I recognized his voice before his head was fully visible, but I had to duck down to see the other man’s face. ((Damien Firth.)) These men were among the last people I expected to be tailing me. “Really, Sammy,” I told him.
“Shithead. How’s civilian life treating you?” He was chewing on something, and I had a good idea of what it was.
“Not bad. Why are you following me?”
“We ain’t following nobody, Shorty,” he reassured me innocently through a mouth containing something crunchy.
“Then why do I keep seeing you in my rearview mirror?”
He spat a few saliva-logged sunflower shell fragments into a 7-Eleven coffee cup and placed it back in the cup holder. Shosh leaned forward from the middle of the rear seat and through the steel plate of the prisoner partition, picked up the cup, and showed me the contents; as I expected, it was filled about a third of the way with gray mush, and I shuddered at the sight of the chewed-up spit-soaked grossness inside. He dug into a red, white, and blue resealable plastic bag in his lap and popped a fresh handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth and crunched away. “You saw another car that looks like this one. Coincidence.”
Shosh dumped the cup out into his lap. I giggled. “Coincidence. Of course.”
He nodded with a solid poker face.
“Whiskey-seven-seven-six-bravo-bravo-oscar-one.”
“What?”
“W776BBO1. The plates on this car. I’ve seen this car twice today.”
His face remained unchanged, and his mouth remained silent apart from the shells popping between his teeth. Either he was good at keeping his cool even when he was losing or he sincerely believed he still had the upper hand. Which explanation was the more likely seemed obvious to me given that no-one in his squad had a reputation for smarts—bearing in mind I was a veteran of that same inane jackboot troop.
“I might be an incompetent cop, Chewy… but I’m not a stupid one.” He had a nickname which requires no explanation.
“If you’re such an observant smarty, how come you didn’t notice we were following you until today?” he asked smugly.
His question caught me off guard, shattering my composure. “You started following me before this morning?”
A silent, smug smile was all he gave me, but he didn’t have to speak a single word to worsen my unease.
“How long?”
More silence.
“Since last night?”
“Damien and I noticed your friends suddenly refreshing the meters as soon as you showed up on Adams.”
“People topped off the meters last night. Did the sun set at dusk, too?”
“Quarters started plinking the second you showed up.”
“So?”
“‘So’? We’re Parking Enforcement, Bachman. All of us take parking meter Good Samaritans seriously. All of us ’cept you.”
“If people want to help other people, they should be allowed to.”
“Is that so? Municipal Code Section 74.0382 begs to differ.”
“A bullshit reg designed to inflate the number of parking fines generated and intimidate bystanders into abandoning kindness to others.”
“Ya think?”
“Yes. I think.”
“Did you by any chance get yourself canned for failing to enforce that one?”
((Technically,)) “No.” The real answer was a little more complicated, and I didn’t feel like explaining to him that the reason for my expulsion involved frequent tardiness, a 'pervasive pattern of unsatisfactory performance', and an Internal Affairs investigation that could have resulted in me being permanently decertified as a law enforcement officer under Penal Code Section 13510.8(b)(6) thanks to the 16-plus infractions I had allegedly committed while in uniform. (The actual number of infractions committed throughout my last year on the force—consisting of 217 shifts after subtracting holidays and leave—totaled 1,211, an average of about 5.6 per shift, every one a violation of the same Section 74.0382 that I so despised.)
“You sure? Because ever since you left and they stuck me with mids on that dirty, disgusting dump of a street, I’ve noticed some pretty brazen meter loading by the whores who own the place. Organized, based on how efficient they are.” Then in a knowing tone he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to know who’s calling the shots, would you?”
((‘Organized’? Is this a Guild thing?)) “No.”
“You sure? Because we spotted you walking Adams last night, and your buddies started their routine of systemically topping off the meters as soon as you came by. We thought maybe you were the one going up and down the street giving orders to the hookers in your pretty black dress.”
“What? No.” I genuinely wasn’t sure about what to make of the allegation. “They’re doing it on their own.”
“We know you’re one of them,” interjected Officer Firth. “You arrived on the scene wearing that chesty dress and subsequently got into a very fancy Mercedes and came back exactly an hour later. We don’t know how long you’ve been a streetwalker, but based on how nice you were to them over the past year you were patrolling Adams, we can guess that it’s been a long time.”
“No, I’m—” I choked on my words as soon as I remembered that, as much as I simultaneously hated to admit it and wanted to shout it from a mountain top, I was quite literally a card-carrying streetwalker. “So what if I’m turning tricks? You gonna arrest me?”
“What?” they both asked amid hearty laughter.
Prince explained, “No. We ain’t Vice or Internal Affairs. We don’t care how you were supplementing your income. We’re only concerned with organized crime interfering with the proper functioning of the meters.”
((‘Organized crime’? Are they serious?)) “I had no idea they were doing this. What makes you think I have anything to do with it?”
“Because we analyzed your statistics and noticed that the meter loading started around the time you were assigned to Adams, early July of last year. And last night, as soon as you left the force, we spotted you walking the streets. Either you let it happen, or you started it. And we’re gonna follow you everywhere you go until we find out which.”
((Shit, I can’t have police watching my every move, even if they only care about their stupid parking meters not being allowed to expire.))
So I decided to cut their mental masturbation short with a premature climax. With a dramatic fling I reared my head, thrust my fists side-by-side through the window frame, and closed my eyes, as though averting my sight from the hideous countenance of Death herself. “Alright. I organized it. Arrest me. Conspiracy to stuff the parking meters. That’s a felony, right?” I opened my eyes to drill into his pupils.
Prince, with sour lips, drew his citation pad and scribbled something on the top sheet, tore it off with a flourish, and thrust it towards me; I snatched it away defiantly. “Your court date is Thursday, July 18th, at 10 AM.”
The box for other regulation was checked and the line next to it filled out with… Well, it was filled out with something. I struggled to read what it said: “(‘Palxjhg nnctcr raexolccrjhg’)—what the hell does this say?”
“‘Parking meter racketeering’, smartass.”
“‘Parking meter… (racketeering)’?” ((‘Parking meter racketeering’… I’ve never encountered this combination of words before.)) “There’s nothing like that in the Municipal Code. That isn’t a real reg.”
“That’s for the judge to decide. And when he finds out you’ve been disrupting our ecosystem, he’s gonna flip his lid like a fresh tube of Pringles.” He started rolling up his window.
“Are you gonna leave me alone, now?”
His “Yeah” snuck out just as the window closed.
The blue Charger passed me as I returned to my car. “So? What happened?” asked Judy anxiously. “Why were they following us?”
After taking a moment to process the past few minutes, I burst into laughter.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Parking Enforcement thinks there’s a crime ring on Adams—that someone’s organized the sex workers to keep all the parking meters from expiring! They think they’re hot shit, going undercover and trailing me like I’m a mobster!” I cackled.
“So they think… you’ve been running some kind of operation. And they’re taking it very seriously.” Despite my mirth, she was on edge.
“I confessed to ‘parking meter rack—’” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as I passed her the citation slip.
“‘Parking meter’ what? I can’t read these scribbles.” She was still worried about the trouble in which I had become embroiled.
“I can’t—ha!—either… ‘Parking meter racketeering’! He said that with a straight face!”
“That sounds… (kind of) serious.”
I sighed and started to come down. “Criminal profiteering, California Penal Code Section 186, is a felony per the California Control of Profits of Organized Crime Act.”
“…And yet you don’t seem to be at all concerned.” She started to calm down, but wasn’t entirely soothed.
“There are a total of zero infractions that fall under the definition of ‘criminal profiteering activity’ given in Section 186 Subsection 2. The judge is gonna throw this one out.” I allowed myself a couple more giggles. “Like an empty Pringles can!” I snorted as one final laugh escaped. “Let’s go.”
I pulled away from the sidewalk and proceeded until she told me to park again. She went inside and came out four minutes later, we drove, we parked, she went inside… Shosh and I kept an eye out for pig plates while we repeated this program a couple dozen times, before Judy declared, “Damn. I’m finished, and it’s barely an hour past noon.”
“And I didn’t get to watch any drug deals go down.”
“I sell grass, it barely counts as a drug.”
“Barely drug deals are still drug deals. I wanted to be there.”
“Stop complaining. You will get to witness them. Watching them go down is gonna be part of your job.”
“Only if I transfer to Vice, which I do not plan on doing. Our ‘justice system’ punishes users for having addictions they struggle to—”
“Yes, amen—but you’re preaching to the pastor, Andy, you don’t have to express every tangential thought in the form of an extended social justice sermon.”
“Sorry, I learned how to talk about these things on Hootr.”
“Oh, honey, we need to get you some books.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“How many followers do you have?”
“Five. My mother is one of them, and she’s, y’know, dead, so… I only really have four followers.”
“Christ. And while we’re at the library you need to make more friends.”
“She’s right,” interjected Shosh. “All because I monopolized your free time, you never had the chance to make any.”
Her candor disarmed me. “Um…” ((Did she do me a disservice by spending every moment she could with me? We were inseparable, practically conjoined outside of work and school.)) “I guess…” ((She didn’t go to school with me, but she fought the school tooth and nail for the right to bring her Esti)) chili dogs from Berliner Weiner on Wednesdays, like a cool older sister. “…maybe…” ((That was the only time between the hours of eight and three that I ever said anything substantial—anything more than what you might say to a baker (or a barber or a butcher) toiling away the peak business hours—to another human being.)) “…spending all my time with…”
As her patience broke a sweat, Judy finally cleared her throat and softly asked, “‘Spending so much time with’… who?”
I shook my head. “Not having time to spend with my ‘peers’ didn’t matter—they all hated me, they were never going to hang out with me in the first place.”
“I’m sorry. But I wasn’t suggesting rekindling old friendships,” explained Judy, “we’re making you some adult friends with new people.”
Shosh admitted something that once again threw me for a loop: “I shoulda admitted this a long time ago, Esti… I’m not everyone you need. I am so much less than that.”
It didn’t take very long for me to figure out she was right. Almost right. “Maybe you can’t be my only friend… but no matter how many friends I gain, you’ll always be worth more than all the rest combined.” Shosh, troubled by my stubbornness, frowned.
Judy took a few seconds to process what I had told Shosh then abruptly wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “I don’t know the words I need to describe to you how that makes me feel. We met two days ago, but there’s no doubt about it, we have something truly special, something that only happens to a handful of people in the world at a time.”
“I won’t argue with you, Esti. But I’ll promise you that I’ll be here. I’ll always be here, even after the curtain drops. You’ll have endless time to spend with me after that, you don’t have to spend every waking moment in this life with me. Could you maybe stand me stepping outta your life for a day or two, here and there?”
The thought of her being away from me for more than a few hours at a time made me deeply uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel like unpacking that discomfort, so I simply pretended she hadn’t asked for what she had asked for. “Once in a very long time.”
Judy squeezed me tighter. “Maybe even… once in an eternity!”
“For so long a time to pass before we part… that is all I want. Judy… I’m hungry. Let’s get some Jack or something.”
“Let’s, but make it Del, it’s healthier.”
“I can do Del.”
We dined in; Judy ordered one each of the red and green bean burritos, I splurged on a macho combo burrito, and Shosh had a double Del. When Judy handed me money to pay for our food, I declined. “Lunch is on me. I’m going to be making the big bucks.”
“If you say so,” she replied solemnly.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t say what it was until we were sitting opposite each other; she leaned forward to explain. “Last night, while you were asleep, I looked up the starting salary for detectives in Santa Virginia.”
“How much is it?”
“64K.”
My face lit up. “That’s great!” She gave me a look. “It isn’t great?”
“64K is almost enough to scrape by in SV, in a much shittier apartment than what you have.”
“I’ve been ‘scraping by’ on just 48.”
“And I have no idea how. What do you eat?”
“Peanut butter and jelly at work, and at home I’ll have beans and rice, tuna noodle casserole, spaghetti and meatballs, cheesy chicken and broccoli, and vegetable stew.”
“Is that your entire repertoire of recipes?”
“Pretty much. When I want a treat, I make beef Stroganoff or have something off the value menu at Del Taco or Taco Bell.”
“You get more variety than the average person with depression, but not by much. You haven’t been living, Honey.”
“I have my PlayBox U.”
“That’s an investment well worth it for the sake of your mental health, but you honestly can’t afford even that. Where do you get your clothes?”
“I don’t remember,” I lied.
“Those cute jeans on you right now that accentuate your nice tush, do you remember when or where those came from?”
I blushed. “Hallmart. I’ve had this pair since—” ((Shit, just be honest with her. She’s trying to help.)) “—since… before my mother passed. I was wearing them the day she died, so I’m trying to keep them pristine, in her memory. Up until now I’ve worn my uniform pants off-duty, but… my special jeans are the only other pants in my closet.”
“That’s… very… um…”
“Choose your words carefully, Judith,” warned Shosh. With my eyes I asked her to please avoid making a scene. “What?” I shook my head. “She’s gonna say something judgmental, like you’re holding onto the past or some other armchair therapist bullshit. Although—it’s kinda true that— But I still don’t like that she’s…” She trailed off before she could actually say anything, and I pretended not to know where she had been headed.
Whatever Judy had been about to say, she decided to say something else. “So you musta gone through your navy blues pretty fast if you were wearing them all the time. How much did you spend on those?”
“30 dollars a month, including cleaning. I had an allowance that paid for laundering and replacements, though.”
“So you have no budget for anything.”
“Nope.”
“Do you have any savings?”
“I have about 15K, including the stack of 20s in my purse.”
She shook her head. “Shit, you’re living on a razor’s edge… though at least you have something to carry you through a few months. You deserve a better career than what you had or what you’re getting. Deal weed with me.”
“Hard pass,” said Shosh. “Too risky.”
I was a little nervous about the prospect of breaking the law as a career—sex work notwithstanding—but I was open to anything… because I was very nervous about how little I’d be getting from my pension if I changed my mind again about Captain Somers’s offer. “Maybe once I’m done with the case.”
“Seriously, think about it.”
We ate in silence for a moment; I could tell that something was bothering her, and I suspected she was still thinking about my income. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”
“You promise not to hate me?”
“Cross my heart,” I said without hesitation.
“Those pants… I’m worried you might be trying too hard to preserve—” She cleared her throat. “I’m guilty of this myself—they’re—” Shosh had the words ‘I told you so’ tattooed on her forehead in crowded blinking neon, and was gesticulating towards Judy accordingly. “—very plain.” Shosh froze, and the neon went dark.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing wrong with simplicity, but they’re—almost corporate in their utility. Maybe throw in some strategically placed rips and some patches and a little—or a lot—of embroidery to spice things up. The pants you intend to wear on special occasions deserve to be… well. Special. You should make people want to ask questions about them—then you can tell them all about your mother.”
Shosh was nodding her head eagerly, so enraptured that she struggled to tear her eyes away from Judy to tell me, “If you wanna make your mother happy, those jeans you’re wearin’ need to be the most fucked-uppedly beautiful pants anyone’s ever worn on their ass.”
“Alright. If that’s what you want…”
“N—no,” stuttered Judy, “I’m not trying to tell you how to remember her, it’s absolutely not about what I want, what you do with those pants is all between you and her.”
“Of course. I was telling her that if she wants—” I glanced at Shosh, who I remembered was not actually there, and realized that I had been talking to her like she was, and only for the millionth time in a decade. “Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“I am so… fucked in the head…”
“I miscommunicated and implied that you were doing things wrong, I messed up, your head is fine.”
“No, you don’t get it—”
Shosh placed a finger on my lips and reminded me, “If you tell anyone about me, they’re going to think you’re insane.”
“Shosh… I am insane.”
“(Um.)” I followed Judy’s voice. “Andy… Do you have… a… friend with you… that I can’t see?”
My heart threatened to burst from my chest.