Millstone - Novel 02 Ch. 01

He said, "Apparently, we should discuss sex. I assumed that fucking me was all you wanted."

"Has that been the problem? Well, I hope now you realize how mistaken you were. For now, though, I need to change and go. They'll be waiting on me."--I opened the wardrobe--"So, what should I wear? It needs to be something hot-looking." I removed my shirt and started on the pants.

"What would you wear to Kinks?"

"I only had street clothes at the time, so that."

"Well, no wonder you had so few takers," he said. "You work hard on your body, so show it off. Here, wear this." He pulled out the unworn olive-colored jeans that Max insisted I get, and a pair of tan socks. "Wear the rustic Red Wing boots with that."

"You want me in those pants? I may as well go naked." I pulled on the socks and slid my foot into a pant leg.

"No no, remove the underwear," he said. "You won't need those."

"No underwear?"

"It will ruin the effect."

With a grumble, I slipped out of the underwear and my cock hung off me like I were an escaped test subject from The Island of Doctor Moreau. "What about a shirt?"

"I know you never go without because of the sun," he said, "but it's nighttime, so don't wear one."

I started to slip on the pants, but Wade reached out and took hold of my flaccid penis for the first time, feeling its heft. Even soft, it overfilled his hand whose fingers could only reach three-quarters the way around it. "Why do you call it Polyphemus?" he asked and dropped it against my thighs.

"In Greek mythology, Polyphemus was a giant, man-eating Cyclops."

"Oh. Well, I think you have a beautiful one-eyed monster."

I felt my face reddening a little. "I'm glad you think so."

Fortunately, I had my body waxed a few days prior; otherwise, some of my pubic hair would have shown. Wade watched me buttoning myself up, laying my cock along my right hip. With no belt, the cotton/spandex jeans clinging to the muscles of my thighs and fat bulge rode so low that they felt weird. I adjusted the pants, straightened up, and stood there for inspection. "What do you think?"

Wade stared at me for a moment with a funny look in his eyes. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said, "Oh god. You need to go; you have a job to do."

He pushed my boots into my arms, and before I could put them on, he rushed me to the door. Having dropped my wallet into a boot, he wished me good luck with a kiss and shoved me out.

With boots in hand, and wondering what the hell just happened, I spoke to him through the closed door, "So, does this mean you like it then?"

Millstone's Sources

In my previous life before witness protection, I would never have called a nighttime stakeout my favorite activity. I well remember my stakeouts in New York and Nashville. On nearly every one of those overnight occasions, I swore I would never do it again; often, it disrupted my sleep with nothing to show for it. In my car at the location the entire night, waiting for them to make a move, I could guzzle coffee to keep alert until I became so jittery, I couldn't make a bullet hit the broadside of a Tennessee barn, and they might rudely refuse to get on with it, spending their night in bed. As an investigator who worked alone, a nightlong stakeout, while remaining awake the next day, would make a zombie of you if you had to repeat it a night or two. However, the nights of the lone wolf had ended, and I no longer had to do it all myself. I should have obtained a partner and hired an employee much sooner.

Max and I waited a few minutes for Tucker by the elevator in the lobby. I had dressed in my graphite-colored two-piece, and Max sported an attractive one the color of slate with an odd gold vest.

The moment the lift door opened, Tucker said, "Sorry for the wait; I had a little problem. The pants were Wade's idea. Now that I've run them through the wash, do they ride too low?"--he turned to show us--"They're not sliding off me, but I feel the need to pull them up."

He looked like a muscular and pale, auburn-haired sex god whose pants made both a spectacle of his crotch and a sensuous display in the upper curvature of his ass.

"No," I said, "you look perfect. You should go like that all the time."

"Should I?"

Max handed him our leather rucksack full of equipment. "I'm sure that's what Wade would want. You had to pry him off you, didn't you?"

Our new vehicle was a black Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG. Essentially, it looked like a regular G-wagon, but they built the G63 like an armored vehicle including ballistic glass and an undercarriage capable of tolerating a few exploding grenades. It was overkill for our intended use, but while living in Nashville, one disgruntled, cheating husband shot out my rear window, so I figured it would keep us safe.

On that Friday evening, we found the streets trafficked with a few people heading one place or another and Johann's house located in a neighborhood called Ripley at 505 Pecan Lane, a fashionable, revitalized neighborhood. Handsome Usonian-inspired homes with lots of straight lines, built of a blend of natural materials like metal, clay brick, wood, stone, and concrete lined the streets. Their exterior lighting at that time of night showed many of them to great effect, even with their modest-sized front lawns and short driveways.

When we rolled to a stop at the house, a primary-yellow Audi R8 Spyder sports car with a Pennsylvania license plate sat before the garage.

"That's a hot car," said Tucker from the back seat.

"It's a bit much for an 18-year-old," said Max, "don't you think?"

"An indulgent, wealthy family, maybe," I said. "Let me park. I should put a tracking tag on it before he leaves."

I backed up enough to maneuver the SUV between two others parked in a dim area between streetlights. Tucker handed me a tag from our equipment bag, and we glanced around a bit before I exited the vehicle. I crossed the street, keeping to the shadows. The Audi looked brand new, and as I approached the passenger window, I could see the residue of the glue that held the dealership's Monroney sticker. When I noticed the small decal on the lower left, however, I stopped, quickly backed away, and returned to our vehicle.

"That's out." I hopped in, and Tucker caught the tag with agility.

"Why?" he asked.

"What happened?" asked Max.

"It's a new car with a touch-sensitive alarm; setting it off is the last thing we want. We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."

We sat there about thirty minutes before someone switched on a light inside the front room of the house.

"Finally, some action," said Max.

I held my right hand over my shoulder to Tucker. "Camera..."

He handed me our new night camera, I rolled down the window just enough and held it at the ready. We saw him exit the house at 11:28, according to the clock on Max's phone, and I began taking photos of him to get his attire on record. We had purchased a good camera; it showed him quite well. I could see he wore a pair of black jeans and a black, paisley-patterned lace shirt, and like his brother Johann, the Last family's genes had made Gerhardt an extraordinarily handsome and well-built young man, although perhaps not as tall as his brother. He descended the few porch steps and walked down the drive, but he passed his vehicle. He took the sidewalk, moving up the street away from us.

"So much for the idea of tagging his car," said Max.

As we sat there, the occasional vehicle would pass us from either direction, but about the time Gerhardt walked up the street, a vehicle drove up from behind us, and as it came closer, its lights flashed. I took photos of Gerhardt crossing to our side of the road. Max and Tucker ducked the moment the car passed us, but when it drove under the streetlight in front of us, I could see it was a deep blue Cadillac with windows so dark they appeared opaque. I took a photo of their license plate, the car stopping ahead of us, and of Gerhardt climbing into the back. Just before it left, I returned the camera to Tucker and started our engine.

"If we're lucky, we won't have trouble following them, but let's see how far we can go."

"Why would we have trouble?" Max asked.

I waited several seconds before I pulled into the lane to follow them.

"If we were tailing some inexperienced 18-year-old that would be one thing, but we don't know these people."

I told them that typically while following someone if the driver makes a turn, you might get away with continuing, and maybe even two turns in the same direction, but that's questionable. However, if they make three sequential right or left turns, they're onto you, and you should let them go; otherwise, you might risk getting shot at. Fortunately, the residential area had sufficient traffic passing through to the main road, so it hadn't caused too much difficulty.

At 11:50, we found ourselves at a nightclub on Brie Street, on the other side of the Bay--as the locals say--and when they took the first entrance to the parking lot, we took the second. The building stood five stories tall, and the exterior had illuminated cobalt oxide glass accents, notable for its distinctive electric-blue tint, and it made the building's appearance memorable and iconic. Cars packed the enormous roped-off parking lot by the building, and the only parking was valet. The lane I entered led only to the drop-off or back out to the street.

"Well, this place is hopping," I said.

Tucker slid forward between the front seats, "We're in luck, it's the Belcaro. You can wear pretty much anything here."

"Mmm...Belcaro," said Max in a sardonic tone, "that sounds nice and expensive."

"Yes, it does," I said.

Max diverted his eyes toward me. "If you didn't know, bel and caro are Italian for 'nice' and 'expensive.'"

That made me laugh. "Okay, now it just sounds pretentious."

Tucker was right, people wore a variety of clothing. Some were dressed more like him, but we could also see men wearing tailored suits and women in designer party dresses handing their keys to the valet before going inside. I hadn't recognized the club's hulking bouncer or the handsome, blue-suited doorman, so I couldn't know if either had a membership at the Minotaur, which might have come in handy.

When the Cadillac had its turn at the door beneath the covered drop-off, we could see Gerhardt exit the rear of the vehicle, and he assisted a woman when she stepped from the car. They had a thick-necked bruiser for a driver, and he followed, handing over the key like everyone else.

The woman's dark wavy hair hung down her back, and she wore an eye-catching, black, micro-mini tube dress that clung to her slender body. She seemed, perhaps, 30 years old, and she held fast to Gerhardt's arm. The doorman in the blue suit smiled at them, bowing his head a little as he greeted them, and the bouncer allowed them beyond the blue velvet rope without question.

I asked Tucker, "Who was that woman? Do you know?"

"Not specifically, but she's one of Franklin's elite with lots of money."

"How do you know that?" asked Max.

"Because this is the Belcaro; they all are. You can't get past that rope unless you, or someone you're with, areSomebody."

A vehicle pulled in behind us, and that forced us to either try to gain entry or leave.

"Well," I said, "we have a job to do, so let's give it a shot."