The passenger door opened and a big, burly man got out. His face was rough and sunburned, but his expression was friendly. "Excuse me, Miss," he said, coming around the back of the cruiser. "Routine check. Could I see some identification?"
He couldn't and Mary knew it. A policeman was not entitled to stop a citizen on the streets without due cause. This was a roust, blatantly illegal.
And there was not a thing the girl could do about it.
Although she had led a sheltered, middle-class life until recently, Mary had picked up enough street wisdom in her high school to know that if she refused, she'd be in hot water. The cops would find some excuse to bring her in and she could not afford that!
Then, wildly, she remembered she wasn't carrying any identification! Perry had taken them away from her that first day, promising to supply her with I.D.s in the name of Marti Rheinhardt. But he hadn't ever gotten around to it.
"I-I'm sorry, officer," she said, smiling helpfully. "I don't have any identification with me. My purse was stolen last week." She hefted the handcrafted leather purse slung over her shoulder on a long strap. "I just got this a few days ago."
"I see," said the cop. His expression was still amiable, but his light blue eyes were unreadable. "Did you report it?"
"No sir." Mary shrugged. "You know how it is." The big cop nodded. He had his notebook and pencil out. "I'll need your name and address."
"I'm Mary Rheinhardt." She gave the address of her apartment complex, and her apartment number. She watched the cop write it down.
"Place of employment?"
Mary barely suppressed a gasp. She hadn't thought about that! And a girl with an apartment would have to have a source of money. Of course, she could not tell them her real occupation.
"I'm-I'm a secretary," she managed to say. Her voice shook. "A private secretary, just part-time."
The driver of the prowl car stuck his head out. He had the look of a new generation cop, a dark handsome Chicano face with a trim black moustache. He was younger and smoother than his partner. "Bring her in," he said.
Mary looked around wildly as he took her by the arm. Some people stood idly around in the sun, watching. Help me! Help me! she wanted to cry out. Don't let them take me! But she knew it was no good. She was trapped.
Her mind was a blank as the cop led her to the open door. His partner leaned over and snapped a pair of handcuffs over her wrists. "What's that for?" she asked, voice trembling on the verge of tears.
"We don't want you getting away, baby." He smiled insincerely at her. "Put her in the back, Bob."
"Okay, Mike." A firm hand urged Mary into the back seat. Bob got into the front and closed the door. Mike started the car and pulled away.
"What she have to say for herself?" the Chicano cop, Mike, asked.
The older man shrugged, scratching at the back of his neck. "Not much. No I.D., some bullshit about being somebody's private secretary."
Mike chuckled. "Some private, I'll bet." He turned and glanced back at Mary. "I can guess how she makes her bread."
"Watch the road," the other growled.
As the city slid by outside the patrol car window, Mary snapped out of her daze. She started to evaluate her situation. It looked bad.
If they took her down she'd be booked as a runaway. They'd probably try to get her to confess to being a hooker, too. She was in deep shit. If they held her, they'd trace her back to her uncle, who would be annoyed at having his wayward niece returned to him. If she confessed to being a prostitute and tried to barter for freedom or get off lightly… she thought of Cat and almost retched.
Either way looked bad. If the police turned her over to her uncle, the D.A. might find a more permanent means of getting rid of her a second time. Even if they didn't, Mary felt sure Perry would blame her for getting picked up and causing him trouble. He'd probably suspect she'd done it on purpose, to try to escape.
The younger cop looked around again, leering at her under his pencil moustache. Mary stared back at him. The wire mesh between the back seat and the front was like a cage.
"Hey, baby," Mike said to her, "you wanna be my private secretary? I'd be real good to you."
"Lay off her, huh?" grunted his partner.
"Hey man, the girl's gotta make a livin' somehow. What about it, honey?"
Suddenly an idea flashed into Mary's head. He was giving her a chance, a slim chance, to be set free without being booked. She returned his look with frank interest. "I might consider it," she said in her sulkiest voice.
Mike did a double take, looking from her to the traffic ahead and then back again. "What do you mean?"
"I mean if you guys could maybe forget about taking me in, I could do some… secretarial work for you."
"You mean that?"
Mary stretched, bringing her cuffed wrists up over her head and tensing her shoulders. Her braless boobs jutted right at the younger cop's bulging eyes. Her nipples stood up straight beneath the T-shirt. "What do you think?" she purred.
For an answer Mike spun the wheel. The cruiser bounced into an alley Mary hadn't seen. The roadway broadened out into a little, isolated yard, a patch of pavement surrounded by buildings. It was out of sight of the street and looked abandoned except for a big white trash bin stuffed with cardboard boxes.
"Okay, baby," Mike said, braking to a squealing halt. "Here's where you put up or shut up."
His partner looked nervous. "Are you serious?"
"What the hell, man? Nobody ever comes out here except to empty trash. Pickup ain't till day after tomorrow, and they don't empty trash till after work hours. We got this little place all to ourselves."
"I don't like it," Bob said, shaking his heavy head.
Mike turned around and crossed his arms, resting his chin on them, propped on the back of his seat. "Well?" he leered.
For an answer Mary reached behind her and pulled her T-shirt over her head. She brought her arms down in front of her with the shirt over them, hiding her big boobs from the cop's lusting view. "Okay," she said, a little breathlessly. "Just watch."
The Chicano undid the special lock and let her out. She stepped out graceful as a cat, then turned and leaned in the drivers open window.
"The handcuffs," Mary said. "I can't get my shirt off over them." She saw Mike's eyes widen at the teasing flesh of white titflesh he caught over the shirt as he hurried to unfasten the cuffs and remove them.
Free, the blonde stepped back, a lewd light glinting in her emerald eyes. She pulled the rolled shirt off her arms and bunched it against her heaving jugs. Mike got out of the car, running his tongue over his lips.
Mary undid the button of her cut-offs. Grinding her hips, she slowly pulled down the zipper. Bob got out of the cruiser and looked on in amazement as the girl pulled her shorts down her slender legs and stepped out of them.
Mary stood before the goggle-eyed cops, clad in panties and sandals, with the T-shirt only just covering her magnificent boobs.
"Okay, boys," she said, slipping a finger into the elastic waistband of her panties, "here's what you've been waiting for!"
She turned her back to them. The T-shirt fell crumpled to the ground. The panties began to slip off. The patrolmen's eyes got bigger and bigger as the underwear revealed more and more of the swelling mounds of Mary's ass.
The contrast between the tan of her back and the creamy paleness of her rump was startling. They were white and perfect as hillocks of new snow, separated by the mysterious darkness of her ass-crack. The adolescent had her buttocks pressed firmly together, and she kept them that way as she ran the panties down her thighs and her calves and stepped daintily out of them. Then she straightened up again, her whole body writhing as her legs slid apart. Then with her ponytail flying, she bent over and peered at the policemen from between her thighs. The hairy clam of her cunt was open and dripping.