Chapter Seven - Maddie
So. There was a phone call.
There was a lot of yelling. On Tyler’s part, not mine. Because even though he said, “Yeah, I’m cool,” when I asked him if he was cool, he wasn’t. Which I forgave him for. Because this is kind of a difficult, stressful, life-altering kinda thing happening to us and it wasn’t a lie. He was just trying to wrap his head around my decision to take down a drug lord.
I sigh.
So there was a phone call in which Tyler threatened to rain hellfire down on Ricky if anything happened to me. And the threat was directed to poor Emily, the person on the other end of the phone, not even Ricky. And the only reason he was going along with this crazy-ass idea was because I was a strong, capable woman who, if it came down to it, was one of two people he’d trust with his life. The other being Evan. And then there was a lot of mumbling about all the other guys in the firehouse, because he felt he’d somehow slighted them and he didn’t want to give the wrong impression.
You know. Typical Tyler.
And at the end of the phone call, after he said, “Yes, we’re in,” he hung up, and he looked at me for a long moment. And then he said, “No,” and shook his head and was already pressing the redial icon on his phone.
So I took the phone from him. Slowly. Carefully. Like he was a frightened wild animal caught in a trap and any wrong move would send him thrashing again. And I said, “We have time to say ‘no.’ We don’t have to do it now.”
Because I wanted him to know, if it really came down to it, and he decided that the head-wrapping around the taking-down-a-drug-lord thing was over and his answer really was ‘no,’ not ‘yes,’ then OK. I’d live with it.
And somehow, I don’t really know how, he got that out of my two short sentences that said nothing of the sort.
So currently we’re parked outside a strip mall filled with empty store-fronts, save one—but there’s no sign, just some windows blacked out with shoe polish or whatever they use to black out windows—trying to decide if now is the time to stick with ‘yes’ or change our minds. Because suddenly, I’m not so sure either.
“You need to do this?” he asks.
I consider my answer carefully. Because even though I will say, “OK, we’ll stand down,” if he says no, he’ll say, “OK, we’re going in,” if I say yes.
It’s weird to be on such equal ground with someone. Someone’s… partner, I guess. But it’s completely awesome at the same time. It’s called… like… mutual respect or some shit like that. I think. It’s a pretty new feeling for me. So.
“I think…” I start to say, but then stop. Because I need to say this right. There’s no room for mistakes or misunderstandings. “I think of all the people Carlos Castillo has hurt. And then I try to add in Logan too. But I can’t stop there, ya know?” I look at Tyler, who has a serious, solemn expression on his face. Almost sad. “I have to then think about all the other people who work for Carlos. And all the people those people have hurt in his name. And that’s before I even get to Pete and Jeff. So I gotta ask myself.” I swallow down the sadness creeping into my voice. “I gotta ask myself… how many Tylers and Maddies came before us who had a chance and didn’t take it? And how many other people got hurt because they couldn’t or wouldn’t take a stand? And how many more people will get hurt if we say no and just try to live with it?”
Tyler nods. Understanding. “Yeah,” is all he says. “But…” He shakes his head. “I mean, you’re right. Of course, you’re right. It’s just you…”
He trails off and doesn’t finish it. Maybe because he’s worried I might take it the wrong way. Like he thinks I’m weak and can’t handle this. Which is stupid. I am weak. Physically, I suppose. I mean, compared to the men I’m up against. It’s just physiology. And I probably can’t handle this. I’m a wedding-planning, dog-treat-baking, drone-flying stripper, not a secret agent or whatever.
So I’m not offended. Because I know he thinks I’m super-strong in other ways. Because I am.
Or maybe he doesn’t finish saying it because he can’t bear to think of what could happen to me. And let’s be real. Killing me isn’t the worst thing Carlos and Logan could do. And no one will be there. Not really. Ricky won’t be able to save me. I don’t care how many agents or whoever are waiting nearby. I don’t care if they have helicopters or drones of their own spying overhead. I’ll be all alone in that compound. With an insane killer. Who has a thing for me.
This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. For sure.
“So…” Tyler interrupts my thoughts. “What are we doing?”
And I nod my head.
We get out of the car, holding hands as we walk to the door surrounding the shoe-polish windows. There’s a camera over the door, so it opens as we get to the threshold, and then we’re across and inside. We’re entering a new life. Holding hands. Scared. Probably for very different reasons. And the door closes behind us.
“Hey. Thanks for coming,” says Ricky. He’s wearing gym clothes. A tight t-shirt that shows off his muscles and some cut-off sweats.
Which makes sense in context, because there are blue mats on the floor and some kickboxing bags hanging from steel beams overhead, and weight machines and stuff.
Tyler doesn’t answer Ricky. He’s busy taking it all in.
“Fuck is this shit?” Tyler says, panning his hand around.
“This is Emily,” says Ricky, gesturing to the young woman next to him.
She’s about my age, which surprises me. I don’t know why I thought she’d be older. She’s not wearing any makeup but is still very pretty. Like Ricky, she’s also wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She’s got on a baseball cap and has a long, blonde ponytail pulled through the opening in the back. Honestly, she looks more like a sorority girl going to a charity softball game than a DEA agent. I also notice she’s staring at Ricky but trying not to at the same time.
She extends her hand and says, “We talked on the—"
Tyler walks past her outstretched hand and keeps yelling. “No! No! What the fuck is all this”—he gestures at the equipment and punches one of the heavy bags—“shit? What happened to ‘it’s not a combat op, it’s just intel gathering?’”
Ricky raises his hands. “It is intel gathering. And we’re going to go over all that. How we want her to do it. What we want her to ask. How she gets out of situations she’s not comfortable in. All that. But, just in case she needs it, we’d like her to have a few tricks she can use.”
“Tricks? OK, fucking David Copperfield! Jesus!” Tyler stalks around the space for a moment, kind of walking in circles. The three of us watch him.
“Tyl—” Emily starts.
“And what the fuck are you even doing here?” Tyler shouts, stomping over to Ricky and shoving his finger in Ricky’s face. “I thought you were in deep cover,” he says, drawing out the words ‘deep cover’ mockingly.
“I am,” says Ricky coolly. “In fact, I’m on a job for Carlos right now, picking up four point six million dollars that’s owed to him by someone whose name you probably know. Or that’s where he believes me to be.”
Tyler gives a slow clap. “Oh, yeah? Well, hoo-fucking-rah for you, pal. But you know something? You sure as shit don’t look like a fucking drug dealer to me. Know what you do look like?”
“What’s that?”
“A fucking DEA agent who I don’t fucking trust!”
Ricky nods. “Fair enough. No reason you should, brother.”
Tyler stiffens at the last word in that sentence. “I ain’t your fucking brother. Know what? Fuck it. Let’s just do this shit. Who’s this?” He points at Emily.
Emily looks at Ricky, who shakes his head a bit, like, Don’t make a thing out of it.
“Uh, I’m Emily,” she says. “We talked on—”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Tyler, walking past her and sitting down on an old leather couch next to a couple of mismatched chairs, and a table with fruit on it for some reason.
Ricky turns to me now. “You OK?”
I nod at him, feigning a confidence that he can surely tell is bullshit.
“Emily,” he says, putting his hand out, gesturing for her to take the floor.
Emily nods and steps forward. “So—” she says, before Tyler shouts.
“And who the fuck is this? Looks like she just showed up from fuckin’ rush week!”
“Tyler!” I say to him, with a clenched jaw. He gives me a look. I respond with a wide-eyed stare, and he nods and twists his head around in resignation. I see the kid I knew before and the man I know today all at once, and I almost smile. Almost. But I’m pulled back into the now by Emily saying…
“Mostly what we want to do today is give you some basic hand-to-hand skills you can use in the event things happen that require you to engage in force.”
“Like, what kind of things are you thinking about?” I ask her.
She glances at Ricky, who nods slightly.
“Like any number of things,” she says.
“You mean, like rape,” I say. It’s not a question.
She takes a breath and nods.
“Can I ask you something?” I say to her.
“Of course.”
“How long have you been doing this? This job?”
“I’ve been an agent for two and a half years.”
“And have you ever done anything like what I’m about to do?”
She looks at Ricky again.
“Don’t look at him,” I say to her. “I’m the one asking you the question. Have you ever done anything at all like what I’m about to do? Put yourself in a situation where you’re basically bait?”
“No, ma’am. I haven’t.”
I stiffen at that. “How old are you?” I ask her.
“Twenty-five.”
“Yeah, me too. Please don’t call me ma’am.” I don’t say it in a snarky way, but this whole thing is already weird enough without somebody I could have partied with in college calling me ma’am.
“But,” Emily says, “I was captured and held captive for eleven days in São Paulo by the Comando Vermelho and managed to extract myself and reach safety without being raped or murdered, so there are some ideas I feel like I can contribute.”
I glance at Tyler, who raises his eyebrows with a look that says, Well, shit. OK.
I look back at Emily. “All right, then,” I say.
She smiles a tight, official, government smile. “Over the next couple of days, you and I will talk about everything. Any questions you have, ways in which you can insulate yourself once you’re inside, etcetera, but since Ricky can only be with us for today—”
“Deep cover,” Ricky interrupts, and glances over at Tyler, who gives Ricky the finger.
“Since Ricky is only here for today,” Emily continues, “we want to work on some self-defense tactics, in the highly unlikely event you need to utilize them.”
The fact that she stresses ‘highly unlikely’ so much makes me highly nervous. Which is probably the opposite effect she intended for it to have.
I swallow and say, “OK,” again.
Ricky steps up and says, “There are some gym clothes in a changing area over there.” He nods to the back. “You feel like putting those on and then giving a few things a try?”
“Sure. In for a gram, in for a kilo,” I joke. I’m not sure Ricky and Emily find it funny, but I don’t care. It’s my ass on the line.
I head to the back and as I’m walking by the sofa where Tyler is sitting, he stands, takes my arm and whispers, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m good. Promise.”
He nods and gives me a kiss, and as I go to change clothes, I try to convince myself I mean what I said.
The whole time I’m changing, I hear a sound I can’t quite identify, and when I come back into the space, sporting completely unflattering shorts that are far too baggy on me and a t-shirt that’s two sizes too big, I find Tyler wearing boxing gloves, pounding the shit out of a heavy bag that’s suspended from one of the steel beams.
Stuffing is coming out with every strike he lands, and it looks like he’s going to send it flying off its mooring at any second. Ricky and Emily stand back and watch with what looks to me like a bit of… admiration.
He’s all sweaty, and I step up next to him, wiping moisture off his cheek.
“Are you OK?” I whisper.
He nods. “Yup. Too good,” he says. Then, referring to what I have on, “This is hot.”
“Fuck you,” I say with a smile.
“OK,” he says and starts taking off his boxing gloves and heading to the back room where I changed. I grin, hit him on the shoulder, and turn to face Ricky and Emily.
Ricky stands on a mat and asks, “Have you ever taken any kind of self-defense course? Anything like that? Have any training at all?”
“Got approached about being a ring-card girl for MMA once. That count?” I laugh. Nobody else does. I clear my throat. “Um, joking. Sorry. I mean… Yeah? Some.”
“What was that?” asks Ricky.
“I took a little Ju-Jitsu for a while.”
“OK—” Ricky says.
“Also, some Tae Kwan Do. A little Aikido. Oh, and a few months of Wing Chun.”
Ricky and Emily stare at me.
“I’ve tried lots of different stuff over the years.” I shrug.
“All right,” Ricky says on a breath. “Anything else?”
I think about it for a minute. Ju-Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do. Aikido. Wing Chun… “Oh! Yeah. And some Jeet Kune Do.”
More stares.
“It’s Bruce’s Lee’s thing. Means ‘Way of The Intercepting Fist.’”
I glance over at Tyler, who’s smiling a huge, shit-eating grin. He winks. And I get kind of proud of myself.
“OK,” says Ricky. “Anything else?”
I shake my head. “Don’t think so.”
“And how much of that have you retained?” asks Emily.
“Guess we’ll find out,” I say.
I step onto the mat and Ricky steps on with me. “Have you ever had to defend yourself in a real-world environment?”
“What’s the ‘real-world?’” I respond. I mean it. I don’t know anymore.
He nods at me. And then Tyler says, “We know she can handle Unlucky Logan, so at least we have that going for us.”
“Whattayou mean?” asks Ricky.
“She kicked his stupid ass when he came to see her at Pete’s a few weeks ago.”
Ricky gets a surprised look on his face and says to me, “You did that?”
I shrug. “I guess. Yeah. I was pretty pissed off. I don’t necessarily remember all of it. Everything kind of just went white. And the next thing I remember, Pete was pulling me off of him.”
Ricky shakes his head and chuckles.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“He told us that Pete and his boys did that,” Ricky says. “Told Carlos he was checking in on you to see what kind of progress you were making with the money, and that Pete got in his face and things got out of control. Said two big bouncers jumped into the fight too, and he fought off all three of them.”
“Dude,” Tyler says, “Pete pulled Maddie off of him. That bitch would be telling no stories to anyone right now if Pete hadn’t been there.”
And at that, Ricky’s face hollows.
“What?” I ask him. “What?”
“That’s the whole story Logan used to get Carlos to give him the green light on burning down Pete’s.”
“What?” I ask again, this time with more urgency in my voice.
“It wasn’t Carlos’s idea to burn it down. It was Logan’s. He talked Carlos into giving the order by convincing him that Pete had insulted his family. Which, of course, Carlos sees as an insult to him. And then when you factor in their history…”
That ringing sound in my ears is back.
“Fuck. That. Fucking. Cunt,” says Tyler. Which is the same thing I’m thinking.
“OK, well—” Ricky starts to say.
“Let’s go,” I blurt out. My whole body feels like it itches.
“What?” asks Ricky.
“Let’s go. Right now. We’re gonna train? Let’s train. Come on. Come at me. Let’s fuckin’ do this.”
“Maddie, why don’t you—?” That’s Emily. But the look I shoot her stops her mouth.
Then Ricky says, “You sure?”
“Fuck yeah, I’m sure! Put me in a choke hold. Grab my pussy. Whatever. Let’s see who’s made of what.”
“Maddie,” Ricky says, “One of the first things we’ll actually want to address is your temper. It’s not your friend. I know it feels like it is, but it’s not.”
He comes toward me with his arm out, like he’s gonna calm me down, and I flash back to the morning he drove me home to Vegas from Carlos’s compound in… wherever-the-hell it is. Back before he was Richard the DEA agent, when he was just Ricky the drug-dealing scumbag.
Ese es tu problema. Tienes mal genio, he said to me then. That’s your problem. You have a bad temper.
Yeah, Ricky. You’re goddamned right I do.
He reaches me with his outstretched hand and I grab his palm, twist his wrist, kick the inside of his thigh, and the next thing I know, he’s flat on his back and I have my knee dangerously close to his fucking balls.
Emily gasps, Tyler claps and shouts, “Fuck yeah, baby!” And Ricky stares up at me with a look that’s half-surprised, half-impressed, and says, “OK, then. And which was that? Aikido? Ju-Jitsu? Wing Chun…?”
Breathing heavy, and with no real clear image in my head of what exactly just happened, I let go of his arm, stand up, step back, and say…
“Pretty sure that was just Maddie Clayton.”