Jack added to the easings along he had formerly done with more of the same, but more carefully. Where exactly was he now?
Light shone up through a grille ahead. Jack hastened with care towards it.
“Hm,” went Jack, peering down. “Corridor, and by the look of it, deserted. Now the question is, how might I open this grille from the inside and lower myself carefully to the floor beneath?”
Good question.
Jack put his ear to the grille. Alarm, certainly … Ah, no, alarm switched off. Running feet? Shouting? Not in this corridor. Jack took a deep breath, then took to beating the grille. And then beating some more. Then rattling everything around. Then beating some more.
And then screaming, as quietly as he could, as the length of ducting containing himself detached itself from its fellow members and fell heavily the distance between the ceiling to which it had been attached and the floor beneath.
Which was uncarpeted.
Exactly how long Jack was unconscious, he had no way of telling. The police had confiscated Jack’s watch. And it no longer worked anyway. Jack awoke in some confusion, crawled from his fallen length of aluminium ducting, climbed to his feet and rubbed at the bruised parts, which comprised the majority of his body. Wondered anew exactly where he was.
A sign on the wall spelled out the words:
POLICE CELLS: AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY.
“I think that’s fair,” said Jack. “I deserve a little luck.”
And Jack made his way onwards upon naked feet.
And presently reached the cells.
Now, as we all know, and we do, police cells contain all kinds of individuals. And, curiously enough, all of them innocent.
It is a very odd one, that – that all police cells contain innocent, well, “victims”, for there is no other word. As do prisons. Prisons are full of folk who have never confessed to any crimes. In fact, all of them pleaded innocent at their trials. And even though the evidence piled against them might have appeared, on the face of it, compelling and condemning, nevertheless the “victims” of “circumstance” and “injustice” protested their innocence and were unjustly convicted.
Odd that, isn’t it?
Jack peered through another little grille, this one in the door of the first cell.
Here he espied, a-sitting upon a basic bunk, an overlarge fellow, naked to the waist, his chest and torso intricately decorated via the medium of tattoo.
“Wrong cell,” said Jack. Although perhaps too loudly. As his words caused the overlarge fellow to look up, observe Jack’s peering face and rise from his basic bunk.
Cell two presented Jack with a small well-dressed gentleman who rocked to and fro on his basic bunk, muttering the words, “God told me to do it,” over and over again.
“Definitely wrong,” said Jack.
And this fellow looked up also.
In the third cell Jack observed a number of Puerto Ricans. They sported bandannas and gang-affiliated patches. Jack recognised them to be the kitchen workforce he had employed the previous day.
“Hi, fellows,” called Jack.
The fellows looked up towards Jack.
And now Jack’s attention was drawn back to the first and second cells. Their occupants were beating at the doors, crying out for Jack to return, shouting things about being the daddy and knowing a bitch when they saw one.
“Shush!” Jack shushed them.
But the cell-three Puerto Ricans now joined in the crying aloud.
“Damn,” went Jack. And Jack pressed on.
And finally found Dorothy.
“Dorothy,” called Jack. And the beautiful girl looked up from her basic bunk.
“Jack,” she said, and she hastened to the door to observe him through the grille. “You are naked,” she continued.
“Well, yes,” said Jack. “But –”
“Nothing,” said Dorothy. “This is California. Please would you open my cell?”
“I certainly will.” And Jack spat out the other paperclip. The one he had kept in his mouth to perform this very function. Because he did think ahead, did Jack. Because he was a private detective.
And with this paperclip and to the growing cacophony of shouting victims of circumstance, Jack picked the lock on Dorothy’s cell door and freed her from incarceration.
Good old Jack.
“Here,” said Dorothy, lifting her skirt and dropping her panties. “Put these on, it will help.”
“Help?” Jack looked hard at the panties. Now in the palm of his hand.
“Unless you really want to run completely naked through the streets of LA.”
“But they’re your …” Jack shook his head and put on the panties.
“It’s an interesting look,” said Dorothy, “and not one that would normally ring my bell, as it were, however –”
“Time to run,” said Jack.
And Jack was right in this. Because a door at the far end of the corridor, back beyond his fallen length of ducting, was now opening and heavily armed policemen and -women were making their urgent entrance.
“That way, I think,” said Dorothy, pointing towards a fire exit. “That way at the hurry-up.”
And that was the way Jack took.
20
What they say about doors is well known.
As one door closes, another one opens, and all that kind of caper.
The door that Jack had opened he now closed behind himself and Dorothy and he dragged a dustbin in front of it and caught a little brreath. And then he viewed his surroundings and said, “This does not look at all hopeful.”
Dorothy shook her flame-haired head. “At least the sun is shining,” she said, with rather more cheerfulness than their present situation merited. “You’ll get a bit more of a tan – it will suit you.”
“A bit more of a tan?” Jack put his back to the dustbin, which was now being rattled about by policemen and -women belabouring the door. “We’re in the police car park. This is not a good place to be.”
Dorothy glanced all around and about. There were many police cars, all those wonderful black and white jobbies with the big lights that flash on the top, All were parked and all were empty.
All but for the one a-driving in.
Two officers sat in this one, big officers both, one at the wheel and one in the passenger seat. They were just coming off shift, were these two officers. Officer Billy-Bob was at the wheel and beside him sat his brother officer, Officer Joe-Bob, brother of the other Joe-Bob, the one Jack had thrown out of the diner’s kitchen the day before. (Small world.) They had had an unsuccessful day together in the big city fighting crime and were looking forward to clocking off and taking themselves away to a Golden Chicken Diner for some burgers.
These two officers peered through their windscreen at the young chap in the ladies’ panties who was fighting with a trashcan and the flame-haired young woman, who appeared now to be waving frantically in their direction.
Officer Billy-Bob drew up the black-and-white, wound down the window and offered a gap-toothed grin to the flame-haired young woman. “Any trouble, ma’am?” he enquired in a broad Arkansas accent.
“This maniac attacked me,” screamed Dorothy. “He’s taken my panties.”
“Taken your panties, ma’am?” Officer Billy-Bob took off his cap and gave his head a scratch. “That’s a four-sixteen.”
Officer Joe-Bob took off his hat. “That’s a four-twenty-three,” he said.
Jack continued his fight with the dustbin. “Run,” he told Dorothy.
“Stay,” said Dorothy to Jack. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Take care of it? I’m not a maniac. What are you doing?”
Officer Billy-Bob climbed from the car. Officer Joe-Bob did likewise.