Benjamin Cantrell

She took it and started scrolling through the entries, checking her Facebook page next. I was happy at the fact that she was happy. We had known each other less than an hour, but I felt close to her. Then her expression changed. "What's wrong?" I asked.

I was handed back the tablet, and it showed me an entry by her ex-ex-boyfriend Saul Ferrer. He said that our performance reminded him of some amateur porn and that she should go and try her hand at it.

"Who the fuck does he think he is?"

"Pissed off, shunned, ex-fiance," Delphine sobbed. "Can we get out of here?"

"Sure." I grabbed the champagne bottle and stuffed the cork back in it. I offered my other hand to Delphine and she took it. Carrie was coming into the passage as we were coming out. I tried to give her the bottle so I could give the tip. "Get me next time, boss. Saul is here, Miss Fischer's vehicle is moving to the back."

That was freaking amazing, Saul being at my club. I tugged Delphine down the ramp and into the emergency hallway to the exit. Sure enough, there were two of the ominous looking Tahoes sitting by my back doors. A woman was already holding the passenger door to the rear vehicle open,so I guided Delphine toward it. I put my hand on the door, which non-verbally told the woman I would be the one to close it.

When I was sure that Delphine's long, slender legs were in the cabin, I gently closed the door, then gave it a bump to latch it. "Can your team handle Saul?"

"There is another team coming, sir. They are more than enough for him."

"Good."

I started back toward the building. "Sir, you may be a target as well."

"Two of my bouncers are former SF's. I'll be okay."

"Perhaps for Miss Fischer's piece of mind?"

"Of course." I had reverted to thinking that Delphine was a customer because I wasn't thinking that our association had changed to a date. I rounded the Tahoe and got into the other side. Delphine immediately pulled me into a kiss. "Thank you for coming with me."

"I guess I had a hard time separating between saving a customer and being on a date," I offered.

"I understand. One love song does not a date make," Delphine nodded.

"Ma'am, we should go to Mister Cantrell's condo," the driver said. "It is a more defensible position than your estate."

"Plus, there is already a squad on site," the other bodyguard shared.

I filed that information away. What would they need a whole squad for?

Delphine's ex-boyfriend, Saul Ferrer, was trouble. He was an ex-special forces operator turned Hollywood consultant. He had killed a man in a bar fight and was charged with second-degree murder. Before he could be tried, he left the country. Most news sources put him in Iraq, and later he was accused of working with the Iraqi insurgency.

There was also a million-dollar bounty on his head, and I hoped my bouncers weren't going to try and collect on it. I called Juanita, and she assured me that Saul had left peacefully, seeing both Geoff and Bear was probably enough of a deterrent. Unless he already knew that Delphine left the building.

"You gals wouldn't happen to have a bug sweeper, would you?" I asked to the front cabin.

The woman riding shotgun turned around and looked at me. "This truck was swept before we pulled out. The only foreign signals would be your phones."

"Have a Faraday box?" I asked.

"Paranoid much?" Driver scoffed.

"Just answer the fucking question," Delphine snapped.

"No, we don't," Driver answered.

Delphine put her hand on my knee. "What's wrong?"

"Your visit was spur-of-the-moment, right?" She nodded. "I get artists in there all the time, but not a singer certified platinum in eight countries."

"Ten countries now, but I forgive you. Go on."

"Did you decide to come to my club from your home?" I asked.

"Felicia Rand, a shirttail friend of mine, wanted to have dinner and get the details on the private concert I did for the National Wildlife Foundation in NYC, but she flaked at the last minute."

"Where were you going?"

"Jackal's, downtown."

"So after she flaked, you were going back home?" She nodded. "Do you live in The Hills?"

"Who doesn't?" Delphine asked with a smile.

"There was probably an accident that diverted you to Western Boulevard, and then from there to Cyprus. Saul got caught on the ass-end of the traffic jam and had to reroute, causing him to end up at the club maybe fifty minutes later."

"How would he be tracking me?" Delphine demanded.

"Your phone."

"Mister Cantrell, you watch too much TV," Driver accused. "You can't track a person in real-time via their cell phone."

"A vehicle doesn't move forever, Miss Driver, It has to stop for red lights or slow down for other traffic. You can pick a fix on a phone if it's moving slow enough, I've seen it."

"How?" Delphine asked

"Some app trick on a cell-phone. All Juanita did was call me and she put a tracer on my phone. Have you received any recent hang-ups on your cell, Delphine?"

"Maybe three days ago. Four or five hang-ups, to be honest," Delphine answered.

"Your so-called security should be looking for that," I accused.

"They're a bit young to be so paranoid, and I didn't think I was much of a target," Delphine soothed.

"What are your names?" I demanded.

"Gretchen," Delphine told me. "The young lady in the passenger seat is Lorelei."

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Twenty-four," Gretchen answered.

"Twenty-six," Lorelei added.

"Young is right," I snorted. "Who is in the other vehicle?"

"That's your security team, sir," Lorelei replied. "Salome and Carolinia."

"Well, those two are actually on CJ's team," I mused. "Why didn't they go to New Zealand with her?"

"CJ has a different team down there," Gretchen said.

"How could Saul be following me?" Delphine asked.

"I'm sure that an ex-special forces guy who worked for a PMC before he supposedly went to work training insurgents has a couple of friends," I offered. "But the timing is too close. Be honest, Delphine; before today would you ever think of going into a karaoke club, even on a dare?"

"No, definitely not," she shook her head. "Sorry."

"How long were you in my club before you started poking around in my list?"

"Double-scotch to get my courage up. Five minutes there. And another five to find the song. I've always liked that version of that particular song. It should have always been a solo, no offense to the original artists."

"So ten minutes, two minutes for Shiny to call me and to get my lock-out on it released. Call it fifteen there. Five minutes to sing the first song, ten to call me out and get set up for the second one."

"Call you out," Delphine giggled. "At that point, for me, it was go big or go home."

"Thirty minutes so far. Five and some change to sing the song, another five to get up to my perch, we're at forty minutes."

"That is pure conjecture," Gretchen scoffed.

"Let me tell you what, Gretchen. Pull over and stop, right here, right now. Take Delphine's phone and wait fifteen minutes or less."

Gretchen sighed. "You may be right."

Delphine gave my knee a squeeze. "So what do we do? Even if I throw my phone out the window now, he will still find me. Everywhere I go, there is always press. I know he is alive now, and I will always be looking over my shoulder."

"I don't know. I just observe, I don't do tactics. But I do know a guy." I pulled out my cellphone and dialed Johan's number.

"Eight one two four," the voice in my ear announced.

"I need to speak to Johan."

"This doesn't feel like an emergency," the woman said.

"Tell Mister Birch I need help with apprehending a criminal." Delphine gave me the weirdest look, like she thought I was calling a fixer.

"One moment."

There were a few clicks, then a grunt. "Benjamin Cantrell, this had better be important," Nora said. "Otherwise, natural immortality notwithstanding, I will claw your face off, and it will hurt."

Delphine must have heard that, because her eyes bulged in shock. "What the hell?"

A rustling sound. "Give me the skinny, Benny."

Oh, goddess. My name is now a rhyme.

"Delphine Fischer and I did a duet at my club, and Saul Ferrer showed up."

"Give me a moment, Benjamin. I'll get the pertinents pulled up." I heard some clacking and some muffled voices. It took five minutes for the muffled voices to stop and Johan to come back: "Benjamin, I need you to stop your vehicle and get out. Only you."

How in the hell?

"Gretchen, stop the truck," I ordered.

"Don't argue," Delphine followed up on my order.

Gretchen pulled off the road, the vehicle that was supposedly my security doing the same in front of us. There was no way they could have known we were going to suddenly stop unless they were listening in.

"I need to take this, okay?" I asked Delphine.

*Be careful. If you are right, Saul is close."

Oh, yeah. Killer coming.

After I got out, I heard a door slam on the truck in front of us. All of a sudden, I couldn't hear traffic anymore. I had been put into a cone of silence.

"Benjamin, I am assuming that you said 'apprehend' for a reason," Johan said.

"Yes, I did. Delphine thought Saul was dead, and she needs to see him being detained for her piece of mind."

"Well, fine. We'll apprehend him so Delphine can see him get arrested and you can be a hero and get laid."

"Before Saul showed up, I was already getting laid, Johan."

"Ha-ha. Here comes your bad guy. Don't flinch, the situation is all under control." The call ended, and I put my phone back into my pocket.

It's in all the movies, all the time, that when the villain makes his appearance, and the hero quips that he or she doesn't look so tough. Yeah, when Saul got out of his truck, he looked tough, really tough. Big. Huge. Gigantic.

"Hi, Saul."

"Shut up, you'll only piss me off more," he snapped.

"What do you want, Saul?" I heard Delphine ask.

"Remember when I told you that if I couldn't have you, no one would? There you were, slutting it up on that stage with your Dirty Dancing partner."

"You're full of it, you already knew I was there. Stalker," Delphine shouted.

"You're right. Before I saw you up there I was going to let you live. Now I'm going to kill you both and toss your body parts into the traffic."

"I don't think so," I heard Salome say.

Great.

Saul snorted. "I've seen you little girls move. You're not tactical, barely have any special weapons training, and half of you don't even point your weapons in the right direction. But, since you persist." He waved his hand forward, like he was telling a passenger of his vehicle to get out.

Time slowed down, causing me to look at the traffic which had been ignoring us so far. I heard the growls first, then I saw two black and one white wolf running through the traffic. They leapt into Saul's truck,and didn't come out the other side. Then time resumed a normal pace.

After a few seconds, Saul knew something was wrong. His left hand went behind his back, but before he could bring it back out, a Whoop! Whoop! sound caught all of our attention. A black Explorer with red and blue lights in the grille pulled up behind Saul's Range Rover.

I could see the indecision in Saul's face. Should he fight or take flight? When I saw who got out of the Explorer, I knew he was fucked either way. The driver was Joshua the Revenger, the passenger was the big black guy I had seen with Joshua in Chinatown.

"Sir, could you raise your hands above your head?" Joshua asked.

"No," Saul replied. He tried to continue his reach for whatever was behind his back, probably a gun, but Joshua was on him before he could complete the motion. The black man was a half-second behind Joshua, helping pin Saul to the pavement. Saul was quickly frisked, relieved of a dozen or so weapons, and bound not only at the wrists, but at the elbows as well.

Delphine came up beside me. "They really don't want him to get away, do they?"

"With Saul's rep? Certainly not."

She snagged my arm and pulled me to face her. "Who are these guys and why did you call Johan Birch?"

"We are international bounty hunters, ma'am," Joshua said from less than a meter away. "We've been looking for this man for quite some time. I do apologize for your having been his target."

Some truth there.

"What's the reason for the bounty?" I asked.

"Saul is wanted on fourteen murder warrants in three countries. The most prominent bounty is from the Russian Government for the assassination of their Ambassador to the Country of Brazil and seven of his bodyguards. That is a five million Euro bounty. Of course, we can only collect once, or we would also pick up the five hundred thousand Euro bounty on the attempted kidnapping of the Vice-Consul to Germany from the Republic of Chile."

"Well, if I were a vengeful woman, I'd personally pay you the five million five hundred thousand Euro bounty to drop his sorry ass from a plane at ten thousand meters," Delphine said.

Joshua glanced at me. I was hoping Delphine didn't catch it. "He is in custody, ma'am. Wouldn't you rather see justice done?"

"I had a small, personal celebration when I thought Saul was killed in Afghanistan," Delphine admitted. "But knowing he is still alive will always put a doubt in my mind; will he escape and come after me again? Come after someone I care about, again?"

"Sir?" Joshua looked at me.

"Tell her," I ordered.

"Be rest assured that Saul Ferrer will be a guest at a grey-bar motel which he can never leave, in a country that permits such things," Joshua answered.

"What?" Delphine asked.

"Thank you, Joshua," I nodded. I certainly had a lot of explaining to do, and I didn't know how to do it. "Salome, switch with Lorelei."

"Sir," Salome nodded.

Acting normally, I guided Delphine back to the door she had exited the vehicle from. When I closed it, Salome opened the passenger door and Lorelei exited her spot. When we were settled and on the move, I turned to Delphine. She was sitting as close to me as possible, and I wrapped my arm around her. "It's all real, isn't it?"

"What? Magic?" I asked. "I only found out myself a few weeks ago."

"At that banquet, the one where CJ ambushed you," Delphine said.

"Does everybody know about that?" I asked no one in particular.

"Just a few people," Delphine admitted. "CJ is a close friend. I asked her about her attraction to you, and she tried to lie. It took some prodding, but I finally got the truth from her. It took me a while to chew on it, you know?"

"It is taking me a while to chew on it," I admitted. "So, are you a believer?"

"Yes, I am. Just now, when you were able to predict where Saul was, you were using magic?"

"No, Delphine, I was using logic. My call to Johan, that was another matter."

"The Observer," Delphine said. Salome tittered.

"Salome, stay out of this," I ordered.

"Sir."

"That call you made?" Delphine asked. "Who were those two men?"

"Better that you don't know," I sighed.

"Will Saul really be going to a place that he cannot escape?" Delphine asked.

"Salome? I need your input," I said.

"Madam Fischer, you have the word of thousands of magicians that Saul will go to a place that he cannot escape," Salome offered. "It is most unpleasant."

"How unpleasant?" Gretchen, who had been sitting idle for all of the time, demanded.

"Gretchen, tell me the most hellish place you have ever been," Salome said.

"Fort Bliss, Texas, in June," Gretchen answered. "Firing line so hot that the sand burned you."

"Now imagine that times a hundred," Salome said. "I have seen that prison, the closest you can be to figurative hell, while literally being in hell."

"No worse fate," Gretchen agreed.

"His home will be worse than your worst place," Salome promised.

"How can you make that assurance?" Delphine asked.

"Magic," I said. "I may have just learned about it, but the things I have seen? Seen just recently?"

Wolves?

"Let's go to Benji's place," Delphine said. "Not because it is easily defended, but because Grace said it looked really cool."

Delphine sat, curled up into me, until we reached my condo. She was only half-cognizant when Salome and I helped her into the elevator. At my urging, I helped carry Delphine into one of my spare bedrooms. I removed her shoes and loosened her belt and blouse. I draped her in a quilt and went into my bedroom and stripped down to my boxers. I barely remembered to brush my teeth, but sleep quickly claimed me.

***

My clock claimed the time to be eleven hours when I finally opened my eyes. I struggled into my bathroom to piss, then tried to recall the previous night. Delphine Fischer had been in my club, there had been an adventure. I frantically donned a pair of sweats and rushed to the bedroom where I thought I had lain her. The other bedroom was next. The third bedroom revealed the impression on the comforter and the presence of the quilt. I smelled bacon and rushed toward the kitchen, only to find Marti cooking some bacon and eggs. "Benjamin, I am sorry. She left an hour ago."

"Delphine, she left?"

The paper on the counter wasn't prominent until Marti pointed to it.

Benjamin,

It has been weird.

Funny thing is, I believe everything that I saw and heard last night and way early this morning.

I just don't understand all of this.

You were the most elegant of gentlemen, placing my sleeping body as far as possible from you and making me as comfortable as you could without making it sexual. It is for that reason that I will seek you out in the future, should I ever understand....things.

We made love last night, Benjamin. It wasn't the sexual love, it was you holding me as if I were your wife, consoling me. Of course, if we ever get naked together, you better be able to fuck my brains into the sky.

All my love,

Delphine au Fontaine Fischer

P.S. Don't think that your knowing of that...man's name has escaped me. In the brief time that it took me to pen this missive, I realized that you knew who he was, and what was actually going to happen to Saul when they reached Hell.

Shit, but no shit. Delphine had been an angel to sing with, even if it were only that one song.

"Gaia to Benjamin," Marti tapped the plate on the counter. "Eat your brunch."

After I ate, I tried calling CJ to regale her with the story of the previous night. I couldn't get a hold of her, and I told myself that she was probably on-set and couldn't answer. There was also the possibility that she didn't want to speak with me; either because of what I had done or not done to Travis, or my performance with Deplhine, or what had happened after we had left the club.

Had CJ talked to Delphine? I chalked it up to bad timing and went on to having a boring day. I tried calling CJ again in the evening and immediately was sent to voicemail. I chalked that up to her being busy and left another brief message for her.

Before I left for work the next morning, I did a search on the web, seeing if I could find out anything about where Delphine had ended up. All three of her social media accounts had been placed into an inactive status, probably so she could duck people asking her about what had happened with me, Saul, or both.

I tried checking on CJ's social media and was surprised to see she had been out and about in Auckland, partying with her costars in a karaoke club. I didn't even feel slighted by the fact that she had done a somewhat intimate duet with a man that looked an awful like her first husband. Taking that as the sign it was, I decided to leave it alone.

When I pulled out of the parking garage for my condo, a creepy Tahoe fell in behind me. At first I didn't think it was tailing me, but when it picked me up after I had lunch, I knew that it was. What I didn't know was why.