The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

“Then may I?” Ava asked, the request tingling her with sensations she had forgotten lay within her.

  “You may,” Rico said as he stood. Pepe stood as well. “Be aware though, he isn’t the biggest fan of your ‘partner’ as you refer to him, and he’d like to know what is going to be done to come to a…resolution to that issue.”

  “I understand,” said Ava.

  “We’ll inform him that you’re here,” Rico said as the two men prepared to leave. This time they shook hands with Ava, the respect on their side of the room having grown immensely during the brief conversation. Then they left together, disappearing through the arched doorway that led to the rest of the suite.

  Ava rose from her chair and walked around the table to face the archway. As she stood waiting, she felt her shoulders push back and her chest grow tout beneath the white blouse. Her hands smoothed any possibility of wrinkles against the strained pull of her skirt’s material. Her back arched, pushing her supple rear out even further, and then she stood straight, adding an extra half inch to the four her heels already gave her.

  A minute later, a man returned, alone. He stopped in the center of the archway when he saw Ava. They stood silently, eyeing one another head to toe.

  He wore patent-leather dress shoes, loose but nicely-fitted khaki pants, and a long-sleeved white linen shirt. He wasn’t a big man, but not small either – around 6’1, 190 pounds – and his face held the sad sexual features of a Victor Mature type. He was just as Ava remembered him, but better now. He’d lost many of his more boyish physical characteristics and become more of a man. His face had thinned slightly and he’d picked up another dozen pounds or so that she admitted he wore well, but he was still the Gonzalo she remembered from years ago.

  Their eyes locked for just a few seconds, but things were said in those moments of ocular telepathy that could never be articulated – expressions of sorrow, regret, passion, hatred, lust, love, hope, anticipation, and fear. If a picture could speak a thousand words, then the body language between Ava and Gonzalo could have filled a book.

  “Ava,” was all he could muster.

  She swallowed, and then uttered a soft “Hi.”

  All that fire and confidence she’d felt while sitting at the table with Rico and Pepe suddenly melted away in Gonzalo’s presence.

  He walked across the room and stopped just a foot from where she stood. Ava felt the pull – the force of gravity between them. It was as though he was wearing a magnetized vest and she was molded from solid steel. Suddenly, and before she could react, he stepped forward and reached around her, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close in embrace. She fell into him; her bosom pushed against his strong chest, her head nestled in against his neck. She was sixteen again – safe, secure, happy in the arms of the only man she’d ever loved.

  Nothing needed to be said. They let the ten years that had passed between them guide their bodies. But now it was different. As they tore away one another’s clothes and Gonzalo picked her up and laid her warm body upon the cool conference tabletop, Ava realized that they had learned much during those years. They had dispatched with the youthful selfishness that used to drive their sexual encounters. Now their practiced energies went toward gratifying one another. Ava was eager to show Gonzalo some of her new tricks, and he was willing to let her. And he was equally passionate about showing off a few new moves of his own that he’d perfected in her absence.

  Afterward, he rolled off the table, peeled her still-naked body from its wood surface, and laid her atop him in the velvety folds of the milk-white sofa where he took her again. This time, he slowed things down, trying to squeeze every touch, every breath, every movement, every sensation from ten years of lost passion, into a single hour.

  Once they were done, they lay together motionless, a tangle of arms and legs, Ava atop him, still gasping for breath, feeling the rapid pounding of one another’s hearts. It was as though they were one again. And Ava swore that it would stay that way. She’d lost Gonzalo once; she was not going to lose him again.

  Finally they’d calmed enough to speak. They lay together and talked of the old days. They talked of mistakes they’d both made. They talked about the present, and then they talked about the future and the mistakes they wouldn’t make again.

  “Let me take care of things, babe,” Gonzalo said, running his hand through her hair, and then down to rest upon the small of her back. “I screwed everything up before. I want to make things right. I want to take care of you.”

  “I don’t need to be taken care of any more,” Ava breathed, her cheek pressed against his bare chest that was slick with sweat.

  “I can see that,” he said. “But I’d like to try anyway.”

  She nuzzled down into him. “I guess that’d be nice. But I don’t want to be a housewife,” she grinned, lifting her head to look at him.

  “Hmm,” he smiled back at her, “I guess I can live with that. A working wife?” he pondered. “Yeah, that might be nice.” He reached down and squeezed her right butt cheek and then gave it a pinch, making her squirm even closer into him if that were possible.

  “I want us to be a team,” Ava said dreamily. “The team we never got the chance to be before.”

  “I like that,” he agreed.

  “But promise me one thing,” she said.

  “Anything,” he said back, rubbing his fingers lightly around her back, sending tingles up and down her spine.

  “Don’t do anything until I contact you. I remember how you are. You used to do things…stupid things without thinking, especially when it came to me. You’d let your emotions take over. This time, just be patient; I’ve got things under control. You have to trust me.”

  She looked at him. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

  “Always and forever, babe,” he grinned.

  “Good,” she laid her head back down. “Just let me handle this. I’ll contact you when the time is right. Just promise me that, okay?”

  “Okay,” Gonzalo squeezed her tight, “I promise.”

  * * *

  Upon arriving home, Ava found the entry door to the condo penthouse blocked by something behind it. She was able to force the door open just far enough to peek around inside. On the floor, horizontally in front of the door, lay Jake in a pool of his own vomit. A smashed tequila bottle lay next to him, and blood oozed out onto the polished white-marble floor from a cut to his hand.

  Ava pulled her head back, letting the door close gently, then she took a deep breath and rammed the door back open as hard as she could into Jake. She heard a groan as the door smashed into Jake’s side and slid him slightly so that she could squeeze her way around him and inside. She held her nose and stepped with distaste over Jake’s body. As she did so, she turned to look down at the still unconscious man. Starting at him, she hocked up as much phlegm as she could muster in her moisture depleted body and spit it down upon him. Then she walked to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass off the counter, and headed for the fresh air of the balcony.

  CHAPTER 13

  We heard Bushy’s car pull up out back of the apartment building about an hour after sunrise. It’d been four days since my encounter in the third-floor apartment with him and his boss, Ava.

  Will and I went downstairs to meet him.

  “Mornin’,” he nodded his greeting as we exited the building. Another man remained inside a waiting SUV parked about 50 feet behind Bushy’s ride.

  “Morning,” Will and I returned his salutation.

  The morning air already felt damp, and dark clouds hung on the western horizon.

  Our meeting with the bearded man was brief and to the point.

  “This here is your ride for the day,” he nodded at the car he’d driven.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Bushy handed me an envelope. “Here’s your starting point. He probably won’t be down before noon, but be there earlier than that just in case.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper.
There were two addresses written on it.

  “Memorize them,” Bushy said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Memorize the addresses. The first is your starting point. The second is where you’ll drop off the information you collect throughout the day. I’m not leaving them with you just in case you get caught. And remember, if you are noticed or do get caught, you don’t know us because we definitely won’t know you. Got it?”

  I nodded, staring at the addresses, reading them over and over again in my mind. I read them aloud to Will several times just to be on the safe side, and then I handed the paper and envelope back to Bushy.

  “Any questions?” Bushy asked.

  “Times, locations, and descriptions of people he meets with. That’s pretty much it, right?”

  “Right,” Bushy nodded. “And any other details you notice or think might be important. Here,” he handed me two pairs of binoculars. “These might come in handy.”

  “Thanks,” I nodded. “So we do this for a week and we get paid, right?”

  “That’s the deal,” said Bushy, walking back to the SUV. “I’ll be back at the same time tomorrow mornin’ with a new vehicle for you. I’ll give you that one and take this one. We’ll do that every mornin’ so it’ll be less likely he’ll notice he’s being tailed.”

  “Sounds good,” I said as Bushy got inside the SUV and its driver started the engine.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Bushy called out the passenger side window as he reached down to fish something from the glove compartment. “Here,” he said, beckoning me over so he could hand me a small vial of insulin. “Consider it a downpayment and a show of good faith.”

  “Thanks,” I nodded, taking the vial, my spirits lifted.

  “There’s plenty more where that came from if you do a good job,” he nodded. “Take care, and remember, don’t get caught,” he told us as the SUV pulled away.

  “Will, I’m going to run this insulin upstairs, and then we can get going,” I told my brother, handing him the binoculars that Bushy had given us.

  “Will do,” he agreed.

  I returned five minutes later with two thermoses of instant coffee that the rest of the group upstairs had specially brewed for us.

  We took a minute to consult our area map of Miami, locating the streets names that Bushy had provided us, and then we were on the road and headed downtown.

  I had hopes that it would rain, and I eyed the distant clouds expectantly as we drove into town. Our water supplies were dangerously low and we had dozens of containers up on the roof just waiting to be filled. We’d had to weight most of them down with rocks to keep them in place and from tipping over or blowing away in what was proving often to be a quite strong ocean breeze.

  I’d left the rest of the group – minus Claire of course, who was charged solely with managing her blood sugar levels – with continuing the search of the apartment building. After my encounter the other night, I had the adults carrying weapons with them at all times – even inside the building – just to be on the safe side. Everyone was to stay inside and remain observant. I made sure that Claire had her .22 handgun beside the bed. Emily had volunteered to help Claire watch Jason while the rest of the group conducted their searches. It seemed to me the best way to keep everyone occupied and busy but relatively safe and secure while Will and I were away.

  Just about the only time any of our group ventured outside the building now was early in the morning. We’d discovered that the quietest time of day or night was between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. Dad had taken to some early-morning fishing around this time since he’d been having trouble sleeping. Emily would often go out with him to keep him company and help out where she could. Dad hadn’t been very successful in his first few tries, pretty much catching what in the old days would have been considered enough to feed the pelicans that waddled on the beach nearby. Still, the small fish were enough to feed a person or two or make a soup for the family.

  On their trips out, Dad and Emily would also take some soap and washrags along to bathe in the surf or to wash some clothes. We decided to start having several additional members of the group accompany them on their trips each morning to get cleaned up and to try their hand at fishing too.

  As Will and I headed into town, I found it strange to drive a vehicle again and not have fuel consumption hovering in the back of my mind as a constant concern. Even then, I realized that purely from habit, I was still driving slowly, constantly checking our speed and lifting my foot from the accelerator to coast whenever possible.

  It didn’t take us long to find our starting spot – a towering downtown condo building. We parked behind several other vehicles on the street near the end of the block.

  As we sat sipping our coffee, it began to rain. It was more of a soft drizzle, but I’d take it.

  “Hope some of this is headed out to the apartments,” I said to Will.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “That’d be nice.” He took a sip of coffee, “You know what this guy looks like?” he asked.

  I shrugged, “Supposed to be kind of small in stature, greasy black hair, pale skin, wears lots of black, drinks lots of tequila, and rides in a black SUV.”

  “And this guy runs Miami now?” Will asked, eyebrows raised.

  “That’s the story,” I shrugged again. “I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. I just want to get this done, get paid, and get the hell out of here.”

  “I hear that,” Will nodded in agreement. “The vial you got this morning from Bushy. Where’s that put Claire with her supply?”

  “Each vial gives us about a month. So we’re up to about a month and a half now,” I said.

  “Not bad,” Will said, taking another sip of his coffee.

  “Not good either,” I reminded him.

  Will nodded his silent agreement and took another drink. “Ahh,” he breathed. “Good to have coffee again…even though it tastes like crap.”

  “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  “Too long,” Will agreed.

  We sat for the next two hours chatting, sipping more coffee from our thermoses, and munching on snacks of dried fish and stale crackers. Near lunchtime, we broke out some canned beans, more stale crackers, bananas, and an orange each. It wasn’t the most satisfying of meals, but we weren’t burning many calories just sitting in the car.

  At 11:50 a.m., a black SUV passed us and parked in front of the condo building.

  Will jotted the event down in a notepad we had for our recordkeeping.

  At just a little past noon, the Jake character that Ava had requested us to tail for the week, emerged. He fit her description perfectly. He wore black jeans, black boots, a tight-fitting black t-shirt, and a driver opened the door for him to climb inside the back of the waiting black SUV.

  “Must be a real happy camper to love black so much,” Will observed.

  I started the car.

  “You’ll have to be careful,” Will said. “Not much traffic to hide in these days.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll hang back,” I said.

  “Just don’t lose him,” Will continued eating from his can of beans as Jake’s SUV pulled out and headed west.

  We followed him to a nice little condo on Northwest 6th Street. Halfway there, an empty liquor bottle came flying out the SUV’s passenger window, smashing on the road.

  “Finished morning eye opener,” Will noted the time and event in his notepad.

  “Boy, they’re going to love your notes,” I said with a laugh.

  “Hey, we don’t know what they’re looking for and it could be important in some way,” Will defended himself. “I’m just trying to make sure we get paid, that’s all.”

  “Keep at it,” I said, not wanting to deter his Sherlock sleuthing. He was right, we had no idea what seemingly minor detail about Jake’s daily routine would prove important to someone else.

  The next couple days with Will were actually kind of fun. We enjoyed our roles playing amateur pri
vate-eyes. Even though we had no real idea of what we were doing or why, we noted anything and everything we thought might be important about Jake’s daily activities.

  During our tailing of him, it quickly became evident that Jake didn’t hold much interest in his governance of Miami. He seemed more interested in drinking and meeting up with the mistress he’d apparently taken and who resided in the condo that we’d follow him to each day right around the noon hour. He’d spend about two hours there. Several times, he’d come out the front door after his romp, still kissing or fondling the woman as he pulled his clothes on to leave.

  From what we could see through the binoculars that Bushy had given us, the woman was attractive. From our best estimates, she looked to be in her early-20s, Caucasian, blonde, maybe 5’6 or 5’7, about 115 to 125 pounds, and shapely. Once when Jake was leaving, she accompanied him to his SUV, still stark naked, which certainly livened things up for us on what had otherwise been a pretty dull day. While her face was decent looking, I could certainly see why Jake liked this woman. Her fake boobs stood perkily at attention and she had a dancer’s trim physique.

  Jake certainly made little effort to conceal his regular visits to her, but I guessed that a man in his position probably didn’t have to. After he left his lover’s nest, we found that he usually headed to one of the area markets around town. There, he’d pick up some food and some more alcohol, occasionally taking a meeting with one or more of the local merchants.

  From the market, he’d head back downtown, stopping in at a large bank branch. The bank itself was located in the first floor of a massive office building that had once been occupied by one of the larger US banks before the flu. The outside signage from the previous bank had been covered up with a white sheet and a new sign overtop it now read, “First Bank of Miami.”

  Jake tended not to spend long inside the bank. He was typically in and out in about 15 minutes, and we had no idea what he did inside, nor were we going to follow him inside to find out. We were already risking our asses, and we weren’t going to press our luck if we didn’t have to.