by Jon F. Merz
“Wow,” said Lilith coming up behind me. “You did amazing.”
“Thanks.” I hadn’t turned around yet.
“Hey.”
Now I did. She stood there with a bright sheen of sweat on her face, her eyes alive and bright staring into mine.
“You okay?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, are you? I said hello to you before the workout and you could hardly spare a syllable. Everything okay?”
She sighed. “Oh yeah, sorry. Just dealing with some stuff. It’s nothing to do with you.”
“Okay.”
She reached out and rubbed my arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bitch to you.”
I shrugged. “What are you up to now?”
“Trying to stay alive,” she said with a laugh. “That workout demolished me.”
“How’d you make out on it?”
“Five rounds even,” she said. “I’ll take it. And I’m not going to be in a hurry to repeat it anytime soon.”
The door to the box opened and I saw Manny come in. Lilith’s face clouded slightly but she regained her composure and nodded at him as he waved to her. He walked over and I steeled myself for anything awkward that was about to transpire.
“I heard the dinner was good last night,” he said by way of greeting.
I nodded at Lilith. “Her choice was a good one. I’d never been there before.”
Manny put his arm around her shoulders. “She’s got good choice in restaurants. You should let her take you out to this Greek place we know. They serve the best baklava in the city.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t exactly used to speaking to husbands about their wives and how much fun I’d had with them.
“How’d the workout go?”
“Awful,” I said. “I hate burpees-over-the-bar.”
“Oh god,” said Manny. “Not those things. What’d you use for weight on the hang power cleans.”
“Two-twenty-five.”
Manny’s eyes shot open. “Holy crap. That’s heavy. I usually go one-thirty-five.”
“I’m sure you’ll crush it.”
“Cool, okay later.” Manny walked away leaving me wondering exactly what had just happened.
Lilith gathered her stuff and I grabbed a foam roller to torture myself with. I watched Manny’s class warm-up while Lilith disappeared into the women’s changing area.
I took my time rolling everything out: quads, hamstrings, IT bands, lower back, upper back, everything. I was wandering into weird territory and it didn’t necessarily feel as good as I had hoped it would. From what I could tell, Lilith had a thing for me. And if I was going to be honest, I had a thing for her. But she was married and I had no clue how she and Manny handled this sort of stuff. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I could just go up to him and ask. “Say, Manny, I’d really like to take your wife to bed. Is that cool with you?”
Yeah, that would work.
I finished with the foam roller and put it back in the cubicle. Lilith hadn’t emerged from the locker room yet, so I walked into the men’s area, got myself showered and changed and packed all my sweaty gear up in my bag.
Manny’s class was about to start the workout, so I waited around to watch him for a bit. I made some pretense about talking to another member while I positioned myself to watch how Manny handled the workout. I knew within seconds that he was a slacker. He was half-assing everything. His weight was too light to give him the right stimulation the workout was designed to elicit. And every time he fell on the floor to do a burpee, he whined about how much it hurt, before finally getting himself up and over the bar.
I’d seen enough and said good-bye to the member and headed for the door.
Outside, the night had fallen and in contrast to the previous one, it was cloudy with a bit of freezing drizzle starting to fall. But it was cold enough that I thought it would shortly turn to snow.
Lilith stood by my car with a smile on her face. “Took you long enough,” she said as I approached.
“I didn’t realize I was expected,” I said. I opened my car and threw my gear bag into the back seat before closing the door and looking at Lilith again. “What’s up?”
“Can we sit inside? It’s cold.”
“Sure.” I hopped in and started the engine. I turned the fan on but directed it down toward the floor until the car warmed up.
Lilith shivered. “Thanks. I’ve been waiting there for about ten minutes.”
“For what?”
“For this.” She leaned across and kissed me on the lips, our mouths parting as her tongue snaked into mine, probing and finding my tongue where she wrestled with it for a good thirty seconds. My hands went to her backside and squeezed while she moaned softly in my embrace.
She pulled away from me and had a big smile on her face. “That was as amazing as I thought it would be.”
“Glad to know I lived up to the hype,” I said. “But can I ask you exactly what the hell is going on here?”
“We just kissed,” said Lilith. “Any other questions?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re married. To someone who is working out a hundred feet away from where we sit right now.”
“So?”
“So? Isn’t this a problem?”
Lilith leaned over and kissed me again. I couldn’t help myself; I responded and our hands roved all over each other. And I enjoyed every single second of it.
“Does it need to be a problem?” asked Lilith when we broke apart again.
“I’m just trying to figure things out,” I said. “This is new ground for me.”
Lilith’s smile never wavered. “Well, don’t think too hard on it. Now that I’ve tasted you, I’m going to want more. A whole lot more.”
Then she slipped out of my car, leaving the flavor of her still on my lips.
28
There have been a whole helluva lot of times in my life when I have wished that my father was still around. It was mostly at times like these that I missed his counsel. Being able to bounce situations like the one I now faced with Lilith off of him would have been better than winning the lottery to me. But alas, he was dead and gone and I didn’t really have anyone I could have asked about it. Certainly not Niles, because he would probably get pissed if he thought my concentration was wavering on the case at hand. And Wirek…I didn’t know. Something was off in our relationship and I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Sooner or later he and I were going to have to have a sit down when I had nothing else on the table and find out exactly what the hell was going on there.
Jack was also unavailable. He was currently incommunicado due to the fact that he was off on some super-secret Invoker training. I smirked because I found myself missing him most of all. To think we’d crashed into each other’s lives because his true father had been sanctioned by the Council for selling narcotics and I’d been chosen to carry out the sanction, which then led to Jack being kidnapped and me rescuing him in the Himalayas…well, our lives together had been anything but normal. And I was grateful for that.
That left Arthur. The crusty old ex-Fixer who still worked in the Council building as a butler-cum-sergeant-at-arms was about the only one around that I could go to and just talk. So I phoned him up and asked what he was doing.
“You asking me out, mate?” Arthur’s laugh echoed down the line. “Cuz I’m a wee bit into a few at this point.”
“Boomshanka?”
“Aye, lad. And they’re damned good tonight, too. Come by for a spell if you’re needing to speak to me. I’ll have a glass for you. Don’t be too long, though or I might just drink it.”
I disconnected the call and drove toward the Council building. Arthur’s specialty was a drink he called a “boomshanka” that mixed blood and liquor and a secret stash of herbs to give it a righteous kick in the crotch in terms of power. It didn’t take much to put you over the edge when you were drinking them, and the combination was like getting drunk and simultaneously cured of everyt
hing that ailed you at the same time. A heady combination, to be sure.
I parked in the Council’s garage this time and took the elevator up to the ground floor where I found Arthur by himself in the kitchen. Most of the rest of the employees that worked in the building, including the Council members, had gone home for the night, leaving the place to Arthur. He’d patrol the building armed with a Mossberg shotgun and, apparently, a drink or three.
My glass sat empty and I pointed at it. “You drank it?”
He waved me off. “Calm your tits, lad. I ain’t poured it yet, have I?” He fetched a container out of the fridge that swirled with a dark crimson substance and poured a glass of the stuff. Then he topped his own glass off, put the container back in the fridge, and grabbed his glass and banged it against mine. “Cheers.”
I swallowed down the Boomshanka and gasped. For some reason, tonight it hit me especially hard. Might have been because I’d just worked out.
Arthur laughed as he always did when I drank one of these things. “You should make a point of coming by every night and working on getting your tolerance up there.” He held his glass up again. “Like me.”
“It’s a wonder you still have a liver left putting that shit into your system.”
“It’s not a bad drink,” said Arthur. “It’s a curative, isn’t it?”
“For what?”
“For whatever ails ye, lad,” said Arthur with a cackle. “Some days it’s the weather, other days it’s work.” He eyed me. “And then, of course, a Boomshanka is right there when you need it most: when the ladies get you down.”
I smirked. “Is it that obvious?”
“Cripes, you look as pathetic as a wee puppy, don’t you? All mopey and dragging about like it’s the end of the world. Not exactly the sort of behavior that is becoming on a Fixer now, is it?”
“Well, we can’t always be 100 percent, can we?”
Arthur sighed. “I can see this is going to be a right weep fest. I’d better grab the bottle then. Follow me, lad.”
He led us into one of the libraries on the first floor where a fire blazed in the hearth. The dark wooden mahogany paneled walls were lined with books and two deep leather wing chairs bracketed the fireplace. I sat down in one of them while Arthur took the other and carefully placed the decanter of Boomshanka on the small table between us.
“All right lad, out with it.”
I took a pull on the drink and started telling him about Lilith. About how she was married, about how she was flirting with me, and even kissed me, and yet was hot and then cold and then hot again, and about how frustrating it was to me.
When I was done, Arthur sat calmly sipping his drink and then eyed me over the rim of his glass. “She’s certainly crawled into your head, hasn’t she?”
“Seems to have.”
“And what about the other woman in your life? You know…” His voice trailed off. Arthur knew a bit about Talya, but not a lot. We’d made an agreement not to really discuss her around the Council building. I was forbidden from seeing her because she was a human. If word got out I was defying the Council’s orders, I could be sanctioned.
“We have an arrangement that we are free to see other people due to our working conditions. It’s worked well in the past.”
“And are you thinking you might want to be with this woman more than the other?”
I frowned. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I guess I’m more interested in knowing what she actually thinks about me.”
“Well clearly she fancies you, lad. I don’t know of too many ladies that go about kissing men for no other reason.”
“But the hot and cold thing-“
Arthur held up his hand. “That’s all games, isn’t it? Make you go a bit loopy thinking one thing then another. It’s designed to drive you to them all the more. You can’t let it get to you. You can let yourself think one thing and then another in the next breath or else your mind will turn to mush and you’ll be no good for the tasks at hand. You know, your job.”
“I got it.”
“Look, you’ve a way with the ladies. We all know that. Good looking lad like you, it’s been easy, relatively speaking, hasn’t it?”
“Sure.”
Arthur nodded. “But they’re not all easy. They’re not all going to just line up and beg for you. So you’ve come across one that it’s a bit of a challenge. First time in a long while I’ll bet.”
“That is true.”
“And when was the last one that challenged you? When did she come along?”
I thought about Talya and grinned. “The one I’m still seeing, as a matter of fact.”
“No surprise,” said Arthur. “You’re drawn to the challenging ones. Moreover, you like the unconventional ones. And it don’t get much more unconventional than getting involved with a lass who already happens to be married, now does it?”
“I suppose not.” I took another drink and then refilled my glass, enjoying the headiness that was quickly relaxing me.
“How’s her old man?”
I shrugged. “Don’t really know. Seems like a bit of a clown to be honest.”
“How so?”
“Just…average. Boring. He’s always telling jokes, trying to be funny, but he’s nothing to notice twice. No one you’d stop and give a second glance at. Hell, some of the women around the gym laugh at him behind his back and call him ‘the gnome.’”
Arthur snickered. “Well, there you go.” He leveled a finger at me. “Your problem, mate, is that you defy stereotypes. Women beyond a certain age - as in middle aged housewives - don’t know how to deal with you. You ain’t like their old men, now are you? You don’t work in some boring business job; you don’t come home after a long day and plop on the couch and put your hand halfway down your pants and grab a can of shitty beer.”
“I definitely do not.”
“This is where the disconnect happens for them. They expect you to be a certain way and when you’re not, they get simultaneously confused, aroused, resentful, and lusty.”
“Resentful?”
“Of course. You represent the possibility that they once had. They could have chosen not to settle for a mediocre man. They could have chased a passionate life, but that involves risk. And most of them don’t want to risk anything; they want simple, secure, and boring.”
“Not exactly a great way to go through life.”
“Well, it’s a fine way to go through life,” said Arthur. “Provided no one comes along and ruins their image of domestic tranquility.” He eyed me again. “Like, say, a dashing Fixer operative who still has all of his hair and muscles to boot. You, my young friend, ruin the picture of so-called bliss these ladies fancy themselves as having. Your very existence runs contrary to that. You’re a novelty and an upstart. And I’m fairly certain most of the time, they don’t know what the hell to do with you. Half of the time they want to destroy you for being you and half of the time they want to shag you.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“Nah, it’s their fault, but they’d never take personal responsibility for it, so they need someone else to blame. That’s you. You’re the scapegoat. They’ll get together the way they do and talk all sorts of shit about you and how awful you are for doing what you do and being what you are. None of it makes any sort of sense, but they’ll find comfort in it nonetheless, because each of them will join in and before you know it, there’s a chorus of cackling hens castigating you for doing nothing other than what they have perceived as a threat to their reality.”
“Wonderful.”
Arthur shrugged. “Oh lad, believe me, there’s little worse than a group of middle-aged women with nothing better to do than sit around and gossip. The lies they tell each other to make themselves feel better get more and more outlandish with every passing day. You have no idea.”
“And how do you know all of this?”
Arthur drained his glass. “You think the 21st century has any sort of monopoly on this type of
behavior? Let me tell you, when I was operational, the waters I had to navigate were horrendous. At least these days, people fooling around on their spouses isn’t as much cause for ostracizing as it used to be. Back in my day, if you were caught doing that, your best bet was to move halfway across the world and start over. You think the Internet is fast? Nothing is faster than the grapevine of gossip employed by self-righteous judgmental hypocritical women. Nothing.”
“So your advice is what?”
Arthur shrugged. “Were you looking for advice?” He laughed. “Just be yourself, lad. If she’s into you, let the situation unfold. But don’t get so wrapped up in this that your work ethic starts to suffer. The way I hear it, you’ve got yourself quite a case at the moment.”
I finished the Boomshanka and stood up. “You’re right. I do. Thanks for the drink.”
29
I met Letourneau back at MIT the next morning after a late night phone call where he told me that Newby had something already. “It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
It was freezing outside when I parked the new Acura SUV along the same stretch of Memorial Drive where we’d been shot at yesterday. As I walked in, I kept looking down wondering if there were any bullet fragments on the grass, but Cambridge PD would have swept the scene for any of that and it seemed unlikely anything would have escaped their notice.
Letourneau met me in the lobby and we rode the elevator down together. “Has he told you anything yet?”
Letourneau shook his head. “Pretty much got the same message I gave you: just that he had something and that we should make sure we get here this morning to see what he’s put together.”
I sighed. “I sure as hell hope it’s something concrete.”
“You and me both.”
This time when the elevator doors slid back, we didn’t hear singing. Just a low hum of machinery far off and the constant rustling of papers. When we walked into Newby’s office, he didn’t even look up. “Good morning.”
