Maxine's New Life Ch. 12

"Why here?" Mike asked.

"It would have been a waste of money to go to a motel for three hours. It was after four when I left the broken gate. I knew there was heat here, so it seemed logical."

"Everything you do is logical," Ed said shaking his head as he walked by me.

Mike turned his attention to Gwen, "Don't you think that little episode would have had entertainment value?" he asked.

"Mike, I used my best judgment," Gwen said angrily.

"Next time at least check the house monitor before you go to bed." he said. He was obviously peeved, but not nasty about it.

"Sorry you two can't tag along to watch Lucas fix the gate. At least I hope he can fix it." I said smiling.

While I tried to pour water on the fire, Lucas checked the battery in the gate's remote. The kid was developing quite a tool collection. His were mostly electronics tools, while mine were purely mechanical tools. Between the two of us we could handle most small repairs.

"Well your battery is fine," he reported. "I can't measure the signal strength but it looks okay on the surface of it. Let's ride out and take a look at the gate."

"Fair enough," I said in agreement. "Let's take the van, it has my tool kit. Just in case we have to bang on something. Your tool kit is useless for that kind of thing."

"You two can watch us work on the gate's monitor camera." Lucas suggested.

"Be sure you turn your mics on, so we can hear you." Mike said. Mike looked up to see me remove the shotgun from the safe room. "What's that for?"

"In case I need a pry bar," I said smiling. I wondered how soft he had gotten in his PBS job. Surely he remembered what a riot shotgun was all about.

In the van I said to Lucas, "Gwen is going to be pissed at you."

"Why?" he asked oblivious to what he had done.

"You caused her partner to question her judgment. You should not have mentioned that I slept on the floor of the office. As much as I hate to admit it, that would have made a pretty interesting visual."

"Yeah, I guess you are right," he replied.

"Lucas honey, every thought that enters your head, doesn't have to exit through your mouth."

"Okay Boss, I get it."

"Good," I suggested. "Have you done your shooting range training at the community college?" I knew that it was part of his law enforcement curriculum.

"Yes, we did that last year. It was the semester before I started here."

"Just this one time, reach into the lock box under the back seat and take the Smith and Wesson 9mm automatic. Do not chamber a round, unless we get in trouble."

"Why are you so spooked?" he asked.

"Lucas, did you know Blevins and Anya are involved with some federal task force investigating the Russian connection here?" I asked.

"No, I had no idea. I guess after your run in with them, you have the right to be concerned with anything out of the ordinary."

"There is no upside to killing me, but maybe they think there is a lesson to be taught to others. If that is the case, they may try to get to me."

"If it's a lesson, then it wouldn't be a pleasant ending, would it?" Lucas asked.

"That was my thinking," I admitted.

As is usually the case, it all turned out to be for nothing. As I pointed the remote at the gate from the van. Lucas stood by the gate, where he heard the motor whine.

I got out of the car leaving the riot gun on the seat, but it was still easily within my grasp through the open door. I took a good hard look around before I left the cover of the van to look at the gate. "So what's the verdict?" I asked.

"Damn chain slipped off the sprocket. It seems to be too loose. I can almost get it on without tools. I'm thinking it stretched after you began using it. Let me get on my laptop and I will know soon enough."

Lucas could find anything on the Internet. I had no doubt that he could find an answer to our problem as well. "Yeah here it is. Those chains do stretch and should have been readjusted after the first month. Nobody told us that."

"So can we fix it?" I asked knowing the answer.

"Sure we just have to move the sprocket to tighten the chain. It's a five minute repair."

"Fair enough, but afterward, I want to take a good look around." I demanded. I knew that if there was a sniper and if he was till in place, I would already be dead. What I would be looking for was evidence that someone had indeed been waiting for me. Last night could easily have been a dry run as well. Just to see what I would do in order to prepare an ambush for the next time. So many possibilities for the paranoid mind to play with. It would take days to sort through them all. In the meantime it was learn all I could time.

After Lucas and I tightened the chain on the gate, we drove to the cabin. He was able to use my computer there to retrieve more of the video. Even though a half hour loop was the on line surveillance length, my computer's hard drive stored a longer lower resolution loop. Lucas told me that the computer loop varied but most of last night was till available.

It showed us that no one have been within the view of either camera. That was a good sign. After we viewed the tape, we went for a long walk around. As we went I lectured Lucas about why we checked where we did.

"From here you have a clear field of fire to the gate. If I were sitting here, and the target got out to check the gate, I could find them easily in my scope." That was from a hilltop some two hundred yards away.

Later when we were closer to the gate, "Note that I had all the trees and bushes cut when they installed the gate. A grab team would have to drive up in a car to get close quickly without being seen. I would hear the car and have time to defend myself, maybe."

"Looks like you are pretty well prepared." Lucas suggested.

"The defender can never think of everything. Just try to make if difficult and hope you are alert when it comes down."

"So was it an accident or a conspiracy?" he asked seriously. He didn't think it was humorous in the least. I liked that about him."

"Well in spite of what people say, there really are accidents and acts of fate, just not as many as we would hope. The short answer is, I don't know. I do know that we didn't find anything to prove that it wasn't just a random accident."

Back in the office Mike sat Lucas down with a recorder. Mike had him do some additional narrative. It would be used to explain what the 'show and tell' cameras footage depicted.

The one lesson, of any real value, I learned in the sandbox was that you can't guard against everything. Since I couldn't prevent land mines, claymore mines, and IEDs, I just concentrated on what I could do something about.

The security survey after the gate repair told me that my security was in as good a shape as it could be, without a couple of marines standing guard 24/7. Since I didn't have bands of Taliban soldiers assaulting my compound, I felt some better. In the worst case, it would be a few heavy handed thugs, armed to the teeth.

I could still remember the simplicity and efficiency of my bicycle attack on the Mendez clan in Tryon. I doubted that the Russians had even that rudimentary amount of a military operation in mind. They had numbers and fire power, they didn't need homemade napalm and escape plans. If they had a mind to, they would come in like bulls in the pastry shop and have my ass for dinner. I had no doubt of that. I would just prefer to make it as difficult as possible for them.

The truth is it turned out to be all paranoia. A stretched bicycle type chain was the cause of all the alarms. If Jerry hadn't mentioned the Russian connection again, the chain would never have caused any concern at all.

Events in my life tended to swing wildly from routine, to exciting, then back to routine. After the gate fiasco, things switched to nothing but routine. I could only assume that Jen was beating the bushes trying to find something interesting to keep Marty's film crew from going stir crazy. She seemed to be having terrible luck at it. Not a single lion or even a goat ran away from the bush beatings.

Another week passed leaving me half way through my deal with Marty and the Pros from Dover. I had no concern at all for any of them. My concern was for Lucas and myself. We were getting really, really bored. Boredom carried over to the job and would surely lead to a mistake eventually. Provoking someone was just plain stupid, but it did break the monotony. So I warned Lucas to keep an especially tight reign on his short temper. I tried to do the same.

"Did you see the news this morning ," Ed asked as he entered the office with a his arms filled with brown bags. Over the last week Ed had taken a liking to Helen's new spicy egg on a bagel sandwich. Since he brought them for everyone, I stopped dropping in on Hardees before work.

The sandwich wasn't really new. It did have a definite change in the taste of the egg. It certainly wasn't the traditional, scrambled in grease egg. Helen had switched to a microwave dry cooking of the egg. She added one hell of a lot of spices to make up for the lack of grease. None of us thought they would catch on, so Ed was determined to eat them for breakfast every day until Helen came to her senses. We all thought that eventually she would figure out that she was in the heart attack capitol of the world. Everything had to be floating in grease for those of us bent on suicide by clogged arteries. The new egg bagel wasn't soaked in grease, but it was still a great sandwich.

"What news?" I asked taking one of the bags. Inside the bag I found not only the bagel but a mixture of homemade chunky apples. The fresh apples were covered with brown sugar, cinnamon and some crunchy stuff. I took the top off the bagel and poured the apple mixture on top of the melted cheese.

Ed cringed at my desecration of Helen's bagel and its already perfect mix of flavors. At least it was perfect in his mind. Finally he said, "The cops made sweeping arrests all up and down the eastern seaboard last night. It looks like all kinds of Russian thugs are going to be seeing the insides of our prison system."

"I can't say that I object to that little exercise of authority." I said it thinking that my involvement with the Ruskies might be coming to an end. None too soon, I thought.

"Big brother ain't always bad," Ed said as if he was a thirty year old factory worker, who once read a book back in high school. "We can only hope that puts and end to the red menace." he added.

"From your mouth to God's ear," I agreed in my best Yiddish mother's accent. I used that one just to piss Ed off.

"Have you heard Boss, the coppers are picking up Russians all up and down the east coast. The Bolsheviks are going inside under the Rico act."

"What the fuck is with all the accents today?" I asked it since Lucas, the nerd, was trying to sound like Elliot Ness. "And yes Ed gave me the good news. It's about time all that crap got flushed out."

"Yeah, been a clogged toilet for sure," Ed agreed. Ed's parents were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. He actually liked the Russian people, even though they allowed massive discrimination against his parent's parents. But when it came to dealing with the Russian government, or any other Russian organization, he was extremely hawkish.

"Okay, we have all commented for the cameras, now lets get to our work." I never tried to pretend the cameras weren't there. I tried not to make them the star of our lives, but I also refused to do the, 'this is my real life ' lie. Almost all of the reality shows tried to pretend they were just voyeurs. I intended to not do that. Unless they planned to spend a lot of time chopping up my statements, the show was going to have an 'I know I'm being watched and I just don't care' feel about it.

"Hey boss," Lucas said in the suddenly quiet room.

"Yes Lucas?" I asked.

"I have an email from Reverend Archer. My bike is ready to pick up. How about we go get it."

"Take the van, while you are gone, I will lay out the packages we have on hand." We had stopped referring to the court orders as anything other than packages. The reason was simple, we didn't want to accidentally slip up and create a problem. If we believed it, at least on some level, we could pull off the BS story better,

Lucas was gone almost an hour, then came rolling in his new bike. It was a shiny perfectly new looking dual suspension mountain bike. The small bright orange combination engine and drive box was locked a couple of inches above the rear tire. When Lucas released the locking lever, the engine would drop to the wheel. He should then apply a few pounds of downward force on the drive box, while reengage the locking lever. Those were about the only real actions necessary to convert the bike from a pure pedal bike to a gasoline hybrid.

Removing the small wing nut, which held the throttle to the handle bars, and a couple of twist ties completely remove it and the linkage from the bike. Then he could open a different locking lever and remove a wing nut, so that the motor would come off in his hand. After which it folded into a package that would fit easily inside a canvas bag or backpack. It was a truly unique and useful helper engine for the bike.

In reality, Lucas working with the engine would easily get the bike up to speed, then the motor more or less keep it there. On the hills Lucas might have to pedal about as hard as he would on level ground. That little engine extended the range of an average non biker type, from a couple of miles, to several miles. Even better, when Lucas arrived, he would look pretty much as he had when he left home. The sweaty, stinky, athlete was replace by the average commuter. In the design the builder had, as I insisted, considered how the bike could be transported on the luggage rack of a inner or inter city bus. It was light and easily to remove should that be necessary.

Lucas made the first commercial for one of Marty's new products that morning without knowing it. The little mini commercial was probably going to be part of a show. Marty was way smarter than me. I would bet my last nickel that he had paid for Lucas's new bike.

"So let's go to work Lucas, we can ride the bikes later." I suggested picking up the packages.

The morning passed quickly, even if nothing really happened. Most of the packages were delivered to the workplaces of our mooches. Most people tried not to make a scene at work. It had to be a little boring for the Pros, but I tried to avoid drama.

The real drama came while closing out our day. Helen's boyfriend showed up after we were back in the office. We had finished the paperwork affirming that we had indeed served the papers listed on the invoices.

"Maxine, could I talk to you alone," Jack asked before I even realized that he was in the office.

"Sure Jack," I said leading him to the safe room. I closed the door cutting us off from everything except the hidden mic under my sweater.

"So is something wrong with Helen or Skeeter?" I asked.

"No, it's about Julie."

"I thought she was in some kind of boarding school for the rich and bored," I said sarcastically. I didn't really approve of shipping kids off to be 'handled'.

"She ran away, I'm afraid she is going to get into trouble."

Jack and Helen had found out about Julie, but it was not my doing. Her name came up in the police investigation, which followed my night at the Hazelwood, as I liked to think of it. To me it would always seem like a Marx brothers movie. You know one of those old things with people running in and out as doors opened and closed everywhere.

"Jack, you need the cops for this. I don't have the resources to find run away kids." I suggested.

"I know where she is, I just need you to bring her home."

"If you know where she is, why don't you just go get her?" I had no idea what he meant.

"She won't come home with me. Maxine I just want her safe. I don't think she is safe where she is now."

"I don't understand Jack. You are going to have to break this down into simple, follow the yellow brick road, steps for me. What exactly has happened to Julie?"

"After that Hazelwood thing, I had a choice. The judge said it was the Juvenile detention facility or a private school with counseling. I didn't have that kind of money, but Helen and I found it."

"Let's get this straight, Helen found it?" I asked.

"Yes, Helen found the money somewhere to pay for the school." Jack looked beaten. Me pointing out that Helen had footed the bill for the failed school, didn't help I'm sure. I didn't give a crap, Helen was my friend. Jack needed to realize how fucking lucky he was to have her in his life.

"So Julie ran away?" I asked to get him back on track.

"She was there less than a month before she just walked away. The school isn't a prison." Jack said.

"I'm sure they reminded you of that several times while Julie was missing," I said sarcastically.

"Yes they did remind me. To their credit they were the ones who tracked her down. She had been picked up at the bus station by some guy."

"Yeah, I can imagine the type." I said.

"It could be worse, I suppose. The guy wasn't a pimp. He was from one of those missions. You know one that claim they save kids from the streets." His story suddenly had a familiar ring to it.

"Where is this mission?" I asked.

"She made it to Tryon, before she got off that bus. I would like to think she was coming home, but the truth is she probably has friends over there."

"So now Julie is living in a mission in Tryon? Is she working there or just hanging out?" I asked.

"Irony of Ironies, they have her working in the mission's kitchen. She helps to cook for the other kids who live there, plus she helps with the midday meal for the older people inTryon. It is for those who aren't homeless, but wouldn't get a hot meal without the mission."

I had a really good idea whose mission it was. I had no idea, he had branched out, or maybe it was a franchise kind of thing. A high percentage of those old people would remember the ministry in their wills. It was a classic example of casting your bread upon the waters. I could never pin anything nefarious on Reverend Archer, but who knew. Maybe his luck was about to change. In any case I had a feeling my boredom was about to end.

"Have they ask you for money?" I asked.

"That's the strange part, they haven't. They allowed me to visit Julie."

"How does she look?" I asked.

"She looks healthy, but also a little out there, if you know what I mean."

"Do you think they are drugging her?" I asked.

"I asked her that, she said no. She said it was her dedication to helping others. You met her Max, does that sound like my Julie."

"No offense Jack, but no way that is Julie talking. The girl I met was totally selfish and didn't care who she hurt."

"Yeah, I know. I have read about cults, and I'm afraid she might have landed in one."

"Does Helen know you came here?" I asked.

"No Maxine, I can't ask her to do any more. I can't bring myself to even ask her to talk to you about Julie." He looked like skeeter did the first time I saw her. He just looked defeated by life.

I wrote Jen's phone number on the back of my business card. "Call this number. Tell the receptionist that you are calling for me and you need to talk to Jen. Then tell Jennifer what you told me. Also tell her it's a case she needs to take for Marty. When you get squared away with Jen, call me and I'll take a look into this. Before you leave, sit down over there and write the name of the Mission, and any names of the people there that you can remember.

Jack left the office just a few minutes before five. He made the appointment to see Jen from my office phone. Jen must have really been in Marty's pocket big time, since she made his appointment to see her for 5:30 PM that same evening. For Jen to stay past five, it had to be a big deal.