Narrower Steps Read online

  She witnesses the maker-shakers here. There’s at least four per table with their modern-day clothes; making them look safely square and fatherly with 3 kids at home and a well-mannered wife who cooks and cleans when he comes home.

  They carry their beepers on them, and the simultaneous checks to see if they’re being called to a crime incident is like a programmed experiment every time it goes off. The system works like if you want to earn some weed brownies then you need to be present at all times to Henny. He’ll love you for that if you chase down that thug who robs the liquor store for nothing more than the alcohol.

  Lee loves a criminal that robs the actual content of the store. She arrested a man last week who robbed a corner store for chocolate bars and bags of chips. A homeless sweet-toothed addict with a sugar rush is her type of dude to converse with. They are usually hungry, with a desperate need for a fix. And think that sugar would be cheaper than cocaine.

  Some of her fellow males could use the sugar. Hell, she’d offer to give them a rush up the old creaking bones if they needed it. Wash their mouths with that sugary soap because they all laugh the same, moan at the same time, and talk about pointless jibber-jabbers in bouts of drawn out opinions that have everything to do with something that she knows is dodgy. They need that sterile energy from the sugar that she can offer them.

  But dodgy or not, right here and right now is what stirs Lee’s psyche as she dubs that cue stick into the concrete. It might dent and damage the stick, but it releases the built-up tension as she hears the talk at every table: promotion this, promotion that ... Lotan in the lead ... what’s her face running at the back of him.

  “Your turn to shoot.” Saul potted the last ball and seems happy about that. An average snooker player who seems to be on a high flyer right about now. Lee knows it’s her turn, but she errs him off and he goes for another red ball when he can see that she isn’t about to give in to him insisting that she play.

  There’s one man in the room who always picks her pockets and won’t stop. She’d give him the keys to her Toyota if she had one. It’s Benjamin Bundie or Bennie Lit, who has a very peculiar lisp and jawline whenever he wishes to show his face for a game or two. He shows up now in a white crew neck and beige trousers that reveal the man could do with fewer cheeseburgers and fries.

  He moves with a moth-like flutter. The light he’s attracted to are the ones who know a thing or two about you...know...what. Lee finds that she stops the jabbing on the floor with her cue. And her legs wish to get up from the seat so that she can have a word with Bennie the Labrador.

  Bennie gets the vibe that Lee wants to tango, and he separates himself from the familiar flock of clones and goes to a spot where some shade can be accessed under a shelter with some wooden stools and a white marble surface. Bennie sits on that stool like a somebody, and Lee joins him in her casual get-up; straight black jeans and a white shirt with an L-logo on the chest. What it stands for she doesn’t know? But it’s her favorite.

  “Bennie boy, words out. Time’s up. And you need to give me some straight up answers.” Lee takes her spot next to him and lays her magnum down on the surface. She faces the plain white wall instead of turning to watch the other dudes attempt a game of billiards or snooker. Bennie seems happy to watch the boredom, and Saul is now who he has his focus on.

  “You and him going at it?”

  “We never were at anything. A friend in need. And a friend of greed. Saul’s a good guy. Decent, compared to what I know you mingle with. If we were going at it, you’d know. And what’s it to you?”

  “I just think you should have your interests at hand.” He slants his head, so Lee can hear him a little more, “You need to be going at it with Lotan. Get on his side. Move with his timing.” Bennie starts to usher his hands like a dictator giving an oral presentation to the masses; “And only then will you see the results you’re after. The decent type isn’t what you need right now. Me ... I go at it with the dirtiest shit in the force and it gets me the information that I feed to you.”

  “I need decent for my sanity. This morning...”

  “I heard.” He spins around and stubs the beer bottle down onto the surface. “I heard.” He stubs it down again. “You know they want some answers about your affiliation with Eric.”

  Lee’s mind pings, “dead Eric.”

  “How’d he go?”

  “Bullet to the head, Bennie.” She mimics the gun to the side of her forehead emoji. “A kiss in the middle of the forehead.” Lee now slaps the center to display this. “How they knew he was in that van is beyond what I can understand! But a dead Eric means a story to dig deeper into. And then there are his lies. A feeling that blowing up that building covers a whole heap of shit that needed uncovering.”

  “What can I say? People hide shit in rubbles. Your detective work is better than Lotan’s by a mile. But let’s face it, you don’t do the chuck and jive well. If he gets that promotion, then you’ll be on that 8-mile trek once again with no water or nutrients.”

  Lee side-eyes him. “Then what do you propose? I suck Lotan’s authority until it gets me a ticket to the open closet. I told you, Lotan and I don’t blend in a mixer.“ Lee hears the cheers of a few cops raising their beers to a game well done. Bennie rotates back and gives them a handclap.

  “The looks I’m getting for conversing with you.” Lee turns to see those looks face-on. They're hideous to say the least: disguised with pettiness and misogyny as they gurgle small insults under their breath that they think she can’t read. Lee wants to react...

  “Ignore it.” Bennie stops her in time and Lee fixes her head back, taking small sips of that beer. It’s warmer in taste now. No worries about that. Warm beer equals easier to liquidate down that trap. “I’m ignoring it. It’s becoming harder though.”

  “Ah. They love you really. They just don’t know how to express that without it being in any way sexist.”

  “If that’s true, then I’ll buy you a beer.” Lee sips with her head shaking away at that lie.

  Bennie scoffs, “Ok. So maybe they hate you.” He scoffs louder, “Who cares? All you need is me. And the next move is for you to let me sort out where MR. O went off to. And that won’t be easy.”

  Lee lets out some gas and a few weary blinks. “I gotta get back to work. What’s the cost this time?” She rotates the stool, gets up and sees that Saul is no longer at the pool table closest to where Bennie and she are located. In his place now, is a face she didn’t expect to see.

  Even Bennie is taken by surprise as he looks from him to her... and back from her to him. “I need you to get that promotion. That’s all I need you to get.” He stares off whilst being able to fling back his arm to pick up his beer. “Give me a bell when you hear the verdict from Henny. I’m sure you and he have plenty to talk about.”

  “Uh huh.” Bennie leaps up and goes to the billiard table behind the snooker table. He walks with his legs spread apart widely like he’s just had a boner as he fixes his middle area.

  The men there look past Bennie and glare at her challengingly with cues in their hand; but their attempts to intimidate go on blind eyes when she walks away from the outdoor bar and heads to the ice machine and orange juice tables that lay a few yards away; with the main parking space being behind it.

  “Do you have a minute?” He speaks softer than he usually does now. It’s still tarter and no sauce if that makes any sense to her. No more spunk and edge to a voice that usually stirs you into a panic without you knowing it.

  When she leaps over the low barrier, she can feel him behind her; leaping over and keeping his balance. She makes her way to Saul’s car, but Saul has left so she halts and wonders who’s going to give her a lift?

  “You can catch a ride with me?” It’s what she didn’t want to hear. Of all the cars to catch a ride with. She figures ignoring is a little too girlish and prudish for her liking. She gives him some sweetness with an innocent face that feigns an unknowingness about him offering her a lift: cu
ps her ears in her palms like she missed that last bit, not on purpose of course. He stands there in a black jacket: the season to melt in sort of type: fur on the neckline and sleeves. His trousers are a little on the thicker side too.

  He’s lost a bit of weight since she last saw him as the face favors a deduction around the cheeks and overall square shape. The beef has shed, and the slim Stanley is now present in the neck, arms, legs, and diaphragm. He’s been around the bend and comes back with a brand-new gut for glory. The eyes remain harmonious with the ruggedly charming appeal of a man who’s probably more honest than his character suggests.

  Lee knows Darren is a vacant one. Only able to describe himself in a few words, which is a hard one to decipher on plain paper. The faint caramel skin and light brown hair look lighter than the last time she saw him. That umbrella still holds above his brow as he watches her bend down to tie her laces.

  “Didn’t know they came undone.” She does the loop – de – loop; inside and out; and tuck it all in until voila, her laces are both tied. She stays down and wonders if Darren has scabby knees. Then she drifts to the shit that people discard in parking lots, and wonders if she’ll find any lose change or a few bucks to content herself with?

  Darren licks his lips and breaths out an “a-ha” like a high horse. There’s no shaking of the head to succumb to the eccentricity of Lee crouching and picking up a dime or penny like it’s a 100-dollar bill. “Do you still believe that penny’s grant you good luck?”

  Lee gets up to her feet. “I was 13 when I threw a penny down a drain cover. And with it, I wished to become a policewoman.” She holds the penny out to him between her thumb and ring finger. “I remember the penny was in the same condition as this one I hold here. And you know what? This is a good omen for me. It means that wishing on a penny right here, right now is what I should do.”

  Darren’s eyes fall to the penny. “What do you hope to achieve?” He then brings them back up to Lee; the blurriness of his pinpoint concentration on the penny now diminishing and focusing on her reaching a drain and standing over it and peering down. He walks to the drain that’s next to the curb and stays hushed as Lee only remains still.

  “I thought you were fired?”

  “I was. But I’m back now and ready to give you that lift that never came.” Darren digs into his pockets and pulls out his own penny. “I think if we’re betting on coins, then I should go on ahead and hope that is friendship hasn’t been tarnished?” He waits a moment, then flips the coin into the air and lets it come sailing down into one of the nail file holes.

  “When did you get the call to come back? She holds the penny out and is about to flick it, but Darren can see that she’s searching for something behind those discerning curtains and lids that stay active at all times when on the brink of a thought.

  “A few hours ago, Henny calls me up and tells me that he’ll need me back. Says there’s something in the pipeline and all would be forgiven if he gets that new bottle of bubbly. I guess that equates to if it goes the way that he plans.”

  “Then he must’ve wanted to bring back the good old boys who don’t do as he says? He hates you. More so, Lotan hates you. So why bring you back?”

  “Hate isn’t what he feels. I just don’t bow down and play battleship.”

  Lee takes her eyes away from the coin and stares down at Darren’s hands by his side. The hands can give so much away when so little is available within the truth. His are evenly sized with finely lengthened fingers. There’s no impatience or eagerness in the tapping on the side of his leg.

  No rhythm or pattern. Just simple taps to fill the space that he’s getting as Lee now returns to her penny. She recalls his body-sign-language that gives way to an involuntary revelation that there is some eagerness in him wanting to leave and get into his car. Lee won’t push that she knows as she flicks her own coin and watches it acutely as it flips and drops with a small beat-to-beat on the side of the nail filer.

  “Hmm. The coin didn’t fall down the drain.” The penny lays on the drain cover’s rim. “I’ll get into your car. But I need you to tell me a little bit more before I’m comfortable enough to have a game of spot my rummy.”

  Chapter 3

  “You never notice what’s right in front of you at times. Staring you right in the face and asking you to just disclose it to me.” That was the last harrowing words from Darren that he left Lee with before he got the thumb down and see you later alligator.

  Now, Lee waits for Darren to thumb in his pin that was revoked for the 7th time. They might’ve allowed him back on the beat, but his credentials still say access firmly denied son. A few pass-by and offer to pin him in; politely stop, then realize that the air he’s producing is toxically contaminated and carry on to where they have to go. Darren does what he always does when he wants to solve the problem properly: on his own.

  Lee knows she’s running five minutes late as she sees Linda zooming right past her and entering the ladies changing rooms with a friendly brightening of the eyes when she sees Lee and disappears inside. They start the same time, and if she’s running for her life to a job that pays shit then Lee needs to respect the dedication right there.

  The pin that Darren needs is to access the main office. A few doors down is the men’s changing rooms that also require a pin activation code that was also revoked when he tried it. A cruel joke, or just the system unable to recall that Darren is allowed back inside. Lee feels some responsibility here even if Darren waves her away to start the day that’s bound to be full of paperwork and questions on the event that happened only a few hours ago.

  The tautness holds firmly in the backsides of some of these men who need looser fitting underwear. A woman wearing a corset would do better than half the blokes who traipse unmeasurably in their uniforms trying to either catch a flirt or hide the middle-aged fat.

  The insanities in the office are no exaggeration. There are the trim hedges who bulk and eat leaves for breakfast and do well when it comes to the morning jog that many are ordered to participate in for 30 to 40 minutes each day. Fitness is prime, but many chose to slave over a desk and slobber over a pen and pencil.

  Lee finds the ones who exercise more active in the brain ciphering department. They seem happier, friendlier, and more prone to want to go out there and do some justice for the greater garbage described as good. The only good that comes from the job is working your way to some moral title like a lieutenant or a detective.

  Lee knows that the job is there when she scans around her. The majority all hustle and busy themselves with Henny giving them orders and feeling that they’ll never rise above the rank of a lowly cop who shovels the shit from the civilians in need. The minority, however, figures to find a man like Bennie who works in the HR department and give them a whiff of what it would be like to get on it with the blackballing that comes with solving a case or two.

  The dirty handshake and muddy eyes if a shot to the back of the head occurs is also part of the business that they call, getting it on with. Lee thinks it’s clean as her nails that she keeps plain. The plain-faced but pretty-enough peripheral is all she needs when it comes to her felicity and malodourous allure.

  They all brush against each other but won’t admit that the dubiousness is the men that they so rightly vote as their boss. Henny might seem like a gilded hero, and to her surprise, he hasn’t stepped out of those golden rags. There might be hope, but she knows that her only optimism of salvaging her insatiable lust for advancement in life is to do it her own way.

  Darren’s way is now the reason why he can’t get into the office. And when Lotan strolls out of the elevator that always seems to ping a little louder than all the rest, he gives a shadowy glance at both and waits patiently behind for Darren to get through.

  “You might want to go down to reception and call it in that your pin is still not working.” If there was a mockery in that, then Lee would detect it. Darren continues to tap into the code: O12389B to no avail and the frust
ration of having Lotan behind him only making it worse.

  “That’s my 10th try, and I truly think there must be some kind of mistake.”

  “I know you’re not addressing me. But there’s no mistake. It takes up to 24-hours for your pin to be reinstated back into the system. Accept, that for now, you’ll have to allow me to let you in.” Lotan now asserts himself to the pin machine at the side of the door swiftly but Darren quickly puts a stop to him.

  “I’d rather have Lee pin me in if you don’t mind.” Darren stops Lotan’s finger before he can tap into his first number. A few abled ass-kissers walk by and overhear Darren’s words, they stop and then look to Lotan for any indication that he needs backup.

  They must be ready to walk through hell-fire for the man. Even in a professional working environment with many false eyes pretending not to watch, are the men in navy blue openly admitting to being a follower of Lotan.

  He takes no offense at all. Or makes it out to be a simple altitude of pride from a man who not too long ago was dismissed from the service he was doing for the mayor and his gremlins. Lotan just presses his lower and upper lip tightly down and bites in a humbling and held back manner as he backs off and lets Lee do the fingering. He even gives Lee a boost to go ahead with his hand showing her that the pin machine is all hers.

  Lee pins it in, noticing that Lotan and Co. don’t hang around long enough to have their turns. They instead head to the box-roomed kitchen where they pour filtered coffee and cheap tea, not far from the stairwell to the 2nd floor. And because the room is too small to hang around in, the chitter-chatter commences outside it with small packs of gibber-jabber-talk the only noise Lee usually hears when she squeezes inside to grab some caffeine.

  The male and female toilet is on the opposite end and complaints are always made about wanting to have some privacy when on the bog. Having to come out to your work colleagues leaning against the wall with a cuppa and a brow that smells as much as the nose isn’t anybody’s way of dealing. Adults can be childish, especially cops.