No Good Deed

by Jeff Cates

In most cases, makeup can make an ugly person look average and an average person look beautiful. When it came to my boss, Lieutenant Davis, there wasn’t enough makeup in the whole world to help him look pleasant. My ears still rang from his shouts as he waved a fistful of arrest reports in my face. I looked at the clock—almost five short hours ago.

Malcolm, Jose, and I had made eleven busts this past night. Do you know how long it takes to write up eleven arrest reports? My closest friend at the station, Assistant Coroner Alice Green, had warned me not to wear my new red dress. She told me she would have paid to see what was under it (not that there was much skin left to see), and Alice was straight.

I’d pulled an all-nighter, and I was in desperate need of real coffee, but first I had to drop the rewritten reports off at my boss’s desk. Afterward, I was heading to Rings for coffee and something hot and homemade that I usually burned.

I waved to Mrs. Rodriguez as she sped away in her car to her job at the hospital. She’d been working twelve-hour shifts for what seemed like forever as the META virus was killing working girls, johns, and janes in every country on the planet. Being a cop was dangerous, but you couldn’t pay me enough to risk my life to be a nurse since META appeared.

Out of the corner of my eye. I noticed the plain brown box sitting behind the small bush in front of my apartment. I snatched it up, hoping this was what I thought it was. I tore open the wrapper. It was! The most beautiful red stilettos I’d ever seen. They were handmade masterpieces crafted by a semi-retired Italian legend, who usually only did commission work for movie stars. This pair had cost me a week’s salary, but they were worth it. We all have our vices, but I guess I don’t have to tell you mine.

As I was oohing and aahing over my new shoes, I heard the school bus stop in front of the apartment. Then it started up and took off. I was going to put my new shoes inside when I heard a girl’s voice wailing, “Stop! Don’t leave me!”

I recognized Mrs. Rodriguez’s daughter running toward the bus stop with her arms hugging a bag half her size. The girl was bawling her eyes out. I stuffed my arrest reports into the shoebox and hurried toward her.

“What’s the matter, hon?”

Between sobs and hiccups, she said, “I missed the bus, and I’m supposed to give a special presentation to my class this morning!”

“How about if I give you a ride to school?”

I could see just about every tooth in her mouth when she smiled. “That would be great!” Then she thanked me about a dozen times.

It was only five minutes out of my way to her school. When she got out, she said, “Thank you so much, Miss Riley.” She opened the back door and peered into the big sack. “Have you seen Houdini?”

“Houdini?” I repeated.

“My hamster.”

I opened the back door on my side and picked up my shoebox to look under the seats. “I don’t see anything. Are you sure you brought him?”

“I thought I did.”

At that moment, the school bell rang. She jumped, grabbed her bag, and shouted, “I’ve got to get to class. Thank you again for the ride.” She slammed the door and dashed toward the building.

Back behind the wheel, I could hardly keep my eyes open, so I cranked up the music to something I couldn’t stand— techno-opera. There’s no way I’d ever fall asleep to that.

When I parked in front of the station and opened the shoebox to retrieve the eleven new arrest reports I’d written, I screamed. They looked like they’d gone through a paper shredder! Several cops in uniforms headed my way. One had his hand on his pistol.

“What is it?” one asked.

“My arrest reports,” I sputtered.

One of them picked up the box. The shredded paper moved. He grabbed a handful and lifted it. The shoe on the top had about a one-inch hole chewed in the side! I screamed again.

A brown furry animal was hiding under the heel. The cop picked it up by the scruff of the neck and held it up. “It’s just a hamster. It’s nothing to be afraid of. They won’t hurt you.”

By now, I had an audience of about a dozen cops. Those who weren’t laughing were smiling. I followed the officer holding it into the station. He found a jar, dropped it in, and punched holes in the lid before he handed it back to me. I went into the supply room as word of my distress spread like wildfire. I heard a lot more laughter as I left the station with eleven blank arrest reports and the runaway rodent.

I drove back to the school and dropped off the Rodriguez girl’s hamster. It wasn’t until I got back home and was rewriting my fifth arrest report that it dawned on me — “I know why she named the rat in hamster’s clothing Houdini.”