***
Stazi and MacJames sat next to each other, each keeping close vigil over Mitchelli during his induced sleep. Both women sat with their back to a large bay window, the rays from the sunset accenting their light hair. Stazi sat closest to Mitchelli in a high back wooden oriental chair while MacJames sat on a low black couch centered in front of the window. A round, ornate end table sat between them.
Occasionally the women picked up their phones, returning calls or text messages. Each woman was careful not to divulge information to the other. Then it happened—an uncomfortable lull; no phone calls, no text messages. The awkward silence set in. Occasionally Stazi glanced at MacJames as she got up to check her patient’s pulse and heart rate. As if Mitchelli was awake, she bent over him, thrusting her chest in his face and her butt towards MacJames. The diamonds on her Rolex were dazzling in the sunlight, nearly blinding MacJames. Stazi sat down and wrote the time and vitals on a small notepad she had removed from her medical bag.
“Did you ever meet her? She had style.” Stazi did not look at MacJames as she spoke.
“Meet who?”
“Ann Mitchelli, your boyfriend’s deceased wife, the mother of his children. She was a class act, a perfect lady.”
“No, I never had the pleasure,” MacJames sneered at Stazi.
“What a shame, she was elegantly beautiful. Her light brown eyes, olive skin, shapely big breasts, and big Spanish lips, the lips movie stars pay for.”
MacJames briefly looked down at her chest, then looked back at Stazi, “I see her every time I look at the children. I see their mother’s beauty. Kaitlin’s light brown eyes, her flowing brown hair, and those lips.”
“Those lips are to die for!”
“Peter Jakob acts like his father but looks like his mother. He has her coloring.”
“They get their long eye lashes from Peter’s father, Pasquale. He was a character. His mother looked like Elizabeth Taylor, though she had brown eyes. Did you ever meet them?”
“No, I’ve only known Peter for the last month or so.” MacJames braced herself for Stazi’s reaction.
Stazi swung her head in disbelief. “He trusts you with his life and his children after four weeks!” She looked back at Mitchelli. “I don’t understand it. I thought he had better judgment.”
“I don’t understand it either.”
Stazi turned and faced MacJames. “He is not so handsome,” she said.
“Hmm, I agree.”
“His beauty is in his life, his family, their history. My lord, it takes more than four weeks to know anyone, let alone Peter Mitchelli. You are clueless to his past.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” MacJames tilted her head ever so slightly waiting for a response.
“Sorry, I can’t help myself. Peter’s family is his life. My husband and I couldn’t have children.”
“I wasn’t blessed with children either, which cost me a marriage or two.” With that said for a moment, two women let down their guards. They were vulnerable, yet neither struck the decisive blow. Stazi and MacJames looked eye to eye and shared their painful disappointment. The competitors wanted Mitchelli and his children. They shared the same dream of motherhood, the love and joy only a child can give. They shared a common sorrow.
Stazi continued, “When Ann died, they came out of the woodwork, the wolves, myself included. The best of the best: the wealthiest divorcées, widows, young heiresses. It was shameful. We wanted the name, the family, the history we couldn’t have with our first, or for that matter, our second husbands. Ann was gone. He is not the best looking man, but a family man, a father, a loyal husband.” Stazi looked at Mitchelli lying in bed, his broad shoulders uncovered, the sheet was just above his chest. “I’ve known him half my life. Cooked for him, adored him from afar. Tell me what magic you used, how did you get him…to fall in love with you.” Stazi’s voice cracked. “Please, I must tell my sister.”
“Would someone who had three husbands be included in your pack of wolves?”
“Oh certainly, three husbands wow, that’s not surprising!”
“I buried myself in my work to forget about my failures as a wife; my lost dreams of motherhood.” MacJames put her head down and silence filled the room. She waited a moment. “Our meeting each other under any other circumstances was impossible. I can’t tell you all the details. I can say from the first time we met, I could feel his pain, see his sorrow in his face. Looking back, maybe that’s what he appreciates about me, that I felt his pain. I couldn’t understand the moods of my three husbands, but I could see Peter’s torment since our first meeting.”
“His strength is his personality.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“His moods, the large swings from funny to sincere.”
“I’m still waiting for the funny,” MacJames joked.
“You’re right, he’s not handsome and has a marginal personality; you can do better.”
“I’ll tough it out until someone better comes along, thank you.”
“You’ve peaked, bitch,” Stazi said quietly.
“I heard that!”
Stazi quickly continued. “One minute he’s yelling across a room at a party, next he’s praying at your dying friend’s bedside as they wither away in the hospital. His father was like that, strong, vulnerable, and when Ann died, fragile like the finest crystal.”
“Suzanne you’re blessed with the skill to save his life. I’m cursed with an assignment that may end his life. He’s possessed by it, driven to succeed. He showed us how to do our jobs. I can’t control him, none of us can. He’s an anomaly, recklessly driven to finish something he didn’t start.”
“You can’t control him; you talk as if that’s a bad thing. Did you want a man that does exactly what you want? That’s not a lover, that’s a slave. Give me a feisty man.”
“You don’t understand. It’s not your fault; I have to be vague for your own safety. As gentle as Peter, can be he is also beyond feisty, volatile!”
Stazi shot back quickly, “His brother Paul has joked at dinner parties about him yelling at work. He’s Italian, they’re emotional beasts, especially in the bedroom.”
“Suzanne, feisty! Feisty doesn’t even come close to describing what he’s capable of. I’ve witnessed his explosive rage. It’s not for the faint-hearted. He’s emotionally on edge. He suffers from depression, obsession, anger, and love. I can tell you in four weeks I’ve seen it all. His personality does not seek the path of least resistance. His reactions are extreme.” MacJames’s eyes closed slightly. “But that fits the profile of someone who would have volunteered for this assignment.”
“You talk about him like he’s a psychopath with inferences that he’s a brawler, a murderer.”
MacJames looked at Stazi. Their eyes locked, eyeball-to-eyeball; neither moved, neither flinched. Two women shared the same thought without speaking.
“That makes him even more erotic,” Stazi stated. “Is he a good lover? What is he like? My husband was boring, is he an animal?”
“Nothing is consistent with Peter. It was calm, classically beautiful.”
“Classically beautiful, who wants that? You’re lying. I thought as competitors we had a mutual respect for each other.”
“Suzanne, understand at that instant we had no one else but each other. I can’t explain it. We’re trapped in our moment, sharing the same burden.”
“Your moment could kill him.”
“I know, don’t give up the battle yet. I’m not sure what will happen when our mission is completed. What will fuel our passion?”
“Like a husband and wife realizing they don’t know each other after sleeping in the same bed for twenty years. They suddenly realize what they had in common was lost, children grown up and out of their lives. Angela, you have given me hope. I hate to lose, but I like the competition. Please don’t let me win. You have the one. Don’t let him go; you may never have another chance. I’ll keep patching him up my dear, plugging his
holes. I’ll be waiting.”
They watched as Kaitlin quietly walked into the room caring a small stuffed bunny rabbit. She padded over to her father, ignoring the two women. Kaitlin stared at her father, softly touching his cheek. She pretended to take his pulse. Imitating Stazi, she stuck her rear-end out as she held her father’s wrist. Kaitlin took the bunny’s hand and stuck it up her father’s nose. Shocked, Stazi moved towards the child. MacJames put her hand on Stazi’s wrist and stopped her. Kaitlin wiggled the bunny’s hand up her father’s nose. He raised his arm as he opened his eyes. Kaitlin’s face was inches from his. He could feel the rabbit’s soft hand in his nose.
Mitchelli spoke. “Kaitlin what are you doing?”
“Digging for gold, Dad. I’m digging for gold up your nose. Dig, dig, dig, digging for gold; I’m looking for the hard ones, up your nose.”
“Kaitlin, you’re too much,” he said laughing. “I’m going to dig up your nose!”
“Dig, dig, dig, I’m digging for gold up your nose. I’m digging deep for those hard ones up, up your nose.”
Peter Jakob ran by the doorway, and hid behind the doorjamb. He was holding a toy assault rifle. He had taped a flashlight below the barrel. He had a pistol stuck in the waist of his shorts and a machine gun stock behind his neck down his back through his shirt collar. He ran into the room and jumped on Mitchelli’s bed screaming, “Don’t move, police! You woke him up, Kaitlin! Grandma told you not to wake him up!”
“Dad, tell him I didn’t wake you, it was Peter screaming like a wild man. Tell him Dad, tell him.”
Peter Jakob crawled tactically on his elbows up to his father, hugging him. The stock of the toy submachine gun hit his father in the face. Mitchelli swiftly removed it from his shirt collar. “You both drive me crazy,” he said. “I needed to laugh, Kaitlin get that bunny paw out of my nose!”
Peter Jakob looked him in the eye, pulling Kaitlin’s rabbit’s paw out of his father’s nose. “Dad, who is the Marauder? They keep talking about the Marauder.” Mitchelli looked at MacJames; both were surprised with Peter Jakob’s question. “I’m serious, Dad.”
MacJames sat at the edge of the couch listening intently to what the children had to say.
Mitchelli put his hand on his son’s head. “Peter, what did they say?”
Before her brother could respond, Kaitlin answered, “Yeah, Dad, they keep talking about the Marauder, pirates, and that football team grandpa liked, the Roosters.”
“The Raiders, Kaitlin. And it wasn’t Grandpa, it was Uncle Pauli,” Peter shot back at his sister. “Let me tell him, Kaitlin stay out of it. Dad, they tried to whisper so we wouldn’t hear them, but the little guy’s hearing was bad, he said because his wife yells at him all the time.”
Kaitlin interrupted her older brother. “‘If the Marauders kids get it! We don’t how the Marauders going to react, he’s a loose camera.’ That’s what they said.”
“Kaitlin he said ‘loose cannon,’ why didn’t you let me tell him? You got it all wrong. Dad they keep bringing up the Marauder and they said the boss in Washington is going to end their careers.” Peter Jakob looked at MacJames. “Do you know what they’re talking about?”
“Peter, I don’t know, but this Marauder dude sounds like a tough guy.” MacJames looked at Mitchelli.
“Barbarians, that’s what they sound like, all of them.” Stazi looked at MacJames. “Angela, ask their boss to talk to them, I implore you.”
“Suzanne, she is the boss, at least for this quarter of the country. Oh the large cities like New York, Chicago and Boston have their own Deputy Directors. But as far as we’re concerned Angela’s the head Barbarian, isn’t that right boss lady?” Mitchelli winked at his daughter.
“Someone’s sense of humor must have come back with a little sleep.” MacJames answered.
Kaitlin quizzically asked, “Ms. Angela, you’re the boss over them, the boss woman?”
“Yes, let’s leave it at that, honey.”
“I hope they don’t lose their jobs. I could’ve suffocated with a bunny’s paw up my nose or toy gun driven through my skull.” The children laughed as their father squeezed them. He lifted Kaitlin onto the bed and said, “I want both of you to listen to your grandmother and the agents who are protecting you. Angela and the Stazi sisters they’re all going to take care of you.” He grabbed both of them. “I have to go away for awhile. Peter, you’re the man of the house. Take care of your sister.”
“Dad, I don’t want Peter to be the boss of me. No way!”
“Dad, you see what she does? She’s impossible.” Peter pleaded with his father.
“You’re both the boss, don’t fight.”
***
Coarseni and Buckala entered the house, quickly taking their shoes off in the mudroom before walking into the kitchen. Two agents were standing by the kitchen island reviewing a satellite photograph of the Mitchelli property.
“What are you two guys, slobs? What the hell is the frickin’ matter with yous?”
“What the hell is your problem Coarseni, what got up your ass?” the taller agent responded.
“This is an Italian house, unlike you WASPs, we remove our shoes in the house. It is the way we are. See? Buckala and I respect the house; we take our shoes off. Respect the house, respect the family, the man. Capisce?”
The two agents looked at their feet and looked at the ceiling, worried the Marauder was going to flip a rage because they left their shoes on his house, disrespecting him and his family. They quickly walked into the mudroom and removed their shoes.
“Where’s MacJames? Wow! Look at these wood floors, nice huh, Sal? Real nice. Hope you shit heads didn’t scratch this floor or it’s coming out of your pay.”
The larger agent answered, “She’s in Mitchelli’s bedroom.”
Coarseni nudged Buckala and said, “She can’t stay out of his room, it took an Italian to warm that bitch.”
They walked up the stairs together. Coarseni knocked on the doorjamb. “Can we come in? Is everyone decent?”
Coarseni did not enter; instead he motioned MacJames out into the hallway. MacJames quickly exited the bedroom. Coarseni took out the computer report on the brown sedan that had driven through Mitchelli’s neighborhood.
“Angela, they made Peter his first day in the field. He and Sal were at this bar, Runner’s, where they met Kazz. This Deon Walt works her ass as a bartender there. She probably deals; turn tricks, anything to make a buck. Sal says our civilian operative roughed Kazz up pretty good. He left quite an impression on Deon and the patrons. Buffalo PD is trying to link Walt to Handly, but they’re struggling. The analysts are confident there is no reason for Deon Walt to be driving in this area, let alone down Peter Mitchelli’s street taking pictures of his house. Go figure.”
“Good God, what have I done!”
“Hey, what are you talking about? Don’t get all misty. That guy knew what he was getting involved in even when we didn’t. Believe me, your boyfriend can take care of himself and cover our asses while he’s at it.”
“His family, the kids…Did Freed call Washington?” From the hallway, MacJames looked into the room at Mitchelli and his children. Stazi was sitting in the background laughing, shaking her chest side to side. She couldn’t help but wonder how much safer the Mitchellis would have been without her interfering in their lives.
“I’m sure he called the Secretary; he’s been in and out of the bathroom all day. You know, nervous stomach. The Secretary had a fit; he’s sending more men, money, and equipment. No one’s getting near these kids, believe me.” Coarseni shook his head in disgust. “There’s more bad news. Mores released Garez, you know that release and track bullshit? They lost him during a southern tier rainstorm--the satellite tracking system has a little glitch, when it rains it goes on the blink. Mores freaked. When the rain stopped they found Garez just outside of Olean, dead.”
“Dead? What the hell happened?”
“Yeah that’s what I said, dead. We don’t
know what happened, Mores is working on it.”
“Notify the squad leaders--we need to meet first thing in the morning.” MacJames again looked towards Mitchelli and his family in the bed. “What did I get him into? I should have known, I should have held my ground with the Secretary.”
“Hey Angela, you did what you were ordered to do. I got to say, you and Freed hit one out of the ball-park with Mitchelli, hell of a job. Mamma mia, the man’s a devastator. Buckala is as tough as they come too; that SOB doesn’t like anyone. But he respects Mitchelli. Boss, you did a good job. We’re all just doing our jobs. We’ll get through, this I know it.”
“What makes you so confidant?” She looked at Coarseni, who was ogling over Stazi breasts as he spoke.
He pulled his eyes away from Stazi to respond. “When I was in combat, we were scared. Yeah we acted cool, but none of us thought we were going to live. My buddy and I went out on patrol one night. We were tight, an Irish pug from New York. We looked like salt and pepper when we went out, he was blonde haired blue eyed, and I was, you know, a dark Italian. Well on patrol one night outside of Bagdad, an IED took out our Humvee. In the early years, they weren’t armored. The bomb ripped that truck apart like a tin can. You couldn’t even tell what it was, it was twisted real bad. My friend’s body looked the same way, his guts…” Coarseni choked up with emotion. “I held what was left of him in my lap. He was trying to stuff his parts, his guts, back into his body. God, what a mess. He kept rambling on, begging me to look for all his parts. He was pleading with me. Then he stopped and started crying, he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He kept apologizing because we weren’t going to rip up the Big Apple when we came home. The horror of his mangled body is stuck in my brain. I didn’t think I’d ever get in a Humvee or any Goddamn car again. Those frickin’ IEDs, those are terror weapons. I needed to clear my head. I had to look forward to the future. My wife, my kids; those girls got me through the rest of my combat tour.” MacJames put her hand on Coarseni’s shoulder as he spoke.
“That divorce kicked the shit out of me,” he said. “My kids drove me nuts, not to mention those poor young bastards that we haven’t been able to find for two years. My dreams were coming back. I had these dreams with Mike, he was always begging me to find his body parts and put him back together. Mike’s begging me, ‘DOM PUT ME BACK TOGETHER! WHAT THE FRICK IS WRONG WITH YOU?’ I’m frozen in the dreams, I can’t move, I’m just crying, watching my friend die. I couldn’t sleep for weeks, and for the second time in my life I thought of pulling the big switch… well I was very down.” He turned away from MacJames and looked at Mitchelli getting up from bed, wearing a pair of black basketball shorts. Stazi was putting her hands all over his body, helping him out of bed. “Then the dreams stopped. Your boyfriend there, he had something to do with it. I don’t know if it was the day on the boat when he got me talking to my daughter again, or watching him argue with Freed, man he wouldn’t let up. Who does this guy think he is? A frickin’ builder who’s he telling us, the professionals, how to run our investigation. He’s choosing who he wants to work with, frick’ him! But--” Coarseni raised his right hand pointing his index finger towards the ceiling. “Then things started to fall into place, that frickin’ builder’s instincts were pointing us in the right direction. We looked at those satellite images a thousand times; he saw something we couldn’t. Who the hell would have figured that? Stuart, that old man pulled one out of his ass. I don’t know why but for laughs I started watching the security tape of Peter in his combat training. I watched that video a hundred times. Each time I noticed something new. I watched the whole tape, three hours, or so before the fight. Peter was in that combat class with men half his age, at the peak of their physical fitness. He was paired with this tall agent in training, maybe the kid was twenty-three, he was kicking the shit out of Mitchelli. You imagine someone taller than Mitchelli kicking his ass. I checked Baltimore’s records the tall kid played defensive end for Notre Dame.”
Mind Kill- Rise of the Marauder Page 40