The Rookie and the Virgin

  The Rookie and the Virgin

  By

  Kendall Duke

  Published by JT Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by Kendall Duke

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holder.

  Printed in the USA by JT Publishing

  All material is intended for adult purchase and purview.

  Dylan

  I hated this stretch of highway.

  Hate is a strong word, and I chose it carefully. Some places you might hate because they trigger a bad memory—this long, unwavering patch of filthy mud and broken glass did that for me, certainly. And some places you might hate simply because they’re ugly, or represented something unpleasant, which, bingo. But some places were capped off with a kind of hazy memory of long ago awfulness—not just your memory, but ones that belong to everyone. Death, destruction, mayhem. Some places you hate because they’re haunted.

  Again: bingo.

  Route One stretches all the way from the top to the bottom of the United States, and parts of it are downright majestic. Glorious. Some are kitschy reminders of the past, some are just your standard suburban outlet fare, and some… Some are like my stretch, the one I patrol. Other folks rotate in—it’s always good to keep fresh eyes on a place, and my partner did a round on Route One for twenty years before he retired yesterday. But I’m the one that comes back. I’m the one who knows the ghosts.

  I’ve only been on the police force for three years. There were some who didn’t want to hire me, no matter how well I did on the tests and exams—I didn’t blame them, really. But eventually they came to appreciate my expertise in certain matters, let’s say, and now we’re friendly. I had to prove myself, but I was grateful that they allowed me to do that, and I love my job. I love the rest of the crew. Generally speaking, I’m a happy guy with a pretty good life, all things considered.

  But I come back here and… I remember.

  I don’t want to forget. I feel like I owe her that, but…

  I hate this stretch of highway.

  ~~~

  Riley

  Man, if there was one thing I didn’t want to do this morning, it was deal with Curtis. But there he was, sitting on the stoop when I left my apartment, waiting for me. I opened the door and bolted it as fast as I could, got the rest of the locks in, and before I even finished I could see his stupid sneakers in my peripheral vision. My stomach just sank. But at least he hadn’t tried to muscle his way inside again, so that was something. He was just lurking on my damn porch, hanging around like he had a right to.

  But I had to grit my teeth and smile when I saw him. Because it was Curtis, and that’s what you had to do.

  “Hey Curtis,” I said, slipping my keys in one of the pockets sewn inside of my jacket. He wouldn’t be able to pick them when he opened his arms for a hug, which I knew he would; no one could steal them, not when they were there against my heart. I was theft-proof, both my place and my personal self, unless you had muscle and then there was no stopping you, so I carried everything that mattered on me when I left. I was fast, too, and Curtis knew it, so he did what I thought he would and opened his arms, not bothering with the pretense of caring about what I wanted. He wouldn’t chase me if I ran, but he’d make me pay for it later, for embarrassing him, for rejecting him in an obvious way. I felt my teeth slip against each other, grinding so loudly I knew he could probably hear it, and let him envelop me for a split second before I broke away. “I have to go to work. What can I do for you?”

  He gave me that smile I hated—the one that made a passing attempt at charm, but glinted with malevolence. He didn’t care what I wanted; he knew it wasn’t him. But I was the only thing this side of the tracks he didn’t possess, and someone like Curtis really feels like that is a personal affront. I don’t do drugs. I don’t trick. And I don’t like him. So Curtis doesn’t have me. But all the same, we both know that the minute I say the words out loud—the words I think whenever I look at his stupid, sleazy face—that’s the minute something bad happens to me. So instead I do this stupid dance. Every. Damn. Day.

  “I just wanted to come by and say hi.”

  “Hi,” I said, and started backing away from him. “Gotta catch my bus.”

  “Let Damien give you a ride,” he said, pointing to the tall guy with the red hair sitting in the SUV at the curb. Damien drove Curtis everywhere. That’s what Curtis did all day: drive around, ruining peoples’ lives in one way or another.

  “No thanks,” I said, and waved. I knew better than to turn my back on him, so when I took a step away and he stood up, I stopped moving and remained as still as I could. Better to miss this bus than have him waiting for me when I got home. “Did you need something else?”

  It was cold out. I had the electric heaters on in my apartment but they didn’t do much; I lived in a converted Victorian, and my apartment was the bottom right quarter of the house. High ceilings, first floor: no heat. It all drifted right up through the ceiling. I’d sealed my windows this year but it still got so cold inside I could see my breath every morning. I tried to mask the shiver that ran over me when Curtis stood up as a reaction to the chill I never escaped. This was bad. Normally he just let me leave.

  “Yeah,” he said, and my stomach curled. “You.”

  I tried to smile in a way that showed I was flattered, although I wasn’t. Not at all. I’d grown up with Curtis; he and my brother were best friends, and got in to the same shady business at the same time. Now my brother was dead, and there was nothing standing between me and Curtis’s attention. He was now the boss, the head of all shady business this side of the ‘hood. I’d moved out of my mom’s old place so that I wasn’t next door to him any more, but I couldn’t move away from Route One—couldn’t afford to—and he showed up every day, like clockwork.

  But this was new.

  This was really bad.

  “Curtis, I…” I squared my shoulders, and his greasy smile faltered. All of his front teeth were yellow from the blunts he constantly smoked. His eyes were blue—they’d been pretty when we were young, but now they were always calculating, always thinking about how to get what he wanted, and there wasn’t an ounce of compassion behind them. “I don’t feel like that about you. I just don’t—you’re like a brother to me.” I hoped the word brother would cue some long-forgotten loyalty in him, would make him remember that he and Ray were friends. But instead, the face I feared appeared before me.

  “I said I want you, girl,” Curtis sneered. “I didn’t ask what you wanted.”

  “I’m late for work,” I said, backing up quickly. My feet found the top step. “I have to go.”

  “You ain’t gotta do shit,” Curtis snarled. “I been waiting for you to ask me to pluck that flower of yours, and you ain’t done it—what you need, you know I got.” Curtis was taking his time, walking towards me very slowly. “I got more money than God, got this whole ‘hood at my feet, and I still ain’t good enough for you.”

  “That’s not it, Curtis, it’s just that we grew up together, and Ray—”

  “Ray’s dead,” he spat. He stood at the top of the stairs and stared down at me, his eyes cold. “Nobody asked what Ray wanted neither.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said, turning to run—if I could get to the bus, then I could take it downtown and never come back. Forget it. I had my bank card and my phone in my pocket—I didn’t need anything else—

  BAM! Damien was waiting for me. I slammed into his chest, and now his arms were wrapped around me, squeezing tightly. His face was completely blank, as if he were a robot. Everything was happening so quickly--

  “Nah,” Curtis’s oily voice came from behind me. “You ain’t talking no more,” he said, his voice cruel.

  And then everything went dark.

  ~~~

  Dylan

  I pulled into the gas station down by 27th and Route One at nine in the morning. This isn’t usually the time you see gang-bangers out and about, but I’d noticed a vehicle licensed to a Miss Anela Broaden sitting outside of the small, dark building. There was only one way in, and one way out; everything else was steel and bullet-proof glass. People pulled up, paid for their loosies and gas, and drove off.

  Anela Broaden’s grandson, Curtis, was the latest piece-of-shit to claim this neighborhood as his kingdom. A real piece of work, he’d done a couple of short stretches in juvie and dropped out in ninth grade to go into business full time. His partner, a kid named Raymond Delmonte, had turned up dead about a year and a half ago.

  I knew this stretch of highway well, as I said; I was on the look-out for this particular SUV. And call me curious—I wanted to know what Curtis might be up to at nine o’clock in the morning. He didn’t strike me as an early riser.

  I pulled in to the parking lot and slowed my cruiser down, scanning the rest of the area. Everything was silent; fresh sunlight sparkled down on the shards of broken glass speckling the parking lot, making it look like the surface of the ocean. It had it’s own deep spots, I guess. I cruised up next to the SUV and threw it in park. Nobody around, least that’s what it looked like.

  But something was off.

  It just wasn’t right. My senses started tingling and I knew for a fact there was something going on right now, something that shouldn’t be going on—not here, not anywhere on earth, probably not even in hell. So I turned the car off and waited for a minute, and sure enough, the SUV rolled down a window after an interminable minute.

  “Morning officer,” a red-head I vaguely recognized as Damien Strugg murmured through the crack. Smoke drifted by his head in thick rings. I ignored it, for now.

  “Yep, it is,” I said, smiling at him. “Funny—I didn’t think Curtis to be the type that ran his errands in the sunshine.”

  Damien looked out of the windshield, never meeting my eyes. “My name’s not Curtis.”

  “No,” I said, “but that’s his grandma’s car. And you’re what we call back at headquarters ‘an associate.’” I smiled big and bright at him. “Three guesses as to what that means.” He said nothing, never once turning his head. I was certain there was a glock pointed at me through the door, but I had no idea why. Unprovoked assault on a police officer seemed a little dim even for these guys. “It means you hang out with Curtis, a lot. So much, in fact, that it seems very strange to me that you would be anywhere without him, especially in his grandma’s car.”

  “Them’s the breaks, officer,” he said. His voice was a complete monotone. He didn’t look at me even once.

  “Nah,” I said softly, and his eyes slid towards me, then stopped. I saw his nostrils flare. “You either stole this car and Curtis is dead in the trunk, or y’all up to some shit. Now which is it.”

  “Neither, officer,” Damien said in his dead voice. I nodded, knowing he was watching me with his peripheral vision.

  “Alright then, why don’t you let me have a little look?”

  “No warrant,” Damien said automatically, and I nodded again.

  “Fair enough. Let me just…” I hit a couple buttons on my computer, letting the screen light up; sure enough, there was something small enough to justify a search—if you were the type of guy to regularly break the law, you should really be better at keeping up with your paperwork. “Looky here. Registration’s expired.”

  Damien didn’t move an inch.

  “I’m sorry officer,” a new voice drawled at me from the tiniest sliver of open window in the backseat. “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Curtis, you alive?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, and something about his laugh made my skin crawl. “I’m alive. Damien’s just taking a turn at the wheel cuz I had me too much to drink last night.”

  “What a good friend,” I said, and then I unstrapped my piece and loosened my belt, preparing myself for a very unpleasant morning. “So I just need a little look-see in your Grammy’s car, there, since the registration is all expired.”

  “I told you I’d get to it,” Curtis said, and some of the unctuous undertone was gone; I felt myself get ready and got out of my car, preparing for the worst. Those closed windows blinked back at me, opaque in the bright light, the transparent film over them dimming any vision at all. “I’ll do it right now, in fact. DMV open at nine?”

  “Sure does,” I said, “but you’ve been tragically delayed.” I left my knees loose and moved towards the back of the car, away from the gun I was positive Damien clutched in his hand. If he wanted to shoot me, he’d have to aim through his boss. “Come on now, Curtis, open up. Can’t be that bad.”

  “Nothing doing, officer,” Curtis said, and his voice was hardening into flint. “You ain’t got no warrant.”

  “And yet, I’ve got so much probable cause,” I said, angling to get a look inside that crack in the window. I couldn’t even see Curtis’s eye color, it was so dark in there. “Get out.”

  The door handle clicked. Something told me to move, so I did, and Curtis’s shot went wide, missing me by an inch. I was directly behind the car, crouched down; I had about a half a second to act before Damien threw it in reverse and crushed me into the glass-strewn gravel.

  So I acted.

  ~~~

  Riley

  I don’t remember what happened.

  I remember the darkness—so much thick, moldy black, as thick as wool, as if the whole world were just dry, dusty dark, my mouth full of it, my eyes full of it, everything cold and black and nothing.

  And then I remember light. I remember just the light, and his face. Hovering over me. I wasn’t sure I understood what he said, but it came to me later: miss, are you alright?

  I’ve got you now, miss.

  I’ve got you.

  ~~~

  Dylan

  “Now, Dylan, you need to take a couple of minutes and explain this wild west shit to me again, alright? You need to take your time and do it right. Because, I’ll be honest, not a damn one of us understands why you didn’t call back-up—”

  “Sir, I just didn’t have the time, I told you—”

  “Sure, you did.” My boss eyed me over his desk. “You could’ve died, do you know that?”

  It was so strange to me, still, to hear the concern in his voice. The police are just vipers, son. I could practically hear my father’s words, see his black eyes as he scanned the room, ever vigilant. Snakes. Got no respect for the working man.

  Sometimes I was glad he was dead. I didn’t want to explain it to him—I knew I couldn’t have. He was the viper, all along.

  I had to stop this morbid train of thought or my Chief would never let me off the desk. I tuned in to what he was saying again, trying hard to make the words stick to my mind, and nod where expected. He wasn’t fooled. “Go home,” he said, shaking his head. “And listen, kid…” His forehead wrinkled as he mulled over his words. “I know some of the guys gave you shit when you applied. I know there might even be a few words still spoken now and then. But you matter to us—you’re one of us.” His grizzled face dared mine to look away. “The past is the past, alright?” He made me hold his gaze for at least a full minute before he allowed the moment to pass. Chief swatted his desk with a thick pad of papers—presumably the pile of paperwork I’d filled out earlier, in triplicate, with everything signed on the dotted line—and leaned back in his chair. “Go home,” he said again, and that was that. No further discussion necessary. I’d have to call in tomorrow to see when I could come back to work.

  “Hey rookie,” a voice called out as I left his office, the door swinging shut behind me. I turned to look at Crayden, one of the three officers who, like me, came from the wrong side of the tracks. Crayden’s dad was a decent guy, though, and they had lunch together almost every day at a well-known diner back in the old neighborhood. Unlike my dad, who’d spent a fair share of my life in lock-up and the rest of it earning ways to go back to jail. “You get that interview over with yet?”

  “What interview?”

  “The girl, man,” Crayden said, looking at me strangely. “She’s been through processing, screened by the trauma team, but if you want the case to lock Jarvis says you gotta go and stick your head in, make sure it’s the right girl and all.”

  “Of course it’s the right fucking girl,” I said, staring at him. “You mean the one tied up like a pretzel and thrown in a bag like some puppy they were going to drown? Of course it’s her.”

  “Jarvis’s call, man,” Crayden said, and shrugged. I rolled my eyes. I could never tell what Jarvis’s deal was; he was the only other officer, besides Crayden and I, that grew up in the ‘hood. He’d been a marine, served in Iraq, and was a complete hard-ass, but you could trust him to always tell the truth and you knew he’d have your back if shit went down. Sometimes, though, I wondered if he just liked finding new paperwork to make me put my name on. I knew the girl had been interviewed--probably a million times, if Jarvis had taken over the case. Was he yanking my chain?

  I walked down to the interview room and wondered why he couldn’t have kept her at his desk. From what I could tell, she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Case closed. I leaned against the glass, knowing neither of them could see me, and looked in.

  She was beautiful. I’d been a little preoccupied when I found her and she was still coming to when the ambulance arrived, so I didn’t have the time to really look at her; I was still worried about whether or not she would even live. She was a truly lovely girl. Maybe nine-teen years old, but from the squint of her eyes she might’ve passed for closer to twenty-five, if you weren’t looking too close. Thick golden brown hair, knotted from getting tossed around, and a bruise on her temple that made my blood boil. Lucky they hadn’t killed her right off. Her eyes were exquisite, the lightest brown I’d ever seen, an amber, really, with long lashes. Full lips. Cute little ski-jump nose. God only knows how she didn’t have five kids by now, growing up where she did.

 

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