VER IN QUEENS, Noah Braxton’s apartment was neat, efficient and mostly bare. Like a true dedicated military man, his possessions were few and he had no visible interest in comfort of any kind.
“That’s quite a story, kids.” Noah was just like I remembered him. A bear of a man with a brow like the Grand Canyon and eyes that shone out of caves. “Can I get you something to drink? Eat?”
Vesper shook her head, but she gave him a nice enough smile. I felt that she trusted this gnarled old warrior. Which was something. Everything I knew told me that he didn’t trust her one bit.
“Your contact,” he asked me, “The guy that you were doing the job for.”
“Just a voice on the phone. Calls himself El Guapo.”
He thought about that. “Does he sound Spanish?”
“Not even a bit.”
Vesper looked up. Thought for a moment and then said that Braxton had a point.
“What people choose for their work names, cover names, call signs, any time someone has a chance to put a label on themselves, it’s going to tell you something about them. They’ll be drawing a picture, giving out an idea. How they want to be seen.”
Keeping it light I said, “Is this more of your psych voodoo?”
Her nose wrinkled. “You got something better?”
I shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“A name someone chooses for themselves is something that seems heroic to them. Or glamorous, or frightening. Different things. But it’s a strand. Pull on the strand gently enough, patiently enough, you’re going to unravel the whole thing sooner or later.”
Noah watched her talk. His face was still. Not giving anything away.
“You know,” I sat up and looked from Vesper to Braxton and back, “Fun though that thread pulling sounds, and I can certainly think of a thread or two that I wouldn’t mind tugging on, I don’t think we’re oversupplied with time. We aren’t going to be good for too much of the ‘sooner or later,’ if you catch what I’m saying.”
She smiled. That smile of hers could last me a long time. “Welcome to the world of investigation, soldier.” Braxton nodded as she went on, “It’s always vital and urgent, there’s never enough time, and whatever you do, it’s going to look and feel way too slow. You have to get down with the rhythm.”
“Down with the rhythm, you say?” I watched her cheeks color up. It was a gladdening sight. “I think I can get with that part alright.”
Braxton’s laugh shook the floor. “OH! You guys got chemistry going on so strong I could smell it over the phone.” He rocked and his head shook from side to side. He grinned and his teeth gleamed. “Which is cool. But it isn’t the topic.”
She said, “The topic being?”
He leaned forward. “The topic being, which of those tantalizing threads would be the one to save your sorry asses? How far does this ‘boilerhouse’ thing spread? You any idea about that, Miss Fed?”
She flinched at his insult, and shook her head.
He watched her warily. “You should give some thought to that. Could inform you some about who your friends are.” Their eyes stayed locked. “Well, you can hide, the two of you. Or you can make a plan. Maybe think about how can you lure one of these motherfuckers out into the fucking light.”
We were all quiet for a few moments. “Okay. While we all think about that, you kids need somewhere to stay.”
I said, “My place is pretty secure. I haven’t been there more than a few days and…”
Noah shook his head as he got up and went to the next room. He returned a few moments later with a long, heavy case and a bunch of keys.
Handing me the keys he said, “It definitely ain’t the Ritz, but it’s clean and it’s secure.”
He opened the case. Inside he showed us machine pistols, an AR-15 assault rifle, night scope, suppressors and a quickset sniper’s stand. He handed me a backpack with magazines, ammunition and a few grenades.
“Smoke, gas and stun grenades.” His eyes shone. “Just in case.” And he patted my shoulder. He looked at Vesper. “You know how to use all of this, I’m guessing?” She nodded. “Shame.” He jutted his bottom lip. “I thought about what fun it would be to show you.”
As we left, I let Vesper go on to the Jeep while I took Noah Braxton aside.
Quietly I asked him, “When you were in the Skull and Bones troop back in…” He raised a finger to his lips, even though Vesper was out of earshot. I nodded. “Okay. There’s a guy around now, short, broad, fast and ruthless.” Braxton just looked at me. “Okay,” I said, “It isn’t much to go on.” Braxton shrugged. As I turned back I mentioned, “Called ‘the Wrecker,’ apparently.”
Noah Braxton’s face tightened.
“Shit.” His head shook “Number of times I heard the motherfucker was dead. Every time I wished it was true. Every time I knew for sure it wasn’t.”
His lips tightened. “Everybody said, ‘could be a day you’ll need a man like him.’ That was how we all passed it off, everyone in the troop. How we got along with the shit he would do.” His eyes misted. “I think we all knew, all of us with a trace of sanity left, if a day comes when you need a man like him, it’s probably not a day you’d want to survive anyway.” His eyes were dark and hollow, “You wouldn’t want to see the day that followed.”
He looked at me a long time. “That who you saw at Carmine Monreale’s house? The guy who looked like he was there to kill everyone?” his voice lowered, “That’s who was at her apartment?”
He looked back at the case of weapons. “That’s probably about a tenth of what you’ll need.”
He grabbed my arm as I was going through the door. “This Vassily guy.”
“Yeah. He mentioned your name. You know him?”
“Know of him. Never met him, though and, far as I know, our paths never crossed.”
We both thought about it. He said, “So I wonder why he put you together with me.”
I shook my head. I had no idea.
He said, “The pretty Fed. You trust her?”
I thought about it. After a moment, I nodded.
His eyes narrowed. He kept a hold on my arm for a moment. “Your instinct is probably right. Hold hard onto it.” Then, before he let me go, “Stay observant, though. Observant and alert.”
Back in the car I did all that I could to keep the chatter light and flirty. I didn’t want Vesper to think that I was worried. She must have had the same idea, but I think the two of us were both playing sides of the same game, keeping morale and our spirits up.
Plus, on my side at least, any spare moment my mind wandered down her throat, into her shirt, up in her bra and lower, down her stomach and into her pants. The way her eyes kept dancing and the look that she had, the burn whenever her eyes were still told me, she was thinking about those same things. Like me, perhaps, remembering that night. The night at her apartment. The night before I went to jail.
I chewed my lip as I told her, “You’re thinking about it, too, I know you are.” Her eyes flashed.
She tried. “Look, soldier,” It was a good effort but her voice stuck in her throat.
I looked hard in her eye, with an intensity like I would eat her, devour her alive. Slip my tongue all over her, drink her dry and shake her till she burst wide and gushed.
“Don’t try to deny it.”
Her eyes pleaded. That look that says, No, while she pushed her chest forward so hard I thought she’d bust out of her shirt. Her head even tipped back to show me her lovely throat. Goddamn, how I didn’t fuck her right there in the middle of the traffic I don’t know to this day. Her eyes gleamed like jewels.
“Look,” she managed to say, “We have a lot to do.”
“Sure,” I laughed as I hauled the Jeep around a hard bend and the ammunition locker slid around in the back. “So, tell me you’re not thinking about it.”
Her lips parted so fucking prettily. Oh, I was aching. “Tell me specifically.” I told her, “Exactly which parts are you not thinking about,” and her tongue flicked across her open lips, I fixed here eyes, “Right now.”
“Oh,” she couldn’t stop herself sighing. Damn. She was going to be even better than I remembered.
Just because I thought she was probably going to set me up, or, just as likely, like any dumbass officer of the law, get me killed while she did the right thing, so what? No reason I couldn’t fuck her if the chance came up. Anyway, the idea of some honest to goddamned goodness revenge hadn’t slipped entirely off my agenda. There was that matter still to be addressed.
The tires slid as I swung the Jeep into the lot of the old Brooklyn warehouse building where Braxton’s loft was. Just like he said, one of the roller shutters was open and we drove straight in. As I parked I looked across at her in the dim light.
Her lips were wet and her thighs were parted. Damn, I thought, even if I do die, even if we both do, it’ll be worth it.
The cold cement space was dark after I pulled down the roller shutter. None of the light switches worked. By the lamps on the Jeep I got the case full of weapons into the rickety freight elevator and Vesper followed me in. When I turned Braxton’s key, a pale bulb came on.
The discolored brass panel had four buttons and Braxton’s space was the on the third. He said that the other floors were empty. I hauled the folding metal door shut and slammed it into place. The elevator clicked, shook and then rattled us up to the third floor. Maybe I was expecting brick walls and a lot of dust. When I dragged open the elevator door, I was surprised to see a clean white wall and a huge, neat loft space.
Vesper’s heels echoed as they clicked across the buffed wood floor. The loft was clean and even more bare and minimal than his apartment. The walls were bright and completely bare. In one corner were pale wood kitchen cabinets and a counter with a microwave, a sink, a fancy electric stove and an expensive, stainless steel espresso coffee machine. Tall stools were arranged around a breakfast bar.
A few undecorated gray metal screens on casters divided the floor, plus some moveable clothes racks. Otherwise, a couple of futons and a metal ammunition chest with a TV on top were about all of the furniture. The radiators around the walls were about the nearest thing to décor and neat black blinds covered the huge metal-framed windows.
Apart from the elevator, the only exits were doors at either end of the long room. Neither was locked and both led to narrow, dark internal stairways. I put the weapons case by the door nearest the elevator.
Near the far end, two functional sets of bookshelves made minimal partitions around a low, wide, square bed.
“This is probably Braxton’s idea of romantic,” Vesper looked at me over her shoulder. I looked back at her. Maybe we were getting somewhere after all.
Her heels clacked as she crossed to where I waited, leaned back against the wall. I dragged my thumb down over my lips and grinned a little. She came right up to me. Leaned in close.
Then she hooked her leg behind mine and so quick I didn’t see it coming she pushed. By the time I was sat on the floor, she’d snapped a set of cuffs on me and fastened them to the damned radiator.
“You’re kidding, right?” I grinned at her uncertainly as I tugged on the cuffs.
She smiled and clicked away across the floor to the bathroom. I was pretty sure that she hadn’t chained me up so she could piss in private. I strained hard, but I couldn’t make out any of what she said in there. I distinctly heard her talking. Maybe she’s giving herself a pep talk, I thought. Yeah. Right.
She flushed the john before she came out, but I knew she’d been in there to make a call.
I watched her click back to where I was fastened. “I hope you at least shut the phone off and took the SIM card out when you were done.”
“Whoever’s looking for me, she said, grabbing my hair, “They won’t have that number. And they wouldn’t be able to trace it if they did.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said as she pulled my head back. She lowered herself slowly to sit in my lap. I told her, “They probably just got lucky finding your apartment.”
“I know you think the Bureau is mixed up in this somehow.” She said. So that was who she called. Her breath was on my chest. She was near enough that I could taste her on the air. The smell of her was making me mad. Her ass slid along my thighs. My cock stiffened. It wasn’t in the best position and it ached like hell.
“Not all of them,” I wet my lips and narrowed my eyes. Her ass found my raging bulge and she slid along it. “I chewed my lip. “I doubt the whole Hoover Building in DC are in on it.”
Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed as she ground her hot mound along my cock. There was no mistaking it. She didn’t pretend it was anything else. I kept as still as I could. Wait for her to commit. Take herself to a point of no return. Then I’d ensnare her. Her teeth sank into her lip as she dragged her pussy along my stiffening swell.
“I do think,” I lifted my chin to peer at her, “Someone in your department, or with very good access there, is definitely a part of this.”
“You don’t know the Bureau,” her tongue pressed out between her lips.
“Are you placing me in custody and abusing your position as a federal agent?”
My chest swelled and my cock lengthened. She said, “Well, for now,” her full breasts were either side of my face, “I’m just going to abuse my position as the girl on top.”
She started to unbutton her shirt. “We’ll take it from there.”
With her shirt open, the perfume between her breasts was right in front of my nose. Her soft flesh rose so near I could taste her. If I let my tongue out, I could snake it inside her black bra and flick her nipples. Even through the thick, lacy cup, I could see they were hardening.
Her hands were gripped tight in my hair. She sat, straddling me, her thighs spread wide. Her body pressed against mine and I felt like my skin could burn through my clothes and then hers. The smooth press of her hot leather pants made me imagine them licked away in a lashing sheet of thin flame. It lit a fire in my brain.
Despite myself, my cock throbbed and hardened. As it straightened and lengthened, painfully caught in the folds of my pants, it nudged its own way up. Like a heat-seeking missile it rose and found the hot pulse of her pussy and even through my jeans and her creamy leather, the end of my cock felt the heat of her wetness.
She reached down to my pants. Tugged at my belt.
“Come on, Horse. I’ve been thinking about this for five years.” My heart thundered when she looked in my eye. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been.”
Her hips rolled on my thighs. Back and forth, her shoulders straightened and her breasts heaved in my face. I held back from grabbing them with my mouth, but it was hard. She ground along my shaft, pushing to roll her hips around at the very tip. I knew she was feeling me with her clit. And again when she slid back down to the aching base, she tilted her pussy around, as she ground her swollen lips against me.