mmderdekea
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|  | Valentine's Day
« Thread Started on Jan 22, 2008, 2:03am » | |
Valentine’s Day FanFic Challenge: "Valentine's Day"
By mmDerdekea (Mona)
“Come on, Fed, you can’t arrest me on Valentine’s Day. My girlfriend, she’s cooking up a great meal and then we’re going dancing.”
Bill clicked the second handcuff into the locked position around the man’s wrists, solidly bound now behind his back. “Valentine’s Day, is it? Had no idea. You shoulda thought of that before getting involved with the mafia, Eddie.”
Eddie Maroney continued pleading to the tall Agent behind him, who was gently pushing him to Tommy Danners, a good friend of Bill’s and a good cop. “It’s just a little drug running. What’s the big deal with cocaine? It’s like a concentrated form of caffeine, that’s it.”
“Yeah, and bullets are just a concentrated form of lead.”
“Oh, man, don’t be mad for me shooting at you. I’ve got no aim. Hell, who wants to go to jail? I had to put up some sort of fight. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Yeah, you’re a real Einstein.”
“I’m serious. I got her chocolates and no one’s ever bought her chocolates. Man, I don’t want her stood up tonight. She’s not involved in any of this. She’s a sweet, decent person. She may be, you know, the one.”
“Lemme guess, a librarian.”
“A teacher. She’s my nephew’s third grade teacher, spends extra time with him ‘cause he’s, you know, a little slow. Katherine O’Hara. Isn’t that a classy name? Like a movie star. Come on, the chocolates and flowers are in my office. I was just about to leave. I’m not that important. You can catch bigger fish than me. I’m nothing. Come on, let me go.”
Bill handed over Eddie to Tommy, saying, “Take him before I throw up my lunch.” Eddie was put into the back seat of a squad car, still desperate to be released. Bill, ignoring him, exchanged professional pleasantries with Tommy, getting the charges all worked out, arranged for them to have a billiards match on Thursday, then patted his friend on the shoulder and walked back to his own sedan, climbing heavily into the driver’s seat.
Ralph appeared suddenly in the passenger side as Bill drove away from the scene. Reaching behind him, Ralph began putting his clothes on over the suit. “Boy, a couple of those shots came pretty close to you, Bill.”
“Yeah. Luckily not close enough.”
“You got some splinters from the wall in your face.”
“I’ll get my mommy to take them out with a pin.”
Ralph rolled his eyes at Bill’s sarcasm. “Do you ever think of wearing a bullet proof vest?”
“One, a bullet proof vest doesn’t cover the face and two, Kid, aren’t you supposed to be my bullet proof vest?”
“Well, I had to stop them from loading the cocaine onto the truck. I can’t be everywhere at once. Even in the suit. And, boy, the cocaine was in more crates than we first noticed, Bill. Boy, the mafia isn’t going to like this. They lost a lot of money.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. My heart bleeds for them,” Bill answered, adding in a soft, “Creeps.”
Ralph looked closely at Bill. “You know, usually at the end of a successful case, which, I might add, they all are with me helping you, knowing you’re going to get another gold star and have Carlisle all flabbergasted, you’re usually just a teensy more happy than this. In fact, once or twice you’ve been downright giddy.”
Bill glanced at Ralph. “I’ve never been giddy in my life.”
“You weren’t giddy after the Circus CIA affair? Jumping up and down all excited about being the lead article again in ‘Badge and Bust’ magazine?”
Bill squeezed his hands tightly around the steering wheel as he shrugged both shoulders. “’Bust and Badge’, and no, I wasn’t giddy. Just…uh…well…professionally eager…to share the results of our work.”
“Gimme a break…Okay, then, why aren’t you ‘professionally eager’ now?”
“I am. Just a little less eager than usual.”
“Oh, boy, we should just do a ‘Who’s on First’ routine.”
They didn’t talk too much during the rest of the trip to Ralph’s house. Once there, Ralph got out, surprised Bill was staying in the car.
“What, don’t you want to be eager with Pam? Come on in. We’ll BBQ some burgers.”
“Nah, thanks, Kid, but I’m sure she’s got other plans than having me interfere with all the mushy stuff today.”
“Huh?”
Bill stared at Ralph. “You didn’t forget it’s Valentine’s Day, Ralph, did you?”
Ralph’s eyes opened wide. “Valentine’s Day! Oh, god, with more court stuff with Alicia, and final exams and being swamped with Vice Principal duties--Bill, you can’t believe what Principal Knight dumps on my desk to deal with--and then stopping this cocaine deal…” Ralph closed his eyes and shook his head back and forth. “She’s going to kill me.” His eyes opened and his hand covered his mouth. “Two divorces before I turn 32. My mother’s going to kill me.”
“Get in, Kid, before she sees you and we can—uh-oh…”
Ralph followed Bill’s eyes as Bill silently “Yiked!”, and saw Pam coming out of the house, waving at them. Ralph turned back to Bill, his eyes filled with horror. “You owe me. You gotta help me.” Then turning around he smiled and said, “Hi, honey,” to his wife, giving her a happy kiss hello as she reached the car.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“So good, Bill’s downright kind of eager,” Ralph replied, Bill following up with a weary, “Oh, brother.”
“Kind of eager--?” she asked, as usually clueless about their in jokes.
Bill leapt in. “Listen, Kids, it’s been fun, but I gotta go. Carlisle wants reports done the same day investigations end.”
Unsurprisingly, Pamela didn’t argue Bill taking off this time. He was write; she had mushy together time planned for the rest of the day. As she wrapped her arm through Ralph’s and they began walking up the walkway to the door, Ralph turned around to ostensibly wave good-bye to his partner, but sheer desperation coated his face.
Bill drove off but made a quick stop at the crime scene, which was wrapped in yellow tape and still buzzing with cops and Feds, before heading to the LA Bureau building. Up by his desk, hidden away from all prying eyes, he scribbled some practice sentences on a pad of paper, crossing out and editing words until the whole small paragraph looked like an illiterate mess. It seemed a hopeless task when suddenly a few words from his ancient past miraculously fell into place and he felt satisfied he had fashioned something he thought would do. Cramming the note deep in his trouser pocket, he located a phone book where he looked up a vital number. With note and number in hand, Bill escaped the communal office he shared with several other agents and found an empty office with a working phone. He closed the door and placed the call, whispering the written words so softly the person had to ask for him to repeat it a few times. When the info was exchanged, he grumbled momentarily at the charge on his credit card, and then hung up. Please god he never had to do that again, but he knew the Kid and the Counselor were worth it. He put the telltale paper into a shredder and waited until the noisy whirring was over.
He wrote up the report in a couple of hours, handed it in to a spell-checking Carlisle, answered a few questions by simply lying through his pseudo-innocent grins, and then used the Federal computers to find an address. Around 6 p.m. he put his jacket back on and left. He was hungry but he had a drive ahead of him. Traffic was its usual nightmare, and what should have taken thirty minutes, took forty-five. It was another ten minutes before he found a parking space on the street.
It was a large apartment complex but someone leaving gave Bill directions for the section he needed. He found the apartment on the second floor in the back of one of the buildings. He knocked on the door and it was answered by a slightly overweight woman with thin brown hair. She was holding a tissue in her hands and her eyes were red from crying.
“Yes?” she sniffled.
“Eddie can’t make it tonight,” Bill said. Bill held out the flower bouquet and the deluxe box of chocolates he had found in Eddie’s office. “He’s been arrested, but probably won’t get much of a sentence. Anyway, he got these for you. I was in the neighborhood…”
“I knew he was up to something suspicious.” She stared at the gifts, hesitating, but Bill nodded for her to take them, and she did. A small smile light up her face as she held the bouquet. “They’re beautiful. Just beautiful. And chocolates. I never had anyone—“
“I know,” Bill said, cutting her off. He took a step back, trying to leave but she spoke again.
“I know Eddie's done some bad things, but he’s been very good to me. I guess I'll wait for him." She smiled wanly, "Maybe I can turn him around. That happens now and then, doesn't it, in real life?" She lifted her eyes from the items and asked, "Are you a friend of his?”
“No, I’m not a friend.”
“Then, why…?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I don't know."
"You don't know why?"
He sighed. "You’re a teacher, right?”
She nodded.
“Helping slow kids.”
“Yes, it’s very rewarding. It really helps the children knowing someone cares about their education.”
Bill studied the laces on his shoes. “I guess that’s why.”
“I don’t understand. You like teachers? Are you one yourself?"
He did a quick shake of his head, still analyzing her welcome mat.
He didn’t know what else to say. The silence grew awkward and Bill ended his agony with a quick "Good-bye". As he left, his last glimpse of Katherine O’Hara found her burying her nose in the petals to take a deep long inhalation of the lovely scent of the flowers.
He got home around 8 p.m., and found some old Chinese food in his fridge and a couple of beers. There was a flashing light on his phone recorder and as he sat down at his roll top desk to stuff cold Kung Pao Beef down into his starving stomach he heard this message:
“Bill, I gotta say, you really came through. Thanks so much! The flowers and chocolates were wonderful. They came around 4 p.m. and Pam was delighted. Gotta say, didn’t know you had such romantic lines in you. Listen, she’s coming, I gotta hang up. But, thanks, partner!”
The message ended and silence settled on the large studio space Bill Maxwell called home. Finishing his hasty meal, he went to the bathroom and examined his face; those splinters would be slow coming out, they were pretty far under his skin. He came back to his living space and flipped on the TV, watching some idiot shows as the beer bottles emptied and he switched over to straight Scotch, which set his heartburn going a little. He popped a couple of antacids. When the news came on, and the anchor started off wishing everyone a “Happy Valentine’s Day!”, Bill turned off the TV, threw some darts against the board on his wall, and then undressed and climbed into bed, forcing himself to not notice there was no one by his side. Even still, he didn’t fall asleep for quite a long time.
The End
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