“Would it have made a difference?” I asked.
“It would have been nice to tell the lady you were dancing with — maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “But then again, I can tell that it is an awkward subject for you.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Rest easy, Mr. Marine. I like the fact that you have kept this to yourself. I may have a little feminine curiosity about your bank-ability. It’s a basic part of female genetics. But I like it even more that in all your boyish attempts to impress me, you never used your checkbook.”
I wasn’t sure where this was going. In an effort not to look like the decent guy she was describing and to keep things more in balance, I came back with, “I like to live well. I like not worrying about money. I’m not planning on giving that up.”
It didn’t work. I was outgunned. She stepped closer, cocked her head a little to one side, smiled, and said, “That’s good to know. I will not feel so bad about it when you buy dinner for me later tonight.”
“Sure. Anywhere you want to go,” I fumbled.
“I take it that the family home in Boston that you have mentioned is something more than a hovel?” she continued.
“Beacon Hill. Full-time staff. You can get a BLT at 2 in the morning.” What the hell.
“Is that an invitation?”
My cell phone beeped at me — truly saved by the bell. Panic forestalled.
I usually check the caller ID before answering the phone. I figure that the caller, this goes for me too when I am calling someone, is making an assumption that we both can and want to talk right at that very moment. Maybe, when the phone rings, you just don’t want to talk. Maybe you just don’t want to talk to that person. All of this is OK with me. If I call you, and you just don’t want to talk to me at that moment, don’t answer. We’ll talk later — no problem. But in this case, maybe as a way to derail the conversation with Marilena so that I could mentally catch up, I flipped that phone open as fast as I could. I dropped the phone and had to pick it up. Please, let the call still be there.
“Hello.”
“Dr. Briggs? Are you there?” a voice inquired. It was a female voice that I categorized as “medium-female.” It was not at either end of the female voice spectrum. The spectrum that is bordered by lilting soprano on one end and finishing out with a deeper, lustful timber at the other. It was in the middle. A medium-female. A medium-female whom I did not know. With my luck I had just stepped from the frying pan into the fire.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you at first.” Marilena smiled at the lie that covered my clumsiness. Even better, clumsiness that she knew she had caused.
“I’m so glad you answered,” my caller said with genuine pleasure. “This is Alison Montgomery.”
The last four words brought me back to reality. I knew the name if not the medium-female voice. Alison Montgomery was the president of the CID Society and the person that Ron had reported to. I had never met her, but he had spoken of her often. She had been instrumental in getting him to leave his academic posting to run the Research and Clinical Trials Department at the society.
“Is this a convenient time to talk?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said as I walked to the window and looked out. I looked toward the southeast, in the general direction of the CID Headquarters. I wondered if she was in my line of sight.
“To begin with, I want to express my sympathy for the loss of your brother. He was more than a senior member of our team. He was a true leader and my most highly valued friend at the society. Although I won’t compare my loss with yours, we have both been separated from a great man. Please let me say that I am sorry again.”
I made the appropriate thank-you for her sentiment and her kind words.
She continued, “Having said that, you can only imagine the pain and embarrassment I am feeling having learned the details surrounding your visit here today. To say that I was devastated is not an exaggeration in the least. I have just expressed my anger at the individual who asked you to leave your brother’s office. I sincerely hope that this incident will not stand between you and me.”
“I don’t know why it should, Ms. Montgomery.”
“I would like to meet you as soon as it is convenient and discuss an idea that I hope you will agree to.”
“OK” I said tentatively.
“The New York City Chapter of our organization is having a significant social and fundraising gala event tomorrow evening at the Plaza. Would you please come?” Without waiting for me to answer, she continued, “I will make arrangements to have you seated at the President’s Table. It will be a very special evening with dinner, music, dancing, and will be attended by many people very important to the society. I sincerely hope that you will become one of them. I would very much like to start over and have you join us as my personal guest at this summer gala. Nothing is more important to me right now than making amends and getting to know you.”
I thought about it for a moment. Not that I was going to say no, it was too important an opportunity to get inside to let go by, especially for petty reasons. Still, I had to push a little. After all, she had blended an apology with an invitation to a fundraising event in the hopes that I would become one of those people “very important to the society”.
“Can I bring a date?” Marilena perked up, her eyes drilling holes into me.
A short hesitation followed. Was she counting heads and thinking about whom else she had to displace at her table, or was she trying to decide if it was appropriate to ask who my date was? Either way, she recovered quickly, “Of course. I look forward to meeting your companion as well,” giving me the opportunity to reveal “my companion’s” name. I looked at “my companion” across the room where she had nestled into the big couch and winked. I wasn’t planning on sharing her new designation with her given the nature of our interrupted conversation.
“I’m sure that she will be most pleased to meet you as well.” Marilena smiled and shook her head mildly admonishing me to be nice.
After waiting long enough to determine that I was not going to be more forthcoming with a name, Montgomery said, “I’ll have my assistant call you with the particulars tomorrow. But in the meantime, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night. There is a reception at 7:30 PM with dinner an hour later. Our gentlemen guests will be wearing formal attire.” The last part was absolutely the smoothest I had ever heard any woman ever tell a guy that he had to wear a tux. Truly impressive.
We said goodbyes and hung up. I looked at Marilena.
“How would you like to go to a black-tie event with me tomorrow night?”
“I would love to. You can buy me the appropriate evening gown tomorrow morning.”
“Huh?” I gulped.
HIGH HEELS
Marilena walked into the living room where I was sprawled trying to catch up on current events. We talked more about tomorrow’s society shindig and what we had to do to get ready. A more pressing event was dinner tonight. Earlier, I had carried her suitcase to the unoccupied guest room. She had been unpacking for the last ten minutes while I waited, listening to my stomach growl.
“Are you carrying?” she asked, inquiring if I had a firearm. I nodded back. She knew I was always armed. On a commercial flight I don’t have to check my sidearm. I have the correct paperwork signed off by the correct government officials making this a non-event.
I looked over at her, taking my attention away from the evening news. The female half of the newscaster team was a fashion plate, her male partner a somber reflection of the day’s events. I’m not sure why they call it the news. Every night they talk about pretty much the same stuff. Crime, corruption, man’s inhumanity to man, and somewhere near the end, a human interest story of little consequence that is supposed to restore our faith that the veneer of civilization while thin, is still a barrier protecting us all regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin. They do, however, sell it all with a smile and practiced banter. We are suppos
ed to believe that the light-comedy is extemporaneous even though the filler-talk ends just in time for the sponsor’s important message.
Standing next to the window, Marilena checked her pistol. She ejected the magazine and then checked to see if it was full. Setting the clip on a table, she pulled the slide back making sure that an errant cartridge had not found its way into the chamber. She carried the weapon because the FBI made her. She had never fired a shot in the line of duty, or, to the best of my knowledge, never while on the job pulled the weapon out of its holster or handbag or wherever she was keeping it these days. It seemed to move around a lot. She wasn’t afraid of it. I think she just hated the size of something she had no plans to use. There had been only one time when we were together in the field that warranted producing a firearm. She had left hers holstered, explaining to me later that one more gun, even one competently held by her, wasn’t going to be any help. The semiautomatic pistol she carried, the only one I think she owned was a Glock 23 chambered in the FBI’s minimum acceptable load, the .40 S&W. She didn’t carry an extra clip. The FBI had abandoned the “9 millimeter” several years ago after a gunfight gone bad. During a shootout in Miami, an agent had attempted to hit the driver of a car by aiming through the windshield at close range. The bullet had not penetrated the safety glass. Later testing showed that to consistently get the lead through the glass, you had to have more firepower than the previously vaunted “9 millimeter.”
Contrary to popular belief, today’s FBI agent is more likely to be a graduate of a law school or a public accounting program. The job, while occasionally requiring physical or firearm skills, is more cerebral than physical. Still, Marilena had bucked the academic trend. Her education had been liberal with little exposure to debits, credits, notwithstandings, or whereas’s. Like a lot of people raised in Europe, she had learned to speak several languages becoming fluent, articulate, and literate in seven that I knew about. Maybe there were more. I, on the other hand, massacre three languages and am simultaneously devoid of fluency, articulation, and literacy. American, a little Bostonian and just enough Mexican to get in trouble in a sleazy bar in Juarez are my three claims to linguistic achievement.
In addition to her language skills, she had the ability to handle delicate problems, minimizing embarrassment to all parties. European ambassadorial staffs expecting the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover to show up were always surprised and then put at ease when a lady of obvious European descent arrived representing Uncle Sam. She got results, earned respect, and was always in demand, keeping little problems from becoming big problems. Very frequently, she would get the initial call about an issue headed her way from a fast acting ambassador who wanted her involvement and not find himself saddled with your average, culture-impaired Fed.
Because the FBI had trained her in the basics of physical defense during her time at Quantico, her ability to protect herself from an overly amorous Belgian, Bosnian, or Brit was not in doubt. If Marilena had her way, she would not be armed at all. She forced herself to go to the practice range the minimum required by the bureau. She fully believed that in her assignment at the FBI she didn’t need a weapon. For the last six years, she had been stationed in Washington, D.C. as part of the bureau’s diplomatic liaison department. Agents in her department worked cases involving foreign diplomats and those crimes involving either the dignitary or their dependents. Her only additional responsibility was our team. The FBI had needed a liaison with us and somehow, somebody thought that all liaisons were the same, and her shop got the call. This was funny as my peers and I are about as far removed from the French ambassador as you can be and still be on the planet. Government-think at its best.
Just to tease me a little, she said with a smile, “Well, mine has all of its little bullets.”
“All of its little bullets?”
“Yes. All of them,” amusing herself with the obviously contrived, matter-of-fact response.
She said it this way because they were not just bullets, and she knew better. The lead bullet is only one of four cartridge parts, the others being the case, the primer, and the propellant. What you feed into the clip is a cartridge or, if you prefer, a round. She smiled as she looked in her bag knowing that the gun would get stuffed in the bottom under all of the other more important girl stuff. If a quick-draw could be defined as anything under three minutes and you could get someone to hold all of the junk that had to come out first, then she qualified as a quick-draw artist. Dirty Harriet she wasn’t. Then there was the gun itself. She had chosen the Glock because it was ugly — a brutal-looking tool without any physical charm. This almost made hiding it justified. I had called it a “Block” on more than one occasion due to its squared-off sides and ultra-utilitarian look.
“Somewhere in your family are people from a country that makes very nice firearms, both short and long. I still don’t know why a classy Italian babe doesn’t sport a classy Italian gun.” I said, thinking of my Benelli shotguns as well as my Beretta compatible with the FBI’s mandatory load.
“There is nothing classy about any of the cannons acceptable to my employer that he wants me to hide on my delicate person,” she said with some fake haughtiness. “I stand a far better chance of losing this damn thing than ever having to use it.” The pancake holster in the waistband of my pants would prevent me from losing mine.
We left the condo and headed off to dinner. Riding the elevator down was contrary to my usual rules about not being in any elevator whenever you can help it. We could all use the exercise that the occasional stairwell offered. A quick assessment of Marilena’s high-heeled sandals had eliminated the stairwell as an option. Exiting through the lobby brought out the night-team of doormen who had obviously been filled in by the day shift and did not want to miss the “looker” staying with Briggs. The fan club added more members. We would soon have enough for a New York chapter.
The restaurant I selected was only four blocks away to the south and deemed within range of shoes, even those with elevated heels, provided of course that an arm was available for support both to and from. I moved Marilena to my right side placing me between her and the street, as was drilled into me by my prep school mentors when I was in young gentlemen’s training. She latched on, and off we went enjoying the cool evening, yesterday’s heat and humidity having vanished.
We crossed the first intersection and moved less than ten paces along the sidewalk when I noticed a horse-drawn carriage in the street coming our way. Suddenly it stopped, the surprised driver reigning in the horse. A car’s engine close to our side of the street revved up, loudly announcing its approach behind us. Moving as fast as I could, I turned toward Marilena and scooped her off her feet, my legs driving hard launching us both over a line of hedge bushes. We hit the ground side by side. The hedges, now behind us, were exploding out of the ground, some in pursuit as if they had minds of their own. Not stopping, I held on tight to Marilena and added to our momentum. We rolled entwined together across a small lawn rapidly changing places, left and right, top and bottom. Marilena was no longer a captive participant in an unplanned and painful detour. She rolled with me, energetically helping us move as one, away from the street. To my eyes the world had become a rotating panorama of sky, a smooth gray granite wall, green grass beneath us, and above, airborne bushes ripped from the ground frozen in haphazard trajectories. I tried my best to focus on that part of the revolving montage that was the homicidal car, now penetrating the defending foliage, determined to hunt us down and crush us. I took a sprinkler head in the back, the pain ignored as I did all I could to keep us moving. The car, revolving in and out of view, was closing on the immovable building that we were fast approaching — the stone facade had become a second hazard to life and limb. Fully through the hedge line, the metal beast was a blur of yellow, bumper chrome within inches. Marilena took the brunt of the final collision with the granite wall of the building. An inelastic collision — her head protected from the stone wall by one of my encircled arms, my elbow sen
ding an electric shock up to my shoulder — nowhere else to go. Marilena was back against the wall and facing me. I pulled her into my body while pushing hard toward the stone, trying my best to protect her. Her eyes were wide with fear yet never closing as they remained fixed on the moving metal, her body rigid against me waiting for the crush of the car. The car turned — its course now parallel to us and the building that we were plastered into; wrenching more shrubbery into the air it moved back to the street, the granite’s proximity scaring it away. I heard the retreating vehicle complain as it came down off of the curb in two metallic crunches — then it was gone.
REASSESSMENT
I took a quick physical inventory. Anxious inquiry hurried along the neural pathways to distant limbs. The internal sensory system quickly reported back that as far as the pain senders were concerned, the damage was limited to bumps and bruises. Knowing that sometimes an immediately life-threatening trauma can be painless, I turned to the external senses. With just the streetlights casting a dim glow, I could not see much of either of us. No help there. From experience I know that deep laceration, the kind that can cause you to bleed out, is often first detected by the sense of smell, the injury site not yet signifying damage with pain. Significant blood loss has a smell that is metallic. It is a distinctive odor that smells like copper sheet or tube that has just been sheared. Only after the smell will you will feel the slippery wetness of plasma and corpuscles confirming what your nose already knows. I didn’t smell any new pennies, could not detect any leakage.
There would not be much to see of the car that had almost killed us even if I scrambled upright as fast as I could. I sure couldn’t run it down even if it was still in sight. My concern was focused on Marilena and the possibility of spinal injury. If she had been seriously hurt, then care would be needed in the disentanglement process. It was time for deliberate movement, not adrenaline-driven flailing.
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