Chapter 2: Tits and Brass

I dialed Captain Somers’s office number and was greeted by a voice with a sensuous edge, leading me to imagine a pair of pouty red lips, purple eyeshadow, and a mink stole: “Good morning, Tricia Patton, First Precinct Vice, Alcohol and Tobacco Captain’s office, how may I help you?”

“Good morning, Tricia, this is Andrea Bachman, calling in regard to a discussion I had with Captain Somers.”

To my surprise, she asked, “Are you accepting her very special offer, Miss Bachman?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Do you still prefer CAP, or might I entice you to come over to the Vice side? We throw the most decadent parties.” She pronounced these sentences in the most provocative of cadences, invoking images of lurid celebrations led by Captain Somers dressed up as a maenad—or satyr—leading her cult as priestess or priest. Vice did hold an appeal…

…but I had my priorities. “That sounds lovely, but I still have my eyes on CAP. I like murders more than parties. I mean, I like solving murders.”

There was no recovering from such a gaff, no matter how quickly and adamantly I corrected myself; my cheeks heated up even before she giggled at my slip-up. “Of course, Miss Bachman. I’ll let the captain know you would rather party in the morgue with Regina the Death and Dismemberment Doctor.”

“Thank you, but—remember, CAP detectives also occasionally save people before they’re murdered.”

“Which you have made clear isn’t your priority.” I groaned, spurring a delighted laugh from her. “I’m sure you’ll manage to save more lives than you lose, Andrea. Try not to take me too seriously… except in matters involving Diane.”

“Thank you, and I’ll try to bear in mind that you have a sense of humor. Can you tell me when I can expect to be back on board?”

“Today.”

“Ah. Pardon me, the audio glitched, did you say ‘today’ or ‘Tuesday’?”

“‘Today’ as in ‘forthwith’. We’ll get a fresh set of quals on your record and administer the oath, then get you seated at your new desk.”

“Oh.”

“We have a batch of prospective officers coming in later this morning for onboarding, around 8, so it would be prudent to arrive within the hour to avoid a wait.”

“ASAP.”

“Like the man of the fables.”

I snorted in mild amusement. “Got it, I’ll be there soon. Where do I report?”

“The armory, of course, then the range.”

“Of course, thank you.”

“Is there anything else you require?”

“That’s everything for now. Have a good day, Tricia.”

“You, too, Future Detective Bachman. And—do not feel compelled to quit your night job, Serendipity.”

“Ah. Um. Why… by the way… did you call m—add the word Serendipity?”

“We’re Vice, Andrea. We know everything about everyone who works on Adams.” Goosebumps pricked my skin. “Ciao.”

“Um. Ciao.”

I dialed Judy as soon as we hung up. “Hey Andy! How’d the call go?”

“Great. I’m reporting for onboarding as soon as we say, ‘Goodbye.’”

“That was… fast.”

I grabbed my keys off the hook. “Yeah. They need to run me through quals—physical fitness and marksmanship tests—before they can swear me in, but those’ll be a breeze.”

“Good. Your pill will be waiting for you in my apartment after you get off work. Hopefully I can see you then.”

“As you wish.”

“Later, I’m with you.”

I waited.

“Andy?”

“Yes?” I asked, eagerly.

“Are you gonna hang up?”

I whined, “I don’t want to…”

“You have things to do.”

“I know, but I want to be close to you. I feel lonely without you.”

“Hmm… You need to be able to hang up on me, Andrea.”

“But… I want to hear your voice…”

“You’ll hear my voice after work.”

“Fine, but only because you say so.”

“Do it for yourself.”

“Okay, bye. As you wish.”

“As you wish.”

My thumb hovered over the ‘hang up’ button for a few seconds until I forced myself to press it. Once the call had ended, I exhaled, then realized that I had been holding my breath. “God, I hope she doesn’t make me do that again.”

I gave myself one last self-inspection, shoved my physical fitness clothes in my purse, prayed silently for a smooth first day at work, then headed out. The drive went smoothly, nothing but green lights the whole way. Out of habit I took a wrong turn into the police garage instead of the public parking on the street—but the gate guard recognized me from my ten-point-seven years on the force and waved me in with a smile; he probably hadn’t gotten the memo yet on my recent separation.

I found a parking spot right next to the elevators… and you can call me ‘Serendipity’ because God heard my prayer and sent me an elevator car to meet me before I could even press the call button, as well as an officer to badge me onto my floor—only after I stepped out of the elevator did I remember that I couldn’t have badged myself in without a magic card of my own. Things were going positively swimmingly.

I reported to the armory without receiving harassment; the range master checked my eyesight, and I was not surprised to learn for the twelfth time in my career that it was perfect. For my pistol qual she took me to the range and had me run the 50-round course. She called, “Make ready.”

Over the course of 8 magazines, with the sum of all my bullets I filled a tight hole in every bullseye in my lane, target after target, whether stationary or mobile, in a mere 20.6 seconds total. “That’s the maximum 100 points, and just 2.4 seconds over the department’s best time,” indicated the range master. “And a tenth of a second under your previous best, Bachman. You’re a real gunslinger. I’ve never had the time to ask you between testing all these officers—when did you start shooting?”

“Ah reckon livin’ in a rural community plagued by cay-yotes mighta factored inta it,” observed Shosh in a thick SoCal country accent. “Ya proved yerself a fermidable nemesis to the varmint pop-ya-lation back in those days.” She turned her head and spat out a brown ball of chaw—and somewhere in the room an old brass spittoon rang like a gong.

“That was just a couple of years in high school, and I would hardly claim that I was ‘formidable’… I think I was just lucky.”

The instructor chuckled. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter how ‘lucky’ you are or how long you’ve been shooting, a pass is a pass. But I don’t see course times like this every day.” She tapped the shot timer for emphasis. “Maybe once a year.”

Shosh scoffed. “Once in a year, once in a million, Esti. You coulda been sheriff of Valle de Gallo. Big honcho with a big iron and a big posse.”

“Alright. Maybe I’ll run for sheriff someday. They don’t technically count as cops, do they?”

“Of course they do,” they replied in tandem.

“Damn.”

Following that, I ran 1½ miles in just 10 minutes and 42 seconds—well-below par, which for plain clothes detectives was before the cock crows or you have a heart attack. Finally, they had me lift some weights, nothing too heavy, just to make sure I was strong enough to work in an office environment, carrying boxes of files and moving computer equipment; I wasn’t expected to carry heavy pieces of evidence or dig bodies out of rubble—not that I wasn’t strong enough to dig through rubble. So that qual was a breeze. I was done after less than half an hour, so I finally reported to… the chief’s office.

Him I dreaded, but there was no way around seeing the big cheese. He was the one swearing me in. “I gotta admit, I’m nervous.”

“You’ve dealt with him before,” pointed out Shosh along the way.

“Yes. When he terminated me.”

“You survived.”

“I was terminated. He’s a heartless cybernetic organism who shot me with a shotgun loaded with unemployment.”

“You got a girlfriend out of it.”

“Your point?”

“Only good things’re gonna happen to you from now on.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“The bad ol’ days are over.”

“You said that when we moved to Valle de Gallo. The kids still made fun of me.”

“Were they as bad as the city kids?”

“I was the redhead gringa. I stuck out even more than I did at Harding High. Sure, I was the girl everybody asked out to prom—looking back on it, probably because I was the hottest girl in my class… but everybody constantly made jokes about my hair and my sexual proclivities. Some of them were admittedly kinda funny, but there was such a massive stream of them and enough of it wasn’t good-natured that it’s hard to say I felt any less despised.”

“I’m sorry baby.”

Missus Tia Reagan, the chief’s conservatively dressed assistant, recognized me and said, “The chief is waiting for you, Miss Bachman,” as she waved me towards his door.

I knocked. “Come in.” I opened the door and entered; seated were Chief Dennis Plaut, 6′3″, 62 years old, proudly graying black hair cut short and a color-coordinated walrus mustache, wearing a navy suit with pinstripes on top of a sky-blue shirt with a blue-and-red striped tie held down by a blue-and-brass SVPD badge tie pin; James Coburn, Assistant Chief of the Crime Investigations Division, who oversaw the units of Property Crimes, Commercial Crimes, Crimes against Persons, Vice, Domestic Extremism, and Organized Crime; and who, at 5′3½″ when standing with his spine stretched straight, was the shortest man in the entire department, 53 years old, graying black crew cut with a painter’s brush mustache; and Nathan Nichols, the First Precinct Crimes Against Persons Squad Captain, who—at an imposing 6′3″, 47 years young, with a serious face, aggressive bushy eyebrows, buzzed hair, clean-shaven face, and wearing a brown jacket over a blue shirt and sandy tan pants—could make a drill sergeant soil their pants with a friendly smile and a ‘howdy-do’… Of course, knowing that he had been a drill sergeant in the Marines should make his fierce appearance less surprising. (Missing from my prospective chain of command was Crimes Against Persons Unit Commander Wendell Lopez.)

“Christ, look at that guy’s jawline,” remarked Shosh. “A Greek sculptor woulda spent a lifetime trying to chisel a bust with a mandible like that. I wouldn’t mind a dinner date with him—HaShem knows how long it’s been since I geshtupt a looker like him.”

Despite my interest in learning the meanings of her foreign words, I told her with a dirty glance to keep her fawning to herself.

The brass arose all at once and flanked me in a half-circle to shake my hand one-by-one while the chief addressed me with a twisted smirk. “Miss Bachman, it is a pleasure to see you again! You’re back in the saddle much sooner than I had expected, an achievement worthy of a celebratory feast—if only we had the funds appropriated.” He laughed once with hollow amusement. “Did you find a cure or a… a treatment for your depression? I’m impressed by your gumption, and very surprised by your incredibly rapid rehabilitation. What is your secret?” His veiled sarcasm was as easy to see through as the sexy panties Judy had insisted on buying me, and I could see in the trio’s mostly polite eyes a hint that they all knew my new employment situation down to the whos, whys, and wheres—and each was making only a token effort to hide it.

I put on a smile, which I hoped would be convincing. “A better wardrobe, and a new, (ehem…) romantic partner.”

A switch flipped, and all three pairs of eyes, sharp as surgical obsidian, began dissecting my every movement, waiting for me to let slip a secret they already knew—and I imagined if they had cat ears they would have swiveled, the better to hear me let slip the wrong answer. “Well, congratulations. Is it someone I or A-Chief Coburn or Captain Nichols happen to know?”

With complete sincerity I informed them, “No.” I looked for skepticism in their eyes, and found plenty; and I paid attention to the pause and the exchange of knowing glances that followed my answer and preceded Plaut’s…

“Well, I sure hope to meet him someday.”

…and considering as well the emphasis the chief placed on the word ‘him’, concluded that he was not merely doubting my answer with absolute certainty—all three were seemed to be assuming that I had been talking about Captain Somers when I claimed that it wasn’t anybody they knew—but it was Judy who I had in mind when I gave my answer, because my relationship with Somers was, after all, purely sexual, not at all romantic, and would without a doubt never be romantic because I already had a girlfriend, and I was unswervingly faithful to her and couldn’t possibly be faithful to two people at the same time. No sirree, the idea of a romance with Captain Somers was positively absurd, fantastic, outlandish, farcical, comical, fit for a Monty Python skit! But I digress, as the fancy writers of yore would say.

The chief’s lip curled up in a sly smirk, while the captain’s polite smile was a little opaquer; the assistant chief stared inscrutably into my eyes. The only other ‘subtle’ social flourishes Plaut could have included in the conversation, in order to drive home the fact that all three of them were quite aware I was fucking Captain Somers, were a knowing wink and a pat on the back.

All this was (very obviously) a test. I knew that based on the mock surprise and straightforward probing, his overly familiar tone of voice, his token questioning of my psychological fitness and eager acceptance of my flimsy explanation for why I was ready to return—all to make it clear to me that I was being watched, but also to reassure me that, as long as I was careful about my relationship with Captain Somers, I would be allowed to live out my fantasy as a great detective.

“None of you will be meeting… him,” I claimed, boldly out-emphasizing the pronoun he had used merely deliberately. “And you might even forget that I’m in a relationship, because I prefer to keep my romances discreet, and I’m only disclosing the fact that I have one because you have an interest in your subordinates not being caught in compromising situations. I assure you, I will not be discovered in any circumstances which could paint this department in a derogatory light.” ((Elegant. They’re going to appreciate the emphasis on discretion. Plus, higher-ups love fancy words like “derogatory”.))

And I was right. He grinned, and gave me my wink and my pat on the back. “I’m glad we have an understanding. You’ll be a good cop, Bachman; you’ve proven your ‘professional aptitude’ to a certain higher-up, a fact which your leadership will take into account when considering any requests you may have for us.” ((Favoritism all the way up the chain!)) I couldn’t totally stop the grin that came to my face, but I was at least able to turn it into a subtle smirk. “Captain Nichols, A-Chief Coburn, how about we waive all the formalities?”

“Agreed,” said Coburn, still expressionless, still owl-staring into my eyes.

“I see no reason to put her through all of that red-tape nonsense,” said Nichols. “This isn’t her first time working for the department, she’s read the book and regs, she knows the three pillars. The one thing we can’t skip is the oath.”

“Then we’re in agreement,” concluded the chief. “Bachman, do you by any chance have the oath memorized?”

I straightened my spine, raised my right hand, and recited the first thing they taught us at academy, before we got to the Legal Study and Physical Training and Arrests and Firearms Training: “I, Andrea Bachman, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”

“Wonderful!” He handed me a wallet, thicker than the credential wallets given to the uniforms. I opened it, and inside were a badge, with a blue enamel background, and an electronic credential card with my pre-termination photo which said— “Detective Andrea Bachman…” These three names echoed throughout the vast (and mostly empty) halls of my mind, and sent a pleasant shiver up my spine and ignited an explosion of endorphins inside my head—casting a softly tingling glow upon my skin that would last several minutes. I nearly forgot where I was as I stood there dumbly (but far from numbly) absorbing the fact that after ten-and-two-thirds years of slogging through a thankless menial routine and suffering sexual harassment at the hands of all my coworkers—in particular that… that Thomas Forrester who… who groped me at every opportunity and ignored my many demands that he keep his hands off of me and sparked within me guilt over my reaction to his touch—

And after suffering through twelve fucking years of uninterrupted uncertainty that I could keep even the uncomfortable, hostile, abusive, pointless job that left me feeling perpetually estranged and threatened—

I was finally, at last, after nearly three decades of yearning, a genuine Detective.

I was a police inspector, a solver of crimes, an Envoy of Law and Harbinger of Justice. I was everything I had ever wanted to be. ((And I’ll go down as the best damn detective in history, real or fictional. Peter is looking down from Heaven and shedding a single, joyous tear for the graduation of his protégé from meter maid to hero.))

I lustfully traced the edges of my precious brass-and-blue-enamel shield, engraved

as Plaut continued from a thousand miles away, “…this is yours.” I was torn from my reverie as he added, very sternly: “Do not lose it.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Bachman.” He stared me dead in the eyes and elaborated, “I can overlook the occasional ‘irreversible rule bending’ by those elite few who have ‘earned’ their place within the department the way you have, but lost property is a serious issue, and I will not hesitate to turn the thumbscrews if this badge turns up somewhere it shouldn’t be. You are a detective now, not a uniform whom everyone expects to make the occasional catastrophically embarrassing mistake. Your badge actually has significance, and with that significance comes a responsibility to ensure it is either on your person at all times or else in a locked safe at home—and nowhere else, not your desk drawer, not your coat pocket on the coat rack, not your gym locker. Am I understood?”

“Not even crystal is as clear as your words, sir.”

His stern, straight lips were overcome by a gentle smile. “Very good. Captain Nichols, would you do the honors of showing her to her new desk?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Nichols led me down corridor after corridor—at first familiar, then progressively more alien—and gestured at an empty, unadorned desk—far away from Parking, far away from those creeps, far away from Tom Forrester and his… his… smooth, strong hands. “Make yourself comfortable.”

I nodded and smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“I look forward to working with you, Detective Bachman.” Hearing those words again—Detective Bachman—this time in his manly, fine-grit-sandpaper voice—turned my knees to gelatin as he departed, and I had to collapse into my moderately comfortable chair before I could lose my balance.

But even as I felt the need to manifest the rest of my fantasies as realities and thereby, with each stroke of indulgence, extend my emotional plateau, brought on and sustained by the gratification of a quarter century of longing and desire and exertion and agonizing anticipation… I took care not to get lost in daydreams of grandeur, as I was prone as far back as I can remember—I needed to stay focused if I was going to meet my expectations of greatness. And, besides, I reminded myself, I was in theory there for Alex, not to live my lifelong dream. I had accepted this position as praxis, not pleasure. ((That said… is there anything wrong with fooling around with my new job, as long as I don’t neglect my main objective or let on that I’m enjoying myself whenever my girlfriends are watching?))

I pulled my phone out and drafted a SecreText message to Yesenia, just a single telephone emoji, and tapped send. (I considered revising it to make it more cryptic, just in case her phone was seized for evidence and cracked by the Digital Forensics Unit, but decided that a search was so unlikely that such a degree of paranoia was counterproductive.) 10 seconds later, I received a reply containing only a thumbs-up emoji, and with confirmation that the plan was in motion I deleted our conversation.

But before I could slip my phone back into my purse, I noticed a red notification dot on my Hootr icon. I opened the app to discover that I had 2 unread DMs—I had neglected to turn on notifications! I read the replies from @FluffyFresh, sent the night prior, apologizing for the late response—they had initially thought I was a ‘Russian bot’ and thus ignored me. They then asked me if I knew about Sex Cop. I replied that I was Sex Cop; they congratulated me on my new job, and gave me an update: the demolition efforts were so far being effectively blocked by a human chain of sex workers and allies; to which I replied that the guild had my sincere gratitude, that I wished them luck, and—in a stroke of inspiration, suggested sharing a narrative on social media that the Torrey Pines was a historic building that deserved to be restored, not demolished. They replied that they thought this was a great idea, and that they would organize a task force to accomplish this. I let a smile escape; the day was going well.

I rang up my captain and asked, “Sir, do you recall who’s assigned to the Alexander Brookvale disappearance?”

“Freezer.”

“It’s already a cold case?”

“As of 72 hours after his wife filed the report with us.”

“Would you mind me taking it on?”

“Why would you want to waste your time on that sleazebag?”

“The way I see it, if we save an antifa’s life, that’ll remind them and the rest of the public that we take the high road by helping everyone, even the people who paint us as cruel and heartless. We’re bastards, Captain, bastards to the bone—in their eyes, I mean. We can prove to the world that their opinions are bunk. Saving ‘that sleazebag’ would be proof that we’re the good guys. And since I’m a special rookie, you won’t have wasted anybody’s time of real value in the event my case turns out to be a wild goose chase.”

The phone was silent for three seconds. “Good point. You have my blessing. But stop by my office before you go galloping after ganders, I have a fresh case for you taking up space on my desk, and I’d like to be rid of it.”

I pumped my fist triumphantly and—struggling to control my giddiness—replied, “10-4.” I walked to the captain’s office, resisting the urge to run there excitedly, and through the open door.

On his desk were a file folder and a rugged-looking QSeeker Digital Mobile Radio combination smartphone and portable land mobile radio transceiver in a matching hip holster. “Please, take a seat.” I did so. “You’ve been looking mighty bored out there spinning around in your chair while staring at your personal phone, so we have to give you something you can hold in your hands to maintain the illusion of productivity when you aren’t wasting the rest of your time out in the field chasing the ghosts of antifa.” He slid the phone-cum-radio towards me; there was a blue sticky note stuck to it with my last name and a phone number penciled on it. “If you’re going to fuck around, fuck around on this, it looks more professional.” I hit the unlock button and was greeted with a first-time login screen. “Since your separation wasn’t conduct-related, Data Systems Unit only disabled your account when you left, rather than delete it. I had it re-enabled after you were sworn in this morning, so your previous username and password should still work. You’ll also be issued your laptop once it’s done imaging. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. We’ve received 57 anonymous tips in the past 45 minutes about a huge pool of blood in a room at the Old Torrey Pines Hotel, enough that the judge agreed to issue a search warrant.” I did my best not to grin. “Two black and whites have been dispatched along with the search warrant to cordon off the scene, CSI is following. I want you to go over there and not make a fool of yourself. Let them do their jobs, and don’t try to prove your usefulness by helping them—trust me, a rookie like you is just gonna ruin the crime scene. Your job is to build a case based on the evidence given to you, not to play Blue’s Clues. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir. I won’t screw it up.”

“Eh. I don’t actually care if you screw this one up, it was probably just a junkie who broke in and ripped open a vein while he was shooting up. Or a hooker who did something similar.”

((How does he figure it was a break-in? Was he aware the Old Torrey Pines was closed for business?)) “That wouldn’t surprise me, sir.”

He leaned back in his leather desk chair and, for a long moment, bounced his fancy pen on his desktop, end over end, letting the barrel slide and fall between his thumb and finger as he troubled over something—something very important based on his pensive expression—then stopped tapping it, paused, and asked without a single microgram of frivolity, “Did you watch Blue’s Clues as a kid? My kids watched Blue’s Clues, and they’re about your age.”

“(Wh—?) Um—Uh—Well—I was… born a few years early to be a regular viewer, sir, but I’m having some difficulty… seeing how this… pertains… to… um…”

“It’s all about mysteries, just like our job. You’ve never seen it? It’s a millennial show. Of course you’ve seen it.”

“I’m an older millennial, sir, too old to watch the show while it was on the air.”

“Never watched it? Not even with younger siblings?”

“I’m an only child, sir, I’ve never had a reason to watch a show for preschoolers that premiered when I was—I dunno, 5, 6, 7? I was too old, the show came too late for me. Can I ask where this is going?”

“Oh. Well. That’s too bad. I was thinking about how it taught some fundamental investigative skills—evidence-gathering, note-taking, inference, deduction, narration. You should give it a watch.”

“Sir… are you suggesting that I need to learn the fundamentals of investigation from a show for preschoolers?”

“Tell me, Bachman: how many cases have you solved?”

“Well… none—this is my first day on the job, after all.”

“See? No experience. You gotta start somewhere.”

((Oh. My. God. Is he being serious? Does he really think so little of me?)) “Right. I need to learn how to be a detective… by watching a show meant for human beings who are still struggling to form complete, grammatical sentences.”

“Exactly. It should be easy for you to understand, millennial or not.” My eyes lost focus as I tried to think of an appropriate response for his slight against me and my entire generation. He made a sound vaguely resembling a dog bark. “Bur bur-bur! That damn cartoon dog is still invading my thoughts all these years later.” He shook his head. “The mysteries were insultingly easy to solve—but quality educational television is hard to come by, and that show was about as good as a show for toddlers can be. Lots of research and careful thought went into it, and it revolutionized children’s educational programming by inviting the audience to participate in solving the mystery. You’ll have fun. Barney, though… Christ. Did you watch Barney the Dinosaur?”

((Oh, thank God he’s changed the subject to something else. Except it’s yet another show for babies.)) “Yes, I watched that one.” The captain’s obsession with children’s television was only the first roadblock of the day. “But I stopped watching it before I turned five… so I don’t have any clear memories of it.”

“Good for you, because I do. The voices, the songs, everything about that show drove me up a fucking wall, but for 3 years straight it was all they wanted to watch, those 4 VCR tapes, over and over again. Sometimes, I swear this still happens, I hallucinate that Army Goes Rolling Along song from the space tape. ‘Flying high, in the sky…’ Did you watch that one?”

Under her breath Shosh cheerily continued, “We look back and wave goodbye, as our spaceship is flying away…”

“I don’t have any specific memories of the show, sir, just a general impression that I enjoyed it.” Shosh continued humming the melody until I sternly added, “And I’m not keen on revisiting the music.” She rolled her eyes, but I was grateful that she stopped… just as the song had rooted itself in my gray matter.

He chucked his pen into its jar and sighed. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop singing, cool your jets. What did you like about that show? What was going on in your kid brain that made you wanna watch that crap?”

((Is he going to let me do my job or is he going to talk my ears off about children’s television?)) “I don’t—remember very well, sir. Maybe it was for the same reasons kids like any other show, it was colorful and the lyrics were catchy but—I really think I should be goi—‍”

“And Wee Sing. Did you watch that one?”

“I think I need to go, sir.”

“Then go. Stop by the armory and pick up your piece and a Kojak. Giddyap, go on. Move ’em on. Head ’em up. Cut ’em out. Ride ’em out. Get to work. Get movin’, buster. Scoot your tush. Git along little do—‍”

“Yes… sir.” I jogged to the armory and picked up a ‘Kojak’ (a magnetized police beacon for plain cars) as well as the FN 509 MRD-LE newly assigned to me, serial number WY387462610, donned a cross-draw retention holster, then jogged to the Banana Shark—only to discover a police van parked right behind her, blocking her egress.

“Well, shit,” said Shosh.

I pulled on my hair and growled.

“Stay cool, Esti. What would I do to solve this little roadblock?”

“Probably something illegal.” I ran up to the driver’s window to have a ‘polite’ chat with the driver, but the vehicle was empty. The engine was running, and my veins were coursing with liquid panic, so I did the sensible thing—with a whispered push from Shosh—

“Might… hafta… find a way to move it.”

—and kinda-sorta committed a little bit of mild California Vehicle Code Section 10851… also known as joyriding, punishable by a 5,000-dollar fine and/or up to a year in county. But I swear there wasn’t any actual joy in it… except for the thrill of using my police powers to commandeer a vehicle.

((It isn’t a Penal Code Section 487))(d)(1) PC if I return the keys, I reassured myself as I turned the key to the off position and removed it from the ignition. To save you the trouble of leafing through the California Penal Code, I will simply tell you now that Penal Code 487(d)(1) PC is generally referred to as ‘GRAND THEFT AUTO’ by laypeople and is a felony punishable for up to 3 years jail time.

Thus, I parked the van in what I thought was a more reasonable location. I was in a hurry, so I put a minimal amount of thought into what constituted a reasonable location, though I did make sure that it wasn’t blocking other vehicles from leaving their spots.

At this point you may be eager to ask me, “What did you do with the keys?” If you are indeed wondering that, then you are a very astute reader, and you deserve to know… However, you will have to wait to find out, because as soon as the engine had stopped burning fuel those van keys disappeared from my consciousness entirely.

I was a former parking enforcement officer who was incapable of fucking parking a van without it being the cause of a catastrophe.

With Banana Shark freed from her prison—and me having taken the first few steps towards mine—I attempted to arrive on Adams Avenue in a timely manner.

Every single intersection turned red at exactly the wrong instant for me, and even as the lights at the second-to-last intersection turned green, an elderly person decided to ignore the red hand telling them to wait their turn. At the last intersection, Shosh pointed out, “It’s too bad you can’t just run the light.” I groaned as I remembered I had a police beacon—though by the time I had slapped it on the Shark’s roof and activated it, the old person had reached the other side, and the light was green again.

As I finally pulled onto Adams, the press was already on the scene like flies on a dessert of honey and shit, interviewing the human chain of sex workers and demolition crew respectively. I squeezed between two news vans on the way to the front of the hotel, thanking God that I didn’t hear any scraping sounds because I was not keen on getting the paint touched up.

In front of the hotel was a parking spot that would have been available were it not for three people sunbathing on beach towels laid over the asphalt. I pulled up and asked, as sweetly as I could (given my mental state), “Hey, friends? I need a parking spot. I’m here to investigate… a pool of blood in the hotel.”

They immediately began to make room for me. “Dippy Duck, you’re here! I didn’t recognize your car in the daytime.”

“Sex Cop! Or should I say, ‘Sex Detective’?”

“C’mon, we saved this spot for you, Babe.”

They blew kisses as they hastily packed up and vacated the spot, and I blew a few of my own back at them. “Thank you so much!” I prayed that my string of bad luck had only been temporary, and that this was the beginning of a lucky streak.

Then the wrecking equipment started up, every engine cranking over within the span of only a few seconds, as though synchronized. They crept towards the sex worker chain, which shrank back in response. ((The wrecking crew knows better than to run these people over—especially in front of a swarm of ravenous news crews. Although… they shouldn’t be getting ready for action if they’ve already seen the warrant. Have they… not been shown the warrant?)) I looked around for my team. “Where are my uniforms?” I asked myself out loud. “Where the fuck are they?” I didn’t have time to find out. I ran out in front of the nearest dozer and clumsily presented my badge to its operator. “Off—Detective Bachman, SVPD. This building is a crime scene, I need you to cease all demolitions immediately.”

“Where’s your warrant?”

“It’s not here yet, my patrol officers have it.”

“We need a warrant to stop, Detective. Now get out of the way of my dozer.”

My head began to spin. ((Oh, God, please don’t do this to my first case.))