::TWENTY TWO::

The atmosphere on the floor is strained when we finally stop laughing and make our way through security, the air thick with the electricity of an impending thunderstorm. Alvarez switches to his don’t-know-nothin-bout-nothin persona, as we make our way past agents speaking quietly, and secretaries chattering not so quietly. The DEA takes the deaths of it’s agents pretty seriously. We walk past the ‘Wall’ every day when we come in, with the names and photos of agents killed in the line of duty.

Frank Anderson may not have been an active DEA agent, but to probably most of us in the agency, that distinction doesn’t matter an awful lot. His being a dirty agent just means that everybody has to talk in whispers about it, rather than openly. Alvarez and I share a look as we sit at our desks. The DEA is finally “investigating” this case, it seems, if in a strange and, for them, safe way.

The gangland style murder of former agent Frank Anderson right out on the streets less than a five minute drive from the DEA’s intelligence centre is to be investigated. By a rookie. ONE rookie. Agent Sam Torres has been with the DEA for almost a whole six months. He’s never handled a case by himself, and never handled anything of this magnitude. It’s not hard to get the feeling that the DEA wants this to be fumbled, and fumbled badly, swept under the rug and forgotten.

That it’s being investigated at all is interesting in itself though, and I keep wondering where that pressure came from. Vega had given us copies of the contents of Brubaker’s safe, but he also made it clear that we weren’t the only people he intended to pass the information to. He’s looking to do more than just kill Brubaker, he’s looking to destroy the man, and I have to wonder if a few at the DEA are getting a little nervous about being brought down with him. It’s not hard to put two and two together and see that someone is hanging out Anderson, in the hopes that Brubaker, and the rest of the DEA, can hide behind him. Like flypaper, hoping that anything that sticks will stick to Anderson, leaving everyone else alone. I wonder if the pressure came from Brubaker himself, putting a lean on his ties within the DEA, or if the DEA, sensing the way the wind was blowing, decided to air it themselves, in order to distance themselves from Brubaker when the inevitable fall comes. It would be interesting to find out who initiated the investigation of Anderson’s death. It just might lead to whoever Brubaker’s contact was within the DEA.

Alvarez and I keep silent on our own off the record ‘investigation’ of the case. The DEA doesn’t want this investigated, and I don’t even want to think about what sort of retribution, we would be opening ourselves up for, within the DEA and more importantly outside of it, if anyone knew what we knew. This is a risk far beyond mere censure, we’re looking at what the CIA euphemistically calls “executive action”. Assassination.

Most importantly there is Jeanette to think about. Jeanette, who held on to Frank Anderson as he died in her lap, when she couldn’t get the bleeding to stop.

I don’t expect that anything would actually come out in an investigation, especially in an investigation that is meant to hide more than it reveals, but it would make her name public. Or at least known within the DEA, and who knows where it would get passed on from there. Other than Alvarez, I have no idea who to trust here.

Jeanette’s name would lead to me, and then to Alvarez and his family. So neither one of us say anything. Maybe there was a time when that would have bothered me, to stay quiet like this. There was a time I would be kicking down doors and arresting people. Now we do things Alvarez’s way. We wait. We watch. We do what we can. We save who we can, and fight it a different way.

I’m glad Jeanette and I are leaving in a couple of days, maybe all of this will have blown over by then. It’s not like there’s a serious push to investigate, and there is a very slim police report already on the incident. Listing Jeanette McLean as simply an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, who, at the most, ran out to try to help a dying man.

We’re leaving in a couple of days, and I’ll spending a whole week with her alone. I look over at Alvarez, speaking quietly into his cellphone. I know I’m grinning like a fool but I could care less at this point, it’s not like I have to explain it to him.

“Let’s go get something to eat, Vetter.” I know Alvarez loves to eat, but I get the feeling that the call he’s just quietly hung up on has more to do with us leaving the office than his stomach. We stay quiet and keep our expressions neutral as we walk out of the building and it’s not until we are pulling into the back of the city morgue that he tells me where we’re going.

“You have to promise me you aren’t going to kick the hell out of the old guy.” Alvarez stopped me before we opened the back door leading into the back alley behind the morgue. I can feel myself getting pissed off already. “Damn, I can’t believe I’m asking YOU not to kick someone’s ass. Promise me, Vetter. He has something you’re going to want to see.”

“Holloway. Holloway’s the one that tipped you off.” I can feel myself tense up, getting angry at the thought of the detective that went to Jeanette’s work to question her. “I promise I won’t kick his ass.” I feel ridiculous even saying it and I’m laughing a little by the time I’m done, following Alvarez down the back halls of the morgue.

Holloway, holding a slim file folder, is talking with the coroner, standing over a body being prepared for an autopsy. It’s always been something that makes me a little squeamish but there’s no way I’m going to show it in front of this guy. It’s hard enough keeping it from Alvarez.

Alvarez makes a point of staying between Holloway and I. I guess he isn’t a hundred percent sure I won’t go after Holloway. I’m not even a hundred percent sure I won’t. Just the thought of the danger he’s put Jeanette in by linking her with a case involving CIA assassins is enough to make me see red. The coroner nods to us both, saying nothing, as he leaves the room closing the door behind us.

Alvarez reaches across the body of the dead man on the table to take the file folder from Holloway, who still hasn’t said a word as yet.

“It’s the original. The only copy.” Holloway’s voice is flat, atonal. Something in it, in the way he handed the file over, tells me he isn’t comfortable with handing the file over. Because he wanted to keep it? Or because of what he had to do to get it.

Alvarez hands the file to me, without saying anything. It’s like they’re both waiting for me to look at the file before continuing. The markings on the bottom of the file, along with the codes along the side, are proof of it’s authenticity. It’s an original. The cops on scene had taken Jeanette’s statement after the shooting. That’s what I was looking at now. The only place her name showed up anywhere.

“This is the ONLY copy.” Just seeing her name in print, in any sort of an official capacity, makes me angry again, but the fact that Holloway has handed it over has made me curious about the man.

“Her name doesn’t exist anywhere else. No one will bother your girl. I had a word with the detective..” Holloway speaks in short clipped sentences, as he lights a cigarette, pointing with his lighter at the file folder. “..that took her statement. He’ll forget about ever talking to her. Now…” He turns back to Alvarez, who has relaxed slightly once Jeanette’s statement is in my hands. “This case isn’t official. I know it. You know it. But I’m curious. Maybe that’s a fatal flaw. I did some looking, into this latest one.” He’s pointing with his lit cigarette down at the body on the slab. “Quietly, of course. Doesn’t officially exist. Not many people in the world are in the position to really disappear. Not in this day and age. So I’m very curious.”

I look over at Alvarez, watching him nod imperceptibly, before turning back to Holloway. “Off the top of my head I’d say Bishop.” Alvarez nods again, and Holloway waits. “Bishop was part of a CIA wetworks team.” I don’t know how much Alvarez has told him, or even how much we should reveal, whether we can fully trust the man or not. Holloway doesn’t seem at all shocked at the sound of a CIA assassination squad though. Most people would be shocked, or would look disbelieving. Clearly Holloway is either a very hard cop, or he wasn’t always just a cop.

Alvarez knows this guy, so I motion to him to continue. “Two in the back of the head, beaten pretty badly. Everything about it was made to look like a drug deal gone wrong.” I have to make a point of rereading Jeanette’s statement, as Alvarez moves the sheet off the body, getting down on his haunches to look at the damage the gunshots caused to Bishop’s head. He moved some of the hair out of the way with a pen he had in his pocket, before wiping the pen on his shirt. It’s a black shirt this time, so it doesn’t show. More pineapples. Holloway doesn’t look squeamish at all.

“I had to search back to the late sixties to get a grainy picture of him, but yeah, I’d say it’s Bishop. He was part of a three man team that worked for a man named Brubaker.” I notice that Alvarez doesn’t say Brubaker was ex-DEA, but I’m guessing that Holloway wouldn’t have too hard a time finding that out by himself, if he didn’t know already. Alvarez spoke to Holloway the last time and I think it would be best to sit back and watch this game of cat and mouse.

“So Brubaker had his own private assassination squad. Frank Anderson gets himself assassinated, and now Bishop just happens to get dusted in a ‘drug deal’ gone wrong.” Holloway doesn’t think it’s a coincidence either, it seems.

All of us shuffle uncomfortably in the autopsy room, unsure how much should or shouldn’t be said. Holloway looks at Alvarez, to me, and back to Alvarez. “I already know that Brubaker was DEA, and that he has something to do with those heroin related deaths. I know I’m way out of my pay grade. But this isn’t official. Even to you two, it’s not official. This isn’t going anywhere, not by us. I don’t have a dog in this fight, I’m just curious. I also went to a considerable amount of trouble to make sure your girl’s name never comes up with the cops at least.” Holloway lights another cigarette as he finishes laying his cards out on the table.

“Couldn’t hurt, Vetter. It’s not like this is our case anyway.” My hand traces absently over Jeanette’s name on the file folder. Holloway would have had to have stolen this file in order to see to it that Jeanette’s name disappeared off the record, and he spoke to the cop that took her statement. Told him to forget about it. I get the feeling that with the cops, having someone like Holloway tell you something didn’t happen has got to be something that would be taken seriously.

“We should take this outside, Alvarez.” No one says anything until we get into the back alley. Alvarez rests his hip against the side of the car. We all spend another minute or so watching each other, before I nod to Alvarez, who fills Holloway on the bare basics of what we have so far. He avoids mentioning how much contact we’ve had with Vega. It’s not lost on Holloway, who’s eyebrow goes up when he hears about the meeting between Vega and Bishop, which is probably what got Bishop killed. For us to even know about that meeting would mean we would have ties to Vega, but Holloway doesn’t ask.

“So it’s a waiting game then.” Watching Alvarez and Holloway, the similarities in the two men. I think Holloway would probably kill you where you stood if you tried to get him into a Hawaiian shirt, but they both have that same hard look, that same poker face. Holloway nods to Alvarez and me, before he turns and walks down the alley, getting into his own car.

“Who do you think Brubaker used to kill Bishop? I don’t think he would have tried to use Rodriguez and Castile, he could never be sure where their loyalties lay. Do you think he has another team somewhere?” The idea of having one assassination squad to worry about was bad enough, the idea of more than one, when we didn’t know the first thing about them worried me.

“It didn’t have to be professional at all. Bishop was shot lying down, I think.”

“I was wondering what you were looking at.” Alvarez hadn’t been simply satisfying his morbid curiosity. He had been looking at possible bullet trajectories. “Do you think Rodriguez and Castile know about Bishop yet?” I wonder how they would take to Bishop being executed. Would their first thoughts turn to Vega? Or Brubaker?

“Better yet, Vetter, what do you think they’re going to do about it? That picture from the sixties that I used to ID Bishop, he was with two other guys in that picture. There’s no way to tell, but I’d be willing to take a guess that the other two were Rodriguez and Castile. What do you think they’d do if they knew that Brubaker had double crossed them?”

“Maybe Rodriguez and Castile would kill Brubaker.” We both went quiet as we pulled up to the drivethrough and picked up something to eat, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since last night. “Or maybe they won’t be watching Brubaker’s back when Vega kills him.”

“Damn, Vetter, that’s almost poetic. The CIA double crosses the cartel for Brubaker. Brubaker double crosses the CIA to save his own hide, and then the CIA double crosses, or is that a triple cross? Who the hell knows. Anyways, the CIA crosses Brubaker in favour of the very cartel they crossed in the first place.”

I talk around a mouthful of sandwich. “Maybe it’s a good thing this isn’t an official case, I’d hate to have to try and keep a straight face doing the paperwork on something like this.”

“I wonder about this Sam Torres kid.” Torres, the DEA agent with the only official angle in this case, looking into the assassination of Frank Anderson. “We can’t get involved, of course, but I wouldn’t mind giving the kid a nudge or two.”

“How?” Alvarez has that hard look again, as he pulls back into traffic. “Holloway. You’re going to set him up with Holloway?”

“If Holloway can be trusted on anything, it’s on not giving up a source, Vetter. He would probably be living a lot more comfortably if he did. A few of my own informants have had run ins with Holloway. The man’s straight.” I look down at the file Holloway stole. “In his own way he’s straight. He’s on the right side. Neither of us can give information to Torres, but we can see that he gets what he needs. Maybe feed him a little bit more than he needs. Who knows, the kid might be a ringer.”

Sam Torres could open up the whole case. A case we couldn’t touch. A case that, if handled correctly, would make Torres’ career. “Feels good, doesn’t it, Vetter.” I look over and nod, he doesn’t need to explain. Maybe when I first got here he would have had to explain and even then I don’t think I would have understood. It feels good to know we’re really doing something useful. Not in any way I was taught, and in no way that I’ll ever see recognition for, but we’re doing something right, and yes, it felt good.

I get Alvarez to stop at the bank so I can put Jeanette’s statement in the safety deposit box with the copies of the contents of Brubakers’ safe, that Vega passed to us. I put the picture Alvarez dug up, from the late sixties, with the three assassins, Rodriguez, Castile and Bishop, in the file before I got out of the car. I read over her name, typed neatly across the tab of the file folder. McLean, Jeanette. Jeanette Vetter. Closing my eyes, I rest my forehead against the cool steel of the other safety deposit boxes, feeling a little dizzy as I close and lock up. I wait for my nerves to settle, before heading back to the car. Jeanette Vetter. The name keeps repeating in my head, having thought it once. I’m grinning again when I get back to the car. Alvarez is used to it by now. He just shakes his head at me.
—

“I have to meet with Jeanette in…” It’s almost one thirty, “about fifteen minutes or so. I should be back at two thirty at the very latest.” Alvarez is standing up to fish his car keys out of his pocket and handing them over the desk to me.

“Is she on a break or something, Vetter?” I can feel myself start to blush as he gives a patented leer. Another guy would have said something crude.

“She has a doctor’s appointment I offered to take her to. I shouldn’t be too long.”

“Is she all right?” The leer is gone as quickly as it arrived, his eyes watching me carefully again.

“Yeah, she’s all right. It’s just…” I wave my hand at him. I’m definitely not going to tell him why she’s going to the doctor. I can feel myself flush just thinking about it. “I’ll be back at two thirty at the latest.” I make myself busy putting my jacket on, trying to put it out of my head. “Do you want anything?”

“Bring back coffee, Vetter. She’s okay?” His eyes pin mine before I can get around the desk and past him.

I’m grinning like a fool again when I answer him, telling him that Jeanette is fine, it’s nothing. What’s got to be the biggest goofy grin that I can’t seem to stop is telling him that while Jeanette may indeed be okay, that it sure wasn’t ‘nothing’.

Alvarez smiles back at me, before taking the pile of papers I was working on, so he can cover for me. “You crazy kids.”

“I’ll bring you back coffee, Alvarez.”
—

My belly fills with butterflies watching her walk down the steps of the bookstore. How can she look so damned sexy in a simple black skirt that would look plain on anyone else? I close my eyes for a second thinking of the flutter of red silk as she walked to the bathroom this morning. There’s nothing plain about her. She grins up at me, her body pressed to mine as our kiss breaks.

“I told you I was going to be hard all day just thinking about you.” My hands slip over her hips, running along the faint lines of her panties, my erection pressed hard into her belly. Her hips press hard into me, her eyes sparking with mischief, before we got separated and I drove her to see her doctor.

“Did you want me to come with you, or should I wait in the car?” To do what, I don’t know. It’s funny that this should be new to me. I had only once gone into the doctor’s office with Stacy, and it felt a little strange even asking if she wanted me to be there, but I asked anyway.

“They have really awful magazines from about four years ago, if you wanted to wait. It shouldn’t be too long.” She breaks into a huge grin as she says it, I’m guessing she’s had to read a few of those from time to time while she’s been waiting. “Thank you, Sean. Nobody’s ever offered to sit with me, or go in with me.”

That surprised me, although it shouldn’t have. I didn’t go in with Stacy either, it was always a mystery to me and maybe I was more comfortable with it that way. “Not even John?” She smiles up at me and rolls her eyes, laughing. I’m guessing John thought of it as a mystery too.

Nervous and needing something to do with my hands when Jeanette went into the doctor’s office, I picked up one of the tattered magazines, smiling a little when I saw the date in the corner. Four years old. I wasn’t reading it anyway, just worrying the corners of the pages into curls. From the looks of them, I think more people do that than read them anyways.

A very pregnant woman sits alone, stroking a hand over her belly on the other side of the waiting room. For a moment I thought she was talking to herself, as I watched her, before realizing she was singing very softly to her unborn child. It makes me think of the pictures of Jeanette, pregnant with Emily, that I looked at when we picked up clothes for her to wear at her apartment. The woman shushes, putting her belly gently, before she looks up. I mumble an apology. I hadn’t even realized I had been staring.

“He’s really kicking the hell out of me today.” A mystery, but as she says it, her baby kicks her again, and I watch, fascinated, as the outline of a little…I don’t know, something….pushes against her belly. “Here…” She laughs good naturedely as my jaw drops, her hand reaching out for mine. Before I have time to think about what I’m doing, I’m sitting beside her, my hand against her hard belly, while her baby kicks at my hand.

“It’s my third, you’d think I’d get used to it by now, all this kicking, but I don’t.” My heart lurches, and I feel a little dizzy. It’s probably a good thing I was sitting down or I might have fainted right then and there. “Are you awll right, sweetheart?” Her voice is a heavy Texan drawl, like a swarm of bees in my ear.

I take my hand off her belly, thinking of Emily. Emily Dawn McLean, and her beautiful little face so much like Jeanettes’. “I’ve never felt a baby kick before.”

She looks down quickly at my wedding ring. “You and your wife don’t have any children yet?” My wife. Jeanette Vetter. The sound of it sending ripples through me again. I don’t correct her, I like the sound of it too much, and, as Jeanette says, it’s too hard to explain.

“No, not yet.”

“You should, you two would have beautiful children.” I don’t know why, but I’m blushing, as I thank her, standing finally as Jeanette comes back out of the doctor’s office, stopping at the desk to pay for her prescription.

I leaned over to kiss her again as we pulled up in front of the bookstore. “Thank you for not making me wait out in the car, ‘Nette.”

“I love you, Sean.” Her hand is cool against the side of my neck as she kisses me again, her eyes narrowing but not closing, watching as she kisses me. The gold flecks in her eyes glitter as she watches me.

I kiss her again before she goes back to work. Kiss her with my whole soul, part of me hoping I can say with a kiss what I feel in my heart. What I should be saying in words. “I love you, Jeanette.”

Jeanette Vetter.

copyright © 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx

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