by Raquel Belle
“What if we approach Larry and tell him that she’s been lying to him?”
“Well, nobody likes being lied to, so, if that’s the case you’re going to get a reaction out of him to start with,” I begin frying the bacon, “either he decides that he’s not going to raise a child that’s not his or he’s not going to care because he’s already built a relationship with the kid over two years. As far as the child is concerned, Larry is the only father he’s ever known. It’s not the child’s fault and my impression of Larry was that he’d be more inclined to be the second kind of guy.”
“Huh.” Charlotte wipes down the lettuce and gets it into manageable pieces.
I hand her a block of cheese, “Grate, please.”
She gets the grater out of the drawer and starts, “Look, just break this down for me, I’m an army girl, I don’t hang around all day watching crime procedurals and legal dramas on TV.”
“I’m thinking,” I say, “by the way, the boy’s name is Nicholas.”
She smiles, “It’s a good name.”
“There might be one version where you win, but it’s an ugly one.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, you tell Larry, then paint Mel as an evil person, convince him to leave, which leaves Mel destitute and unable to care for Nicholas, you demonstrate that she’s an unfit mother and as the only relative around…if you can prove you’re more stable and can raise the boy…you could do that. It’s going to take a long, long time and a fortune in lawyer’s fees and it’s also dependent on her parents not being more suitable than you. It’s also a dick move.”
“Yeah, that does sound ugly. She is the boy’s mother after all. She obviously wanted to have him, she didn’t have an abortion.”
I look over and she’s really overdoing it with the cheese, I think she’s on autopilot. “That’s enough,” I say.
“Sorry,” she sets the plate aside and puts the rest of the block in the fridge.
“Want to hear what I’d do?” I turn over the chicken.
“Yeah?”
“Well,” I’m going to make a dressing with Tabasco, Mayo, some white pepper, a touch of olive oil and a dash of lemon. I give the bread to Charlotte, “Slice in half, toast in bacon grease.”
She gets to work.
“I’d just go over and say hi. All you want out of this is to have a relationship with Nicholas. You don’t want to take him away from his mother and destroy her marriage. I mean, we don’t even know anything for sure right now. Maybe a nice, civil conversation would be the way to go.”
“Yeah, that sounds better.”
“You could tell her that we spoke and that you wanted to see Nicholas. You’re not there to cause any trouble, he’s your nephew and you want to help, you could offer to babysit. You can be the third caring adult in his life. Maybe your presence brings an extra level of stability to their lives. Maybe it gives Larry and Mel more time together to work on their relationship. I can’t imagine they have a lot of time to themselves at this point. It’s a place to start and you get to be aunty Charlotte. Whether Mel wants to tell Larry is totally up to her. Maybe after some time goes by it might get easier for her to do it because some trust will have been built.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to burn that,” I say. That bread is about to catch fire.
“Shit.”
“Best case scenario, by the time Ben gets out, aunty Charlotte is a major part of Nicholas’s life so you can introduce him to his dad as an uncle or something? Maybe finding out that he has a kid will give him the incentive he needs to keep on the straight and narrow.”
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” she gives me a shrewd look.
“It’s all the TV shows,” I laugh.
Jack comes in looking disheveled and sweaty, “Hey, what’re you guys up to?”
“Just fixing lunch and talking,” I put my arms out to him.
He comes to me, leans down and gives me a quick kiss on the lips.
“Stinky,” I scrunch my nose at him, “why don’t you wash up and then we can eat?”
“Yes ma’am,” he smiles.
He walks off and I see Charlotte giving me a strange look.
“So, what do you think?” I ask her.
“We just skipped through the shock, anger and disbelief all in one go, but I guess you’re right—a conversation would be the place to start. We don’t really know anything for sure just yet.”
“Yeah, this is a good thing,” I rub Charlotte’s arm and give her a smile, “you’ve got some family out there that you didn’t know about so it’s good.”
She’s staring in to space for a while but then looks up and gives me a half smile.
“Let’s take everything over to the table and we can assemble our own sandwiches, I have a feeling Jack’s going to want to make a monster,” I chuckle.
“Sure,” she says.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I say, “I think Mel is a fucking bitch, but maybe having Nicholas and Larry in her life has changed her—that’s what I’m hoping. It’s been three years, anything is possible. Just tread carefully.”
“Copy that,” she nods.
We set out the plates and the food on the table, I pour a beer for Jack and Charlotte and a soda for myself, she sits down and seems to still be in a bit of a daze as I bring the rest of the condiments and other random things… When I return to the table Charlotte is staring at me like she’s seen a ghost.
“What is it?” Maybe the news of her nephew has left her rattled.
“I’ve known him a long time,” she says, “and I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
I don’t know what to say. She stares at me like she can’t believe it. “I have feelings for him too, Charlotte, but we’ve only known each other a few days. Maybe you’re imagining it.”
“I’m not,” she keeps her penetrating stare on me.
Before I can say anything more, Jack comes down the stairs.
“What’re we having? I’m starving. I’d have helped but I needed to shave my time on the range. I got down to four and a half minutes.”
“That’s great,” Charlotte says, “That’s nearly the best time on record, aside from mine. And don’t worry about it, Deanna and I had a lot to talk about. Turns out I might have a nephew.”
“No shit?” Jack says.
***
We talked for a while and by the end our lunch Charlotte was feeling good about the fact that she might be an aunt. She told us she’d never entertained the notion of having kids herself and thought that at her age it would be unlikely that she would conceive, especially with all the torture she’d put her body through in the army.
She was happy that her family’s blood had passed to another generation.
I didn’t know why she was skeptical of falling pregnant though, she’s only thirty-five.
After lunch I helped Charlotte clean up while Jack packed our things into the Escalade.
We readied ourselves for the long drive back to Los Angeles and are standing on the porch when it’s time to say our goodbyes.
“It was good to see you, Jack,” Charlotte says and hugs him, “don’t take so long for the next visit,” she looks at me, “either of you.”
“Thanks for having us, Charlotte. I owe you one.”
“You owe me more than that,” she laughs, “but I stopped counting.” Jack laughs too. He goes down the steps to the car. I hang back. Charlotte and I deserve our own moment.
She turns to me for a hug, “It was good to finally meet you, Deanna.”
“You too,” I say, “aside from the part where you wanted to kill me,” I chuckle.
“It’s been…enlightening,” she says. She holds me at arm’s length, looks at Jack and then gives me a kind smile. She speaks under her breath, “I want you to be with him,” she chokes up a bit and says, “you make him happy.”
I feel my brow shoot up.
Charlotte rolls her eyes. �
��Just take the win, Deanna,” she sneers and gives me a light push.
I feel a grin spread on my face as I trot down the steps.
Chapter Thirty
Jack
We’re coming up on game time. These last two days of training have got the action juice in my blood pumping hard. I feel like I’m ready for anything…like the two years of sitting on my ass never happened.
Tomorrow is going to be a slam dunk. They won’t know what hit them.
The drive back to Los Angeles was without complications. We were well fed at Charlotte’s place so we only made one quick stop to stretch our legs.
I wanted to get to LA before dark, we’ve still got a lot to do. I had Deanna call Anton to make sure his tailor would be there waiting for me. I’m going to be hanging out with billionaires tomorrow so I need to look like one.
He’s setting up some other little knick-knacks for me as well, fake adhesive prints, a second car…stuff like that.
Deanna also called a makeup artist friend of hers, Alicia, who works in the movie business to come see us tomorrow afternoon. We debated whether or not we should, but Deanna vouched for her and made the argument that without her, I’d definitely have a target on my back—which I was willing to accept—but with Alicia we could vanish and no one would be the wiser.
Yes, we’re involving one more person, but Deanna said she could count on Alicia to keep her mouth shut. Even if she did talk, the only person she’d be able to finger would be Deanna—and she was willing to take that risk.
Deanna even used her phone to carefully plot out our routes tomorrow based on historical traffic data.
She’s so well prepared, it’s amazing. I definitely wouldn’t have got this all this done without her. She’s a Godsend.
We played our usual games and listened to music and talked. She was in good spirits and so was I.
I was in a much better mood coming back than when we were heading to the Barracks yesterday. All the uncertainty is gone. I’m ready for action and I know it.
Also, I haven’t passed out again…so that’s great, maybe it won’t happen again.
On the drive I asked Deanna about what it was like for her growing up and she told me all about Parkville and her friends and family back home. It sounded idyllic, maybe the kind of place we could settle down in once this is all over.
When it was my turn to talk about myself I tried my best to not make it suck, but even the stuff that I took joy in as a kid seemed to hurt her feelings. There was a sad “aww” for most things.
It’s weird. When you have no frame of reference you can’t make that comparison. Shoplifting and getting away with it, or being given a dollar by a stranger so you could buy an ice cream are good memories.
I didn’t know what it was like to always have money to buy ice cream if you wanted it at that age. I didn’t have a mom or a dad to tell me that I shouldn’t have candy before dinner…so it’s a bit hard to relate. At the group home we mostly had baloney sandwiches.
I still had a good time though. An eight-year-old can play with a tin can or a box and imagine it to be anything they want.
I had a stick that I used as a sword and I loved it. It’s all about perspective. You can make the best of something or only see the bad. Since I never knew what I was missing out on, I just have a different version of normal. I didn’t resent people who had families because I didn’t hang out with those people, so I really didn’t know what that was like.
I had my friends, the other guys in the group.
Sure, we grew up rough, but that teaches you skills. The way I look at it, you can complain about what you don’t have or you can feel good about the things that you do.
I know Deanna gets it too because she’s travelled all over the country and survived by her wits, and she did it alone.
You don’t need stuff—well, not that much of it. The bare essentials, fresh air and sunshine will do it for me.
I talked about Brenner, Ross, Lester, Daryl and Charlotte and what it was like running the team.
It’s strange to think that the reason Charlotte left was a direct result of Deanna turning Ben over to the DEA—that’s why we brought Daryl in that last year.
Deanna probably saved Charlotte’s life. If she hadn’t needed to come home for her brother and take over the business, who knows what would’ve happened?
What’s even more weird is that we met at that diner and wound up at the Barracks. It’s not exactly like a butterfly effect—bat your wings in Asia, cause a hurricane in Florida—it’s more like a case of things coming full circle.
The voice in Deanna’s head is starting to sound less crazy every day. Everything is connected.
On the drive in we’re treated to one of Los Angeles’s famous sunsets. You’ll never see anything like it anywhere else in the world. It’s purple and gold and everything in between.
We park in the garage, grab all our bags and head to the room. As soon as we’re inside we drop everything in the living room and head over to Anton’s with the rig Charlotte put together for me.
Anton introduces us to an aged Italian tailor whom he says he’s known for a long time. His name is Mario. He’s short, stooped and grey, but with a full head of hair. He’s got one of those broom bristle mustaches.
Deanna jumps onto a couch in the living room and starts flipping through the hotel magazines while Mario works on me.
I’m wearing Charlotte’s rig throughout the fitting but there’s no combination of padding that seems to be able to hide it sufficiently. It’s very small and light, but you can always tell that it’s there. There are straps on my thighs, shoulders, waist, and a small lump on my back.
I was expecting to wear something more like a prop suit that I could just tear away when I needed to, but then the problem became that those materials didn’t look authentic enough to pass for a real Zegna or Boss suit.
After about an hour of screwing around, Anton says, “This isn’t working,” in frustration.
“No shit,” I say.
“Options?” he asks the room.
“Finally!” Deanna says.
“What?”
“That was never going to work, I was wondering when you were going to give up. Thankfully,” she smiles, “I have a much better idea—The Godfather.”
“What?” He looks at her in confusion.
I, on the other hand, know exactly what she means.
“Michael goes to the meeting at the restaurant in the Bronx, they search him, he’s not carrying a piece, then he goes to the men’s room, the gun is behind the toilet?” She tells the story to Anton like he’s an idiot. I love it.
He squints at her.
She laughs. “We stash the pack in the men’s room beforehand, then at the right time Jack gets it and makes his move.”
I chuckle. “It could work. It does narrow my window a bit because I’m going to come out wearing the thing, but if I time it right…I should be okay. It’s risky, but I’m thinking all eyes are going to be on the egg, not on some guy coming back from peeing.”
“You said the place is locked up tighter than Ouma’s poes,” Anton says, “how’re you going to get it in there?”
“Ouma’s poes?” Deanna asks.
“Granny’s cunt,” Anton says.
She bursts out laughing and so do I. Anton and Mario join us. I don’t know if Mario understands though.
When we’re done with our hysterics, Deanna says, “I can take care of it. They’re only going to batten down the hatches tomorrow night, so we still have an opportunity. I’ll do a confused waitress trick.” She picks up her phone and looks at the time. “It’s 7:30, I could do it in the morning, but it’d probably be better to try now…just in case it doesn’t work, then at least we’ll know we have to come up with a different plan.”
“Then do it now,” I say, “do you need me?”
“No, I can handle it, what’s the men’s room like?”
“Well, there’re no cisterns on the toil
ets, they’re inside the walls, and that’s too obvious anyway, but there’s a vent on the wall at the last stall. Two Philips-head screws.”
“Sounds perfect,” Deanna says.
“It’s Conference room A, all the way at the top.”
“Yup.”
Anton opens one of the many tool bags he’s got laying around and fishes something out. It’s a small electric screwdriver. “Here,” he says, handing it to Deanna, “need anything else?”
“Nope, that ought to do it.”
“Leave the screw heads out a little bit so I can open it by hand,” I tell her.
She gives me a wink.
I hand her the pack and she walks off.
“I like him in the Zegna,” she turns to us and says on her way out, then blows me a kiss. “I’ll get dinner,” she closes the door.
***
Deanna
The first thing I do is change into something a little more road weary. I need to have the appearance of someone hanging onto their last thread of sanity. I need to reek of desperation. T-shirt, messy hair, but enough skin showing to flirt convincingly, so I go with my seldom worn jean shorts.
Then, I take Jack’s rucksack, empty it out and put Charlotte’s rig and the electric screwdriver inside. I go down to the garage, jump into the Escalade, GPS the Konquest building and get going.
The traffic isn’t bad at this time of night, even though it’s a Friday. I make good time getting there and find a parking across the street. It’s looking like a pretty calm evening.
I get out with the rucksack and head toward the massive revolving glass doors, then push through and enter. The place is just like Jack described it, very gaudy. I spot the bank of elevators, walk over and press the call button. It opens immediately. I get in and hit the button for the top floor.
It’s a long ride up, when the doors finally part I step out and see a medium sized Hispanic guy dressed in the hotel’s uniform. He starts to wave me off and shake his head—no—but I run toward him anyway. It’s motormouth time. I need to look flustered and panicked.
When I get closer to him he starts saying, “Lady you can’t be up here, this floor is—”