PYGMALION

 

by DocPaul

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fourteen: Death be not proud

 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more:

 

Day Fourteen: Monday, 9:33 am

 

“Maria, it’s time.”

 

Maria nodded from where she stood in front of the mirror, adjusting her clothing for the umpteenth time. It was wrong. The style of the dress. It was too modern. Too upbeat. The length was wrong. It was all wrong. Michael had to help her get dressed because of her encased hand.

 

A small sob escaped her and she closed her eyes.

 

Michael’s hand came around her waist, hugging her back against him. “It’ll be alright.”

 

Maria turned and looked up at him, her eyes already bright with unshed tears. She just nodded and let him lead her away.

 

They were waiting. Waiting to send their final goodbyes.

 

It didn’t matter. Mrs. Mulhoney was already gone.

 

Mr. Booboo watched her carefully. He had stayed by her side all morning, strangely quiet, occasionally brushing up against her legs as if in comfort. For once, he had no complaints.

 

As they left the loft, he sat in front of the glass door and viewed the outside garden with detachment. Caught in some flight of fantasy, his feline brain was off somewhere, perhaps he traveling the long road, winding and austere with the others, to lay a family member to rest.

 

~~~

 

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…”

 

Michael glanced at Maria. She sat unmoving as the sermon continued. It had been a long day, from the church to the grave. Maria sat in a chair next to Mrs. Mulhoney's relatives, who suddenly remembered that they were actually family. Standing behind her chair at the graveside, Michael’s hands remained strong on her fragile shoulders, keeping her upright.

 

She was barely hanging on. The twins were strangely silent as well.

 

Mrs. Mulhoney’s family were making grievous sounds of mourning, but at times would whisper their outrage that Maria should be here and sitting with them in their place of honor, just loud enough for her to hear. After all, this was her fault.

 

Michael’s face clenched in anger, but he too held his tongue in check. This was not the time or the place.

 

The others mourners watched Maria, afraid she would crack or falter. But she did not. Standing, she sang a song and placed a rose upon the grave. Michael saw the tremor in her hands, and the slight shake to her voice.

 

Living through a day. One day. One day at a time. That was all there was.

 

As they left the cemetery, Michael held the car door open for Maria as he watched Mrs. Mulhoney’s family get into the limos that Maria had ordered for them. They were greedy. Selfish and uncaring.

 

Michael got into the car and pulled Maria against his body as the driver took them to the reception. It was a wake, but such a sober one. The people who loved and cherished the once beautiful woman on one side softly talking about her, comforting each other and sharing their grief, while those born to care sat and sized up the rest of the groups.

 

“Who are all these people?” asked one woman of her husband.

 

Sean heard this as he was filling a plate for Julia. “They are friends and family of Mrs. Mulhoney, obviously.”

 

The woman’s nose flared. She was family. A daughter. Her bitter disposition robbed her of any resemblance to her now-deceased mother.

 

“We are her family. Not them.”

 

Sean made a clicking noise in his throat in anger. Holding back, he stared at the woman in disdain. He would not dishonor the memory of Mrs. Mulhoney, not here. Not now. Not ever.

 

“They are her family. All of them. Strangers to you, but not to your mother. They loved her, checked on her, made sure she was fed and warm, and never alone. They sat in her house and let her feed them cookies and pies as she told stories of her childhood, her life and her husband. They knew her dreams and what goodness she inspired. Most of them had just talked to her mere days before this tragedy. They laughed with her and loved her. And when was the last time you even spoke to her?”

 

The woman started to make an indignant remark, but her silent husband forestalled her as he took in Sean’s eyes. That and the movement of the rest of room to practically stand behind him. The mourners were tolerating the woman’s family, but they would never be her real family. That privilege belonged to those who had actually loved the kind old woman.

 

Michael watched the interaction as he stood beside Maria’s chair. She hadn’t eaten anything, and he couldn’t get her to try. The one time she did, he ended up holding her head as she lost her stomach. Grief was taking up all the space in her body and there was no room for anything more.

 

Jonathan was at Maria’s other side. His presence for once was appreciated by Michael. Having dealt with the family members and their greed, he had no intention of letting any of them near Maria. Not one.

 

And so the room remained divided between those who loved, and those who should have loved.

 

The only thing that mattered was there was a seat empty at the table. A voice silenced. What else could matter more than that?

 

~~~

 

Kyle handed Tess another tissue. “You okay?”

 

Tess nodded, then shook her head no. Burying her head in her hands she wept next to him in the car as they drove home. Kyle pulled the car over and dragged her into his arms, holding her close. Her small frame shook, and he kissed her head in comfort as his hand went to rub her pregnant stomach.

 

“Tessie, it’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Rubbing his chin on the top of her head, he held her as close as he could.

 

“Can we go visit Jack?”

 

Kyle closed his eyes. They had never visited Jack’s grave before, not together. For a long time grief and guilt were so strong for both of them, that Jack was something they couldn’t share in death. But that had passed. So much was different, and it was time.

 

“Yeah. Let’s stop and get some flowers. Pink ones. Jack would’ve hated that!”

 

Tess chuckled through her tears. Going serious she stopped Kyle from starting the car. Framing his face, she kissed him deeply.

 

“If ever I forget to say I love you, or tell you to come home safe, then forgive me. There is no person I love more, and I need you to know that every day, and every moment of every day. No one but you.”

 

Kyle stared in his wife’s eyes, and he nodded. “I know. I always knew. It just took some time for what my heart knew to really register in my brain. I’m not confused anymore.”

 

Tess smiled and hugged him tight. On this day of loss, it was important to hold close those you love.

 

~~~

 

“Jonathan, maybe we should leave?”

 

“No. Not until Michael and Maria do, or those pit vipers.”

 

Max surveyed Mrs. Mulhoney's family members. They were circling, waiting for an opportunity to attack. The fortress that Michael, Sean and Jonathan had erected around Maria was firm. Even Alex Whitman, standing in a corner with Isabel was keeping watch. His eyes were narrowed in contemplation, and he stared unblinkingly at the group. His regard was enough to make them uncomfortable and jittery.

 

Max sized up the room, and then crossed the floor to see Isabel and Whitman. Jonathan wasn’t going to budge, not as long as Maria was exposed. There it was again. That protective mode. All of them were doing it, but today more than usual. Maria was so quiet, so still. She barely spoke a word, and it hurt to watch her.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Jonathan looked over at Michael. He hadn’t expected that. “No thanks needed. They’ve been trying to get to her for days. The phone call was enough. Can’t you get her to go home?”

 

“She won’t leave until the last guest is gone.”

 

Jonathan swore. It was a stalemate. “Let me see what I can do.”

 

Max and the others watched as Jonathan slowly made his way into the pack. He seemed to be singling out one man specifically, Mrs. Mulhoney’s oldest son.

 

“What’s he doing?” Alex asked.

 

Max sighed. Shaking his head, he just looked at the ground. “Going in for the kill. Poor stupid bastards don’t have enough sense to run away.”

 

Peter Mulhoney. Jonathan made pleasant chitchat along the way as he cut a swath through the grieving family. They had congregated around the buffet, reluctantly making room for other people only when they had to. Michael had come to make Maria a plate, and it was the one time the entire group shifted and gave the reception buffet tables a wide berth. Michael Guerin in any form was a pretty daunting figure to deal with.

 

“Stiller.”

 

Jonathan nodded at the man. “Nice of you and your clan to show up for the ceremony.”

 

“Why wouldn’t we?”

 

Jonathan seemed to be perusing the dessert choices. “No reason. After all, she was your mother.”

 

“That’s right!” The man looked at the other people in the room in an encompassing glare. “We are being treated as visitors, guests and not the real family. Ms. DeLuca…”

 

“Is none of you concern. I thought I made that clear.” Jonathan’s voice took a quiet dark edge, the voice was flat and non-argumentative. The other man instinctually stepped back.

 

“Just because she has money and people who guard her doesn’t mean that she owns everything. She doesn’t own us. It is our mother we are burying today, not hers.”

 

“Maria is aware of that. And believe it or not, Ms. DeLuca has a perfectly wonderful mother of her own, one that she loves, cherishes and sees every day. Your mother was her friend. Someone she loved and respected. They had a grandmother and granddaughter relationship. She saw her almost every day. Last year when your mother had pneumonia Maria sat at her bedside in the hospital the entire time. She filled the room with flowers and get well cards. She made your mother feel a part of something big, a family.”

 

“It was her lofts that…”

 

“Were attacked by a mad serial bomber who is attacking the city. Do you think Ms. DeLuca could ever imagine this threat? Could you? If you did, then why did you leave your mother here, alone? Why wasn’t she in the safe protection of your families, guarded, loved and cherished?”

 

“How dare you! You know nothing about our family.”

 

Jonathan looked at the man, and then the others. “Wrong. I know everything.”

 

The group was suddenly silent.

 

“What are you saying?”

 

Jonathan put down the plate he was holding, and his one hand went to push back his jacket to reside on his hip as his stance became taller and firmer. Max was watching and inadvertently made a sound that drew Alex’s attention away from the scene. Oh boy. Alex quickly turned back and observed. He agreed. That Jonathan Stiller looked incredible. Total worthy of lusting after.

 

Jonathan’s voice was dark and able to chip ice with the coldness it created. “You think I would let you threaten someone in my care? I know you. All of you. I know your businesses and all the shady deals you create. I know your bank accounts, your debts, even the name of your mistress and the apartment you keep that is bleeding your family’s accounts. Did you think I wouldn’t check on all of you?”

 

The group went quiet. Peter Mulhoney was red in his face and his wife and children looked at him in shock. A mistress? But Jonathan wasn’t finished.

 

“I know about the official you bribed to get your eldest son off for date rape. Your wife’s alcoholism and rehab programs. Your daughter is pregnant right now. Do you want to hear about how your sister sold your mother’s life insurance policy and kept the money? The list is long and endless.”

 

Peter looked at his sister Lydia in shock.

 

“You let a woman whom you call a stranger pay for the funeral for your mother. You try to extort money from her while she is in grief, more grief than the lot of you combined. There is no amount of money you will ever see from Maria DeLuca or anyone connected with your mother. Her will has been made. The lawyers will handle whatever remains as her will stipulates, and there will be no more.” Jonathan brushed off his clothing as if he was trying to remove an unwanted stain. “If any in your so-called family  comes anywhere near Ms. DeLuca or anyone else associated with her, I will turn over all the information in my possession to the appropriate authorities, including a certain embezzling cover-up, and we will let the law decide how to proceed.”

 

By the time Maria returned from the bathroom, the room was surprisingly cleared of Mulhoneys and all that remained was the true family. Zeke stood next to Margo’s seat as Maria joined them. The three sat talking quietly as Michael listened in attendance. Margo nodded. It was decided.

 

“I have something I need to say,” said Maria quietly. Her voice was low and weak, so soft-spoken that the room hushed immediately. “First, I thank all of you for coming. Those of us who were part of the family feel a great loss. It troubles that she was gone before we were ready to let her go, or had the chance to say goodbye.” Maria breathed in deeply as Michael’s hand fit in hers. “There can be no words, no comfort. Just time. I’ve decided…we decided...that there will be no rebuilding of the lofts with the exception of Margo’s studio. The space that was once filled with our special Mrs. M will be left empty because there is nothing that can replace her. We will clear the space and create a garden there in memorial to her and what her absence means to us. All of you are invited this coming spring to join us in our planting season.”

 

Maria smiled at the group. Turning to Michael she whispered to him. It was time to go home. There was no more she could handle today.

 

~~~

 

Alex and Isabel headed for the desert. It was late afternoon, but neither wanted to really speak. The funeral, and even the realization of how much more they could’ve lost was ever present in their minds. Alex had something he wanted to do, and unspoken between them, Isabel came along.

 

They had traveled so far. It seemed fast, but in reality it was not. When they first met, Alex was a man who was confident in himself, and there was something about him that attracted Isabel to no end. Perhaps it was the feeling that he was a man that would never yield to her whims, but inside had a gentleness that broke through unexpectedly. Alex, a cautionary soul among men, but a lion of a protector. He felt like Michael Guerin to her, but lived closer to where she lived, a place she understood. He stood in the trenches, arrogant and firm in his resolve. He wasn’t a man who took promises or obligations lightly.

 

After they met again, it was rage and violence crowding in all the spaces. Both of them felt a need to live in burning fires, but that time had now passed. Giving way over the months, they found a silence of understanding inside each other, a person much like themselves. They no longer fought and pulled, except together. No words were spoken. No promises of commitment. Some understandings needed no words.

 

Alex spent a lot of his free time in the desert stargazing or walking. It took over two months after his cousin Krystal’s death for Isabel to realize that Alex was searching for some type of peace in his soul. Something to assuage whatever was bothering him. So, for the past month or so, she stood by him quietly until he could tell her.

 

Whatever it was that haunted him, he dreamt of it. Night after night. Fear found a home in his sleeping form that was expelled in the daylight. One thing she knew for certain, it was the silver handprint left behind on Krystal’s killer’s body. It haunted him, but he would not speak about it.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“Family. I need to see someone.”

 

Isabel didn’t ask. His family on the reservation was isolated within itself. It was hard to say who kept the most secrets, but Alex had many. Maybe he was a man of many alliances, and in his own way, he was trying to find a balance between them all.

 

What price was that balance? Only really Alex could say.

 

~~~

 

“Cousin.”

 

“Eddie. Where is Grandfather?”

 

“He is on a retreat. The back country.”

 

Alex nodded. That meant someone was sick. An elder. The older generation had a distrust of modern medicine, and a dislike of the towns. They would rather die in their homes than make the trip, so River Dog went to them. He was a medicine man of sorts, a special type of healer, actually more spiritual. Sometimes there was more wrong than just the physical body.

 

“What is it, Alex?”

 

Alex sat down in the chair and looked out over the yard at the children playing. Isabel was talking to a few of his cousins and their spouses whom she had met in the past. “Krystal.”

 

Eddie took a seat and offered his cousin a cigarette. “What about her?”

 

“I went to a funeral today. An innocent.” Alex lit the end of the smoke. “Krystal was an innocent too. She deserved to live, as did this other woman. A sweet elderly woman. I…” Alex closed his eyes. “I liked her.”

 

Guilt. Grief. Remorse. It was all still there. Four months was hardly enough time to let it go. Eddie understood that. “I know. I still think of Diane and all those others from that time. It’s hard. But there’s nothing left to do, Alex, but go on.”

 

Alex concentrated on Isabel across the way. “I know. I know that better than most. It’s Isabel. There are things happening around her. The people she loves and who love her are under fire. It was close. So close. I know things. Things from my friend. Things from Grandfather. The handprint. This is not the first time I knew of it, but inside me, I was too glad to see the monster dead that I didn’t care. I just didn’t care. I kept the knowledge to myself and never mentioned it to anyone.”

 

“You can’t.”

 

“I know. Grandfather.”

 

It was a family thing. One that spanned decades. Their grandfather had met a visitor long ago. Befriended him. Helped him. But the visitor later murdered another. The handprint. It was there. And now it was here again. Nasedo was back. Their silence had spared them all this time. Talking now could only cause trouble for their grandfather and their people, those who knew.

 

“What about the stones and the cave?” Alex rubbed his forehead hard. Headache. It never seemed to go away. The nightmares. Silver handprints. Dead. So many dead. Isabel dead.

 

“He hid them and closed the cave.” Eddie followed Alex’s gaze. “Do you trust her?”

 

Alex just watched Isabel for a moment. Smiling slightly at her smiling face. “Me…trust? I don’t know about 'trust'. Not really. But from what I know inside, I trust Isabel. I trust her heart. He told me that there is a monster trapped in her. Something evil. Cruel. Without remorse. I can’t see it. I can’t feel it. I can only feel her. She is pure in a way that I can’t explain. Her heart is a fighter. A warrior ready to do battle, but a heart of the softest of metal. Liquid gold.”

 

“I’ve never known you to be a romantic.”

 

Alex just shook his head. “Don’t confuse romanticism with truth. It is what it is.”

 

“If it’s not 'Isabel the betrayer' bothering you, then what is it?”

 

Alex stared at his cigarette’s lit end. “It’s my silence. How much do I withhold from them that need to know? What is the cost? Could telling them have stopped this threat? This fire? Did I play a part in the death of another innocent?”

 

Eddie finally understood. “I thought your friend said even they didn’t know where the danger was coming from.”

 

“He did. But if you throw a stone in the water, doesn’t it cause outward rippling? Am I a ripple in this saga, Eddie?”

 

“No. Alex. No. There can be no sight into this. Not even for you.”

 

“What good are these visions I’ve had all my life if they don’t mean anything?”

 

Eddie could understand the frustration, the fear. “You like them. Isabel and the others.”

 

Alex laughed. “No. I love them. Through Isabel, they have come to feel like a second family. Maria, she pulls at me. She is someone I trust completely without question, and that doesn’t just happen. Not to me. Never. But there it is. She sees inside and just knows, and yet she remains silent in all things. She should’ve been born Native American.”

 

Eddie smiled at that. “I know. She is and has been a friend much longer than you know. I would lay my life down for her. How strange is that? Neither of us wants to date her, but she holds something inside her that we both recognize. Don’t hold a burden of guilt that doesn’t belong to you, Alex. There is enough to go around.”

 

This was a problem. Alex was torn between too many factions, all of them overlapping and pulling in their own direction. Where and how was he supposed to step to keep them all in balance?

 

“The dreams. They haunt me. It’ll get worse. I can feel it.”

 

“Troubles, cousin. This I can see will not decrease. I’ll make an effort to involve myself more so you are not alone.” Eddie drank from his iced tea and filled a glass for Alex who just scowled at the weak liquid. Looked like whiskey, but it sure the hell wasn’t.

 

“Between teaching and covering Maria’s classes and the museum?” Alex smiled. “Should I introduce you as my cousin? Guerin would love that!”

 

“No. I know Maria already, so he knows me, and I guess I could call Liz for another date.”

 

“I thought you would’ve done that by now. You seemed to have hit it off with her before.”

 

Eddie leaned back, horrified that one of their aunts was bearing down on them with two large plates covered in food. He had had breakfast with them that morning. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to fit all that food into a stomach that was already full. Alex had eaten at the reception, so his expression of horror was equal to Eddie's. They thanked their aunt, and both began to pick at the food.

 

“She's nice, but there is something...”

 

“Something?” Liz was Liz. He knew her, but not really. Only through Isabel, and really only in passing. He had never realized it before, but when he was with Isabel, everything else paled in comparison.

 

“Hard to pinpoint. I think it’s that there's this image I have, a residual impression lasting from the moment I first met her over a year ago at the museum. She was a quiet brown mouse. Unassuming. Timid. Unsure. Damaged in some way. I think I felt this…compassion for her. She was on the outside looking, watching the world go by, and not a member of it. The woman I met last week is more assertive, alive and at times, vivid. There’s a world of confidence in her body, and she disguises it behind a mask. I can feel it, but I can’t see it. Not yet.”

 

Alex shrugged. He didn’t know Liz Parker back then. She was who she was, as he had been introduced to her. “She made changes. Decided to work at owning her own life. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe the timid brown mouse is evolving into something more?”

 

“I’m not saying it’s not good. I’m saying that it’s a big change, one that my mind can’t comprehend. I want to treat her like the woman I first met, gentle and compassionately, but when standing next to the woman you introduced me to last week, all that falls away. Perhaps it’s her strength underneath. Our people have reason to be wary of strong people who are strangers, those that hide much. Instinct.”

 

“Perhaps.” Alex hit his cousin. “I think you’re just afraid that hidden behind that meek and mild temperament is ‘Super Liz’, someone who could tame and handle you, force you to say ‘I do’ and give you fat babies.”

 

Eddie choked on his iced tea. Wiping his watering eyes, he scowled at his cousin. “Now you’re just being vicious! I’ve got a few hundred riding on our bet, and from my view you’re in big trouble of losing!”

 

Alex laughed at his cousin, but his eyes lit on a chatting and laughing Isabel across the way. Their boyhood pact to remain bachelors to old age with a monetary amount added over the years was taking some major hits. Eddie was staying uninvolved, much to his mother’s horror, but Alex could feel nothing but the tentacles of Isabel around him, and he wasn’t struggling to break free. The closer and tighter he felt her, the more he liked it.

 

Whatever great tree he stemmed from, he had warriors’ blood running in his soul. Part originated from the European side of his father’s people, conquerors. Blood made strong by the equally powerful branch of his mother’s people, Apache warriors. Fighting was in his heritage. He understood it. Respected it. In Isabel, he could see an equal, one that could fight and be strong beside him.

 

It was like not feeling alone.

 

~~~

 

“You ready to go?”

 

Isabel turned and smiled at Alex. “Soon. Cathy was going to show me the new quilts that they’re working on. Has Eddie left?”

 

“Yeah. He mumbled something about grading papers, and throwing up half the food he ate.”

 

Isabel hit him in the stomach. “We’re going to have to talk about you sharing too much information!”

 

Alex laughed and kissed her on the temple pushing her off with his giggling cousins and aunts. Standing on the deck, he looked out to the desert. It felt like home. Open spaces. A lesson in how life continued even in the harshest of environments.

 

“She is beautiful.”

 

Alex nodded, and reached for another cigarette. He needed to quit, but sometimes the gesture itself was a comfort. “Grandfather.”

 

“Alex.” River Dog put a strong comforting hand on his grandson and sat down on a chair admiring the scenery. “You come to the desert more now, more than you have in years. Why?”

 

“Ghosts. Regrets. The very rock and soil hold the blood of my mother’s people. Here they stood the last time, free, before they were herded onto the reservations.”

 

“They are still here. They live in you.”

 

“I know. I can feel them at times.” Alex looked at his grandfather. “How much does the blood of my ancestors make me what I am?”

 

The old man glanced to the west. The dying sun. “Everything you are is created by what came before you. A strong breed, Alex. Eddie is the same. As children, I could feel that spirit in both of you. Yours was the stronger of the two. From both your lineage it comes, tapered and strong. Eddie gets it from both sides as well, but it is from the same tree. Yours is different.”

 

“The visions?”

 

“Shadow walking. That you get from us. Come to Sweat. Perhaps you will see more in the steam and the smoke of the fire.”

 

Alex laughed.

 

“When I was a child, do you remember traveling to the Lakota Sioux in the north?”

 

“The Dakotas. Yes. I took you and Eddie. You were both sick at the same time. I took you to their healer.”

 

“In the sweat lodge, the healer told us to shut our eyes, to chant and let the sweat fill up our bodies so the poison could be released. He walked around us chanting, and he said the Great Spirit would come and touch us. Remove the sickness.”

 

River Dog took his pipe and lit it, nodding. He remembered that time. The boys were like twins, two sides of one coin. One face white, the other dark and red. They had shared more than a kinship, but a path of destiny.

 

“The healer walked around us. I felt a touch on my shoulder.”

 

River Dog laughed. “I remember, you whispered to Eddie, ‘If he thinks I don’t know that it’s him touching me, he’s crazy.’ Eddie laughed, and the two of you were sent from the healing lodge.” His grandfather’s eyes wrinkled in mirth. “It was a great humiliation I have had to bear all these years.”

 

“I still got the chicken pox! And Eddie was one big red dot.”

 

“Aw, but you missed the point. The mind is a powerful thing. Sometimes the beginning of healing is in the mind, not the body. What you could will from just your mind, is such a wondrous thing.”

 

“How much of what I am is pre-destined?”

 

“I am positive your stubbornness was always part of your metal.” His grandfather puffed on his pipe, the stem caught between his teeth thoughtfully. “It is Isabel. The deceiver.”

 

“She was. Or so I am told. How much of her past carries on and determines who she is today? How much can I trust?”

 

“Trust. A hard word, Alex. We have trusted in the past, at great cost to ourselves and our people. Now we don’t trust so much. She is who she is. Who she was born to be. That is something even she cannot escape. What went before, you can’t know. Perhaps she can’t either.”

 

“Then what are the visions good for? The living in the shadows, seeing what should not be seen?” Alex looked out to the desert. “I didn’t see Krystal. That slipped in past my radar.”

 

“Don’t throw away a gift, Alex. It is a burden at times, but it carries a purpose. Serve that purpose. Your Isabel. She is one who is complex, hidden, with many folds slowly revealing what she is. But I like her. I think that her past life is a roadmap of pain and despair, a burden she carries in her soul, but her humanity is what will make the difference. She needs to learn who she is today, and what she is willing to sacrifice to be that person.”

 

“I see them both in her. Isabel and Vilandra.”

 

“Does that bother you?”

 

Alex closed his eyes and sighed. “It worries. I think I am in love with them both.”

 

~~~

 

The small contract next. A quickie.

 

Tumbling the colored wires together, he manipulated them into an elegant knot, tied and twisted. It was a work of art. The water would ignite it. A cold switch. The radiating blast should move outward in a fifty foot circumference.

 

The phone rang. His special line.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You hold two contracts with me. Are they still on?”

 

“Yes. The first is slowly working. Did the fire meet with your approval?”

 

The pause at the other end was long. “It was sufficient, but it missed the primary target.”

 

“There was a problem with that. The security was too tight. I’ll move on to the next one.”

 

“I want you to hold back. For a week or so. Even the smaller contract. Word is that there is active searching on the streets for you. Not just the cops. Others.”

 

“I heard. My other client ordered me to stand down.”

 

“Your other client? And?”

 

“The contract is paid in full. I cannot go back on a contract unless the owner of the contract orders me to do so.” The man paused and gave a wire another quarter twist. “Of course, if I am captured, all bets are off.”

 

“You don’t know me. Just my voice. There is no connection.”

 

“Perhaps. Perhaps....” Of course he knew who his clients were. Anonymity was good for him, but he didn’t like to be so blind. It was a bargaining card in case things went wrong. “So the smaller contract? Is it a go?”

 

“No. Put it on hold. Go underground until the heat is off and they become convinced you’ve moved on. I don’t want there to be any mistakes.”

 

“I don’t make mistakes.” His voice went deadly cold. Professional pride. It was his calling card. His sort of integrity. “I keep working until the contract is done. That is how I work. I’ll pull back for a small while, just until they feel normal again.”

 

“Good. I like the idea of them suffering. Tense. Waiting for the next attack, on their guard until exhaustion makes them sloppy. Next time, I expect targets to die.”

 

“Oh, there will be death. I promise you. Did you want bodies on the smaller contract, or just injuries?”

 

“Injuries are sufficient. I want them to feel exposed and attacked. Useless. Impotent. Enraged that they became a target at all.”

 

His client was a violent angry man. A man who carried a grudge to the greatest conclusion, simply for hate’s sake. It made for good business.

 

“It will be done.”

 

“Oh, and Chameleon...?” There was a pause of dramatic effect as the spite in his client’s voice revealed even more of his innermost character. “They know your name. Even have an old picture of you from your youth.”

 

The phone clicked as the connection was severed.

 

Chameleon stared off into space. That man was dead. There was only 'the Chameleon' now. Exciting! Exhilarating to know that they had his name! This inspired him even more to meet the challenge and beat them in their own house.

 

~~~

 

It was nearly ten and there were only three checkouts open, so Max got in line behind a woman with a half-filled cart. Jonathan grabbed the corner of their cart and kept walking, pulling Max along behind it.

 

"What are you doing? She hardly had anything!"

 

"Yeah, yeah, and pretty cute, but you're judging by the wrong criteria." He pulled them in behind a family with an overflowing cart and two crying kids.

 

"I'll take my chances back there, thanks," Jonathan grabbed his hand and yanked him beside him.

 

“Uh uh. You forced me to go shopping with you, Chief. So here we stay.”

 

Max groaned. How was he to know it would be such a nightmare? Jonathan seemed to be fascinated with the entire "shopping for groceries" process. He looked at everything twice. Read the backs of packages. Insisted on comparison shopping, and even took out his palm pilot to enter information. It was deranged.

 

“I just want out of here. I’m about ready to pull my gun and open lethal fire. My damn ice cream is melting. The other line!”

 

"No, listen. Number one," Jonathan murmured, "compare the cashiers. Ours is an old pro, that one was obviously new. She would have scanned slowly, looked up all the codes, needed a supervisor if anything went wrong." Max didn't move his hand. Jonathan was still holding it. His thumb was rubbing over Max’s hand in an absentminded gesture that was arousing, so Max decided it wouldn’t hurt to listen.

 

"Ours has B.O. that could suffocate a horse."  Max countered, trying to give a good reason to go back to the smaller line.

 

"You're hallucinating that because you're pissed off that I wouldn’t let you go alone when you wouldn’t just let me call and order food like the phone-happy delivery DeLucas. Two, you need to notice the contents of carts, not just the size. That woman has lots of different little things, which take time to scan; these people have bought in bulk. Large items and multiple items process faster."

 

"Did you make this up all by yourself or has some freak actually done a paper on it?"

 

"It's basic anthropology, Max. Well, technically, sociology. Or perhaps a kind of social psychology, hmmm..." Jonathan seemed to be thinking it over. “Also, please refrain from calling the good Professor a freak. You know how Michael gets over people who insult Maria.”

 

Max rolled his eyes. Maria. Of course she would do an in-depth detailed analysis of something as mundane as shopping check-out lines. That was why she had her groceries delivered.

 

Jonathan sighed loudly and let go of Max's hand to rub his forehead. One of the kids screamed at the other. Both had snot congealing on their faces. Jonathan sighed again, this time heavier.

 

"Maybe I made a mistake. The other line has a point in its favor, namely, it’s quieter. My point is, you observe people, you gather data, and you can use it to predict outcomes of certain situations. I predict we'll be through before that schmuck." A shout of "MOM! CANDY!" stabbed into his brain like a knife. Jonathan winced. So much for Maria’s analysis. She forgot to figure in the screeching child factor which outweighed standing in line for any amount of time whatsoever.

 

Max rubbed his arm. “I think I want a few of those.” Max pointedly looked at the screaming brats.

 

Jonathan snickered. “No, you don’t. I once had a wife who sounded like that. Believe me, you don’t want to go there.”

 

Jonathan leaned into the touch, knowing he was being too obvious, but liking it too much to really care. It didn't actually stop his ears rattling or his stomach rolling from the mention of his ex-wife, but at least it was something nice he could focus on. Damn. Vanessa. He had forgotten about her. So busy with the funeral and the Mulhoney’s he never even got around to ask about the flying dishes at the Valenti house. He was losing it.

 

"Damn," Max muttered suddenly.

 

"What?" Jonathan said, if only because it seemed like the expected response.

 

"It's a momentary lapse of memory. I really only came here for one thing." Jonathan pointed at the filled cart. One thing? Max made a complicated gesture which wasn't even vaguely explanatory. "Be right back," he said, and disappeared into the maze.

 

Jonathan watched Max’s disappearing back in desperation. Max had left him alone. This couldn’t be good. Well, next time, if there was one, he was only going to marry somebody he'd move to the suburbs for. Fortunately, he probably wouldn't do it for anybody who would want to live in the suburbs, and then there was the problem of trying to figure out where the hell the suburbs were. Jonathan noticed a magazine rack. Leaving the noisy children and the woman searching for her coupons, he deserted their cart for just a moment. He grabbed a Playboy and a Playgirl, ducked back to the cart and shoved them under the bread. Obviously he was going to be a bachelor for a long, long time.

 

"I saw that," Max's voice whispered in his ear. He sounded... possessive.

 

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