Chloe and Cy Pt. 07

I took a white gold ring I wore on my left thumb and moved it to my ring finger. It was loose-fitting but would pass for a wedding band in a pinch.

I took in the late model Chevy Blazer parked before the garage. Its Massachusetts vanity plates read "MMAYOR."

I climbed the stone steps onto the front porch running a hand through my hair.

A light came on automatically as I rang the doorbell.

The woman who opened the door was a well-put-together blonde in her early forties dressed in a ruffled white blouse and blue flare trousers with large silver buttons up the hips, almost made up for an impromptu evening out.

"Hello?" She said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. I saw her eyes dip down quickly. After 20 minutes of hulking a refrigerator, I was no doubt still flushed and slightly glistening with sweat.

"Hi," I said in my friendliest American accent. "I hate to bother you, but I was driving through the neighborhood with my husband, we're house-hunting in town, and well, our car broke down."

The woman's expression became a friendly and relaxed smile. "Oh, well, isn't that just the way? I'm Aggie Potts."

"Lacey James," I said, shaking her hand.

She craned her neck, looking out into the roadway for a car.

"Oh, Nick is down the hill. He's probably still pretending he knows anything about cars. You know, men? I tried your neighbors, but they don't seem to be home."

She smiled. "Well, that's our town police chief. And I'm the Mayor, at least until the next election. Come on in, can I get you a glass of lemonade, or perhaps an ice tea?"

"Oh, you don't need to go to any trouble. I was just wondering if I could use your phone. I left my phone back at the Air BnB, and Dr. Doofus forgot to charge his. I swear, that man is the love of my life as well as the bane of my existence."

The woman laughed, taking her smartphone off a charger in the kitchen and passing it to me. "Believe me. I've been there. I made it nine years in my marriage, though, before calling the divorce fairy."

I accepted the phone and went about dialing.

"Well, we're just inside a year," I smiled. "I'm not there yet."

"But I bet you wouldn't say no to a glass of wine, right?"

I smiled, listening to the phone ring. "I'd say a big 'yes' to a glass of anything red."

"Girl after my own heart," she said, walking to the refrigerator.

I turned into a den off the main hallway just as the line picked up.

"Hello, Daughter mine," his smooth voice said.

"Complications," I said, quietly but calmly. "Nothing I can't handle. Send a car to get me. I'll have them tracked in another couple of hours."

"They got away?!" A tint of anger. Tread softly.

"Your ex's hubby was in my line of work," I said. "Add to that; he's got one heck of an Angel on his shoulder. Just have someone send a car. And a phone. And some aspirin."

I gave him the address and rang off before I had to hear any of his disappointment. I returned to the kitchen to hear dulcet music playing over hidden speakers. A plate of charcuterie was laid out with two wine glasses.

A cork popped, and Mayor Aggie was there with a bottle of Cabernet Franc. She had exchanged the conservative top for something a touch more revealing in peach silk. "I was on the way out to a boring July Fourth planning meeting. So, you're kind of a lifesaver."

I smiled, holding out my wine glass. "I've got some time to kill before the auto club arrives."

"Should we fetch your hubby?"

"What for? He's having fun being manly. And you didn't set out a third wine glass."

She smiled, pouring for me and then herself.

What the hell. Cutting the studly chief had lit a little fire in my belly.

"So, do you like music?"

"I... It's interesting," I said.

She indicated my t-shirt with her wine glass. "It's Prince," she said. "The New Power Generation. I noticed your t-shirt. Half my high school class used to get it on to 'Insatiable.'"

I smiled, taking a sip of the wine. It was borderline cheap, but just expensive enough to be tasty. "It's Nick's," I said. "I like to raid his old concert t-shirts to appear more cultured than I am. He's the weathered old music junkie."

'December-May romance?"

"More October-May, he'd like me to say," I smiled. "He's not as playful in the bedroom as I'd like, though. Very meat and potatoes. The things I gave up to marry a cardiologist from Freeport."

She smiled. "Well, to be honest, I was just putting something on to set the mood."

I held out my glass. "The mood was set when you switched tops," I smiled. "Got anything more contemporary?"

"I think Alexa can take requests," she said, clinking her glass to mine.

"Aggie, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

Derek

I made the arrangements for her, hanging up the phone and turning to the news for the eighth time in four hours. Nothing about a body. Nothing about a missing woman. Her assuring texts about "no news being good news" were not allying my nagging disquiet.

I'd twice poured myself a scotch only to dump the liquor back into the decanter on the bar.

Never drink in a panic.

I was antsy. I felt my teeth grinding. That old feeling was back. That need to act out and quickly spiral.

No!

I considered my options. I picked up the phone and made a reservation. I called the car service. I poured a glass of Perrier and squeezed in a lime.

I would go to VICE. I'd missed my regular Friday session with Lyndee. There were other girls, though. Not as fun to hurt, but willing if the price was right.

I went to the closet, taking out my black suit and white shirt. Atop the clothes I laid out my leather mask.

I went to the shower and turned on the water, slipping off my robe. In half an hour I would be exploring hard and soft limits seeing how far the lure of money could take a hungry sex-worker. Perhaps I would need two women tonight?

Perhaps a bump of coke?

Damn, it was back. That fucking woman from the past had stirred up the old wants.

Wants are not needs, boy-o.

I stepped into the hot water, my fists clenching as I willed away the old ghosts.

One vice. You get one vice.

Chloe

He'd faded off to sleep. Every few minutes I checked his pulse. It was steady. But between checks, I kept my eyes on the road, ignoring the angry cuts over his chest and along his jaw. I kept off the main roads as best I could. Without a cell phone equipped with google maps, I wound up at more than a few dead ends.

My mind flashed intermittantly to that woman with the hot blade, carving his flesh. I shook the image away as best I could.

"Little sister," she had called me. "What the fuck was that?"

Her face lingered in my mind. I found myself, during three point turns, looking at my own face in the rear view mirror.

Her eyes had been blue. Mine were green. But her hair, though a darker shade of red, had the same hairline. The shape of her face had been similar to mine, perhaps with a shorter nose but the same bridge.

I shook the million questions from my head. "Vinegar Tom's," I said to myself. "What is that a motel? A fish and chips stand?"

I shivered with the cold night air rushing around me. I was still in just a soccer jersey and short sweat shorts. My old-school Converse I had pulled on over my bare feet.

Couldn't have grabbed a jacket, Chloe?

It was less than 20 miles to Salem. I kept my hands on the wheel, checking the rearview every few minutes or so, hoping that I wouldn't see another set of headlights rushing up behind me.

As soon as I hit the edge of Salem, I pulled in at a Sinclair station and hopped out. I checked Cy's pulse again before heading in to buy a street map and a coffee.

The attendant was a 30-something guy with a hipster beard and gages in both ears.

"That all?" he asked, looking up from his phone.

"Um, actually," I said. "I'm looking for a certain address. 310 Essex Street?"

He let the toothpick in his lips drift from one side of his smile to the other. "Is it Amature Night?"

I cocked my head. "Um, if you could just mark it for me on the map?"

He shrugged and took a pen from a cup by the register. He drew a dot and then an X on the map. "You're here," he said, indicating the dot. "Nine blocks south and three West."

"Thank you," I said.

"Perhaps I'll see you when I get off work," he smiled.

I paid and walked out, feeling his creeper eyes staring after my ass.

I tossed the map against Cy, stirring him back to consciousness. "Exactly what sort of place is 'Vinegar Tom's?'"

"Just drive around back when we get there," he said. "And don't judge a crook by their cover."

Nine minutes later, I pulled up to Vinegar Tom's. I popped Cy in the shoulder. He groaned awake.

"A Strip Club!?"

He winced. "Ow! Can't you just drive around back and leave me to die quietly?"

"You'll live," I said. "If you haven't died yet, you're not going to. But come on, Cy!"

I pointed at the large neon sign displaying a wolf with his tongue rolling out of his mouth to tickle a stripper in a very lude place.

"Explain how is this better than a goddamned Hospital!?"

He pulled the handle on the passenger door and nearly spilled out into the dirt.

I pulled him back in. "Fine, I'll drive around back. Sheesh."

I put the car in gear and drove from the main parking lot to a little gravel drive in the back. I parked, killing the ending and pocketing the keys. I ran around the car to help him. "Dizzy? You have lost a lot of blood."

He smiled. "Not as much as I would have, though. The upside of medieval torture methods."

"How do you know this place?" I asked. "Sneak up here for the odd lap dance every so often?"

"Yeah, kid. I'm knee-deep in stripper poon."

"Har har," I said. "I thought we agreed you'd stop calling me 'kid?'"

"Just follow my lead. And if she calls me 'Lee' don't correct her."

"Her?"

He grabbed the computer bag and led us to a very imposing steel security door, where we could still hear the speakers thumping. An electronic camera eye stared us down as Cy pushed a button.

"Public entry is around the front," a stern male voice said.

"Here to see Harry," Cy replied. "Tell her it's about some Delectados."

We waited a full minute.

"A woman named 'Harry?'"

Then the intercom buzzed. "No Harry, here," a throaty female voice said. "And they don't make Delectados anymore."

He scowled at the eye. "Yes, you are here, Harriet. Look at the screen."

"I am," the voice said. "Looks like a beat-up old man and a girl I don't know.." I could hear her Cheshire cat smile along with a slight British lilt in her speech. "Although,the old man is vaguely familiar. Who's the jailbait, Lee?

"My daughter. We're selling thin mints."

"Well, since you look like hell, I'll only make you say the first verse."

"Harry, I'm tired, bleeding, and my daughter is freezing."

"First verse, or I don't know you for Adam."

Cy looked back at me and sighed, turning to the camera eye. "The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey, and plenty of money, wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above and sang to a small guitar, 'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!'"

A drawer opened beneath the intercom. "No guns," she said. "Deposit them all and stand for a frisk. You'll get them back so long as they're not linked to a crime."

Cy nodded. I took his Automatic out of it's holster and deposited it. "There are two in the car," I said. "Do you want me to get them or can I just put the top up and lock it?"

"Oh, Lee," The voice said. "Where did you find this one?"

"If someone can come out and hold him up..."

"We'll take the keys and lock the car," the voice said.

The drawer closed and buzzer sounded. The door clicked open. I wrenched it open and a very large man stood waiting.

"Pussy?" I asked, as the man first patted down Cy from head to foot. Carefully checking for weapons.

"Don't," he said, leaning against a wall as the Gorilla turned his attention to me.

"What? She sounds sultry," I said, as the man pawed me without enthusiasm. "Who is this person, we're seeing?" I asked him.

"Clean," the man said into his cuff. "My apologies, Miss," he said, with a humble bow.

His accent was likewise tinted with a cordial British Accent.

"Who are these people," I asked, propping myself once more under Cy's left arm.

"Really, Chloe, don't. Don't ask questions. Don't speak unless spoken to. Just stay behind me and shut up."

"Does mom know about this Harry?"

"Mom?" a voice said, lighting a cigarette at the end of a dark hallway. She was dark-haired with bangs that fell over her forehead and a long braided ponytail that fell over her shoulder onto the purple silk of her blouse. I would have placed her in her early forties, but she was quite attractive in three-inch black pumps and a pencil skirt of black leather.

"Hello, Harriet," Cy said.

"It was inevitable," she said. "Lee Armour, at my door. Or is it Leroy Brown? I can't remember."

"Nobody calls him Leroy," I said. "And I don't know who you are, but he told me to bring him here instead of the hospital. And I'm an EMT. He needs a hospital."

She'd opened the door she was standing in, wider. "Enter."

"You call that 'shutting up?'" Cy whispered.

"She's letting us in," I said. "How about you shut the fuck up, huh?"

We walked the long hall and she held the door for us. From a pocket she produced a thin cigarette case and presented it to Cy.

"I quit," he said.

She shut the case. "Not everything, it seems?"

"I wouldn't turn down a drink," he said.

She looked at me. "Is your 'daughter' of age?"

I scowled. "I don't have my ID," I said. "But I'm 23. And like I said, I'm an EMT. Do you have a first aid kit?"

She shrugged. "I have a Medic," she said. "So is that two bourbons or three?"

Cy looked at me.

I nodded.

"Fine," he said. "Three. No ice in mine."

"Ice," I said. "And water."

"Twist of lemon for the lady? I know how he takes his."

"If you have lemon," I said, walking Cy into a room that was a mix between an office and a lounge. It was carpeted in deep-ply purple carpet with low slung leather couches and a large obsidian glass-topped desk. She went to a wet bar and poured three doubles in low-ball glasses, handing two to me, one with a lemon twist. She then crossed to the desk, watching me deposit Cy on her sofa.

"You get blood on my Fendi, you're buying me a new one."

A door opened, causing me to flinch. Another, different muscular man came in, carrying what I immediately recognized as a First Responder Kit.

"This is Bullet. He's my medic."

"You keep a medic on staff at a strip club?" I felt myself ask.

She smiled. "No, I keep a bartender on staff who can tape up the odd bouncer after a rowdy Cinco de Mayo. The safe house keeps a Medic on staff."

"Safe house?" I asked.

"You're cute. Take after your mum, no doubt?"

"I'm his step-daughter," I said, trying the bourbon. I'm not much of a drinker, but the single sip was warming after the chilly drive with the top down. The Medic, Bullet, set the kit down and I took immediate charge, taking out gloves and pulling them on before grabbing scissors and cutting Cy's shirt off of him.

She smirked. "Well, you seem unscathed compared to your dear old dad. I think she's Kosher, Bull. You're dismissed."

The second muscular man left. I began applying burn ointment while assessing the damage.

"How much does she know," the woman asked, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke.

"Nothing," Cy said.

"He was a spy," I said. "But I only found out tonight. Mom doesn't know. Someone came to our house and... did this."

"Chloe," Cy protested.

"I'm sure CIA would say the apple falls not far from the tree," the woman smiled, grinding out her cigarette and sipping her own drink. "Mmm, I've been saving this bourbon. Van Winkle, 12 years old. When I bought it, it was $500 a bottle. Now it's considerably higher.'

Cy

"I used to drink Knob Creek," I said. "Nothing fancy."

"Yes," she purred. "But like I said, you were inevitable. And I had to have something 'choice' to pair well with the moment."

She sipped from her glass, letting Chloe fuss and apply bandages.

"You'll need stitches," Chloe said.

"I know," I groaned. The ointment was helping but there was still too much pain. "She has people for this," I said. "You don't need to--"

"He wants you to leave," Harry said from behind her desk. "Although I don't know why. If a man is in his position, groveling and begging are things he should own. No shame in them, old Owl."

"I'm staying," Chloe said.

Fuck.

"She was Spatnez," I said. "Former, I think. Mid to late 20s. Well, healed. Cocky. Dark red hair. Blue eyes. I wasn't the target."

"And you think I'm still in the game?" She smiled.

"We both know you are."

"And you've known about this place how long?"

"CIA doesn't know about it," I said. "I just had a hunch."

"A hunch!? Oh, Lee... Please don't tell me you had your kid drive you half an hour past two trauma wards on just a hunch?"

"I did," I said. "And here you are."

"Here we are," she smiled, sipping her bourbon again. "And I'm just supposed to help just because you have the same blue eyes?"

Chloe piped up. "So you two were...."

"I'm the reason he got burned," Harry said. "And I had to shoot him in the hip to prove I hadn't been compromised."

I watched Chloe's eyes dart up at mine. I felt mine close as I sighed. "I asked you before if you could keep a secret," I said.

"And?"

"In 2002," I sighed. "I... couldn't."

"Quite the hero, you're dear old dad," Harry piped up. "Clued MI6 in on what was really going on at Guantanamo. Enhanced interrogations. Human Rights violations. He arranged the leaks of photos to the BBC and the American Press. Shone a pretty bad light on his old Uncle Sam. Hindsight being 20/20 20 years later, they should have given him a medal. But instead, they burned him."

"Burned?"

"Disavowed," Harry elucidated. "The intelligence world's answer to a pink slip. They drop you without friends and without protection and leave you to sink or swim, bleeding, in shark infested waters."

"So," Chloe said. "You swam?"

"Right where the CIA wanted him to," Harry continued. "If I hadn't shot him, they'd have thought I actually believed in his cause and perhaps actually loved him."

"Lucky for you," I said. "And now you're a cultivator."

"No comment," she said, standing and pressing a button. "Let's leave some things mysterious for the young people in the room."

In a moment, a slender young woman clad in slinky lingerie passed through a door.

"Size 4 is it then?" Harriet asked, nodding to the young woman. "Give her access to the clothes closet, will you Lynx? Oh, and how long since you've eaten, dear?"

"I can't leave him," Chloe said.

I grabbed her hand from where she was taping me up. "Chlo... Neither of us have eaten since breakfast. Go."

She looked at Harry then back at me.

"Just a few minutes," I assured. "I'll let you sew me up to your heart's content. Just... go?"

Chloe

His eyes said "trust me."

I looked at the woman, with whom he obviously had a potent history. I felt the pangs then. He was my Cy. Mine.

But then again, he wasn't. In just a matter of a few hours my world that had been turned upside down had suddenly been turned inside out.

"Thank you, Harry," I said, downing the last of my bourbon and following the stripper out of the room and down another short hall into the club proper.

Cy

"In the car," I said. "There is a laptop, a tablet, and a phone..."

She came over to the couch and set down, once more offering me a cigarette from her case.

"I told you, I quit."