Two of a Kind

Everything I'd found out about him scared the shit out of me. I doubt that even his wife knew as much about Chris Harris as I did and she was no joke herself when it came to detective work. Of course most of what I knew he wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Most of it was buried so far in hidden military records that Barack Obama couldn't get at it.

For all that the man across from me looked like a surfer boy who'd somehow lucked into an engineering job, he was a mother fucker.

From what I'd been able to find out, Chris was an army brat. His dad worked for military intelligence somewhere in the pacific area. Military intelligence means his dad was some kind of spy. Now his old man's gig might've been as simple as getting to know the locals and providing a safe house for covert operatives where they'd be less likely to be discovered, or it might've been a whole lot less wholesome.

I do know that from the time he could walk Chris was studying Kung Fu in China. He had to be really good to survive because every kid in every one of his classes would have wanted to beat the fuck out of the white guy. Chris apparently studied several different forms of martial art but was exceptional at something called drunken style. He had supposedly taken the art to a new level. That explains the fact that even with my military background and training he had knocked the fuck out of me without raising a sweat.

What I'd perceived to be clumsiness on his part, that lurching move that seemed like he was about to fall, had been him closing the distance between us to prepare me for the kick. And then his set up and execution. His execution alone had made me seem like a girl scout in an MMA fight. And then he was gone before I even got my head out of my ass and back on my feet.

When I came out of that alley expecting to see him rapidly beating feet with only elbows and asshole visible, I was shocked again to see only an empty street. I shook my head in disbelief. Usain Bolt isn't that God damned fast. My body may not be that fast anymore, but my brain is still world class. Actually it's better than world class. I have a true photographic memory.

Normally when people talk about a photographic memory the correct term is an Idectic memory. That means that they can remember facts and words and terms and numbers forever. My memory is different. I can stare at a scene or a page or a picture and store that picture in my mind forever. So as I stood there looking at the scene, I memorized every detail of it. And once I got back to the apartment I'd rented for this investigation, I slowly dissected the picture. There were eight condo units on the block and all of them were inhabited. They had a very strong homeowners association and hacking their files was easy enough. It took me only twenty minutes to find out that none of those units had been sublet recently. There was also the fact that there was no need for him to rent or sublet a condo if he was only trying to get some dirt on the same asshole I was.

In fact we might be after the same thing. With no businesses on the street and the condo eliminated, that left only the vehicles. There were fifteen of them. Of the fifteen vehicles, none of them had been reported stolen. I got that information from a friend of mine who worked for the local PD. Twelve of them were privately owned by locals. Three of them were rented. One was rented to temporarily replace a vehicle that had been wrecked. That left only two cars and one of them was rented by a woman.

That got me a name. I was sure the name he was using was faked. But I decided to run it anyway. I have a friend in the FBI that I served with. I asked him to find out as much as he could. When he called me back less than a half hour later, all he said was, "Leave that motherfucker alone."

I pressed him and called in a couple of favors. All he gave up with was to check MI. He and I have a captain we served under who went into Military intelligence. It took me three or four hours to get him on the phone. He wouldn't talk over the phone. He left wherever he was, bought a smartphone, set up a burner e-mail address off of his base, e-mailed me the file and deleted the account. He'd had me set up a temporary account as well, using all fictitious information. I copied the file onto a flash drive, deleted the account and came back to my rented apartment to read it. I was told to unplug my computer from the Internet before viewing the file. After I looked at the file, I deleted it.

Chris Harris was carrying out covert ops or aiding in them before he was old enough to drive. He only stopped when his father retired and moved his family stateside. Then he'd gone to college got married, got divorced, got remarried and now served as sort of a detective's assistant to his wife. The woman was probably one of the best PI's on the planet. The fact that she was drop dead gorgeous didn't hurt either. I was sure that Chris was here on a case.

As he looked at me, waiting for me to say something, I took him in as I was sure he was doing with me. His sandy blond hair was perhaps a little too messy, but that was the way they wore it now. His two or three day beard growth was also just at the border of good grooming. And he sat there, slumped in the chair as if he wasn't aware of anything around him. But his movements in the alley and his ability to notice me putting away my gun told me otherwise.

I was still mystified as to how the hell he'd climbed up to that fucking window. His ability to drop to the top of that trash bin and make very little sound seemed to defy gravity. And he made all of it seem so simple. It actually seemed like anyone could do it without very much effort. The previous evening after Peters had left, I'd taken a tape measure to the scene. It was impossible. The top of the trash can was just less than five feet high. The window ledge was a little bit more than sixteen feet straight up from there.

Just to grab that ledge with his hands would have meant jumping at least a full foot higher than necessary to dunk a basketball and he'd somehow gotten his feet on it. I would not underestimate Chris Harris again. That was why I'd brought the gun.

"So Chris, why are you following Hugh Joel Peters?" I asked.

"My client is married to the woman," he said nonchalantly. He looked at his phone as if checking to see if any important calls had come in while we'd looked at each other.

"No he isn't," I said. "Tell your client to forget all about any of this, before he ruins his life."

Chris started laughing. "It's been fun talking to you, Clyde," he laughed. "It appears we have some of the same friends."

I was shocked. Most of the information on me was pretty well hidden as well. "How...?" I asked.

"You have good people," he said. "You checked me out and found me. I have good people too. I ran your prints from the beer bottle. That's why I grabbed it from the cap. You're Clyde Waitt. USArmy special forces retired. Your wife died two years ago. I'm really sorry about that. It was apparently a suicide. But somehow, I think it wasn't and you're following HJP because it has something to do with your wife's death."

"You're good," I said. "But Chris I'm not after Peters. I'm after the man that Peters gets his stuff from. And my wife did kill herself, but it was totally my fault. That's why I want you to tell your client to just forgive and forget. He'll be happier in the end."

"If I'm going to do that, you're going to have to give me a damn good reason," he said. "Will is going to need some proof that's going to wipe out the memory of that video I sent my wife."

"I have a plan," I said. "And the first part of my plan will give irrefutable proof to your client. You could probably help me with it."

"Why the hell would I do that?" he asked.

"Because you're basically a really good guy," I said. "And once you know what's going on you're going to want to prove to your client that what I'm saying is true. Once you know what's going on you're going to want in on it."

It took me over forty minutes to explain what was going on and even then he had trouble believing it. He was full of questions.

"How the hell could he do that?" he asked. "Wait a minute...Isn't that illegal and unethical and...Forbidden?"

"All of the above," I said. "And technically I don't know how to explain it, except to say that he fucking did it."

"Shit," he said. "We're going to have to take HER back with us. I don't need him so after we get them, what happens to him to get you further up the food chain is on you."

"Agreed," I said. His participation on my plan increased the chance for it's success.

He whipped out that iPhone again. This time he dialed a number. "Honey....No, I'm not at the airport. I'm not coming home quite as early as I thought. There's been a complication. Don't show that video to Will just yet. Oh shit, well tell him not to open that e-mail. I'll be home as quickly as I can."

He hung up the phone and looked at me. "Can you get us a plane?"

"Of course," I said. "All we need to do is scout our location. Figure out how many guys Peters will have with him. Come up with the appropriate counter measures for them. Figure out how and when to attack them. And then execute the plan. Then we can..."

"We're doing this now," he said.

"But..." I began.

* * * * * *

Will

I'd spent the previous two nights with Danny. The only thing I'd told him was that Becca and I needed some space for a few days.

"Are you insane?" he asked. "Why would anyone EVER need space from HER?"

We'd come in to work this morning as usual, although to be truthful my heart wasn't in it. What was the point of designing a house or a renovation for someone else, when my own house wasn't in order. Shit, my heart wasn't in order and that was messing with my head.

I looked over my list of e-mails before trying to look over my latest assignment. Most of what I found was spam. I checked my phone list and there were ten messages from Becca. Okay, I listened to all of them. I just needed to hear her voice.

Here in the privacy of my office, I didn't really have to be strong and stoic. I could be human. And I could admit to myself that I was hoping with everything I had that she was innocent and that Chris and Sarah wouldn't find anything.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there were reasonable explanations for what I'd seen. He could have been a client or the director of another modeling agency. They could have run into each other at work and he had offered her a ride to the airport or some other place. Once she got into the car they had both looked down to find their seatbelts at the same time and that brought their faces together. There were all kinds of possibilities.

Becca loves me, I thought. And she doesn't need me. She makes a lot more money than I do. She could just leave at any time she chooses anyway. She could simply forget about me and move on with her life without giving me a backwards glance.

I listened to her first message. "Will, call me as soon as you get a chance. And don't work too hard. Honey don't try to memorize every detail of everything at this stupid conference. The main reason to go to these stupid things is to get away from work and relax. I love you, bye."

She'd called back a couple of hours later. "Will, Honey, I wanted to clear something up so don't be angry with me. When I called before I wasn't saying that your architectural conference was stupid, I just meant that it's stupid that it's keeping us apart. That's why I don't take long assignments, Honey. I don't like it when we're apart for too long. I love you, Will. More every day."

She certainly didn't sound like she was cheating on me. All of her messages were like that but they kept getting angrier and more depressed that I hadn't called her back. And Jesus, we'd been away from each other for only two days. How would she act when it had been months. I started to call her, but told myself not to. I needed to be strong. But on the other hand if she wasn't doing anything...

I tried to get back to work but I kept drawing the same things over and over and it just seemed wrong. I felt like I'd lost my perspective. Then finally my mind went back to that e-mail. They couldn't have found anything so quickly. I was sure that it was just Sarah or Chris checking on to tell me what was going on.

But any news was better than no news. So I clicked on it. There was an attachment in the e-mail. My mind went back to one of the most basic things you learn about the Internet. Never click on any attachment, unless you know and trust the source. I trusted Sarah, so with barely a thought I clicked on it.

It was a video file and what a video. I went through the full spectrum of emotions as I watched my wife having sex with the greasy little man. She attempted to suck his dick and failed because the greasy little man had a baseball bat between his legs. As impossible as it seemed, she couldn't get her mouth around the head of it. But it wasn't for lack of trying. Just that part would have been enough to end my marriage, but the video continued. After trying to give him a blowjob, which was something I'd just gotten used to going without, Becca fucked him. It wasn't like what we did. It was faster, more brutal and more vigorous.

That pissed me off because she was alway saying things to me, like, "Slow down. This isn't a race. I want to feel you."

I understood now what the bitch had meant. She needed things to go slower because compared to that thing, my normal sized dick was like a fucking microbe. If I didn't move more slowly she wouldn't know it was there.

Surprisingly enough, she didn't seem to be screaming and getting off, the way she did with us. It seemed more like it was just a physical thing. In the back of my mind, I could already hear the bitch telling me that it was "just sex" with him, but we made love. Yeah right, bitch. That was just like your Russian ancestors claiming they were only stockpiling nukes, just in case.

Well, baby, I thought. From now on you can have all of the "Just sex" that you need. But you won't have anything with me.

I got angrier and angrier watching the video. After a while she started to get into it, despite the fact that at first she didn't seem to be enjoying it. Towards the end, it seemed like she was really locked in and fucking him back. When he got ready to shoot, he tried to pull out and they argued about it. She actually wanted him to cum in her pussy. He reminded her that for her to get pregnant wouldn't be a good thing. He shot what must've been a gallon of sperm on her tits. Surprisingly she jumped up and started licking his dick clean.

I was irate. The sense of anger and betrayal running through me was so acute that I literally started to sweat. I understood then where the expression, "Hot under the collar," came from.

There were so many things I felt at that moment. I felt angry. I felt betrayed. I felt stupid. I felt lied to. I felt pain. And surprisingly hidden in the back, though I didn't want to admit it. I still loved her. That made me angry with myself. Most of all I just wished I could go back in time and for none of this to have happened, because now that it had, my self respect would never allow us to fix this.

Strangely enough, although every frame of that God damned video hurt me, I couldn't look away from the screen. My normal shy yet happy expression had morphed into a rictus of anger as I glared at the screen. Things only got worse then as I noticed that the greasy horse hung little man wasn't finished. I watched as my soon to be ex-wife dutifully got on her hands and knees and stuck her ass in the air. Becca has never even allowed me to think about touching her anus with my finger. "That's nasty and disgusting, you pervert," she'd told me when I brought it up. But here she was letting that bastard ram his human telephone pole of a dick up her ass. And when she just knelt there and let him do it, it was too much for me.

I snatched a heavy crystal paper weight off of the desk and launched it through the monitor. Unlike in the movies there was no shower of sparks. There was only noise as the LCD screen cracked and the monitor fell off of my desk. Since it was cabled to the other two monitors they slid dangerously towards the edge of the desk too. I reached out to grab them as two or three people rushed into my office to see what had happened.

"I'm fine," I yelled before anyone could say anything. "Don't worry about me, I'm just having a bad day. Go back to work, but thanks."

As soos as Danny closed the door, I pulled out my phone and called Ms. Hawks.

"Mr. Temple," she said when she got on the line. "You've had a chance to talk to your wife and you've decided against going ahead with the divorce, right. Let me tell you it's a good thing. Sometimes we have to realize..."

"File the fucking papers," I hissed. "I want that bitch served today. I want her cheating ass out of my house immediately. I want a restraining order, a PPO, CCW, CRT, NFL, and the AFLCIO. I want the whole fucking alphabet."

She spent a good fifteen minutes trying to calm me down. She faxed over a power of attorney form that I signed and faxed back. It would work until we could get together and actually submit official notarized documents that would stand up in court.

The purpose of the papers was so she could act on my behalf in my absence. She thought that I was emotionally distraught and I needed to take some time off and just get away before I did something stupid. I leaped up from my chair then. The ringer of my phone, added to my emotional instability had scared the shit out of me, almost literally. I checked the screen and saw that it was Sarah.

"Hey, Sarah," I said. "You guys are as good as advertised. Just send the bill..."

"Will, don't look at that e-mail," she said at the same time as I was talking.

"It's a bit too late for that Sarah," I said. "Everything is already in motion."

"Well pull it all back," she said. "Chris called me back and said. That we should wait. He found out something that might change things and..."

"Sarah did you see that video?" I asked.

"Unh huh?" she said.

"There's no changing that. I can't forgive that," I said.

"But what if she wasn't doing it willingly? What if she was drunk or blackmailed into it? What if she was hypnotized?" asked Sarah.

"What if the sky wasn't blue?" I asked. "What if lollipops grew on trees? What if monkeys flew out of my ass? None of that would mak a difference either. You're a good woman Sarah. Chris is really lucky to have you. I wish I had someone like you. But all I have is that lying, cheating, slut that I married.

* * * * * *

Clyde

This was all just wrong. It didn't make sense. If things were this easy, anyone could just do whatever the fuck they wanted. We drove to the warehouse that Peters made his movies in. Chris went to the pizza place down the block and ordered a large pizza.

"Please tell me you're not going to eat that before we go in?" I asked. It was my experience that eating a large meal before any type of op made you sluggish and dulled your reaction time.

Chris though at least twenty years younger than my 52 years, looked at me as if he was taking me to school and I was in the slow class.

"Watch and learn grasshopper," he smirked.

He messed his hair up even more and stuck a Detroit Tigers baseball cap over it so the brim obscured most of his face. He yanked his pants down a couple of inches until I could see the top border of his underwear. I shook my head in disgust, but realized that it was the way most of the kids wore their pants nowadays.

Then he grabbed the pizza and walked straight up to the door of the warehouse. After a few long moments a huge guy opened the door and glared at Chris.