The Gypsy Queen: A Matt Preston Novel (Matt Preston Series Book 3)

by Paul Shadinger

  I went through the cabin looking for any kind of clothing Jade could wear. She still needed to hike back to my car and I had no idea what had happened to her clothes. I found enough that she could get back to the car and some boots that almost fit her. Before we left, I shot the man on the floor with another of Mouse’s amazing balls. As we passed the two on the front porch I shot both of them again as well. I had no idea if the effect of the balls was cumulative, but I thought it was worth a try. We got back to the car and headed for Seattle.

  Once we were a few miles down the main road headed back to town, we had one bar of service on the cell phone. I called Mouse. “I have somebody here who wants to talk to you.” I handed her the phone and in between sobs, Jade proceeded to tell him what had happened. Finally, she gave me the phone. Mouse told me he was going to have some people go up to the cabin and deal with the body and the stunned people and he would meet me at my apartment. I agreed.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Jade was astounded with the layout of my apartment and she stood mesmerized at my front window. Nighttime is the best viewing from my place. Being able to see the bridge off in the distance, to the view of the city spread out to the south. She just stood there with her mouth open taking in the spectacle. “This is gorgeous,” she gushed. “If I lived here I’d never leave.” I pointed to my favorite chair and told her to curl up and wait, Mouse was on the way.

  Eventually Mouse showed up. When he stepped off the elevator, he was met with a very happy flying Jade. She wrapped her legs and arms around him and I could see her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. He held her in his arms for a long time and when he could finally pull back, he too had tears running down his face.

  His chin was trembling as he tried to speak to me and I held up my hand and shook my head. “Please, don’t say anything. Please don’t embarrass me. I know you’re grateful and all, but you would have done the same for me, if not more. You owe me nothing.” I smiled and winked at him. “Actually, if you feel you owe me, how about making an honest woman out of her?” I said. “Anybody can see she’s so in love with you she can hardly see straight.”

  Mouse smiled at me. “All you have to do in the future is ask, and whatever it is, I will make it happen for you. I’m grateful for what you’ve done tonight.” Mouse then turned to Jade and held out his arms. As she stepped into them, he kissed her and asked, “Do you really love me?”

  “Yes, you stupid man. I love you with all my heart and I have for a long time. For such an intelligent man, you sure can be slow sometimes.” I had to laugh out loud.

  Mouse got down on one knee and with his hands folded in front of his body, asked, “Will you marry me?” I didn’t think there was anything corny about the gesture. Jade deserved a proposal just like that.

  “Of course I will. But do you actually want to marry me, or is it because of the moment and what just happened?”

  “No darling, I really want to marry you. Today when I thought I might have lost you, I discovered just how important you are to me. I would be devastated if something happened to you. I love you, Jade. I want us to be married.”

  While they were talking, I’d quietly crept off and got a bottle of bubbly of the fridge. I retrieved three glasses from the cupboard and when I returned, both of them were shocked at what I had in hand. Mouse kept telling me I’d done too much already and I just laughed. Just as the cork popped, the phone for the elevator rang and it was Sakol. When he came off of the elevator, a big smile came over his face and I handed him my untouched glass and went off to get a new one. We all celebrated the engagement and then the three of us told our tales of where we had been and what we had done. I tried to keep mine simple, but they still had to hear every detail many times over. I was embarrassed. I know either one of them would have done the same for me, so why make such a big deal out of it?

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Crawling into my bed that night, I suddenly realized something was missing. No Beanie! I missed my dog. Too many things had happened during the day and I just didn’t want to be alone. I wanted my dog. I called Sharon and asked her if she minded if I came and got Bean. She told me she was alone and had no problem with me coming over.

  When I arrived, I knocked and the door swung open, but Sharon wasn’t peeking around the edge of the door at me like always. I stepped in and when the door shut, I was stunned. Sharon was standing behind the door nude. She stepped up to me, wrapped her arms around me and gave me a kiss. When she pulled back, I pulled her to me and kissed her again. She felt wonderful.

  “Sakol called me,” she said. “And he told me what happened with Jade and what you did to save her. You never cease to amaze me, Matt Preston. If you hadn’t come over just now and got Beanie, I was going to bring her to you, and I was going to step off your elevator just like this.” She stepped back and held out her arms. She smiled, winked and said, “Now, I want you. Please take me to my bedroom and make love to me.”

  As you all know by now, I was taught to always obey a woman when she says please and asks you to do something.

  And sometimes you even have to do it more than once just to make sure you did it properly the first time.

  Or the second.

  Or… well, now you know better than that…

  Time to stop.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A couple of days later the tenacious racket of my cell phone intruded on my sleep, and I tried to move to find it so I could silence the damn thing. I felt Bean curled up in her normal sleeping position, tightly curled against my back. Slowly I opened one eye. While the feeling of Bean and my phone’s obnoxious noise fought for space in my fuzzy brain, I reached out, found the phone and snatched it up. I punched to answer the phone with my finger and groused, “What?”

  A man’s happy voice greeted me in return, “And a good morning to you too, sunshine.”

  The voice on the phone was way too cheerful for this time of day, or should I say night. I snarled, “Who is this and why are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

  At first there was a moment of silence and then I heard the voice softly mutter, “Woops,” along with an embarrassed chuckle. The voice continued in a conciliatory tone. “Hello. Sorry Matt, I forgot about the difference in time. Would you like me to call back later?”

  It didn’t matter that I hadn’t heard the voice on the other end for several years, I knew who it was right away and I was also aware my voice was still tinged with being awakened in the middle of the night. But I still wasn’t ready to make nice, “Naw. Don’t worry about it. Some jerk from the other end of the world just called me in the middle of the night and woke me up! I’m awake now. What do you want?”

  The voice on the other end of the phone laughed again and then at least sounding apologetic, said, “Matt, it’s me, John, Jonathan Orchard.”

  Jonathan Orchard is a man I’d made friends with after we were both wounded in Viet Nam.

  “I know who it is Johnnie! I know who it is.” I was starting to feel kind of bad about my tone of voice, but it was difficult keeping it civil at this ungodly hour. “Even though it’s been a century or two since I heard from you, I actually do recognize your voice. Please tell me what the hell is so important you had to call me at zero dark thirty? And I stress the dark part!”

  Even though he might have been a bit embarrassed about calling me so early, Orchard’s voice grew a bit testy at my constant negativity. “Matt, I understand why you’re a little grouchy, but this is important. Maybe I should call back when you’re ready to be a bit more amicable.”

  “Apple,” I snarled, “if you hang up on me, I’ll come back there and find you and rip your heart out, so help me God.” I know he hates it when anybody uses his middle name.

  John’s voice had a small edge. “Not a good idea, Matt. You’re going to play hell finding me. And I’m not at liberty to tell you who I work for now, but I will tell you if you rip m
y heart out, it will piss off my bosses, and me too, and you do not want to do that. I mean it. You have to let me live! Oh, and don’t call me Apple. You know I hate that.”

  “Gee Apple, not only do I get a call in the middle of the night, but then I get threatened by some super-secret goon squad. By the way, when you call me in the middle of the night, I get to call you anything I want!” I knew my friend held a top-secret job with the government, but I had no idea what he did exactly.

  I heard John laugh. “Okay Matt, can we please start over? What do I have to do to get out of your doghouse?”

  I was still for a moment. I felt bad. Even though it had been a long time since we had either seen each other or had chatted, we really were close friends. Trying to make amends, I requested, “Okay, let me go pee, make a cup of coffee and I’ll call you right back.”

  “Deal!” he replied, and the phone went dead.

  I won’t say I jumped up, but I did get up, cursing my friend all the way into the bathroom. I took care of my morning rituals and when I looked at the clock in the bathroom after I washed my face and saw it was 3:45 in the morning, I called John a few more choice words for calling me at such an ungodly hour. I grumbled all the way out to the kitchen and started the coffeepot. Just because he works at the Pentagon, or at least I assumed he worked at the Pentagon, and is on Eastern Time, it doesn’t excuse him for calling me in the middle of the night.

  By now Bean was pawing at my feet informing me that she came before anybody on the East Coast, so I decided Mr. Orchard could wait another five minutes. Beanie had to take care of business. When we returned from her outing, I gave her two treats to compensate for such an early start. By now the coffee was done and I poured myself a cup, added a nice dollop of half and half and headed for the front room. Finally, the coin dropped. It must be really important for John to forget the time difference and call me so early. I wondered what was up. After I was settled in my huge armchair in the front room, I took a sip of my coffee, hit redial on my cell and called John.

  A friendly woman’s voice answered, “Good morning. Admiral Orchard’s office. How may I help you?” I damn near choked on my coffee, Admiral! When did that happen? And here I thought he was out of the military.

  “May I speak to Johnnie, please?” I asked cautiously.

  “Whom may I say is calling?” The woman had a nice phone voice. I figured I wanted a little payback for being phoned in the middle of the night and I told her, “Tell him it’s his lover from his favorite gay bar returning his call.”

  Without dropping a beat, the lovely voice came back, “I’ll tell him you’re on the line, Mr. Preston.” Oh God, I was really glad she couldn’t see me right now as I turned red as a beet from embarrassment. How the hell did she know it was me I wondered?

  John came on the phone in just seconds still as jovial as when he called me the first time. “Matt, thanks for calling me back. And one last time, I totally forgot about the time difference. I had to come in early and I just forgot since it was 6:00 here what that meant for you. Please forgive?”

  I was not about to hold a grudge. “It’s cool. It just takes some time for me to get going at this time of the morning. I need a cup of coffee first. It’s great to hear your voice. Okay, why the phone call?”

  John paused a moment before he asked me how things were going with my life. We bullshitted for a while and then I finally broke in, “Not to be rude, my friend, but you didn’t call me in the middle of the night just to shoot the shit. When are you going to stop putzing around and get to the real reason for interrupting my sleep?”

  Again, his friendly chuckle, but there was a hesitancy in his voice. He seemed to stutter as he tried to get started. “Matt, this phone call never happened if it ever comes up. And it’s not official in any way, shape or form. Consider this off the reservation. Way off! And, ah, what I’m asking you for is not any kind of official request. This comes under the area of a favor, a very large favor. A very large personal favor just for me.” John’s laugh this time was a nervous one. “And, I want you to know you can decline at any point.” Silence. I waited. Long silence. Finally, “This is difficult for me, Matt. Nobody wants to have friends know about past mistakes.”

  I thought to myself how true that statement was. “I understand. You and I both have a checkered past. The last time we really spoke you hinted you had something to do with Bell helicopter. Now I call and find out you’re a fricken’ admiral, and I assume it’s in our navy. And all of this begs the question, ‘what the hell do you need with me, a total peon?’”

  John’s laugh was more of a bark. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the admiral thing, but I can tell you it’s all part of my cover.” Again, he paused and I felt the best thing to do was just wait him out. “This is going to be the strangest thing you are ever going to be asked to do—by me or anyone else. I know this isn’t necessary, but I’m asking you anyway. I beg you not to utter a word about what I’m going to discuss with you. Can you promise me that?”

  “Of course, John. But I’m that hurt you even feel you had to mention it.”

  “Sorry Matt, but you have no idea what I’m doing right now, or the position I’m in. I’m at wits end and I need a friend. I need somebody I can trust beyond any shadow of a doubt. I know we haven’t been close lately, but I know the person you are. From our trip to Alaska and our long talks back when we were all banged up and recovering in Hawaii, I know you and the kind of man you are. I need you Matt. I need you and I trust you and right now, there are not a lot of people I trust. Please help me?”

  I was still for a moment as I considered what I might be getting myself into. Finally, I reluctantly responded, “John, I’m thrilled you would trust me with any problem you might have, but before I commit, I would like to know a lot more.”

  “Matt, like I told you before, I can’t tell you my exact position with the government, but I can tell you I’m in a position to know all about you and the Ross Island incident,” he added with emphasis, “and I know what really happened in the tower that day.” I was silent. What was I going to say? Admit that I shot the son of a bitch Heyward Hollis in cold blood? He continued, “I also know about your recent dealings. So, between that and our friendship, I’m sure I can trust you and you are my man.”

  Oh shit! This again. I thought to myself if there was a way to get my hands on Price or Hollis again, if they weren’t dead, they would be. “Okay John, you have my attention and you’re scaring the shit out of me. How is it you knew about the colonel breathing down my neck not too long ago—”

  Johnny interrupted me, “You mean McNaulty?”

  “Yeah…” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t help but wondering just who my ol buddy really was nowadays. “Okay, I might agree to try and help you. What do you want me to do?”

  “For what it is worth, I know McNaulty. The problem is you met him when he was caught in a really bad situation that was not of his making. I’m not saying he’s some kind of a saint by any means, but at that time, he had people so far above his pay grade on his ass he was actually afraid for his physical safety. He’s not quite as flaky as he came across. Anyway, I don’t want to discuss any of this any further on a phone. This requires a face to face discussion. If I fly out, when can you see me?”

  I was stunned, why would he feel he had to ask just to come and see me? I blurted out, “Fly out here? You’re going to—”

  John cut in, “Yes, I need to see you face to face. I need to cover what’s going on and enlist your help. When can I come and see you?”

  It took a moment before I answered, “John, shit yeah. Of course you can come out here. Why would you even ask? And I want to see you too. Why would you think I wouldn’t want to see you? Nothing going on here and even if there was, I would make time for you, my friend. When do you think you can get away?”

  Orchard told me he would call me as soon as he was in the air and gi
ve me an ETA. When he told me he was coming out immediately, I was silent for so long Johnnie finally asked, “Matt? Are you still there?”

  Finally, I collected my wits and asked, “You mean like today? You’re coming out here today?” I couldn’t help the surprise in my voice.

  “Yes, today, Matt. I’ll let you know once I’m on the way and where to meet me.” We hung up and I headed off to get ready for my day.

  Standing in the hot shower my mind raced. I came up with all sorts of scenarios why John might come out to see me, and then just as quickly discarded them. I was totally in the dark and I needed to stop wondering about all of this until John and I had a chance to talk. I thought how much the day had changed from when I was curled up happy and comfortable in my bed and now. It had been a while since I’d seen my friend and as I thought about it, I realized I was looking forward to that part, but the rest of his visit filled me with apprehension.

  At least I knew one good thing was going to happen today, my old friend John was coming to visit. Who knew about the rest of the day?

  It was time to get going.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  True to his word, John called me and gave me his ETA and where to meet his plane. As I headed for my garage I found Bean sitting by the door to the elevator. I could see no reason why I should not take her with me and she happily stepped into the elevator. Something told me I should take a leash with me and as it turned out, it was a good thing.

  Seattle actually has two principal airports, the main one located between Seattle and Tacoma and the other tucked away in the south end of Seattle and is part of Boeing. Yes, that Boeing! Boeing the airplane company! The main assembly plant is now in Everett, north of Seattle, but at one time it was located in the south end. The airfield in south Seattle is still there and is used by the company as well as several minor air related companies.