by J. L. Salter
I pointed over my right shoulder. "The main lot's out there. Feeds into a ginormous overhead door they used to need for the trucks that pulled in the big space."
"Deuce-and-a-halfs."
"Huh?"
"Two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There's room in that truck bay for two full-size basketball courts. I had a cousin with a different Tennessee guard unit but most of these armories are pretty similar." The pirate rubbed his head and looked surprised, likely just then realizing he still wore the scarf. He grinned as he pulled it off. His movement also dislodged the thin elastic strand from his ear and the eye patch fell to the thick tile.
I wondered why he hadn't seen that in the mirror. Maybe he hadn't even looked. Some guys don't. Nice smile. Not movie star caliber, but just right for a real man. I eye-balled his dagger again. "So, you came here expecting trouble?" I pointed to his waistband.
"Oh, borrowed that from a nephew. Hard rubber." Another smile. "Didn't want to cut anything off."
No, indeed. "You said it was your first time at the Halloween Festival. So how'd you get left here?"
"I'm still wondering that myself." He shook his head. "Long story."
Whatever. "At least explain why it took you so long to come help me get out."
"First time I heard your voice, I thought I was still asleep and just dreaming or something. My head hurt. Drank too much punch. What'd they put in that junk?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "Anyway, I was ticked off…"
"Because of that long story you haven't told yet."
He nodded. "…and I drank a lot more than I usually do. Got real tired and just kind of slumped against the wall off in a corner. Not sure which corner. But not too far from where you were, apparently."
I liked the way his mouth moved when he spoke. A bit like Sean Connery when much younger — extra mobility in his lips.
He continued. "Well, anyway, I tried to make my way over to your voice, but I don't see so good in the pitch-dark, so it took a while to reach you."
"Why didn't you say something so I'd know you were coming?"
"I didn't know who you were. Plus, you'd threatened to shoot me! A disembodied voice yelling, 'Hey!' was all I knew."
"I'm a little surprised nobody tripped over your big feet as they were leaving."
"Yeah, you'd think people cleaning up would've noticed at least one of us."
"I was lying down on that shelf-bench so they probably didn't see me. And I don't think they did any cleaning-up. I was on the committee and everybody said the county jail convicts would clean up Monday morning. No need to do anything but turn out the lights and leave, which apparently is just what they did." Would've been nice if they'd checked for live bodies first, however.
The buccaneer shrugged and headed toward the door I'd previously indicated. "Okay. Guess I'm outta here."
"Hold on. You said you were new in town. Who are you anyway?"
"Just your run-of-the-mill pirate." He grinned. "Who are you?"
"A witch who puts nasty spells on rude pirates." I didn't grin. Why'd he dodge my question?
He turned again to leave.
"Hey, I'm not staying here by myself." I'd had my quota of being alone in large dark buildings near Halloween.
He took another quick gander at my chest and his gaze clearly wanted to linger. "Might be chilly outside in a witch costume."
My leather jacket was something else I'd left locked in the car. I sighed heavily and followed him toward the door. It seemed like I was forgetting something, but nothing clicked.
"It's been… interesting." He looked like he might shake my hand or something. But he just winked clumsily and pushed open the heavy door.
Brisk night air swirled into the wide hallway and I shivered. Wondered what time it was.
The newcomer stepped outside and clasped his arms around his chest; I stayed pretty close so he could be a windbreak of sorts. Right as I heard the massive door slam behind us I remembered my purse was still tucked under the bench inside the wooden cage. "My keys! My purse!" I tried the door. Locked tighter than my Aunt Tilly's coin pouch.
"Locked?"
Before I could nod my head, I started sniffling. The new guy stepped closer, tentatively, but stopped short of hugging me. You can't let a strange swashbuckler embrace you even if he is compassionate enough. As I shivered from the cold breeze, it made my sniffles sound even worse. Don't let strangers see you cry!
"Uh, is there something I can do to help?" He also shivered, but not as much as I.
I'd spent the last thirty minutes being strong. "Not unless," I sobbed, "you have a key to the armory."
He shook his head. "But I guess I could give you a ride." He didn't sound like he wanted to.
And I wasn't certain it would be a good idea anyhow. "Don't ride with strangers" had been ingrained in me since kindergarten.
Vehicle brakes squealed in the parking lot and we both turned just as a piercing bright light temporarily blinded me. "Stop right there! Verdeville Police! Hands in the air and don't move too fast."
Chapter Three
Sounded like dialog in a bad novel. But at least a policeman could help me get in and retrieve my purse.
"What're you love birds doing out here by this back door?" He had a pistol in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and his cruiser's spotlight was still in our faces.
I tried to shield my eyes. "We're not love birds." That cop was already on my wrong side.
"Well, I just helped her outta jail and I was on my way home." The pirate.
"Jail-break, huh. I hadn't heard anything about that yet." He eyed my revealing costume.
"No, Officer, you don't understand. He didn't mean prison jail, he meant the jail for community charity." I pointed over my shoulder toward the huge overhead door to the motor pool bay. "You know, the big Halloween deal. Nobody paid my bail."
"No bail, you're back in jail." He waggled his pistol. "Move over to the vehicle and put your hands on the hood. Feet apart."
The pirate looked at me like I had something to do with this predicament. "Uh, Officer, this is all a mistake."
"Yep. Every person I've ever stopped says that very same thing." His eyes moved from my bosom and surveyed my legs and stilettos. "But I've never caught a hooker and john at the armory before."
It took a second to register. "Hooker? I'm not a hooker, you idiot! I'm a witch!" I immediately regretted using the word "idiot".
As he cleared his throat, the policeman resumed his visual search of my bosom. Did he think I had any weapons in there?
"If you're a witch, who's your john supposed to be?"
I figured I'd better stay quiet.
"Well, I lost some of my stuff inside but the package said 'Captain Blood'."
"What's that about blood? Who's inside?" The officer pressed the transmit button on his collar radio. "Dispatch? City Unit One-Six. Yeah, Corporal James…"
I interrupted. "No. No blood. He's a pirate, for heaven's sake. You know: Halloween party. Witch. Pirate. You could have come as a Policeman." Shut up, Kristen.
James frowned as he muttered into his transmitter and listened to the reply. "Okay, Sarge said to bring you two in."
"In where? For what?" I sputtered. When you shiver and sputter at the same time, it sometimes sends flecks of spittle on nearby law enforcement. He reacted like he'd been poisoned.
The corporal reached behind his back for cuffs and flipped them onto the pirate's left wrist. "Turn around real slow." James flinched when he saw the rubber knife. He'd probably missed it before because he was so focused on me. "Hold real still." He pulled the toy weapon from the pirate's waistband like he was de-fanging a cobra. Then he stepped back and examined it. "Couldn't afford a real knife?" The cop tossed it in the front seat. He finished patting down the pirate and turned to me.
"Officer, you can take my word for it. I got nothing you need to pat me for." I loosened another top button and held apart my lapels. He got a really good view of my cleavage and most of the front o
f the bustier. Then I un-tucked the hem of my blouse and revealed the waistband of my short skirt.
"Uh, okay. Keep holding that up and turn around real slow." He got a great look at my derrière too. "Well, under the circumstances, I guess you could say I patted you down."
Yeah, I could still feel the burning imprint of his eyes on my rump.
"Stick out your hands."
I shivered as I rolled my eyes. What a nightmare. The policeman roughly clipped the other cuff on my left wrist and I was tethered to the swashbuckler! "Hey!"
James shrugged as he placed his flashlight back in the aluminum loop on his heavy belt. "I only got one pair, so you'll have to share."
"Not necessary. Let the pirate have 'em both. I promise I won't go anywhere." Couldn't get far in those heels anyway, even if it wasn't so cold outside. "I'll be happy just to be inside your warm car."
"Well, head that way now, but you're stayin' cuffed. You say you're not a hooker, but we'll see what the Sarge says when he runs you in the database."
"Officer," the pirate held up his left hand, which raised my left hand with it, "this isn't going to work."
"Oh, it works just fine. In the cruiser." He reached in toward the dash and turned off the spotlight.
With my left hand shackled to the pirate's left, it looked like we were doing a really bad amateur tango — me in front. The cop opened the right rear door and motioned for me to get in.
I whined. "If I go in that way, I'll have to face the back of the car."
"Huh?" He scratched his head with his gun hand and then evidently remembered his pistol ought to be holstered. "Oh, okay, go around."
We did. Another short tango trot. It must have looked unusual: witch and pirate doing a rumba around the rear of a police car. The cop opened the left rear door. "Inside."
I tried to sit modestly, but my costume skirt rode way up my thighs. The pirate's eyes grew really large and the corporal coughed briefly. I tugged as much as I could with my free hand and clenched my knees together tightly. I slid over just enough for the pirate to enter the vehicle. His movements jostled my left arm, attached to his with the cuffs. When he finally got more or less situated, his hand was resting on my left knee. I tried to brush his hand away, but we remained linked. As long as our left wrists were joined, either the pirate's hand would be in my lap, or my hand in his. I considered that for a moment. I'd rather touch him than let him feel me.
"This isn't going to work." The buccaneer repeated his observation.
"What's the problem back there?" James craned his neck to see through the dense wire separating the front and back seats. "Oh." He got out, motioned for us to extend our hands, and he un-locked the pirate's cuff. "Other hand." My co-felon complied and his right wrist was promptly cuffed to my left. "Satisfied?"
Not me. I was cold, exhausted, and getting really ticked-off at everybody. Beginning with the co-volunteers who'd left me locked in a cage, the new guy in town who'd stumbled through my belated rescue, and the rather dense Verdeville cop who intended to drive us to his station.
"What were you two doing back at that armory? Stealing? Vandalism? Making-out?"
I just shook my head.
"None of those. We both got locked in." My seatmate spoke up.
"Both of you?" The officer shook his head. "Don't buy it. Maybe one person gets locked in, but not two."
"We did! Separately, of course." I was near tears again.
"One of you was sandbagging." The corporal looked at me.
"I don't even know what that means but if anybody was bagging sand, it was this pirate!" I pointed in case it was necessary.
James rubbed his chin. Sometimes it must be difficult to identify a sandbagger, whatever that is. "But anyhow, you refused to leave. That's entering and remaining. You'll need a lawyer if you don't want to stay in jail overnight."
"I was working this event!"
"Back to hooker. Get a good lawyer."
"Not that kind of work!" I sputtered again. "I'm on the committee." My frustration quotient was at nine, heading toward ten. "I've worked myself crazy for two weeks! Those twits just ran off and left me in jail, with no light or bathroom, and I woke up all alone. Except for this incompetent pirate."
"Not so incompetent. I sprung you out of that cell."
"Jailbreak added to hooking… added to enter and remain," James intoned. "You better get a change-of-address card for the penitentiary." As he started his vehicle, he eyed us through the rear-view mirror. "Sometimes hookers and johns scuffle if he decides not to pay-up."
"I'm not a hooker!" I started sniffling again. I didn't want to give either of them the satisfaction. But sometimes tears are all that come out.
The buccaneer looked at me but obviously didn't know what to do.
I just cried and shuddered with the cold.
"Corporal, could you run some heat back here? The lady's shivering."
James fiddled with a dial on his dashboard.
My seatmate cleared his throat. "Corporal, what brought you out to the armory anyway, at this time of night?"
"Motion detector, I guess. Something set off the alarm and the security company contacted dispatch. I was the closest unit. City One-Five was escorting the soccer team from an away game and One-Four was at the hospital. One-Three is off-duty. Not sure where the deputies were." Corporal James seemed to think we gave a hoot. "I was on my way to a barking dog call and had to double back."
The pirate tried again. "Look, I know it sounds odd, but we really were locked inside the armory. I had passed out from… well, I was out. After the thing was over, I guess all the workers just took off and didn't check very close. They certainly missed me in the corner…"
"And me in the cage." Between sniffles.
"Yeah. She said the cage is a fund-raiser project. You know, somebody arrests you, you sit in the cage for ten minutes, and somebody else donates enough money to the charity for them to let you out."
James eyed me in the mirror again. "How come nobody wanted the witch let out?"
The buccaneer shrugged.
"They supposedly called my brother Eric. Maybe they didn't reach him. I don't know!" I'd stopped crying, but now my sinuses were filled and I had to suck up a quantity. Not very lady-like. "But that's no stinking excuse for my coworkers to leave me there! In the dark!" More sobs.
"Could we just stop somewhere? Maybe get some coffee? You run our IDs with the radio and we can straighten this out before we have to go downtown?" The pirate nodded his head toward me. "I mean, it's got to be hard on her in this skimpy costume, parading through the police station. Fingerprints… holding cell. You know."
He sounded condescending and I felt like punching him. But his sympathy bit might have been working, so I stayed quiet.
The gallant Captain Blood continued: "I give you my word, she's never been a hooker as long as I've known her."
That would be something close to forty minutes, and most of that time in the pitch-dark.
James slowed the cruiser, which hadn't yet left the vast parking lot. He licked his lips. The word "coffee" had clearly stimulated him. "Where'd you have in mind?"
"Verdeville Dairy Barne is open all night, I think." My voice seemed a bit too cheerful for the context. It was just down the highway, heading in toward the city proper.
The corporal thought for a moment and accelerated slowly without speaking. He made the turn from the armory complex onto Highway 70, which became Main Street at the city limits.
Chapter Four
Soon, the officer pulled into Dairy Barne's lot, switched off his engine, and turned to face us. "If I didn't need to use the can, I'd take you straight downtown. I don't buy both of you getting locked in but I can't see a good motive. If your story doesn't check out, I'm going to be mighty peeved." He exited abruptly, slipped his nightstick in the belt's metal loop, and opened the rear door on my side. "No funny business. I'm in no mood to chase down witches and pirates in the middle of the night."
"Ho
w far could I go with no money, no jacket, and wearing these?" I pointed to my heels.
"Out." James motioned with his head.
I slid over, again showing more of my inner thighs that I'd planned for anyone to see ever again, other than at the pool. As I struggled to stand, the officer reached down and unlocked my cuff. Once the buccaneer got out, his restraint was likewise removed.
Then, a short lecture: "I'm serious. We go in, I use the can, we have a coffee, we talk a bit, and I'll check on your story. Anything goes haywire, and you'll find out what a Taser feels like."
I rubbed my left wrist. "I'll behave."
The pirate concurred.
As we entered the Dairy Barne, Corporal James nearly danced with anticipation of the restroom. But he had a problem. We were no longer restrained and I certainly couldn't enter the men's room with him. Or so I thought.
Corporal James evidently knew the staff here, because all he did was nod in the cashier's direction and Manager Kurtz nodded back. It didn't communicate much, but seemingly established that whatever was about to happen was official police business. The officer opened the men's room door, poked his head around the corner, and called out, "Anybody in here?" Nobody responded, so James stepped back and motioned for us to enter.
"Huh? In there? With you two guys?"
Kurtz had moved to the near end of his counter but did not intercede.
"Inside. And hurry." James nearly squeezed his knees together. "You promised no trouble. Get in… quick."
I shook my head vigorously. The only time I was in a men's room was at the county stadium after Verdeville won a regional high school championship. All the ladies' accommodations were occupied with long lines outside, and I had decided I'd waited long enough. On top of having to deal with the astonished male customers, I'd found the stink overpowering, the grime astounding, and the graffiti unbelievably odious. Having taken care of nature's call with only three gasps of breath the entire time, I strode from that facility and vowed "never again".
"Inside," ordered Corporal Bursting Bladder. "Now!"
