Chloe and Cy Pt. 07

She snapped the cigarette case shut and squirmed a bit. "Five years I've been running this place and you're honestly showing up now, acting as if you've always known? I thought seeing your face in the local newspapers now and again was just a coincidence, or perhaps you had some strange doppelganger!?"

"I've only been suspicious the last three years," I said.

"And Langley doesn't know? You're not some arcane trojan horse?"

"Langley and I don't talk. Not for years. I have been and truly am just a small town police chief. And this was a long shot. A gamble. I didn't know for sure it was you. I did however suspect it was an MI6 front."

"When you first thought it might have been me... Why not just show up? Out of the blue? Say 'Hi?'"

"I thought about it," I said.

"You and thinking," she smiled. "Of all the Americans I could have fallen for, I get the one who actually thinks."

"If I'd have shown up," I said... "There'd have been no exit strategy. And I was and am a small town police chief. With a wife, a kid, a mortgage..."

"And now a hit out on you."

"Not on me," I said. "I was an unforeseen complication."

"The hit is on Little Miss Alice in Wonderland out there? Who? Why?"

"Laptop, tablet, cell. In my car."

"Even if I could help you... Why should I? Just because you have the same blue eyes?"

"Well, there's 75 grand in my daughter's duffle bag," I shrugged.

She sighed. "No... that's not enough."

"Okay," I said. "If you need more I can..."

She grabbed my face and kissed me. It hurt where she gripped my sliced jawline, but it tasted the same as it had 20 years before. The same smells of Chanel and the vague tinge of Turkish tobacco mixed with Latakia and lip rouge....

"Fucked her, didn't you?"

I blinked. "What?"

"You're 'step-daughter,'" she smiled. "Fucked her, didn't you?"

"Harry, I..."

"God you're in a mess. I should just put you in a box right now and plant you six-feet under my back parking lot and save the world a lot of trouble, you know that, right?"

"... Harry."

"Shut up. I'm going to help her, not you. And the only way to help that kid is to help you help her. Because she's going to need help getting over you."

I sighed. "Have you had help?"

"Oodles. I just had to kiss the embodiment of irony. A man who got burned protesting torture showing up tortured both physically and emotionally at my door. You never fail to be interesting, blue eyes."

"You dosed her drink, didn't you?"

"Only lightly," she smiled. "Also, yours, but you got both barrels and you haven't yet drunk, so..." She shrugged. "How bad is the pain?"

"Bad."

She brought the glass to my lips. "It doesn't affect the taste of the bourbon, or so I'm told. And it's only 12 hours. I promise you'll wake up stitched and dressed and feeling like a million dollars. And if you like, I can have Lolita's kid sister waking up next to you, safe as houses."

"Is trusting you the price of help?"

"It's the price of disappearing, Cy. That is what she called you, right? Cy?"

"It was my nickname as a kid," I said.

"I like it. Fits you better than 'Lee.'"

I took a slow pull at the bourbon. "You did shoot me," I said.

"To paraphrase a certain British spy. The point of shooting your hip was to miss the rest of you."

I took another sip. "You're a weird friend."

"But you trust me," she smiled.

"And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced... by the light... of the moon."