Superbia 2 (8 page)

“I heard you were back,” Dez said.  He turned to
Reynaldo and thrust out his hand, “How you doing?  Dez Dolos with the FBI.  This is Wendy Lara, from the US Attorney’s Office.”

“Nice to meet you both,”
Reynaldo said. 

Aprille did not speak.  She was looking at Wendy and Wendy was looking at her, both of them examining one another like spy satellites, pinpointing the other’s weaknesses and comparing assets.  “Really, Aprille, how are you feeling?” Dez said.  His face, the picture of friendly concern. 

“I’m a lot better now.”  She sat up in her seat and peeked around him to look at the door, “Is your wife coming?  I haven’t seen her in a while.”

The smile was stitched tight to Wendy’s face now, pinned to the corners of her cheeks.  “We worked late on a case,” she said.

“Oh?  I bet,” Aprille said. 

Dez put his arm on Wendy’s elbow and said, “You folks take care.”  He pulled her by the elbow away from the table and Aprille smiled as Wendy yanked away from him and started to yell at him as they reached the door. 

“Something tells me I don’t want to know,” Reynaldo said. 

Aprille
looked around the tables and saw that the waitress was coming toward them.  “If she comes back here offering me a drink, you have to tell her no and make her go away before I order one.”

“Okay.” 

The waitress smiled at Aprille and said, “Do you need a drink hon?”

“Go away!” Reynaldo barked. 

Aprille covered her face with her napkin as the waitress backed away from their table and tried not to giggle. 

“Come in and shut the door.”

Frank felt his stomach turn over. 
The bastard has a surveillance camera on his property and caught me taking his trash,
was his first thought.  Frank shut the door and walked stiffly to the chair across from the Chief’s desk.  He sat down and waited for it. 

“I received an email today with an interesting link to a video posted on YouTube.  Care to guess what it showed?”

Frank shook his head.

“It showed you brutalizing a juvenile, and now, it is on the internet for the entire world to see.  You have embarrassed me for the last time, Officer O’Ryan.”

“You’re
firing
me?”

“I’m moving you back to patrol, effective immediately.”

Frank said nothing for a moment.  He looked at the Chief’s desk and said, “Is this the part where you hand me a stack of traffic tickets that you’ve been saving for me?”

Erinnyes’ face turned pale.  “You son of a bitch.
”

“We both know you’ve been waiting to do this since the day I went downstairs.  This was an event that was just waiting for an excuse to happen.  You know why I went to see that kid that day?  He mocked Jason Ajax at school about Vic’s death.”

“I don’t care what your reasons were.  It was Conduct Unbecoming, and you are lucky all I’m doing is moving you instead of suspending you.”

“Fine.  Whatever.  I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop anyway.  Are we finished?”

Erinnyes took a deep breath and folded his hands across his wide belly.  His expression softened and his voice turned buttery, “Do you know something, Frank?  I wish you saw the writing on the wall.  There is so much opportunity for you here.  We just hired a new officer, and there is a vacancy for Staff Sergeant.  The second-in-command of the entire department.  You see how that worked out for me, right?”

Frank tried to focus.  He’d never heard Erinnyes like this.  “I don’t know that I would even want that job.”

“You may not want it, but think about it this way.  If you don’t take it, who will?  Can you imagine someone like Jim Iolaus in the position?  He’s no friend of yours, by the way.”  Erinnyes let that sink in, then reached into the top drawer of his desk, “Even though you’ll be back on patrol, I still intend to make use of your investigative expertise.  I got you something.”

Erinnyes slid a brand new phone across the desk toward Frank, who picked it up and said, “I already have a phone.”

“But this is a departmental phone that I pay for, so you can get rid of the old one.  That’s extra money in your pocket.  You can use it for any personal business you want, there’s unlimited everything on it.  All I ask is that you answer it when I call.” 

“Am I still on the drug task force?”

“Of course!” Erinnyes said.  “You’re still keeping the office downstairs and doing the same excellent job that you’ve always done.  Listen, just take your lumps and keep moving forward.  You’ll be back in the saddle in no time.”

“Yeah?”

“I swear to God.”

Frank smirked.  There was a flicker in the Chief’s eyes
, something waiting behind the benevolent gleam, an alligator floating just beneath the surface of the dark, still water.  “Well, thanks then,” Frank said.  He shook the phone inside the box and said, “This thing is better than what I have now.”

“Use it in good health, Frank.”

***

Frank walked out of the Chief’s office
with his new patrol schedule and headed for the roll call room.  Jim Iolaus was sitting with Aprille and Reynaldo, reading aloud from the policy book.  “This department will not tolerate sexual harassment of any kind.  At no time will any officer use their badge of office to incur favor from any member of the opposite gender.”

“But same gender is okay, right?” Aprille said.  “You know, in case I want to take the old tongue boat to tuna town.”

“That is sexual harassment, right there, what you just did,” Iolaus said.  He opened his notebook and jotted something down.  “I’m giving you a verbal reprimand.”

“Who did I offend with that comment?  The other women sitting in here with me?” she said.

“Knock it off, Officer Macariah.  Are we clear on the sexual harassment policy of this police department?”

“Yes, sir,”
Reynaldo said.

“That includes Orientals for you, mister.”

“Asians, you mean,” Aprille said.

“Whatever.”

Frank cleared his throat at the doorway and held up the new patrol schedule.  “I hate to interrupt this thrilling sociological discussion, but I just wanted to let you know that Reynaldo is working with me starting Monday night.”

“
What are you talking about?  I’m losing him?” Iolaus said.

“Apparently so.” 

“And why the hell wasn’t I told this?”

Frank looked at the phone sitting on the table next to Iolaus.  He held up his box and said, “Hey, the Chief gave you one of these too?  How do you like it?”

Iolaus stared at Frank’s phone.  “I’d like you to leave now,” he said softly.  “I’m conducting training.”

Aprille smacked
Reynaldo in the arm and said, “You lucky shit!”

Frank snapped his fingers and said, “Oh yeah, one more thing.  The Chief said I’m supposed to start parking my personal car in the spot next to his outside.  I know nobody’s there now, I just wanted to make sure you knew for the future.”

Iolaus glared down at the page in front of him so intensely that it almost started to smoke.  The page rattled in his hands.  Frank stepped back through the doorway and winked at Aprille, who tried not to laugh. 

***

Iolaus read through the rest of the policy as fast as he could, not stopping to let anyone else take over, not asking if there were any “Questions, comments, or concerns,” when he finished.  He put down the page, wrote down the time they finished training and said, “Hit the street.”

Aprille smirked at
Reynaldo as they got up, and Iolaus raced from around the table and out the door.  “I hate you so much right now,” she said. 

“Why am I being transferred to another squad?  Did I do something wrong?”

“Well they can’t put me with Frank.  Christ, we’d actually get some police work done in this town.  Make the most of it, kid.  You’re lucky to be getting away from Ensign Exfoliate.”

Iolaus turned the corner toward the Chief’s office, and knocked on the door.  “Hey,” he said.

The Chief held up his finger while talking into his phone, “Dez?  Chief Erinnyes.  I delivered that message to our friend.  No, I didn’t tell him who tipped me off.”  Erinnyes started to laugh, “You should have seen the look on his face.  It was priceless.  Let me buy you lunch as a token of gratitude for keeping an eye on us.  Sounds good.”  He said goodbye and hung up the phone.  “Yes?”

Iolaus’
heart was beating so hard he felt it in his throat.  “Is everything okay?”

“Yes.  Why do you ask?”

“Between me and you, I meant.  Is everything all right?”

“Do you know something I don’t know?”

“No.”

“Then why do you ask?”

“I’m losing Reynaldo to Frank all of a sudden.”

Erinnyes waved his hand, “I want you to focus on Aprille exclusively for now.  You don’t need the extra baggage.  I’m doing you a favor.”

What about Frank’s phone?  What about his parking spot? 
“So Frank’s back on the street then?”

“Yes.  Are you all right, Officer Iolaus?  You look sweaty.”

“I’m fine.”

Erinnyes looked at his watch.  “Shouldn’t roll call be over by now?”

“We were training.  Going over policies.”

“Why are you sitting in the station doing that?  Don’t they have binders they can take out on the street with them?”

Iolaus swallowed, “They do, but I wanted to make sure they understood how
we
want them to do things.”

“I want them done how they are written,” Erinnyes said.  “That is why I wrote them.”

“Yes, sir.”

***

“County to available seventeen car?”

Aprille waited to give Iolaus the chance to respond, in case he had an aneurism over someone else answering the radio.  When he didn’t, she picked up her radio mic and said, “Seventeen-nine, go ahead.”

“Domestic in progress at the Shop-N-Bag.  Customers are reporting someone manhandling a disabled woman and mom is screaming at him.”

Aprille hung up the mic and threw the car into drive.  She clicked the emergency lights on and honked her horn, causing the cars in front of her to begin getting out of her way.  She made it to the intersection when she looked in the rearview mirror and saw Iolaus’s police car pulling out of the station.  “Fuck me,” she spat, and flicked the lights back off. 

“County to seventeen-nine?”

“Seventeen-seven, County.  Go ahead,” Iolaus said. 

“Complainant reports that the vehicle is now leaving the scene.  Tag comes back on a PA handicapped tag, registered to Ralph and Mary Polonius of Ascot Way.”

Aprille hit her left turn signal, trying to turn around.  Ascot Way was only a few streets down.  She could head them off. 

“Seventeen-seven to County, clear it out.”

Aprille snatched the radio mic
and said, “Say again?”

“Clear.  It.  Out.”

She threw the mic onto the passenger side floor as Iolaus’ patrol car drove past her.  He did not slow down, and did not look in her direction. 

***

“Is that the car?” Frank said. 

“I think so.  I only got a quick look at it.”

Frank lifted the binoculars and squinted, trying to read the license plate.  The rear windows of the van were tinted, and there were no street lights in the apartment building parking lot.  Ophelia was crammed into the corner of the rear compartment, pushed up against the toys and coats stashed in the back.  Frank leaned over her legs to get a better look, but the numbers on the license plate were unreadable.  “We’re just going to have to sit here until he comes out then.  If I can’t identify this guy, we’re screwed.”

“It’s cold in here,” she said. 

“We can’t turn the car on or it will draw attention.”  He looked around the seats and said, “There’s a blanket up here.  Here you go.” 

It was soft and pink and had fuzzy images of elephants on it.  Ophelia pressed it to her face and said, “Oh my God, it smells like babies.  I love it!”

Now it’s going to smell like a stripper,
Frank thought. 
Have to wash that one as soon as I get home.

A man came out of the apartment building and Frank sat up with the binoculars. “Is that him?”

“Let me see.”  She wedged between him and the back of the van, trying to get a better look.  “Give me those things.” 

He handed her the binoculars and wrapped his arms around hers to show her how to focus them.  Her rear end was pushed up against him as she leaned forward.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “Uh oh.”

“Uh oh, what?”

“He’s looking right at us.  I think he’s coming over here.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”  Frank looked over her shoulder and saw a tall man coming across the parking lot right for them.  “Shit!  Did I lock the front doors?  Christ.  My gun is up front.”

The man came right up to the window and pressed his face against it, looking in. 

Ophelia grabbed Frank and crushed her mouth against his, sticking her tongue inside of his mouth.  She moaned loudly and grabbed his hands, putting them against her breasts, rubbing them in circular motions.  “Yeah, yeah, keep doing that,” she moaned.  

She bit his ear, then bit his neck.  She sucked his chin and scratched the front of his chest with her nails through his shirt.  She bent over in front of him and reached for his crotch, grabbing between his legs and saying, “Are you ready for me, baby?”

The man outside the van banged his hand on the window and said, “Get a fucking room, freaks!”

Neither one of them moved.  The man backed away from the van and went back towards the apartment building.  All they saw was the dim glow of his cellphone as he held it to his ear, calling the police about them
, no doubt. 

“Holy shit!” Frank gasped. 

“That was fucking hot!”

“We’ve gotta get out of here before the cops show up,” Frank said.  “Quick, get in the front.”

“You
are
a cop.  What do you care?”

“Because I don’t want anybody to see me waving my badge around.  Come on.” 

He waited for her to climb in front of him and took a minute to adjust his pants.  She spun around in the seat and said, “Playing with yourself?”

“You wish.”

“Come on up here and I’ll play with it for you while you drive.”