by Faye, Carmen
He woke drenched in sweat and gripping his pillow hard enough that the seam had broken.
Making it to the coffee pot, he put the makings together and started the brew. From his stash, he put out a line of cocaine and sent that into his sinus. Then he grabbed a cold bottle of beer and headed for the shower.
Between the steam and hard streams of water, the cold beer, and the cocaine, his chemistry was shocked enough to reset and the emotional hangover was gone as he dried off.
He dressed for riding, as he normally did, and was just pouring his first cup of coffee when he heard a Harley engine gearing down in front of his house and then coming up his driveway. There, the engine powered down. He began walking to the front door, fairly sure the engine was Brian's Lowrider. Opening the door, before his visitor could knock, he found the redhead on his porch. "Morning, Brian. Coffee?"
"That would be good. Glad you are up already," Brian said as he walked past and into the living room.
"Why's that?" Cole asked, deciding the morning was nice enough to leave the door open and take advantage of the fresh air.
"Well," Brian replied, removing his leather jacket and revealing his dual-shoulder holster, "I hate waking people up when I want to ask them a favor. It always feels like I got the favor already if they weren't pissed off about being woken up."
Cole noticed that the guns Brian was carrying weren't the hand cannon twins, but what looked like twin 9mm, "Didn't lose your cannons, did you?" he asked, heading back to the kitchen to pour Brian a cup of coffee.
"No. Truth is I don't normally wear them. I use them at the range and I was planning on going to the range that evening before everything went down. They are custom-built and designed .600s, and were made by my grandfather. He was a gunsmith and designer for Smith & Wesson all his life. He made those by hand. Machined every part, dyed every screw, and even the casings are his. So, they aren't really the things you want to use on a daily basis," Brian explained.
"Wow," Cole breathed and passed him his cup. "So grandfather was obviously into you learning to shoot."
"I was firing a .22 by the time I could ride a bike. Started competitions at twelve and won my first the following year," Brian agreed and added, "My dad, though, he was the battle and strategy lover. He had these, well, hate to call them toys, but that's what they were. Anyway, he would create and recreate scenarios over and over. I would watch him play his war games in the garage for hours, and around the time I was competing as a marksman, I was pointing out things my father missed in his strategies."
Cole studied him, "So, young start and then what? Special Opts? Military?"
"College and then Langley," Brian replied.
"Seriously? CIA?"
Brian smiled, "Seriously. CIA, SAD/SOG and black opts. Five year contract."
"So, um, what happened? If you don't mind me asking."
Brian smiled and nearly laughed, "Nothing. The contract ended and I never really got into it, so I didn’t sign another. I mean, it was never going to be what I wanted to do with my life. It just wasn't. So I spent basically five years training and retraining, and then training some more for some seriously intense tactical operations. And then I was done. I came back to Chicago and now I'm riding with you."
"No wonder George put you on the security list so fast," Cole chuckled and then added, "So all that stuff about it being the lifelong commitment and shit is just shit."
"Only in the action movies, which I see you watch quite a few of," Brian agreed, looking over Cole's stacks of DVDs.
"Hey, that's where I've learned some of my best tactics, so don't knock them," Cole said with mock offense.
"With your memory skills, I don't doubt it, actually," Brian suggested.
"Yeah, well… so what is the favor?" Cole asked, changing the subject.
"I'm making a local drop, North East, up the coast, about three hours from here. The group is a regular of the club and this is a regular drop. Three kilos. But, it’s my first time. I was hoping you wouldn't mind riding win?" Brian asked.
"Or," Cole suggested, emptying his cup and washing it out, "You decided that since all I was going to do today was mope around the house, wallowing in depression that you would get me into the wind before it really got ahold of me."
"Well yeah, that, too. But it really is my first time," Brian confessed with a smile.
Cole came back out of the kitchen, "For future reference, use the I'm nervous about the run line before telling the mark you've been a death-squad protégé since puberty."
"Yeah, that might be more effective. Thanks," Brian agreed, "but you're coming anyway, right?"
"Yeah, I'm coming anyway, because you're right. That's exactly what I was going to do today and being in the wind along the coast sounds much better. I'll wallow tonight at the club," Cole told him.
"I'll wallow with you. Might pick up some good techniques for future use," Brian told him.
The wind blew out the remaining lead fuzz from his dreams last night and cleared his mind of everything -- even her. Not the pain and not the hole, but the thoughts and, for Cole, that was more than expected. He doubted if the hole was going to fill. Ever. She was it. She was everything. And now there was nothing where she once was.
Brian and Cole rode side by side down the highway and then up the frontage roads. They were naturalized to one another now – aware and tuned to the other's engine sounds, and how the other tended to take a corner or change a lane. This comfort level with the other's style of riding made the journey even more enjoyable and, perhaps, even therapeutic. When they pulled off the road and up a narrow, barely paved stretch for a mile, then left into a narrow dirt path, Brian took the lead and Cole followed at a distance far enough back that he could get to his gun before riding into the same difficulty Brian may have been attacked with.
The dirt road opened up into a small-circled clearing, more like a turn-around really, with a rising twelve-foot, bare dirt cliff wall to the right and heavy tall grass to the left. In front of them were two men and a camp table. The camp table had a large black duffel, which Cole assumed was the payment.
Cole waited by the bikes, letting his ears scan the area around him and letting his eyes go wide – at least that's what he called his method of visual surveillance. He focused on no particular spot while extending his peripheral vision as far as possible. He wasn't looking for objects, but, rather, movement from unexpected areas. He developed this method as a boy when walking through the neighborhoods on his way home from school, attempting to watch everything at once.
Brian made the exchange and nothing flickered or reflected. Cole was positive there were men laying down in the tall grass to his left, but then he was here with gun as back up, too, so no harm unless they made a move. Brian was just about to go to his bike when a car engine, something small, rushed up the road, slamming on its breaks before colliding into the parked bikes.
The doors of the small Honda flew open as men got out, holding weapons. Cole and Brian drew their guns with equal speed. Then flames erupted from the edge of the cliff above and from the high grass below, catching the men in the Honda between showers of gunfire that twitched and danced their bodies like puppets.
The gunfire ended and Cole looked around, and then back to the buyers, "Obviously not yours, but not ours either."
"So we gathered since you were ready to blow holes in them," the man with the coke said. "We're out of here. Good luck."
"Luck," Cole agreed.
When Cole turned his attention to Brian, he found the redhead looking over his bike, checking various spots like under the fenders. He found what he was looking for inside the left saddlebag, "Armature and mass produced, but unfortunately effective, as well."
"What's that?"
"Tracking device. Basically it is a cellphone with GPS, which connects to a receiver display for the hound," Brian explained.
"What made you look for it?" Cole asked, walking to his bike.
"That car didn't follow us
. I never saw it and it was far enough behind to take this long to catch up. The men inside didn't know where they were going, because no one would knowingly drive into a tactical ambush site like this on purpose. They would have waited for us to come out with the cash. So… tracker."
Cole got on his bike and listed the steps of their attackers, "Follow us in, blast us, take the money, and drive away. Pretty straight forward. So, we have a bit of homework to do later, like finding out who knew you were making a run today and who knew it would be local. Let's move."
Brian jumped on his bike, "Jim and Bear. That's it." Then he started his engine and they rode out of there, and back to the main road where they opened up the engines and thundered in the direction of Chicago.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
There were two things that bothered Cole about this seemingly straightforward attempt to ambush the exchange. The first was that he recalled that car being parked near his house as they rode out earlier and the second was that he recognized one of the men. His mind flashed up the memory of seeing the driver once with Antonio.
If they had the tracker already in Brian's saddlebag, why park so close to the house with four men in a small Honda that could be easily spotted? With four men in that car, in his neighborhood, they would be noticed and make people nervous. They could have been on another block or even three blocks away where they would never be spotted. Wasn't it more likely that they slipped the tracker into Brian's saddlebag after he arrived and came into the house? And if so, who were they really after?
Knowing that the driver was likely one of Gabriel's men suggested that Gabriel was still after retribution for Antonio and Davis -- or for taking Nicole in the first place. But Gabriel declared the war over, yesterday, and paid a million dollars in damages fees for doing exactly the same thing. Cole didn't ask if the man was insane enough to call a cease-fire and then continue to attack. The answer was of course he is.
At the gas station, Cole requested that Brian hold back on reporting the failed and faulty ambush.
"All right, I'll do that, but can you tell me why?"
Cole gave him his gut feelings on the matter. "This could throw everything back into war mode. As it is right now, Gabriel is nothing to the club. Nothing. In other words, open game."
Brian processed, "You're going to kill Gabriel."
Cole nodded, "And I want him to feel safe enough to come out of that fortress of Lou's men to start making his regular rounds again."
"Where you can reach him," Brian concluded.
"Yes," Cole nodded. "This is personal, Brian. You don't have to do this and I won't be angry if you report the ambush and what I've just said. Nothing will change between us. But I want him, Brian and I don't want to wait a month to get at him."
"I already said I was going to do as you asked and nothing has changed my mind yet. If your suspicions are true, and they make more sense than the fumbled drug deal raid theory, Gabriel is going to keep trying.
"Besides, the drug deal raid theory is wholly based on the idea that someone knew I was making a run this morning when I only learned about it last night close to midnight. Jim and Bear, to me, are beyond reproach. On top of that, it suggests that those men knew what run I was making, but not to who. The customer is a regular drop. How could they know so much and miss connecting and obvious information? No, I don't buy the drug raid idea either. They were after one or both of us. It was a hit squad, not a drug raid."
"I want at least three days to let the dust settle and watch Gabriel before a war is begun again. If I end him, no war will be required," Cole noted.
"Want some help?" Brian asked, "He just came after me, as well. The man is a psychopath and needs to be put down."
"Won't turn you down, that's for sure," Cole told him, "but right now, I have a date with serious wallowing and I intend to wallow and try to make sense of what happened yesterday, because it still doesn't fit. It just doesn't. I mean, if she really wants to just leave like that, sure, fine. But god fucking damn it, she didn't want to do that when I left her. And then less than two hours later, she just flips? She never felt like someone who acted without some planning and prep work. It just doesn't work. But she left on her own and went back there willingly." Cole closed up his gas tank and hung the hose a little roughly.
"I'm missing something. Likely, something obvious," he mumbled.
"Let's make this drop and get a beer," Brian suggested.
"Let's do that," Cole agreed.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Max Rozzi was coming close to being fifty years old. It was amazing to him how little he could actually remember about his thirties. Now his forties were gone. When his jet touched down, he felt good being back in Chicago. The visit with his daughter in San Diego was good for both of them – far better than he expected and only possible because of a unique woman.
Thinking of Nicole, he decided to drop in on her. It was a boundary issue, yes, but he wouldn't stay. Just drop by, give her a diamond necklace, and then leave. His regular day with her was only two days from now anyway.
He liked the idea so much, he told his assistant to arrange the purchase, his pickup, and the trip to her apartment. His assistant, Cathy, was a stunning redhead who was very willing to take care of his physical needs, but definitely lacked whatever it was Nicole offered. Nicole gave him an amazing gift when they first began. She gave him the ability to grieve his wife. He couldn't do it before Nicole.
Max's wife died at eleven in the morning from cancer. Max was on a plane to New York at three that afternoon. He was in Seattle the day of her funeral, Detroit for the following Thanksgiving, back in New York during the Christmas days, and so on -- leaving his sixteen-year-old daughter alone. Basically, his daughter lost both of them that day, mother and father.
He never grieved. It was there, the hole was there, and it was, without a doubt, the most pain he had ever experienced. But he simply couldn't grieve. There was never time and always something that had to be done: a call to make, a trip to make, an email to compose. Something. Always.
He heard about the call girls in Chicago of course, and was recommended to them several times and, one night, he made an appointment. Some actual relaxation would be good. Something more than a quickie with the assistant. A full night with a skilled woman.
When he arrived, she was beautiful, yes, but there was something else about her that drew him in. The eyes, maybe, or the come-hither grin she had. He asked if she would mind if he finished a few things up and she told him to relax, finish his day. She would get him a drink. Scotch? Sure.
Three hours later, he was showered and more relaxed than he could ever remember being. He was free of weights he couldn't recall carrying -- and they hadn't even had sex yet. Then he turned to her as they sat against the headboard together and she pulled back her hair, just like Joyce used to do. It was just the same.
He lost it. The sobs were tectonic. His whole world shattered. Nicole wasn't scared or amused or insulted or embarrassed. She just held him and let him bawl it out, which he did until sunrise.
"Max?" she asked.
He was expecting her to say something like it was time for him to leave, "Yes."
"I have today and tomorrow off, Max. Why don't you stay with me? I think you've been holding this too long, Max, and one night isn't going to clear it. So stay."
"I have a meeting --"
"You have a daughter you love and a wife you lost, Max. Reschedule or cancel. Nothing in that meeting is unique. Nothing you haven't seen before a hundred times. Nothing you are going to miss out on. Stay."
He stayed. Three nights and two days, he stayed with Nicole. She literally brought him back to life. Afterward, when he looked at the deals and decisions he had made since the day his wife died, he couldn't believe that he was the one who made them. Rank armatures made better investments! He could have made more money simply staying at home in bed. Who knew how far he would have spiraled down before something kicked in like self-preservation,
but he was already way past the point he felt comfortable with.
For the next few years, he remained a client of Nicole's. She continued to put a little more of his shattered heart back together every night he was with her. She often laid her head on his chest, listening as if she were trying to tune his heartbeat, to adjust the pulse and rhythms, and, hell, maybe she was, because he always felt more complete in the morning.
"Have you thought about after?" he asked her once. Asking her to marry him or come with him was strictly bad form. He knew the rules, but asking about after, that was just pushing the envelope.
"I don't think call girls retire, Max," she smiled. "Eventually I won't be pretty like I am now and then it will just be over."
"Do you enjoy it?" he asked, knowing that he was really toeing the line now.
She studied him for a moment and said, "I'm not proud of what I am and not really proud of what I do, Max, but I am very proud of how I do it. Does that make sense to you?"