A Bird In The Hand

It was another day in paradise, that is if paradise was as cold as a witches tit. The Windy City, Chi town in the dead of winter, and I had been up since the crack of dawn. No one was going to say I was asleep at the wheel, besides someone had to bring home the bacon. I had mouths to feed, and for me, work was another day another dollar. I keep my nose to the grind stone, and that’s the only reason I don’t come up a day late and a dollar short. I’m not crying over spilt milk. My job is better than a kick in the teeth, and I’m not about to bite the hand that feeds me.

Let’s get to the business at hand, I was a beat cop with an axe to grind. I was on the lookout for a hit man with a face only a mother could love. He was as slippery as a fish in water, and as busy as one legged man in an ass kicking contest. I’d heard through the grapevine that this bird had been shacking up in a hole in the wall on the wrong side of the tracks. I followed the bread crumbs to a crib in the loop and took a shot in the dark that he’d be there. I got in an elevator that didn’t go to the top floor, then climbed the fire escape up the last flight. Someone was blowing smoke up my ass because there wasn’t a soul in sight. It smelled like the bums from Lower Wacker drive had been using this dump to drain their lizards.

I decided to pound the pavement back to the station, when I crossed paths with the stool pigeon who gave me the bum lead. His mouth was writing checks his body couldn’t cash. I told him not to piss on my leg and tell me it was raining, or I’d clean his clock. He cried uncle and sang like a canary.

After being a few sandwiches short of a picnic, I finally had something to go on. I may have been burning the candle at both ends, but the sun even shines on a dogs ass somedays.
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THE DAILYPOST
Dec 27, 2014
DAILY PROMPT
Cliché
Clichés become clichés for a reason. Tell us about the last time a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush for you.
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