Double Grades

by Kristine Robinson

  I know I can make a difference on the streets, fighting crime. I know that with every hour I put in, I'm slowly helping to change the face of the world around me. However, I'm still technically a green behind the ears cop. I lack experience and cases, but I know that I'll do everything I can to make it to the top.

  “Modest, too,” Andrea says with a wink, and I laugh. Part of me is already imagining what she'll be like in bed, and if she'll be anything like what I hope. Maybe she'll place her lips on my neck, run her hands along my sides, and press those substantial boobs against mine. I wonder how soft her skin will feel as it glides along mine, how tight her core will be as I thrust my fingers into her, and watch her dissolve into a litany of moans, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she loses all focus, lost to my touch.

  And yup, that's turning me on. Oh dear, maybe doing that might have been a mistake.

  I bring my thoughts back to reality, focusing on my charming date. “Of course I'm modest. It's my middle name.”

  “Mine's Candy. Like the sweet. Awful, huh?”

  I laugh, though my laughter dies out when I see her glance over to the door for like the millionth time this stupid evening. My previous runaway fantasies fade with the twinge of disappointment that accompanies them. “Are you alright, there?” I ask. She refocuses on me with a look of confusion on her beautiful features.

  “Huh?”

  “You keep looking over to the door. Are you expecting someone to walk in and kill you or something?”

  At this, the friendly, warm expression on her face dies out, replaced by something dark and shadowy. It's as if whatever I've just said has activated a switch inside her. The kind of switch that makes bombs explode. “No.”

  The response puzzles me. She's gone from charming rogue to complete mental shutdown. What on earth could have triggered such an intense reaction? “So, it's not anything you want to share with me?”

  “It's nothing. I'm just you know, checking out the place. I am allowed to do that, right?”

  Her defensive nature sets me on edge. The dreams I am harboring of her slowly die out. The food arrives, and the atmospheric pressure between us is now crushing. “Hey, I'm sorry if I upset you. I just saw you looking at the door a lot. I just wondered if you were finding me boring or something.”

  “Oh, sorry, then. I'll just stop looking at things now.”

  “That's not what I meant,” I sigh, though I recognize at this point, for whatever reason, she's chosen to spike up like a hedgehog on our date.

  My dreams are now firmly scattered upon the floor. There's no salvaging them at this point. The rest of the date concludes itself in that awkward, defensive vibe, until I say that I'm going to just go and head home. She doesn't stop me, and doesn't seem to care, which disappoints me more than it should.

  I really had been looking forward to this date. Our first one went so well. I felt that magnetic attraction, that promise that things would head somewhere. I'm sad that it didn't work out. However, with that kind of defensive attitude, it denotes an insecure soul inside. I'm not sure if I want to meet up with someone like that again. Insecurity breeds, poisoning everything it comes into contact with.

  Maybe Andrea Jones really did have someone out there she dreaded coming into the date. Maybe she didn't. But whatever caused her nervousness, it ruined the vibe.

  Back in my apartment, and a couple of drinks later, I decide to research up Andrea Jones using my trusty old friend, my eight year old laptop, and the internet. Her behaviour had been odd, and it stuck in my mind. One moment, she had been utterly delightful, the kind of person whom I would seriously consider for more dates and perhaps a long term relationship – the next, she wore an icy coldness, brought up by an innocent (and valid) jibe regarding her habit of looking over her shoulder. I mean, that kind of reaction is weird, right?

  It does cause the cop in me to ask questions. I realize I don't know her. Not really. One and a half dates isn't enough to know anyone, no matter how physically attractive they are, or how charming they can be. Andrea, however, did have an interesting way of ducking or deflecting the questions aimed towards her personal life, like some expert fencer poking away the points.

  Of course I'm going to be curious about that. What possible reason would someone have the need to hide personal details from, if there wasn't a few skeletons to dig up? Maybe she wasn't single? Maybe she had like fifty kids waiting for her at home? Maybe she's an axe murderer? Murderess?

  Disappointment surges through me when the Andrea Joneses of the internet don't yield the woman I had dated twice. None of the pictures match, and all the info seems off. My date may as well have been a ghost. The only physical thing that remains of her is her phone number. Deliberating over it for a short while, I decide I won't erase it. I want to keep it, so when I look at it and see her name, I'll think about her. The charming woman who almost was. A person who started out with promise, but shyed away when even the tiniest hint of her personal demons came up in conversation.

  Everyone has demons. Even me, with my good upbringing and my loving parents. I've still managed to accumulate a few in that pristine closet.

  I gulp down the rest of my wine. Fucking Andrea Jones. I was hoping to score with you.

  So much for that, then. The only person who I'll be scoring with tonight is myself.

  I do, however, in the comfort of my bed, allow myself to imagine her once more. I revive my dead fantasies once more to imagine what she might be like in bed with me, what sort of words she might choose to whisper. What her body will smell like, what odor her core gives off, and how her breasts look without anything covering them.

  I imagine all these things, as I stir myself to climax.

  I still wish that things could have worked out differently.

  Chapter Two

  A few months later, and I've seen and heard no sign of Andrea Jones, and I sincerely doubt I ever will again. Although my mind has drifted to her from time to time, she's been absent, and I've been focusing on my work. I've also been maintaining my well groomed image, partly because I know it annoys my practical colleagues, and partly because I know it makes them think twice when they realizes there's more than just air and fluff in my head.

  One thing I'm unwilling to admit out loud is that I'm inspired by the female cops and agents in the shows I've watched. I love ones like Criminal Minds, Fringe, Castle, The Mentalist, all with women who know what they're doing – people who inspire me to action. They're my heroines, my idols, and I know that if someone compared me to any of them, my day would be complete. My parents couldn't understand why I was so enamored with civil service, why I would want to waste my expensive education and the opportunities they could give me for the life of a street cop – but I wanted my own path. I wanted to help by directly tackling crime on the streets.

  “Jennifer Garcia,” chief Excelsior says, as he passes my desk and peers over my shoulder to see the mountain of paperwork I'm flying through. I immediately straighten my back, keen to make a good impression on the chief. I haven't been working as a cop for long – one year only, and I've been assigned only a few street beats. Mostly I'm given paperwork, simply because I clear it faster than the others. He has a scrunched, bulldog face set with brown eyes and dark hair, giving him a stubborn, chomps-down-and-never-lets-go set to his manner. I like him, but I've noticed he does seem to have issues trusting his cops.

  When I asked him why, once, he said it was because he's had to deal with quite a few dirty cops in his time, and more who don't have respect for other lives, and just come into the precinct to do their job and nothing more.

  “This job demands excellence,” he had said. “And people don't always realize that.”

  Those words bounce around in my mind now as I glance up to the boss and respond, “Yes, sir?”

  “I just wanted to say I think you've been doing a good job since the time you've been here. I still don't necessarily approve of some of your stylings,” he nods towards my manicured
nails, my obviously permed hair and expensive clothes, “as I believe they defer from the actual job at hand, and open you to envy and ridicule by your colleagues. But you seem to be holding your own.”

  This is about as high a compliment as I can get from Excelsior. I know he's also been nervous about me being attenuated to my first kill. It will come. Just not now. All cops know how to shoot a gun, after all. It's inevitable we'll need to use it at some point.

  “Thank you, sir.” I give my bulldog boss a wide smile, before refocusing on my paperwork.

  It's not until I'm walking home that my phone rings. I fish it out of my handbag and stare at the name. Surprise and excitement courses through. It's Andrea Jones calling. I can't believe it. I honestly thought I'd never hear from her again. Still walking, I turn the corner and head into the local park so I can enjoy the scenic route of the budding spring plants, and answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey! Jennifer. I'm hoping you might remember me. Are you free at the moment?”

  My cop senses tingling, I say, “Why?” I can't think of why else she would call me. Either she wants to apologize, fix up another date, or ask for a favor – and we're not buddy enough for favors.

  “I was hoping if you were, we could meet up. Pick things up from when they were going good.”

  “You realize you only have yourself to blame for that, right? You're the one who got all weird and defensive on me.” I can't fully disguise the bitterness that seeps into my tone.

  There's a pause. “You're right. And I can explain. It's to do with let's say... my shady past catching up with me. Can we please talk face to face? It will be easier to explain.”

  “No. What is it you want?”

  I hear her sigh in frustration. “There's someone after me. He's a notorious bank robber – a thug with little morals and a wide streak of cruelty. I only know him as Chavo.”

  Alarm bells ring in my head. “And why does this 'Chavo' want you?”

  “I used to be part of the same group Chavo now runs. Well. Before I faked my death so I didn't have to be a part of that lifestyle anymore. Thing is, that group likes to kill anyone who has knowledge of it, operating outside. And... Chavo's found out I'm a little more alive than previously expected.”

  I blink, stopping my walk in the soft, gravel ground of the park to scowl. I also see someone in the near distance who sends a shiver of caution through my spine. He has that swaggering posture I associate with criminals, that violent confidence and machismo where he has to be bigger and better than the others around. He's eyeing me from his position by the park bench where he's smoking. There's a kind of predatory interest in his gaze which makes me alert, though I try to keep my attention away from him, knowing that prolonged eye contact might make him feel like he has an invitation to talk to me.

  With Andrea's explanation of her faked death, I understand now why she doesn't have much information of herself on the internet. She's a criminal. Or a former one. Not that I'm sure if I can believe she's no longer one, unless she's desperate to prove to me she's changed. I didn't even know before this, of course. “Why the hell are you calling me about this?”

  “I think you can help me. Chavo's not on any hit list here yet, because he's mostly operated in South America. Plus, our, uh, their organization used to be good at keeping out of cop radars.”

  I notice the slip of our, and scowl.

  “However, unless I get help, he'll likely track me to the ends of the earth and kill me. I could use a cop on my side. A good one. Someone to help me infiltrate them and put an end to their operations, once and for all. Because I do have inner knowledge. I have been sitting around on it for the past few years. And it's about time I did something good with it. He's not a nice man, Jenn. They're not nice people.”

  “I should be reporting you to the police. In fact, I'll call my boss. You shouldn't have called me.”

  “Please!” Andrea's voice comes out stricken. The tone makes me pause. “I need your help. I can't do this alone. I'll die.”

  A sliver of sympathy wriggles inside me at the idea of this beautiful woman dying. But she's just as well has admitted she's a criminal. A stab of irritation courses through at her blatant attempt to emotionally manipulate. I hang up on her before I can change my mind, and I'm on the verge of calling my boss, when the swaggering man with the steel gray eyes and bald head approaches me.

  Oh, fuck, I think.

  “Look at you, you're a pretty thing, ain't you?” He examines me up and down lecherously, and I tuck my phone away in alarm. Of course I don't have my gun on me. Because I'm smart like that. However, drawing it on a civilian without precept is bad as well.

  “Go away. I'm not interested.”

  I can't help but notice there isn't that many people in the park. Would this guy actually try it on? Surely he wouldn't be so insane. He looks pretty insane, come to think of it.

  He stalks close to me. “Pretty clothes. Expensive. Wonder how you get your money, eh? Bet you put out. You like to give all the men your hole. Want to give me some, too? I'll pay good. I'll pay so you can have some nice new shoes, just for a bit of sexy Chavo's meat pounding in you.”

  Thoroughly disgusted, I walk away from him, but he's not finished yet. “Come back! Don't you walk away from me, you whore.”

  I feel his arm grab my shoulder, and I spin and knee him in the nuts, causing this despicable slime of a human being to double up in pain and clutch his balls. “You bitch! How dare you!” He gasps at me, spittle flying from his mouth. “You're dead! You're fucking dead!”

  I jog away, though I find it amusing and upsetting at the same time that he threatens a cop like that. Even if I don't technically look like one at the moment. I keep jogging, and it just occurs to me that he had called himself Chavo. Chavo, like the name Andrea had literally just mentioned to me.

  I'm trembling a little from the adrenaline rush. I hesitate on calling my boss. After long deliberation, I call back Andrea. She picks up almost straight away.

  “Hello? Jenn?” She sounds panicked and relieved at the same time.

  “Does Chavo have gray eyes and no hair on his head, and he's sort of built like a gorilla?”

  She pauses on the other end. “Yes. Why?”

  “I just kicked him in the nuts.”

  “Wow.” Andrea pauses. The silence there is rather pregnant. “Please be careful with him. He's a nasty piece of work. I'm not kidding. He's exactly the kind of person who holds grudges. Like, if you're still in the area, get away right now. That Columbian hates everyone except himself.”

  “I can see he might be a bit of a grudgy type. So. You say this guy is after you?” I speed up, creating a longer distance between me and Chavo.

  “Yes. I need your help.”

  “I want to go to my boss with this information. Especially if he's dangerous. We don't have him on our list yet.”

  “Sure. But first. Please let me meet up with you first. Okay? Then you can tell your boss.”

  I consider this a moment, even as I glance back, much like Andrea did in our last date together, and see Chavo glaring daggers at me, murderous rage in his eyes.

  “Okay,” I reply. Mind set, I take a deep breath, and walk out of sight of the angry Columbian.

  Just like the cops in the shows, it seems, I might be getting my first undercover case.

  Chapter Three

  Although I agree to meet up with her before contacting my boss, the next morning, I'm yanked away with other cops to reports of two violent bank robberies. By the time we get there to check both scenes, the robbers seem to be long gone. They have, however, left a ghastly mess at each location. Although we tape off the crowds and the forensic teams come on hand, I catch close up glimpses of the dead in the banks. The first one's a horror sight. Several civilians and bankers have been killed, execution style, likely just kneeling on the floor, pleading for their lives, before being shot and having their brains splattered on the floor by what looks like a fucking shotgun at p
oint blank range.

  I've never seen blood, bone and matter mixed up and congealing on a floor before, and it makes me want to vomit. I'm then carted to the next robbery, two blocks away, and it's equally disgusting. People have lost their lives so casually, so callously, that I can't understand it. I can't understand why and how someone would do something like this.

  As forensics enter the scene of the crime, and I'm left patrolling the tape border, trying to keep last night's meal inside me, I spot someone in the crowd. I do a double take.

  The someone looks remarkably like the Chavo that I kneed in the balls the other day. The Chavo that Andrea insists is chasing her, and has a propensity towards violent bank robberies. Much like the two that have just occurred. The man appears to be watching the commotion in smug satisfaction, and I push my way through the crowd to go and confront him. He sees the cop uniform moving, and starts shrinking into the crowd. I pick up my pace, trying to keep eyes on him, but it's not long before he's swallowed up by the crowd and disappears. I spend a few fruitless moments trying to relocate him, before giving up.