Creepers Read Free

appreciate your help, Quinn, but how do we explain missing TA documents to Dolchik?" Captain Stan Dolchik was their immediate superior. Corelli knew Quinn agreed with his appraisal that Dolchik was a pompous, ignorant bastard.
    "Oh, yeah, Dolchik." Quinn ran his hand through his fiery red hair and thought a moment. "You wouldn't have to explain. Dolchik is sure to find them. You know, rooting around in garbage is his favorite hobby. There's only one place to put the reports where he'll never think to look if you really want them to be missing." Quinn retrieved the papers, squared them neatly on the desk, and dropped them into Corelli's "in" basket. "The prick will never find them there."
    Corelli cracked up. "You know, Quinn, without you around here, life would be a lot duller."
    "And without you around, Detective Corelli, life would be a lot simpler." Quinn deflected the compliment in his usual bantering way, but he was blushing furiously. He'd liked Corelli from their first handshake a couple of years before. Since then the feeling had grown into a solid friendship. Corelli was straight-arrow, an okay guy who forswore the bullshit that so many TA cops--particularly the detectives--handed out. But then, most of the other guys hadn't become cops for the reason Frank had. Frank Corelli was a man with a mission, and Quinn respected him for it.
    "Face it, Quinn, life would be a whole lot simpler all around if we just got out of this rotten job altogether." His voice suddenly grew serious; it was time to get down to business. "What's been going down since I got sick?" Four days out of work was a record.
    "The usual shit--a spate of purse snatchings, a couple of assaults, and someone tried to knock over the Eighty-first Street token booth." Quinn yawned with exaggerated ennui.
    "So. . ."
    "So Lou Jacobs was checking out the john for perverts. When he returned to the platform, he caught the kid red-handed."
    Corelli shook his head. "Won't they ever learn?"
    "Times are rough, Frank. Hunger and anger is a bad combination."
    Anger. For a moment Corelli tasted the bitter gall that signaled the presence of his personal demon. Five years he'd lived with a blinding rage. Christ, was it really that long since Jean was taken from him? It hardly seemed possible. Five years. When the hell would the pain ever go away? Or would it ever?
    "Lots of people are hungry and even more are angry, Quinn, but they don't go around ripping off their neighbors. Most of the easy targets in this city don't have much money themselves. Christ, when I think of the number of old ladies these punks manhandle to get a few bucks for the movies..."
    "Yeah," Quinn replied listlessly. He'd heard Corelli's sermons too many times before to pay much attention now. "So, how ya feeling?" He veered the conversation toward a safer topic.
    "Like shit," Corelli admitted. "But I'm needed here."
    "You and an army. The City Council should change the name of Labor Day to Sitting Duck Day."
    "Did Dolchik get in any extra men?"
    "Three. But with our roster down by four, that still makes us one short."
    "Who's not here?"
    "DiBattista and Amory are on vacation. Harper's still in the hospital and Valeriani is still. . . out." Quinn pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket and began assailing his front teeth. "Need I say more?"
    "I've heard too much already." Corelli's stomach began to twist into a tight knot. "How the hell can we do a good job when we're understaffed? Don't those fucks downtown realize the city is being taken over by the yahoos?"
    "Tell it to the Marines, Frank." Quinn slid off the desk. "Glad to see you're back." He ambled away to a desk he shared with three other cops.
    Corelli stared after him a moment, then shook his head. Jesus, there I go again, spouting off about bureaucratic stupidity. No wonder Quinn beat it. He should get some kind of special recognition from the TA for putting up with two years of my shit. Still, there was a lot to complain about--two cops on