He shook his head in disagreement.
Cat took the joint from Bess and hit it once before running the lit end under the tap. She stored the remainder in an oversized mason jar filled with grains of rice.
“Bad Bess,” she chided. “He’s trying to be serious.”
Hutton ushered Bess inside, closed and locked the apartment door, then ordered her to sit. “Give me your phone,” he demanded.
“Yes sir!” She answered and complied. “The dirty pictures are all in InstaCRT.”
“This isn’t a joke,” he said sternly. “I have to take you both to the Williamsburg precinct.”
“Why, do they want to get stoned with us?” Bess asked.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
“Oh, it’s funny,” Cat agreed. Bess nodded. Hutton indicated that Cat should sit, too, and the two women folded themselves on the sofa. He grabbed a chair from Cat’s dining table, flipped it down across from the coffee table, sat, and tried to look imposing.
“We’ve been planning a raid on Bedford Organics, but we’re concerned that the owner may be out of town, or on her way out,” Hutton explained. “No one’s been in the building for the last twenty-four hours. We need you to call and set up a meeting for our undercover officers.”
“That’s crazy,” Cat said. “She’s not going to agree to see two random women. My crowd is pretty…specific. We’re all googleable.”
“Don’t worry about that part. You need to call her and set up a time.”
“No, I’m serious,” she insisted. “They would need Photogram accounts, other forms of social media, something affiliated with Cooper.”
“We can generate that.”
“Seriously? They need real followers and tons of mentions. Good ones.”
“We can do that in an hour. The digital team will clone accounts similar to yours as believably as possible, then manually update the top five pages of the major search engines.”
“Wow.” Cat paused. “That’s fucked up.”
“It’s merely the dawn of modernity,” Hutton equivocated.
“If that’s true, I’d hate to see the sunset.”
“You won’t.”
Cat laughed. “Isn’t she going to know it was me, though?” she pointed out. “That I’m the tattletale?”
Bess nodded in agreement.
“Not if you get arrested,” Hutton said. “They’ll prep you for that, though it won’t be a real arrest, not exactly.”
“Oh.” Cat swallowed. “Okay.”
“Don’t worry about that part. You need to make the call,” Hutton insisted. “Then I’ll take you both to meet the undercovers.”
“Why me?” asked Bess. “I want to go to the park.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Hutton said. “This is serious. You showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time, Bess. I can’t risk anyone else knowing about this.”
Bess stuck out her lower lip. “Every time I come to Bushwick, something dumb happens. Ugh, remind me later to tell you about the DICKS party. It was called ‘The Bush.’” She grimaced.
Cat and Hutton ran through what she should say to Vittoria. She practiced a few times with Bess, trying to sound genuine, though Bess kept laughing. Finally, Cat pulled out Vittoria’s card and lit another cigarette.
“Now or never, right?”
Hutton nodded. “Just pretend you’re telling the truth.”
She made the call.
“Hi, Vittoria? It’s Cat from RAGE…No, no, it worked. I mean, really worked…I’m definitely hooked…I’m good for right now, you were so generous, but could I bring some friends over later?…Yeah, other girls from RAGE…What time works for you?…Okay, I’ll confirm with them. I’ll call you if we need to cancel but otherwise see you later…Yeah, okay…and Vittoria—thank you so so much!”
Hutton called Roth as soon as she hung up. “It’s done. Five p.m.,” he said.
“That was good timing,” Cat said. “She’s squeezing us in on her way to Teterboro.”
“Ready?” he asked, grabbing her purse and keys from the counter. “Let’s go.”
Cat paused. “What are the undercover officers wearing, if I may ask?”
“The secretary went to Zara, I think. Why?”
“We would never wear that,” Bess and Cat said in unison.
“I don’t think it matters.”
“It matters,” they said. Hutton looked skeptical.
Cat rolled her eyes.
Bess grinned at Cat, who nodded.
“We have an idea—” Cat said.
“They have to come over,” Bess finished, her voice excited. “We should dress them.”
“With what?” Hutton asked.
Cat flung open the door to the white box, where Hutton spied hundreds of pieces of clothing organized by color, most still in their plastic dry-cleaning shrouds.
“With this!” Cat explained.
Hutton considered the wrinkled polyester dresses Carol had snagged from Zara, which didn’t look even remotely close to the same quality as Cat’s floaty dress or Bess’s, what was that, overalls and a printed top? Basic, maybe, but the overalls were a fine light fabric, the shirt probably silk. Her sneakers were spotless neon-yellow running shoes that he’d never seen anywhere else, and her jewelry was an oversized ring in the shape of an elephant’s face whose trunk wrapped around her middle finger. Putting a middle-aged woman in an ill-fitting dress in front of either of them would only further serve to highlight how modest the police department’s budget was.
He picked up the phone. “Mary and Pat need different clothes,” he said. “Can you bring them to 239 Moore…Yeah…buzz Ono.” He hung up. “They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Operation Lady Cop Makeover is a go,” Cat said.
“This is the best day of my life,” Bess replied, her face glowing.
Cat and Bess were still pulling what looked to Hutton like a hundred dresses out of the enormous closet when the buzzer rang. A minute later, a swarthy uniformed cop, presumably Sergeant Roth, and two sturdy middle-aged women walked through the door.
“Oh man…this is going to be good,” Bess muttered as she and Cat walked over to introduce themselves.
“Hi, I’m Bess,” she said, shoving her hand in the officers’ general direction.
“Mary,” said the short one. “Patricia,” said the taller one.
Bess pointed to Cat, who shook their hands next. “This is Cat’s operation, or whatever. But I’m helping.”
Roth nodded at both of them but didn’t extend his hand, so Bess and Cat nodded before stepping back to study Mary’s and Patricia’s bodies, firm and thick-waisted under their polyblend suits and striped button-downs. The two female officers accepted their professional scrutiny without flinching.
“Mary, Patricia, are you wearing vests right now?” Bess asked.
“Of course,” the officers replied in unison. Everything separating them as individuals was removed from their appearance and affect—understandable, considering their profession, thought Cat. You couldn’t pay me enough money to be a female cop in this city.