Sin City Uniform 01 - All Fired Up

Sin City Uniforms

ALL FIRED UP

Morticia Knight

A hearty thanks to Crystal Marie for allowing me to purloin one of her trademarked expressions. Yuppers, she is one fine minx.

Thorin Oakenshield and Michael Jackson strolled together down the Strip, hips bumping, singing
Beat It
rather loudly—and badly. There was a valiant attempt on their part to keep their tall, pink, plastic cocktail glasses from sloshing their drinks everywhere by holding them up as they swung their arms and asses around. They were having limited success. As they continued with their boisterous dancing, the two men knocked into a young woman, almost toppling her off her glittery platform stilettos.

Officer Shawn Everly picked up his pace, jogging to catch up to them. He couldn’t deny that being assigned to foot patrol along Las Vegas Boulevard was anything but dull. After reaching the two happy carousers, he tapped Thorin on the shoulder. Whirling around, the Dwarven leader almost dumped his cocktail on Shawn.

“Oh, hey… Sorry, Officer. I…uh…”

Shawn resisted the urge to break out laughing at the mortified expression on the partier’s face.

“We have an unusually crowded night out here, gentlemen. There are families with young kids and we don’t anyone to get hurt—yourselves included.”

Michael Jackson piped in, swaying on his feet a bit. “He’s cool. Fought a dragon and shit. He’s even got a sword for protection.”

He indicated to the fake weapon attached to his friend’s costume belt. Obviously Michael was less in control of his senses than his fellow reveler. Shawn turned back to Thorin.

“Are we gonna have any problems with you two out here tonight?”

He shook his head vigorously. “No sir, we’re just having fun like everyone else, but we’ll be more careful.”

Shawn gave him a curt nod, desperately trying to maintain his composure. “Good. I don’t want to hear any complaints about either one of you, okay?”

“You’ve got it, Officer.”

“Oh, and Thorin?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Good luck with Smaug.”

The man stared at Shawn as if he’d lost his mind. It took a moment, but he finally snorted laughter.

“Yeah, thanks, Officer.”

The two men carried on, picking up where they’d left off—but reining it in a bit. Shawn glanced around at the barely controlled chaos. Colorful neon and flashing lights were enough to keep him on sensory overload, but it was also combined with honking horns, wildly dressed people, yelling, laughter, and music, all set against the backdrop of spectacularly grand resort casinos.

His radio crackled to life. He’d moved far enough down the Boulevard that he’d gotten separated from his partner amongst the crush of humanity filling the sidewalk.

“Where is your position, Vicki?”

“I’m at the Bellagio. We’ve got a drunk swimming around in the lake in front of the shops.”

“Is he responding to your orders to get out?”

“Nope.”

Shawn pressed his lips together. The damn lake was a constant issue—it was way too tempting in the scorching desert heat. Even though it was almost seven o’clock at night, it was still over a hundred degrees. At least August was almost over. He’d been assured by the other officers that it would eventually become bearable. Since he’d only recently arrived in Vegas at the end of May, all he’d encountered so far was
un
bearable.

“On my way.”

As he wove in and out of the crowds, he spotted a cruiser pulled over. There was an officer talking to a group of sparkling and scantily clad women. He recognized Sergeant Darren Miller of the Homeland Security Saturation Team. Like Shawn, he was assigned to the Convention Center Area Command that comprised the majority of the world-famous Las

Vegas Strip. When Shawn got closer, he picked up the tail end of the conversation.

“…over the highway. It’s a five minute walk from here to the Mirage and you can take the bridge walkway there to get to the other side. Stay out of the street, ladies, it’s very dangerous. We want you to have a good time here—not get hurt.”

>

One of the women moved closer to him, as if she was about to give him a hug. He stepped back and placed his hands in front of him in a blocking gesture.

“Step back, please.”

“But I wanted to thank you. You’re so sexy. I love your uniform.”

Shawn smirked. Law enforcement in Las Vegas was definitely unique. It had been quite the culture shock from his previous experiences as part of the Gang Task Force in Los Angeles.

His fellow Metropolitan Police Department officer finally succeeded in getting the women to move along and turned his attention to Shawn. A casual observer would no doubt wonder if they worked for the same agency. Shawn wore a bright yellow uniform shirt that helped him to stand out amidst the overwhelming amount of people walking around. The MPD officers in cruisers wore khaki uniforms and so did the mounted patrol.

“Hey, Darren, we’ve got a drunk in the lake.”

Darren rolled his eyes. “Is he reachable or are they gonna have to use one of the boats?”

“Not sure. I’m headed over there now.”

“Radio it in. It’s so out of control tonight, Parker and I need to stay on the street.”

As if in confirmation, a white stretch limo crawled by in the gridlocked traffic. A woman stood with the top half of her body peeking out of the sunroof. She was yelling and flashing her breasts to the cheering sidewalk crowds.

Darren lowered his head and shook it, seemingly in resignation. He lifted it quickly and shouted out to his partner.

“Let’s go, Parker!”

It wouldn’t exactly be a high speed chase, considering how squashed together foot and vehicle traffic was. At least with the cruiser’s lights flashing, there was the opportunity to clear a path to get to the limo. The weekends were killers. No room to breathe. Bathroom and food breaks next to impossible. But he currently had an inebriated bather to deal with. Before he took off in the direction of the luxurious resort again, he contacted dispatch to apprise them of the situation and to request backup.

He jogged over to the hotel at a fast clip. As soon as he spied his partner, Vicki Ruiz, he wound his way through the people seemingly lost in their own revelry. No doubt they were also overwhelmed by the magical and decadent surroundings. And liquor. He had to speak up to be heard, and to get the circle of onlookers surrounding his partner to step aside. At last he reached her and saw what they were up against.

The man splashing around in the lake laughed and shouted obscenities at the crowd.

Then he would dive under the water when someone lobbed a plastic cup or other random object as they yelled back at him. Occasionally he would throw handfuls of change at his hecklers—riches he had no doubt scooped up from the bottom of the cement lake. It was too much for the two of them to keep under control by themselves.

Despite how unruly everything was, Vicki appeared completely unfazed. Since she had a good five years on him in terms of dealing with Vegas tourists, there was very little that ever flustered her.

“There you are, Everly. Thought I was stuck with drunken boy on my own.”

“I thought about joining him. It’s a bitch of a hot night.”

“Yeah. No kidding. I contacted hotel management to get one of their guys out here to man one of the rescue boats.”

She paused to yell at a man and woman grinding and groping each other. The carouser had a one liter bottle of some sort of alcohol dangling precariously out of his back pocket.

“Hey, you two! Save it for the clubs! And I don’t want to see that bottle break on my sidewalk. Take it out of your pants
now
.”

The couple complied, meaning that he and Vicki wouldn’t have to add dealing with them to their current list of things to do.

“They know to cancel the dancing waters show?”

“Yuppers.”

The spectacular fountain show—complete with five-hundred-foot-high-choreographed jet streams of water and a mixture of classical and pop music—would be a disaster to someone paddling around in the water.

“Good. I called this in, so we should have some additional units out here soon.”

“Let’s hope.” She had the beginnings of a furrow on her brow. “It’s getting rowdier by the second.”

She was right. The man in the water was becoming more and more hostile toward the crowd and they were reciprocating with equal vitriol. Once the Bellagio’s crew got out there, they would have to also add to their agenda the retrieval of more than the usual bits of floating trash out of the lake.

Two guys began pushing one another next to the mid-torso high stone balustrade that edged the water. Shawn lunged toward them.

“Knock it off!” He wedged himself in between the much taller men and pushed them apart. He made up for his height with his strength. “Do you really want to have your fun night in Vegas end in jail?”

“He started it!”

Shawn glared up at the indignant troublemaker. “Not interested. I’m only interested in both of you stopping.
Immediately
. Got it?”

The other man held up his hands in acquiescence. “Got it. My brother and I won’t be any more of a problem.”

Brother? Nice.

“Good. Now get out of here.”

The troublemaker spoke up again. “But we’re only watching that guy like everyone else—”

“
What
did I just say?”

“Come on, Larry.”

The reasonable brother yanked on his sibling’s arm and they moved away, but not without some barely concealed angry mutterings. There were a few generic law enforcement slurs that were audible, but Shawn found them laughable. If the surly brother wanted to learn some real insults, he needed to hang out in LA for a while. That was the one good thing Shawn had taken away from his previous assignment—an extraordinarily tough skin.

He turned back to Vicki and saw that her worry lines had increased. On her, it practically amounted to hysteria. He relied on Vicki’s judgment quite a bit. She was much more attuned to the beat of the Strip. If she was concerned, then things had to be deteriorating. Since the last fountain show was getting canceled because of the drunk in the lake, the large unruly crowd would no doubt be very unhappy. After pulling out his cell, he speed-dialed the Bellagio’s management. All of the major resorts’ numbers were programmed into his department-issued phone.

“This is Officer Everly on scene with the incident at the lake. I need someone for that boat out here right away. And can you bring up any more lights? ”

The resort assured him that it was going as fast as it could, but that it couldn’t add any more lights. He eyed the drunken tourist swimming and splashing around. So far, the man seemed okay, but beyond any other considerations was the fact that his inebriated state combined with being in the water was extremely dangerous. It would be too easy for him to accidentally take in too much water and drown—particularly with all the diving under the surface he’d been doing.

It had taken Shawn at least the first week after he’d been on duty to get accustomed to the idea that people could drink openly on the streets of Vegas. That was definitely not the case back in LA or other places in general. For the most part, everyone was in Sin City to have fun—they had no interest in causing trouble. But with over a hundred thousand people converging on the small concentrated strip area on a daily basis—even more on the weekends—there was bound to be trouble. Sometimes it was nothing more than drunkenness gone wrong—other times it would be a brutal murder. It was a round the clock, non-stop party town. They were constantly on alert.

When Vicki’s previous partner had relocated a couple of months back, Shawn had grabbed the opportunity. He’d had enough of fighting the continuous threat of violent gangs in Los Angeles. Once he’d officially been offered the position from the LVMPD, he’d moved himself to Vegas. Hard work and danger didn’t bother him. The sense of accomplishment he had as a task force team member, taking gang members off the street, had kept him working in that division for several years. But it had exacted a toll.

He’d been a police officer for over a decade and he’d passed thirty a few years back. He hadn’t been able to maintain a steady relationship in what had amounted to forever—not when any of the men he’d ever gotten involved with had found it impossible to handle the crazy hours and the unusual risks Shawn took on a daily basis. Starting over somewhere completely different had seemed like an excellent idea. Getting away from his homophobe brother had been even better. The rest of his family tolerated him, but not enough to motivate him to stay in Los Angeles forever.

“Oh shit! He hasn’t come back up yet!”

One of the onlookers pointed in the direction of where the swimmer had been only seconds before. All that remained were small ripples on the surface of the water.

Goddammit.

Moving quickly, Shawn tore off his duty belt, frantically toeing off his shoes as he did.

Before Vicki had the opportunity to register what was happening, Shawn thrust the equipment at her. To her credit, she wordlessly grabbed it. He boosted himself over the banister and dropped into the water—it wasn’t deep enough at the banks for him to dive safely, only about four feet. But it was fucking
cold
, much more so than he’d expected. Shawn gritted his teeth and swam desperately toward the dark shape floating just below the surface of the lake. He was soaking wet but his mouth was dry. His heart beat wildly as he propelled himself forward.