Chapter 7 - Deal Breaker
I sat at home on Sunday night on my couch, having decided my future. I would not be returning to the police academy. Let the damn cops come get me to collect my bail or throw me back in the jail cell. I didn't care.
I felt sorry for Commandant Lassard for basically forcing himself to retire because of this incident. I really had wanted to see how things played out with Thaddeus Harris because he had his moments of bravery, sweetness, and even playfulness. He'd saved my useless life several times now and had shown himself to have many sides. Love wasn't blind for me, because I had still seen Harris's bad side very very clearly—and I couldn't help seeing it now.
I'd never gotten the phone numbers of my fellow cadets, so all I could expect was that Harris would be slandering my name to them. Oh well. I'd have to think of something else to take up my time. At least the whole Tony court thing was over. I technically had the cleanest slate I'd had in several years.
Cautiously, I opened the door and tiptoed down the hall to the main mail area, grabbing my elderly neighbor's newspaper. Eh, I'd only be borrowing it for an hour or so. The old man hadn't picked it up yet today, so there was a good chance he wouldn't even bother looking before tomorrow. I needed to find a job and this was the only way. With the amount of money remaining in my checking after I'd paid my bills, I didn't even have enough to afford a half a year's subscription.
Maid…. Security guard… Janitor. The janitor job paid pretty well and was located on the bus line from my apartment.
I wrote down the numbers and descriptions of a couple of job possibilities on another sheet of paper and snuck back into the hallway, slipping the newspaper back into my neighbor's mail slot.
Sunday night was no time to call these places, I realized as I fell into my bed in the clothes I'd worn all day. Yep, I'd call first thing in the morning.
Another great day getting up long after the sun was up! No exercises, no running across tires at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning. It was great to finally be free. I looked at the clock as I grabbed some milk from the refrigerator. Eleven thirty. I smiled at the clock while opening up the milk. The smell that came out of that container nearly made me gag—the milk had curdled. Ugh. I needed to go shopping soon, because I had no food.
I made several phone calls, arranging a face-to-face interview for the janitor position at the local K-Mart. I couldn't believe they needed to actually see the person who'd be scrubbing toilets and emptying trash cans. The interview was Thursday. At least I'd be making money again. Maybe I'd get a K-Mart employee discount so I could buy their food slightly cheaper, not that they had a lot of food to begin with.
The five bills I found buried in my dresser wouldn't be enough to buy any worthwhile food. Three fives and two twenties, and two ones. Fifty-seven bucks. Not only that, but I'd run out of checks after writing my bills on Saturday. It was kind of stupid that the check company wanted money for new checks in check format or with a credit card number. What if someone ran out of checks and didn't have a credit card, like me right now? It was $18.99 for a new pack of 500 checks, the only way I'd be able to access the $100 or so I had left in my account. I stuck the twenty dollar bill in the center of the paperwork and sealed the envelope. Wow. Guess I was going to be eating stale cereal and canned vegetables until I started getting a paycheck again or at least until I got my packet of checks.
I thought about offering house cleaning services to my neighbors. That could get me another couple twenties to hold me over for a while. Times were going to be tight, but I wasn't about to show my face again at the academy. Lassard would be deciding on his replacement this week, and if it happened to be Lieutenant Harris, who knew what would happen to everyone else in the academy? Sure, Mullers, Stiner, Manson, Gertrude, and Brookstone, and all the other current females would be grandfathered in, but would he change the standards back to men only?
As I walked around my plain house with no pictures on the wall and no real decorations to speak of, I remembered Lieutenant Harris's house. He'd stopped putting pictures of the latest police academy classes on the wall. How dare he stop regarding the cadets, as if cadets who weren't male or white were not good enough for him! Yep, this was a good stage in my anger towards Lieutenant Harris. Right now I was so pissed off at him that I hardly missed the fact that I looked forward to seeing his face every day and to try to guess what he'd say to me. My coping mechanism was going to get me a job and get me back on track, though not through the police academy; that was for damn sure.
The old widow down my hallway gave me ten bucks for walking her dog a couple of times during the day. I had several other neighbors lined up for odd jobs. My cable had been turned off weeks ago, so I sat reading random old magazines in the meantime, trying not to think about the self-discipline I had been starting to develop by having to wake up early in the morning. If I didn't get a job soon, I'd slack off yet again. Already I was in trouble when it came to buying food. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'd have at least $100 cash to live on to hold me over. Damn. I'd picked a really stupid time to quit the academy, but Harris had left me no choice. No way could I face him again.
At 8 pm, the phone rang just as I was preparing to crack open a box of Cheerios. I jumped at the sound of it and walked quickly to the answering machine to screen the call. Hmmph, it wasn't my mother. I didn't recognize the number but decided it was worth it to listen.
I picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Carnegie, you missed today," Harris huffed.
"Is that right?" I retorted grumpily.
"Very funny," he shot. "Did you tell any of your little buddies that you weren't coming today?"
"No," I snapped back, irritated by the condescending tone of his voice. "What is this, standard procedure for an absence? Seems kind of stupid, no offense."
"Well, for your information, your buddies got no idea where you are and you apparently didn't tell them what you were doing."
"Right, so why didn't they call me?" I asked him.
"Because they don't know your number," he shot back quickly. "I had to go to your student records to find it. You sick or something?"
"Actually, I quit," I said.
There was a brief silence on the other line. I could picture Harris sitting in his office as he took in the information.
"You can't quit," he replied, his voice oddly calm. At least he hadn't started screaming at me yet. "You made a deal at the station that you would join the academy and get out of jail," he continued matter-of-factly.
"And I kept that deal," I responded. "I joined the academy. I just didn't make it through. Why do you care, anyway? One less female cadet."
"Now just wait a minute here; what does your gender gotta do with—"
"I'm sure you didn't call O'Malley's house when he quit," I said. "Or Wayne, or Norris."
"That's 'cause they had the balls to tell me to my face that they quit," he said.
"I don't have balls," I replied quickly.
"I'm quite aware of that," he murmured, a hint of suggestiveness in the way he said it. I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I stayed on the topic at hand.
"You can use this phone call as a notice that I've quit, since I'm not actually there to do it."
"You can't just up and quit like that," he said, and I heard him snap his fingers for emphasis. "We had a deal and if you choose to renege, I get to take you back to jail."
"Fine," I said, rolling my eyes. "Come arrest me."
At approximately 9 pm, I heard loud banging at my actual apartment door. Had my old neighbor figured out that I'd looked through his newspaper? Shit. Had my other neighbor's dog taken a dump even though I'd walked it an hour and a half ago? At least I knew it was someone who was already in the building and not some outside kook.
I sighed as I approached the door. Maybe, just maybe, it was another opportunity for money.
I hadn't expected to see a badge looking me in the eye.
Thaddeus Harris shoved his way into my apartment as I backed up warily, keeping my hands halfway up in the air as I stared at him, totally confused. I hadn't expected him to follow through. No way was I going to sit in jail again, even though I kind of dared him to arrest me. I'd been given a new lease on life by Harris, and now the asshole was trying to undo it all.
"April Carnegie, you have violated the terms of your bail and are hereby under arrest," he said in a rehearsed tone. "You have the right to remain silent," he said, pulling out his handcuffs and licking his lips. Was he enjoying this? "You have the right to—"
"…An explanation!" I blurted, backing up towards my kitchen and the opened box of Cheerios I'd just been eating for dinner. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I thought I made myself clear in the phone call what would happen if you would decide to quit the academy," he explained, studying the handcuffs in his hand. "Even Mahoney had this kind of deal—jail or the academy. He thought he could just voluntarily quit the academy and avoid jail, but it don't work that way."
"I can't believe you're actually—"
"Turn around and spread 'em," he said, obviously enjoying doing this to me. Even so, he never pulled out his gun and kept a kind of naughty grin on his face. He strode towards me with his handcuffs so that I was backed into a corner.
"Wait—you can't be s—"
"Turn around and put your hands behind your back," he said, approaching me boldly, the handcuffs making a metallic sound as the cuffs rubbed against each other in his hand. Manson and Mullers had mentioned this. What a twisted situation this had become. Did Harris get off on doing this to me?
"Do we really have to follow this procedure?" I asked, my eyes wondering to his groin. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking because his pants were relatively baggy.
"It's standard procedure," he replied with a shrug, looking far too pleased with himself. "You oughta know that by now. Turn around, Miss Carnegie. I didn't finish the Miranda warning, so—"
"I don't need to hear it," I said. "I know it. I can't imagine this is ethical, you being the one to arrest me."
"Why not?" he countered. "I was the one who offered the get-out-of-jail-for-free deal, and I'm the one who takes it back when you don't do your part."
"I didn't sign a contract saying I'd be finishing the academy." I crossed my arms, still cornered by him. "You're going to lose this." This was just nuts.
"Just turn around, Carnegie," he said, jangling the cuffs. "You know the drill."
I had my clean slate and I had to keep it. Who knew what kind of dirt he was trying to get on me: resisting arrest? He could be an asshole, so I couldn't put anything past him.
"Fine," I said, throwing up my hands in defeat. I turned around, putting my hands behind my back. I felt him approaching me, the warmth of his body as he stood directly behind me, awkwardly using his single useable hand to close the cuffs.
After I'd heard the second click that confirmed I was now going to the slammer once again, my eyes began to tear up. I hadn't even gotten a chance to redeem myself! I would be taken to jail and left to rot. I didn't have enough money to bail myself out, and not only that, but my sister was engaged to some hot shot and I was just the black sheep piece of shit that would be ignored until the news of Angie's engagement died back down.
"Don't do this," I said, sniffling pitifully as I stared at the corner. "You'll ruin my life. I was gonna make a new start, and if you arrest me, it'll all be over." I wasn't about to turn and face Lieutenant Harris. I honestly would have rather had him shoot me dead than to parade me out in the hallway again. Being arrested was so damn humiliating!
"Then say you'll rejoin the academy," was his reply. "And I'll take off your cuffs and drive you back over there, simple as that."
"I can't," I said, feeling tears spilling over as I shook my head. "I just can't look at Lassard again after what we—well, what happened to that stupid fish. It's like that—that French movie with that John Val John guy, starting out a new life on a giant lie. Maybe that French guy could do it and be fine with it, but not me. I remember that cop guy chased him down his whole life and he always had to watch his back."
"You do realize that's a story," he said condescendingly. "By the way, the main guy's last name is Valjean."
"Yeah, whatever," I huffed, rolling my eyes. I never said I was well-read.
"That movie's totally fiction," he continued. "But this ain't. There's no vengeful cop tailing your every move waitin' for you to slip up."
"That's funny, because I would argue that that describes you exactly," I spat, turning my head slightly to give him a side-eyed glare.
"I'm not some vengeful cop," he said. His voice softened. "In fact," he said with a longer-than-usual pause, "I took your advice today."
There was a period of silence in which I suppose he expected me to talk. I continued to face the wall until I could take the suspense no more. The mood of the situation had totally changed.
"What advice?" I asked him, turning around carefully as I blinked away any last tears from my eyes.
"Telling Lassard," he responded, grimacing as he did so, his eyes only able to lock on mine for a second before moving away.
"Telling him what," I ventured. I had to be specific to find out the specifics from Lieutenant Harris.
"That he didn't kill the fish."
