Creep - Jennifer Hillier [103]
“Did you like being a cop?”
“Yeah.” Jerry’s voice was rueful. “Mostly I did, but the job was stressful and the money was shit. You like being a banker?”
“Yeah. Mostly I do, because the hours are good and the money’s fantastic.” Both men laughed.
Three hours later, they were still in the car, listening to sports talk on the radio and drinking the hot coffee that Morris had gotten from the street vendor down the block. Jerry wasn’t much of a football fan, and Morris was enthusiastically explaining the finer nuances of the game.
Someone rapped sharply on the driver’s-side window.
Startled midsentence, Morris jumped, splashing hot coffee into his lap. He cursed as Jerry rolled down the window slowly. A parking-enforcement officer was staring in at them through the tinted windows, her hawkish face against the glass.
Jerry got the window halfway down then stopped. “Hey there.” He reached into his breast pocket and flashed a Seattle PD detective’s badge. Morris was surprised—he didn’t think retired officers were allowed to keep their badges.
“And that means what to me?” The woman was not impressed. “Move on. You’re in a no-park zone. Or I’ll have to ticket you.” She tapped her clipboard to make a point.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Jerry snapped, but he put his badge away. “Go bug the tourists who park illegally in the shopping district.”
“So you’re saying you want me to write this up?” Her ballpoint pen was poised over a pad of yellow tickets.
Jerry finally gave a stiff nod and started up the car. He drove down First Avenue, grumbling under his breath.
“No respect,” the private investigator muttered. “If I’d been on active duty, I’d tell her where she could stick her motherfucking ticket.”
“They let you keep your badge?”
“It’s a replica.” Jerry sounded sheepish. “They let you order one when you retire, to keep as a memento. Sometimes I use it to help with this job.” He looked at Morris and put a finger over his lips as if to say, Shhh. “Like I said, most days I don’t miss being a cop. All things considered, I transitioned well from public servant into private life. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss some of the perks. Like the goddamned respect.”
Jerry drove around the block a few times, and after the fourth or fifth time—Morris had lost count—the silly little parking-enforcement vehicle was gone. Jerry edged right back into the spot where they were initially.
“The motorcycle’s gone,” Morris said.
Jerry was distracted as he straightened the wheels of the Honda. “What?”
“The motorcycle? The whole reason we’ve been sitting in this hole of a neighborhood for the past three hours listening to the radio when we could have been in a nice warm bar having a cold beer?” Morris pointed. “It’s gone.”
Jerry looked around. “Shit. We lost them.”
“You think?”
“You shut up or I’ll frigging leave you here.”
There was another tap on the car window, this time on Morris’s side. In the dark it was hard to see who it was, but Morris was guessing the damn meter maid had come back.
He rolled down his window. It was harder than it should have been because Jerry’s piece-of-crap car didn’t have power windows. The handle groaned in protest.
A face blacker than Jerry’s stared in at Morris. The man was covered in grime and he smelled like a garbage can, only much worse, because he also smelled like feces and urine. His hair, a snaked mess of dreadlocks, hung down inside the Accord’s window. He was smiling.
“We got no money. Move on now.” Jerry elbowed Morris, not bothering to lower his voice. “Roll the window back up. It stinks in here.”
“I ain’t ask for none.” The homeless man’s breath could have killed an elephant. His voice was a deep baritone.
“What do you want?” Morris asked.
“I got some information for you.”
“About?”
“About the white dude you was followin’.”
Morris and Jerry exchanged a look. “Who says we were following anyone?” Jerry said.
“Man, shee-it. I ain’t got no home, but that