Quintic (70 page)

“That’s it?”

“
You know,
Big guy, it’s not like the creep wore the blue police uniform with
his pseudo pinned on it.”

“
Patricia.”
The deep growl
probably meant.

“
The wolf
act doesn’t work on me, Chief Detective MacLaren.” A blatant lie,
but if she admitted to finding it sexy, would it make her a
primaeval wanton? “Keep it for the team; they scare more
easily.”

“
Might not
scare you, Dollface, but it sure makes you react.” More growls as
his eyes narrowed on her chest. Damn the air conditioning in her
suite. “Do you want to pursue our little chat in the bedroom,
Angel? I can get you very talkative, very fast.”

“
I’m plenty
chatty now. Copper was the name. Then it got replaced the creep.
Fat copper. Dirty fat copper. Ugly fat creep. Variations thereof.”
Christopher wouldn’t get far with that.

“
We are so
going to
talk
when I’m done,
Pussycat
.”

On one
of
Reid’s coffee stops at Vitto’s,
Patricia ambushed her.

“
The waiting
is killing me, Reid.” That earned her a sympathetic nod from her
female officer friend. “Exactly how close are you to finding the
creep?”

At the Big
guy’s
invitation
, she had wasted a day
going through police personnel files but hadn’t identified the
creep. Central was very secretive about the police force hence
getting the data hadn’t been easy. Even with Central playing nice
to him, Christopher still had to call in a few favours. He had
narrowed the search with the incident’s timeline in conjunction
with what she had told him of Joshua and his operation ground. Even
so, it made for an impressive stack of files. The creep could have
been working with any of the different local stations, or in a
special unit like Christopher or directly for Central or the
state.

“
We
’ve narrowed it down to three
cops who fit the description you gave us.” Fat, ugly, scar. “Which
wasn’t much, Patricia. And Charles hasn’t given us anything.” Good.
“Fuck, Pattie, don’t you want the guy to be caught?”

Yes
, she did, which was why she
was going to catch him herself. The creep was not going to hurt
anyone on the team.

She and
Christopher had
fought about that
too.

“
You’re
leaving information out,” the Big guy had accused her. “Only three
possibles!”

She stood
her ground and thus, kept on keeping him safe. “Those are the only
ones that look anything close to him.” For once she wasn’t lying;
she had not seen the creep anywhere in the files.

“But you’re not sure.”

“
It’s not as
if I studied him in great details. The man’s not pretty enough for
that.”

“
Don’t be a
smart-
ass, Princess.” Christopher rubbed
his hair as he frowned at her. “How about you do a sketch of
him?”

“A sketch?”

“
Yah. You
can draw, can’t you, Angel?”

“
Don’t be a
wise
ass, Officer MacLaren.”

“
Cute
, but that’s my
line.”

“
I’m
not
sketching him.”

“
Why not? I
don’t need a nude of him, Pussycat, just his fucking
face.”

“
I can’t. I
don’t know how to draw from memory.” Well, she did draw from memory
sometimes, but weirdly, not creeps. “I can only do it with a model
in front of me.”
When I get
close enough to the creep, it’s not drawing I’ll be thinking
of.

“
Somehow, I
have a little trouble believing that.”

“
Why? Have
you ever seen me paint people without a model?”

“
No, I have
not. But then again, I’ve yet to see you paint period,
Angel.”

“
Whose fault
is that? Each time I’ve invited you to my studio, you’ve
declined.”

“You staring at another guy’s
dick is not my idea of fun.”

Touchy
subject, Christopher became moody on days he knew she was painting
a male model. She had a thing about painting nudes.
“I rarely paint penises. And I do not
stare!”

“Whatever.”

“
You’re in
no position to talk, Big guy, considering what you’ve been ogling
these days.”

“
The only
thing worth contemplating I’ve seen in months is you even if you’re
dressed like a fucking geezer.”

She had to
find the creep soon or else
Christopher
was going to take drastic measures. She was afraid of him; he would
never hurt her, but she needed leeway to manoeuvre, and thus it was
important,
vital
that she be, hum,
authorised
to walk around freely,
at least thrice. Gear. Address. Creep.

First,
she
wanted the freedom to go to the post
office, the same one Joshua had used back then, the one not-too-far
from Mario’s old apartment, which happened to be close to his new
apartment. Her hacker friend had almost gone full-circle around
town in the last thirty months. She almost stopped by to see if he
had found anything but didn’t; she didn’t want Christopher to know
where Mario was.

Lately,
because she had
acted as if it was so,
Christopher thought Mario was out of the city. She found it much
better to keep pretending. Besides, chances were Mario was under
surveillance. He was often, or at least, thought he was. Hence, she
strolled through the park without stopping to rest on any benches
and kept on walking to the post office.

No doubt
Lonzo smiled as he followed her. They had first met in the park,
no
t this particular park but a park just
like it. Although the A-team had liked her from the start, maybe
his recollection of that day was not entirely pleasant. She had
acted like a bitch before slipping from his tail in what was to
become somewhat a pattern in their relationship (not so much the
bitch part as her disappearing act). Then again, Lonzo liked all
women, didn’t he? Maybe if she hadn’t been Christopher’s suspect
back then, and his girlfriend now, he might have convinced her to
sleep with him.

The trip to
the post office took less than an hour. Thinking it might look
suspicious if she returned home too quickly, she stopped by
a
café
a few blocks down the post office and settled at a table as
if she meant to work, write, the usual. She waited forty-three
minutes before going to the ladies’ room. Since Lonzo had not
followed her in the post office, he couldn’t know what she had
received. Only stamps and fan mail she was going to
claim.

Hence, she
was not about to go through her package in the middle of a busy
coffee shop but couldn’t wait until she got back to her hotel
either. She locked herself in the toilet to open the box hidden in
her purse. The king had sent everything she had hoped: a stun gun,
cuffs, pepper spray, a gun and ammunition. She put everything back
in her big messenger bag.

Back to her
table, she googled
‘
mode d’emploi
stun
gun’. Optimal effectiveness was obtained, as per the numerous
websites on the subject, by aiming the gun at areas were upper
shoulders, below the ribcage and upper hips. Okeydokey. What else
did she need to know? ‘
M
ode d’emploi
gun’. She already knew the basic on weapons but
wanted to learn the specifics of the models the king had
sent.

Words like
‘Smooth trigger’ were used. ‘Low maintenance’ came up, and ‘No
hiccoughs between cleaning’ whatever that meant. As did ‘Combat
accurate’ and ‘Recoil a nonissue’ Again, she had no clue what that
meant, but since it was a nonissue, she didn’t research the matter
further.
Piece of
cake
.

Now where
could she hide her damn gear? Christopher did not search through
her things, not unless he got suspicious. Hum. He was somewhat
impatient these days (understandably so, she conceded, albeit only
to herself). Hence, the only secure, totally Christopher-proof
location she came up with was the safe in the hotel manager’s
office.

T
he gun made her nervous. The
infuriating man might have noticed her edginess had he not been
working all the time (and getting tired, yes, even him).
Fortunately, she didn’t have to hide the weapon for long. On
Wednesday, Mario came through with a short cryptic message on her
fan blog.

Ingrid had
set up the blog
, and a PR agency was in
charge of its updates and posts, but Patricia kept an eye on it,
reading the publications every week or so. She turned more
assiduous in the last week and now visited every day, a couple of
times a day, and on Wednesday, at last long, she had a
message.

“Loved your books. Almost as good as a piece of
cake
.”

Another
inconspicuous coffee trip later, she had retrieved the address.
Gear, check. Location, check. One creep to go.

Patricia as She’s
Getting Ready

A
fter the equipment and address
came careful planning. First, she was to meet with Beatrice, the
ex-waitress friend turned accountant and maybe lesbian, for coffee
or something. She intended to spend time with the woman, or rather
waste time until seven-thirty. Her day-shadow would be at the end
of the alone-shift; her night-shadow would not have arrived yet.
Hence, seven-thirty seemed the perfect moment to part company with
them.

Upon further
consideration, she finally had decided to ditch the A-team before
going after the creep. She desperately wanted some quality time
alone with the creep and foresaw her tails wouldn’t allow that. As
soon as they realise what she was up, they would take over and
restrain her, and then bye-bye liberty and free time.

Revenge took
time. Time to scare him, plus five seconds to stun gun him (or so
the stun gun spec sheet said). Time to prove herself; prove she
could take care of herself. Time to show Christopher that, despite
her crazy ideas, she could take care of
it
herself. Why she needed
to prove that to him was unclear, even to her, for the Big guy
already knew how independent and resourceful she was. Maybe she
wanted to prove it to herself.

A
fter her date with Beatrice, she
arranged to cross town to the creep’s location. The address Mario
had found was near Lemieux’s strip club; the creep was hiding in an
old metal shop. She knew of the place from her stint with Joshua’s.
Her ex had played with the shop’s books back in the days, a
contract
for the creep.

From
Beatrice, she would take a bus
but,
naturally, wouldn’t head straight to the creep’s location, not
until she had lost her tail, but a bus to the subway station. She
liked riding the subway; it was the perfect place to evade one’s
thoughts, an even better place to lose others. Joshua had taught
her well, and she was a fast learner, wasn’t she?

She
had
successfully dodged Christopher once
in the subway. Her shadows had never ridden with her, too bad for
them. She gave MacCarmick and Lonzo not more than six stations
before she was free. Two of her six stations were near shopping
centres. Women’s clothing, shoes, lingerie stores were all
excellent spot to misplace badass males.

A
discreet car rental agency sat a block from the
sixth station. Since she had rented vehicles there a few times, she
already had a renter file. Better yet, the rental leased trucks and
took cash (which everyone knew was far less traceable than credit
cards, even fake ones).

The
ugly creep was not small hence, she needed a big
vehicle. Besides, given his weight, no way could she lift him into
the trunk of a car. She also requested two blankets (frankly, the
fat creep was obese) of the types movers used to protect
furniture.
Once I’ve
handcuffed and stun-gunned him, I’ll wrap him up and dragging him
to the truck’s hatch
. She hoped all
trucks had a rear hatch. Add a plywood propped as a leveller and
she would roll the creepy sausage easy-breezy (almost). Perhaps the
shop had a small chain block or a forklift?

Th
at the creep did his dirty
business out of that shop’s second floor added insult to injury.
Then again, why was she surprised? Dirty cops were bastards. That
he used his old hideaway as if no one would find him further proved
his arrogance and stupidity. She had knocked out at the club for
crying out loud! That alone should have made him more careful,
but
nooo
, he probably thought that, since he could hide from the
police, he was safe.
Well,
not this time, Fatso. Since the policemen can’t get to you, I’m
going to bring you to them
.

She wouldn’t
hand the creep to Christopher, though. She intended to keep the Big
guy as far away from the creep as humanly possible. Yes, she would
inform him, but from a safe distance. Steve was her officer of
choice; he knew who the creep was and would take it from
there.