Chapter 8 - Agreement
My breath caught in my throat. What did he tell him, exactly? Did he blame it all on me? I supposed that anything was better than letting Lassard leave without knowing the truth.
"What did you say?" I asked him.
He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable even though it was me standing around with my hands cuffed behind my back.
"I told him that I accidentally killed it," he admitted, his eyes moving to the ground and focusing on something a little too interesting on the floor. Wow. Was this actually true?
"Well, what did he say?"
Harris gulped. He tried to hide it by dropping his head down as he did so, but I heard it clear as day.
"He just… sat there. Didn't say anything. Avoided looking at me."
I waited for Lieutenant Harris to continue telling me what Commandant Lassard said, but that was it.
"Then?" I managed to utter.
Harris jerked as though startled by my voice, his eyes looking at mine for a moment before going back down again.
"I just told you—he didn't say a thing. The damn fishbowl's all that's left of his stuff in his office. He just… started staring at it and never took his eyes off of it."
"How did it end?"
"I apologized," Harris admitted. "I then excused myself."
Harris's words had hit me like a thud to the stomach. So he'd admitted to Lassard that he'd killed the fish. What would happen now? Would Lassard change his mind about retiring? Would he fire Lieutenant Harris? Anything was possible.
"Did he say anything about reti—" I began, but Harris beat me to the answer.
"I told him right after dinner today," he said, "then I called you to see where'd you'd been all day. Haven't heard an announcement or anything about it yet. I figure it might be getting around by now."
I leaned back against the corner, my handcuffs scratching the paint off the wall as I did so. I didn't care—my mind was blown by this revelation. Thaddeus Harris had done the right thing, so why was he arresting me now?
"So this whole handcuff thing—what is this?" I said, fidgeting with my cuffs. "Are you seriously going to take me back to jail?"
"I didn't figure you'd be so hard to convince," he huffed. "But if this don't make you change your mind, I don't know what will."
"What, do you make commission if one of your recruits makes it through?"
"Yeah, right. I came here 'cause, if nothing else, it was the best excuse I could think of for legally entering your apartment," he admitted. "I wanted to tell you in person."
"So… Let me get this straight—you told him just because I thought it was the right thing to do?" I asked.
"Now you're lookin' a damn gift horse in the mouth," he said. "Is it not enough that I basically asked for my walking papers today?"
"No, that's definitely good enough," I said, quickly reassuring him of that. "Never mind my question."
So he couldn't answer me as to why he'd told Lassard before tomorrow, the day that Lassard would be announcing his successor. Maybe he realized that someone else might get the commandant position, and that he'd rather have Lassard there than some fresh younger person who would occupy the position for the rest of his natural life. Tackleberry, Callahan, and Hightower did outrank him now, and Hooks and Jones were at his rank. Maybe his telling Lassard was his own twisted method of self-preservation. It made sense.
"So what have you decided about the academy?" he said. "You gonna stay?"
"Well," I began haltingly, "how do I know you're telling me the truth and not just saying that?"
It was then that I saw irritation on his face.
"If you think my telling Lassard was easy, I'd tell you that I'd rather be shot in the other shoulder." He shook his finger at me. "I may even get canned." I could see that the words were bitter in his mouth, and he grimaced as he said them. "You got your wish."
"It's not that I wanted you not to get it. I just thought that the way it was being—"
"Let's drop it," he huffed. "So what's it gonna be? You staying or going? At least you have a choice in the matter…"
I could see that he was really disgusted about how things would be turning out for him, now that Lassard knew that he'd killed the man's prized pet.
"You know," I began, "I think that if you're really remorseful toward him, that maybe he'd give you the—"
"I told him about the fish. I got no reason to be remorseful."
Wow. He was certainly sure of his choice. Why had he done it, though? Had he really told Lassard because I had said it was the right thing to do? I probably would never find out.
"Okay, so are you going to let me go now?" I asked, acutely aware of the coldness of the metal cuffs on my wrists. He was on the defensive but I was the one in the handcuffs.
"First—are you in… or out?" he asked, his voice unnaturally quiet.
"Could you uncuff me first?"
"No," he curtly replied, a narrow-eyed half-smile crossing his face. "You gotta give me an answer first."
"What do you care?" I asked. "You may not even be there."
"Thanks for the reminder," he snapped. "Anyway, you ought to go through it all the way. Better being a cop than flipping burgers, scrubbing toilets or walking dogs the rest of your life."
The janitor position—how had he made it sound even more distasteful than it already was?
"Fine," I said. "I'll stay at the academy. Can you uncuff me now?"
"Just gimme a second," he said, his eyes running up and down my body. "I kinda like the way you look in 'em."
"Is that right?" I said, cocking an eyebrow. "Too bad you weren't there the last three times I was cuffed." Instead, it had been random rookie cops who weren't sure what to think about arresting a woman.
"Well, I'm definitely not gonna be there the next time," he muttered, shaking his head slowly. "Lassard will see to that."
If it was true that Harris told Lassard about that damn fish, the man was forgiven, in my book. I'd find out soon enough, because I'm sure that Lassard would treat him differently after that revelation. He'd be stupid to lie about something like that.
"This may be the last arrest I ever do," he said, attempting to perk up. "Not a bad one, if I say so myself. Turn around," he said, eyes seeming to sparkle. So he did like this kind of thing. I hadn't exactly entertained the notion before, but there must have been some kinky side of me to even consider Thaddeus Harris to be a possible romantic interest. I was handcuffed and dressed in civilian clothes in front of a cop in full uniform.
"By the way," he said. "In case you were wondering why I got on the float when the horses showed up, I got a good reason. I assume that's why you called me a coward the other day, since that's the only thing I did that might be taken as that."
"Yeah," I muttered, unhappy that he'd brought that back up. I'd felt terrible about calling him that, after he'd shown himself to be plenty brave. I wondered what excuse he'd use for what he'd done at the parade, hiding behind the police academy seal while Hooks, Hightower, and Jones rescued the kids from their runaway horses. Would he blame his shoulder wound?
"Actually, I mentioned it before, though I didn't go into detail," he said. He cleared his throat, looking extremely self-conscious, his eyes darting back and forth quickly. "Basically, I know what the inside of a horse's ass looks like. And I don't ever wanna see it again."
I must have looked confused for a moment, because he continued speaking.
"Actually, it was when Mahoney was in the academy," he said, thinking back. "You see, I was gunning it down the street on a dirt bike, when a car crossed the intersection and stopped dead in front of me. Bike wrecked into it and I got launched face-first into a horse's ass."
I couldn't help but giggle at the thought. It was terrible, but also funny. I tried to picture him doing such a thing.
"Laugh now, but that was the worst. I couldn't get the smell of horse shit out of my nose for weeks," he said. "Not to mention how many times I had to wash my hair and scrub my mouth out. So, needless to say, I avoid horses now."
Wow. What a story! It was almost too crazy to believe, but I'm sure Harris wouldn't make up an embarrassing story like that. I guess it made sense that he'd avoid horses at all cost.
"I'll remove the handcuffs," he said softly, sighing as he did so. "Turn around so I can get 'em off."
I studied his face. No way was he was lying about the horse—or about what he'd told Lassard, for that matter. He was too self-important to go making up stories that made him look bad or weak. I saw him for what he was then, a man who had been beaten down enough to make him bitter and suspicious about everyone. A man who had good intentions, but sometimes let his bad attitude get the better of him.
Right now he looked like a sad sack and I felt partly responsible for it. He might get fired tomorrow. So, yeah, I wouldn't refuse a little action if he was willing. It had been almost a week, come tomorrow, since anything had happened between us. Of course, I had kind of broken up with Harris on Saturday. And I had been talking angrily to myself about him for two days straight now.
"Well, I hope that experience didn't turn you off all asses," I said. I turned around in a flirty way and wiggled my butt. The small gasp I heard from behind me was enough to bring a throbbing sort of heat to that region of my body.
"Uh, is that a proposition?" I heard him say in a guttural voice. "'Cause it sure as hell looked like one."
I stood up straight again and looked at him out of the corner of my eye, my mouth curving into a smile. Harris still hesitated.
"I just gotta reconcile this with Saturday," he said. "You weren't real happy—"
"Saturday was because you weren't saying anything to Lassard. And I'm glad you told me the horse story. I wish I could take back what I said then. I was stupid."
He looked taken aback, his eyebrows creased together.
"Do you mean that?"
I grinned at him.
"Yeah."
Now he was smiling as well.
"How about this—if you do that ass-shaking thing again, I'll forget all about Saturday."
As he attempted to catch his breath, he snaked my pants back up my legs, something I wasn't able to do with the handcuffs still keeping my hands behind my back. Yeah, the handcuffs definitely added an element of vulnerability to the whole process. I'd been at his mercy as he marched me to the kitchen table and bent me right over it. There was definitely something scandalous and animalistic about being taken in that way, and it wasn't long before I was moaning loud enough for all my neighbors to hear, including the widow and her dog.
"Damn, that was good," he said, giving me a light smack to my backside and hooking his finger on the handcuffs for a moment. "You wear 'em well."
"What can I say?" I replied, breathless as well. "I'm used to 'em."
"I'll have to keep these handy," he said, unlocking the cuffs and tucking them back in his back pocket. "In the meantime, we oughta get back. I'm sure Lassard's got something to say, now that he's thought about it for a while."
"I don't think he's—"
"You may have to sneak out of the academy at night to see me," he cut in, shrugging as he tucked his shirt back into his pants. "Tomorrow will probably be my last day."
"Commandant Lassard doesn't seem like the type—"
"If he's anything like me, he'll shit-can me."
I smiled at him.
"Well, let's just hope that he's not like you."
