The Memory Agent & Fool Me Once (13 page)

“You left some
of your belongings at the police department,” he tells her, trying to mask his
amusement.

“How sweet of
you to come all this way just to return them.”

“I didn't.”

Jillian,
momentarily deflated, understands.
 
“Hold on, I’ll get dressed.”

In the police
station parking lot Derek leans against a car while Jillian removes the
magnetic bumper stickers from all of the vehicles.

There's one
cruiser left.
 
Knox's
cruiser.
 
Jillian is about
to remove the bumper sticker from the last cruiser when Derek calls to
her.
 
“You can leave that one. That
detective does brake for crack whores.”

Derek's
cruiser pulls up to the front of Jillian’s apartment building and parks.

Inside the
cruiser Jillian is seated in the back on the passenger side holding a bag
filled with the bumper stickers.

“Good night,
Miss March,” Derek says.

Jillian opens
the car door but stops short of getting out.
 
She looks at Derek, gazing directly at him.
 
“You know, when I saw you at my door
this evening, for a brief moment I thought, hoped actually, you were here to
share your love list with me.”

“Is this your
final prank of the day?
 
Ribbing a
tired detective?”

Jillian answers with sincerity and vulnerability.
 
“It's after midnight, detective, no
longer April Fool's Day so I’m off the prank clock.”

Jillian hops
out of the car, shuts the door and hurries towards the entrance of her
apartment building as Derek watches her.
 
If he were ten years younger he’d hop out of the car and go after
her.
 

The next
morning a few cops loiter in the parking lot chatting amongst
themselves
.
 
Knox exits the police station and heads for his cruiser.
 
He doesn't notice the crack whore
bumper sticker on the bumper.
 
The
cops in the parking lot do notice the bumper sticker and snicker at Knox.

Knox glares at
the cops. “
What?!?
 
What the fuck is so fucking funny?”

Not one of the
cops clues the detective in. Knox gets in the car and drives off.
 

*****

APRIL FIRST,
PRESENT DAY

A year to the day later.
 
Jillian, asleep in bed, is awakened by her ringing alarm clock.
 
She shuts it off - it's 4:00am.

She hops out
of bed as if it was Christmas and quickly dresses into black pants, a sports
bra, a black thick cotton long sleeved shirt, black sneakers and a black
knitted hat.

Jillian walks
to her computer desk in the living room where there's a Joke-A-Day calendar and
whips off the March 31st to reveal the April 1
^st
.
 
She turns her attention to six naked
female
blow
up dolls laying on the couch.
 
She grabs one of the dolls and heads
for the door.

Outside of the
police station all is quiet.
 
No
one is around.
 
Except Jillian who
is hidden in the shadows holding the naked blow up doll.
 
She looks around making sure the coast
is clear.
 
It is.
 
Not a soul in sight.

She hurries to
the
flag pole
in front of the building.
 
She strings the blow up doll and raises
the doll up the pole.
 
She looks
up, pleased at the sight of the naked female blow up doll flying at
half mast
and flapping in the wind.
 
She hurries away.

A few hours
later the first light of day has arrived.
 
Derek, carrying a cup of coffee, heads for the front door.
 
The flapping blow up doll on the
flag pole
catches his attention.
 
He looks up to see the doll "dance" around the
pole.
 
He laughs out loud as he
enters the building.

Derek takes a
seat at his desk.
 
A cop approaches
Derek.
 
He hands Derek a gift
box.
 
“This just came for you.”
 

Derek takes
the box. “Thanks.”
 
He opens
it.
 
There are two powdered donuts
inside – each donut has three flag toothpicks poked in the middle of
it.
 

Derek sees a
note, he removes it and reads it:
 
"Hope you have a light-hearted day, detective."

Derek removes
the flag toothpicks from the donuts.
 
He holds them in his hand and studies them.
 
As a cop walks past Derek, Derek calls to him, “you might
want to keep an eye on municipal building flag poles today.”

Knox storms
into the station holding the blow up doll.
 
“Didn't any of you observant assholes notice that this was
flying up our flag pole this morning?”

Derek mumbles
to the cop standing near him.
 
“How
long did Knox drive around with the crack whore bumper sticker before he
noticed it?”

The cop
answers while laughing.
 
“Four
days.”

Knox glares at
Derek and the cop knowing he’s the brunt of their snickering.
 
“Yeah, this is real fucking funny.”

Derek observes
Knox holding the blow up doll.
 
“Looks like you've finally got a date for Saturday night, Knox.”

“Fuck you,
Winton.”

*****

Much later in
the day Jillian sits in her living room reading the newspaper.
 
She has one blow up doll left and it’s
seated next to her.

The headline
on the front page reads:
 
PURCHASE
OF PRICEY YACHT FUELS SPECULATION ABOUT CONGRESSMAN REYNOLDS' FINANCIAL
DEALINGS

Underneath the
headline there is a photo of the yacht.
 
Her famous Cheshire grin lights up her expression.

Jillian,
dressed in her black clothes and black knitted hat and carrying the naked blow
up doll, walks to the entrance of the marina.
 

Jillian passes
a quaint little maritime museum.
 
The
two story
museum, featuring large glass
windows, is right on the water facing the harbor.

She walks down
the dock, heading for a grand, pretentious yacht.
 
The very same yacht from the newspaper
photo.
 

Jillian
approaches the yacht.
 
She stops,
looks around making sure no one is around or on the boat.
 
All is quiet.

Jillian climbs
onto the yacht.
 
She approaches the
flag pole
.
 
She strings up the blow up doll and hoists it up the pole.
 
She savors the moment as the doll flaps
in the wind.

Jillian is
about to disembark when she sees Congressman Reynolds hurrying towards the
yacht.
 
Jillian hides.

The
congressman boards the yacht.
 
He
looks flustered as if his life were unraveling.
 
Jillian spies on him from her hiding spot.
 
She watches the congressman enter the
enclosed social area off of the open sitting area on the deck of the boat.
 
The congressman goes to the bar, opens
a bottle of vodka, pours himself a large shot and downs it.

Jillian sees
this as her opportunity to leave the yacht.
 
She moves to disembark when she spies four men, all dressed
like
Eurotrash
thugs, walking menacingly towards the
yacht.
 
She notices that the men
are packing guns and wearing gloves.

“Shit.”
 
Jillian quickly hides again.

The four men
board the yacht.
 
It's clear that
one man, Peter Bosovich, slick and sleazy, is the ringleader and the other
three men are just tailored guns.

Bosovich calls
out.
 
“Reynolds.”

The scared
congressman joins Bosovich. “I swear there is no paper trail leading to you.”

Bosovich
responds, every word dripping with menace.
 
“I don't mind you having side business.
 
I have side business.
 
But when your side business affects the
business that you and I conduct, that is completely unacceptable.”

“It was just
some kick-backs with a couple of contractors. This will all go away, I
promise,” the congressman pleads.

From her
hiding spot, Jillian watches and listens to the interaction, trying hard not to
be noticed by the gunmen.

“There is just
one thing that leaves more of a bitter taste than cheap vodka,” Bosovich says
as he motions to his men, two of them grab the congressman.
 
“Double dealing dirty politicians.”

Bosovich takes
a bottle of pills from his pocket.
 
The third man hands Bosovich the bottle of vodka from the congressman’s
bar.

“I imagine all
of your very public problems are weighing heavy on you. A burden that a weak
man such as yourself would find too difficult to bear.”
 
Bosovich taunts as he forces the
congressman to swallow the pills and the vodka.
 

The
congressman coughs and gags as Bosovich coerces the booze and pills into
him.
 
The congressman resists but
he’s no match for Bosovich and his men. They drag the congressman to the boat
loading area on the yacht.

Bosovich
shoves the congressman's face into the water.
 
The congressman struggles only for a moment and then is
dead.
 
Bosovich pushes the limp
body into the water and places the empty pill bottle with the empty vodka
bottle on a boat seat.

Jillian, who
has witnessed the whole event from her hiding point, looks scared
shitless.
 
As Bosovich and his men
are focused on staging and cleaning up the yacht, Jillian makes an attempt to
get away.

She quietly
climbs off the yacht and then quickly runs down the dock.
 
She looks back to see if Bosovich and
his men are looking when she smacks into another gunman.

He grabs hold
of her as he calls to Bosovich.
 
“Hey boss, we've got a witness.”

Bosovich turns
and looks, seeing the gunman holding Jillian.

Jillian knees
the goon in the nuts causing him to let go of her and fall to the ground in
pain.
 
She makes a run for it only
to see another four gunmen heading her way.

Bosovich calls
to his men.
 
“Get her!
 
No gun shots!”
 
He then
make
a
call on his cell-phone.

Jillian runs
down the main dock followed closely by a couple of gunmen behind her.
 
Two other gunmen approach from a
different direction.

Jillian is
cornered - right near the maritime museum.
 
Thinking on her feet, she picks up a decorative planter in
front of the museum and hurls it through the plate glass front door.
 
An alarm goes off.

Jillian runs
into the museum.
 
She pulls the
fire alarm, which sets off a second alarm.
 
Now two alarms are going off.

A couple of
men follow Jillian into the museum.
  
She runs upstairs.
 
The men
follow.
 
One of the men, a man who
isn’t wearing gloves, touches the railing on the stairs as they run up after
Jillian.

She takes a
small anchor that is on display and tosses it at the wall length window
over-looking the water below. The window shatters.

Jillian jumps
out of the window toward the water below.
 
The man who touched the railing shoots a couple of shots at Jillian as
she crashes into the water.

The men on the
dock look around the water for her body.
 
There's no sign of her. Bosovich approaches.
 
As the two gunmen who followed Jillian into the museum exit,
Bosovich grabs the man who shot at Jillian.
 
“I said no fucking gun shots!”
 
He hollers as he slugs the man so violently he knocks a
tooth out.

“The alarms
covered the sound of the shots.”
 
The gunman bellows as he spits out blood and the tooth.