Time's Up (16 page)

Joe wasn't alone behind the front desk. An oily-looking guy wearing a gold crucifix and an open-necked black-on-black striped Goombah shirt leered at me.

Swell. One more guy who owns a boxed set of
The Sopranos
.

“Hey, Joe,” I said.

Joe gave me a tip of his chin and raised an orange and white Unjury bottle to his lips.

I flipped him a thumbs-up. “Good for you, Joe.”

“He's getting the lap-band,” the skeevie guy piped up. “I'm Ronnie. His nephew. While he's incapacitated I'll be managing this”—he raised his hands toward me and rotated them in tiny circles, feeling me up by air—“fine establishment.”

Ronnie was the kind of skeeve a girl's careful not to smile at. The kind that has her jamming a chair up under the doorknob even though her door is locked. Just because.

“What's your name?” he asked.

Simmer down, Guido.
“McGrane.”

His lips pooched out in disappointment. He wiped his hand on his shirt and held it out. “Pleased to meet you.”

I shook hands as fast as I could. As I pulled my hand away, he flicked his finger across my palm.

I gagged up a little margarita.

Heading through the double doors to the locker room, I stopped, pretended to tie my shoe, and palmed one of the brown rubber doorstops.

I jammed it under the women's locker room door. With less than a handful of women working out at Joe's, I wasn't worried about inconveniencing anyone. And as Da drilled into my head, “Never
ever
ignore that uneasy feeling.”

After I changed, I put the doorstop above my locker and hit the elliptical machine. A regular on the elliptical next to mine started a TiVo'd
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld.
Fine by me. I plugged in my headphones and channel-surfed to his input. Working out with a buzz comes with its own little charge—knowing I can party and still take names.

Except for today. Butch's margaritas were giving me the acid reflux of a Ridley Scott alien. Or maybe it was the wadcutter chaser I couldn't quit thinking about.

Five and a half miles the hard way, I got off wobbly-legged, feeling like I could use a little Pepto.

“Hey, Sport Shake,” said the devil, leaning out of the metal doors of the basketball court. “Wanna play?”

I didn't usually take part in Hank's low-level hand-to-hand classes. The newbies made too many allowances for my size and sex. “Why not?”

 

“Thanks, Peaches,” Hank murmured in my ear, circling around to talk to the eight men sitting on the scuffed hardwood of Joe's court floor in front of us.

The best part of sitting in on Hank's class was the opportunity to just stare at him. All smooth fluid muscle, power, and control. And that voice . . .

“For context, China,” he said. “The average Ranger is five-eleven, one-eighty pounds. A PRC infantryman is five-five, one-fifteen. McGrane and I are taller, but about the proportion we're after. The PRC are strictly Qinna Gedou, utilizing a hand-to-hand system effective against a larger, stronger opponent. Qinna Gedou relies primarily on throws and sweeps. Watch for the drop plant of the left leg, the spin . . .”

Hank's words blurred together, unintelligible. Warm ripples of loveliness traveled down my spine.

I exhaled in a slow sigh of infatuation.

Hank's foot drove into my stomach with the force of a sledgehammer.

I landed on my butt three feet away. Rolled over onto my hands and knees and threw up chicken tenders, fried zucchini and margaritas on the hardwood court.

“Christ, Maisie.” Hank's hand was on my back. “I'm sorry. I thought you were paying attention.”

Oh, like that doesn't make it worse.
I couldn't stop retching.

“We're done for today,” he said to the mutts. “One of you guys send Ronnie in here to clean this up.”

I heard them leave.

“Easy now. Easy.” Hank stroked my back with a slow, heavy hand, petting me like the dog I was. “Nothing left. Shallow breaths.”

I wiped my mouth on my shirt and let him help me to my feet. There wasn't a hole deep enough for me to crawl into. “I'm gonna clean up,” I said and fled.

 

I showered and got fixed up. Everything I needed was in my locker: mouthwash, toothpaste and brush, makeup, and clothes.

A knock sounded on the locker room door.

“Maisie?” Hank said. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I croaked. “Fine.”

“I want to see for myself.”

I looked at my bra and pantied reflection in the mirror and winced. Aside from the rapidly darkening bruise under my sternum, my retch-fest had left behind a queasy tint that makeup couldn't quite fix. “Hank. Please. Go home.”

“No.”

I braced myself over the sink. “Beat it, will you? I want to take my time and I can't if I know you're hanging around.”

Nothing. “Hank?”

“Okay.” He hit his palm twice on the door. “Okay.”

I took a long time. Mostly because my guts had been kicked through my spine and I couldn't move any faster if I wanted to and partly to ensure he'd gone.

The gym was practically empty by the time I got out. And thankfully Hank-free.

I passed by Ronnie and Joe at the reception desk. “See you guys.”

“Errrrgh,” Joe said, slurping down another protein shake.

Ronnie just glared at me over Joe's shoulder. Upper lip stretched back from his teeth in pure revulsion.

Hank was leaning against the hood of his G-Wagen, looking a little pale around the gills himself. “How are you?”

“Aside from the egg on my face?” I tried to maintain eye contact, but it was beyond my capability.

“I hit you hard. Too hard.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Let me see.”

“Not necessary.”

“Now,” he barked in a command that had me raising my T-shirt before I knew what I was doing. I hesitated and lifted it all the way up. He took a knee, his fingers barely grazed the rapidly darkening bruise that ended just below my sports bra, and a tiny mortifying whimper slipped from my lips.

Hank eased my T-shirt down and got to his feet. “You're getting checked out.”

“No. No way.”
Is it too much to ask to let me go home and die?
“I'm gonna get in my car, go home, and pretend this never happened.”

A pulse ticked at the corner of his jaw. “Not funny.”

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. “Okay, Hank. Here's the deal. I had a couple of margaritas before working out. You caught me off guard, which was embarrassing. I puked in front of the mutts, which was humiliating. I took forever in the locker room because I was hoping you'd go home and let me solo my shame.”

“I did that to you.” He leaned down, his face inches from mine. “And you're getting checked out.”

I took a stutter-step backwards and bumped up against my car, which hurt bad enough to have me suck in a breath. I didn't know he could get so . . . angry.

“It was an accident, Hank. Entirely my fault.” I threw my best
kitten-left-out-in-the-rain look
at him. It had a fair-to-middling success rate on my brothers. Head down with a wobbly smile and a shy, searching glance up through my lashes. The first time I ever felt it for real on my end. “If you care about me at all, you'll let me handle this on my own.
Please
.”

Hank raised his palms. I dug my key out of my pocket and pressed it, unlocking the Honda. He opened the door for me, closing it after I got in.

He knocked on the window. I put the key in the ignition and rolled it down.

“Maisie, about the Gala . . . I can take you. If you like.”

“It's okay, Hank. I got a date.”

His jaw slid slightly to one side. “Who?”

If I felt a little better, I might've held back. “The Bullitt.”

Hank smiled, but he didn't look happy. “Okay.” He rapped twice on the roof of my car. “Go home.”

 

“'Allo, Maisie.” Thierry looked up from cutting vegetables next to the sink. “You are in luck. I make one of your favorite today. Japanese shabu shabu.”

Well, that sucks.
It was going to be a long time before I felt like eating again. Days, maybe.

He removed an index card from his apron pocket and handed it across. “From Flynn.”

I tried not to groan as I took it.

Thierry's brow bent in concern. “Is bad news?”

Hell, yes. The worst.
“Nothing unexpected.”

“Maisie?” Mom's voice echoed from the phone intercom system. “Maisie? Would you please come into my office immediately?”

The word
immediately
was code for big trouble
.
Because this day couldn't get any worse.

Mom's office was an extension of her personality. Cool and sophisticated, done up in creams and whites with the barest touches of icy blue. She got up from her desk, stepped around, and hugged me gingerly.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“Perhaps that is what I should be asking you.”

“Oh?”

Mom folded her arms across her chest. “Your recent lack of transparency is beginning to grate, sweetheart.”

My stomach cramped.

“I just got off the phone with Mr. Bannon.”

“Raise your shirt, please.”

I did. A grapefruit-sized bruise sat directly above my navel. “Good Lord.” Mom looked away and motioned for me to put my shirt down. “If I didn't have a conference call with the ASA in twenty minutes . . .” She shook her head. “Thierry will take you to Urgent Care this instant.”

“I'm fine, Mom. Doesn't hurt a bit,” I fibbed.

“Oh really?” She leaned against the corner of her desk. “Is that why you refused to accept Mr. Bannon's polite and generous offer?”

“No.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “As I recall, you were pining away for him as recently as yesterday.”

“Because you know, Maisie—”

“I know. I know. I know.”
July McGrane's Rules of Engagement Number Five: Always let a man take care of you.

Mom nodded. “I expect a call right away, and if there is anything, you will go directly to the Emergency Room.”

I nodded and walked to the door, trying hard not to hunch over. Mom called after me, “Tell Thierry to take the Range Rover. You'll be more comfortable, baby.”

Getting out of bed had me Lamaze-panting like a pregnant woman. Bruised pancreas, my ass. It felt like my guts had gone through a drill press. Finally upright, legs over the side, I saw my high-lace steel-toed black work boots on the floor and almost decided to lie back down. Only then I'd have to get up again to get my cell phone out of my purse to call Leticia. And I sure as hell wasn't going to go through that again.

I stood and went to the closet.
No oxy for the driver today.
I rummaged around in my drawer for a compression tee, whimpering as I eased the tight spandex down into place. “Don't be such a crybaby,” I told myself, and groaned as I pulled on the cargo pants.

The boots took forever.

The stairs down to the kitchen even longer.

 

I stood in front of the battered clock, searching for my punch card. As I reached for it, someone gave me a sharp shove between the shoulder blades. I fell forward, knocking my forehead against the buff sheet metal.

“Yo, bitch,” said a heavily accented voice. “You looking to make us all late now, too,
besaculos?
”

Clinging to the card holder, my abs spasmed and my throat hitched. I breathed in short huffs to keep the vomit down and slowly pivoted to see who was rattling my cage.

Sanchez.

She got right up in my face, giving me the microscope's view of her thick makeup, several shades too light for her skin tone. Her fingers were stiff in gang signs. “Keep your ass off my route,
pinche fresa.”

Calling me names I don't understand. Will blessings never cease?
“Let me tell you how it works, Sanchez. If Niecy and I score a boot or three off you on the way to our route, well, I guess that's just your tough luck.”

She raised a fist to my face.

I didn't flinch. No cause. Even if she were able to hit me, there wouldn't be much behind it. Her feet were too close together. “Don't like it?” I said. “Take it up with Ms. Jackson.”

Her face twisted in a sneer. “Oh, you think I'm ascared of the
mayate, puta?
”

Those names I did know. “Yeah. I do,” I said, getting owly. “And I think you're
ascared
of Niecy, too.”

That hit the mark close enough. The pancake foundation couldn't hide the red that mottled her cheeks. Sanchez threw her fist over my shoulder and grabbed her card, punched it, and jammed it back in the rack behind me.

She hissed in my ear,
“El que la hace, la paga.”

Now that sounded ominous.
“Oh yeah?” I said. “What's that mean?”

“The one that does, pays, bitch.” She spat on my boot.

I haven't wanted to hit someone so bad since Tommy Narkinney.

I leaned in to her. “Now, let me tell you something.” Tone flat, Dirty Harry–style. “I'm already paying. Double.”

Her eyes clouded in confusion, unable to keep up with her own allegory. She snorted and pushed past me out of the break room, shooting a parting forearm at my throat.

I ducked. Her elbow banged into the time clock. It left a hairline crack in the ancient plastic cover. She didn't turn around, just strutted off.

I didn't laugh. I couldn't. After moving that fast, it took everything I had not to whimper.

 

Niecy and I were trolling Jeanne McGill's route—thankfully not Sanchez's—and the going was as fast as a snail on a salt lick.

“Eh, kid! Snap the frig to it. We got us a big, fat one.” Niecy raised a wavering finger toward a crusty blue Chevy Malibu.

I was too sore—worthless, actually. I eased out of the cart, unable to decide who I hated more, Niecy or the knucklehead that couldn't obey basic parking laws.

It even hurt to open the Interceptor's trunk.

“Don't be such a wimp,” I said, trying to psych myself up into lifting the boot. “Gut it out.”

The compression tee might have been made out of tissue paper. I was sweating raindrops and jelly beans by the time I got the boot up and onto the side of the Interceptor's trunk.

“Jeebus. What the fug's taking so long?” Niecy carped from the window. “You think I got all day to stand around holding off the fish for you?”

With extreme caution, I bent my knees and lifted the boot in my arms, cradling it awkwardly like a Transformer's infant offspring.

I walked to the rear of the Malibu. Hard to believe it had ever seen a day with a shine and polish. I stubbed my toe on the lip of a manhole cover and, gasping like a sorority girl, dropped the boot.

Its orange metal arm grooved a fat, eight-inch key mark down the door.

Cripes.
I leaned against the Malibu, bent over at the waist, breathing in short pants.

“Well, that's a big ol' pool of piss,” Niecy said from behind me, making me flinch. “How do you wanna swim in it? Incident report or put the boot in the frigging trunk and get the heck outta here?”

“Incident report,” I said without hesitation.

“Ain't you the Good Samaritan?”

“That's me.” But my halo was tarnished. I'd rather fill out a hundred IO4-753's than bend down and affix the boot.

Niecy sucked her teeth. “You wanna mess up our numbers so you can sleep at night? Swim in the shizza and shaft our week?”

I shrugged.

“Put the effin' boot on.” She snorted. “And don't think I'm cleaning up after you. You can write your own frigging IO4.”

I alternated between vomiting and passing out as I maneuvered the boot into place.

My partner lounged in the cart listening to Michelle Malkin on Laura Ingraham's podcast. I secured the last nut, pulled myself up by the Malibu's door, and wiped my face on my sleeve, looking forward to writing a note of apology and filling in the report. Fifteen solid minutes of rest.

“Kid!” Niecy leaned out of the Interceptor window, my cell dangling from her hand. “El Guapo wants a word. You in?”

“Yeah, sure.” Clammy as a sick salamander, I took my iPhone from Niecy's hand.

She'd changed my screen saver to her PEA badge.
Would the hijinks never end?
“Hello?”

“
Chica.
You busy?”

“Same old,” I said.

“Wanna work out tonight?”

“I'll take a pass. I'm, uh, not real fast on my feet today.”

“So it is true. Joe told me Hank freaking served you one right in the chops.”

“Are you sure you should even be at work?” Ernesto asked sweetly, giving me a complimentary guilt towelette. “I could take you to the movies, that's pretty relaxing. . . .”

I sighed. A beaver with a birch sapling was less tenacious. “I'm beat. Wanna hang out at my house on Friday?”

“I'm there.” He hung up.

“Knowing you live at home like you do . . .” Niecy gave an exaggerated, openmouthed wink. “I'm fine to look the other way if you wanna meet him for a little
bow-chicka-wow-wow
.” She gave a couple of arthritic thrusts and tittered. “Just drop me at Butch's.”

“Thanks, but no.” I blew out a breath and searched the clipboard file for the Incident Report. “Besides,” I said, “we have one boot left.”

“Do what you gotta do, kid.” She made a cawing sound that passed for a laugh, leaned forward, unplugged her iPod, and tuned the radio to Rush Limbaugh.

There was something soothing about Rush Limbaugh. His velvet overtones of virtue flowed over us, amping us up with righteousness. There were plenty of fish, but not a one to lay off the orange anchor on. We wrote tickets all afternoon, walking the walk of the sinless—we were public servants. Commendable, even.

I don't know if it was Rush or the six Tylenol I sucked down with a sugar-free Red Bull at our Walgreens pit stop, but I was starting to feel better.

Niecy looked at her watch. “Crap, we're over. It's almost five o'clock.”

“We're laying this boot if it kills us.” I turned onto the street and—as dependable as the creepy homeless dude spanking it under the stairs at the Morse Red El stop—there he was.

Poppa Dozen and his black armored limo, standing-zone pretty across two handicapped spaces. Traffic was in full swing, so I pulled up and parked a good twenty yards behind him, alongside the alleyway.

The tickets I'd written were only a week old. He had a good four or five more weeks before the boot would activate. That is, if no one caught them in the system and made them disappear before then. After hearing Lince gush like a lovesick tween over the mayor, our tickets wouldn't last past the first complaint from His Honor's office.

One week short of ten more months to go, and silver linings were in short supply.

I got out of the cart and knocked on the opaque limo window.

The window retracted six inches. Out came a thick black middle finger. After a beat, the finger disappeared and the window closed.

Da's favorite motivator was, “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it.” He failed to clarify, however, that the 10 percent could happen all at once. AutoCITE at the ready, I loaded the $430 ticket for parking in two handicapped spaces, blocking a hydrant, and hit Enter.

The word
Scofflaw
blinked on the scuffed LCD screen.

I trotted back to the Interceptor and tapped on the window.

Niecy rolled it down. “What?”

“I'm gonna boot this bulletproof orca.”

“Hit him curbside.” She grinned. “I'll keep watch.”

 

I fastened the orange Wolverine on the rear wheel of the limo lickety-split. Remembering as I tried to stand up, that yes, indeed, I did have a bruised pancreas and shouldn't be lifting anything.

“Oh my gawd, we're so gonna get an A!” On the front steps of City Hall, a posse of Midwestern-Italian tank-topped, hair-hopped junior college girls gathered around their diminutive teen leader.

Niecy honked the Interceptor's horn.

Poppa Dozen came around the front of the limo to the sidewalk. Weirdly, the horrible jodhpurs, jackboots, double-breasted jacket, and chauffeur's hat made him look kind of . . . scary.

I pulled myself up by the rear tire.

He strode toward me. Definitely bigger than I originally thought. Hulking, actually. “You wanna get active with me, baby?”

“Huh?”
Criminy. Where was Hank when I needed him?

“You better step, bitch.” He tipped the mirrored aviators down his nose and glared at me. Eyes bloodshot and fierce. “And take that motherfucking boot off. Now.”

Perhaps my actions had been a bit . . . rash.

“Bluebird.” Dozen pushed the sunglasses back into place. “This ain't no joke. The mayor has hisself a big-time appointment.”

The ghastly realization that I may have just booted away my future skittered around in my brain like a cockroach on a kitchen counter.

“I can't.” I shrugged helplessly. “Only the removal and tow unit has the key.”

Poppa Dozen took a switchblade out of an inside pocket of his jacket, opened it, and snapped the fingers of his other hand.

What the hell is this?
West Side Story
?

He held up the knife. “Call whoever the fuck you need to get it off.”

“Settle down, Dozen.” I hit the radio on my vest. “Agent McGrane requesting an immediate boot removal.”

“Negative, over,” Obi replied.

“Yo,” Dozen said, putting his mouth to the radio, face at my breast. “Meter bitch tagged the wrong fucking car. The mayor's car. You better recognize and get your ass down here pronto and unlock it.”

“I don't know who you think you are, sir,” came Obi's astonishingly crisp reply, “but it is unlawful to touch a parking enforcement agent and/or his or her equipment, over.”

Dozen raised his eyes from my radio with a baleful glance, face inches from mine. He riffled the scruff under his chin with the blade of the knife.

“Hey, metah-maid!” the teen leader called from the stairs, in a Bronx singsong. “You in some kinda trouble ovah there?”

Dozen looked over his shoulder. All five girls aimed their smartphones and best Mafioso glares at him.

“Cuz, lady,” the girl said, not backing down, “it looks to me like you might be needin' some help, if you know what I mean.”

Dozen swung his head back to me.

“Do I?” I said, giving him the flat cop stare. “Need help?”

He blew a snort of air through his nose. “Hell, yes.”

I leaned around him and called, “Everything's fine. Thanks, girls.” I hit my radio again. “Obi. Connect me to Lince, now!”

A whine of feedback, then, “Jennifer Lince's office, go ahead.”

“This is Agent McGrane. There's been a big mistake. I need an immediate boot removal, over.”