"Well, there was this constipated elephant .."
Jack laughed into his coffee. Some of it bubbled up through the snap-on lid burning his lip. "shiat," as he yanked the cup away from his mouth, waving it around just a bit too much. What filled up the lid threatened to slop onto his shirt and jacket. A delicate moment.
Tony rolled his eyes, peeling back the lid flap on his coffee.
"At the Berlin Zoo, there's this old elephant. The zookeeper's favorite. Zookeeper noticed a couple days ago his buddy hadn't been, shall we say, regular.  I guess you'd notice if you were used to shoveling one hundred pounds every day if suddenly there wasn't any."
"Like if the Desk quit booking dirtbags?"
Jack brushed imaginary coffee droplets off his dress shirt, carefully balancing the cup, gripping the steering wheel with his knees. Oddly, there are factory cup holders in police issue Interceptors, but they only fit Big Gulps, not Papa John's cop-fuel. Figures.
"Anyway," Carlos said. His eyes lightly scanning sidewalks, traffic, storefronts, a continuous sweep, a habit patrol cops learn like a baby learns to breathe without thinking about it. "This zookeeper gets concerned because elephants, it seems, can't tolerate constipation, can actually die from it pretty quick, so he stays late to see if he can't get his pachyderm pal back on schedule."
"Jesus," Tony said, "Whaddya give an elephant to make him .. ?"
Something tickled Carlos' awareness, the tiniest flicker. Something moving at the edge of his vision, out of synch. "Several of the zookeeper's pals offered to stay with him but he said no, I can handle this. So, all alone, he feeds his buddy a dozen of these fist-sized laxatives and waits around to see what happens."
Jack scanned traffic briefly then peered into his lap, looking for coffee droplets. He chuckled to himself.
"But nothing comes of it. Around midnight he starts to get really concerned and decides to give the elephant an olive oil enema, which I personally can't imagine how much olive oil that would be, but he gets a stepladder and the olive oil and a garden hose and goes to it."
"How much olive oil would you give an elephant?"
"Not something I need to know. Anyway, he climbs up the stepladder, hooks in the olive oil, and starts feeding him the hose when .. "
Jack saw it out of the corner of his eye and tried to stop. But disc brakes can only do so much, and the difference between spotting it, ocular transmission of an inverted image to the brain, instinctual understanding, instructions to the human nervous system, reactions, neuro-muscular processing and electro-mechanical signals through the Ford's brake system and cancel forty two hundred pounds of kinetic momentum with a velocity of twenty nine feet per second, the skinny rag-headed baggy assed punk had already bounced off the front right fender and was up and running before Jack could get the Vic skewed to a stop and into Park. Jack, Carlos and Tony registered the shriek of rubber as somebody behind them tried a panic stop and as their doors flew open to give pursuit, an Audi lightly tapped the them on the back bumper.

Jack saw several things simultaneously as his eyes swept around, taking in one hundred and eighty degrees in a glance.
Terrified woman with a stiff-armed locked elbow death grip on an Audi's steering wheel, pressed violently into her seat-back, eyes big as saucer's, her lips pulled open in a frozen rictus as if she could bodily will the police car three feet further ahead .. a passing motorist in the oncoming lane, gaping stupidly, not paying attention to the traffic ahead of him .. traffic still moving away in their lane in front of them, approximately six vehicles in the oncoming lane .. still life statues on the sidewalks, heads starting to swivel .. velocity difference .. a woman, running .. .dishwater blonde hair in the wind. Thin. Pale. Gaudy lingerie, not much of it. Barefoot. Small chrome automatic in her right hand. Intent. Focused. Good stride.
"She's after Rocket." Tony yelled.
Jack, already three paces away from the car and vectoring for her heard Carlos yell after him, "Gun. Gun."
The girl overtook a Korean woman with twins in a stroller, hurdled a city planter of wilted begonias, angled into Colfax traffic deftly sidestepping a Nissan pickup, it's driver desperately trying to maneuver away from her. She tucked a shoulder and hit the hood of an oncoming Buick Century, rolled like a gymnast and came up in the right hand eastbound lane, knees bent taking the impact, arms pumping, eyes fixed on her target a pair of baggy babyshiat-brown half-jeans, do-rag and tie-dyed Deadhead T-shirt weaving in and out of sidewalk traffic headed uptown towards the state capitol grounds.
Jack angled on the girl, right hand reaching inside his left armpit, snapping the release on the holster, feeling the butt of the Colt slide into his palm.
The girl could sprint. Jack started to breathe deeper. He was gaining, but not much. Not enough. He picked it up. He heard feet pounding behind him somewhere. He knew Carlos or Tony would be calling it into dispatch,  foot pursuit, Colfax, westbound, state capitol, two suspects, woman is armed. Unknown trouble.
Up ahead, Fate dealt a Joker out of it's Weird Reservoir.
Do-rag turned to look over his right shoulder just as a customer opened the glass door to Al's Lock and Key.  He hit the metal door frame left shoulder, left cheek and left temple, smacking the older gentleman across the head with a left arm still moving as Do-rag's body suddenly stopped. The customer, flinching but not fast enough nor far enough, took the blow and twisted away falling heavily to the sidewalk, his eyeglasses skittering across the concrete, collapsing onto Do-rag's legs. Do-rag, or as the street called him, Rocket, bounced straight back and fell like a sack of potatoes onto the sidewalk, a nasty gash in his hairline already bleeding, his left eye beginning to swell shut and his left shoulder dislocated.
The girl came on, steady as a train, twenty yards out and closing.
Jack gained on the distance between them but not in time.
She got there first.
She wasn't even breathing hard. Most people, a hundred-yard rundown and they're sucking wind. At Denver's 5,280 feet, even visiting multimillion dollar NBA talent gotta have more air. She stood over Rocket like a cowboy stands over a hog-tied calf about to put that white hot iron down on hair.
Rocket had no idea how much she stuck it to him, till later. When he got out of Denver Medical though, it was all over the street and eventually the 'dissing got so bad he had to give it up and move to L.A. last anyone heard. Imagine .. a girl doing that to a guy.
Rocket was out cold. Not a twitch. Not even a whimper. Lifeless as a plank. As Jack covered the last forty yards he was flabbergasted to watch her yank down the red and black lace G-string bottom, squat over Rocket and defecate right on his forehead.
A smartly suited woman temporarily suspended in the act of feeding quarters into a parking meter watched in awe and when Belinda straightened up, clapped slowly in appreciation. She was a divorce attorney. A mean one. She recovered and began to fish around in her bag for a business card. Smiling. Private joke.
And a legend was born.
Don't blindside Belinda.
She will shiat on you.

That Guy What Stole the Bacon: Clemkadidlefark:

Clemkadidlefark:[holy crap what did I just read?]

WAAAAAAY too much setup for almost no payoff, man...

/now 30 people will tell me it was brilliant and I totally missed the point

Then I shall giv youu the second half

Clemkadidlefark: That Guy What Stole the Bacon: Clemkadidlefark:

Clemkadidlefark:[holy crap what did I just read?]

WAAAAAAY too much setup for almost no payoff, man...

/now 30 people will tell me it was brilliant and I totally missed the point

Then I shall giv youu the second half

After the patrol guys had hustled her off to lockup and a visit with the Public Defender, who was already complaining there were no city ordinances preventing a person from making a statement like that in public vis' a vis relationships in general and that maybe this was really a First Amendment free speech issue, to which every cop on the floor where interrogations are conducted could be heard howling in agreement, Jack, Carlos and Tony retrieved the Interceptor, assured the Audi woman no harm, no foul (she wouldn't get out of her car because she'd wet herself and the embarrassment would be near fatal) and cruised off toward the blocky gray ugliness of Denver Police Headquarters at 14th and Cherokee to write it up.
The coffee was cold.
Carlos calmly picked up his story as if nothing had happened.
" .. feeds in a few feet of garden hose when ka-blooie!  The laxatives take hold and our buddy the pachyderm finds sweet release."
Jack Mackenzie and Tony Diamond eyed each other, eyebrows up.
"The zookeeper is blown off the stepladder or falls back in surprise, but either way, he falls. And knocks his brainpan on the bricks and is out cold."
"Don't tell me .."
"Yep. Our relieved elephant proceeds to pass about one hundred pounds of previously digested meals right on top of the helpful zookeeper, who, being unconscious, is smothered to death."
"Sweet Jesus."
That is a shiatty way to go."
"The night watchman on rounds finds him and is shocked to find this enormous pile with two boots sticking out of it, but no zookeeper."
"I could make a political joke outa that if you give me two minutes."
"It'd take that long?"
"How would you call in something like that?"
"Dispatch. We've got a DB. Need a toe tag and sixteen body bags."
"Headline. Massive Movement Murders Man."
"Colossal Crap Kills Custodian."
"How about, Elephants Never Forget?"
"What'd he do the elephant didn't forget?
"That's their little secret."
"Bugger!"
"Says you.
Carlos was convulsed with laughter as they pulled into Jack's space.
Tony and Jack laughed with him but Carlos waved a hand and choked out, "Wait, wait; now there's more."
Jack gave him an eyebrow.
Carlos could barely speak " .. Belinda .. "
Jack looked at him, "What sex is this elephant?" the faint beginnings of an incredulous "You're kidding" starting to form on his lips.
In the Detectives Bureau the newly minted Legend of Belinda was quickly upgraded to a General Rule.
The elephant was female.
Name of Belinda.
Watch out when you're dealing with Belindas.
shiat will happen.
They had no idea just how much shiat was about to happen.