Fifty Dollars A Night

Outside the snow is falling, each flake a tiny little speck of white that floats quietly through the moonlight to softly kiss the ground. By itself, each one is nothing, but the weatherman says by tomorrow morning there’ll be six more inches on the ground. That means I’ll be out there with my shovel cleaning the drive again.


Inside, my fire is crackling noisily, the yellow flames gnawing at the birch logs stacked on the andirons. In an hour, the flames will yield their seat to red, glowing coals that burn hot and slow, slow enough to be stirred back to life in the morning. Already there are a few claiming their right to the logs. It’s almost as if they burn so hot the flickering flames leave for cooler spots.


The scotch in my glass is down to one last swallow that I toss in my mouth and hold there, savoring the earthy blend of flavors ripened to smoky perfection over the years spent aging in the cask. I swallow, then reach for the bottle to pour two more fingers of the amber ambrosia into the heavy crystal glass.


On January nights, like this, the snow, the fire, and the scotch all set my mind to remembering other times in my life. Some people would think it’s because of my age, or that when the single malt in my glass relaxes my mind, I’m trying to relive old times. I think those people probably have just existed through life. I’ve lived it, so I have many things I like to remember.


It happened, along with many other events more noticeable to the public, one night in October of 1991. I was an experienced cop with two tours as an MP in Vietnam and twenty years of wearing a badge, and was sure I’d seen about everything there was to see.


I turned the plain white sedan onto Hayworth Avenue and drove slowly as if I was looking for something. In truth, I was. The popular name at the station for Hayworth Avenue was "Hooker Alley". There were six blocks of old storefronts garnished with the occasional corner bar between Ashland and Rosemont that every night seemed to sprout women in extremely short skirts, low cut tops and ridiculously high heels. If one wanted a short time with their expertise, all one had to do was pay.


About every six months, we ran an undercover operation on Hayworth to keep the girls on their toes. We knew they wouldn’t stop, and they knew we could only hold them for a few hours before their pimps bailed them out. Sometimes, it almost seemed like a game. With plain cars and officers dressed as civilians, we tried to get them to tell us what they offered and at what price. With street smarts and very good memories for our faces, they tried not to get caught.


If we had a new face to put in a car, we’d usually get half a dozen. They’d be mad, but they were mostly mad at themselves for letting their guard down. Once at the station, it was like a family reunion. We all knew each other from other sweeps.


I drove through the green light at Rosemont and then through the one on Jason. There was a parking lot in the middle of the next block where I could turn around. I was headed back down toward "the Alley" when I saw a woman standing by the street in the middle of the block.

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