by V. P. Trick
“I found a job at a small coffee shop across from the park, near the gym; I work part-time.”
Why the fuck? She didn’t need a job. She already had one, writing. Her books were selling fine, and she was no struggling writer. Even though Central paid her close to nothing, a notch above the minimum wage for the filing clerk impersonation job, she’d never requested a raise because she earned more than enough money with her books and paintings. Not that she had a lot of expenses, clothing, makeup, food, wines and stuff. No car, no house, just a fucking hotel suite, the rent already paid for the next five years. She even had shares in the hotel chain for Christ’s sake.
“What happened to your money?” Stupid question but it was the only reason he could think of for her to work in a coffee shop. “What did Ingrid say?” He knew Ingrid to be very sharp about money. She watched over Patricia like a hawk. Protectiveness was the one thing he and the old broad had in common. A penniless Patricia might be a good thing, though. He had plenty of money, from the MacLaren clan inheritance but mostly money he had gained during his youth and had invested wisely and he looked forward to her living off of him.
She torpedoed his fantasy fast enough. “I have enough money. I don’t need money. I need a job.” She looked at him pleadingly. “Christopher, don’t you see how perfect this is? You know I love coffee shops, I go to one almost every day. Twice a day.”
“You go to write. When are you going to write?”
“I can write when it’s slow. Besides, it’s part-time; I only work four days for now. Wednesday to Saturday, ten to four, which means I can write in the early hours of the morning and at nights.”
“Patricia,” he growled. What the fuck could he say? He didn’t like her to work, period, but she was looking at him so expectantly.
“Christopher, I really need this.”
She had mentioned need, not want. Shit. He didn’t know what to say. She started to frown at him. Had she honestly expected him to be happy? Shit.
“I thought you would be happy. I won’t bug you anymore about the cases you’re investigating. I won’t want to get back on the team. And you can come over and watch me work. It’ll be fun.”
Fun? If she had wanted him to see her work, she should have gone to work for Vitto’s. For sure, the Italian barista would have hired her, but no, the coffee shop she had picked was in a lousy neighbourhood. Thankfuckinggod she wasn’t working nights, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep.
As for not bugging him about the cases, he wasn’t so sure about that; it seemed to him she was trying a little too hard not to. So what the fuck could he do right now? Nothing, nothing at all. Wait and see. He wasn’t so good at waiting when she was concerned. He had no objection to making her wait forever during sex just to hear her moan, all the patience in the world for her but excruciatingly hard to do nonetheless. He had plenty of objections when her safety was concerned.
She was not patient either, and by then, she was off the couch, working herself into a state. “You know, Big guy, I’m not asking for your permission here. I can do whatever the heck I want, and if you’re not happy about it, well, tough!”
Damn irresistible. “Come on, Pussycat, no need to get upset. You’re right; you can do whatever the fuck you want. You just took me by surprise. That’s all. You know I’m lousy with surprises. But I’m OK. Really. If you’re happy, then I’m happy. And you’re happy, right?”
“Yes.”
“OK then, so am I. Happy as a clam.” He pulled her back down on the couch next to him. She was stiff at first, but she relaxed against him after a while. “Does this mean I get free coffee?”
“Only if you’re polite to the waitress.”
Damn right he was going to be nice to the waitress. Starting right now, he was going to be so fucking pleasant to the waitress. He very nicely fondled her breasts before letting one hand wander south.
“Stop teasing, Christopher,” she whispered some time later.
“I’ve only just begun being nice, Angel of mine,” he teased back, his lips against her folds.
Later still, after the waitress was so agreeable back, they were nice together.
All that politeness and work at a coffee shop had tired her out, and she fell asleep rapidly while he remained wide-eyed next to her, listening to her soft breathing. Tomorrow, he was going to cook her a huge breakfast before tying her to the bed. Shit no. She was working tomorrow.
Her Old New Job
She worked at the coffee shop for exactly six days, one hour and twenty-two minutes. She liked working in a coffee shop. She didn’t do any writing, but she enjoyed preparing the cups, sprinkling coffee on the milk, folding napkins, decorating saucers with chocolate syrup, adding a biscotti when she liked the customer.
She delighted in talking to the clientele about their days, the weather, the news, their family, their work. She daydreamed about where they were coming from, what their lives were like, what they were up to next. Her worries that the job might lessen her imagination proved unfounded; as it was, her imagination went into overdrive (but was that really a good thing?).
The coffee shop was in a questionable neighbourhood. She had known beforehand, of course, it shared the gym around the corner’s clientele. For every person that got a biscotti, ten were biscotti-denied, or snapped at or worse. Every damn day, strangers put their hands on her arms, shoulders or waist as she carried her tray of coffees.
“Hands off, asshole.”
She had worn a skirt on her second day only. That Saturday, everything had gone smoothly. Then again, Christopher had spent the day with her, reading newspapers in front of the window, taking in the sun, chatting up some of the customers and staring down anyone who acted too friendly. On that day, she had found it both annoying and funny but had missed it dearly on her following shifts.
He picked her up at the end of each day (or sent Reid or LeRoy when he couldn’t) but during the afternoon, she was left to herself. The barista wasn’t helping as he didn’t notice (or chose not to see) the harassing patrons. As long as the place stayed busy, the jerk was happy.
She had convinced herself the job was perfect for her. And it was. Six days, one hour and twenty-two minutes of near working bliss. And then some jerk had dared put his hand on her bottom! Tired and preoccupied, she never saw him coming and bam! Hand on her caboose.
She had taken the job as prevention, so she wouldn’t feel compelled to haunt stripper clubs, damn it! She had taken the job to stay away from lowlifes and ensure she wouldn’t meet another asshole. But this was the corporate downtown office nightmare all over again. She quit the job and the inappropriate dirty paw on her bottom.
When some jerk put a hand on her buttocks, or anywhere else, she didn’t want to be polite and turn him down gently. She wanted to kick his butt or have someone from the team around to do it properly for her. Even better, she wished Christopher would do it. She was angry. At men. At herself. Worse, she was right back to where she had been upon her resignation. Had she thought tiring herself with work would bring her peace? Well, it hadn’t!
She stomped to the park and sat for a while. Soul searching. If she could do anything, what would she do? Write. That was a given. What is enough? In itself yes. But, as she had learned the hard way, if she only wrote, her writing wasn’t as lively, and the process itself became a laborious. Plus, she sometimes went insane. She already had a universe all of her own, if she wanted to keep up with normal people, she needed to do normal things, everyday things.
So now what? She was smart; she had plenty of opportunities. And she was funny. And agreeable, at least when she wanted to be. Surely any employer would be lucky to have her. Not full-time, though, because she needed to write. So correction, any part-time boss would be blessed to have her.
A job that required a uniform was out of the question. She already wore plenty of disguises. Night jobs were a no-go also. As were weekend jobs or any occupations that were dirty or physical. She needed her sleep, and Christoph
er worked weekdays but not weekends (most of the time), and she was taking too many showers and baths as it was.
Her new position should not annoy her or require her to think or act normally. Pretend normal she could do yet normal she was not, and would get fire within the first day so no point in bothering with a normal job, right? Besides, she didn’t like people looking at her thinking she was weird. So she was, so what?
How about painting? She was into paintings. She used to sketch before Christopher, but sensing her choice of subjects unsettled him, she was trying to adjust. No, they had not discussed her art in depth, but the pulsing vein and the clamped jaw gave him away.
The painting itself wasn’t the problem; that he liked. As a first anniversary sort of gift (not that they were in a committed relationship or anything, she unconvincingly claimed), she had given him a self-portrait, a nude painted from behind. He had loved it. The portrait now hung in his office of all places! At least, no one beside him knew it was her. She had yet to complete a painting of him; the man was so damn distracting, infuriating really, she hadn’t even made a sketch of him.
What she drew the most were portraits, body in preference to face, men in preference to women. More often than not, when she needed a female model, she’d set up mirrors and posed for herself. Unless she was going for something particular, older, younger, heavier set, full figure or pregnant, then she’d hire posers. The best and hardest to find were pregnant women.
Her male models were varied, athletes, construction workers, retirees, friends, and before Christopher, lovers. He had not said he didn’t like her models per say, but on mornings when she headed to her studio, he was slightly more tensed, as in white knuckles gripping the coffee mug. She once caught him smoking on the terrace, and she had not even told him who the subject was.
These days, she preferred to paint in the afternoon; the lighting was better. She rented a small studio over a coffee shop (obviously) in the artsy borough. Maybe if she painted full-time? Unfortunately, her painting followed a similar path as her writing. She sketched profusely, people, places, lights, and imagined her paintings before painting them. Backburner amalgam. Hence, not painting.
Coffee shops were wonderful! Lots of weirdos mixed in the normal crowd. Even if the sleazy coffee shop had had more jerks than weirdos and normals, it had not dampened her coffee shop liking. And as she had found out, far from affecting her writing, it had enhanced it. Hence, a coffee shop with more regular Joes than weirdos might make a suitable workplace. Did such a place exist? She had visited so many coffee shops, where could she work? Or rather, who would let her work?
The French place and Vitto’s coffee shop topped her picks. As did the one bistro next to her studio. Pros and cons. The French place had plenty of normals, maybe too much. Ditto for the one next to her atelier. But Vitto’s was full of cops, thus, perhaps too many weirdos although, strangely, her kinds of freaks. Vitto’s coffee shop then.
What else? She had fit right in with Christopher’s guys. Each, in their own peculiar ways, had ingrained weirdness, yet they functioned. In her unique ways, she too was functioning in society with barely a glitch (nothing she couldn’t survive). She loved the team and revelled in making up stories about people and places from her file. She already did that half the time anyway, so why had she quit?
She loved observing them, him at work; he was so dedicated. On the edge. Somewhat ruthless. They had a single purpose, find the bad. Noble, corny yet so true. Again, why had she resigned? Finding the girl had been rough mentally, but she had gone through worse. The interrogation? There again, been there, done that. Lemieux.
Lemieux was, ah, quite difficult. Memories of her life of not so long ago. Memories of Joshua. Memories of Joshua and Lemieux. Lemieux had saved her from Joshua, cleansed her of him. And to this day, she was still running. Whenever she couldn’t control what she let out, she bolted. She saw improvements, though, since this time she had not run away from Christopher.
She wanted back. She had wanted to return less than five seconds after quitting. She wanted to finish her murdered waitress story. She wished to work with the guys on other cases. Forget the investigations, she wanted to know them. She wasn’t ready for Lemieux, though. His frequentation had been too strange, even for her. And she wasn’t prepared to run into Scarred-face, not again, not ever again, not without a gun in her hand. So what the heck now, as Christopher would say? The diners, the cold case that had started it all. As her first (baby) step toward a normal life, she would concentrate on that file and her new job.
She called all the waitresses she knew from both diners. “Hi, it’s Patricia. Remember me, I’m the writer? Anyway, sorry to bother you, I was just reviewing my notes and wondering if anything new came to you? Anything at all, however small?”
She strolled back to her place (a short trek through the park) to get her camera, then returned to both diners for pictures. Indoor and out, front and back. She spent more than an outrageous amount of money on taxis that afternoon.
“Hi, Reid, it’s me. I’m sorry, something came up, and I can’t make it tonight for our girls’ night out. How about tomorrow evening? Or this weekend? Call me back when you have a minute.”
She spent yet more money on taxis for pictures of the diners at night, indoor and out, front and back.
She dropped in on the accounting ex-waitress.
“I made this decadent cake last night, want to join me?” Beatrice offered. “We can share a taxi. After our lunch, I went through my stuff and found a box of pictures with Cindy. Want to see it?”
The picture box contained not only pictures but hair pins, theatre tickets and other trinkets young girls valued.
“Oh look, here’s a photo of the two of us we took at the restaurant.” The picture showed the two college girls grinning. They sported identical raincoats. “We bought them together on one of our shopping expeditions some weeks before Cindy died.” Beatrice stared at it hard before handing it over to her. “Here, you can have it.”
“No, really, I couldn’t.” Depersonalisation.
“Yes, you can. Take it; it’s a gift. A souvenir. Cindy liked books; she’d want you to have it.
“Ah. Oh. OK. Well, hum, thank you?” The image showed two pretty girls, a blond and a brunette, innocent and happy, their entire life ahead of them. “It’s a charming picture. I’ll hang it on my wall at the office.”
The office. She needed to speak with Christopher (again) about that, didn’t she?
Her last taxi ride was to Vitto’s. He and his wife Marina were about to close for the day.
“Ah Bella mia, come in, come in. Let me put up the sign, and we’ll have a small coffee together. Vitto, caffè latte decaffeinato for the bambina.”
They had a last cup together, the three of them.
“Patricia Bambina, we cannot let you work here as you ask.”
“Marina is right, Bella. No job if you don’t take a paycheck.”
“But I don’t need money; I just want to be busy. See people, maybe write a little in a corner when it’s quiet.”
“We pay. You work. A little. And you eat.”
Eat? “I can’t work full-time, is that a problem?”
“No problema, bellissima. You work afternoons, two-three days a week as you like. Vitto teaches you the macchina. You replace him when he wants a break, or when I want him with me.”
“I’ll teach the macchina, but it takes time, Bella. Years for my no-good son.”
“Maybe he just wants to spend time with you.”
“Precious child.”
Normal people. She would find a way to pay them back.
His New Lead
Over the weekend, she had once again taken him by surprise with the Vitto job. The other coffee shop was a dump, but she had enjoyed her work there; he had not, though. The select clientele of steroid junkies from the corner gym pissed him off. For sure, something had happened, some shit that she had forgotten to mention. Not that it was hard to guess.
A fucking skirt!
She had started the weekend with her damning, “I have a surprise,” shit. “I’ve moved my coffee shop skills to Vitto’s.”
He had taken her revelation in stride this time. “OK, Angel. Whatever you want.” Vitto’s place was a definite step up. Maybe not quite classy enough yet as jobs for her went, but safer and damn closer to his office. “Do I still get freebees?”
“Cute, Big guy. Maybe we can trade?”
He had known what was coming days ahead of her, had anticipated her plea yet knew he would not deny her. How could he? Safe, happy, his. He wanted all three for her, and his precinct was the fastest way to achieve the trifecta (as long as she stayed put in the fucking office). “Trade what?” He enquired with fake innocence.
“I want to come back, please,” she pleaded. “I’m not done with my cold case yet, and I kind of miss the team.”
So, as he had known all along, he prepared himself to take her back. With her PI book idea, he feared she was going to hire herself out to the first private detective that came along, and then who the fuck knew the trouble she could get into? Easier to watch out for her at the office. “I’ll agree to the same schedule as before, part-time, and one week out of two. Not sure why you quit in the first place, Angel, but this time, no funny business.”
“What on earth do you mean?” Demure blue eyes blinked at him. Yah right.
She was back to work on the diner case, unofficially, of course; she wasn’t a cop for Christ’s sake. ‘Patricia’s diner case’ was how the guys (and him too) referred to the investigation now, thanks to that damn picture she had received from some ex-waitress.
“Look how cute and wholesome they were. So alike. With those silly raincoats, one could easily mistake Beatrice for the victim, don’t you think?” Her new theory.
“True, the raincoats are identical.” He was not going to base a case on fucking raincoats.
“Not identical but very similar,” she interjected. “Their colours are different; one is beige and the other, more of a light corn hue.” The fucking coats looked identical to him. “Think about it, Christopher. The girls were the same height, one a little heavier than the other perhaps, but it’s hard to tell under the coats. And it had been raining. At night. So, maybe like you, the killer couldn’t tell beige from light corn, and he made a mistake.”