Page 10 of Mimosa

He was humiliated, and in front of a guy that he could look at every minute of every day for about a hundred years.

“Everyone, thanks for being here,” Taran said to the group as Camp grabbed the white plastic chairs from the main area and took them into one of the offices, and they were asked to gather in there for their meeting.

Cosmo grabbed Mims’s hand and whispered, “You’re fine. And you’re here for a reason. I’m right here, and so is Murph.”

“Thanks.”

The office wasn’t huge, but they fit and the three took seats while the four cops stood, the hot one, Sonny, pacing behind the others as he started the meeting. “This group is bad, and they do know about you, but all it is for now is them keeping their eyes out for you messing in their interests.”

“Will we know what those are, so we don’t clash with them until…well, until we’re all ready for that? If we ever even have to?” Murphy asked.

Camp answered, “With Sonny and Sandy being undercover in the BBC, they will hopefully get more than even we can get on them. We’ve collected a lot, but not on the group as a whole. Members only and not all of them. The head of the snake, he’s clean. We want him, so, we’re completely pooling ourinformation, our resources, and we’ve made our own joint task force.”

“I thought you had one,” Murphy said.

“We do, but this…is better. The task force is for show. The police, well, we have no idea who all is in this BBC. So, the task force is in play, sure, but this one? It’s the real deal.”

“And these police officers,” Murphy said as he nodded to Sandy and Sonny. “They’re inside the group. How am I guaranteed that they aren’t really double agents or whatever it would be called?”

Mims watched Sonny’s eyes flash with pure fury. He slowly turned and walked to the desk, sitting on the corner as he glared hatefully at Murphy. “I’m not going to take offense to that because you don’t know me. Let’s just say that I have more dogs in this race than you do. I loathe dirty cops. They took a lot from me and my family. I don’t give a fuck if you don’t trust me. I’m not sure I trust you. You’re a crew of fucking thieves.”

Cosmo stopped Murphy from going off, and Mims knew that was a good move. Murphy’s temper didn’t flare often, but anyone speaking about his family, well, that was the one thing that could do it. “How about we calm down and work together? We’re crooks, sure, but you’re snitches for your own people. I met a cop inside, one that got busted by your IA people. He was just pocketing a little cash to help with his sick wife. He was in prison, and in gen-pop to boot. He was brutalized, all for trying to help his family, so no use trying to act like you’re one of the good guys. Maybe there just aren’t any good guys left, and we’re all just trying to be the lesser of all the evils out there.”

Mims nodded but looked right at Sonny. “Maybe we’re all good guys.”

Sonny gave him a little smile, then moved his eyes to Cosmo. “Okay, sure. It’s…okay, I get it. We are going to have to trust each other. That’s hard, sure, but…I’ll try, if you all do.”

Murphy winked at him and Mims smiled shyly, but soon he was looking right back at Sonny.

“How is this gonna work?” Cosmo asked. “Taran went undercover, hitting on me.”

“I won’t be hitting on anyone, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m volunteering to be the one to watch your group, which means I’ll be hanging around the pub a lot, reporting back to the BBC.”

Sonny’s eyes met his as he was saying it, and Mims got the chills.

“Okay, well, what will you be reporting? It’s not like we have schematics sitting around on the bar.” Murphy pointed out.

“When you’re at the pub, when you’re not, if you’re wearing new jewelry, if you’re driving new cars. A mere observer. Maybe I’ll get to know some of you, make you trust me, and then report that back. Whatever I can do.”

“Same as I was going to do, if I hadn’t just come clean like I did. We need to pretend like he’s any other guy there. Just a customer.”

“Unless,” Cosmo began. “Well, unless he pretends to fall for one of the bartenders too. That would be great for your bosses, right?”

Sonny’s eyes locked with Mims. “Yeah. They know I’m gay, and almost didn’t invite me in, but then they thought it would be useful.”

Cosmo side-eyed Mims the second Sonny looked away from him. “Um, maybe Haze or Hippy would like to pretend to be your…you know, boyfriend.”

Mims’s jaw dropped, and Murphy laughed. “I think Mims might want the job.”

“If…if I didn’t have a boyfriend, I could,” he said weakly.

Sonny held up both hands and said, “We can figure that stuff later. For now, we wanted to meet to let you know that these feds aren’t the only ones you can count on.”

Murphy asked about their safety, and Sandy explained, “They know nothing real about you all yet. They simply know you steal the things they’d like to steal, but boosting cars and diamonds isn’t their big source of income. I think they simply want someone to keep an eye on you. They likely figure that if you want to make real money, you’ll start doing some of the terrible crap they are. You know, pimping and drugs. Maybe they think you pimp your bartenders out, and that would be encroaching on their turf.”

“Well, I need to know for sure if they target us in other ways. My children will be taken out of there and protected. I won’t let them be bait, or any of my guys.”

“I’m okay with being bait,” Cosmo said. “I can take care of myself, and some of the others are too. Hippy’s showing us how to use guns, how to fight with knives, whatever, but if the heat turns up anymore than them keeping a pair of eyes on us…we need to know.”

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