Barbara Dunlop - Out of Order

He didn’t protest or ask any questions while pug-dog slapped the cuffs on his chubby wrists and began reciting his Miranda rights. He looked for all the world like he’d done this before.

Great. Now she was working for a criminal. What was with her? Did she have a bad-boss magnet stuck to her forehead?

Last week, her cheating, scumbag boyfriend had fired her from the Terra Suma Cocktail Lounge in Minneapolis. That time she’d lost her job, her home, her boyfriend and her future all in one fell swoop.

At least she hadn’t been sleeping with Gerry. Thank goodness for small favors.

Really small favors.

She was jobless again. And who knew when or if she’d get a paycheck for this week’s work.

This did it. She was getting a real job next time. Even if it meant college courses at night. Even if it meant, Lord help her, moving back in with her parents.

She never should have dropped out of philosophy in third year. Come to think of it, she never should have taken philosophy in the first place. She should have taken accounting or business management or nursing. Something with a future—

“Hands behind your back, ma’am.”

Shelby turned to see cop number two circling around the end of the sales counter.

“But—”

“Behind your back, ma’am.” He was taller than his partner, younger, with dark, wavy hair and brown eyes. He strode toward her, his broad chest a wall of silver badge and imposing navy-blue uniform.

“Why?” It was more a squeak than a question as she tipped up her chin to maintain eye contact.

“You’re under arrest on suspicion of selling pirated software and prohibited firearms.” He unclipped the handcuffs from the back of his utility belt.

Shelby stared at the dangling steel bracelets in morbid fascination. “Firearms?”

“Hands behind your back, ma’am.” The cop latched onto her nerveless wrist, twisting it neatly into the small of her spine.

“But I didn’t…I’m not…”

“You can tell it all to the judge.”

“The judge?” A series of rapid clicks echoed in her ears as the cold cuffs clapped tightly around her wrists.

“Gerry,” she called, trying not to let panic collapse what was left of her stomach. “Tell them I had nothing to do with this.”

“Nothing to do with what?” asked Gerry as pug-dog steered him toward the exit. He shook his head in apparent disgust. “It’s a bogus bust.”

“The detectives are out back searching your warehouse right now,” said pug-dog, shooing the twelve teenagers out of the Game-O-Rama in front of him.

“But, I’m innocent.” Shelby couldn’t get arrested. It was nearly four-thirty, and Allison was expecting her. They were going dancing at Balley’s tonight.

She’d hauled herself out of bed early this morning to drop her emerald dress off at the Flower-Fresh Dry-cleaner’s. Which, by the way, closed in half an hour.

“So am I,” called Gerry.

The second cop clapped his hand on Shelby’s shoulder, and she felt a renewed jolt of panic as he urged her into a walk.

“Don’t you need evidence or something?” she asked, mind racing for a way out of the predicament. She wasn’t a criminal. She was a cashier, a cocktail waitress. Sure, maybe she didn’t have the best judgment in the world, particularly when it came to men, but that was hardly a crime.

His look was grim, all business. “We have some pretty compelling evidence.”

“On me?”

“On you.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Did you or did you not make a pickup in the company van at Michigan and Eighteenth yesterday afternoon?”

Shelby searched her memory as they cleared the counter and headed for the door. “That was coffee.”

The cop rolled his eyes. “Two hundred-pound crates of coffee?”

“Two sixteen-ounce cups of coffee.”

“I’m talking about the merchandise they loaded in the back.”

“Who loaded? What back?”

“The two crates of Uzis. Surely you remember that little detail. We have it all on videotape.”

Uzis? Shelby blinked. “Uzis?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She’d been inside the coffee shop all of three minutes. “How can that be? It was coffee. I bought coffee.”

The cop pushed the door open in front of her, and car horns and engine revs overtook the beeps of the computer terminals. “That’s your story, and you’re stickin’ to it?”

An exhaust-filled breeze hit her square in the face. “It’s the truth.”

“Right,” he drawled. “The Uzis in your warehouse tell a different story.”

“I didn’t even know we had a warehouse. And I’ve never seen an Uzi. Well, except on television. And that one time at the airport in Brazil. I’m an innocent bystander.”

“I believe the technical term is ‘accomplice.”’

“This is outrageous,” Shelby protested, anger asserting itself over her confusion.

But then they crossed the sidewalk, and her momentary bravado disappeared. She cringed, suddenly conscious of the drivers and pedestrians passing by on the busy street. Not that she’d ever see them again. And not that she was the first person to be arrested on Black Street.

Still…

“You can tell it all to the judge when we get downtown,” said the cop.

Shelby felt the first ray of hope. “You mean, right away? Like tonight?” The judge would have to believe she was innocent. Maybe he’d free her before Allison could worry. And then her life could carry on as normal—such as normal was this month.

“Could we stop at Flower-Fresh on the way to the station?” she asked.

“No.”

“But, my dress—” She caught the look in his eyes and snapped her mouth shut.

“You won’t need a dress where you’re going.”

Shelby swallowed, gaze sliding away from his, her optimism bottoming out. “You mean, the station house, right?”

“I meant the lockup.”

“They might put me in jail?”

“That’s the usual procedure.”

“But, I didn’t do anything.”

The cop reached down to open the back door of his cruiser. “That’s what they all say.”

“Don’t I get a telephone call?” Allison’s new fiancé was a lawyer. Maybe Greg could rescue her.

“Not yet. Watch your head.”

Staring into the murky, pungent depths of the cruiser’s back seat, Shelby’s entire body recoiled in a wave of instant claustrophobia. She had to fight an urge to kick the cop in the shin and make a run for it.

She was going to Balley’s tonight—to drink shooters and laugh with Allison about rotten, cheating boyfriends and their nasty blond floozies. She wasn’t going to get strip-searched, eat gruel and sleep on a lumpy prison mattress with a woman named Spike.

But the cop was a whole lot bigger and stronger than she was. He planted her firmly on the bench seat.

“There’s been a mistake,” she whispered.

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” He slammed the handleless door shut and headed around the hood of the car.

Shelby hated to disagree with the nice policeman, but she had plenty to worry about. The cops didn’t believe she was innocent. Gerry wasn’t going to help her. And they had her on videotape making an Uzi pickup at a coffee shop cum firearms depot.

Her shoulders slumped and she let her head drop back against the hard seat, closing her eyes in defeat.

Gunrunner was going to look even worse than philosophy major on her résumé.

IF HONOR and principles weren’t already keeping lawyer Dallas Williams on the straight and narrow, the thought of spending more than ten minutes in the Haines Street lockup certainly would.

It had to be one of the most depressing places on earth. Fluorescent overheads buzzed and flickered against faded, gray ceilings. Prisoners shouted profanity from the long lockup hallway behind the desk sergeant’s counter. And the smell of mildew permeated the punky, dark walnut paneling, circa 1930.