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  I waited.

  The green-aproned black-shirted manager’s lip raised up in a sneer. “Venti white choc Frapp, whole and whipped for the parking Nazi.”

  “Excuse me,” I held out my hand for the white-lidded cup. “But Himmler also had a couple of raspberry scones to go.”

  Green-apron black-shirt didn’t like my smart reply and barked at green-apron white-shirt. Another minute and the scones appeared, in an overdesigned tan sack crafted from tree-saving eco-friendly paper of peace.

  $14.78. God only knew what she’d want for lunch.

  I went outside. Leticia had circled the block back to the red Mercedes, and was having a chest-to-chest with its driver, a skeletal white woman in a suit and four-inch stilettos.

  “You dissin’ my behind took this to a whole new level.”

  The woman’s chin rose even higher, but not before I caught the glint of fear in her eyes. “Just give me the ticket.”

  “You didn’t say please.” Leticia raised the AutoCITE ticketing machine and typed a rapid staccato. “Well, looky here. Four outstanding parking tickets. Who’d a thought . . .”

  Leticia pressed the radio bar on her lapel a couple of times. “Obi? Unit 13172. We’re gonna need a boot removal crew and tow at Wabash and Madison.”

  “Roger that, Ms. Jackson,” came Obi’s scratchy reply.

  “Oh no. You can’t—” The woman stepped backwards, hand at her protruding collarbone. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  Without turning, Leticia said over her shoulder, “Get the boot, McGrane.”

  “Keys,” I said. Leticia tossed them to me. I put her Starbucks in the cart and opened the white trunk.

  “Ooooh! You—you horrible little troll! I have a client meeting in forty minutes. What am I supposed to do?”

  Call a cab, lady.

  I lugged out the Wolverine—a thirty-five-pound, bright orange spiked boot, closed and locked the trunk and hauled it over.

  “Rear wheel away from the curb,” Leticia said. I put the heavy metal vise near the tire. Now what? I looked at her and turned my palms up.

  Leticia rolled her eyes and walked over muttering, “Goddamn know-nothing trainee.” She squatted down next to me. “Keep her outta’ my action while I’m putting this on.” I stood up. Leticia handed me her ticket gun. “Print out the ticket and give it to her.”

  I stepped onto the curb and pushed Print. I handed the woman—cheeks scarlet with impotent fury—her ticket.

  “And what exactly happens now?” she demanded.

  Leticia grunted and looked up from the boot. “You march your fake-ass red-bottomed Christopher Les Boo-tins down to Impound, pay your tickets, tow, and impound fees, and get your car back.”

  “Oooh!” The woman genteelly stomped her high heel on the sidewalk. “I’ll have your head on a pike!”

  “Don’t you mean plate?” Leticia said.

  I gave a strangled cough of laughter. The woman made a move toward Leticia. I stepped between them. She stopped short and took her cellular from her purse.

  “You—putting that . . . that thing on my car. What’s your name?”

  “Parking Enforcement Agent Leticia Jackson at your service.”

  The woman entered the information into her BlackBerry.

  Finished with the boot, Leticia stood up and dusted her hands. “Y’all have a nice day now, you hear?”

  Chapter 8

  “So how many tickets are we required to write a day?”

  Leticia looked over her sunglasses at me. “I thought you read the manual, Miss Know-Everything-Except-How-to-Put-on-a-Boot-Trainee.”

  “I did. There was only some vague reference about the Traffic Enforcement Bureau and how its agents exist only to enforce the parking laws of the City of Chicago.”

  “That’s right. There’s no such thing as a quota. Don’t ask me again.” Leticia gave a warning look. “And don’t ask me for a booting lesson, neither.”

  For the next two hours and ten minutes, I watched Leticia write tickets. Waiting like a starved child for her chicken nuggets of wisdom.

  “There are four kinds of public we deal with,” she said, adjusting her visor in the reflection of a Corvette window she’d just ticketed. “Wishers, waiters, vandals, and haters.”

  Well, that sounds promising. “What’s a wisher?”

  “A wisher is a fish that knows their time’s up on the meter, but they just stay where they are, wishing their watch was wrong, wishing they’d called in sick today, wishing they’d parked somewhere else, but not coming back. Not paying their due.”

  I see.

  “Here we are. Fifth Street. Doctor’s office central. Easy as taking pie from an anorexic.” Leticia reached behind her for a black metal pole. She affixed a lump of chalk in the tip, retracted her side door open, and telescoped the pole. “One of the few zones left with coin ops.”

  We drove down the street, Leticia leaning halfway out of the Interceptor, bracing herself on the steering wheel, driving, and chalking tires. “Nobody reads the signs.”

  The LTI gauge must be hitting the red zone. I couldn’t check. I was too busy trying to even the weight load, sitting off the edge of my seat, hanging my elbow and shoulder out the opposite window. “Why are you chalking tires at meters?”

  “A Dhu West special. The Two Hour Limit Parking Zone.” She grinned. “When the doctor runs late, and doctors always run late, all of these fish’ll come running out to feed the meter. But you can’t feed a meter with a two-hour limit. You need to move your damn car.”

  Three saps ineffectually refilled their meter box. We circled around the block.

  “Mmm-hmmm. I love getting me a little Escalade.” Leticia ran a ticket on an expired.

  I waited a short distance away in front of an old Chrysler minivan. Faded blue with a little rust and a couple of dents. Two minutes left on its digital reader. I glanced inside. Three infant car seats and all the goop that accompanies a fleet of small children. But it was the half-empty carton of Luvs diapers that did it.

  I edged a quarter out of my pocket and slid it into the slot.

  “I know I din’t just see you fill some fish’s meter, McGrane.”

  Busted. “No, ma’am.”

  “’Cause that would result in your instant termination,” Leticia said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I kicked the meter box lightly with the steel toe of my black work boot.

  For lunch, Leticia had a Big Mac, large fries, and two apple pies on her own dime plus a large chocolate Yoo-hoo I bought her during another regulation fifteen-minute break at the 7-Eleven.

  I ate a Protein Plus PowerBar. Leticia watched me in curious disgust, like I was a chimp eating my own poo.

  Really? If I’d eaten what she had today, I’d be stretched out on the street in a food coma like an anaconda that’d gotten ahold of a small deer.

  We pulled up in front of a large brown building. “Game time,” Leticia said.

  Ten stories of office and apartments. Old style with iron-trimmed windows. Pricey. Full of “save the history” dwellers who told everyone how great it was to live within walking distance of downtown, never letting on about the lack of parking and closet space or the homeless guys pissing in their doorway.

  Leticia stopped in front of the parking meter pay box. The third space on the display was blinking. “You wanna write a ticket?” She held out her AutoCITE machine.

  Finally.

  Time to figure out how to make my way on the program. I got out and went to the offender. A MINI Cooper with a Union Jack on the roof.

  I tried to type in the license plate. It didn’t work. I hit the Reset button. It asked for operator ID. I went back to the cart.

  Leticia leaned across and rolled down the passenger-side window of the Interceptor. “What’s the problem?”

  “I need your operator ID.”

  “Give it here.”

  I handed Leticia the machine. She entered her code and passed it back. I typed in the license of the MINI
Cooper, then went to the meter box to enter the ID.

  A heavy wet weight rained down on the top on my head.

  I staggered backwards. Gasping and spluttering and trying to catch my breath, I smeared viscous liquid from my eyes.

  It was pink. Thick and sticky. An old strawberry milk shake.

  A very old one.

  Wolf whistles and cheers rang out. I spun and looked up at the building, just in time to see a couple of black-trimmed windows on either the seventh or eighth floor swing shut.

  Inside the protective cover of the Interceptor, Leticia trembled and shook. Laughing so hard no sound came out. Her eyes were squinched together, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh! Oh.” She clutched her sides.

  I wiped a clotted curd off my cheek and walked to the cart. I grabbed the door handle.

  It was locked.

  I took a deep breath and gagged from the stink of sour strawberry milk. “This isn’t funny, Leticia.” I jerked on the handle.

  “Whoo-eee!” Leticia grinned and fanned her hand in front of her face. “Girl, you are rank!”

  “Yeah. I get that.” I knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “This ever happen before?”

  “Only the second Tuesday of every month,” Leticia gasped, wiping her eyes. “For the past three years. Haven’t been able to catch them yet.”

  “Open up.”

  “You’re outta your mind if you think I’m letting you in my fine ride.”

  I gritted my teeth. “What do you suggest? I trot alongside you for the rest of the shift?”

  “Nah. This is what we refer to as an ‘incident’. You go on back to the lot, write up a report, and I’ll sign it. You’ll get your full eight hours.”

  Sweet. Only fifteen blocks to walk, smelling as bad as a cartoon character with the wavy lines coming off me.

  I jogged back to the lot and swiped my sticky key card.

  There was no shower in the PEA locker room. Not that I had any clothes to change into anyway. I took off the Loogie and my shirt. The strawberry stink had sunk into my sports bra and pants. I cleaned up as best I could at the sink, put the smelly blue poly back on, and punched out.

  I figured I could strip down at my car. But first, I walked the five blocks back to Dispatch.

  “Hey, Obi-Wan.”

  He took a sudden interest in rolling a chewed-up yellow pencil across the counter. “Hi, Maisie.”

  “Thanks for the tip about the hat. At least I didn’t have to request another one.”

  “Even Yoda is powerless against Miz Jackson,” he said, unable to make eye contact.

  I took pity on him. “I’m not mad. I mean, I’m mad at the jack-hole that did it, but it’s not like you could have stepped in.”

  Except you could have.

  He peeked up at me.

  I let him off the hook. “It’s a rookie thing-—right?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. Screwing with the new kid.”

  I smoothed my gluey hair behind my ear. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course. I’m always here for you.”

  Only slightly creepy. “What’s the deal with quotas?”

  Obi’s brow furrowed. “What did Ms. Jackson say?”

  “There aren’t any,” I said.

  “And she’s correct.”

  “But someone as sage and wise as you would be aware that . . .”

  He smiled. “The same traffic patterns combined with years of standardized data are accurate enough for Dhu West to estimate the overall quantity of offenders per given week. Which means—”

  “They have a pretty good idea of exactly how many tickets I should be writing a day.”

  Obi nodded and put a finger across his lips.

  A conversation for another day. “Um . . . Do you think maybe I could borrow a boot? To get the hang of it?”

  “I’m on early tomorrow. I start at five thirty.” Obi fingered the sparse hairs on his chin. “I could show you the basics at six o’clock.”

  “Oh-six-hundred it is.”

  I left Dispatch and started jogging as soon as I hit the sidewalk. I arrived at my Honda, which thankfully did not have a bright orange thirty-dollar ticket on it, and took off my shirt. My sports bra was soaked and pink, but the stink eased a little. I put the reflective vest and shirt inside a plastic grocery bag I found in the glove box and tossed them in the trunk. My pants were sticky. My hair stunk. And I was a good half hour from home.

  But only eight minutes from Joe’s Gym.

  “Hey, Joe.”

  He bared his teeth showing a mouthful of Cheez-Its at my sports-bra top. Then the stench hit him and he grunted, wrinkling up his nose.

  “Hear anything from Hank?” I said.

  “Nuh.” Joe turned his head trying to get away from me. “You smell.”

  I hit the locker room, took a shower and scrubbed off the slime, but I couldn’t rinse away the little feeling of freak that a person I never met dumped a rotten milk shake on my head.

  Working out didn’t make it go away, but it got my dander up enough to want to get even. No way a little curdled milk was going to keep me from getting back to the Academy.

  I finished with the speed rope, cleaned up again, pulled on sweatpants and a Joe’s Gym T-shirt, and dragged my overstuffed gym bag to the car.

  I caught a look at myself in the rearview at a stoplight. By Friday, the milk shake story would definitely be funny.

  And there was nothing I liked better than making Hank laugh.

  Chapter 9

  The gooey pink milk shake–covered uniform went into the washing machine with a double dose of Tide. A sharp pain zinged the middle of my forehead. I still had to talk to Cash about Jennifer. And the Gala.

  Hoping to soften him up with ice cream, I went to the kitchen, stopping short as I heard Flynn’s voice. “N-A-W-I-S-K-O. Obits, memorial services, anything you see in the papers.”

  “Yes. I will do,” answered Thierry, our dapper cook/housekeeper.

  I came around the corner. “Don’t let Da find out.” I leaned against the bar next to Flynn. “Hi, guys.”

  “’Allo, Maisie.” Thierry set the Post-it with Flynn’s request aside and returned to the box lunches he was making for my parents and brothers.

  Flynn sat back on the stool. “How goes the job, Snap?”

  Aren’t we sweet? “Sunshine and lollipops. What do you think?”

  My brother rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

  “Tell me about it, Kettle.” I gave him a playful shove. “I’d like to help, if you’d let me.”

  “Thing is, Pot—” Flynn stood up. “It’s hard to hire you as a junior officer, when you’re dating a criminal.”

  He left the room.

  “Who is this criminal?” Thierry shot me a sideways look. “What is he like?”

  “Hank.” I smiled and thought about our housekeeper’s obsession with Game of Thrones. “He’s a younger, darker Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.”

  “Dieu, a man. No wonder Flynn dislikes him so. When do I meet this Hank?”

  “He’s taking me out on Friday.”

  “Typical.” He lifted a shoulder in a Gallic shrug. “Why not a day of my work?”

  “Because”—I rounded the counter to the fridge and opened the freezer—“I don’t want you to steal him.”

  “Bah. No cardboard tonight. Come, I make you something.”

  “Actually, I was thinking of ice cream for Cash.”

  “Sit,” Thierry ordered. “I make you a bribe worthy of consideration.”

  “That bad?”

  “Cash, he looks like the thunder.” He shook his head and laughed. “Is no good for you, Maisie.”

  I carried the silver tray with two rectangular plates of tropical banana splits up to my brother’s room. Empty. But his Xbox was on pause.

  Twenty-to-one, he was sitting in my room, in the dark, waiting to pull a gangster moment and turn on the light as soon as I entered. I nudged the door
open with my foot.

  Cash flipped on the light. He was sitting in one of the taupe microfiber armchairs nestled in the bay window. I set the tray on the coffee table, put a spoon on the ice cream plate and offered it to him. He ignored me, removed a folded-up piece of paper from his shirt pocket, and tossed it across the table.

  “What’s that?”

  “Our contract.”

  I held out the ice cream again. “You want some, or do I get both?”

  Cash took the sundae and started eating.

  I sat down and unfolded the paper.

  I, Maisie Lee McGrane, do solemnly swear to fulfill the following duties until so directed by my generous brother Cash McGrane.

  1) Be Cash’s thrall.

  He and his best pal and partner, Koji, had been worshiping at the Lord of the Rings altar again. There was no number two. “Nice,” I said.

  Cash flipped his dark hair off his forehead. “Not as nice as the four-page text I got from Jennifer talking about what she’s wearing to the Gala. Jaysus.” He tossed me a pen. “Sign it.”

  I did. He shoved another enormous bite in his mouth.

  How can he not get a brain freeze?

  “Apparently I’m also taking Jennifer to some idiotic art house movie tomorrow night.” Cash pulled out his car keys and tossed them on the table. “You’ve got a busy night ahead of you. Detailing my car.” He scraped the rest of the ice cream off the plate and licked the spoon.

  I felt a twinge of guilt. Real guilt. The sick, twisty kind in the bottom of my belly. “You bet. I’m sorry about this. I just . . .”

  “Yeah. I know.” Cash set his empty plate on the tray. He picked up mine, took a bite, and said around a mouthful of mango and banana, “I’m a prince of a guy.”

  Wednesday morning I hit Dispatch at the crack of dawn.

  “Is it just me or did you time travel to Florida for a vacation?” Obi said, maneuvering his Star Wars wheelchair around the counter.

  It took me a minute to catch his reference to my spray tan. “Cost me thirty bucks this morning.”