I wasn’t looking for trouble…
My mother would’ve accused me of this whether I was looking for trouble or not. According to her, I was always looking for trouble, and I could never understand why. It always felt a bit odd, but then, so was my mother. Odd, because she praised my decision to become an investigative reporter. What I thought that meant was that I would always be around interesting people learning about interesting things. I just didn’t follow the story to the end. To the part where I wrote about the interesting people doing interesting things. In my mother’s mind, interesting, meant rich. In my mind, and my editor’s, it meant criminal. Criminals were trouble, and so, she would complain, “Why are you always looking for trouble?”
I wasn’t looking for trouble.
Trouble found me two weeks ago. Right now, I was just keeping an eye on it, while it ate lunch two tables away at one of the high class Mexican restaurants in downtown San Diego. A lunch I couldn’t afford to have once a month, let alone three times a week. This was alright however, because everyone knew that tall blond women only ate garden salads. And we don’t really eat them, we pick at them, as if we could subsist on the single cherry tomato. So, each Monday, Wednesday and Friday I sat here during the lunch period and picked at a garden salad.
Wednesday was just for show, because the Cortez Cartel didn’t meet here on Wednesdays. I came then only to show I wasn’t here to eavesdrop on their conversation. There was no doubt in my mind that they had asked about me in the kitchen several times. And how odd would it look if I was only here on the days they were here? Pretty darn odd, right?
The plan was to come through the door anywhere between noon and noon-thirty, but to leave precisely at two o’clock, as if I had some place to be. Some place important. An appointment or a job. If they were still discussing things, it didn’t matter. If I heard the intro to the story of the nation at 1:59pm, I would still get up and leave precisely at two. These men were dangerous. Far more dangerous than any I had gone up against before.
Just how dangerous showed in the number of investigations currently active on them. NONE. That’s a story, sure, but what are you going to say? The FBI and DEA were scared of these guys? Well, they were, and they had every reason to be. Every undercover agent who approached them was found dead within forty-eight hours. Every task force had sudden cases of fatal car accidents and home electrocutions. Heart attacks for fit twenty-year olds were on the rise as well. But none of that was news. None of it was a story. Only conjecture.
The story was how. Bribes didn’t cut it, and both agencies had methods of separation; ways to distance themselves from their operatives. The agents were more in danger of not being able to prove who they really were, than being discovered as an undercover operative. They were more likely to be arrested and imprisoned, than identified as an agent. And yet they were found out. Found out and killed. The story was, how. And that’s what I sat here, playing with a garden salad I couldn’t afford, waiting to hear when he sat down at my table.
I was surprised at my reaction. I’ve played with the scenario before. The scenario of an intruder in my space, a rude or forward man sitting down and being macho, taking charge, be the man kind of asshole. None of those scenarios went through my mind. Not one. No indignation, no surprise. No gasp. Only a thought. One thought — if he’s gay, I’m going to put this fork through his eye.
This surprised me, because I have nothing against gay men — or women for that
matter. To be or not to be and all of that other stuff.
Even without taking all of him in, there was no doubting the heat that radiated from him. This man was hot. Like firework hot and damn it to hell, if a guy the likes of him was going to sit at MY table he’d better, I dunno, be capable of finding me attractive. Flirt a little.
I looked away, reminding myself of why I was here as I diverted my attention to
the book in my hand, and the torment I was rendering on the single cherry tomato with
my fork. With that I couldn’t have given a full description of him. Only to say he was tall, more than six feet. Slender waist. Hot. Hot. HAWT. And that he was wearing about ten thousand dollars in clothing, if you added the watch on his left wrist, glistening above the newspaper he was holding.
It sounds cliché, but in my business, most stories are gained by following the money, so it pays to know a fake from a real, what good thread count looks like, and how high art lays across a man’s shoulders. He had high art shoulders, the kind that are undoubtedly sculpted by the likes of Michelangelo. Hands too. I had never seen muscle definition in hands before. If they weren’t so smooth I would guess he worked with them, like in construction or masonry. Or steel. How else could you get hands like that? Lumber? Maybe.
The thrill between my thighs was just settling into a steady background hum when Roberto, one of my regular waiters, approached the table. He approached cautiously, and considering his normal lunch time crowd, I didn’t blame him. My guest, lowered his paper, caught Roberto with a stabbing gaze of bright gray/blue eyes, and rattled off an order that could have served three, including a desert and an impressive red wine.
“Have you ordered dear?” he asked.
Not looking up from my book, I spoke past my tightening windpipe. “I have the salad.”
“Nonsense. You should at least have a small something, and try the chocolate mousse. They are surprisingly adept at the mousse here.”
I glanced at him, and then at Roberto, and then back to my book — and ordered the prime steak plate. If he wanted to play then fine, let’s play.
Instead of objecting to the near hundred-dollar order, he added a separate wine order for me to it, and then the mousse to come after. All of this in Mexican dialect which sounded native to my ears. Then, my guest returned to reading his newspaper, dismissing Roberto with the same gesture.
Roberto nearly fled from the table. Well, he was a flirt, always asking if the Senorita would like something else, and always meaning would I like to be fucked against the wall this afternoon, with those beautiful brown eyes eating my breasts and legs. Roberto was pretty, but calf next to the bull across the table from me — currently ignoring me, as if we had been together five years already.
Clearly, he didn’t sit down to flirt. Of all the empty tables and chairs scattered throughout the restaurant, he chose to sit opposite me, with intentions that I wasn’t aware of and I’d be a fool to not be sweaty palmed and, I dunno… just a little freaked out.
Glancing at the table with the eight members of the Cortez Cartel, I realized I had just become background noise. A non-combatant. The riddle of me was solved, and I was filed away under ‘Uninteresting.’
In the space of an inhale the benefit this was for me dawned, and it only took half an exhale to decide that if this guy didn’t get too weird or off the wall, playing along with whatever he had on in his mind right now would be a boon, if not an amusing way to spend my lunch time. Hell, with him here, and running this storyline, I didn’t have to leave at my Two O’Clock deadline either. I had the perfect reason to be here — him.
Roberto swooped in with our drinks, which included ice tea for each of us, and the wine, and glided swiftly away. I dipped my finger into the tall glass of ice tea, and swirled the brown liquid, surprised by the clean effervescent scent it produced. Turning into the table, and facing him directly, I sucked the wonderful flavor from my index finger. “Honey?”
“Hm?” he replied, not looking up from his paper.
“Is this a bad time to ask something?” I asked, with a soft and understanding tone.
“Hm? What?” he said, and then started a bit, and brought the paper down, folding it with practiced ease into a square and into his lap. He didn’t turn his body, but did give me his full attention, “Apologies dear. What were you saying?”
“Is this a good time for a question?”
“Certainly, of course. I just got caught up in this article. What is it you would like to know?” he asked, his baritone voice silk, wood, and leather spice in my ears.
“It’s not all that important.”
“Nonsense. What’s important? What’s not important?” he said with a philosophical tone. “And why should that be the criteria?”
“Well, alright,” I accepted but with a hint of doubt. “You know that we’ve been together all this time and that I don’t mind doing all the things that you find so interesting, but…” I paused, and then demurred, “now it seems so trivial.”
“Go on,” he encouraged me, a small smile on his lips. A small wicked smile; the kind that could unclothe women in a heartbeat. Heck, half a heartbeat.
“Well, it’s just that, I would really like to know,” and here I lowered my voice, “your name.”
“What?” he asked.
“Well, all the other women get to scream their lover’s name during orgasm and all I have is ‘you’ and ‘mister’, and ‘sir.’ It just feels like I’m missing something.” I was a forward little thing. Okay, maybe my mother wasn’t THAT wrong about me looking for trouble. But this was all a game, right? Of all the tables he chose my table. Of all the empty seats, he chose the one opposite me. And then sat here, newspaper in hand, distracting me, but not being distracted BY me.
“Sir, always sounds nice,” he mused.
I sat back and swirled the wine with my finger. “If that’s what you want.”
“No, no, you’re right. I’ve been very selfish about this.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. I never even mentioned it before now, and you’re such a good provider,” I offered, gesturing to the wine he’d ordered.
“Nice of you to say, but remiss is remiss. My name is Kane.”
“And… um, our name?”
“Oh, yes. Silver. Kane Silver.” Hah! Imagine that. He was playing along. Or was this really his game? I shifted in my seat, not quite sure if I had the upper-hand anymore. Or if I ever had the upper-hand at all.
“That’s a nice name. Good enough to scream, I’m sure,” I allowed, and looked around a bit in a non-committal way. “What are you reading?”
“Decks,” he said.
“Decks?” I asked, looking down at the paper, and finding he had the local section, and was reading the article I submitted to get a bit of cash in my account again. What were the chances? Better yet, what the hell was he playing at? Even better, why was it that rather than fear, I felt intrigue?
He set the paper down, and speared my article with his finger. “This writer is a good one. Not like this other fellow here,” he accused, stabbing that article with his finger, “who is a hack. This man makes me think that decks are something to be taken seriously, and that I might be interested in the information. This other one, on the local political environments, should be five times more interesting, and the man has made me yawn six times by the third paragraph,” Kane finished, snapping the paper back up in place.
My bi-line was M.T. Stone, so there was no way of knowing without the picture that I was female. “What makes Decks so interesting?”
“Because it reads like veteran science fiction, all details and measurements. Yet obviously the writer is comfortable with these because the details don’t drag the story down with too much verbiage or leave gaps in important areas,” he explained.
I sucked the wine off my finger, and hummed. “I see. Maybe we should get one some day.”
“A deck?”
“An interesting writer,” I corrected.
“Ah, now there’s an idea,” he said, and sipped his wine, looking into the space of vast possibilities. “A good writer can change the world, or the mood of a country. Even the justice of a war.”
“Or your view of home maintenance,” I added.
“Don’t minimize, my love. The ability to alter perception on any level is a powerful skill, and worthy of respect.” His eyes were bold, and his voice serious. I found myself nodding.
Then Roberto arrived with our food. The plate with my sliced and seared steak was hot and the meat juice sizzled as he set it before me. Kane’s meat was cubed and covered in a thick brown sauce that smelled wonderful. After tortillas and beans were set and a large bowl of white rice, Roberto swiftly left the table, and I forked a bite of the tantalizing steak into my mouth.
Oh, my god! I thought. How can it be sliced so thin, yet seared so rare? It was heaven. The full flavor of the beef was divine. I sneered at the beans and rice. Such mundane fare would not be sharing the space of my tongue with this meal of perfection — until the heat hit, and then rice and beans were a welcome addition.
“Has a little kick there, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I giggled.
“It’s the habanero. They have a perfect recipe here for that pepper, and carefully make sure to remove all of the seeds, but it is still habanero after all,” he mused.
The wine he chose for me did a kizomba dance across my tongue and down my throat. In my journeys I have been exposed to some seriously good food, but nothing like this seduction of balance and spice. I was ready to do a sexy Mexican dance in his lap, have him fire his secretary, and service him for sport at the office too.
I tried to finish the food but didn’t force it, because his light conversation and his penetrating eyes, and beautifully strong hands had me thinking a skip across the street and into the Omni Hotel with this man, would be such a pleasant fantasy afternoon. I might even do that special thing with a twist for him, I’ve heard so much about. I wasn’t prone to such interludes, or whirlwind romances. In fact, I had never slept with a man believing a one-night stand was the goal. I’ve been swept off my feet — a younger me, by much less worthy men — but learned to choose wiser actions. All that said, at this point I didn’t want to be stuffed, because as long as he didn’t say something totally stupid, I wanted him.
It was just after this thought that Roberto put down the mousse with a large strawberry before me, and my goodness it looked like an aphrodisiac. I was about to confess to him, he hardly needed such a ploy, when he asked, “May I ask you something dear?”
I paused in picking up my fork, and said, chills running up and down, in and out of my spine at the way he called me dear. “Of course, anything.”
“Anything?”
I thought about the challenge, and decided, yes, “Anything.”
Kane bowed his head, as if acknowledging the gift for something of sacred value, but would not accept the generous offer, and continue with his intended question, “Mine is a simple question — only, why after all this time do I still find you without your ring on your finger?”
My brain did somersaults.
Could he really be confused about me? Could I look so much like his true wife? I didn’t see a ring on his finger before, and I checked. I know I did. Yet, there was a platinum and gold band. Did he slip it on while I was distracted by the food?
Just to play along for a bit longer, and with the cartel men in the background, I tried, “I left it at home?”
“Nonsense, it’s in the side pocket of your purse, at your feet.”
A cold chill went through me. Was there a ring in my purse? How far had he planned this encounter? My hand trembled as I bent to reach for my purse, and I willed it to stop before picking up the small bag; only large enough to carry my e-book reader an ID and credit card. There was a side pocket which I never used on this bag. Nothing seemed to fit in it properly.
I opened the pocket and fished inside with my finger, hooking the ring instantly. An electric shock flash chilled my blood. I pulled it out, and was looking at a gorgeous ring. It wasn’t just any ring though. This was ‘The Palace,’ a 5ct Cushion-cut diamond setting with an architectural feel inspired by the Manhattan skyline as seen from the designer’s suite windows. It was stunning. It was also priced at over two hundred thousand dollars. And, it was the wallpaper on my laptop. I knew this ring better than the designer himself. Last week I was heartbroken when I heard it had been sold to an anonymous buyer, which I also laughed at. As if anyone with this thing on their finger would be anonymous for long. Since I had not found a new dream ring, it was still there on my laptop screen every day.
Dear God, no one plays games with this kind of money. No one. I don’t give a shit how rich he is.
I looked toward the kitchen and saw Roberto duck back inside. He wasn’t jealous, or heartbroken. He was terrified.
I looked to the table with the cartel members, and one of them was looking at me. He grinned and then turned away, dismissing me as yesterday’s news.
They knew. They found out.
I looked to my guest, Kane, who seemed not to be able to tell I was trembling with mortal fear. I looked at his hand, and realized I had never seen his right one. Only his left. His right was in his lap. I slipped the ring on, and bent to return my bag, bending further this time, enough to look under the table and see his right hand in his lap, covered with a deep blood cloth napkin. He had a gun in his hand. The barrel was far too long, suggesting a silencer.
I sat up, with the only thought in my mind, being I’M DEAD.
I’m sitting here, breathing and with a magical ring on my finger, but I’m dead. My life is over. Nothing I had planned or dreamed or wished will ever happen. I. Am. Dead.
***
Kane smiled a warm smile. “I truly like that ring on you.”
I took a sip of the wine. “I’m sorry, I’ll never take it off again.”
Yes, I was begging. Yes, I was selling myself to live. Terror was the only emotion. It was no aphrodisiac, but it would do in a pinch if you didn’t have one, and it wanted me to do that thing with the twist like I meant it — but, I didn’t even know what that thing was. I didn’t care what it was as far as my pride or humility at this point — and I craved to know what was. God fucking damn it I wanted to know. But I did not ‘girl-talk’ at college. It was beneath me to learn the slut moves and throat play.
What a farce. Beneath me? Was I that fucking out of touch with myself? Yes. Yes I was, because here I am across the table from my death ready to do and be anything he wanted me to be, just to let me live another week, or day, or hour.
Yes. Yes I was.
“That’s good,” he said, and his voice was so easy and clean; as if nothing had changed. He had to know I figured it out by now.
“Now, you must try that mousse.”
I looked at the desert, and at my fork, “I… I don’t think I can.”
He looked sympathetic. “I knew that was too much for you, but to see you eat was worth the risk, but that strawberry… What a perfect strawberry, don’t you think? It reminds me of the Strawberry story. Do you remember that tale?”
“The, Strawberry story?” I asked, honestly lost. “No,” my answer soft as I wondered if I had missed something. What he just said seemed so non-sequitur.
Pay attention! You at least know how to do that. You have a college degree in paying attention, right?
“The Strawberry story?” I asked, reaching over and pulling the mousse bowl a little closer, then lifting my eyes to him, offering, everything.
“You never heard the Strawberry story? Hmm. Seems a bit dull next to that dish,” he smiled, “Well, can't have you walking around ignorant of strawberries.
“There was a man, in Africa, or someplace wild. And he was being chased by murderous thieves. He ran as fast as he could, and used every trick he knew, but still the band of thieves were after him. And then, he miss-stepped and fell off a cliff, but on the way down he reached out and caught a branch of a small tree, growing out of the side of the cliff.”
Kane took a sip of his wine, “So there he was, hanging from this branch. The man looked down below him, and saw that not only was the drop far enough down that he would definitely injure himself and possibly die, there was also a pride of lions down there. Right below him, resting in the shade. Above him, he could hear the murderous thieves coming in his direction, and he knew that they would spot him very easily from above. If all of this was not enough, the branch he was holding onto, began to crack, and it would soon break.”
I had picked up a spoon to try the mousse, as he suggested, but his story had my full attention. I wanted to know how the man got out of this one, because I found myself in a very similar position at the moment.
“So,” Kane continued, “with death above him, and death below him, he looked around, and there, right beside him, was a strawberry plant, with one strawberry growing from it. A perfect, red strawberry; freshly ripened by the sun that day. And he took the strawberry, plucking it lovingly from the bush, and he ate it, chewing it, and tasting it with every part of his tongue, and he said, 'That, was the best strawberry I ever had.” He set his wine down. “And that, my dear, is the Strawberry story.”
I looked down at the strawberry, set lovingly into the chocolate mousse, and returned my eyes to Kane. A single tear rolled out of the side of my eye, and down my cheek.
I understood the story, and the man on the side of the cliff. Yesterday, if he had told me that story, standing in the mall, I would not have understood. I would have thought he was a little weird for remembering such a pointless story. But, it just so happened I was different right now.
I looked back to the strawberry, “I guess, you really need to be on the side of a cliff to understand that story,” I said, softly spooning from the dish the red fresh fruit. “It is, a very good story.”
The terror was gone. I wasn't even afraid.
I ate the strawberry, and sucked at the slice, letting the aromatic chocolate fill my mouth, and then licked my lips.
It really was a very good strawberry.
The men at the Cartel table, had gotten up during the end of his story, and were walking toward the door. I watched them as they passed, with calm eyes.
“Thank you,” I said, Then I looked deep into his blue eyes of age and life, letting him know that the game was over. He won.
Kane tilted his head slightly to the right, and nodded, as if agreeing. “There is a man at the table near the door, sitting with three others. His name is Anthony Gomez.” His voice had changed. His tone was no longer easy, or fun. There was strength in his voice, power. Power that could berate a storm, or command a god. And though he still spoke softly, I listened, in awe that such power could be contained in a human being. “He is going to kill you in about 10 seconds. Please don't move, my love. I need to know exactly where you are, so that I can save your life.”
I swear, right then, I heard a branch break.