Checker sat behind the wheel of the Caprice, his gloved hands wrapped around the take-away coffee cup perched on his lap. His chin tucked into the zipped collar of his jacket. He kept his focus out the windshield, fogging around the edges, the aging V8 and its clogged heater core unable to keep up with the blowing snow outside. As people traversed back and forth along the sidewalk beside the car, he catalogued each one.
In the passenger seat, Kean gnawed on a foot-long convenience store pepperoni stick, chewing without enough lip contact for Checker’s liking. After Kean swallowed, he held the pepperoni out to consider it. “Do you think you could make pepperoni pancakes?”
“What?”
“Pepperoni pancakes. That could be a thing, right?”
“Anything can be a thing. Why the hell would you want to make pepperoni pancakes?”
“I don’t know.” Kean took another bite. “This is technically breakfast, right? So why not make it actual breakfast?”
Checker shook his head but didn’t otherwise respond.
Kean turned the stick in his hand. “Maybe make a smoothie.”
Checker made a slow-motion pan to his partner.
“Or a milkshake. Peanut butter and pepperoni. With pickles. Maybe cottage cheese so it’s healthy.”
“There is something rotten inside of you, my friend.”
Kean tilted his body to release a one cheek squeak. “Yeah, it’s my ass.”
“Jesus H. You sick son of a bitch.”
Kean smiled and took another bite from his pepperoni stick.
Checker cranked the window down enough to allow some fresh air but not flood the inside of the car with snow. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m a normal functioning human being.”
“I hate you.”
“You say that a lot, but I don’t think it’s true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be here.”
Checker pointed his face toward the open driver’s side window and breathed through his mouth.
Kean stopped mid-chew and focused out the clear patch on the windshield.
Three car lengths down the sidewalk, a big black sedan pulled to the curb. The driver jumped out to open the rear passenger door. A man stepped out first. Black trench coat. Black gloves. He set a black porkpie hat over his voluminous silver hair. A woman stepped out next, a light, ankle length jacket being her only protection from the weather. Smooth wrap-around sunglasses obscured her eyes. Her long red hair, nearly the same colour as the jagged scar across her jaw, had been pulled into a tight ponytail.
Kean raised his finger. “Is that…”
Checker sighed. “Yeah. ‘Fraid it is.”
“Shit.”
“You can say that again.”
The pair sat in silence as the Caprice idled.
Kean pushed the last of the pepperoni stick into his mouth, then searched inside his jacket to unbutton his holster. “We going to do this or what?”
Checker turned the key in the ignition to kill the engine. “Guess we don’t have much of a choice.”
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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
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