Madison Avenue Ch. 02

Feedback and criticism (preferably constructive) always appreciated.

Chapter 2 picks up the day after Chapter 1 ended, so it'd probably be a good idea to start from the beginning.

-December 18, 2006-

The knocking on the door woke me, but surely my screaming bladder wouldn't have waited much longer to rouse me from the sort of half-drunk, mostly exhausted, terribly needed sleep I was trying to enjoy. I rubbed my eyes as I slipped out from under the covers and swung my legs down on the bed, my throbbing head seemingly keeping rhythm with whoever was so persistently pounding on the door outside my condo. I blindly ran my hand over the bedside table, knocking over a picture frame and tipping an empty glass down off the ledge to the carpeted floor before finally finding my cell phone.

10:26. In the morning. Monday morning. I was on vacation. Shit. The rustling under the covers behind me would've startled me if I hadn't been in that position too many times before — shaking off the cobwebs of a restless sleep on the edge of the bed with Katie still happily dreaming behind me. Katie. Always there. What's that Foo Fighters line? "Gave me something I didn't have but had no use." Yup. Sums that up nicely.

"Fuck. I'm coming," I mumbled under my breath, not yet ready to deal with both Katie and whoever was pounding on the door.

The knocking on the door was pissing me off, enough that I stopped at the bathroom first. Anyone that interested in seeing me would wait another minute. I grabbed a T-shirt off the back of the couch on my way to the front door, hoping that it was important, for the sake of whoever was on the other side of the door.

A quick glance through the peephole sent a shudder down my spine. Cheap, poorly tailored suit. Red hair cropped tightly. Big ears flagging out from each side of a sharply angular face. Eyes hidden by department store sunglasses.

I swung the door open slowly, pulling the T-shirt over my head and leaning against the door frame.

"Dick." I smirked as I said it, watching his eyebrows tighten. "Oh, I'm sorry. I mean Agent McAllister."

I crossed my arms over my chest as my eyes flicked over toward the much shorter, much younger, not especially unattractive young woman standing next to him.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Us? We were just in the neighborhood," McAllister said. "And it's Rick, Christian."

"I'm so forgetful."

"Aren't you going to invite us in? I know you've got such a long history of supporting and cooperating with law enforcement." His tone reeked of arrogance. It always did. Pissed me off.

"No, Rick. I'm not. Or did you bring a warrant?" I pushed away from the door, standing up over both of them and brushing my hair out of my face.

"No warrant. We just heard that Christian Moretti was back in town, and well, needless to say, the agency's curiosity was piqued."

I took a deep breath. I hated trying to stay calm around a man I hated so deeply. But the last thing my father would want is for me to give the prick a reason.

"You know damn well why I came back," I said, keeping my tone level.

"I do, in fact, know why you came back," McAllister said, taking off his sunglasses and slipping them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "And I was sorry to hear about your mother. I'm sure the services were lovely and ..."

"You'd know. You were there." I cut him off with a raised eyebrow.

He ignored the comment.

"What I don't understand is why you're still here, Christian, why you've taken a job, why you're hanging out at the places you used to hang out at, with the same people. Didn't you have an offer someplace else?"

"Does the FBI offer occupational counseling these days? I didn't know you were a temp service, too. Must be part of some interagency cooperation, right?"

"Just let us in," he said, nodding at his partner and looking at me with a look that said it would be quicker if they just came in and got whatever they wanted.

I shook my head and shrugged, turning my back to them and walking into the living room, leaving the door open for them to follow. I stopped at the coffee table in front of the couch and grabbed a rubber band that I reached up and wrapped around my hair, holding it in the back and out of my face. I sat down heavily on the couch, not bothering to put on pants. If Dick and his partner wanted to talk to me, they'd have to live with me being in boxers and a T-shirt.

"What do you really want, Rick?"

"Cup of coffee?"

"Hate the stuff."

"Glass of water?"

"Bathroom is the first door on the left."

He smirked and gestured toward his partner to sit in one of the two chairs opposite the couch. He paced around the room for a moment, looking things over, before taking a seat in the other chair.

"Christian Moretti, this is Agent Gutierrez."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." I forced a smile as she nodded back at me. She, unlike her partner, was dressed sharply and clearly cared about how she presented herself. Perhaps it's tough for a younger female in her field — I'd guess she was about 30. Either way, she wasn't hard on the eyes, relatively short but definitely curvy, even if she tried her best to dress conservatively. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she wore barely any makeup, allowing the crisp lines of her face to stand on their own, every angle sharp, from the point of her nose to the high rise of her cheekbones — everything save for a full pair of lips that would have almost seemed out of place, if they hadn't looked so good on her.

"You're Angelo Moretti's son?" It was the first words she had spoken, and there was a hint of fascination in her voice, like she'd studied my dad's case in law school or something and here she was, sitting in front of his only heir.

"I am." I smiled at her again, nodding. I was proud of my heritage, regardless of what these people thought. I looked back to McAllister, and the generous mood she brought out it me faded. "Are the questions going to get any tougher, Rick?"

"I already asked the question I came here to have answered, Christian. Why are you back in town? Or, more succinctly, why are you still in town? No one raised an eyebrow when you came back to bury your mother, but your prolonged stay — which currently seems indefinite — bothers some of the people I work with."

He shifted in his chair, crossing one leg over the other and running his fingers up and down the arm of the chair. I didn't respond, so he continued.

"See, I try to tell them that there's no way Christian Moretti came back to take over his father's business ..."

"We sold the restaurant, Dick."

His brow tightened, but again, he ignored my interruption.

"... That there's no way such a smart kid, one who proved himself to have a healthy respect for the law, despite the way he was raised ..."

"Raised? You mean church every Sunday, respect for elders, a value for doing the right thing and education?"

"... By a known criminal and a mother ..."

"McAllister, I swear to God, if you say one thing about my mother ..." My voice trailed off, and I stared him hard in the eyes.

"Look, Mr. Moretti," Gutierrez cut off our growing tension. "We're just stopping by to see what your intentions are. You have ties to certain individuals, and we want to make sure you're not planning on, well, getting involved with them. No one's saying you don't have the right to live wherever you choose."

"But it would be easier on a lot of people if you'd have stayed away," McAllister said, looking out the window. "I've never put a father and son in neighboring cells, but I will if I have to."

"Oh, you'll lie in court and produce false evidence to a jury hungry to say it had something to do with taking down organized crime and looking for any Italian name to put behind bars?"

He smirked again as he brought his eyes from the window back to mine.

"Mr. Moretti?" Gutierrez regained my attention, and I tore my eyes from McAllister to look back to her. "We just want to know that you don't have any motives for being here that would cause concern."

"I missed my friends, my family," I said, reaching down to scratch a phantom itch on the tattoo running up the length of my left forearm. "I'm here because I choose to be. I have a job, a home. I'm a productive, tax-paying, law-abiding member of society. I have no motives."

"How are your friends? Damien? Marty? Your temperamental cousin, Paul?" McAllister reached up to rub his right temple as he mentioned Paul, no doubt remembering the time Paul slugged him outside of a gas station.

I smiled, remembering the look on McAllister's face as he hit the ground.

"Paul's good. I'll tell him you send your regards."

He smirked back, raising an eyebrow. "And Madison, seen her since you returned?"

The mention of Madison by anyone would probably bring up some anger, but coming from him, I felt myself on the edge of boiling over.

"Go fuck yourself," I said through pursed lips, the muscles in my arms and chest tensing as I fought to keep myself seated.

He raised his arms defensively, palms toward me, but the smile still on his face.

"Easy, son. It was an honest question. I always thought very highly of the young woman."

"You would, wouldn't you?" Just then I heard Katie getting up from the bed, her feet padding softly across the carpet to the bedroom door, opening it slowly.

"Oh, is that her? Is that why you were so upset?" McAllister's eyes lit up as he looked down the hallway toward the opening door and shrugging as Katie stepped out. "Oh, guess not." His voice sounded disappointed. I couldn't tell if he was mocking me or not.

I heard Katie cross the hallway and shut the bathroom door behind her.

"She's cute, though," McAllister said, looking back to me.

I shook my head, staring past him toward the window, breathing in and out slowly, hoping that this little "meeting" was about finished.

"What does that say?" Gutierrez spoke up, breaking the momentary silence.

I looked at her and noticed she was gesturing toward the tattoo I had been scratching a few minutes earlier. The word "antiproiettile" was written in script letters from the crook of my elbow down to my wrist.

"It's Italian," I said, pronouncing the word for her, "for 'bulletproof.' "

"It's a much prettier word in Italian," she said, smiling. It's too bad she was an FBI agent. She seemed to be a genuinely nice person. "But then, I suppose most words are."

"Spanish is like that, too," I said with a slight smile as I heard the water stop in the bathroom.

"Yeah, the Kevlar Don here thinks quite highly of himself," McAllister said, piping in with a snide comment to break any semblance of a civilized conversation. "But that one might actually be true. How many was it? Three?"

"Four, Dick."

"Four what?" Gutierrez asked, looking back and forth between us.

"Young Christian here was shot a couple times a few years back."

I hated that he said it like that, so vaguely, almost willing to let her think that it had something, anything to do with my father, his friends or his business associates.

"By who?" Her voice shook slightly, clearly the thought of a person getting shot wasn't something she'd made her peace with yet despite being someone who carries a gun while working.

"Our young hero here came across a couple guys having their way with a young woman and stepped in to save the damsel in distress."

As McAllister spoke, Katie came walking into the room, wearing one of my dress shirts and I'm not sure what, if anything else. Her appearance clearly drew the attention of McAllister, as he stopped telling the story to give her the once-over with his eyes. She scowled in return and sat down next to me on the couch.

"Aren't you going to introduce us to your lady friend?" McAllister asked, a sly grin creeping across his freckled face.

"She's none of your business, Dick."

Gutierrez looked back and forth between the three of us before speaking back up.

"Wait, why isn't him getting shot in his file?" she asked.

"It's not in my FBI file because it took place in Georgia, not Ohio, and it in no way ties into organized crime — and since I'm a Moretti, the only thing the FBI is interested in is my connection to the mob."

Katie squirmed in her seat next to me. She was clearly uncomfortable in their presence. Gutierrez just looked at me. She wanted to know more.

"So, two guys ..."

"Three."

"With guns?"

"Just two of them."

"Still, three guys, two armed, why are you still alive? Where were you shot?"

I lowered my eyes, running my fingers over the scar on my neck, a few inches below my right ear, and looking at my chest.

"One here, one in the leg, two in the chest."

"At close range?"

"Not close enough, apparently."

"Seriously, Christian, what happened?" It was the first time she hadn't called me "Mr. Moretti."

"I was walking back to my apartment after a class one night, and as I was passing a restaurant with an alley alongside of it, I heard a commotion, a girl's voice begging for help, but quietly, like she was being restrained. I walked down the alley slowly, trying to gauge the situation — how many guys, what kind of weapons."

Katie leaned against me as I told the story, placing her hand on my chest.

"I'd been in fights before, but I was smart enough — or so I thought — to not try to fight an armed guy."

"Funny the things you pick up when your father is a mob big shot."

I didn't acknowledge McAllister's interjection, but Gutierrez shot him a fierce look, and he shrugged and shut his mouth.

"I was just going to yell, hopefully scare 'em off, you know? But then I saw they had her pinned down and were tearing her pants off. I saw one of the guns and just reacted, picked up a rock that was lying on the ground and charged the guy who was standing up, pointing the gun at the girl and laughing. He didn't hear me, and I smashed the rock against the back of his head. As he fell to the ground, his body turned and the gun went off. I just heard the shot and felt a burning in my leg."

I paused, looking down at the outside of my right thigh where the bullet had grazed across the flesh, leaving what looked like a permanent burn mark.

"The guy who was on top of the girl took off at the sound of the gun, scrambling to his feet and running away. The other whirled around, pointing a handgun at me, a .380, I think the police said it was. He pointed it at my head."

"So a guy has you at the end of a gun, and you walk away?" Gutierrez was leaning forward, her eyes wide.

"He hesitated."

I swallowed hard.

"He hesitated, fingers squeezed the grip, not the trigger, and he looked at me, weighing his options. I didn't really have any. I moved just to my left, and the gun went off, and I lunged forward, unsure if I'd been hit, but knowing he was going to die, too. The gun went off twice in the struggle."

"In your chest?" Gutierrez asked.

"Yup, straight through, missed my heart, clipped a lung. Anyway, the people in the restaurant heard the gunfire and called the cops. Couple surgeries, and I was fine. Girl was, too."

Gutierrez exhaled, almost as if the story were too much for her to bear. Katie shared the feeling and shuddered against me.

"What happened to the guy who shot you?" Gutierrez asked, an eyebrow raised curiously.

"Yeah, Christian, finish the story for her," McAllister said.

"Well, like I said, there was a struggle, you know, when his gun went off after I rushed him."

"And?" McAllister asked, smirking.

"And he didn't make it to the hospital, Dick. Unless the morgue was at the hospital."

Katie shivered again, leaning away from me. She knew the story, but that didn't mean she liked it. Gutierrez sat back, looking back and forth between McAllister and I.

"Yup. Mr. 'Bulletproof' there beat the guy to death."

"Self defense." Gutierrez said it, not me.

"Mmhmm." I took a deep breath, looking over at Katie. She was playing with her hair, looking down at the floor.

"Is there anything else, McAllister?" I asked, rising to my feet, looking down back and forth between him and his partner. His eyes were locked on mine, unblinking, smug. Gutierrez had a different look on her face, a slight blush, perhaps some confusion in her eyes.

"That'll be all, Christian," McAllister said, rising to his feet and gesturing toward Gutierrez that they'd be leaving. "Just want to keep you out of trouble, son. Or to let you know that if you're planning on getting in trouble, we'll know."

"Yeah, I've only been in town for six months, Dick, and look, you're already here to tell me that you know I'm in town. You FBI boys are quick."

He shook his head and turned his back to me, walking toward the door. I turned to face Gutierrez, offering my hand.

"Nice to meet you, Agent Gutierrez," I said as she shook my hand, firm and professional, smiling.

"Likewise, Christian. And it's Hannah."

I walked them to the door and heard Katie get up from the couch. Half of me hoped she was leaving. I shut the door behind them and locked it, leaning forward and resting my head against the slightly cold door, eyes closed. I wanted so badly to not be angry, to forget that they were there. After all, I hadn't done anything wrong. They were only there because of my father. But for how long does a son pay for his father's sins? What made it worse was that I didn't necessarily agree with the determination that they were sins, not all of them anyway. My father helped a lot of people, and anyone he'd hurt was a worse blight on society than he was. It wasn't black and white; it never is.

I pushed away from the door and walked slowly back into the living room, settling myself down in the chair that had been previously occupied by McAllister, resting my head back with my eyes closed. I could hear Katie in the kitchen. She was cleaning up. She knew I hated when she did that; maybe that's why she did it. She lived next door with her son and her sister. The sisters owned a beauty salon in town, and despite Katie's older sister urging her to stay away from me, she came around when she was lonely — or when I was lonely. It wasn't meaningful in any way, but it wasn't hurtful, either. We both knew what the other could and couldn't provide. And the night before, when I'd come home from the bar after running into Madison, I'd been rather open to replacing those feelings with anything else.

I heard her turn off the sink and come walking back down the hallway toward the living room. My eyes stayed shut, though, and my head back, even as she stepped in front of me and lowered herself into my lap, her bare thighs straddling the outsides of my legs, the hem of the dress shirt she was wearing — or swimming in is perhaps more accurate — dancing along my bare legs as I felt her settle onto my lap. She was a tiny woman compared to me, maybe 5-2 or so and quite petite, and she felt like next to nothing as she leaned forward, resting her head against my chest.

"Assholes," she whispered, almost inaudibly. "Why can't they leave you alone?"

"I don't know."

She ran her hands up and down my chest, resting them on my shoulders.

"You want to go out tonight, get a few drinks?"

"Can't. Going to Cleveland. I told you about that."

"Right. Cavs game. Men and their sports," she laughed softly, tracing her fingers back and forth along my shoulders. My hands stayed rested on the arms of the chair as she shifted, pressing down against the tops of my thighs. I didn't feel any panties separating her ass from my legs, and I was almost certain she'd had some on the night before. "Is that all you guys think about?"

I chuckled softly as I felt myself starting to get excited from her touch, from the warmth of her body against mine.

"Well, that's not all we think about," I said, smiling, tilting my head forward and opening my eyes. I brought my hands off the arms of the chair and gripped her hips, holding her down against my lap.