AllFreeNovel
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It’s funny. Maybe not funny, but being a cop, you get used to it. The more people are nervous around you, the more relaxed you are. We make people antsy; I get it. For what it’s worth, nine times out of ten you probably are doing something wrong, but the fact is, if you can’t figure out what it is, we probably aren’t going to do anything about it. And it’s not like I’ve ever been bored enough to want to do the paperwork on something small.
There are those times we do something wrong too. Don’t get me wrong. If some kid had come barreling out of nowhere and grabbed me off the sidewalk you better believe I’d be well within my rights to put him up on assault charges. The thing with being a cop is, there’s a little leeway. And if I’m being honest, while I don’t push it on things like this, I am happy most people aren’t too keen on taking a cop in. After all, I’m just trying to do my job and everybody makes mistakes. The kid was all right, after all. Before anything else, I’m just a guy. I figure no harm, no foul.
But we’re all a little more lax on ourselves. If you wanna know what I was really thinking, it wasn’t that anything was funny. It was that I’d just made a huge fool of myself and needed to save some serious face.
Since about the only way I know to get my bearings again is to go into cop mode, that’s what I do.
“If you’re gonna be walking along with that bag under your arm,” I say, “you mind if I walk with you? I suppose your buddy there just wanted to say hi, but with those deposit bags you may as well have a sign on your bag that says ‘free money to the fastest runner.’”
She looks at me, trying to figure out if I’m joking or not, I guess. “Really? I didn’t think much ever happened in this town.”
I shrug. “Nothing much does, at least as far as real wild things go. But you gotta figure, is it gonna make a headline?” I hold my hands out, framing an imaginary front page. “‘Kid Grabs Bag and Runs Away.’ I suppose you could spin it as a jewelry store heist, but I mean, we’re not even in the store.”
“And that place is notorious for false alarms,” she says, grinning.
No matter how much I try to keep myself grounded with her, it’s that smile that kicks my legs out from under me every time. It’s an ornery look, in her eyes as much as her lips, hinting that there’s a whole lot more going on behind the facade of a prim and proper college girl.
“Well, if you’re going my way, I suppose it would be stupid to turn down my own personal police escort,” she says.
“First National, I assume?”
“How’d you know,” she says, then laughs at herself. “Oh, detective. Duh.”
We start down the sidewalk toward the bank a few blocks away. “I suppose I oughtta spin you some yarn about how I deduced it from the color of the bag or your drop-off day or from extensive research into the finances of your wicked aunt, but the fact is, it’s just the closest one.”
She touches her nose and points at me.
I cock my head to the side and look at her. “You a con?”
“What?” she laughs. “No. Charades? Y’know, the game? That’s what you do when someone is right.”
“Huh,” I look up ahead of us, not intending to surveil the area, though I imagine that’s what she’s thinking. And hell, maybe I am. Old habits and all. “I never did play that.”
She shrugs. “I’m not saying I do either. It’s just, ya know, a thing people do.”
Her phone starts to chime and she passes me the money bag while she roots through her purse to find it. I can’t help but laugh. Either she really trusts me or I really do need to keep an eye on our surroundings. She hands me some other things like it’s a bottle of water. While she answers the phone I stick the money inside my jacket and zip up, pinning the bundle underneath my arm.
“Yes,” she says, “I’m nearly there now. No, no problems. I just ran into someone I know.”
She looks over at me and I can practically read her mind. I shake my head ‘no’ and I can see the gears turning in her head about whether she’s going to fill in the caller, likely her aunt, on her escort.
“Just a guy from school,” she says, smiling at me in an ‘I got you’ kind of way. “Yes, Aunt Marla. Like, five minutes…okay…all right…,” she rolls her eyes. “I’ll send you a text…Okay. Bye.”
She slips the phone back in her purse and looks around, for the first time seeming to realize she had some cash on her a moment ago. I pat my side. “Figured there wasn’t any reason to make it any more obvious than it already was.”
“I might need you to come escort me every time,” she laughs. “Imagine trying to explain to Marla that I sat on a bus stop bench and forgot why.”
I smile, but the idea certainly has its appeal. An excuse to see her at least, what, once a week? I could find out the schedule easily enough, and make sure my rounds brought me by when need be. On bad weather days I could drive her. And it’d look good for the station too. Though, then everyone would be asking and I’d probably get my ass chewed out for it…
“I was kidding,” she says, breaking into my churning thoughts.
“I was just thinking,” I say, hoping it doesn’t seem like I’m being rude. And it kills me. I’ve spent four days thinking about nothing but this girl and now, here I am, twelve inches from her, and I’m running through office politics and scheduling scenarios. I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts.
“Did you catch a big case? Isn’t that how you say it?”
I smile. It’s like she knows how to settle me. “I suppose you could say that,” I say. “It’s a little Humphrey Bogart, though.”
“Youarea detective,” she teases.
