Fan Fiction

Prologue :: Chapter 1 :: Chapter 2 :: Chapter 3 :: Chapter 4 :: Chapter 5 :: Chapter 6 :: Chapter 7 ::
Chapter 8 :: Chapter 9 :: Chapter 10 :: Chapter 11

Sonny Crockett was annoyed he had gotten off on the wrong foot with the new boss. He tapped his pencil on the edge of his desk, trying to decide just how he was going to make things right.

“By-the-book, Sonny!” his old Lieutenant used to shout. “Or so help me, God…”

The memory made him smile.

Lou Rodriguez had been one of the good ones. Hell, sometimes he had been a pain in the ass, but it was obvious he cared about his officers; worrying constantly about the dangers they faced undercover as well as recognizing the prevalence of burnout in his department. And he understood Sonny, appreciating the value of his uncanny intuition and investigative skills by looking the other way when department rules threatened to get in the way of progress.

Obviously, Castillo wasn’t going to operate that way and the thought of continuing his career under a man with an iron fist bothered Sonny more than he wanted to admit.

He sighed.

It was true things had gotten a bit lax since Lou died. Castillo must have realized from the moment he walked in that he was going to have to play hardball if he wanted to get things under control.

“Guess the guy deserves a chance,” he grumbled.

He picked up a notebook out of a drawer and began to pull his thoughts together, hoping he could make his narrative of yesterday's violent arrest brief and to the point.

The case he had been working on for over a month had been going nowhere. Al Lombard, a major figure in Miami’s underworld, had his finger in many pies, but gambling was his most lucrative. He had friends in high places and the department was beginning to realize that the only way they were going to nab him was to gather evidence against one of his operatives and hope they could cut a deal.

So, he and Rico had been in the Scarab all day yesterday, spying on Mickey Owens, a small time bookie doing business from a dive located on one of the canals that crisscrossed the area. They were equipped with a telescopic lens and the parabolic mike that picked up every word of the conversations between the bookie and his customers.

A soft rain had been falling that morning, soaking Crockett’s clothes and making him damp and uncomfortable.

“Boy, I hate gambling stakeouts!” he grumbled to Rico. “They are the absolute lowest ebb!”

“Hey listen to you, ‘white-bread’!” Rico teased back. “Kicking up the deck shoes, taking in the rain, getting paid genuine coin of the realm for it and what do you do? Complain, complain, complain!”

“Who cares about busting some small-fry bookie who’s never going to roll over?” Sonny muttered.

Rico was a newcomer to Miami and Sonny went on to explain that the only reason they were sitting there was because every year, the police commissioner rounded up all the gamblin’ low life, trying to convince the taxpayers he was close to nabbing the big time mobster, Albert Lombard.

Of course that was a joke. Lately, Al Lombard was truly one of the “untouchables”. It was well known that he didn’t even get parking tickets.

Rico went back to the surveillance scope they had mounted on deck just in case things started to get interesting. “Hmmm. Mickey’s got company. Check it out!” he murmured.

Sonny peered into his binoculars but when his eyes adjusted to the scene across the water, he did a double take.

“My God, could it be?” he thought.

He played with the focus for a moment, praying his eyes were playing tricks on him, but no, he had been right the first time. It was Barbara Carroll.

“Hey, Tubbs. Turn up the volume a little.”

Sonny felt the muscles in his neck tighten.

There she was, the carefree girl he had known from his high school days, hunched over and clutching the edges of Owen’s desk. Her voice was full of fear. She was pleading for her life.

“The interest has already gone up like a sky rocket! You didn’t have to take my husband’s tools. We’ve got kids for God’s sake! He’s trying to support us!”

The bookie wasn’t paying much attention to her begging. Sonny heard her try and switch tactics.

“You gotta give me a chance! I can win it back! I know I can! I can feel it!”

Someone else had entered the room and Sonny caught sight of a hulking figure approaching Barbara threateningly.

“Just tellin’ Mickey here that I’m doing my best,” he heard her say. He saw her shrink back, almost falling back into a chair.

“Best don’t count,” a voice growled menacingly. “You got the bread or what, huh?”

“No, I don’t have it yet!”

He grabbed her arm and roughly threw her down on a chair.

“Let’s hit it!” Sonny shouted to Rico, revving up the Scarab’s engine and heading toward the other side of the canal. He and Rico splintered through the flimsy office door just as Barbara Carroll began to scream.

“Freeze! Miami Vice!” Sonny shouted.

And that’s when things began to fall apart.

Nothing they tried seemed to bring the big man down. Struggling fiercely, all three of them rolled down a flight of stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom. Sonny and Rico took turns leaping on his back and trying to wrestle him to the ground but he threw them off effortlessly. Customers in the café scattered as chairs flew and tables cracked under the weight of falling bodies. Not until Sonny knocked the guy out with an empty beer bottle were they finally able to slap the cuffs on his wrists.

“Whew!” Rico said, sitting down hard. “That beats the hell out of any ride on Coney Island!”

“Ya ain’t lyin’ there, pal,” Sonny answered. He sat down hard on the floor and glanced across the café they had just demolished. Barbara Carroll, the beautiful woman they had just rescued, was standing at the top of the stairs, chewing on her bottom lip and looking away from him in embarrassment.

He went to her, holding out his hand. “It’s been a long time,” he said softly.

When she saw his reassuring smile, she suddenly broke down, falling into his arms with uncontrollable sobs.

“Hey, hey, come on now,” he whispered, lifting up her chin until their eyes met. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“No, Sonny. It’s not okay. And I’m definitely not okay.”

“I don’t know. You look pretty okay to me.”

She took a step back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and when she saw his eyes twinkle as they caressed over her lovely curves, she rewarded his flattery with the tiniest of smiles.

The story was not pretty. Just as he suspected, her gambling habit was out of control and she was indebted to a loan shark up to her neck.

“I tried to quit. I really did!” she told him.

“How much are you into these people for?”

“Eleven thousand dollars.”

Sonny cringed.

“I paid seven of it, but they never heard of ‘best efforts’. Two days ago, they broke into Jerry’s garage and took everything. It took him six years to build up that business and they wiped him out in one day.”

“Who?” Sonny asked.

She told him about the loan shark Vincent DeMarco and Sonny frowned.

“What?” she asked.

Then he told her how DeMarco was the right arm to Al Lombard, a big time racketeer and a guy his department had been after for years.

“You don’t mess with Al Lombard’s money,” he told her. “Once you owe him, it’s forever.”

“Sonny, you’ve got to help me!”

“First you’re gonna help yourself. I want you to file a complaint of assault against this enforcer, Rusack and then we’ll go after Vincent DeMarco together.”

“Look what they did to me over money! How do you think they’ll take it if I try to put them behind bars?”

“We’ll protect you!”

“You're going to move in with us? Twenty-four hours a day? Protective custody?”

Sonny looked away guiltily.

“I didn’t think so,” she smiled sadly. “Look, I need just one favor from you, Sonny. Please. For old times sake. Go to DeMarco. Ask him to give us back Jerry’s equipment.”

“It doesn’t work that way, honey.”

“Please, Sonny. I’m at the end of my rope. You said it yourself about these people. They’re dangerous.”

She was pinning all her hopes on him and he was doubtful he could deliver. The only language a loan shark like DeMarco would respect was some form of strong-arm hustle he was used to using on his own victims.

Her soft brown eyes drew him to her, filled with a silent pleading impossible to resist.

“Damn, she was good.”

“Okay,” he murmured, realizing with an instant pang of remorse that getting involved with Barbara would be breaking one of his own cardinal rules of survival:

‘Never let it get personal! Cause when it gets personal it gets messy
…and when it gets messy, somebody’s gonna get killed…’

Too late now! He was into it up to his neck.

His arrest report was finally down on paper, and adding in a few finishing touches, he threw down his pen with relief.

“Okay! That should satisfy him.” He laced his fingers behind his head, watching Rico approach from across the room.

“His highness has requested our presence in the conference room at twelve. Better get that report in his box before he notices it isn’t there,” Rico whispered, smiling wickedly.

“Yeah,” Sonny answered. “Hey, Trudy! Are you going by Castillo’s office? Here, if you don’t mind. Could you hand that to him with the other mail? I’m trying to lay low at the moment. Thanks, darlin’. I really appreciate it.”

Prologue :: Chapter 1 :: Chapter 2 :: Chapter 3 :: Chapter 4 :: Chapter 5 :: Chapter 6 :: Chapter 7 ::
Chapter 8 :: Chapter 9 :: Chapter 10 :: Chapter 11