Read Cop Town for Free Online Page A

guests above the lobby floor.
    The second shift would follow in approximately fifteen minutes, older women like Kate who were in their mid- to late twenties. They were all personal secretaries or head tellers. Career gals. Independent. Full of spunk. Kate loved watching them in the elevator. They were constantly checking themselves. Eyeliner unsmudged. Lipstick perfect. Blouse tightly tucked. Hem sharply pressed. Before the car reached the bottom floor, they’d reflexively checked at least three times to make sure that their stockings were straight.
    And then they walked across the lobby, heads held high, as if they
    hadn’t a care in the world. Between their shockingly good posture and pointy brassieres, they reminded Kate of ships sailing off to war.
    The clock was sneaking up on her again. Kate muttered a curse as she pulled on her underwear. She sat down on the bed and rolled on her pantyhose. She stood up to adjust the waistband. She sat back down to put on a pair of black socks. She slid into the stiff, navy-blue pants. And slid, and slid.
    “Oh, no …,” she groaned.
    The pants were enormous. She stood up to assess the damage. Even with the belt tightly buckled, the material hung like a deflated balloon around her waist. This must have been done to her on purpose. Kate had given the supply sergeant all of her measurements. She was five feet nine, hardly diminutive, but the legs of the pants were so long that they reached past her toes. A string of curses followed as she searched her underwear drawer for a pack of straight pins that she eventually found in the medicine cabinet.
    Kate pinned up the pant legs until the edge just grazed the top of her foot. And then she remembered the shoes. They were obviously designed for men, bulky and ugly, the sort of thing a prison warden or high school math teacher would wear. The heel was too wide. Even with the laces tight, her feet could slip out.
    Kate ignored the issue, settling on one problem at a time. Blisters would be the least of her worries if her pants weren’t properly shortened. A few more adjustments with the pins and the hem fell just shy of the shoelace.
    “Good job.” She allowed herself a smile of relief. Then she caught her reflection in the mirror and was too stunned to speak.
    She looked like a new form of centaur: a woman who was a man from the waist down. The sight would’ve been comical had it not been so jarring.
    Kate turned away from her reflection, pulling on the stiff navy-blue shirt. Also too big. The collar scraped her earlobes. The breast pockets were at her waist. The emblems on the sleeves were at her elbows. She
    flapped up her arms, trying to get her fingers past the long sleeves. Finally, she managed to poke one hand through, then the other. She rolled the shirt cuffs until it appeared she had two large doughnuts on her wrists.
    Kate closed her eyes. No crying this morning. That was her promise. No crying until her shift was over.
    “Laugh about this,” she coached herself. “Laugh because it’s funny.”
    She buttoned the shirt. Her hands were steady. Maybe this was funny. Maybe a week or a month or a year from now, she would be telling the story of the first day she put on this ridiculous outfit and tears would come to her eyes—not from the horror, but from the hilarity.
    She found the S-shaped metal clips that were designed to hold the utility belt. The equipment was too heavy for just one belt. She had to have one belt looped through her pants in order to support the second belt. Kate hooked one metal clip on each hip. She tried not to think a few hours ahead, when the constant wear would seem like Chinese water torture.
    “Silly,” she mumbled. “The blisters on your feet will take your mind off of it.”
    She picked up the thick leather utility belt. This, at least, looked like it would fit. She pulled the tongue through the buckle, piercing the last hole in the belt, making sure that the metal S-hooks had taken hold