
Demo: The Flower City Series, Book One
1. Chapter 1
Ihave one foot heavily pressing on the gas pedal and one hand grasping the belt loop of Monty’s pants as he hangs his upper body out the passenger side window. With the other hand, I steer us down a narrow alley at sixty-five miles per hour in his Honda Civic. We pass overflowing dumpsters and kids sitting on crooked porches as I follow the police through the city. We heard over the radio scanner they are in pursuit of a suspect vehicle involved in an armed robbery, and we are in pursuit of them.
“RIGHT! Right! They just took a right!” Monty yells, just in time for me to hit the brakes and crank the wheel to make a quick, wide turn.
As he snakes back into the car, Monty’s head hits the window frame hard, but he’s used to it. He’s been the staff photographer at ROC Record, a daily newspaper in western New York, for as long as anyone can remember. He’s a lifer. Monty’s shaggy, sandy-with-a-touch-of-gray hair flies around his eyes as he uses his pointer finger to push his glasses further up his nose, and he frantically searches the street for the cops. Lurching his body and his small gut back through the window, I grab hold of his pants again.
“It’s a good thing you’ve got those love handles, otherwise you might fall out!” I yell over the roar of the wind.
“Hey, I don’t think you’d be in danger either, sweet cheeks!” he hollers back.
Monty and I can talk to each other that way. I’m what you might call his work wife, even though he is a good fifteen years my senior.
The wind has my dark hair flying all around my face, and I release my hold on Monty to bat it away.
“Dang it!” he yells as he looks from side to side, and I come to a stop at an intersection. “I don’t know where they went.” I pick up the scanner—a large walkie-talkie-looking thing—and change frequencies. Nothing but static.
“Well, maybe we should just head back to the office,” I suggest as Monty slithers back into the car. He looks at me like I have the word psycho stamped across my forehead.
“You care to explain that to Cherice?” he asks.
’Nuff said.
The sound of sirens has both Monty and I cocking our heads to the left to see three patrol cars barreling down the street. They fly right through the intersection, and we follow their paths until our heads are facing right. I peel onto the street, making an illegal right on red, and accelerate to an equally illegal rate of speed.
I can see police cars stopped in front of an apartment building just past a run-down Italian bistro. I slow down, reach over and grab the sign that reads “PRESS” on it and fling it into the back seat, going for inconspicuous.
I pass the police cars and pull up in front of the next apartment building, and Monty and I slouch in our seats. I angle the rearview mirror so I can see what’s going on behind us.
“What’s happening?” asks Monty.
“Nothing yet. But I can see the van they were after parked a few cars behind us, in front of the building.”
“Is there anyone in it?”
“I don’t know. Can’t see.”
“Are the police surrounding the place?”
“Don’t know.”
“Do they have their weapons drawn?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” I growl through gritted teeth, while giving him a sideways glare.
We are quiet for a beat before he starts in again. “Oh, forget this. Drive around back and I’ll climb up the fire escape. Get a better vantage point that way.”
I start the car again, still slouched, and drive around the block until we get close to the back of the building we’re looking for. There’s a construction site nearby and my heart sinks as I see a Mitchell Sons truck parked on the street, but I refocus my attention on the task at hand.
We open our doors simultaneously as I hit the button for the trunk to pop open. Monty plucks his camera out, slings it over his shoulder, and hands me a scope lens to carry as he stashes batteries and some other paraphernalia in his so-ten-years-ago cargo pants.
“Here. Over here,” he orders, making his way to the fire escape. He jumps once, twice, three times before he grabs the bottom step of the ladder and pulls it down to the ground. It’s a little shaky, and the building is pretty old.
“Ladies first.” Monty gestures to the ladder.
“Gee, thanks,” I offer as I shrug out of my blazer and lay it on a nearby empty cardboard box. I scurry up the ladder, now in my jeans and flats.
“You wanna speed it up a notch, there? It’s not exactly the best view from here,” I hear Monty say below me. I thrash my left leg out in an attempt to make contact with his face, but he is too far down.
We both clamber up the fire escape, all the way to the top. When I get there, I set the lens down and curl my way around the ladder and onto a flat surface. Monty follows suit, handing me his camera while awkwardly clinging to the ladder before flopping his body onto the roof.
“I can’t even imagine what this crud is all over my hands,” he says, brushing his palms on his pants. Monty is a germaphobe, so of course he is worried about a little crud on his hands.
We crawl over to the front of the building and pop our heads up to take in the scene. Shit, we’re one building past the apartment in question.
“No, this is good,” says Monty, taking in my disappointed face. “They won’t be looking over here.”
By now, there is a small crowd of people standing around on the front lawn. Some surely heard the sirens and came out of their apartments and took this fine opportunity to walk their dogs and smoke their cigarettes, so they would have an excuse to stroll down to the area and see what’s going on. Others appear to live in the building. It’s easy to tell who they are because they are the ones all excited.
“My brother didn’t do anything wrong! I don’t know who you all think you are, but you’ve got the wrong man!” hollers one skinny, pale young woman wearing plaid pajama pants and a tank top, sans bra. Her hair is greasy and falling in her face, and she has a pack of cigarettes tucked under the spaghetti strap of her shirt.
She is in a police officer’s face, her arms flailing, making a scene.
There are three cop cars, which means six officers. Two are trying to placate the raging woman, three others are in the yard talking to a couple of guys, and one stands near his vehicle talking into a radio clipped to his shoulder.
Monty and I turn around and I hand him the scope lens as he snaps the pieces of his camera in place, then turns my way. “Smile!”
I scowl at him. Monty has many photos of me scowling at him tucked away somewhere on his computer that he threatens to release if I ever piss him off … Well, if I ever piss him off more than usual. It’s always the first photo he takes at a scene as he’s checking his focus, or color contrast, or whatever.
When we turn around, the woman appears to have calmed down, and the cops are taking statements. Suddenly, they all whip around toward the apartment and draw their guns.
There is yelling, and warnings, then two “pop-pops” and the officers move in.
Monty is snapping away as I take in the action.
“Move your fat head,” I say, trying to see around Monty as he leans in to get a better shot.
He ignores me.
Quickly, about half a dozen more cop cars come screeching up to the building. Officers storm the apartment, stomp all over the tiny lawn, and do a whole lot of nothing for what feels like hours.
And we wait … and wait … and wait. That’s the worst part of the job. Waiting around because we don’t want to miss something that may never happen in the first place.
“What do you think they’re doing in there?” Monty asks.
“I don’t know. Why do you always think I have all the answers?” I respond.
Just then, some commotion catches our attention and we pop our heads up to look at the scene. Finally, a perp!
Two officers escort a scrawny white man wearing a pair of jeans and untied work boots, no shirt, with his hands cuffed in front of him, out of the apartment and toward one of their vehicles. Perhaps it’s a glare off Monty’s equipment from the bright sun overhead, or maybe this guy just knows he’s being watched, but all of a sudden, the perp looks right up at us, raises his arms as far as the cuffs will allow, and flips us the double bird.
Monty snaps away, then turns to me. “Ah, there’s the money shot!”
After the police disperse, we make our way down the fire escape and to the front of the building, where I canvass some of the neighbors and get quotes. Then we get in the car, where Monty takes a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of his glove box and squirts a large pile of gel into his hands, then leans over and squirts some in mine, even though I didn’t ask for it.
“Why am I still driving your car if we’re not chasing the cops anymore?” I ask after I massage the gel into my hands and wave them around to dry off. I then pull away from the curb, a horn blaring behind me because apparently I cut someone off.
Monty whips around to look at how close the car behind us is, simultaneously fastening his seat belt. “Because it seems I have a death wish,” he mutters, then picks up his camera and starts looking through his shots.
I’m still driving like a madwoman because we are under deadline, and I have to make phone calls when we get back to the office. I swerve left to go around a parked truck before making a quick zigzag to miss a huge pothole, then I have to hit the brakes to miss hitting someone crossing the street.
Monty braces himself against the dashboard and curses under his breath as we come to a screeching halt.
The man in the street looks up, and suddenly I’m staring into hazel, broody eyes, with eyebrows that shoot up practically to the brim of his backward ballcap as he recognizes me. His toolbelt is dangling from one hand.
“Is that Knox?” Monty asks, squinting, even though he knows the answer.
I don’t reply. Instead, I hit the gas again and head straight for my husband, who has to jump out of the way. I hear something along the lines of “The fuck’s the matter with you, crazy bitch?”—or a similar sentiment—coming from his mouth as we fly past.
Monty is looking at me as he speaks, and out of the corner of my eye I see his Adam’s apple bob with a hard swallow. “I see things are still a little rocky between you two.”
I shoot him a glare. “Ya think?!”