In the rear view mirror Justine and I locked eyes, all ten of them, my eight to her two, as she glanced back at Emilia still going berserk beside me.
“Cool it,” Justine said, to Emilia. By now I’d scuttled over to Malcolm’s other shoulder, the one farthest away from Emilia. Then for no good reason that I can think of Malcolm tried to hit me with my own purse and I found myself doing a death defying leap across his back onto Emilia who was trying to speak.
“I hate –“
When I landed on Emi she went crazy.
Her body spasm shook the car as if she’d been tasered and Malcolm began to panic because he couldn’t see what Emilia’s problem was, but I think he’d felt the weight of me crawling on his shoulder. I wanted to jump onto to Justine to get away from these two crazies, but there was a large metal screen between the front and the back seats.
Malcolm sounded like he forced his voice to be calm when he said, “What's the matter with you? Officer? A little help?”
Justine's eyes caught Emilia’s crazy face in the rear view mirror.
“Emilia, you got ants in your pants?”
“A spider! A big effing spider!”
“Oh, that's the bitch that sprayed me!” Malcolm shouted.
Malcolm again stomped his feet in another attempt to squish me.
“Where is she? I'll tear her effing legs off.” By now the entire back seat of Justine’s police car was pure mayhem.
With Malcolm flailing like he’d had a seizure, my purse burst open and when it did Emilia spotted the cans of hairspray from Maisie’s shop. She reached in and pulled one out and let me have it. She doused me full blast with the stuff, all over my hairy eight legged body.
I screamed which came out like a drowning twitter and Emilia really shrieked.
I thought for sure I was done for but the spray transformed me, quickly and before a person could say, WTF, I was sitting in Emilia’s lap with her shrieking right into my nose.
When she opened her eyes and saw me she said, “You're effing heavy. Get off. And careful of the giant spider.”
“Took you long enough!” I replied. I didn’t know what else to say, and I was so relieved to be myself again that I wanted to hug Emilia not fight with her.
“Where’s the spider?” she said to me.
“I’m the spider!” I yelled at her. She looked startled. “I
was
the spider, but now I’m me,” I said.
Emilia looked stunned.
“Where is she? Give her to me,” Malcolm demanded. I looked for a place to sit far away from him, but there wasn’t much room back there, in fact there was no room. I pushed Emilia toward Malcolm and tried to snuggle up in the farthest corner.
“Cool it back there.” Justine gave us that entire look cops give when they are not going to warn you again.
“Can I sit up there with you?” I asked her. Justine didn’t seem concerned that I’d more or less suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the back of her car.
“You want to be cuffed?” she asked.
I shook my head no.
“Then you stay there.”
I shook my head yes.
Emi leaned over and whispered in my ear. “She’s from the card deck.”
I knew that! Then Justine stared at us in the rear view mirror. Did she hear? Did she know that we knew? Somehow knowing that Justine was a major gave me renewed respect for her. Her magic must be powerful because in my mind she was a real cop, not some bimbo recently released from a deck of cursed tarot cards!
Justine put the car in gear and sped out of there. This was going to be interesting. Was she really going to take us to the police station? I wanted to ask Emilia all these questions, but I didn’t want Justine to listen in, and I had a very strong feeling that Justine was now completely tuned in to the back seat of her police cruiser and knew that we knew her secret, and knew that we too were associated with Maisie’s cursed deck.
To my surprise Justine didn’t go to the station, she chose a scenic route that took her by Maisie’s shop, and lurking outside the shop was good old Devon, looking like his usual street persona.
“It's him. I figured,” she said.
Omg, was she going to stuff him into the back of this car too?
“Him? Who? Figured what?” Emilia asked
Malcolm stared quietly out the window, but I don’t think he saw anything, yet.
Justine's dark eyes filled the rear view.
“Never mind,” she said. Under her breath I heard her mutter, “That damn bank robber.” She pulled a fast U-ie, zipped over the curb, slammed the vehicle into park, jumped out of the car, and went after Devon.
He didn’t notice her until she was nearly upon him.
He dashed into Maisie’s shop. In her excitement to nab him, Justine ran inside.
*
“My sights coming back a little, but I still can't see much,” Malcolm said.
Thank the stars!
That’s when I saw my chance and grabbed the canister of spray from the car seat. “I'll be right back,” I told them. I was supper excited! I leaped out of the car. I saw Malcolm and Emilia, both in handcuffs, exchange glances and heard her call out, “Jane, we're cuffed for good without Justine’s key! “We have to go with you,” Emilia called out.”
I left them and headed into the shop. For some reason I thought Devon, Justine and Maisie would be standing around inside, but of course they weren’t. It looked as if the place had never been opened.
I got really cautious and began to creep around with my magic hairspray canister out and ready. On the front counter by the register I saw two tarot cards. I couldn’t tell which ones they were because they were turned with their backs up. I picked them up and held them awkwardly as I juggled my canister, too. I turned one, the Justice card with a picture of a woman holding scales, wearing a blind fold. I held it out in front of me and waved it around, as it if it would make Justine appear before me. I began to wonder if she perhaps was trapped back inside the card.
“Abracadabra, fiddle dee dee,” I said lamely. But of course nothing happened.
From the back room came quiet fits of laughter.
Male laughter.
I moved cautiously in that direction, back again into the tarot room, and who did I see shaking with laughter, but Devon. He sat at the tarot table. He nodded toward the closet bathroom.
“Locked 'er in there for ya, Janey.”
He licked his lips and eyed me hungrily, but he also acknowledged the can of spray. With both hands up in a surrendering gesture, he said, “No hard feelings, baby.”
Hmm, clearly Devon didn’t want to be hit with the spray.
“How do I catch her?” I asked.
“Abracadabra –“
“Very funny. I tried that already.” I took a few more cautious steps toward the bathroom.
“Slip her damn card under the door.”
I wasn’t sure if he was messing with me, or if he was serious.
Just as I was about to slip the card under the door, I heard voices at the backdoor. I recognized Emi and Malcolm’s voices, both still cuffed, they walked in through the back of the shop.
Malcolm hesitated, “Wait!” he said.
Emi said, “What’s up? Can you see now?”
“A little.”
“Well, keep moving,” she said encouragingly. “There’s a bathroom in here. You can rinse out your eyes.”
Malcolm sounded fearful. “But this looks like –“
I opened the backdoor and Emilia pushed him inside the shop. He stumbled in, cuffed hands out in front.
I looked surprised at Emi and Malcolm. “Great work, white belt,” I said.
Emi winked.
Malcolm tried to make an about face but went in the wrong direction. I leaped at him and began waving the justice card. I heard Devon making a snorting laugh and Emi gave him an evil look. “You gotta touch him with his card, Jane,” She told me. I quickly looked at the cards, found the magician’s and tapped Malcolm. He disappeared and his cuffs fell to the floor. “WOOOOHOO,” I hollered and I did a little happy dance and tried to get Emi to dance with me, but she was too cool for that kind of thing.
Still handcuffed, Emilia stepped into the shop and went directly to the bathroom door.
“Justine, the gig is up. You can't escape,” she called into the door. She signaled for me to hold up the justice card. Even better than that, I went over and quickly slipped it under the door.
“No! Stop. If you send her back to the card, I’m stuck with these cuffs. They’re magic and don’t come off unless she takes them off. And she's got my sword in her trunk. We need her keys.”
“How ‘bout I send you back to your card and then your cuffs fall off?” I suggested.
“You can try,” she said to me and gave me her death game face –Yikes!
“Well, I don’t think Officer Day’s going to do us any favors,” I said, annoyed.
Emilia banged loudly, if somewhat awkwardly on the washroom door.
“Justine, get out here and unlock these cuffs and you can go. Let’s call it a draw.”
A draw! No way. Not if I could help it. The faster I got these majors back in the deck the sooner I got Sia back and my freedom.
There was no response from Justine. In fact there hadn’t been a peep come from that washroom this whole time. I began to think that Devon hadn’t been truthful
. Surprise!
“Justine!” I’d never seen Emilia lose her cool, but she was getting frustrated. Then without warning she kicked the locked door open. Nothing, no one. We gaped. Then we turned to Devon. But he looked innocent.
“She was in there!” he insisted. He got up from the table and ran out to the front, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, too.
“How’d she do that?” I asked.
Emilia shrugged. “Ya got me.”
We heard Devon shout out front. We rushed there and the three of us ran around like the stooges looking for dropped money, but through the window we saw Justine. She’d gotten out! Right out of the shop.
But it looked like she was coming back. She had the trunk up on her cruiser and she pulled out Emi’s sword, slammed the trunk closed and headed back to the shop. She carried the sword as if it were her own weapon and entered the shop, sword forward.
“Now, if Emilia wants this back, we need to negotiate,” she said. She looked big. She looked powerful and she looked like she meant business. I had no idea what to do, but that didn’t matter because Emilia did an Olympic style front flip toward Justine, reached out and snatched her weapon away, before anyone blinked.
“I'll take that,” she said, somewhere in her spin. The next thing I knew the sword was flying in my direction because Emi tossed it to me, handle first. And I caught it like a pro.
I stared at the sword then at Justine who stared at me. I didn’t want to get shot, but I didn’t have to worry about that because the next thing I knew Emilia stood between me and Justine, holding her wrists out to me, the cuff chain hanging between them.
“Cut this sucker.”
I hesitated. I looked at Justine, then at Emilia, then swiftly pulled the sword around and brought it down and sliced through the handcuff chain.
“Rock beats scissors, sword beats cuffs!” Emila shouted. Now freed, Emilia turned to face down Justine. But the cop was gone. After I’d freed Emi I’d moved quickly to Justine and touched her with the card. I held it up proudly for Emilia to see. Devon got to me first and then Emilia. They crowded in to look at the card and inside it was Justine replacing the thin silhouette that held her spot while she ran free in Meadowvale.
“You go sexy girl,” Devon said, and he gave me a swat on the butt. I nearly elbowed him.
“Nice work, partner,” Emilia said.
“Bet you didn't know I could swing a sword,” I said to Emi and glared at Devon.
“Did you know?” Emi asked me. I shrugged. I decided to let that one remain a mystery for the time being. Then we heard a tiny voice yell up from the card. Justine’s voice. She stood at attention in her RCMP surge.
“What’s that you say,” I yelled down to her.
“Send my cuffs back!”
I glanced around the shop. I saw the pair that had held Malcolm. They were still in one piece. I’d forgotten that they fell to the floor when he was sent back. I retrieved them.
I held them up for Justine to see. “I got a date with these tonight,” I said.
Justine looked none too pleased.
I winked at Emilia. She gave me a luscious grin. “Oh,” I said awkwardly, “Not you, that’s not what I meant.”
Emilia looked perturbed.
Then it was Devon’s turn. He growled in a lusty animal way. “I love you, Janey.”
“Ah, sure you do, Devon, but I’m not using these with you either,” I said, realizing I was outnumbered by these two very powerful beings.
*
When I finally got home that evening, I phoned Glendie but she wasn’t answering. I really wanted to know what the status was on my kitten. I saw Sia’s collar still sitting on the mantel of the fireplace where I put it after I took it back from Glendie’s fridge. That meant she wasn’t back from the dimension she was wandering in. I wondered if Sia, being a Cheshire, could move in and out of dimensions at will.