Deep Cover

by Edward Bungert

  "Food!" said Alex.

  "Race ya," added Walsh.

  "Wash those hands," ordered Amy. She looked at Walsh. "All of you."

  A few minutes later they were seated around the kitchen table, an extended counter where they could sit two on each side. The boys sat opposite each other on their booster seats. Walsh and his wife worked together to get the counter set and to serve the boys their portions of chicken and broccoli spears.

  Alex stared at his plate, elbows on the counter, his tiny fists pressed into his cheeks. "I don't like broccoli." He pronounced it bwockly.

  "It's good for you," said Walsh. "Make you strong like Sir Galahad." Martin raised his arms and flexed his huge biceps.

  "I don't want to be strong."

  "It'll make you smart," added Amy.

  "How?"

  Your brain will grow bigger."

  Alex held his arms extended over his head. "Big like this?"

  "No," said Walsh. "What Mommy means is that the food will help you develop your ability to think better."

  "I don't want to think better."

  "Do you ever want to watch another wrestling match on TV again?" his father retorted. Alex nodded. "Then eat it." Martin turned to his left and looked at Anthony, who was stabbing at his dinner with his Snoopy-shaped fork. "You too, squirt."

  Amy shook her head, smiling.

  "I know, I know," said Martin. "Sometimes it just comes down to 'do it because I say so.'" "Try being home with them all day."

  "I think I'd do a pretty good job."

  "Oh, that I'd love to see," Amy said playfully. "I'd give you half a day and—" The ringing of the telephone cut her short. Walsh reached over to his right and picked up the receiver before the second ring.

  "Hello.

  “…Hi, Dalton.

  "…Yeah, I was sitting next to it.

  "…Well, we're having dinner actually. I can call you right back..." A long pause. Amy scowled at her husband. Walsh held up his hand to reassure her. "I don't think Thursday would be a problem. If it is, I'll call you.

  “…Okay.

  “… Good talking with you, too…bye."

  "How is he?" asked Amy.

  "Mommy, can we watch TV while we eat?" asked Alex. Without a word Amy moved away from the counter and turned on the small portable, set atop a wooden replica of an antique ice chest. The boys continued to pick at their food while watching Loony Toons.

  "He's fine," said Walsh, waiting for her to return to her seat. "He wants me to meet him in Washington on Thursday. Says he needs help with a case." Amy looked suddenly alarmed. "I know what you're thinking. Just because…"

  "Because the last time you worked with Dalton Leverick and went deep cover, you almost…we almost got killed."

  "Amy, please." Walsh was speaking softly but intently. "I'm just going to talk with him. Why are you jumping to conclusions like this?"

  "I know you, that's why. You don't think I can see how dissatisfied you've become with what you're doing. Sure, right after the biker operation was closed, it was a relief and we were both glad to be alive and out of danger. But, little by little, I could see you growing bored with investigating financial and computer fraud. It's like you got a taste of something and part of you wants it. Maybe even needs it."

  "Amy. My job is fine. It's important work and I have no plans to change." Walsh looked down at his half-eaten dinner and he poked at a spear of broccoli. She's right. Goddamn it, she's right on the money. He had known shortly after Operation Biker was put to bed that the work he was doing in Los Angeles wasn't cutting it for him. That's why he'd jumped at the chance to work in New York. To go after some big fish in one of the world's biggest centres of commerce. That's why he'd moved his family to this quiet town in New Jersey and commuted into Manhattan to Federal Plaza every morning. To feel some of that excitement. Some of that danger. Even if it was only some hot-shot Wall Street types selling non-existent stocks, or some fast-talking good old boy from the South asking for up-front commissions for secured bank loans, it was still undercover. But it didn't last long. An hour of face-to-face undercover work and thirty hours of combing through documents, computer disks, listening to recorded phone conversations, and giving depositions. An endless mound of details and paperwork.

  He reached across the counter and placed his hand on top of Amy's. "I think I can live with it." They both looked down at the scar on his right forearm where the Henchmen's sergeant-at-arms had slashed him. Amy smiled listlessly and they turned their attention to the laughter of the children. Wile E. Coyote had just gotten his head flattened by an anvil.

  Martin Walsh propped up three pillows against the headboard of the bed. He turned on the reading lamp and settled in with his book, Deep Cover, written by retired DEA agent Michael Levine. Amy had just walked Alex back to his room for the third time and was busily taking out her contact lenses, brushing her teeth, washing up, and whatever the hell else took her so long to do every night before bed. No matter, really. Walsh was engrossed in reading about Levine, who under the cover of a big-time drug dealer named "Luis," went into Panama to initiate a deal with some Bolivian officials.

  After a final look at Alex's and Anthony's sleeping forms, Amy came into the bedroom. She was wearing a cream-colored silk pyjama top, the shape of her nipples pressing against the soft material. Her white-laced G-string panties were just visible below the shirt-tail. She closed the bedroom door quietly, the only sound the distinctive click of the latch. Walsh looked up from his reading. Amy placed her hands behind her head and posed seductively, revealing more of her shapely frame as her pyjama top lifted.

  "Somehow I get the feeling that you're not planning to catch up on any reading tonight," said Walsh.

  "Nothing gets past you, does it, Mr. Special Agent?"

  Amy sauntered over to Martin's side of the bed, unbuttoning her top as she walked. Walsh was wearing a loose-fitting Everlast shirt and a pair of black bikini underwear. Amy mounted him, grabbed the book from his hands, threw it on the floor, and began to rub her groin against his. He placed his fingertips on her breasts, gently massaging them in a circular motion, working his fingers to her nipples, and then pinching them ever so slightly between his thumbs and middle fingers. She gasped with pleasure, increasing the tempo of her movement. His erection seemed to pulsate with the rhythm of his racing heartbeat. He slipped Amy's pyjama top off and pulled her down to him. He removed her underpants and rolled her over. Amy pulled off his shirt, almost ripping it. Walsh worked his underwear off as he slid his tongue down to Amy's breasts, stopping at each nipple and gently closing his teeth on them. Amy moaned approvingly, then pushed his head down, purring like a kitten. Walsh went to work, Amy thrusting her pelvis against his tongue. She let out a soft cry as she climaxed and Walsh guided his body upward, entering her wet vagina smoothly. Her breath taken away by his penetration, she sucked air in short gasps.

  Martin ran his fingers through Amy's hair, his tongue deep in her mouth, the tempo of his thrusts increasing in intensity. Amy wrapped her legs around the small of his back and met his thrusts with her own until they collapsed—hot, sweaty, and satiated.

  They lay on their backs for several seconds before Amy let out a giggle.

  "You sure make a guy feel great," said Martin. "Can I ask what you find so entertaining?"

  "I'm sorry. I just thought of something funny."

  Martin turned toward her, supporting himself with his left elbow. "I'm listening," he said, feigning anger.

  "It's your son Alex." She covered her eyes with her hands as if she was embarrassed by what she was going to say. "He goes running through the house this morning, yelling, 'My penis is sticking straight up, my penis is sticking straight up.'"

  She laughed loudly.

  "What did you say to him?" Martin was laughing himself.

  "I just shrugged my shoulders. Didn't know what to say. When he asked me why, I told him that I didn't have a penis, so he should ask his father. He must have forgotten abou
t it." Amy leaned over and kissed Martin on his forehead. "So what are you going to tell him, Daddy?"

  Walsh placed his hand under his chin, thought for a moment, then said, "Son, it's time we had a little heart-to-heart."

  "Yech! How clichéd."

  He held up his hand. "Wait, wait. Let me finish." He cleared his throat. “‘Now, son,' I'll say. `A man has two brains. The one in his head and the one in his penis. When he's a little guy like you, the brain in his head is large and the brain in his penis is small. As he gets older the brain in his head becomes smaller and the brain in his penis becomes larger. When he's full-grown, he does all his thinking with the brain in his penis. So your penis sticking straight up is just that brain beginning to think for itself.' "

  Amy roared with laughter and began to beat Martin savagely with a pillow. He wrestled it away from her and held her down, her arms pinned to her sides.

  "You're my prisoner now. Assaulting an FBI agent is a serious offense, young lady."

  Amy could feel his cock starting to get hard again. "Wow. Not bad, Agent Walsh. You been taking vitamins or something?"

  "No. Just bwockly. It is brain food, you know."

  Brian Maxwell had grown up around professional wrestling. As a boy he would sweep up after the wrestlers worked out at the Lion Heart Gymnasium in St. Louis, where he worked for Sam Munchnik, the legendary promoter who had founded the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948. "Keep up the good work, my boy," Sam would say, giving Brian's head a pat, then stuffing a dollar bill into the ten-year-old's shirt pocket. Brian would sweep the concrete floor and listen to Sammy M. discuss the business of wrestling with Pinky Carmichael, Rotten Joe Selby, and "Curious" George Weeks.

  At seventeen Brian Maxwell moved to Pittsburgh and worked full-time as an assistant promoter and helped put together the championship bout between Edouard Carpientieri and Lou Thesz. Three years later, Brian went solo and had founded Brian Maxwell Productions and the World Wrestling Association. Now in its fourth decade, the WWA boasts offices in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Over forty percent of the wrestlers in the current circuit are WWA wrestlers and are responsible for millions of dollars in merchandising, video, and broadcast rights.

  Brian Maxwell sat behind his mahogany desk in his Eighth Avenue office, puffing on a Macanudo cigar and skimming an article in the New York Post. STILL NO LEADS IN WRESTLEMANIAC CASE. The telephone rang and he snatched it up on the first ring.

  "What?"

  "Maxie? It's Artie Pompolous. How are ya?"

  "Same shit, new day. How goes the relationship with the public?"

  "That's why I'm calling, Maxie. The Times, Post…even the fucking Jersey papers are up my ass because you won't talk to 'em."

  Maxwell jammed his cigar into the ashtray and spun around to face the window. The rush hour was just beginning, busy commuters hustling up and down 57th Street, disappearing underground and climbing into cabs and buses. The six-foot-three wrestling mogul grunted and stood up from his chair. Still looking out the window, he shouted into the receiver, "What the fuck do you think I pay you and your shit-head P.R. firm thousands of my good dollars every year for, scumbag? I'll tell you what for. To keep motherfuckers like those faggot reporters out of my ass and up yours until I say I'm ready to talk to them."

  "Maxie, Maxie, Maxie. Don't have a fit, eh? They just want a statement. Something to throw to the wolves, you know."

  Maxwell turned around and placed the phone receiver in its cradle, simultaneously depressing the speaker button. He then began to pace around the room like an anxious father-to-be.

  "Maxie. You still there?"

  "Yeah, I'm here." Max walked over to a black leather punching bag which hung suspended from the ceiling by a chain wrapped around a steel beam. His massive hand gave it a murderous open-handed strike which seemed to shake the entire room.

  "What the hell was that?" shouted Pompolous, barely audible above the sound of the bag's chains rattling against the beam.

  "Just relieving some tension, Artie," said Maxwell. He continued to pace heavily back and forth, his girth making a thud with every step. Despite his cigar smoking and poor eating habits, Maxwell managed to keep his physique strong and youthful. He looked years younger than his true age, which the people around him could only guess to be around fifty.

  "Well, if you're calm now, I hope I can talk to you about our problem," continued the public relations man. "We gotta handle this!"

  "What you mean we, White Man?"

  "Come on, Maxie. Just a statement for the press. What harm can that do?"

  There was a long pause.

  "Okay, Mr. Pompo. Here's your fucking statement. Tell the pricks that Mr. Maxwell sends his heartfelt sympathy to the families of the killer's victims. That he hopes the police will soon apprehend the maniac, blah blah blah blah blah, and so on and so forth." Maxwell stopped at the punching bag and threw a thunderous elbow strike. "Okay, Pompo?"

  "Thank you, Maxie. Now, was that so hard?"

  "Fuck you." The line went dead and Brian Maxwell returned to his desk and plopped into his chair. He picked the smouldering cigar out of the ashtray and began to puff furiously. Idiots, he thought. They should only know.

  He clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back, and placed his feet on the desk. Business had never been better. In fact, since the Wrestlemaniac had begun to receive all the press, ticket sales were up. Heartfelt sympathy, sure. A couple more murders and we'll need to build bigger arenas. He chuckled at the thought. The Wrestlemaniac is probably the best thing that ever happened to wrestling. He began to laugh out loud. All the way to the bank, he thought. All the way to the bank.