LITMIR.BIZ

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the wizened truck. “Sit in there. Call up a lawyer for your friend.” Beaudry mimicked a phone call, then pointed to Petrukievich. “Call up help for your friend. He’s going to jail.”

      A perplexed look. “Jail?”

      “Yeah, jail.”

      Cindy watched Beaudry as he tried to act out a prison scene. He wasn’t Cagney, but he got the point across.

      “Ah!” Drunk Passenger smiled. He got back into the truck, threw his head back, and closed his eyes. Bunking down for a snooze.

      Cindy said, “Do we arrest him as well?”

      “For what?” Beaudry answered. “Sleeping? Let’s go!”

      Since the backseat was divided from the front by a metal grate, and since Anatol was still handcuffed, they left him sitting solo behind them.

      Cindy started the motor, then gripped the automatic transmission shift knob. Something tickled her flesh. A small yellow Post-it had stuck to her sweaty palm. She peeled the paper off her skin. On it was written the word “Remember,” the printing done with a black felt-tipped marker. The dampness on her palm had caused the word to smear. She showed it to Beaudry. “You leave this here?”

      He glanced at the paper. “No.”

      “I didn’t, either.”

      Beaudry shrugged.

      Cindy said, “How’d it get here?”

      “With traffic being this light, I’m sure it took the freeway—”

      “I’m serious—”

      “How the hell should I know, Decker? Maybe you put it there and forgot.” He smiled. “Maybe that’s why it says to remember.”

      “Very funny.”

      Beaudry said, “Maybe the guys over at servicing left it there.”

      “Then I would have noticed it when I drove the car out of the lot. I certainly would have noticed it when I pulled Mr. Petrukievich over. Are you sure you didn’t put it there?”

      “Yes, I’m sure. I’d remember something like that.”

      Cindy was perturbed, but she didn’t say anything. She stared at the paper.

      Beaudry said, “Decker, it’s late. I’m tired. Let it go. And let’s go.”

      She crumpled the mysterious message. Shifting the car into drive, she released the hand brake and took off. Beaudry called in the arrest, giving the RTO an estimated time of arrival to the stationhouse.

       Remember.

      Cindy tried to erase it from her mind. “How long do you think it will take to process our friend?”

      “What do we have on him?”

      “Reckless driving, a DUI with a BAL of over point-two, and operating a moving vehicle without a license.”

      “Maybe an hour.”

      “Criminy!”

      “Why? You got something planned?”

      “Later on.”

      “I hope you’re not tight for time,” Beaudry said, “because if our drunk tank is filled, then we gotta either take him down to Parker Center or find another substation that can handle him. That means it’s gonna take longer.”

      “Graham, it’s three-thirty in the afternoon. How many drunks could there possibly be?”

      “Lots of people just hanging, Cin. For them, cocktail hour starts right after the soaps.”

      Wrapped in a white terry-cloth towel, Cindy stared into her clothes closet. It was too early in the season to wear the light fabrics. (Besides the fact that it was way too chilly outside.) However, it wasn’t heavyweight wool weather, either. That left her with several options.

      Option one:

      Her midweight, sleeveless black gabardine dress. Always appropriate dinner wear, but way too sexy for a business meeting with a superior, let alone a man who worked with her father. Now, she could wear her black blazer over the dress. That would certainly tone it down. But the jacket was a more bluish-black while the dress was more greenish-black. Which never made sense to her; why black came in so many different shades.

      Option two:

      An olive-drab skirt suit, which looked great with her red hair. But it was militaristic in style, replete with spangles and epaulettes. She had to be in the right mood to wear it. Tonight, she didn’t feel like WACing it.

      Option three: her last selection.

      A single-breasted navy pantsuit—good cut around the hips, not too tight around the ass, no plunging neckline. It said, I am all business so don’t even think about it. Maybe it was even a little unfriendly. She supposed she could gussie it up with a scarf.

      Except that she hated scarves.

      There were women who were naturals with them, tossing them over their shoulders in a carefree serape manner or winding them like jeweled chokers around the neck. She, on the other hand, never could get the damn things to sit properly. On her, scarves always looked like weather wear rather than stylish accessories. Besides, with her red tresses, she had to be careful with multicolored objects.

      She unhooked the plain Jane pantsuit from the closet pole and regarded the sedate outfit. It would suffice. To accent it, she’d wear a simple gold chain around her neck and gold stud earrings. Definitely nothing about that ensemble could be deemed inappropriate. Not that she thought that Scott had ideas, but men were men. Even old men were men.

      She gave herself a final toweling, then put on her undergarments. Next came the pants, which fit nicely, even a little loose. Well, that was a nice surprise.

      She slipped her arms through the jacket and began to button it. She was shocked to find it pulling across her chest. She took off the blazer and checked herself out in the mirror. Her boobs hadn’t gotten any bigger, but her underlying chest musculature sure had. Her shoulders had also widened.

      She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before. Probably because she wasn’t a preener. She checked herself out only when necessary, which meant before dates. And they hadn’t happened for a while. Not that this shindig with Scott was a date, but at least it was dinner outside the house with a man who wasn’t a relative. She accredited the change in her physique to a regimen of weight lifting and exercise, including a daily workout of a three-mile jog, fifty push-ups, and two hundred crunches.

      So the blazer stretched across her chest. No big whoop! She just wouldn’t button it. Except now she’d have to wear something under the blazer. Her blouses would probably pull, too. So that left her with sweaters. Most of them were too thick and too casual to wear with a suit. Except she did have one black-ribbed turtleneck.

      Did black go with navy?

      Alas, she thought. Cursed with a pathetic sense of style. If only she had been brought up with a mother who knew about these things. A mother who knew how to knot scarves and how to coordinate separates and just what shade of lipstick would work.

      Her mother was just as fashion-blind as she was. Mom’s attire consisted mainly of cotton caftans or peasant blouses worn with ruffled skirts. Her jewelry was almost always chunky bead necklaces or Southwestern sterling-and-turquoise numbers. Cindy never understood why her mother dressed in such a shapeless manner, since she had a nice trim figure. When Cindy had been heavily into psych, she once had told her mother that wearing loose clothes was akin to denying sexuality. Her mother—also into psych—had said she liked sex just fine (If you want confirmation, go ask your father. Yeah, right!), and her choices had more to do with comfort.

      Cindy put on the turtleneck. It was tight, but it would suffice. The blazer, of course, softened her protruding bustline. In midsized

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