Robber
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

What can I say? I am a criminal. It is almost as if I have never had a choice. I just like to get things the easy way. Sure, there are consequences, but the trick is to not be caught.

I started by being a thief. Theft is easy so long as the scale is small. Bigger jobs become harder. Shoplifting is easy. Picking pockets is easy. Breaking into a bank is hard. Breaking into a house or apartment can be easier, but unlike a bank, you cannot be sure that there is valuable booty inside. To do that right, you need to know your target.

Do you know the difference between theft and robbery? Many people use the words interchangeably, but a criminal knows the difference. There are different penalties, you see. Let me explain:

If you know your target, you can break in and take what you want without detection (theft). Burglary is theft. Picking pockets is theft. Taking something off the back of a trailer is theft.

Or, you chose the target and you just go in and demand it. That is robbery. Face to face with the threat of violence means it is no longer theft. Robbery is a far more serious crime. And if there is injury or death, or even if somebody has a heart attack in the middle of a hold-up, it is even more serious

I am not a naturally violent or threatening person, so robbery did not come naturally. So, my first involvement in it was with others. I could find the targets, and others with the right skills could do the stand-over stuff. I would focus on the goods and leave more violent types to make the threats.

The problem with accomplices is that when they are caught, they might fold. Even if I did not go on the job, people could talk, and I could be fingered and if I am named, I will serve time. That means that if you have others involved, you need to spend twice the time in planning the job, in planning how you were never there and did not know any of these guys.

I could do that, for a while anyway. That was how I first met Detective Dalton J Fisk.

DJ was a good cop and he knew that I was a crook, but he could never prove it. It drove him crazy. He spent way too much time watching me and looking for connections to other criminals. That is what they call “good police work” – police don’t catch people in the act very often, police make connections all the time. So how do you avoid getting caught – you avoid connections.

He tracked me down and came around to my apartment late one night, hammering on the door like all cops do, assuming that all suspects are hard of hearing. An accomplice had given him my name. I can do the puzzled look to perfection. Never deny, just look confused, and then produce the evidence that you were somewhere else. The bar tab dated the night of the robbery is a good one. Be there the night before, then duck out and pick up the tab on the day of the crime from the barkeep not on duty that previous night. The guy on the bar on the night in questions will say: “Yeah, I remember the guy. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? Bar tab dated Wednesday? Yes, it was Wednesday. He was here all night. Told me all about …”. It made the chat something he would remember.

But it was a close call, one of many. I have not stayed out of jail by taking risks. No more accomplices for me. I was forced into being my own robber.

So, you need a disguise. Even if you avoid banks and look at pawn shops, bookies or ticket offices, everybody knows what to look out for – dark glasses, beanies, hoodies, crash helmets. There are cameras everywhere. How are you going to completely hide your face and yet still walk down the street, into the target premises, then walk out again, without having face recognition tools peg you? You could use glasses and fake noses and chins. No, I’m serious. That works. But now everybody knows that anybody who looks like Groucho Marx is likely to be out to rob you.

So, I came up with the plan of robbing these places dressed as a woman.

It sounds crazy, but with makeup, even if you don’t use glasses and latex, you can fool face recognition. The problem is that if any guy in a dress walks down the street people are going to notice. They may not be thinking: ‘hey, there’s a guy dressed as a woman, so he is about to rob that joint’; but they are thinking: ‘hey, there’s a guy dressed as a woman’, and that’s attention you don’t need. So, it only works if you can pass as a woman.

Plenty of guys can do it. Transgender folk do it all the time. It requires effort and practice, but you can do it. I found that out. You need to watch your clothes hair and makeup. Look natural, like you are not trying to win a beauty contest. Stay under the radar. Get in, do the business, and get out. Get clear and burn the disguise so if DJ or his friends turn up you can say: “What are you talking about? Tranny Crim? Not me. I’m no fag”.

That’s what the police called me- “The Tranny Crim”; or so I learned later.

Of course, I needed a studio for my disguise clothing and transformation, and to store the loot – and because I was cautious, more than one. I guess the only thing that DJ might have looked for was the back of my hands and ankles, as I needed to keep them shaved. In fact, I shaved my entire legs and arms and my chest to give myself clothing options.

The targets knew that I was not female because when I pulled the gun, I spoke to them in a male voice, like: “Hand it over”. It sounds more threatening. So, I was the Tranny Crim. But I also worked on a feminine voice, just in case I needed to say something as a woman. I was good at that too. Effort and practice; like I said.

Practice means just walking around, as a woman – a little window shopping. And that was all that I was doing when I ran into Detective Dalton J Fisk. I mean we actually bumped into one another in the street. He apologized and I squeaked that it was nothing, but I had an idea that as I walked away, he was watching me.

For some reason I wore a dress that day, and shoes with a heel. I never wear that stuff normally, and certainly not when I am about to do business. Ladies’ pants are best. Disguise yes, but you need to be able to move quickly, and if necessary, ditch the wig and carry wipes to get the makeup off and a packed coat and pass as a man in seconds. But that day, I was extending myself. I knew that I looked good, and I looked very good from behind, with my blonde wig and black stockings. Why would he not turn and stare?

Anyway, I went around the corner and darted into a diner. I buried my face in the menu and intended to wait until I was sure he was gone.

But he sat down in front of me. He said: “Is this seat taken?” The place was basically empty.

“I’m expecting somebody to join me soon,” I said, in my best feminine voice. It seemed to surprise him. He was mistaken. I was not who he thought I was.

“Until they arrive then.” No. He was onto me. But I had committed no crime. What was the problem? At best I was a woman alone in a diner. At worst I was a guy dressed as a woman, alone in a diner. Or worse than that, the guy he has spoken to a week or so ago, dressed as a woman, alone in a diner. But no crime had been committed.

“I’d prefer to wait alone.”

“But I am sure that I know you.” He knew me, alright. He was playing, surely?

“You might think that you know me, but I assure you, you don’t.” And to make the point I went to my handbag and reached for my lipstick and mirror. I had developed skills in that area, and it seemed the time to display them.

“Perhaps I mistook you for somebody I know,” he said. “But if I don’t know you, then perhaps I should correct that.” He held out his hand. “D.J. Fisk”, he announced.

I took what he offered in a very soft hand. It was almost a submissive gesture. It seemed wrong for me, but somehow right for him.

He gripped it. He would not release until I said something. So I said: “Gina Stevens.” It was not invented in the moment. It was the name on the fake ID in my purse. The one that had a photo of me with a red wig on, not that it mattered too much, but always good to cover every circumstance. If I was questioned, I was somebody else.

“Let me buy you coffee, Gina,” he said. “Or maybe even an early lunch. Just to assure myself that this is our first meeting.”

It was clear that he was toying with me. He knew who I was. He was tracking down an armed robber who dressed as a woman. He knew the man I was, and I was in women’s clothes. Like I said: “good police work” – you don’t catch people in the act, you make connections.

“That would be nice, DJ,” I said with a smile. Quite where this was going, I had no idea, but my options seemed limited. Pulling off my wig and storming out of the diner was not one of them.

And there was something about the look in his eye that was a little more unsettling that any criminal might feel having lunch with a cop. There was a look that seemed to be him hoping that I was not the person that he knew I was. That look gave me some hope too, hope that I might just be able to perform my way out of this.

We ordered some lunch. He asked me what I was doing in town. He asked what I was “window shopping” for. He complemented me on my clothes. Where his questions got too difficult, I declined to answer, with words like: “Why DJ, we hardly know one another”, or “Maybe if we knew one another better I might tell you …”, where I lived, where I worked, what I did there. He was probing. He was a detective after all.

It was a game. But the food was surprisingly good, and the day was pretty much a write off, so I was enjoying it. I tried to match every question that he posed with one of my own. And it appeared that he was ready to answer. Cops never answer.

It turns out that DJ Fisk is an interesting guy.

Towards the end of the meal he dropped the bombshell. He said: “Please don’t be insulted, because I find you very attractive, but it would seem to me that you have not always been a woman.”

How should I react? I was not a woman at all, but if I was transgendered or just a transvestite pushing his limits, how should I react? And of course, this might be just part of whatever game he was playing. It occurred to me that he was teasing me. He had met me as a man. Surely, he had just been playing with me? But in a police enquiry you meet hundreds of people. Maybe he had not made a connection? He might really be attracted to the woman I was pretending to be.

“Is that a problem for you?” I asked.

He looked at me in a way that seemed to look right through me. He said: “No. Not at all. As I said, I find you very attractive.”

Was he serious? He seemed serious. He could see me trying to work it out. Police interrogators know how it works. I could not respond immediately. It was one of those situations where you are trying so hard to think that you mind seems to empty out, and you find yourself reacting out of instinct.

“I find you attractive too.” Those were the words that came out of my mouth. Instinct!? WTF.

I have had a long time to think about where those words came from. One thing is clear, and that was that DJ knew in that moment that I was not the man he was looking to arrest for the Tranny Crim robberies. I might have been once, but I was not after I said those words. But that is not why I spoke them.

The truth of it is that, in that moment, I did find him attractive. And I liked him telling me that he was attracted to me. I spent my whole life thinking that I was a normal heterosexual male, and there I was developing a relationship with a man – a man who wanted to treat me as a woman.

He reached out across the table and my hand appeared from my lap to meet his.

“I have never done this before,” he said. Done what? Fallen for a trannie? Decided to overlook a person’s crimes because of physical attraction? Proposed gay sex to a stranger? Maybe all of the above?

“Me neither,” I said, with a smile that seemed to have been sparked by his clear desire.

“I finish tonight at 7:00. Would you meet me for a late dinner?”

“Where? Here?”

“No. Come to my place. It is actually very close to the Precinct. I’ll give you the address. Could you be there around 8:00? If you don’t come, I will understand. But then I will need to carry on and find the man I am looking for. I hope that everything is over for him. I hope that you will come over tonight.”

It all seemed very strange to me. He had said that he knew I was a man, but he was treating me like a woman. I felt that he knew that I was not really a man at all. Quite how he recognized this is still a mystery to me.

Maybe he is just a very good detective?

Anyway, the way forward was clear. Time to close things down. Find another town. Everything was way too complicated. Whatever I did, the very last thing I could do was to ever sit down with Dalton J Fisk, ever again.

Or there might be another way. His message was clear enough: By coming over to his place I might be able to stop the search for me as the offender. In return for what? What did he expect of me?

I went to my lock up to look for something to wear to his place. It was craziness. But nothing seemed as crazy as the fact that I could not find anything good enough. I had to go and buy something. A dark green velvet dress. I had black heels to match.

I paid extra attention to my makeup that night. He would know that the hair was fake, but the eyes were real. The lips were real. I needed to highlight those. And I needed to make sure that every inch of my body was devoid of hair and smell like a rose garden. No, a spice garden.

I have had time to think about this. But it still makes no sense to me. I was drawn to him. Just as he was drawn to me. It has nothing to do with logic. Another part of the brain was at work – maybe the part of the brain we call ‘the heart’, or maybe the part of the brain we call ‘the loins’.

Whatever part it was, it was animal. He welcomed me in, complimented my look, we exchanged a few pleasantries and then we flew at one another and were looked in a sexual embrace for the rest of the night.

He saw the woman in me, and it was me. How can that be gay? To be honest, that word never came into it. We were just two human beings who found one another. I just needed to appear female for him to fall for me; and be female for me to fall for him.

Be female. I had become far too comfortable as one. I explained that when we ran into one another I was out shopping dressed as a woman. The truth is that I loved to do that. I told myself that I was working on my disguise, but it was much more than that. My male clothes had become the disguise. Why else would I sleep in a nightie? Why would I even own one?

I wished that I had brought it with me. I looked good in it even without breasts. At least I was wearing sexy underwear. I didn’t take it off.

But my wig came off when we were rolling around in his bed. He laughed and tousled my hair. I had plenty, but he asked me to grow it out. I promised that I would. I promised to make other changes as well. I wanted to be desirable to him – to be desired by him.

I had never touched another man’s cock until that night. But there was something about his that compelled me to take it. Take it into my gentle hands; into my hungry mouth. After I had touched that cock it seemed to me that I never wanted to touch my own ever again, except to tuck it between my legs when I sat down to pee.

We never talk about the Tranny Crim. It is a case unsolved. The robberies stopped. DJ and his team did a good job. He is a good cop. The best. He and his team are the robbery section, and the Tranny Crim is their only unsolved case.

I opened this story by explaining to you the difference between theft and robbery. If you are wondering about why I know so much about policing, well, It’s because I am married to a police officer, and my husband DJ, he never tires of talking about his work.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2019