by Tanya Allan
He worked for Uncle Guiseppe and, when he’d died, he had taken over the business. His wife, Maria, had provided him with three sons and two daughters, all bar one had followed the family footsteps, so now the restaurant was three times the size and even had an outside catering business as well.
One of his sons had joined the NYPD, and he was a frequent visitor to the restaurant. His family was his pride and joy, and his restaurant was the unofficial office for the patrol division of the local precinct.
Mario was always to be found by the front door of the restaurant, greeting everyone who came through the doors, wearing the customary dirty apron. In fact, he never cooked, opened a bottle or cleaned away, so his apron had never been used in anger, but it gave him the appearance of being personally involved in the preparation of everyone’s meals.
The door opened and he stared up into the face of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life, and the tallest. Unfortunately, right behind her, and with a proprietary hand on her arm was an even larger male, who looked as if a train would lose a one-on-one contest should one be made between them.
“Hi, room for two little ones?” she asked.
Mario smiled; little ones. Who was she kidding, they were both nearly six-six?
He showed them to a booth and gave them a menu.
The man went to the restroom, so the girl took off her cape.
Mario took it, and as he turned to leave, the girl asked him a question.
“How is Marco?”
He turned back. Marco was his youngest son, the cop.
“He is good, do you know him?”
“Si. Yes kinda. Tell him a friend of Mike Dunwoody sends regards.”
Mario was surprised, he hadn’t heard that name in a while, and now twice in a week.
“You knew Mike?”
The girl nodded.
“You heard he died?”
She nodded again.
“How come you knew him?”
“Let’s say at one point our families were close, but it’s not something I want my friend to know about,” she said, smiling, as Mario felt a powerful urge to protect her secrets.
“Mike was a good man. He left at the right time.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t look after him self. A heart attack I heard,” she said.
“Is that so? We just heard he died.”
“Look, just pass on his regards to your son. He never forgot he taught Marco his first beat.”
“Okay, who are you?”
“I’m Michelle. But he won’t know me.”
Gordon returned, so Mario left them alone.
“This is an amazing place. Where did you find out about this?”
“I was walking and asked a policeman where was a good place to eat. He said to come here.”
“You just spoke to a cop?”
“Sure, why not?”
“You wouldn’t do that in the Ukraine?”
“No, but I am not in the Ukraine any more,” she said, and he laughed.
They ordered their food, which, when it came, was very good and plentiful.
“No wonder America is the land of the fat. I have not been given portions like this in a restaurant ever,” he said.
Michelle, finishing her food, smiled and put her fork down.
“I like it. Being big means I can eat a lot and not get fat. In Ukraine, I never got enough.”
Mario came over and saw two clean plates.
“Aha. You like my food. Not often everything gets eaten.”
“It was delicious, and just the right amount for us little people,” said Michelle with a smile.
They ordered dessert and coffee and spent a long time in idle chatter.
“No meeting this afternoon?” she asked.
“No. I have one more tomorrow morning, and one in the afternoon.”
She twiddled her teaspoon, and he took her hand. She looked up.
“I really do want to marry you,” he said.
“I know. But as I said, things happen very fast for me.”
Her accent came back when they spoke of intimate things, and she was aware of the levels of concentration required to keep it up.
“I don’t mean to rush you, but I’m terrified of losing you.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
“You won’t. But I need to be certain before I say yes.”
He smiled.
“I can wait.”
He paid the bill, and they took a cab downtown, spending the afternoon Christmas shopping. They bought small items, all the easier to take home in their luggage. On their return to the hotel, they both went to the hotel gym and worked out. Michelle surprised Gordon with her very high level of fitness, and even though she was deliberately not lifting her optimum weights, she was still able to almost match anything he lifted.
After the workout, they swam in the pool, and Gordon, who considered himself a good swimmer, was unable to beat her for style or stamina. She was like a dolphin in the water, her action smooth and perfect. She hardly produced any excess splash, and with the maximum power. He thought she was Olympic standard, and said so.
“They tested me for Olympic team, but I had influenza and missed it,” she said, inwardly cursing for being too fast.
“Well, you can represent the UK now.”
“Perhaps, but if you get your way, I will be having lots of babies,” she said, and he went bright red, as that was exactly what he would like.
They dined in the hotel, and retired early.
Just enjoying being together, they made love and lay in bed watching the TV.
The news came on, and a bemused reporter was talking about a couple of incidents that occurred in the city that day.
“Convicted felon Luis Delgado (17), managed to snatch 72 year-old Glynnis Coltrane’s purse, having knocked the elderly woman to the ground, he made off, and was described to have been laughing by several witnesses.
“However, what followed seems so unreal that it could well have been written by a script writer from Hollywood. Witness Marcus Haddow told me what he saw.”
The picture changed to the shopkeeper who was with the woman when Michelle brought the bound Luis back.
“It was like something from the movies. I sees this guy snatch the purse and the old lady fell onto the sidewalk. And he just runs away, laughing he was, as if it was funny. Then, outa nowhere, this girl came, with long hair and, man she was just beautiful. Anyways, she goes after him, and man, was she fast? I swear she was runnin’ at a hundred miles an hour. Anyways, a couple a minutes later, she carries him back, with his hands tied and all, and she gives the old lady her purse back. I mean, this girl was strong and big, she was way bigger than me. I saw her snap the guy’s knife with two fingers.
“Someone said she was the Avenging Angel, and she just disappeared before the cops arrived.”
The reporter was back.
“Police arrived to find the suspect compliant and cooperative. In fact, he confessed to the crime, and seven others that the police did not know about. The mysterious girl has yet to be traced, but as far as the local people here are concerned, there is a new superhero in town. She is big, she is blonde and she is beautiful. She is the Avenging Angel. Back to the news room.”
Michelle was aware that Gordon was looking at her.
“Michelle?”
“Hmm?”
“What exactly did you do yesterday morning?”
She looked at him, and smiled.
“Tell me that wasn’t you?”
She shrugged.
“He was a nasty man, and the woman could have been hurt.”
He shook his head.
“Avenging Angel?”
She smiled and shrugged again.
“They made that one up,” she said.
“What really happened?”
“The guy mugged the lady, I ran, caught him, and got the bag back.”
“Why didn’t you wait for the police?”
“You
would not have wanted me to be late for lunch, would you?” she asked innocently.
She then carefully manipulated his mind, so that all memories of the incident and her involvement were neatly erased.
He looked at her and frowned.
“What were we talking about?” he asked.
“Do you want me to come with you to your meetings tomorrow?” she asked, and his brow cleared.
“If you want to. They won’t be very exciting for you, as the first group is from the companies who produce our software and some of the distributors. The second group are potential suppliers. No foreign languages on these jobs, sorry.”
In the police station where Luis Delgado had been charged, Captain Harry Mancetti was fighting off the press.
He slammed the phone down on yet another pushy journalist who wanted to know about the Avenging Angel. He walked to the door of his office and opened it.
“Carl!” he yelled, and a balding overweight detective came over.
“Yeah, Cap, what?”
“Some dumb reporter tells me that this girl has done the same with a car-jacker in 35th Street. Tell me it ain’t true?”
“I just heard myself. The patrolman on that beat heard it from a witness. It is spreading like wildfire. I had one guy call in to say that she stopped a pickpocket in the subway station.”
“This is all I need. Since when do we need fucking superheroes? Does anyone know who she is?”
“No boss. No CCTV, and all we know is she is over six foot and is a beautiful blonde with a figure to die for.”
“Could she be a guy in drag?”
“No according to our witnesses, this is 100% woman,” the detective said, making breast motions with his hands.
“Goddamn it. I want her found. Hell, if you have to, enlist her into the goddamn department, but stop her making headlines.”
Michelle drifted off to sleep unaware she was creating waves in so many areas. News reporters across the city were being tasked with identifying and locating the mysterious girl. Databases were being trolled in order to create lists of very tall blonde girls who could possibly match the descriptions.
She accompanied Gordon to the morning meeting looking every inch the sophisticated, professional and exceptionally glamorous P.A. She was in her pinstripe skirt and jacket, but with her high heels, she was a stately six foot six inches. She had put her hair up, so it gave her a very cool and almost untouchable image. Gordon had been quite right, as she was bored rigid, but maintained a look of intelligent interest, impressing all she met with her charm and good nature.
Gordon was proud of her, as many comments were made praising her, despite the fact she did absolutely nothing apart from look gorgeous.
The corporate lunch was very pleasant, and she made small talk with a lot of people, mostly men, and many were all but drooling. She maintained her accent, which added to her already glamorous and faintly exotic persona. As a result, no less than three people approached her with a view to persuading her to change companies.
After lunch, she toyed with the idea of going for another ‘walk’, but wisely decided to stay and do her bit for Gordon again.
Meanwhile, in the big bad city, New York was being New York, and three copycat Avenging Angels managed to get into the news.
The first two were male transvestites, who were arrested for indecent assault and possession of a concealed weapon. Their costumes, including silicone breast forms and lots of Lycra, were faintly ludicrous, but the cape was a common feature. The third was an overweight schizophrenic girl who managed to fall onto the tracks of a railway station as she attempted to fly from one platform to the other. She was carted away in tears, having broken her leg.
With no further reports of the mysterious girl, Captain Mancetti relaxed somewhat, and halved his intake of blood pressure tablets.
6.
Paris in December was as cold and damp as London and New York, but Michelle was delighted and thrilled to be there. She had read a lot about the place, having some romantic notions of the place and the lifestyle of the inhabitants.
As soon as they arrived, she started practicing her linguistic skills. She was delighted with the ease with which she had grasped the language, silently praising the aliens and their amazing technology.
The French men adored her, as, for a start, she was female, and that was a good start. The fact that she was big, blonde and amazingly beautiful helped.
Her personality seemed to grow, and Gordon had a permanent smile on his face. She was bubbly and witty, and her laugh was seldom far away. In between meetings, on the coldest day so far recorded, she made him take her up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
As they stood looking over Paris at dusk, with the lights coming on as far as the eye could see, and with coats tight up to their chins, she had kissed him and said the words that he was longing to hear.
“Gordon, I think that maybe I will marry you.”
Stunned and completely overwhelmed Gordon wept for the first time in years.
He took her to dinner to a small chic restaurant on the banks of the Seine, and produced a very old and very beautiful engagement ring.
“It was my grandmother’s ring. I have been carrying it with me ever since that first morning in my flat.”
She allowed him to slip it onto her left ring finger. She was surprised that it fitted.
He laughed.
“I had to have it enlarged. When you were asleep, I measured your finger,” he admitted.
She kissed him, suddenly feeling all warm and fuzzy. She was not absolutely certain that she was being wise, but she was happy, and that was important.
Gordon, on the other hand, appeared to have received a personality transplant. His whole outlook on life had been turned around, and Michelle found the man he had become much nicer than the man she had initially fallen for.
They attended meetings together, and they were all in French. The fair was international, and Gordon’s company had a stand. Fenwick’s Communications Ltd attracted many small businesses, but when Michelle was helping on the stand, the amount of enquiries seemed to increase.
Most of the local French people thought she was French too, and were very surprised to learn she held a British Passport. She gleaned a lot of information from her conversations, and was able to actually find some new business. Everyone she met fell in love with her a little, and all of Gordon’s associates saw a profound change in the man, and once they met his new fiancée, they understood.
They found a little café that served superb coffee and delightful croissants and pastries. Michelle loved the whole atmosphere, and could have settled down in France. Sometimes, when Gordon was in a meeting and she was not needed, she browsed the small shops, and just breathed the Paris air. One afternoon, she had left the noisy and crowded fair, and walked along the river bank for a while. It was cold, but she enjoyed being alone with her thoughts for a while. She stood on a bridge and watched the Seine flow underneath her feet. She reflected on who she now was, and discovered that her previous life was all but a faint shadow in her mind.
Like the river, she had moved on, and was in a different place, having taken on a new character. She smiled, for she doubted that anyone who knew Mike would dream that she was the same person underneath.
She felt a little sad, as there was a lot in Mike’s life that had been important, but she finally let them go. She had thought to visit New Mexico, just to see how everyone had got on, but she now decided that it was best left alone. A new person - a new life. It was always a mistake to go back, the old life was gone, and she was content to let it go.
After Paris, they flew to Moscow to visit three plants that were in the first year of production. Snow met them, and it was bitterly cold.
Michelle used her Russian from the moment they landed, despite a growing desire by the Russians to use English. The hotel was comfortable, and they had a car and armed driver. Allegedly, there was a problem with various bandit-style gangs in the area
they were passing through, so, the armed escort was thought prudent, as a consequence.
The first plant was in an old textile factory fifty miles east of Moscow, which had been gutted and completely re-fitted as an electronics works. Externally it seemed to be out of the dark ages, but inside it was modern, well equipped and warm.
The Manager was a weasel-like man called Dimitri to whom Michelle took an instant dislike. He had a supercilious attitude, and was suspicious of the tall blonde girl with the Ukrainian accent. He expected to deal with a dumb Englishman, so he had not expected to deal with a girl who looked as if she could be trouble.
She probed his mind and found a web of deceit and embezzlement. As she dined with Gordon that evening in their hotel, she asked who had arranged the armed guard.
“Dimitri, why?”
“I don’t trust him. I have a really bad feeling about him,” she said.
They dropped the subject, but her unease got worse.
So much so, that she awoke in the middle of the night. Gordon was sound asleep, and she let her mind seek out anyone close.
To her surprise she found three men, one was their driver, and they were just outside the hotel. She probed their minds, and discovered that the plan was to seize both of them, and purport to be Chechnyan terrorists. Then a ransom would be asked for, and all the while Dimitri’s embezzlement would be forgotten. The plan was to kill them anyway, and in the confusion the plant would be burned down, as all the expensive equipment already had a Russian Mafia buyer lined up.
She slipped out of bed, silently dressing in black slacks, a black sweater and with good walking boots on her feet.
She tied her hair back and flexed her limbs.
She kept her probes open, observing that one man was with the vehicle, a large van, while the other two entered the hotel by a rear fire door and were making their way up the fire exit stairs.
She let her mind enter the sleeping brain of Gordon, making his sleep so deep that an earthquake would not wake him. She lifted him from the bed and carried him to the bathroom, placing him in the bath and covering him with some blankets.
Then she returned to the bedroom and quickly made the bed look as if two people were still asleep.
