To Do and Die

Sonny stretched his arms over his head as he yawned and leaned back, and then lightly groaned when he felt something pop in his back and heard the accompanying crick. From the other side of the small dark room where they were staked out, he heard his partner laughing and snippily replied, "Shut up, Ricardo."

"Face it, Crockett," Ricardo said, "You're not as young as you used to be."

"Who is?" Sonny responded, "It's been over an hour, these knuckleheads better not be giving us the runaround."

"What's the hurry, Crockett, you got a date with Elvis?" Ricardo said with a laugh.

"Very funny, Tubbs," Sonny dryly replied. After a moment's silence between them, he added, "Have you noticed what a thankless job it is we have? Think about it, how many of the dealers do we go after that end up walking, in spite of everything, all the evidence, all the confessions, all the bodies? And what about all the witnesses we promise protection to and they wind up getting killed?"

"Ours is not the reason why, Sonny," his partner told him, "There's always the option to transfer out."

"I don't want to transfer," Sonny said, "I want some of these scumbags we go after to actually go to prison, and for our witnesses to stay alive."

"That would be nice," Tubbs slowly nodded his head in agreement.

Sonny was sweating bullets, and the immense night heat was doing nothing for his disposition, neither was this case they'd been working on; 2 months undercover trying to get in with and bust up these two clowns who as far as he could already tell, had the blood of at least 500 people from coast to coast on their hands, from tainted drugs. 2 months of going through one obstacle, and another, and going from one thug, to another goon, to another wise guy, to set up this meeting tonight with the two big shots. The more he thought about it, the more Sonny concluded the whole matter could be resolved by taking them back to his place and letting Elvis eat both of them.

Static crackled through on Crockett's walkie-talkie, followed by Switek's voice, "Get ready, Sonny, they're coming in."

"About damn time," Sonny said as he got up, "Let's go."

"Right," Tubbs got up and put on a pair of dark shades despite it being the middle of the night, and the two headed outside just in time to see a pair of car headlights coming their way.

Up pulled a fancy corvette and out of it stepped two guys in their 20s who were dressed in expensive suits and looked like they belonged to the Mafia or something. The four men met halfway between the car and the house. Sonny looked at the two men and addressed them accordingly, "Sanchez, Felton?"

The men didn't make any indication to confirm his guesses. "And you're Burnett?"

"That's right, and, I'd like you to meet my associate," Sonny put his hands on Tubbs' shoulders, "Ricardo Cooper, fresh in from Colombia."

"Originally from Jamaica, man," Tubbs said in a thick accent.

"You're the supplier?" Sanchez asked.

"'Ey man, I'm the best," Tubbs said, "You wan' it, I got it. You don' see it, I get it."

"I told them that when we arranged this meeting, but they insist on seeing it for themselves," Sonny said, "Go ahead, Rico, show them what you brought."

Tubbs held out a black briefcase and let Felton take it. They opened it up and found dozens of dime bags full of heroin.

"90% pure, man," he said, "Best you'll find, and all at a reasonable price."

Sanchez slit one bag open and sampled it for himself and seemed satisfied with the product. "70 kilos, can you deliver that?"

A small glare hit one of the lenses on Ricardo's shades, he didn't let on but as he answered, he looked past the men, to the way they'd come, and saw somebody heading their way. Sonny didn't see the person, but he saw the blue lights just becoming visible, and he didn't have time to wonder how or why the uniformed stooges were coming out here, he just knew they had to hurry to make this bust before the department clowns ruined everything, again.

Ricardo told them that he had fulfilled his end of the bargain and proven trustworthy, now he wanted his payment for this shipment so he could trust them for business as well. As soon as the money was in his hand, he said to them, "There's just one more thing, gentlemen." He peeled off his shades and said in his normal voice as he took out his badge, "You're under arrest."

The words hadn't let his mouth a second too soon because that was just when the sirens had been hit and the two men whipped around and saw the squad car heading their way. They pulled out their guns and opened fire as they attempted to get away. Tubbs shot Sanchez and he went down, but Felton had hotfooted it out of there with Sonny on his tail. Felton ran for a short time before he suddenly hit something and fell down, and it took Sonny a minute to realize he had collided with another person. As he came upon the man he realized in the getaway, he'd run into a teenaged girl and knocked her down, and himself in the process.

Sonny lowered his gun as he took in the sight before him; the girl hadn't taken kindly to being charged into and she had Felton by the back of his shirt and by his hair and was screaming at him, "Citizen's arrest! You go to jail for that pal, that's called assault!"

"Alright, Felton," Sonny said as he raised his gun again, "Get up and put your hands where I can see them."

The man grunted, but did as he was told, he slowly got up and put his hands up over his head.

"Thank you, miss," Sonny said to the girl, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah I think so," she replied.

Though it was dark, Sonny was able to get a good look at her and saw that in the scuffle she'd split her lip and it was bleeding, and she looked, he thought, to be about 14 years old. He could guess what she was doing out this late at night but he didn't want to. She had short sandy blonde hair that either had natural 'oomph' to it or it was sticking out from the scuffle. She was dressed in blue jeans and a blue scrub shirt like doctors at the hospital wore. Sonny handcuffed Felton first so he couldn't get away easily, then he grabbed the girl's hand and helped pull her up, all the while Felton was alternating between muttering and screaming threats at both Sonny and the girl.

"Eh, shut up," Sonny said as he less than subtly forced Felton to the ground, face first.

"Hey Crockett," Ricardo caught up with him, "You get him?"

"Yeah well…actually she did," Sonny pointed to the girl, then asked her, "What's your name?"

"Robin Barnett, you're a cop?" she asked.

"We're Miami Vice," Crockett answered, "And you just helped us catch a very lucky break."

Tubbs escorted Felton back to where all the action was and Sonny had the girl come with him to answer a few questions before he let her be on her way.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"17, why?" she asked smugly, "You want a date?"

"What were you doing out here?" he wanted to know.

She shrugged and said, "My ride ditched me and I was walking back to town to go home, there's a shortcut through here."

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"Over on 34th Street," she answered.

Sonny did the mental math on the distance and concluded, "You're a long way from home."

"I know," she nodded.

"Sonny!" Tubbs came over to him and said, "Castillo wants to see us back at the station and he says bring our guest with you."

Sonny looked at Robin and said, "Well I know this is kind of coerced but…looks like you'll be getting a lift by the police department tonight."

She just smiled and said, "That'll be fine."