8 Nolo Contendere

It was a unseasonably cool spring during 1988 and history was becoming tumultuous and New York city as well as Miami city were beginning to make history, and not in a good way either. Drug overdose deaths were spiking and cartel deaths were skyrocketing, the sicario's bodies kept piling up so high that commercial freezer trucks had to be used for the purpose of storing the bodies of those who died because there was no more room left in the morgue. People were dying left and right and it was terrible to see the blood running like rivers through our streets and there was nothing we could do to stop it. And don't get me started on the rise of the mob and the five mafias including the Gambino, the Columbo, the Genovese, the Lucchese, and the Bonanno families, their destruction and the havoc they were wreaking on us all was insane. I could go on and on about what the hell they owned, but rather, the question would be what didn't they own?

I was especially terrified of what would happen to my fiancée and me if they tried to proposition either of us to be dirty cops, I know this for sure, I would never ever compromise my ideals and my values as a NYPD police officer just for a short gain in wealth. I knew that all evil started with even one dirty penny touching my hand and it would be all over for me. And yet, the division wanted me to go undercover as a drug dealer for a rival cartel and I was terrified. I had every right to be terrified. 

That night me and Sargent Gordon Wilson from the Organized crime division decided to go together undercover, I was nervous because I was assuming a new identity with a new partner and the mafia was notorious for shooting people whenever they felt like it. I went undercover to sell one of the traffickers drugs, it was a two month surveillance operation and it was lengthily and painstaking as well. We had a lot of resources invested in this and we were determined to not let them slip by us. We were already facing financial struggles thanks to one police precinct and them being stuck up their ass about funding while Miami and other police departments were getting the best of technologies to fight the War on Drugs. 

I hated how politics was constantly hindering our ability to deal with the mess that was destroying our city and destroying us from the inside out and corrupting us all. It made me sick. Very very sick inside. It was that night just as I was about to pull out the Halliburton when one of the suited bodyguards opened fire on me in the docks and the bullets ripped into my side, I fell backwards as the pain exploded into my side. My body was alight with pain and there was nothing in the world my mind could focus on but the pain. At that moment, nothing else mattered except trying to stop the bleeding and I grabbed Gordon's hand, terrified of dying before I could get the chance to marry my fiancée. Gordon, to his credit, grabbed his tie and tied a tourniquet and held pressure on my multitude of wounds until the ambulance finally came and I finally could relax and pass out. The next time I opened my eyes I was being wheeled into the OR, I could see the medics pushing the gurney along with doctors and surgeons who were shouting out medical terms and I could see that their white gloved hands were stained red with my blood and I was trying to breathe, it was starting to get difficult to breathe when I felt a plastic mask strapped to my face and I could feel someone putting a blood pressure cuff on me. I passed out again from the pain that was terribly agonizing and it was scary. I never had seen so much blood pour out of me at once. I screamed as I could feel my vision blur and everything went dark and then I passed out. 

I woke up again, this time to a heart monitor beeping in a steady rate as Naomi slept in her chair, she looked like she was frazzled and tired in her sleep. Her hair looked like she had run her hand through it because of stress and I didn't blame her, I would have done the same thing too. Soon Naomi woke up with a start and she quickly moved closer to me and whispered "Ed? Are...are you awake? Oh god! You scared me...the doctor was worried you weren't going to make it through surgery at all. You almost died Ed!"

She sobbed in her hands, I pushed a button to sit me up as I winced in pain from the gunshot wounds and then I pulled her close and kissed her deeply. I loved her very much and I felt so bad about scaring her, she deserved better than this. Naomi didn't need to be engaged to someone like me, in a dangerous job where the next day could easily be the last day. I would never want for her to be in any pain because of me willingly inflicting it on her or for any reason whatsoever. I wished I could make her feel better as she wept. About three months later after so much physical therapy and desk duty, Naomi and I started planning our wedding, but first we needed to go undercover as a couple together, I didn't realize it then...but Naomi would die because of a tragic series of events that nobody could have ever foreseen, not even me. 

Naomi and I went to the parking garage to intercept a shipment of drugs from Columbia, we were to pose as a wealthy couple trying to buy some cocaine for some wealthy party in upstate NY, I guess the rich really love their damn blow when it comes to getting an edge on the competition. What was worse that even poor people in the Bronx did this shit as well and OD'ed on this stuff in disproportionate rates like we had never seen since the Great Depression. That day she fidgeted with her sparkly dress, she seemed less like herself, she seemed anxious. That was not good at all, it was a bad sign of what was to come. I held her hand and whispered that everything would be okay and that we would soon cuddle and watch some shitty soap opera when the drove over with a truck, it was painted in the official logo of a plumbing company that was the front for the cartel and ran drugs for those who paid straight up cash for the drugs. The man was outright seedy looking and was wearing a pair of cargo pants and a button up shirt, he had one of those beaked hats on and smiled 

"So you and your missus are going to throw a party?"

I nodded "Yeah, now show your goods."

He raised his hands in mock surrender and began "Calm down. We haven't gotten to the good part yet eh?"

I just rolled my eyes, sticking to my cover as the asshole billionaire wall street trader and added 

"I guess not, but you better move your sorry ass before I find someone else to show me the same shit without the theatrics"

The man cursed in his language and spat out something like "Gringo" I pretended to not hear as he opened the backdoor to the van and holy moly, the back of the fucking van was stuffed and packed with pallets of cocaine, it made the East river bust seem like nothing in comparison to this bust. But just as I could start negotiating for the deal to go down, suddenly motorcycles revved up and drove by us, and before I could react or reach for my ankle pistol, gunfire erupted. Chaos and madness ensued as the drug dealer fell to the ground leaking inky blood as I pulled my snub nosed revolver and fired two rounds at the driver of the motorcycle and the driver slumped over dead and the motorcycle crashed onto its side, the passenger who was the gun toting asshole fell onto his side and he quickly raised his hands in the air as I barked, aiming the pistol at the son of a bitch "DON'T MOVE! DON'T MOVE!"

I handcuffed him, and when I looked back, I gasped in horror, right next to the dead dealer's body...was my dead fiancée's body. I let out a scream, a loud, primal scream, my beautiful soulmate, my future wife...she was dead forever. She was never going to come back and my soul shattered as I sobbed and sobbed. I don't remember taking the criminal to the car, I don't remember being held back from punching them, but what I do remember is me running over to desperately try and save Naomi even if it was futile in the end. I tried to do CPR for so long, my hands were shaking and bruised and my vision was blurred with tears. Myles pulled me away as the coroner wrapped her body and then the drug dealers body in black body bags. It struck me hard by this metaphor that no matter what we do, or feel or how rich or poor we are, we will end up in the same fate...dead in black body bags.