Choked Up (7 page)

“Thrill me.”

“You don't fuss.” He clinked his glass against mine.

I took a long swallow. The vodka sent an icy shiver to the back of my neck. I set my glass down with a
click
on the nightstand. I raised my chin. “God, you're a cagey son of a gun.”

He pulled me to him with a smirk. “Do you have a problem with that?”

I bit my lip, worrying it between my teeth to stop from saying something pathetic like
“Are you sure you should be doing this?”
And then he was chewing it for me.

It was smoky, serious sex. The kind that says
I missed you and this is how much
. It ended as always, with Hank on his back and me lying across his chest, while his fingers grazed across my bare back.

I floated in the twilight between sleep and relaxation. Cool tears slipped down my cheeks.

“Maisie?” he said. “Are you crying?”

“Yeah.” I sniffled and wiped my eyes with my fingers. “Transcendent sex has that effect on me.”

“I know,” he murmured into my hair. Chin against my temple, he fell asleep.

Monday morning at 0500, I came out of the closet buttoning my navy blue poly-blend Parking Enforcement Agent uniform over my bra holster. Hank lay propped up against the pillows reading the
Wall Street Journal
on an iPad, sheet crumpled at his waist. Even at ease, the muscles of his abdomen and chest were sculpted from stone. “Call in sick.”

His lazy order released a fleet of butterflies in my chest.
I would have if I hadn't joined the BOC.
“I . . . I can't.” I scooted back into the closet and dropped down onto the teak bench. “Does it ever bother you that I'm a meter maid?” I asked in a rush to distract him.

“No.”

“Really?” I started lacing my work boots.

“Maisie, what you do doesn't define you as much as how you do it.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you're happy, I'm happy. Besides,” he teased, “at least you're not a cop.”

He's kidding. He's got to be kidding.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
Cripes. Keep it together.
I took a deep breath and stepped out of the closet.

Hank crooked a finger at me. I trotted over and dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Can't be late—” I turned away. His fingers snagged the waistband of my pants. He jerked me back, kissed me hard and fast, and let go.

He picked up the tablet.

What was that?
“Um . . . The Super Bee's in impound, and my Honda's racking up a small fortune in the ramp . . . Can I take the G-Wagen?”

“Won't need it.”

The doorbell rang.

“Your ride's here.” He looked up from the iPad, a gleam in his cement-gray eyes. “Serve 'em hell, Bluebell.”

 

Ragnar, my chauffeur and shadow, informed me we'd be leaving my Honda in the lot until after work. And he was going to tail me. The entire day. And every day after until Mant's number was up.

“Gee,” I said. “That'll be . . . cozy.”

“Ever vigilant, kid. I got the heads-up on Mant. That dude is one sick fuck. You carrying?”

“Yep.” I opened the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To stow my gear, clock in, and get my ticket gun.”

Ragnar's eyes narrowed.

“Wanna check in with Hank?” I asked sweetly.

“Hurry up.”

I closed the door on him, jogged up to the gate, and waved at Chen in the bulletproof guardhouse. The gate raised and I loped across the barbed-wire enclosed lot. I entered the office from the rear, bypassed the break room, and pulled my ticket gun from the charger. A hot pink Post-it was affixed to the butt.

My first day of undercover work and I had to hit quota on a route I didn't know. Ability to gather photographic evidence on as many tow trucks as possible? Nonexistent.

Sanchez's route was Ashland and Belmont. The hippie hippie shake. Vegan restaurants, head shops, hookah bars, and fetish stores. Zero parking and tie-dyed muumuu-clad bitch-'n'-moaners. Groovy.

I spent most of the morning cruising the outskirts of the route, feeling more than a little conspicuous with Ragnar tailing me. Still, I managed to lay a decent number of tickets before getting to what had to be Sanchez's sweet spot, because parking offenders don't stack up in front of establishments that don't open before ten. But they do at 11:07 a.m. I turned on to Belmont.

I tagged a couple of fish taking more than their allotted time inside The Hookah Hub. I hadn't seen one tow truck. Not one. Not even driving by. In four hours and forty-three minutes.

Of course, ancient Buick Skylarks and rusted-out Chevy Aeros probably weren't real high on the Serbian shopping list. I cracked my neck, and out of sheer boredom, typed the plate of a custom-painted flesh-colored Prius parked in front of The Vinyl Frontier into my ticket gun.

Jackpot. $734 in unpaids.

I pulled the Interceptor up tight to the curb, out of sight of the fetish store's display window filled with everything from rubber suits to ball gags. I popped the trunk and lugged out a thirty-five-pound, bright orange Wolverine spiked parking boot. I slid it up under the rear tire of the Prius, secured and tightened the plate over the hubcap.

Anchored in less than forty seconds. Not nearly my best, but respectable. I glanced behind me.

Ragnar flipped me a thumbs-up from behind the wheel. I waved and forced myself not to jog back to the Interceptor. Quota hit, the rest of the day was mine to devote to my new job. I tapped my fingers against my forehead. Lunch hour.

I zipped up to Rise Sushi at Roscoe and Southport. The only parking was residential permit, and with Rise's steady take-out trade, there were always expensive cars double-parked.

I glanced in the rearview. Ragnar was still tight on my tail. I dropped a few obvious tickets so he wouldn't get suspicious, but as for tow trucks . . . Zip. Nada. Nil. And I had the niggling sensation that my new “hell on wheels” boss, Danny Kaplan, wouldn't exactly be disappointed at my lack of results.

I cycled around the block to kill some time before cruising Rise Sushi again. The back street was a combination of small offices, apartments, and nose-to-nose parallel parking. I crept past, looking for the tiny yellow resident permit stuck in the upper left corner of the windshield that allowed them to pay to park on the street where they lived.

I passed a properly parked and stickered brand-new maroon Lexus E300H with a vinyl cling in the rear window—
Stick it to your liberal parents. Become “The Man.”
One of the few fish Leticia would ever cut a break. Heck, she would've taken a photo of the cling.

I got to the end of the block, turned around, and parked in the fire lane. Ragnar pulled in behind me. My eager-beaver attitude was rapidly devolving into anxiety-beaver.

A fluorescent pink tow truck, with
Drag Queen
in mirrored letters on the door, slowed at the Lexus. And drove on.

Cripes.
I hadn't even pulled my super-spy iPhone from the damn cargo pocket. I took it out, lined up the camera, and took a couple shots of the Lexus for practice. Even through the spotted Interceptor windshield the photos were crystal crisp.

This assignment was an exercise in futility. I tossed the phone on the dash, dug a warm sugar-free Red Bull out of my backpack, and popped the top. Definitely better cold.

I glanced in the rearview. Ragnar's head scanned from side to side, constantly checking the street. Maybe I should ask him if he wanted a PowerBar. I took another sip and straightened up in my seat.

The Drag Queen was back.

I slammed the can into the cup holder, the liquid splashing out over my hand. I grabbed the iPhone and started recording.

The Drag Queen turned on its emergency lights and pulled in perpendicular to the Lexus. The tow truck driver wore a black blinged-out ball cap and black tank top with glittery lettering.

The whine of hydraulics echoed inside my cart, as the blue winch—a T-shaped bar—lowered automatically. The crossbar of the
T
rotated around the rear of the tires. Another hiss of the hydraulics and the arms on each side of the T-bar closed securely around each tire. The boom raised the rear of the Lexus. The Drag Queen drove forward, pulling the Lexus neatly from the spot and off down the block.

According to the video recorder on the iPhone, the entire operation had taken thirty-six seconds and the driver hadn't even left the cab.

I got out of the cart and took a couple more shots to orient the crime scene for Ms. Kaplan.

“Excuse me.”

I turned.

An East Indian man with liquid brown eyes, in blue scrubs, trotted up to me. “Did you just tow my car?”

“No sir.”

He frowned. “Then where is it?”

I took a breath. “What I meant to say is that the City of Chicago did not tow your car.”

“I have the current city parking permit.”

“Yes sir. The City did not ticket or tow your car. It's been privately towed. By either the neighborhood or the building organization. . .” No matter how crummy I felt about it, I couldn't tip him off that his car had almost certainly been stolen.

He stepped closer to me and bent his head so we were at eye level. “I'm improperly and illegally towed, while city employees feed like hogs at the trough of my taxes?”

I flashed him the
Don't Tread on Me
snake sticker on the bottom of my ticket gun. Leticia had put them on all the guns in our office. The majority of the parking agents believed it was a warning to parking offenders à la
No, Chicago, we will not take your shit.

The doctor winced and nodded. “I apologize. I am very upset.”

“No problem. Good luck to you.”

And as I left the poor bastard standing at the empty space, dialing his cell phone, I had a terribly marvelous idea.

 

I knocked on Leticia's open office door.

“What?” she barked without looking up.

“Have a minute?”

Leticia looked up and eyed me speculatively. “McGrane.” She jerked her head at a chair in front of her desk. “Plant yourself.”

I sat down in a wobbly chair with stained gold fabric and waited to exploit my brothers and my boss for the BOC's gain. Next to an American flag in the corner was a giant framed poster of Ronald Reagan. On her desk, next to a giant jar of jelly beans, stood a picture of her and Sean Hannity.

“I got a problem,” she said. “The PEAs be dropping like flies from a bug zapper. Lost three this month. Those goddamn Robin McHoodie bastards ain't helping. You're the touchy-feely kind, McGrane. You think maybe we need a motto or somethin'?”

“Like what? Parking Enforcement: The toughest job you'll never like?”

“Now you're talking.” She hooted. “We could get some T-shirts made an' shit. So, what you want?”

Once upon a time . . .
“You know how some of my brothers are cops, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, one of them has been getting some complaints. Weird ones. People getting towed for no reason.”

“Same ol', same ol'.”

“Except,” I set the trap, “there seems to be an unusually high percentage of these people who had stickers on their cars that lean to the right of the political spectrum.”

The idea of conservative repression was irresistible bait.

Leticia snapped it up faster than the last beer at a NASCAR race. She jabbed a finger at me. “I been tellin' you. The struggle is real, girl.”

“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement. “It got me thinking. What if we had a couple of PEAs taking cell phone pictures of tow trucks and cars towed? My brother could check those cars against the stolen car list and police impound.”

She scooped a handful of jelly beans from the jar and chewed, considering. “How you planning on talking our crew into helping the Blues?”

“Ten dollars cash for each set of pictures—one of the tow truck, one of the towed car. Gotta have readable license plates in both pictures, time and date stamped or no deal.”

Leticia stroked the furrow between her brows with a sparkle-encrusted lemon yellow fingernail. “What happens afterwards?”

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “McGrane, this is prime TV shit. This story could blow the fuck up! You hearin' what I'm thinking? I could be on
The Kelly File
.”

Sweet Jesus on a saltine.
The stars in her eyes were blinding.

“Leticia,” I cautioned, “this is a cop's hunch. And a secret one at that. He has to be able to prove it before anything can happen.”

“True 'dat. True 'dat.” She puffed out her cheeks.

“So?” I said. “What do you think?”

“I think you solved my morale problem. I'm gonna go rile the PEAs about their new incentive opportunity.” Leticia leaned an elbow on the desk and put her other hand on her ample hip. “Then we let them get froggy and jump.”

 

“What took so long in there?” Ragnar asked as he drove into the parking ramp that held my Accord.

“My turn to get cussed out by the boss.”

His blue eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“No. You have to dump the info from the ticket guns. It takes a while.”

Ragnar drove past my car and stopped the pickup at the farthest corner away. “Stay in the truck.”

“Okay.”

He got out and grabbed a duffel from the aluminum truck box.

I watched him pull out a sort of stick with a mirror and an up light. He made three slow passes beneath the car. Next, he rummaged in the bag and came out with a needle-nose pliers. In under a minute, he had popped the hood. He raised it slowly and ran a flashlight over the engine.

Ragnar went back to the duffel and removed a small black box with three nubby antennas on top. He set the device on the roof of the Accord.

A cell phone jammer. Just in case Jeff Mant felt the need to blow me up remotely.

After a cursory search of the interior, the blond giant set the cell phone jammer on the passenger seat and waved me over.