Reading Time: 6 minutesMary was Police and she wasn’t very good, she was corrupt, she was very good at being corrupt. It became a case between Mary and Malcolm. Mary had a little lamb they’d all scream and giggle when she arrived for her shifts. She and her colleagues were the Lakeside Highway Patrol. They knew they were arseholes. Everyone seemed to try extra hard to be so and very happy when their efforts were acknowledged by those public types they dealt with. The public BBQ chat was another matter.
Are you Police
No-one wanted to advertise their Police role to those public types met in a social environment. Everyone hated the Highway Patrol. The most brutal C word description was the most common. They had heard it all before, hiding in bushes, at the bottom of a hill and all of it was true. Their master’s pained claims that quotas were a myth weren’t actually correct. The police had quotas for everything, speed cameras, pull overs and fines of course. All were all counted and if you failed to achieve the average already set for that shift you’d been hauled in for a chat.
Now Mary could be described as a real C and she took great pleasure in catching public types, more often than not, completely innocent ones. She didn’t issue many tickets per se but operated a cash and release system. She caught you, you paid and you’d be on your way. Mary was devious enough to put the average amount through the system, but so incredibly proactive she creamed the cream from the top of her work.
Some might say,“Well what’s wrong with that?” … Hopefully those saying that are already in jail.
The reason for today’s sudden relocation of personal possessions was an immediate need for self preservation. Mary had filtered cash from the wrong person. The People were on their way and it was not a social visit. They had names but didn’t use them. The People they visited lost the use of their names as a result of their attention.
Mary and Malcolm
His backside absorbed a tricked up custom Harley Davidson Fatboy as he proudly travelled about 20 kilometres above the speed limit where and whenever he was. Malcolm was a huge man, worthy of some serious weight watching. He not so much sat on the bike but swallowed it within each butt cheek. His generous girth scrapped the bars if he turned to sharpish and his mother in law like sagging arms flapped in the wind as he roared about Lakeside.
He roared about through school zones, shopping centre car parks, hospital parking stations it didn’t matter to Malcolm, he was an important Lakeside business man. A dentist slash criminal mastermind. Drugs, money laundering, protection, prostitution, you name the cliche he has the t shirt. He also had friends and people, it was some of those people that were heading to Mary’s house.
“Are you Ok … have you got that?”
“I’ve got it” … claimed Ruth as the supply of clothing fell out of the bag she tried to hold on to.
The range of active wear and expensive lingerie fell out of the bag and into the rather odd garden bed that had suddenly appeared in front of her. Ruth was pissed as hell, incapable of any vertical stance or forward movement. Mary was desperate, worried and very keen to get herself out of there. Using her neighbour Ruth was a sign of just how desperate. Ruth though it was a great way to spend an hour with the lovely young girl in unit 2.
Moments ticked by as Mary collected the lingerie leaving the active wear as she tried to talk to Ruth.
“You can have those clothes and any food you find in my unit, do you understand what I told you to tell the people when they arrive?”
Ruth had no fucking idea but said … “Yes, no worries Mary I’ll tell them.”
Mary grabbed the last bag she’d dragged out and after giving Ruth a clumsy kiss and hug, she leapt into her car. She’d enough money to buy anything she wanted but settled for a discrete Audi 3. This little blue rocket had all the bells and whistles and wasn’t too ostentatious for a single police woman in Lakeside. She did buy her parents a Mercedes SL 300, but that was on the low down, no-one knew. Not even her parents, they thought they’d won it. They weren’t very clever, dim as a bag of sand.
The People arrived to find Ruth arse up in the front garden bed with her arms full of active wear. She didn’t even notice the seven muscle bound people sashaying Liam Gallagher style to unit 2. They thought they were something, well indeed they were. They were frustrated and disappointed to find unit 2 empty and almost every personal possession gone. On their way back to their cars they stopped to talk with Ruth. Big mistake.
Ruth gathered herself and took breath to answer the question. “Mary has gone, she said to tell you that I could have this pile of clothes and any food that I find in her unit.”
Say what
That was an interesting answer considering that wasn’t a reply required to the question she was asked. The people simply offered a friendly hello and asked her is she needed help getting out of the garden. Her response triggered the obvious connection of this drunk woman to the woman they sought.
“Ok” … said the head muscle bound man realising that Ruth was shit faced.
“When did she leave and do you know where she’s gone?” The People had to find Mary and Malcolm would make sure they did.
“Well yes but I can’t tell you, she told me to tell you I didn’t know”
Righto, I think you might have that part confused, she would have meant for you to tell us so we could help her.” “We have great news for her about her parents.”
“Oh do you know Bill and Sally Brown in Southdale?”
“Yes, we have to be going there tomorrow” … the muscle man wasn’t as dim as Bill and Sally.
“If you go there today you’ll catch up with Mary” … Ruth was even dimmer than Bill and Sally.
The People
They pulled Ruth out of the garden and helped her up the stairs. They even carried the clothes and left one there to help her with the food. Well actually the one was left in case Mary returned. He remained there for a long time.
Mary meanwhile while knowing that Ruth would balls everything up and had warned her parents already and asked them to get in their car and drive to Sydney. She’d texted them to head for the motel she owned and for the room set aside for such occasions. Bill and Sally had rehearsed this escape and discussed it at length and knew what to do. The story they were fed would not stand much scrutiny but they never applied any, blindly following any instruction Mary gave them.
The day after this flurry of movement and escape the local news radio, TV and papers received a package in the morning’s snail mail. It was headed Mary and Malcolm.
Malcolm Harris was featured in some juicy photographs. He was squatting and hidden in some bushes on the side of the M1 motorway. He was captured defecating at what seemed to be a furious pace. His generous trousers down around his ankles as he held a handful of leaves. To make matters worse he was next to a young lady who was doing the wiping.
This unoriginal sin
It was caught by an opportunistic Mary during her last week of M1 patrol. She’d seen the Fatboy and while knowing to whom it belonged, wondered why it was sitting parked up on the M1 shoulder. She peaked at it as she crawled by on her own bike and screamed into her helmet that loud she thought the world would hear. No-one did.
Mary stepped off her bike crept back and took number of photographs. Some she’d sent to the media. The money shot she’d kept for herself and Malcolm to negotiate over.
They agreed to $200,000 and with the EFT transfer complete Mary started the immediate pack up. The escape was faultless, the money in the account had already been moved via two more account to her private account. The dim parents were safe because no-one could trace the motel or the cars for that matter. Three hours after the transfer the flat was emptied, a drive to the airport completed and on a plane to Spain. Before leaving Mary packaged the press release and with cheek a mile wide named it Mary and Malcolm.
Mary and Malcolm
Sadly or thankfully, they were unable to find Mary, her parents, or her money. They did find her car at the railway station. Malcolm had to claim some sort of food poisoning issue and explain that the young girl was a niece of a friend. She was but she was much more.
Ruth ended up sobering up, getting her life in order as she’d fallen for the people left in unit 2, they had quite a torrid love affair and then married some time after. He was named Robert. They invited loads of locals, even Mary and Malcolm.
An increasingly grumpy old fart posting rants, observations and trying to write somewhat twisted short stories for adults. All rights reserved unless otherwise credited © Alan Crawford - 2024
