by K. T. Tomb
Alex laughed, almost snorting into her coffee cup. “No,” she said when she had regained her composure. “My girlfriend came over here too. She got drunk last night though, so I had a bit of time.”
Storm pondered it for a moment. “Why did she get drunk?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Because she saw me checking you out in the lobby yesterday morning. Got quite upset and went off in a huff. When I got back she was pissed.”
“And you think she’s okay with you being here right now?”
Alex shrugged. “She knew what she was getting into when I said I wanted an open relationship. I love her, but...” She let the sentence trail off and shrugged again. “She wants to be all lovey-dovey and is talking about kids. I can’t do that.”
“I see.”
Alex grinned and touched her bare foot to his knee under the table. “Don’t worry, nothing going on there. I’m not using you, not expecting anything, just want to have fun, Mr. McCoy.”
Storm reached under the table and touched her foot. “So what now?”
She closed an eye and squinted at him, thinking. Then she leaned forward, her breasts on the table. She kissed him again.
“I think I will go and see how she’s doing, have a shower and a change of clothes and if I’m not interested in doing something with Carmen, I’ll know where to find you.” She got up and began putting her clothes back on. Just as her pants slid over her pert round buttocks, the tone of the news finally changed for a moment. The weatherman was explaining how the storm that night would be a hindrance to the search for the men who’d robbed the Federal Reserve of a now approximated ten million dollars of the institution’s assets.
Storm laughed. Alex was a lovely woman, he decided. He knew nothing would come of it, and her bisexual promiscuity was somehow odd to him. But he liked her, and he hoped she would come and spend that stormy night with him.
Chapter Two
When Storm went down to the bar again, most guests of the hotel were there.
There was talk from every corner, but mostly people were focused on the television again. The Redskins were supposed to be playing, but the game broadcast had been bullied off the network stations by news of the robbery and confined to ESPN.
He saw Alex sitting in a corner with another woman. They were holding hands on top of the table. He winked at Alex when he saw her looking his way, but ignored her otherwise. She looked beautiful in her casual clothing; a long, black skirt with flowery print, a tank top and a cardigan and worn sneakers. Her brown hair hung loose about her face and she kept brushing it behind her ear. Storm wanted to go over to her, but he did not want to come between her and her girlfriend. Instead, he went over to the bar and ordered some more coffee.
The same bartender was working, though now with someone else supporting him.
“So what happened last night?” he asked familiarly.
Storm did not mind the familiar address, seeing as he had spoken to the man on every evening since his arrival. “Dozed off watching the television.”
The bartender nodded and turned back to the espresso machine to make his coffee. When he put it in front of him, he winked at him. “You must have been hungry this morning, though.”
“Eh?” Storm looked at him suspiciously.
“Was in the kitchen when they got your order,” he explained. “Two breakfasts?”
“Oh, yeah,” Storm answered as he began putting sugar into his coffee.
“Unless you weren’t eating two breakfasts on your own?”
Storm just gave him a vague smile and glanced over to the corner where Alex sat.
“Going to need double breakfasts tomorrow morning too?” the bartender grinned.
“Don’t know.” Storm sipped his coffee. “Probably not.”
The bartender was about to make a retort, but just then an English news anchor started talking. Storm remembered the man had been arrested a few months before at JFK, naked under a trench coat with cocaine in his pocket, something tied around his naughty bits and thigh, and a butt plug up his bum. Behind him, two pictures showed up on the screen.
“John and Timothy Bainbridge are armed and dangerous. If you see anything suspicious or think you may have recognized either of the two, do not take any direct action, but call the authorities straight away. These two men are responsible for the vicious attack and fatal robbery at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City yesterday, where at least thirty people were shot and injured, five members of the institution’s security detail were killed and several business places damaged by gunfire within a two-block area.”
Storm almost sprayed his coffee over the bar. He shook his head. A man next to him, wearing a sharp suit, looked at him sharply. “You think this is funny?”
Storm gave him a blank look. “I do, actually.”
“They’ve just killed dozens of people, and you’re laughing?” His tone was angry.
“That’s not the funny part. The way this is brought is funny. They’ve got to have more than even security camera footage to get a conviction for this.”
The man snorted. “What are you? One of these conspiracy nuts who think 9/11 wasn’t real?”
Storm frowned at him. He had never thought himself a conspiracy nut, but he had been aware of the way the system works for a long time and he had a critical view. He shook his head and ignored the man.
“Well?” the man asked him.
“What?” Storm snapped at him.
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“One of those conspiracy nuts.”
Storm sighed. “I’m saying the media says a lot of things that don’t make sense and that are obviously made up.” He pointed to the screen. “If they actually had footage of them doing this, they would have shown it by now.”
The man looked like Storm had slapped him across the face. He shook his head and turned away.
“Fucking truthers.” Storm heard him mutter under his breath.
He shook his head and turned in his seat, facing the big screen that kept most of the crowd informed. He looked at the faces of the crowd and noticed some were watching the screen with a mix of fascination, anger and fear on their faces. More were completely uninterested, though. He noticed that the large panes of glass in the bar’s street-side windows had already been expertly replaced. Alex was ignoring the current affairs completely and only looking at her girlfriend. He saw the way she ran her thumb over the woman’s hand and knew the affection that was hidden in the gesture. He looked away and turned to the screen again. The news was useless really. For the third time, they were repeating what they had just said. And the people watching it lapped it up.
Storm drank the rest of his coffee and got up. He did not see the point of staying in the bar when this was all that was happening. He returned to his room and changed into his sports clothes. He headed to the gym then and went straight for the rowing machines. He looked for his favorite podcast on his phone, which was about to be streamed live, put his earbuds in and listened to the opening notes of The Ride of the Valkyrie and the former DJ talking and howling through it.
It was a relief to him to hear some people thought the whole affair that was being played out in the media now was as much nonsense as he thought it was. They were blowing it all completely out of proportion and they were making claims that could never be supported by evidence. But his mind went blank as he rowed. It felt good to work the day’s frustration out of his body while listening to some common sense.
After half an hour he moved to the corner where the loose weights were. He began pumping iron in series of twenty-five. He did not like bulking up, but he wanted to stay in shape. It took half an hour again to train his whole body, and he then did a cooling down on one of the training bikes before heading back to his room to shower.
The shower was followed by a call down for some lunch, and then he opened his laptop to check his emails and the rest of the news. He wanted something to do now.
The moment he was able to leave, he would be headed back to Brooklyn and back to work. He would be back to doing the same job as he’d always done and hoping some case would prove interesting.
There was one email that seemed like it might hold something vaguely interesting, but he knew he could leave it to a junior lawyer and maybe get involved if it ever came to trial. It concerned some shipping and violations of the Jones Act. But really there wasn’t much promise of any real challenge there.
He sighed again and stood up, ran his hands through his hair and walked through the room for a bit before letting himself fall onto the bed. The sheets had been changed, but he thought he still smelled a hint of the night before. He groaned and closed his eyes.
Storm woke up to the phone ringing. He looked out the window and noticed it was starting to go dark already. He swore. He grabbed the horn of the phone and growled his name into it.
“We’re bored. Want to come and have dinner with us?”
It was Alex.
“Um...” Storm ran his hand through his hair and tried to gather his thoughts. “We?”
“Yes, Carmen and me.”
“You want the guy you slept with last night to come and join you and your girlfriend for dinner?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes. People are boring here. At least you’re interesting. Just don’t say anything.”
Storm blinked again. He thought a moment. “Alright. See you downstairs?”
“We’ll be in the lobby in half an hour.”
“See you then.” He placed the receiver back on the phone and pushed himself up. He looked at his clothes and decided he needed to change. He went over to the closet and grabbed a clean shirt and a flamboyant silk smoking jacket. He sat down on the bed again and opened his laptop again. He scrolled through his social media in double time, preferring to scroll past all that on his laptop overdoing it slowly on his phone. He had recently deleted the apps for it from his phone too. Too much spying and checking was going on these days. He just could not run the risk of some update giving away what he was doing, not with the clientele he usually catered to.
Twenty minutes later he shut the computer down again and went downstairs. He took the elevator to the lobby and waited there. There was a television behind the desk, and the staff kept following the movements of the police and the outpouring of news that was coming in via the news anchors and reporters. He tried to follow it but just found himself zoning out within seconds.
“Hey.” Storm heard behind him. He turned and was immediately taken aback. Alex and her girlfriend, Carmen, were both stunning.
“Wow,” Storm exclaimed. Alex had her brown hair in a loose bun on the top of her head again and was wearing a little black dress. Carmen had her red hair behind her ears and she wore a blue dress and a gold necklace. “Good evening, ladies.” Storm bowed his head to them.
“Good evening.” Alex smiled at him. “Carmen, this is Storm. We met the other night at the bar. Especially in this sea of halfwits, he’s quite interesting.”
Carmen offered him her hand and a smile. “Pleased to meet you.” There was a hint of wryness in her demeanor. Storm shook her hand. “And you.” He opened his mouth to say more, ask her about herself, but Alex cut him off.
“Shall we?” She gestured to the door of the restaurant on the other side of the lobby, it was really just an extension of the lobby bar which served as a waiting area during restaurant hours. The TV on the wall in there was also stuck on the news.
“We shall.” Carmen offered Alex her arm. Storm followed them.
They got a round table by the window overlooking the garden and Alex sat down next to Carmen. She even scooted over to her a bit, taking her hand in hers. Storm sat down opposite them. The waiter came round with the menus just after they were seated. Storm noticed he looked a bit stressed and worn. He sounded it too, when he asked what they wanted to drink. Storm understood it, though. People were not allowed out of the hotel and thus had to get everything handled for them by the staff, a staff that would now be working a third or even fourth shift in a row. Even if they managed to get some sleep, they could never escape their job. He figured it must be torture.
Alex began explaining how she had met Storm. It was when she said they had spent several hours discussing philosophy, society and their respective jobs that Storm noticed what she was doing. She was creating a narrative before he could betray to Carmen what they had been doing the night before. Storm figured then that it was probably not the first time she’d had to hide something from her girlfriend in plain sight.
When Carmen asked, he began explaining about his law firm and it looked like she was actually interested. Alex sat calmly looking from one to the other. Her long leg stretched out under the table, her foot pressed against Storm’s, but her hand holding Carmen’s in her lap.
Just as Storm explained how he’d ended up in Manhattan just in time to be sequestered in his favorite hotel, their food arrived. And so did the rattle of gunfire blasting from the television set.
Chapter Three
Batavia, New York
There was a clatter of dishes dropping to the ground as gunshots rang out in Sheila Griffin’s backyard.
Her children were due to be home from school at any moment and all she could think about was getting out of the house to the possible safety of the street out front. She dropped to the ground and began to crawl towards the foyer, her pocketbook which contained her cell phone and the liberation of the front door. She took another look behind her out the patio door and saw the flashes. Some of them were continuous and she recognized the sound of assault rifles.
There were dark shapes moving in the garden but she could not make out anything about them besides their bulky, dark shapes.
Something hit the glass of a window close by and the pane shattered, showering a screaming couple in tiny fragments of glass. The rattle of gunfire continued and Sheila could see flecks of plaster raining down from the ceiling as bullets struck it repeatedly. The sound of men moving around outside became louder, as though wave after wave of an army was invading her backyard. In a flash, she was up on her feet and she sprinted towards the front door, grabbing up her bag and keys. She yanked on the door handle and immediately fell into the arms of several helmeted men wearing black bullet-proof vests with the letters S.W.A.T. printed on them. The man in front pulled her from the doorway, placing one hand on her head and rushed her down the driveway into the care of a team of police officers.
She sat in a van behind a barricade for about thirty minutes watching the front of her house until the faces of about fifteen dejected law enforcement officers streamed out of her backyard towards the waiting crowd that had gathered in the street.
“They must have heard us coming,” one officer reported to the team leader. “They got to the end of the access road between the blocks and got away in another car.”
“Did you get the plates? A description of the vehicle?”
“A white Econoline van. I think it was waiting for them.”
“They’re making a break for the border!”
“Yeah! I think that was the plan all along, sir.”
“Come on! Team B, you’re with me. Let’s go!”
“Where are we going, sir? What about Team A? They’re still in the back of the house.”
“Agent Lee,” the policeman called out to a man in a black suit and dark sunglasses. “Could you wrap this up? I’m going to head for Buffalo to follow a hunch I have.”
“Border run?”
“Yup. Keep that news bird off our ass, would yah? I doubt there’s gonna be anything pretty about catching these two.”
“Sure thing, you go ahead. I’ll take care of things here. Call us if you need us.”
Sheila Griffin sat wrapped in a blanket on the tailgate of the black S.W.A.T. van as she listened intently to the conversation taking place. She squinted her eyes and shook her head from side to side in sheer confusion even as it became clear what the three men were dis
cussing. Her gaze moved from the group of talking men to the small crowd of people at the end of the street, who were being held back by stings of neon yellow police caution tape. Her eyes wandered back to the turmoil that was happening in her yard.
She shook her head again and then thought to herself, If those two are off to stop the bad guys from crossing over into Canada…Who the hell are these morons still shooting at in my fucking backyard?!
***
New York, New York
As they sat speechlessly watching the live broadcast, Storm McCoy felt the hairs on his neck stand up.
He looked across the table and saw Alex and Carmen were both watching the news as well. They looked scared, but mainly their expression was one of curiosity. The feed was coming from a helicopter that hovered over a suburban neighborhood where police officers in black tactical vests had apparently overrun someone’s backyard. Despite being under heavy fire, two men slipped through the back fence and disappeared into an alley that ran between two rows of identical houses. Neither the law enforcement officers nor the cameras were fast enough to catch the men as they made their getaway.
The waiter hovered over their table attempting to serve the meal while his eyes were glued to the live news broadcast. Then the inevitable happened. From the overtired hand of a disbelieving waiter, a plate of Spaghetti Bolognese came crashing down onto the table sending red meaty sauce and perfectly cooked pasta all over the three diners.
In a fluster, Storm brushed bits of pasta and sauce from his jacket. Carmen shook her head and began brushing her fingers through her hair, removing pieces of food too. Alex sat there looking at them both. She swore as she snapped back to her senses. “Fuck!” she grabbed at the tablecloth and swore again as she sliced her index finger on a steak knife that had tumbled precariously from the waiter’s tray along with the food.
“God dammit!”
“Potty mouth,” Carmen said dryly. She grabbed Alex’s hand and looked at the cut. “You’ll be alright before you turn into a boy.”
