Fish Boy

Just an average, quiet day...I was walking around the neighborhood.. Hadn't been any tire slashings in days... people were still sitting on their porches in shifts , on the lookout for the so called "ripper" and Eric Coley still had his town watch people out patrolling the neighborhoods at night..

Nobody believed that the man I had caught, Ernie Snead, a known neighborhood junkie was responsible for all of the tire slashings, but since he had been locked up for some of them!...The vandalism had mysteriously stopped. I didn't believe that he was responsible for that first rash either...How could he have ? He'd been in jail while they had been going on.

No..Whoever the ripper really was..He had gone to ground...Which would be the smart thing to do...and wait until everyone got complacent again and then start back up...I hadn't stopped my investigation into what happened..I had just decided to look in another direction...I kept that a secret though. In the days after Ernie Snead's arrest, I had grown quiet.

As I was walking toward my house...I came upon two familiar figures... Eric Coley of town watch and my attractive neighbor, Elaine Mosely.

"Now look baby.." said Eric.

"Baby?  I'm Baby now?" she said incredulously.

''Well ok Elaine...Now that I've wrapped up the ripper case..Hows about you give me those digits and we uh talk about goin out to dinner huh? and maybe a movie....then we can get some drinks and take it from there..heh ,heh, heh.." he laughed.

"Eric....You never used to talk like that...Listen at you...What? are you trying to put on airs for me or something..??" she exclaimed.

''Airs? What are you talkin about? I'm just tryin to get you to go out with me...Like I told you before..I've been liking you for a longggg time..a longgggggggggg time.." he said.

"And what is this talk about YOU wrapping up the ripper case.? Manny told me that it was Kevin and his friends that caught the guy and that you had nothing to do with it." she said.

"Manny...Manny...Why do you talk to him?  He smells like fish." he sneered.

''I recall you used to scale fish in the produce department back in the day yourself."she said.

"That's the thing about the ole days baby...They da ole days.." he said.

"How you gonna take me out anyway..you aint even got a job?" she said.

"I gets money...don't worry about that...If I didn't have money, how would I have paid for your tires?" he snarled.

"Ohhhh it's like that Eric??....Everybody knows that you sell weed on the side...Well everybody but the public that reads about you in the paper and that sees you all up on the TV..Wonder what they'd think if they knew that the head of the neighborhood townwatch is the biggest drug dealer in the neighborhood and on top of that...lives with his mother?" she said.

"Aint no need in makin this personal." said Eric.

"Oh I aint...I don't care what you do." she said.

"Look...I'm only dealin until I can get a job....Times is hard....My car is workin...I clock more dough than ole fish boy any day of the week."

"Don't call him fish boy." she said.

"What is he then?  He cuts fish all day in the supermarket...He comes home smellin like fish. He's a fish boy." sneered Eric.

"Jealous ?" she asked.

"Damn right I'm jealous..Jealous that he got you...I been liking you for a long time, a long time." said Eric.
''I'm sorry Eric...But Manny is a nice guy, he's more than a fish boy as you say, and we've been gettin pretty close...I told you that I'm kind of spoken for.." she said.  "Sorry."   and she walked off...I didn't want either of them to know that I'd heard the conversation....so I ducked behind one of the apartments...I filed this entire conversation in the back of my mind.

Eric was livid...He stomped his foot and strode off in the opposite direction...She was fine and she was wearing a sexy little number that was snapping the heads of men along the avenue...I could feel his pain.

II-

I went back to the Police station to talk to Ernie Snead..The suspect that Clerow, Owen Todd and Sean Jackson had helped me collar a few nights before. He was sitting in the holding room eating a Pulled Pork sandwich, some chips, some potato salad and a coke...He looked a lot better than he had when we picked him up.

When he saw me , he frowned....

"What do you want?" He said.

"I need to ask you about the tire slashings.." I said.

"Hey man....I slashed those car tires that night...but that was the only night I did it..I didn't have nothin to do with those other tire slashings." he said.

"I know that...You got a perfect alibi....You were in jail." I said.

''Right."

''Why did you do it?" I asked.

"I was bored...I felt like doin somethin...I had heard about these tire slashings so I got in on it..That's all..." he said.

I took out a photo of Eric Coley's automobile...with the flattened tires...

"Did you do that?" I asked.

"Nah....That car wasn't on my block...I only did the cars on my block man and just that night...I swear." he said.

"You used a butcher knife right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you ever own a fish scaling knife." I asked.

"A what?" he said.

"No, of course you didn't.....This wasn't you....Okay..thanks pal..Good Luck." I said and I got up....Satisfied that Ernie Snead was not the ripper.

III-

Kool Kat and I were drinking at the Mermaid Club that night...

"So you think you got an idea who is doing this?" he said.

"Yeah...and I sure hope I'm wrong...but I gotta play this string out..." I said.

"So how do you play it out? " he asked.

"I gotta do something real foul and underhanded to maybe...just maybe push this guy over the edge." I said.

"Sounds like fun..When do we set it up?" he asked.

I smiled....

"You enjoy the thought of this too much." I said.

The Big Man smiled wryly!

(Conclusion Next)