It was a rainy night on June 12th, 1976. It was a busy night at the police station with phones ringing and pens writing stuff down. The Chief of Police was in his room conflicted morally by what to do with all these cases. The Chief's name was Leonard Anderson, and he just spending another tired night at the precinct working on a case at 2 AM -- he hasn't slept in days.

"I'm getting too old for this crap!" barked a 56-year-old Anderson.

He was then interrupted by a lazy, 34-year-old lieutenant cop busting into the doors of the precinct. His name was Lieutenant Lewis Carton, a lousy cop that didn't play by the rules and had a drinking problem. He had the worst behavior in the precinct over all these years and the Chief was just about done with him.

"Carton, you failure! What have I told you about showing up 3 hours late?!" said Chief Anderson. 

Carton was hung over after partying at the other police precinct, "Get off my case, Chief."

"What would you know about a case, boy? Just get up to your office, my back is killing me."

Lieutenant Carton went up to his office, drinking from his flask as he walked up the stairs. These mahogany stairs always depressed the Lieutenant. He thought about his Chief, a middle-aged overweight balding black man in suspenders who was clearly getting too old for this. 

At the same time, Carton was thinking about his wife and kids, who he hasn't seen in 3 weeks and forget their anneversary for the 3rd time yesterday. And his grandma, who broke her hip because Carton spilled some sesame oil on the ground but never told her he was the one that spilt the oil and her insurance could barely cover it. I'm such a failure, Carton thought. God, how long are these stairs, Carton thought.

The Lieutenant finally makes his way up to his office. He's been coming to this place for the last 15 years. His desk and floor were messy, cases everywhere unsolved and unorganized.

Carton said, "Well, another day at my dead-end job."

Carton started sorting the cases, he skipped breakfast this morning but he pulled a box of stale donuts from out of his desk, and enjoyed them in a combination of cold, bitter coffee and a nicely lit cigarette. 

"God, this case. It's really been driving us all insane."

Carton immediately gets to work on the case, finishing 3 cups of cold coffee and playing his brand new Jazz fusion cassette tapes on the cassette player. He looks up at his case board and sighs.

"There's a new Kingpin in town, he's been selling all sorts of firearms and narcotics all over San Francisco. Pathetic, my 14-year-old can find what he sells, but my entire force spent the last 15 years not having a trace." Carton thinks about his daughter, who was arrested for using cocaine in the school bathroom.

Carton slammed his fist on the board and started crying, "Darn it!" He violenty started throwing things around his room and slapped all his papers and folders on the ground. Then he heard a loud knock on his door. Carton frantically got up and quickly wiped his tears with his sleeve and tried to get his office as clean as possible, he knew it was the Chief at his door

"Carton open this door!" the Chief of Police bangs on the door. "Hurry up, we don't pay you with other people's money for nothing!"

Carton groaned as he stumbled over to the door and opened it, revealing the intimidating 320-pound, six-feet-four, thick mustached man of a police chief. Chief Anderson smugly drank from his mug of hot coffee with two other officers from the precinct as he invited himself into's Carton's office.

"Well, well, well," laughed the Chief. "Look what we have here. Fifteen years and not even a followup on who might be filling up ol' Sanny with all these powders, huh?" The Chief arrogantly sipped from his cup of coffee as the other two officers laugh.

"I gotta hand it to ya, Carton. You got guts. Will. And determination, or whatever. Problem is, kid, you're a hothead."

Carton replied. "What did I say about you calling me a kid, Chief? I'm a grown, thirty-four year old man!"

Chief sighed. "Listen, lieutenant, this precint is only gonna run one way. That's my way, until either the Mayor or the drug dealers in this city tear this place down by hand. I'd like to give you a proposal."

"Proposal?" Carton said. "Sorry, I don't play by the rules, boss man. You must think I'm one of those space cadets out in the street, don't you?"

"You listen to me!" Chief Anderson shouted. "I hired someone to mellow you out--a rookie, but he's good for it."

Carton laughed, "Ha! A rookie? You got some teenager who thinks he can play with professionals like me?" Another officer walked in, one Carton had never seen before in the precinct. His badage said Officer Rentrap.

"Hey! Who's this stringbean?"

Chief sips his mug. "Carton, this is your new partner. He's only been here a week, but that's not a problem because I want the two of you on traffic duty for a while. You're not ready for cases yet."

Lieutenant Carton couldn't believe this. Fifteen years down the drain as he was humiliated by everyone in the room, demoted to nothing but a traffic officer. 

"You can't do this to me, Chief! I don't need no partner and that's for sure! I'm the reason why--"

"You're the reason why the city hates us, Carton!" Chief interrupted, aggressively sipping on his mug with nothing in it now. 

"Now, I want you both out there on those streets issuing parking tickets and reporting any littering."

Carton and Officer Rentrap were out in the light traffic of their neighborhood trying to see if anyone was up to no good. For the three hours they've been out here, it's been boring. Just sitting in a hot car in the hot California summer in their Ford Galaxie.

"God, to think I'm stuck with a rookie." Carton takes a sip off his flask and looks around the block once more.

"Well, I've got to start somewhere, and I need someone to guide me. Besides, Chief told me during the interview that you were a loose cannon." Rentrap said.

"I don't give a darn what that moron said! You've got some nerve bringing that idiot up in this pathetic situation we're in. Jesus…"

Officer Rentrap wore thick glasses, he had terrible eyesight yet the youngest and slimmest cop on the force, only twenty-three years old. He had short dark brown hair, completely different to Carton's thick and blonde mullet that was slowly developing a receding hairline.

Officer Rentrap looked around the car. "Boy, this place is a mess. I'm going to look under these seats and see--"

Carton slapped Rentrap's arm. "Don't you touch anything! This car is the only good part about this good-for-nothing job."

Rentrap picked up a random cassette tape that had "Mysterious Traveller" written on it. He put it in the cassette player to put some music on.

"Woah, Lieutenant Carton, I didn't know you listened to Weather Report." Rentrap said, enjoying the music.

"Hold on… You listen to this type of music?"

"Of course I do! I heard this album when it first came out."

The two immediately formed a bond over their enjoyment of the fusion band Weather Report, and would go on to conversate about their music during their boring day on the job.

"Rentrap, I'm not saying I didn't like Herandnu, it's just that--"

Officer Rentrap interrupted his partner, "Hang on.. What's that!" Rentrap pointed at two guys suspiciously standing under a street lamp.

"Wait for it…" Rentrap said.

The two strangers looked around and exchanged a bag of white powder for a bag of pringes, and the two went on there way.

"Hey, nobody move! San Francisco police." Carton and Rentrap hopped out of their police crusier and showed their badges, the two men were frightened and started to run causing them to have to chase the perps on foot.

Carton breathed heavily. "Get back here, dirtbag!"

Carton sprinted at near-Olympic speeds and chased the man who sold the bag of powder, immediately tackling him with head-to-head contact causing him to hit the pavement and go unconscious.

"Uhh… Is that guy okay?" Rentrap said as he eventually caught up with the fast and suprisingly athletic Carton.

Carton was breathing hard. "Crime doesn't pay. Let's see what we got here. Ah, just what I thought… Fifteen grams of blow. And looks like we have an address in this bag, too…"

Rentrap replies, "Ah… New lead."

Carton and Rentrap laughed. They had little time for dealer unconscious on the pavement, they just got an address for the most mysterious case in San Franciso… They hopped back in Galaxie, listening to the rest of the Weather Report tape on the drive. They arrived at the location, a dingy warehouse with the smell of cocaine so strong it was leaking into their police cruiser.

Carton took a breath of fresh air in. "Ah, smell that, rookie. "

Rentrap and Carton sneaked up to the entrance, they give each other the signal of when to bust through the building.

Carton draws his gun on everyone inside. "Everyone, on the ground, all of you dirtbags! Search em, partner."

Rentrap aggressively slams every worker to the ground and pats them down. "No guns."

"Then I guess it's our lucky day," Carton laughs. "I love seeing you cocoa-melonheaded idiots off to prison."

Carton and Rentrap handcuff everyone and grab their duffel bag and start confiscating all the cocaine and money for the precint.

Rentrap chuckles, "Ha, what would the Chief say about this…"

"He's not gonna believe this one. I've failed that man for fifteen years… You know, you're not so bad, rookie."

Suddenly, a deep voice shocked the two from the corner. "Hey now, drop your guns and no one has to get hurt…"

Carton and Rentrap quickly turn and aim their pistols at someone. It was the Chief! They couldn't believe their eyes, he was in a suit and aiming a shotgun at the both of them.

"What are you doing, Chief!" Rentrap shouts.

"What do you think I'm doing, boy?! I'm sellin' CRACK. And cocaine! Getting you off that case, Carton? Man… that was just to get you off my tail of what I've been really up to!"

"Drop the shotgun, Chief. It's two against one."

Suddenly, Chief Anderson ripped off his expensive suit, revealing his chest and stomach covered in C-4 explosives.

"I wouldn't want to test whatever hypothesis you're thinking of, Lieutenant! Drop your guns and we'll tell city all this money came from traffic stops. Or, you shoot me and burn all the money up and kill yourselves as well in the process. Your choice."

Carton held his aim. "God… Fifteen years, huh?"

"Fifteen years," said Chief Anderson. "Just a game of cat and mouse… But you were too stupid to figure out. Who is the cat? And just who is the mou--"

Carton heard enough. He fired as much as his magazine as he could into Anderson's chest, aiming right in the middle of his explosives. Carton remembered how the Chief described him as an Officer as his life flashed before his eyes, as did the spontaneous combustion of military grade C-4 blinding him and sending a shockwave throughout the building killing him, Rentrap, and the twenty-nine workers that were still handcuffed.

He knew that he would die, and so would everyone in that building that night. But no one in the city would ever know who brought all the drugs in, and no one would ever know who put a stop to it all, being the unnamed heroes that would go unseen. All Rentrap and Carton knew in that moment is that after a fifteen-year game of cat and mouse, they were truly the cats at the end of the day.