Lucky Heather
"Buy some lucky heather dear?"
The little old woman was dressed up in bundles of rags, and was designed to tug at anyone's heart strings. Only an absolute bastard would ignore her...
Today was a bad day, and Ray was being a bastard. Besides, he could tell she wasn't actually a beggar. It was the manicure that gave it away. That and the fact that he'd arrested her last week for getting in some guy's face. And she wasn't in fact a little old lady, she was thirty four, and apparently a very talented actor. Seemed she'd taken a lot of people in. The booking clerk had been quite astonished at the little old beggar's personal belongings. Mobile phone, driving licence, several hundred pounds...
She didn't remember him though. To be fair, she had been astonishingly drunk at the time.
"Lady, I don't want to buy your heather."
"It's an old gypsy blessing for good luck."
"It's shrubbery. Go find some other schmuck."
She glared at him, and then suspicion flitted across her face. "You're that police man, aren't you..."
"Yeah, good catch. Go to the head of the class."
"You arrested me, didn't you?" She laughed. "Oh dear... you really need to cross my palm with silver, or you will be hit by a gypsy curse."
"Gypsy curse? You wouldn't know a gypsy if you were hit by one. And if you were hit by one, I'd buy the man a drink."
"You shouldn't talk to me like that dear. If you're not careful, I'll curse the most valuable thing you own, so that you'll never be able to enjoy it at your leisure. Your prized possession will be stolen away when you least expect it."
"Too late, I'm already bald. Now, get out of my way if you don't want to be arrested again."
"Hah," she snorted. "I curse you, police man... may you live in interesting times."
"That's not a gypsy curse, that's a Chinese curse, and you're not Chinese either."
"I haven't finished yet. From this day forth trouble will follow you like your closest friend, and you'll lose your prized possession in the fire."
"Yeah yeah... fine, I'm cursed. Just shut up already, I've got a tonne of paper work, a truck load of stolen suits, some crap assignment about a Mountie of all things, and you lady are the last thing I need."
He stormed off leaving her spouting invective, and didn't think about her for a long time.
…
"So... what happened to my riv?" It seemed an innocent enough question, but the station went silent, and suddenly detectives were making themselves very scarce indeed. Kowalski flapped his mouth, and went dumb (which didn't seem like his style somehow), while Fraser said, "Ah..." in that portentous way of his.
And funnily enough, the way they explained it... he found himself thinking, "I should have bought that damned heather."
