Criminal

“You got it?”

“Here.” He picks up the heavy briefcase and passes it to me.

“Showtime.” I declare.

The train halts to a stop and we both get off. We head up the stairs and onto a windy sidewalk.

“Which one?” I ask, peering at the neighborhood in front of me.

”That one.” My partner says, pointing at a solid, Victorian brownstone just off to the side.

“That’s a rich family.” I tell him as we both make our way onto their sidewalk.

“Sure is. Now like you told me, its showtime.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I smile.

My partner knocks on the wooden door and waits. After a while, a middle-aged woman comes and opens the door. She is unnecessarily dressed in Chanel and Dior. She’s even wearing perfume.

”Evening, Ma’am. We’re the secret agency? The one you asked for?” My partner greets our customer politely.

“Oh right. Come in, come in.” She weakly smiles and welcomes us in top her house.

“So, you told us that you would like to end your past and have a better future?” My partner asks. The unnecessarily dressed customer‘s house is wicked cool. Fancy, but still cool. All her rooms have rare antiques in them, and she tells us about a few of them. I must admit, I’m impressed.

”My husband has died, and I cannot bear it any longer. So I called you to help me.“

My partner nods and writes a report. He looks up at me, and I get the message to give him the drug that the customer needs. I carefully open the briefcase and skim through all the different drugs until I find the perfect one for the customer.

”Only lets you forget one memory. The perfect one, don’t you think?“ I triumphantly hold out the drug and ask. My partner raises his eyebrows and laughs, shaking his head. He takes the drug from me and turns back to his serious expression.

“Miss, this would help you forget the loss of your husband and move on. Do you think you can handle this?” He asks, showing her the drug. She waits for a moment before nodding slowly. My partner smiles and sits up quietly.

“Excellent. We‘ll drop it off next week. See you then.” He glances at me and I stand up.

“Thank you, Miss. We hope you look forward to next week.” I smile.

She smiles too. “Of course. You too.”

When we are back on the road, I almost choke. ”God, her perfume has toxic waste in it.”

My partner raises his eyebrows. “Chill. Just pray that the next place is less extreme.”

Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Extreme? It wasn’t extreme. It was extremer than extreme. It was catastrophic.” I scoff.

My partner shakes his head and keeps marching along the road. We have to take a cab to go to our next destination. I find a yellow city cab and point it out to my partner.

“Excellent.” He exclaims, and we both get on the cab. The cab smelled weird, like tobacco and smoking. I almost choke again, and my partner pounds me on my back. The driver doesn’t seem to notice, though, and asks us our destination.

”Excuse me, dying of tobacco here.” I wave frantically at the driver. He looks so annoyed. But it’s not my fault.

“Shut up, citizen. Can’t you see I’m driving here?”

”Can’t you see I’m dying here?”

It goes on and on and on like that for the whole drive until we finally get to our destination and I‘m able to finally breathe some air.

The next customer is a young man. His hair is slicked back and he wears black pointed shoes. Another unnecessarily dressed customer. What is with these people?

He tells us that he made a huge mistake, and since I’m in a bad mood, I just scoff and tell him we all make mistakes. And then he starts crying and tells us about the robbery in The States.

”That was you?” I ask, shocked. I guess there’s more to a person than just pointed shoes and perfume. The man nods and cries more.

”It can’t be that bad, Sir. It happened over a month ago.” My partner tells him.

”But when they find out, they‘ll say that it felt like just yesterday that it happened.” I snort.

The man glares at me and looks at my partner. “Is she new?” He asks.

And, well, of course I’m offended. I stand up and stare at the man with my mouth hanging open. “Excuse me? I have worked on this for more than 5 years, you know. You should be more respectful.” I spit out the last word and sit back down heavily.

My partner clucks his tongue and silently laughs, covering his mouth with his sleeve. “So, you would like to...?”

”I would like to forget it so when the police come to me, they have no evidence. Even if they use a mind-reading device, it won’t work.” The man replies.

”Genius plan, Einstein.” I mutter and roll my eyes. I open the briefcase and take out the one that seems to suit the man’s plan.

“Here.” I say, handing him the drug.

”Finally, you’ve become of good use.” He evilly grins.

”Haha. We’re all laughing our heads off.” I respond with no expression.

Again, my partner is the one to stop us from getting into a fight.

”Well, thank you Sir, we’ll come back soon.” He nods at the man and we head back.

When we get back to headquarters, our boss is waiting for us at the gate. He lets us pass and tells us about our next mission. Apparently, most of the next customers are young men. When I ask the boss what they look like, he tells me that most of them wear suits.

“And pointed shoes?” I ask, with a horrific expression on my face.

”It seems to me that yes, they do wear pointed shoes. Why?” The boss says.

”NONONONONONONO” I moan.

”What’s wrong?“ The boss asks my partner.

My partner grins and tell him, “Our friend had a little argument with a man today. A man wearing pointed shoes.”

The End