Time's Up (11 page)

“How many tickets a week?” I asked.

Leticia's chin came up, all trace of good humor gone from her eyes. “That sounds real close to you asking me about a quota.”

“Hell, no.” I sighed.
Complete and total FUBAR.
I slid over the route card Jennifer had given me. “Any tips?”

It was the closest I've ever seen to someone going apoplectic. Leticia ate the entire Snickers in two bites. “Oh no, she di-n't, oh no, she di-n't.”

Huffing in fury, she finished the Cheetos next, gnawing each chip down to nothing with the tiny mincing bites of a maniacal chipmunk. “The Ice Bi-otch thinks she can run me, she got another think coming.”

Food gone, Leticia took a cleansing breath. “That's a dead route, McGrane. You couldn't lay twenty tickets a day between the two of you.”

“Now what?” I said.

“You drive your route once a day. Then you free.” She smiled grimly. “I'm givin' you license to poach.”

“Huh?”

“You and Niecy write and boot on any route, whenever and wherever. I guarantee ain't no one gonna complain.”

“That's what I thought.” She smiled at me. “Don't worry 'bout a thing. I'm gonna set you up cherry. You're my baby white elephant, McGrane. I'll keep you on board. No matter what.” Leticia spit in her hand and held it out.

I did the same and we shook on it.

 

I went out on the lot to meet my new partner. Eunice “Niecy” Peat was a tiny, early sixty-something with a sparse halo of violent orange hair and skin as white as school chalk. She blew a plume of smoke out the open passenger window of Interceptor 13248.

“So you're the effing cavalry,” Niecy said in a voice forged of whiskey sours and three packs a day. Her small face screwed up in displeasure as she waved a shaking hand at me. “Back up. Let me get a gander at ya.”

I stepped away.

“You a God-fearing gal?”

I shrugged. “Lapsed Catholic.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. It's those with no religion at all who got no charity in their hearts. No loyalty, neither.”

No longer surprised why Leticia idolized her, I scrounged up one of Ernesto's kung fu quotes. “All can know good as good only because there is evil.”

Niecy took another drag, considered my fortune cookie wisdom, and nodded in agreement. “Get in.”

I climbed into the driver's side of the Interceptor. It reeked of smoke and Aqua Net. I fastened my seat belt and glanced at my new partner.

She was tiny. Minute.
What is it about the TEB that attracts the vertically challenged?

“Leticia explain the way things work?” she said. “I hold the keys, but you're driving.”

“Yes, ma'am.” I handed her the route card.

Niecy looked at it and scratched the back of her neck. “Piss for lemonade. This ain't good.”

“Leticia also gave us a license to poach.”

“Jiminy Christmas, of course she did.” She reached out a trembling hand and snapped on the radio. Sean Hannity. “I used to hate this shizzle.” Niecy nodded at the radio. “But Leticia, danged if she didn't wear me down till now I'm used to it. She says the only way to stick it to the man is to become the man. Not take anything from anyone and make decisions for your own self.” Niecy gave a derisive snort and took another drag on her cigarette. “So you tell me. What kinda decisions does a meter maid make?”

I thought about it for a second. “To ticket or not to ticket.”

Niecy flicked the cigarette butt out the window. “Are we gonna sit here all day or what?”

She back-seat drove us through the first half of our route, where the ticketing was nonexistent. “We're tied to the stake while the Ice Bitch is out looking for a blowtorch.”

We left our route to hit up Agent Lucero's office park sweet spot.

“Stop. A twofer.” Gripping her gun, Niecy eased out next to a red Nissan Maxima. “Eyeball the other side and meet me at the end of the block.”

Midway up the street, a black armored Lincoln limo was illegally parked in front of a cinder-block office building. A huge black guy, wearing the fabled chauffeur's uniform including silver-buttoned jacket, knee-high boots, and jodhpurs as seen only in the movies, wiped something off the windshield and got back into the vehicle. So tragically ridiculous, I felt nothing but sympathy for the driver. Needing a little angelic interference myself, I decided to pay it forward.

I pulled over, left the Interceptor, and went and rapped on the limo's window. It slid smoothly down. Halfway.

The chauffeur tipped down his mirrored shades and gave me the once-over. “A hundred. Go 'round back and wait for me to unlock it.”

“I don't think so.” I smiled politely. “You're in a No Standing Zone.”

“A what?”

“Look, I don't want to bust your chops, but you're in a No Loading, No Standing Zone among other things. With a Class D license, you know and I know that you sure as hell know what a No Standing Zone is.”

Unimpressed, he pushed the mirrored sunglasses up. “And what's that?”

“A sixty-dollar fine if I'm feeling generous enough to disregard your other violations.”

“Damn, you're a cold piece of work.” He rolled the window down all the way and squared his immense shoulders to me. “Do you know whose car you be messin' with?”

“No.”

“The mayor's.”

“Okay,” I said. “As I don't see any flashing service lights, no city service vehicle permit stickers, and no diplomatic plates, you'll have to move if you don't want to be ticketed.”

He laughed, exposing teeth rode hard by Camels. “Oh yeah?” He pulled ahead, filling the two empty handicapped parking spaces. “Is this better?”

That's what I get for trying to be nice.
“Actually, you were better off before. No Standing Zone plus a disabled curb cut plus a fire lane blockage had you at $285. Now you're in two handicapped spaces and still blocking the disabled curb cut. $575.”

“Go on and write it then, bitch.” He closed the window.

I stepped up onto the curb, typed the ticket into the AutoCITE, printed it out, tucked it into its Agent-Orange envelope, and went back to the car.

The window opened a sliver. I popped the ticket in. “Have a nice day,” I said, already moving toward the Interceptor.

“Yo!” The driver's window rolled all the way down. I stopped and returned to the Lincoln.

The crumpled-up ticket hit me square in the chest. “Go fuck yourself.”

I left the ticket in the street and concentrated on walking slowly back to the Interceptor. I climbed in, a little trembly and kind of freaked.

The traitorous thought that perhaps I was, indeed, “too thin-skinned to be a cop” turned over and over in my mind.

I put my head down on the steering wheel.

“Eegh.” Niecy grunted and turned down the volume on Mark Steyn. “Whassa' matter, kid?”

Only fifty-one weeks to go, God help me.
“I need a minute.”

“You'll get used to it.” Her thin orange hair quivered as she shook her head. “The times when someone ain't just pissed to heck to get a ticket—they actually want to cut your danged guts out.”

“Take all the time you need.” Niecy turned the volume back up and snuggled into her seat.

I sat staring at the armored Lincoln limo, wondering what I would have done if he'd been a perp.

As I reached forward to start the Interceptor, a black Benz S class limo pulled into the handicapped spaces behind the Lincoln limo and flashed its headlights.

The black chauffeur got out and walked to the rear of the Benz. The window lowered. The chauffeur twitched. The window went up. The chauffeur walked stiff-legged mechanically back to the Lincoln. Whatever he'd been told, it wasn't good. He got into the limo and drove away, mouth stretched in a mirthless grimace.

Niecy pointed at the Mercedes. “You gonna ticket that whale, too?”

“Maybe.”

The driver of the Benz got out and opened the door for his passenger. An olive-skinned, masculine-looking woman with a swath of expensive blond hair stepped into the street. She raised a cell phone to her ear, said a single word, and disconnected.

“Are we gonna sit here all day or what, McGrane?”

A white Ford van emblazoned with the words
Allied Meat Packing
screeched to a stop next to the Benz. “Shhh. Something's happening.”

The blonde nodded to the two men in the van and got back in the Benz. As the limo pulled away, the men in the van pulled on surgical masks and got out. They wore stained white coveralls, caps, and work gloves and went around to the back of the van. Three more men in identical clothing jumped out. Together they unloaded ten five-gallon pails and pried off the tops, flipping the lids onto the sidewalk.

The van driver opened the office door and held it while the four-man crew, each lugging two pails apiece, disappeared inside the building. I rummaged around in the center console for a pen and wrote the van's plate number on my wrist.

“What is this place?” I said.

“How the eff should I know?” Niecy pressed her nose against the window. “Why are they taking those buckets inside?”

Alone on the sidewalk, the van driver picked up one of the two remaining pails and splashed its contents high onto the plate-glass window. A grayish-whitish liquid splattered and dripped down the window.

The noxious stink of putrefied ammonia permeated the air vents of our cart.

“Jeebus crispies on a cracker!” Niecy gagged.

I covered my nose and mouth with one hand, snapped off the AC, and flipped the vents closed. My eyes watered. The driver picked up his second pail and hurled its contents onto the building. He dropped the empty pails on the sidewalk, got behind the wheel, and gunned the engine.

“Holy criminey.” Niecy bounced up and down in her seat. “This is Mob shizzle.”

“Shizzle is right.” I'd smelled that stink once before. The time I'd visited a henhouse. “Chicken shizzle.”

The coveralled crew, now pail-free, hustled out of the building, got into the van, and took off.

The office door burst open. Men and women, heads and shoulders coated in dripping white liquid, ran out of the building, coughing and gagging, trying to wipe the guano sludge off their faces. A woman shrugged off her sweater and scrubbed her face against the inside. The T-shirt she wore underneath was emblazoned with Talbott Cottle Coles's campaign logo.

“Get us outta here!” Niecy barked.

 

I called Flynn as soon as my shift was over. The chicken shitting wasn't exactly something I could just call in. Nor did I want to report it to some no-load beat cop like Narkinney.

He answered on the first ring. “What's up, Snap?”

“I just watched a crew of men from an Allied Meat Packing van cover one of Coles's campaign offices in chicken shit. Literally.”

Flynn was silent for a moment. “Did you get the plates?”

I gave him the number.

“Nice work.” He hung up.

I skip-walked the remaining six blocks to my gold Honda, equal parts ecstatic—Flynn, and depressed—Hank, wanting to go to Joe's and clear my head, but I just . . . couldn't. Ten miles on the basement treadmill watching
Callan
DVDs, however, sounded like a decent alternative.

My phone vibrated. I scrabbled it out of my leg pants pocket. Unknown Caller.

Hank?
I leaned against the car. It took two more rings before I felt calm enough to answer. “Hello?”

“Maisie? Lee Sharpe,” said a terse staccato.

“What's up?” I asked, not bothering to mask the disappointment in my voice.

“I was wondering if you'd reconsidered.”

“What?”

“Dinner. With me.”

Lee may be SWAT cool, but he was a hotshot all the same. The fact I hadn't fainted at his feet Saturday must've grated like a sandpaper shirt.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, Lee. That's not such a good idea.”

“Why not? Cash said you aren't seeing anyone.”

Ouch.
I tried to formulate a response, but all I could think of was ways to maim my brother.

“Benny's Chop House. Friday night. We'll hit the Berkshire Room and maybe the Violet Hour after.”

Expensive, trendy places. Not a casual, get-to-know-you kind of date. Although I doubted he ever went on more than a couple dates with the same girl. Or needed to.

“Lee—”

“Come on. It's just dinner. It's not like I'm asking you to move in or anything.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and for some reason it made me smile back.

“I'll pick you up at eight,” he said.

I let my head loll back and banged it gently on the car roof.

“Maisie?”

There was no way anything good was going to come from going out with Lee Sharpe. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

Poaching was where the action was. First thing, we hit the end of Sanchez's route—a full city block of doctor's offices next to an always full, fifty-dollar-a-day ramp and two blocks of snooty brownstones with nary an all-day meter box to be seen.

But even after scoring three dozen tickets, we'd be hard-pressed to hit quota. Niecy was worse than deadweight with a bladder the size of a peeled grape. The morning passed pilfering between pit stops, and me wondering how I could possibly talk her into wearing Depends for the rest of the year.

“The senior PEA always chooses where to go for lunch,” was the single thing she said, besides telling me her operator number.

At eleven we putt-putted a dozen blocks away from our route to Butch's Beer Garden, a skuzzy little joint where no one gave a flying squirrel about the illegality of secondhand smoke.

“Butch,” Niecy called out as we walked in.

“Niecy, baby, where you been?” The bartender set a bag of Lay's plain potato chips on the bar and poured out a Diet Coke.

“Rehab.” Niecy gave a squawk of laughter, took the chips and soda, and headed with shaky but determined strides to the back of the bar. I trailed behind like a stray dog.

She planted herself on a red vinyl stool at the rear counter and slapped down two ten-dollar bills. A dumpy waitress counted out twenty pull-tabs and swiped the money off the counter.

One wall of Butch's back room was haphazardly stacked with ancient TVs all set to off track betting. Three obese guys, wearing the ugliest White Sox crap I'd ever seen, sat chugging beer and bitching about disability restrictions, ripped tickets lying in a pile in front of them.

Niecy grunted, struggling to get her fingers to close on the little paper tab of the gambling ticket. Too painful to watch, on several levels, I wandered back to the front of the bar, ordered a tonic water and lime, and ate my protein bar.

We'd written seventy-three tickets in five hours. I knew we were low, just not how low. I was in desperate need of information. And I knew just where to get it.

Out came the iPhone. Hello eBay.

Ten minutes of surfing and I found it. The perfect bribe. The offer Obi could not refuse.

An original Kenner “Greedo” action figure, N.I.P. (new in package) with a
Buy It Now
price of one hundred and five dollars.

I swiped through the PayPal screens. Did I want to pay an additional twenty bucks for overnight delivery?

 

Niecy was in a jovial mood the rest of the afternoon. Coming out five dollars ahead at Butch's made for a banner afternoon. Back in the cart, she rolled down her window and, after misfiring the lighter seven or eight times, lit a cigarette.

She exhaled in my direction. “What's that crap on your boots, McGrane?”

I looked down at the thin slivers of navy blue hockey-stick tape I'd adhered to my boots. “Tape.”

“I can see that,” she carped. “I got the Parkinson's. I ain't blind.”

“I put it on,” I said. “Inch marks. The quickest way to measure distances from curb, planting strips, and two-inch maximum hang-over into yellow zone lines.”

“Not bad, kid.” Niecy gave a jerky nod of approval.

I wrote up another fifty-seven tickets. Not a good day, not nearly enough to keep us in the berries, but I was praying I'd hit the lower side of average at least.

Niecey looked at her Timex. “Miller time.”

I turned the Interceptor around and drove back to the motor pool.

“Drop me at the gatehouse,” Niecy said. I pulled the cart through the gate and stopped at the back of the gatehouse. Chen, the gate guy, was already out of his Plexiglas hut and had Niecy by the arm.

I parked the Interceptor in space 13248. I'd have liked to leave the doors open and air the thing out, but that was against regulations.

I took the AutoCITE ticketing guns inside, plugged them in to the computer, and dumped the operator data. Afterward, I loaded the guns into the chargers and went to punch out.

Two women gabbing about baby daddies blocked the time clock. I snapped my time card across the back of my hand over and over. The big one gave me a dirty look over her shoulder and went back to talking. Not moving an inch.

It took a hideous amount of self-restraint not to shove past them.

Forty seconds later, the minute hand clacked on the time clock and they punched out. I took my turn and ran-walked for the door.

I stank of smoke. The PowerBar I'd eaten for lunch sat in my belly like a lump of lead. I was not cut out for breaking the law—any law. Engaging in criminal activity was proving to be an overwhelming amount of work for little reward. Hank or not, I was going to Joe's. I needed to work out or my head was going to explode.

My fingers grabbed the door handle.

“Not so fast, McGrane,” Leticia Jackson said.

You gotta be kidding me.
I turned and smiled at her.

“Well?”

“One hundred forty-eight. No boots.”

“That's it?” Her face crinkled in disapproval. She adjusted the waistband of her pants. “No fish today?”

“Plenty that got away. It's too bad I couldn't just drop her off at Butch's.”

“Niecy does love her some pull-tabs.” Leticia laughed and waved a hand at me. “I told you I'd take care of you. Just make sure you leave Niecy ahead of you in total. Dhu West'll let you slide a month or three easy with you being new and all.” She pointed a finger at me. “You got a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

She snapped her fingers. I got it out and handed it to her.

“This be my
personal
number, so don't go handing it out to everyone like it's Halloween candy.”

“No, ma'am.”

She entered her number into the phone. “Your only job is making sure Niecy's square. Day or night, I don't give a goddamn what time, you call me if you're not coming in. You think you're getting the stomach flu? You call me at three a.m. before you start heaving up that cardboard crap you think is food. You dig?”

“I dig.”

 

Two things were waiting for me on my bed the following day. A FedEx box and a navy blue folder. I opened the folder. Inside was the ME's preliminary report. The final autopsy report would follow in six weeks. And just in case the detectives couldn't remember, the warning “The findings of the scene investigation are preliminary and no final conclusions should be drawn from them” was stamped across every page.

I flipped through multiple photos of Thorne Clark's entry wounds, estimated line drawings of the bullets' angles of entry, and approximate gun distance from the body when fired—more than two feet, less than ten—based on the wounds' abrasion collars. I skimmed through organ and tissue damage. Four typewritten pages to confirm that yes, the vic had taken two to the chest and it had killed him.

Approximate time of death was between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. A few pages of scant victim background—driver's license, address, credit report. A couple more pages of the crime scene photos and drawings and then the prelim ballistics report. The bullets were Buffalo Bore hardcast wadcutters. Shot from a .38 revolver.

Flynn knocked on my open door. “You were right. Wads in a revolver. If it was a hitter, he might've used a snubbie. Maybe an S&W K-Frame.”

“Hi to you, too.” I squinted at my brother. “What's the matter?”

He sank into one of my armchairs and put his feet on the coffee table. “The BOC was sniffing around today.”

“What'd they have to say about the chicken er . . . waste?”

“I must've forgot to put that in the case file,” he said innocently. “Coles's office hasn't made a peep, either.”

“Fifty gallons of toxic chicken guano.” My nose wrinkled at the enormity of the sheer awfulness. “You can't file an insurance claim without a police report.”

“Funny, that,” Flynn said.

 

New-in-package Greedo in hand, I went to see Obi. At 5:30 Thursday morning, he was where he always was, control central. I hiked my hip up onto the counter. “I seek your help, Obi-Wan.”

He jerked upright, a manga comic of mostly naked women dropped out of his route binder onto the floor. I hopped off, picked it up, and held it out.

A dark red blush climbed his throat. He snatched it from me and secreted it away in one of his wheelchair pouches. “Er, what's up, Maisie?”

“I seek what every young Jedi searches for. Guidance.”

Obi looked furtively around, his smeary glasses sliding down his nose, and whispered, “Did you know the tallest man in the world is on average
sixty-eight
inches taller than the shortest? Imagine if the guy was a foot taller.”

“Obi, I'm . . . I didn't know . . .” I sniffed and let out a shuddering breath.

Obi spun his wheelchair around and pointed his elbow toward the door. “You look like you could use a little fresh air.”

Outside, I sat down on a cement parking stop. Obi wheeled up close to me. He was wearing red leather driving gloves. The fingerless kind with venting holes over the knuckles.

“Cool mitts,” I said.

“Yeah.” His lips parted in a goofy bucktoothed grin. “I really like you, Maisie.”

“I
like
you, too, Obi,” I said carefully. “And I need this job.”

He wheeled nervously back and forth, staring across the parking lot.

I moved into his line of sight. “Niecy does, too.”

“Yub, yub. Look, there's a couple things I know that might help.”

“Like what?”

“Like all tickets are not equal. On the spreadsheet, a boot is equivalent to two dozen meter tickets. Yellow zones are worth three. Parking in block, auxiliary lane, planting strip, are worth four. Water meter blocking and reserve zone are worth five. There's a bunch more, but mostly, anything on the meter box is only worth one ticket. Even triple tickets on overtime parking meters are worth only the three written.”

“So with that hit of Leticia's at the Brothers of Allah . . .”

“Yeah.” Obi nodded. “For the month.”

“Thanks, Obi. That clears up a lot.” I took out the tissue-wrapped Greedo and handed it to him.

“Ohhh!” he breathed, his fingers trembling as he reverently traced the plastic-covered action figure. “I can't. Maisie, this is too much. It's so special, I—”

“You deserve it.”
He'll be in my debt forever.

I gave him a short salute and turned to go.

“Maisie, wait! There's one more thing. . . .”

 

Obi's “other thing” was an AutoCITE hack, from that day forward only to be known as
Greedo's Code
. By pressing the eight, three, shift, and reset keys at the same time, I was able to bypass the AutoCITE's system and illegally prefill five tickets. I only had to hit the select key, type the number, and
voilà,
the prewritten ticket loaded and printed with the current time.

We loaded our guns at the meter banks, drove around looking for yellow paint violations, and returned at the time Niecy noted on the Post-it on the dashboard. Technically, I never gave a ticket that wasn't earned. But I felt greasy and dirty and not like a good person anymore.

We circled the block on Donna Brown's route like a couple of starved sharks. Two large apartment buildings faced each other. One a six-story, the other a four. And only one had a private garage.

We'd hit quota by midafternoon.

Niecy took the north side's four meter boxes, picking up two cars hanging over into yellow zones.

I took the south side. As I approached the first meter box, a dark, flapping cloud fell past my head. I ducked behind one of the fenced-in elm trees on the sidewalk.

A pile of clothes. Some clean, some not so clean.
Ugh.

Next came the shoes. One at a time.

I peered out from beneath the tree. A skinny woman in a hot pink satin bra leaned out the window, holding a Nike in optimum pitching position.

A grubby, shirtless guy in sweatpants and bare feet rushed out of the building. “Jenna!” he screamed. “You bitch! Don't you dare!”

“Bite me!” Jenna threw the Nike.

Screaming Guy tried to catch it. The shoe bounced off his shoulder. “Goddamn it! It's my goddamn apartment!
You
get the hell out!”

“Make me, you cheating piece of shit!” An armful of CDs and DVDs were next, clattering and scattering as they hit the cement. Screaming Guy scuttled back and forth across the sidewalk, trying to gather his junk while avoiding projectiles from above.

I hit my radio when Jenna hefted a heavy, ancient Diehl table fan up onto the sill. “Dispatch! This is Car 13248. Dispatch!”

She shoved it out. It hit the cement with a loud, metallic thud.

“Obi, here,” came the voice from my radio. “What's up, Maisie?”

“We're on Fifteenth and Jefferson. Call a squad car. We got a domestic in progress.”