out the high school for two Sundays in a row, but nobody showed up so they had no leads on the guy who delivered the drugs.

The raid on Susie's apartment didn't yield any drugs, but they did find almost two hundred thousand in cash. Jim talked to the building manager while the officers and techs did the search and found out Susie paid him the rent in cash. You'd think that anybody making a rent payment of over twelve grand a month in cash would raise some eyebrows, but apparently the building manager claimed that wasn't all that unusual.

Jim did try to connect him with the drug organization, but it turned out the building manager was just greedy. The "tip" of five hundred a month Susie gave him probably helped him ignore the fact that most people don't carry around twelve grand in hundreds.

It took eight days before Jerry and I were cleared for the shooting. That night, I drove over to Penny's corner. When she got in my car, I drove to the same alley and handed her two twenties -- one so she'd have something to show her man and the second just for her. She grinned.

"I saw about the shooting on TV. I guess Mattie must have told you what you wanted to find out."

"Yeah. The woman was a major drug dealer in Nashville. We got most of the rest of her organization too, thanks to Mattie. By the way, you thought any more about giving up hooking? It would be the best thing you've ever done with your life."

"Yeah, I have. I'm getting old enough johns are harder to attract, so I'm not bringing in as much money as the younger girls. Howard won't like it if I quit, but he's not like some of the other guys. He won't chase me down and make me keep working. He'll just find some twenty year old who wants some quick money and give her my corner.

"Mattie says I should go to bartender school like she did and she'll loan me the money. She says it isn't all that hard, and you make good money with the tips. I'm just waiting until the first of the month when the next class starts.

"By the way, Mattie says she likes you. You oughta go see her and tell her thank you for what she told you."

I did go see Mattie again, but first I went to tell Mr. and Mrs. Evans about Susie. They weren't surprised, but I could tell they weren't happy about it. Mrs. Evans cried and kept saying, "I wish somehow I could have figured out how to straighten her out."

I don't know if I made them feel any better when I told them some people are just born to end up like Susie, but that's what I told them. I do believe that too. Most people would never think of breaking the law, well, except for speeding and maybe cheating a little on their taxes, but there are a few who seem to go out of their way to break every law they can.

I figure Susie was one of those. Some people might say she was mentally ill, but I don't think she was. What I think is that some people are just evil to the core and there's nothing anybody can do about it. That's why I and a lot of other guys and girls wear a badge -- to protect the rest of us from people like Susie.

When I walked into Jason's that night, Mattie saw me and grinned.

"Penny said you might come by. She said I helped you find that girl you were looking for."

I'd been thinking about what Penny had said about Mattie liking me, and now that I wasn't on duty, I looked at Mattie a little differently. Like I said, she wasn't beautiful, but she seemed like she might be fun and I hadn't been out with a woman since my divorce ten years before.

"Yes, you did, and I'd like to thank you for that. You ever have dinner with a cop before?"

Mattie smiled.

"No, but there's a first time for everything. Where would a cop take a bartender to dinner? I thought you guys always ate at fast food places."

"That's just when we're on duty because we don't have much time to eat. When are you off?"

Mattie leaned over the bar. I couldn't help but notice the nice cleavage when her top fell open a little more.

"We're closed on Sunday, and I don't have to be back here until six on Monday night. Think that'll be enough time?"

That statement about having enough time and the fact she was fluffing her brown hair when she said that made me wonder if she was thinking about more than just dinner. I didn't ask anything like that, or course. I barely knew the woman.

After that dinner, though, I knew Mattie a lot better, and I was wishing I had asked. She turned out to be a pretty sharp woman with a great sense of humor, and she wasn't bashful about saying what she thought. I liked that last thing because that's something I need from time to time.

Most people meet cops when they've done something wrong, and because we're taught to use what the Academy calls a "command voice", people get the idea that cops are all domineering assholes. There are a few who are that way, but most of us are just ordinary people once we take off the uniform.

Most cops do have a pretty big ego though, me included. You have to in order to put up with what we see and do everyday, but sometimes you need to have somebody to tell you you're full of it and to shut up. I thought Mattie could do that quite well.

The second time I dropped by Jason's and asked Mattie to dinner wasn't a reward for her. It was a reward for me. That first dinner, I found myself becoming more relaxed than I had in years, and as the evening progressed, decided I liked Mattie a lot. That second dinner didn't change my mind, so I asked her out again the next Sunday.

We were walking to my car after eating when Mattie slipped her hand in mine. When I squeezed it gently. Mattie chuckled.

"I haven't held hands with a man since high school, but it feels nice. Do you hold hands with all the bartenders you take to dinner?"

I grinned.

"Only the bartenders I like a lot."

"What else do you do with the bartenders you like a lot?"

"Well, I don't know. You're the first one."

Mattie turned, put her other hand on my arm and stroked it a couple times.

"I suppose we could find out what you'd do."

I stopped and turned to face Mattie.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Mattie put her arms around my neck and grinned.

"Since you're a detective, maybe I need to give you a clue."

Mattie gave me two clues that night in the parking lot of the restaurant. The first, she could have faked. She pulled herself close enough I felt her breasts pressing into my chest and then she kissed me. When she eased back down and smiled up at me, the second clue -- the way her eyes looked really open and bright -- told me the first clue was exactly what it felt like.

Mattie's house in Gallatin looked homey on the outside, and it was filled with antique furniture on the inside, but I didn't spend a lot of time looking at either. As soon as she locked the door behind us, Mattie put her arms around my neck again and pushed her breasts into my chest when she kissed me. She felt so small and delicate I was afraid my embrace might be too tight, but Mattie only sighed and wiggled herself a little closer. When I let one hand drop to the swell of her hips, Mattie pulled away gently and smiled at me with her wide open eyes.

"I think you've figured out what I want. Now show me."

Afterwards, Mattie told me her bed was an antique "Jenny Lind" bed. All I saw once I undressed her was a very sensuous and inviting woman lying on the sheet with her arms out and beckoning me. Her body, just like her face, wasn't what most men would call beautiful, but her round breasts, thick, dark nipples, and the dark brown bush on her mound spoke of the erotic woman she truly was.

I suppose it was the way Mattie had basically asked if I'd make love to her more than her body that made me feel that way. It was knowing she really wanted me and wanted me to want her. My ex had never given me that feeling. With her it was more of a feeling she was doing it because she thought she had to. When I stretched out beside Mattie, she hooked her smooth, soft thigh over me and snuggled close enough I felt the hair on her mound against my thigh.

Everything Mattie did just made her that much more desirable, from kissing me with her nibbling lips and searching tongue to the way she caught her breath and then moaned softly when I cupped her breast. I felt her nipple stiffen and grow longer when I stroked it, and the way she rocked her mound against my thigh when I gently rolled her nipple between my fingers.

When I let my hand slide down to cup her hip, Mattie lifted the leg draped over me a little higher, and moaned when I slipped my hand down until I was feeling the puffy, hair covered lips between her thighs. She moved a little, and I felt those puffy lips open, so I slipped a fingertip between them. Mattie moaned and rocked her mound against my thigh, then wormed her small hand between us and found my cock. We were so close she couldn't really stroke it. She just ran a fingertip around the swollen head, and then giggled when I involuntarily lurched.

"I think you're ready. So am I."

I thought she was going to roll over then, but instead she raised up and straddled me, found my cock again, and then moved it back and forth between her slippery pussy lips a little. When she moved the head back to her entrance, I saw Mattie smile and then start to impale herself.

She worked slowly at doing that, just moving down a little and then raising back up. With each stroke, a little more of my cock slipped inside her. About halfway in, Mattie made a few little short strokes that caused her to moan again. After that, she took a deep breath and slowly pushed herself down until she was sitting on my thighs. I groaned when she contracted her passage around my cock.

Mattie didn't go very fast and that was a good thing. It had been a long time for me and the feeling was pretty intense. It was made more so by the sight of her breasts wobbling up and down and back and forth as she rode my cock, and if she'd gone any faster, I'd have cum in seconds.

It didn't help me at all when I reached up and fondled her breasts and then rolled her stiff nipples, but it helped Mattie. Mattie gasped and rocked her hips a little, and when she did that, my cock head slipped into someplace really wet and slippery that sucked at my cock when she raised back up.

From time to time, Mattie would bend down to kiss me, and those kisses were also making it hard to hold back. They weren't kisses, really. They were Mattie's tongue tangling with mine through the little moans she made and the little rock of her hips just before each moan. After a couple of those kisses, I couldn't stop myself from thrusting up when Mattie went down, and each time I did, Mattie would gasp and then moan again.

I knew she was close when she gently pulled my hand down to her mound, and I didn't need her to tell me what she wanted. When my fingertip touched her clit, Mattie's hips sort of made a double lurch and she gasped. When I started stroking beside the stiff little button, Mattie sped up her strokes a little, and then a lot. I felt her get wetter as she did, and when I looked up at her face, her mouth was open and she was starting to pant. I felt little tightening sensations around my cock, and then the feeling of her passage pulling in and then pushing out. That pushing out caused the feeling of something wet and warm flowing around my cock and down onto my balls.

Less than a minute later, Mattie lurched down on my cock and cried out. I lost track of everything then. Her hips started rocking her body over my cock so fast I couldn't begin to keep up with the thrusts I was trying to make. When she cried out the second time and I felt that pulling in and then pushing out of her passage, I lost it and groaned as the first spurt shot up my shaft and splattered inside Mattie. She was still shaking when the third spurt flew from the tip of my cock, but when the shaking stopped, she eased down so her breasts were flattened against my chest.