by V. P. Trick
Since the city didn’t deliver nor picked up letters on Sundays, the key had been posted on Friday, or Saturday at the latest. Hence, the king had taken two days to get the gear. Should she be impressed? Hum. Christopher probably would find the same supplies in half a day top. The man was infuriating! Moving on.
Christopher and his team hadn’t finished their stripper club bonanza yet. That translated into a sexual dry spell for her (and thus Christopher). No way was she going to strip for the impossible man when he was spending his days checking out dancers. Yes, she was irrational, even unfair, but she couldn’t help it. He did not make a move on her either. Instead, he crawled into bed with her every night and slept. Most infuriating.
Thanks to her sprint with Charles to the bare land, female flesh, even her own, somewhat repulsed her these days. She had taken to wearing loose pants and oversized sweatshirts with a long-sleeve turtleneck under it. Nonetheless, the Big guy could have made a pass at her. Damn, the man was impossible!
He was doing the damn cop thing, and getting impatient about it. He had asked about the creep again, requesting for names and addresses and contacts.
Their first conversation had gone something like: “I wrote his name in the damn report, what more can I tell you?” Lies by omission weren’t real lies, were they?
“Surely, at some point, your fucking Joshua had mentioned a fake.”
“You have something in common with Joshua, Big guy; he too wasn’t into the habit of discussing his job with me.”
“And you didn’t trick him into giving you a fucking fake filing job? Lucky him.”
“You’re dangerously close to acting like a jerk.”
“Fucking right, I am. Keeping you safe is hard work.”
“Fuck you.”
“Apparently, I can’t.”
The following day, the conversation hadn’t gone much smoother.
“J, Super Mario, the king, whatever. Those jerks had a nickname for everyone; they even gave you one, Cake darling.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine, Pussycat.” She rolled her eyes at him. For her, pussycat held the same connotation as Cake. Good enough to eat. As Christopher’s next words proved. “The first thing I’ll do, Pattycake, once I’ve got this mess taken care of will be to eat you.”
“Stop reading my mind!”
“If I were a fucking telepath, I’d already know the sicko’s aliases!”
“Sicko is a good one.”
“Patricia, stop fucking with me. Or do it for real.”
“Christopher James MacLaren!” If they kept this up, the Big guy’s innuendo would lead to a place she had no intention of going today, not when his dirty mind had had its fill of professional naked flesh. “Joshua called him Copper.” Not a lie since Joshua had never referred to the creep by any of his aliases.
“That’s it?”
“You know, Big guy, it’s not like the creep wore the blue police uniform with his pseudo pinned on it.”
“Patricia.” The deep growl probably meant.
“The wolf act doesn’t work on me, Chief Detective MacLaren.” A blatant lie, but if she admitted to finding it sexy, would it make her a primaeval wanton? “Keep it for the team; they scare more easily.”
“Might not scare you, Dollface, but it sure makes you react.” More growls as his eyes narrowed on her chest. Damn the air conditioning in her suite. “Do you want to pursue our little chat in the bedroom, Angel? I can get you very talkative, very fast.”
“I’m plenty chatty now. Copper was the name. Then it got replaced the creep. Fat copper. Dirty fat copper. Ugly fat creep. Variations thereof.” Christopher wouldn’t get far with that.
“We are so going to talk when I’m done, Pussycat.”
On one of Reid’s coffee stops at Vitto’s, Patricia ambushed her.
“The waiting is killing me, Reid.” That earned her a sympathetic nod from her female officer friend. “Exactly how close are you to finding the creep?”
At the Big guy’s invitation, she had wasted a day going through police personnel files but hadn’t identified the creep. Central was very secretive about the police force hence getting the data hadn’t been easy. Even with Central playing nice to him, Christopher still had to call in a few favours. He had narrowed the search with the incident’s timeline in conjunction with what she had told him of Joshua and his operation ground. Even so, it made for an impressive stack of files. The creep could have been working with any of the different local stations, or in a special unit like Christopher or directly for Central or the state.
“We’ve narrowed it down to three cops who fit the description you gave us.” Fat, ugly, scar. “Which wasn’t much, Patricia. And Charles hasn’t given us anything.” Good. “Fuck, Pattie, don’t you want the guy to be caught?”
Yes, she did, which was why she was going to catch him herself. The creep was not going to hurt anyone on the team.
She and Christopher had fought about that too.
“You’re leaving information out,” the Big guy had accused her. “Only three possibles!”
She stood her ground and thus, kept on keeping him safe. “Those are the only ones that look anything close to him.” For once she wasn’t lying; she had not seen the creep anywhere in the files.
“But you’re not sure.”
“It’s not as if I studied him in great details. The man’s not pretty enough for that.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Princess.” Christopher rubbed his hair as he frowned at her. “How about you do a sketch of him?”
“A sketch?”
“Yah. You can draw, can’t you, Angel?”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Officer MacLaren.”
“Cute, but that’s my line.”
“I’m not sketching him.”
“Why not? I don’t need a nude of him, Pussycat, just his fucking face.”
“I can’t. I don’t know how to draw from memory.” Well, she did draw from memory sometimes, but weirdly, not creeps. “I can only do it with a model in front of me.” When I get close enough to the creep, it’s not drawing I’ll be thinking of.
“Somehow, I have a little trouble believing that.”
“Why? Have you ever seen me paint people without a model?”
“No, I have not. But then again, I’ve yet to see you paint period, Angel.”
“Whose fault is that? Each time I’ve invited you to my studio, you’ve declined.”
“You staring at another guy’s dick is not my idea of fun.”
Touchy subject, Christopher became moody on days he knew she was painting a male model. She had a thing about painting nudes. “I rarely paint penises. And I do not stare!”
“Whatever.”
“You’re in no position to talk, Big guy, considering what you’ve been ogling these days.”
“The only thing worth contemplating I’ve seen in months is you even if you’re dressed like a fucking geezer.”
She had to find the creep soon or else Christopher was going to take drastic measures. She was afraid of him; he would never hurt her, but she needed leeway to manoeuvre, and thus it was important, vital that she be, hum, authorised to walk around freely, at least thrice. Gear. Address. Creep.
First, she wanted the freedom to go to the post office, the same one Joshua had used back then, the one not-too-far from Mario’s old apartment, which happened to be close to his new apartment. Her hacker friend had almost gone full-circle around town in the last thirty months. She almost stopped by to see if he had found anything but didn’t; she didn’t want Christopher to know where Mario was.
Lately, because she had acted as if it was so, Christopher thought Mario was out of the city. She found it much better to keep pretending. Besides, chances were Mario was under surveillance. He was often, or at least, thought he was. Hence, she strolled through the park without stopping to rest on any benches and kept on walking to the post office.
No doubt Lonzo smiled as he followed her.
They had first met in the park, not this particular park but a park just like it. Although the A-team had liked her from the start, maybe his recollection of that day was not entirely pleasant. She had acted like a bitch before slipping from his tail in what was to become somewhat a pattern in their relationship (not so much the bitch part as her disappearing act). Then again, Lonzo liked all women, didn’t he? Maybe if she hadn’t been Christopher’s suspect back then, and his girlfriend now, he might have convinced her to sleep with him.
The trip to the post office took less than an hour. Thinking it might look suspicious if she returned home too quickly, she stopped by a café a few blocks down the post office and settled at a table as if she meant to work, write, the usual. She waited forty-three minutes before going to the ladies’ room. Since Lonzo had not followed her in the post office, he couldn’t know what she had received. Only stamps and fan mail she was going to claim.
Hence, she was not about to go through her package in the middle of a busy coffee shop but couldn’t wait until she got back to her hotel either. She locked herself in the toilet to open the box hidden in her purse. The king had sent everything she had hoped: a stun gun, cuffs, pepper spray, a gun and ammunition. She put everything back in her big messenger bag.
Back to her table, she googled ‘mode d’emploi stun gun’. Optimal effectiveness was obtained, as per the numerous websites on the subject, by aiming the gun at areas were upper shoulders, below the ribcage and upper hips. Okeydokey. What else did she need to know? ‘Mode d’emploi gun’. She already knew the basic on weapons but wanted to learn the specifics of the models the king had sent.
Words like ‘Smooth trigger’ were used. ‘Low maintenance’ came up, and ‘No hiccoughs between cleaning’ whatever that meant. As did ‘Combat accurate’ and ‘Recoil a nonissue’ Again, she had no clue what that meant, but since it was a nonissue, she didn’t research the matter further. Piece of cake.
Now where could she hide her damn gear? Christopher did not search through her things, not unless he got suspicious. Hum. He was somewhat impatient these days (understandably so, she conceded, albeit only to herself). Hence, the only secure, totally Christopher-proof location she came up with was the safe in the hotel manager’s office.
The gun made her nervous. The infuriating man might have noticed her edginess had he not been working all the time (and getting tired, yes, even him). Fortunately, she didn’t have to hide the weapon for long. On Wednesday, Mario came through with a short cryptic message on her fan blog.
Ingrid had set up the blog, and a PR agency was in charge of its updates and posts, but Patricia kept an eye on it, reading the publications every week or so. She turned more assiduous in the last week and now visited every day, a couple of times a day, and on Wednesday, at last long, she had a message.
“Loved your books. Almost as good as a piece of cake.”
Another inconspicuous coffee trip later, she had retrieved the address. Gear, check. Location, check. One creep to go.
Patricia as She’s Getting Ready
After the equipment and address came careful planning. First, she was to meet with Beatrice, the ex-waitress friend turned accountant and maybe lesbian, for coffee or something. She intended to spend time with the woman, or rather waste time until seven-thirty. Her day-shadow would be at the end of the alone-shift; her night-shadow would not have arrived yet. Hence, seven-thirty seemed the perfect moment to part company with them.
Upon further consideration, she finally had decided to ditch the A-team before going after the creep. She desperately wanted some quality time alone with the creep and foresaw her tails wouldn’t allow that. As soon as they realise what she was up, they would take over and restrain her, and then bye-bye liberty and free time.
Revenge took time. Time to scare him, plus five seconds to stun gun him (or so the stun gun spec sheet said). Time to prove herself; prove she could take care of herself. Time to show Christopher that, despite her crazy ideas, she could take care of it herself. Why she needed to prove that to him was unclear, even to her, for the Big guy already knew how independent and resourceful she was. Maybe she wanted to prove it to herself.
After her date with Beatrice, she arranged to cross town to the creep’s location. The address Mario had found was near Lemieux’s strip club; the creep was hiding in an old metal shop. She knew of the place from her stint with Joshua’s. Her ex had played with the shop’s books back in the days, a contract for the creep.
From Beatrice, she would take a bus but, naturally, wouldn’t head straight to the creep’s location, not until she had lost her tail, but a bus to the subway station. She liked riding the subway; it was the perfect place to evade one’s thoughts, an even better place to lose others. Joshua had taught her well, and she was a fast learner, wasn’t she?
She had successfully dodged Christopher once in the subway. Her shadows had never ridden with her, too bad for them. She gave MacCarmick and Lonzo not more than six stations before she was free. Two of her six stations were near shopping centres. Women’s clothing, shoes, lingerie stores were all excellent spot to misplace badass males.
A discreet car rental agency sat a block from the sixth station. Since she had rented vehicles there a few times, she already had a renter file. Better yet, the rental leased trucks and took cash (which everyone knew was far less traceable than credit cards, even fake ones).
The ugly creep was not small hence, she needed a big vehicle. Besides, given his weight, no way could she lift him into the trunk of a car. She also requested two blankets (frankly, the fat creep was obese) of the types movers used to protect furniture. Once I’ve handcuffed and stun-gunned him, I’ll wrap him up and dragging him to the truck’s hatch. She hoped all trucks had a rear hatch. Add a plywood propped as a leveller and she would roll the creepy sausage easy-breezy (almost). Perhaps the shop had a small chain block or a forklift?
That the creep did his dirty business out of that shop’s second floor added insult to injury. Then again, why was she surprised? Dirty cops were bastards. That he used his old hideaway as if no one would find him further proved his arrogance and stupidity. She had knocked out at the club for crying out loud! That alone should have made him more careful, but nooo, he probably thought that, since he could hide from the police, he was safe. Well, not this time, Fatso. Since the policemen can’t get to you, I’m going to bring you to them.
She wouldn’t hand the creep to Christopher, though. She intended to keep the Big guy as far away from the creep as humanly possible. Yes, she would inform him, but from a safe distance. Steve was her officer of choice; he knew who the creep was and would take it from there.
Beatrice agreed to meet for a drink around five after her workday.
“Perhaps we can meet for an early supper?” Patricia suggested. “I’m meeting an old friend later. I’ll have to leave around seven.”
The schedule was tight. She needed to arrive at the rental before the nine-thirty closing time. In theory, she had enough time. From the rental place, it was a half-hour drive to the shop. Once on location, she would need a moment to survey the area and confirm the creep was alone.
Locked doors were not her forte, but, if she recalled correctly, the two-storey concrete-block building had plenty of windows. She double-checked on Google Street View. Indeed, lots of windows on the second floor. As a bonus, the carport made for an easy climb from the truck’s rooftop to the garage roof. From there, she’d slip in through an upper-floor window.
She took a stroll to an art craft store and bought a glass cutting blade; she found the knife in a stained-glass kit. Her steps were clear: truck’s roof to the carport in through the window thanks to the glass cutting knife. A piece of cake.
She had already half-killed the creep with her gunshot two years ago, had beaten him severely (or at least she hoped) at the club, and since he was unsuspecting, arrogant and stupid, he wouldn’t anticipate her appearance. The stun gun. The handcuffs. Rope for his feet. Mover blankets. Once
she had secured the creep, they would chat. She did not prepare a formal speech, though; she had no desire of speaking to him but felt she should exchange on her thoughts for the future nonetheless if only to make sure he didn’t try anything again with anyone.
Maybe if she stared him down? Let him sweat. Then she would give him another five seconds with the stun gun before dragging him down the stairs. Packed in the covers, he wouldn’t get hurt, at least not too much. Then again, did she care if he did? No siree. She would roll him into the trunk, drive to the police station, dump him off at the back door, call Steve anonymously, and ride into the sunset, or in this instance, sunrise, or even earlier if all went without a glitch. Target return time was three o’clock before Christopher got back.
The hotel’s night clerk was to tell whoever asked for her that she had returned to her suite. When the A-team came looking for her (sooner or later, they would hunt her down at her hotel), the clerk was the first person they would question. She had left the television on in her room to make it look as if she was indeed back and enjoying a quiet evening in. If they called, she could always claim not to have heard the phone because she had fallen asleep in front of some lame film. The A-team wouldn’t break in, not if she came back before Christopher.
Did she know her plan was crazy? In the back of her mind, yes, of course, she did. Absolutely. Too many things might go wrong, yet she had to do it. Putting her wild idea in motion was better than waiting. And it was a heck of a lot better than Christopher finding the creep and getting hurt. The Big guy thought he was a big man, and he was, with training, muscles, brains and all, but the creep wouldn’t give a damn. If the salopard saw Christopher coming, he would make the Big guy for a cop and shoot him on sight, and then Christopher would be dead.