The Hunt (Mike Greystone, Book 1)

by Michael Sigurdsson

  "Mr. Greystone." he said.

  I stopped and turned back.

  "What?"

  "I was wondering. I like strong, pretty men like you. It’s quite stimulating. Maybe you and I should get together some day and get to know each other better?" he offered.

  I was speechless.

  "Listen, I’m the father of one of your pupils. How can you even think about that? Also, even though I have nothing against same sex relationships, I'm personally not attracted to them either."

  "Just asking. You don't ask, you don't get. I asked all my members of staff."

  "Jeez. It's a whorehouse not a school."

  "Not true, what happens between teachers, stays between teachers. We’re professionals. And half of them weren’t interested anyway. However, my personal opinion is, it would theoretically do no harm to prepare our pupils for their future life in society. High society. Obviously we don’t do it here that way."

  "Just make sure my daughter isn’t bullied. And not exposed to any sexual pressure. Otherwise – you know what I'll do to you," I said closing the door behind me. I cast a long glance at the receptionist’s boobs when leaving, nodded goodbye and said: "Very pleasant person, Mr. Van Klompf. Very engaging personality."

  The receptionist smiled and involuntarily touched her breasts.

  Gerald van Klompf lifted the phone receiver from his desk and called school security.

  "Mark, I need access to yesterday and today's CCTV. Where can I find them?" he asked the school's security manager. There was a CCTV I his office, which was unusual in general, but he needed it for some reason.

  "You can use the usual link I've sent you already a couple of times. But boss, we had an unexplained outage today. None of us meddled with the recordings, but the last few hours were all deleted. In fact, the last few hours haven’t even recorded in the first place. I have no idea how it happened. We’re looking into it. The backup on the remote servers is gone too, this is completely inexplicable."

  "Fuck, what happened?" Van Klompf thought aloud, and added: "Thanks Mark, keep me posted." Van Klompf put down the receiver and said to himself: "Shit, this fucking bastard wasn't joking. He's pretty handsome though."

  As I was leaving St. Eusebia I thought about taking Sophia out of this brothel. Just to be on the safe side. On the other hand I was sure Gerald Van Klompf would protect Sophia with all his might. I’d showed him what I was capable of and what would the legal and other consequences would be if he didn't comply.

  I was also wondering if St. Eusebia was a sort of courtesan saint. That could explain the profile of the school. I smiled at this idea.

  25.

  FROM ST. EUSEBIA School, I drove directly to North East Philadelphia airport to catch my jet.

  I was sitting on board, the weather was nice, still bright. I was looking through the window, sipping whiskey. They had decent stuff on the plane, but nothing amazing.

  I landed in Pittsburgh shortly afterward, hired a car and drove to Jane's house to pick her up. She got into the car and kissed me on the cheek.

  "Hi Mike, glad you came."

  "Thanks for inviting me."

  "Where are we going?"

  "I don't know Pittsburgh very well, but I did some research and found a Mediterranean restaurant – Casbah. Looks promising."

  "I haven't been there before. I heard it's a decent place, but not cheap."

  We arrived there after a short drive and I parked the car. The restaurant building wasn't very impressive from the outside, it was basically a walled enclosure with a tarpaulin-style roof hovering over the walls, separated from them by two feet of tent-type windows at the top. But I liked it inside, and the tent-style windows made the whole interior look airy. I'm sure they could be taken off in warm weather for better ventilation and a through flow of fresh air.

  We ordered some drinks as an aperitif, Jane wanted rose wine, but I preferred bourbon. I actually felt like having a beer, but remembered Gudrun's advice to avoid it. I supposed it would be better to order wine for myself as well, but let's not get crazy. Whiskey ain't no wine, but it ain't no beer either.

  The restaurant had a solid selection of Mediterranean dishes. Jane ordered sea scallops as a starter and grilled swordfish for her main course. I chose a tuna tartare appetizer and filet mignon, although I considered Elysian Fields Farm Lamb Loin. A grand name, but after all it was only lamb, albeit for forty bucks. According to the menu, everything was accompanied by impressive amounts of vegetables, as you would expect in Mediterranean cuisine.

  The waiter brought the drinks. I took the glass and held it in my hand for a while to warm it a little. The liquid had a nice rich color. I placed my nose over the glass to enjoy the aroma, with a distinct caramel and vanilla scent which was thanks to the charred oak barrel I suppose. I sipped a tiny amount of bourbon, just enough to cover the tongue. I inhaled some air through slightly parted lips and allowed the aroma to wash over my tongue. Lovely. Neither bite nor burn, exactly as it should be. I swallowed, and the finish was as good as the aroma suggested. I felt relaxed now.

  "Would you believe that 70% of the taste and color of bourbon comes from oak barrels?" I started the conversation.

  "I had no idea."

  "Yeah. Funny, the Brits and Irish are buying up lots of second-hand bourbon casks made of American oak to mature their whiskey."

  "That's interesting, why would they do that, is it cheaper?"

  "No, it's for the aroma. Charred bourbon casks have a fantastic, unique aroma. They want to capture part of that flavor in the whiskey."

  "Interesting, why not drink the original, the American bourbon then?" She was asking a very valid question.

  "It's just historical, I suppose. They've been making whiskey for hundreds of years. The Mayflower hadn't landed on these shores yet when the Bushmills distillery was founded in around 1609. I suppose they’re attached to tradition. Besides, whiskey is no bourbon, two different things," I explained, although I probably muddled it up even more.

  Jane was wearing a black skirt, revealing just enough of her well-shaped knees, and a maroon top. The view from my side of the table was amazing. The top wasn't tight fitting, but the outline of her breasts was remarkably enhanced.

  Jane had brunette shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was about five-foot-six, maybe five-seven. Her nose was quite prominent, and some would argue it was a tad too large, but it fitted extremely well with the rest of the package, making her face really amazing. A large mouth and nicely proportioned ears, partly covered by her hair, rounded off the picture. Jane was slim, but fortunately not in an anorexic way. She did have a little bit of nice flesh in the right places, namely on her hips and ass, as well as on her torso. She had a very feminine silhouette, with curvaceous hips. And the icing on the cake, her boobs. I bet they were size 34B. And I knew what I was talking about.

  My tongue was itching to ask Jane about her breast size, but I thought it would sound impolite.

  "How's your rose?" I asked instead.

  "Very decent for a house wine," Jane answered smiling.

  "I'm glad I could come."

  "I'm very happy too."

  "How are the little Wimbledons doing?"

  "They're fine for now. I've found a good psychologist for them."

  "Great, is she good?"

  "Why do you think she’s female?"

  "I don't know to be honest. It was just the first thing that came into my mind."

  "You have lots of females on your mind, don’t you?"

  "No, not really." I was not far from truth.

  "I don't believe a word of it. You must have had lots of girlfriends," Jane laughed.

  "Well," I hesitated, "there were a few in the last few years and before that. I haven’t been very lucky in my relationships. So far at least."

  She smiled in a contented way.

  "Tell me about your ex," she asked.

  That’s the question that always popped up.

  "That's not a nice story
," I said. I was reluctant to talk about my dear Gudrun.

  "Still, it was an important experience for you, I suppose. Tell me about her."

  I still hesitated, but eventually softened.

  "I met her when I was eighteen, she was eighteen too. We were just starting our first year of university at Cambridge."

  "Is that somewhere in Pennsylvania, or do you mean the one in the UK?"

  "The one in the UK."

  "Oh, cool, I didn't know you studied abroad," she said. She seemed to like the little secrets about my life.

  "I was born abroad, in Germany."

  "Really? I didn't know that either. It’s starting to get exciting."

  "There's a lot you don't know. My life was complicated," I laughed.

  "I bet it still is," she smiled. "You don't have a foreign accent."

  "My father was American and we spoke English at home."

  "And your mother, she was German I presume?"

  "No, she was Swiss, from the French speaking part, from Geneva."

  "How did they end up in Germany then?" She was curious.

  The waiter brought our appetizers.

  "Let me start the story little earlier then," I sighed. "My father was in the military, and was stationed in Germany after WWII. His future wife's parents owned vineyards in Germany. They somehow met, married, and there I was. When her parents died, they inherited the vineyards and my mom's siblings other properties in Switzerland."

  "They must have been very wealthy, your parents?"

  "They were, but they died in mysterious circumstances when I was an 8-year-old kid."

  "Sorry to hear that."

  "I was adopted by my uncles, they moved in, but were very abusive. Hell on earth. They decided to send me to boarding school in the UK, so I jumped at the opportunity."

  "Not a happy childhood."

  "No, it wasn't. Luckily, my ordeal ended in my early twenties when my step-parents died in a car crash. It was sad in a way," I lied, "as they died in a car fire. But from my end, it served them well." This time I was telling the truth.

  "And what about her, your wife?"

  "Rewind a few years," I continued, "I met Gudrun at university. We fell madly in love. Two years later, our daughter Sophia was born."

  "And what happened to the vineyards?" Jane asked; her female financial security instinct must have kicked in. or just pure curiosity.

  "I took over the ownership and managed it for a few years. It was a nice life, but I couldn't find a place for me. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I wasn’t sure about the purpose. Too many memories. I decided I needed to move far away. Gudrun wasn't too happy about that. We moved to London. We spent a year or so there, and eventually relocated back to the US where my roots were."

  The waiters brought our main course, swordfish for Jane and tenderloin steak for me.

  "Looks lovely," Jane said, enjoying the presentation of the dish on the plate.

  We talked about other things while we were eating. I didn't want to spoil such a nice meal with sad details from my past life.

  After we’d finished, I poured some more wine into Jane's glass and ordered more bourbon for myself.

  "So what happened then?" Jane urged me to finish the story.

  Hesitatingly, I continued.

  "Initially, things were going well between us. But when I started taking freelance jobs for government security agencies and especially the CIA, my work schedule became very busy and it involved a lot of travel. Gudrun didn't like that and we started growing more and more distant."

  "You could have dropped that job. You had enough money to do without."

  "I liked being a hero. The jobs I was doing were important for the country. I was just a small contributor, a small wheel in a large machine, doing trivial jobs (I lied), but I was doing a good job."

  “Was it the only problem in your marriage?”

  "It wasn't," I continued. "There were other problems as well. I needed some space for myself, and Gudrun was very possessive of me. I had issues with my troubled past, and Gudrun had hers. She was a very spoiled child. And very hot tempered, we quarreled a lot."

  "There are quarrels in every relationship."

  "I'm sure there were more than average in ours. I don't blame her in general. It turned out we didn't fit after all and we went our separate ways. I was to blame as much as she was. Or maybe I was more to blame. Who knows?" I concluded inconclusively, although personally I felt Gudrun was more to blame. But it would have spoilt the mood to say it.

  "You mentioned your daughter, Sophia, do you see her often?"

  "I try to. I try to be a good father, but it's not easy. I'd love to see her every month, but it's not always possible. I have a very busy and irregular work life. It's probably accurate to say I see her only every few months. Sometimes I’ll call her, or she might call me."

  "You should spend more time with her. Time’s passing by, these moments are invaluable. Once lost, you can’t recover them."

  "I know, and I regret it. The problem is, it hasn't been easy for me to talk to her. Somehow I wasn't sure I had anything valuable to contribute to her life. Besides, Gudrun looks after her reasonably well, which is one of the few things she does all right. But I pay for it."

  "You pay for it, how come? Didn't she get enough after the divorce?"

  "That's right, she got plenty. We did have a pre-nup, but she retained a small share of the estate. When we split up she wanted to cash in, as she wouldn't want or be able to manage the estate left in Germany, even though I offered her an option to return there. I bought her share and kept the vineyards, but was ordered by the court to contribute every month on top of quite a substantial one-off cash settlement. Most people would live on it comfortably for the rest of their days. Not Gudrun."

  "Why not, what was wrong with her."

  "She squandered most of the money. Expensive cars for flashy young lovers, a few ill-advised investments, a lavish lifestyle. She wasn't prepared for managing big money. Now I actually have to top up for Sophia's education."

  "Poor girl, I’m not very smart with money myself, but I don't waste it for sure."

  "So, as I was saying, I’m not an exemplary dad for Sophia. But I love her dearly. And fortunately, I have the impression things are changing at her end. She’s more grown up, she’s sixteen now, sweet sixteen as they say. I’ve noticed she’s started appreciating me as a valuable person in her life."

  "That's brilliant, I'm sure she loves you too and knows she can count on you."

  "Oh yes, she can. Only recently she told me she’s having trouble at school. She’s being bullied."

  "Oh my god!" Jane cried, exasperated.

  "Don't worry! I think I solved the problem. I had a serious talk with the principal at her school, and I'm sure he'll sort it out soon," I said. I didn't volunteer to provide any details of my conversation with Mr. Van Klompf.

  "How did it go, the conversation with the principal?"

  "Just and honest man-to-man talk. He seems to be a reasonable person and I have no doubt he will act on my request." I had no doubt whatsoever. "Anyway, I really felt appreciated when Sophia asked for help and I could help her. Although I admit she was very reluctant to speak to me at first, and only because I’m smart observer I noticed she might be having problems at school," I said proudly.

  "That must have been a nice feeling, to help her eventually. You did the right thing." Jane praised me.

  "It was a great feeling," I smiled. "I don't want to use trite words, but I did feel like a hero protecting my family. It was a damn good feeling," I pictured the nice, neat swings of the golf club. "It required some people skills, but I did the right thing."

  "Lucky you."

  "Okay, that's about me. Now, how about you?"

  Jane burst into laughter.

  "You have to tell me all about your exes," I joined in with her laughter.

  "My relationships haven’t been too happy either. Some teenage loves at high school.
At medical school I met John, we fell in love and married two years later. He was quite a successful doctor in his field and things went well initially. But the medical profession puts a significant strain on relationships. Long and irregular working hours, a lot of stress, you wouldn't believe it. You often start drinking and become hostile towards your family. It's very sad, medical people are very well educated, but their jobs are killing them inch by inch, literally. Most of my friends are divorced. Very few of my friends or colleagues have anything remotely resembling a happy family life."

  "I know the pain, my lifestyle hasn't been too regular either."

  "There you go. We divorced amicably. Then I was looking hard for a new partner. Ups and downs, nothing interesting. Finally I found a seemingly nice guy. He was a successful banker earning good money, he was quite charming and handsome. He lived in a large apartment in a prime location and drove an expensive car. Don't ask me what make, I've no idea. He seemed to be very stressed, and he was indeed, but back then I didn't think anything could be wrong with him."

  "You never know these things until it’s too late."

  "Exactly. I moved in with him after a few months of dating. And then the warning signs started popping up. Because he was always working, he had no social life. He was constantly drinking coffee to keep him awake. This was fine, as far as I was concerned. But then I found some propranolol and modafinil pills at his apartment. Propranolol helps with stress as well as panic attacks, whereas modafinil is used to keep you up all night. This is apparently what all high-powered bankers do. I tried to be understanding, but then I also found cocaine in his bathroom, and he started to get violent. One day he beat me severely and nearly killed me. I was taken to hospital and spent a week in the intensive therapy unit. He got some jail time and a court order never to approach me and to keep at least a thousand yards away from me."

  I listened and felt sincerely sorry for the ordeal she must have been through.

  "I survived physically, but was shattered mentally. I really only recovered very recently, otherwise I wouldn't be here."

  "I've been there myself, my step father abused me physically for many years."