To not touch your skin is not why I sing,
I can't help myself,
I've got to see you again…”
There was the slightest curve of a smile on Remy's lips as he half walked, half
skipped down the sidewalk and threw a five-dollar bill into the beatnik hat of
the pretty busker playing guitar on the street corner. The girl stared
and blushed when he winked at her, her song faltering mid-sentence and making a
few of the audience laugh at her apparent bemusement.
He liked her. He liked her song and he liked her
voice. He hoped she'd remember him for
more than just the five-dollar bill.
He let his eyes
linger on her for just a moment longer before he sprinted across the street and
navigated the traffic with an utterly unexpected elegance that left the pretty
busker quite breathless.
It was late
afternoon and the shadows were starting to fall heavily on the small
ammunitions store that was sandwiched gracelessly between the rundown bar and
the boarded up grocery store, which had been boarded up ever since the murder
of some good-for-nothing mutie the summer previous. Remy stepped up towards the ammo store with
the same jauntiness of step that he'd walked down the sidewalk and across the
street. He pushed open the perennially
rickety old door, rang the same old bell and walked up to the same old counter
past the usual dull and dusty old shelves.
It was the usual
femme who stood behind the counter, polishing the usual .22 Smith and Wesson
with the same self-possessed expression on her face.
As far as he was
concerned, she was the only thing Murray's
Guns had going for it.
He approached the
counter with the same roguish smile that he always greeting her with and said:
“Hey Rita. Still not broken into de film
industry yet, I see.”
The woman put down
the cloth and the Smith and Wesson with a haughty eyebrow raised on her pretty
face.
“Yet again you
prove to me that you never listen to a word I say when we're together. It isn't the film industry I'm trying to
break into. I wanna be a stuntwoman.”
“Well I can't help
it if I find myself more interested in de other t'ings you've got on offer
here,” he quipped meaningfully. “But I will say dat I have first-hand knowledge
of just how athletic you really are, chere, and consequently I can most
definitely say dat de stunt industry is doin' itself a disservice in not hirin'
you.”
The woman narrowed
her eyes at him in suspicion and placed a hand on a well-rounded hip.
“Keep the
compliments comin', Remy. You're gonna
need a helluva lot of them. I ain't seen
you in months! Where have you been? Or should I say, who have you been with?”
He grinned. He didn't believe for a moment that she
actually gave a flying toss.
“Chere, surely you
should know by now dat I only have eyes for you,” he drawled, propping his
elbows on the counter and gazing at her seductively over the top of his shades,
to which she merely rolled her eyes.
“It's not like I
care or anything, LeBeau,” she informed him hotly. “You just never paid Murray
for those blades you bought last summer, and he's pissed at you. I mean really
pissed at you.”
“He wants money?”
Remy replied casually and dipped a hand into his trenchcoat pocket. “Fine.” He
pulled out a whole wad of bills and slapped it on the counter in front of
her. She stared at it a moment, gave him
a look and said: “Been moonlighting again, I see.”
“De best jobs
always come by night,” he said, removing his shades and winking at her, which
she ignored as she proceeded to count out the money he owed with a
fastidiousness he always found amusing.
Ricochet Rita, as
she was known by all and sundry due to her amazing athleticism (of which Remy
could attest to with firsthand knowledge), was a pretty woman of about
twenty-seven years of age - not pretty in the conventional sense of the word,
but rather unusual in her looks, with long, silky, bone straight jet black
hair, pale blue eyes, white, freckled skin and a wide, sensuous mouth. She was sassy, she was larger than life, she
was free-spirited. She had no illusions
about life and made sure you had no illusions about who she was and what she
wanted. She was passionate and
headstrong and sometimes shockingly amoral.
She was, of course,
a baseline human, but she had no qualms about associating with mutants. The only people she held in disdain were
stupid, ignorant people, and she often said so.
The shop she owned with her on-off husband/partner/arch nemesis, Murray,
welcomed mutants just as it welcomed statics - so long as they had the cash to
pay for their receipts, of course.
There were a lot of
reasons why Remy liked her. These were
just a few of them.
“So,” Rita began
when she had finished counting out the exact amount of money owed, had opened
the cashier desk, neatly arranged the dollar bills inside, and handed him his
change, “what brings you here then, LeBeau?
I was beginning to think you'd never show up again.”
“Admit it, you
missed me,” he cooed.
“Don't flatter
yourself,” she shot back just as fast, and he raised his hands in self-defence.
“Actually, I came
to get the usual,” he replied nonchalantly.
“Half a dozen of
our finest blades, huh?” She bent down under the desk and the next moment had
popped up again and slapped a squat parcel onto the counter in a cloud of dust.
“Murray figured when you came back you'd be wanting some. He even packed 'em away for you, all nice and
neat and tidy. Bit dusty now though, as
you can see,” she added dryly. “Say what you will about the man, but he's
organised, and he's reliable, unlike some I could care to mention.”
“You ain't gon' let
dis lie, are you?” Remy sighed dramatically, counting out dollar bills again
and handing them to her, which she immediately pocketed.
“Not on principle,
no,” she retorted pointedly. “Don't misunderstand me, Rems. I don't really care what you get up to in
your 'leisure' time, but I don't care for bein' stood up.”
“Aw, chere, you
know how it is wit' business. Sometimes
it gets in de way…” He took the parcel and stuffed it inside his duster.
“Fun and games is
one thing, and believe it or not, I could do without them,” she told him
flippantly. “But wining and dining is an entirely different matter. Do you know how hard it is to get Murray to
even entertain the idea of taking me out to dinner?” She sighed. “He hasn't
taken me out on a date in four years - stupid fat oaf,” she added with a
helpless affection that she couldn't quite hide.
It was moments like
these when Remy could see that she really did love her husband - though he
never understood why, since Murray was everything Remy was not in the sex
appeal stakes - stout, sallow, wheezy, and with a rather prominent beer gut.
“So where is he
anyway?” he asked, glancing about the otherwise empty store.
“Out of state. Picking up some rare supplies. Probably those knives you keep doing us out
of.” Her smile was wry.
“You miss him.”
“Hmph. God knows why, but I do. He's a bumbling ignoramus, and you know I
hate anyone who's a bumbling ignoramus, but then, Murray's not like most
bumbling ignoramuses, and most ignoramuses are most definitely not like
Murray.”
“Oh.” He twitched
an eyebrow petulantly. “So you miss de bumblin' ignoramus but you don't miss
me. Chere, you are breakin' mon coeur.”
Her expression was
sarcastic. “Remy, you have no
heart. But yeah, I miss you. Not the way I miss Murray - but then, it's
not the same kind of missin', is it.”
He leaned against
the counter again, grinned his most charming grin. “Lemme guess. You miss him for all de fights and de cuddles
and de holdin' hands and shit. And you
miss me for de cheap thrills dat keep you goin' in de meantime.”
She gave him
something between a pout and a scowl.
“Sex ain't
everything, you might be surprised to hear.”
“Yeah, but it's a
lot of t'ings to a lot of people, especially when dey're lonely. Dat's why you miss me when I'm gone.”
He wasn't smiling
now. Something had occurred to him, and
it had been the first time it had occurred to him in months. He pushed himself off the counter, feeling
their flirtation had lost its lustre.
“I'll see y'
around, Rita. Send my regards to Murray,
when you see him - not dat he'll care for them either way.”
He turned to go,
but before he could slip his shades back on she'd stopped him.
“Remy?”
He halted,
turned. She looked a little sheepish
underneath all the brass.
“I'm free tonight,
if you're up for some light entertainment.”
He reached for the
placard on the door, swivelled it round to 'CLOSED'.
“I'm free now,” he
said.
*
Remy always came
back to Rita for two reasons: first because he liked her, and second for the
sex. The sex was passionate yet
meaningless and thus safe. The fact that
he liked her meant that he could come back as much as he wanted without fearing
that he would fall in-love with her; he also half suspected that he liked her
because she was in-love with Murray, which meant that she would never fall
in-love with him.
It wasn't quite a
marriage of convenience - it was far too complex for that.
It was a connection
based on need, and one that happened to be very convenient indeed.
That night the act
had been totally perfunctory and without any unnecessary strings attached - it
was always this way. Afterwards Rita lay
and stared up at the ceiling, running her fingers through her long black hair,
while he sat and smoked a cigarette. She
was always very quiet - he wondered whether her heart panged because she
cheated on her man in their marital bed.
He figured that someone should be feeling guilty, because he sure as
hell wasn't.
Presently she sat
up too and he lit a cigarette for her because he liked her, and because he was
a fair man and he liked to show his gratitude.
They sat and smoked
for a while saying nothing. He admired
her insouciance; he admired the way her dark hair played upon her white
skin. He admired a great many things
about her but for totally selfish reasons because they made him feel good about
the fact that he was having an affair with a married woman.
Tonight none of this
really mattered, because his heart hadn't really been in it, and frankly he
could've done without the excursion, if it wasn't now something of a
habit. Something he'd said earlier on
had made him pensive and thoughtful, which was never good for anyone's sex
life.
Sex is a lot of things to a lot of people,
especially when they're lonely.
Oh God, he was
going through one of those maudlin, philosophical phases again. He knew he shouldn’t have listened to the
song that pretty busker had been singing, even though he'd been under the
impression that all he'd been doing at the time was flirting with her.
Merde.
It had taken him
six months to work it out. Six months
for him to work out that every day of those six months his mind had been on
someone else, and that he'd fucked Rita today out of pure frustration because
he really wanted to fuck that someone else.
It wasn't a pleasant feeling. He
felt as if his own brain had outmanoeuvred him and called 'checkmate!'
“Murray,” he
suddenly said, because he didn't really want to think and saying pointless
things was infinitely preferable. “D'you know when he's comin' back?”
Rita stretched,
luxuriant, cat-like.
“He said he'd ring
on his way back.”
He decided he'd
talk some more, since it was doing the job of making his mind not think.
“Would it bother
you?” he asked. “If he came back and found us here like dis?”
She pressed the
cigarette to her lips and sucked. He
liked the way she did that too.
“If he'd rung
before you showed up, I wouldn't have closed up shop just for your benefit,”
she answered, blowing a perfectly-formed ring of smoke and watching it travel a
few inches before fading. “Does that answer your question?”
He shrugged.
“Murray's a good
guy,” he remarked unnecessarily. “And I don't like doin' good guys out of
anyt'ing. But I like you. And I like bein' wit' you.” He pulled aside
the covers and slid out of bed, ignoring her curious look. Outside the window darkness had fallen,
purply and indigo, over the courtyard below.
Electric lamps buzzed implacably, spilling their sickly yellow light
into Rita's little bedroom. Remy leaned
against the window frame, slid the pane open with one hand and looked out. The sky was starless, the little square below
soulless. For a long while he stood
there and said nothing.
“Something tells me
you're a little distracted tonight, Remy,” Rita's voice came from behind him,
low, conversational. He grunted,
non-committal, and tapped ash out of the window.
“Anything you care
to talk about?” she asked. He half-laughed. Usually when he came here, he got to listen
to all her problems.
“Not really,” he
said.
“Bullshit,” she
replied a little begrudgingly. “You've been distracted ever since we got here.”
She paused, and then said in an irritated tone: “So come on - who is she?”
Another thing about
Rita was that she was never jealous.
That was probably what he liked about her the most. He stared at some
indeterminable point in mid-air and pulled on his cigarette, before letting out
a long, lingering breath. It was no
good. Talking wasn't going to stop him
from thinking about her, so he might as well talk about her anyway.
“Slim, about
five-eight. Brunette. Green eyes.
Twenty-four, maybe twenty-five.
Mile long legs and de softest skin you'll ever touch. Lips like dynamite.”
Behind him Rita
leaned over towards the nightstand and flicked ash into an ashtray, her
expression nonchalant.
“What's her name?”
she asked.
He stared at that
same indeterminable space for a moment.
“…I dunno…” he
finally murmured.
Rita pursed her
lips and stared at the blue and white pattern on the bedspread in front of her,
which had always seemed to her to hold the quality of cheap, mass-produced
china.
“You known her
long?” she probed at last.
“Yeah. Four years, maybe,” he answered. She whistled.
“You never told me
you were in a long-term relationship, LeBeau.”
He gave a mirthless
laugh. “I'm not.” He paused, shifted slightly, turning his back fully on
her. Standing there naked in the
reflected lights of the street lamps, it struck her how perfectly beautiful he
really was. It was a beauty that made
him wonderful to look at and wonderful to make love to, but there was always a
coldness about him, a sense of to have and not to hold, and as she looked at
him standing there it also struck her how incredibly lonely he seemed.
“Then -?” she said,
but he answered her before she could even get the question out.
“Hadn't seen her
for years, I thought she was dead. Then
suddenly, last fall, dere she was. Like
I wanted her so bad I made her real again.” He tilted his head, as if musing to
himself. “I guess I had to touch her, just t' make sure she was real. And she was.
She was real. And you know
me. Once I touch somet'ing I gotta steal
it. I gotta have it.”
Rita simply smiled
and stared at the smoke rising out of her cigarette.
“It was de first
time I made love to her,” he continued in a husky undertone. “Spent years
tryin' t' chase her down and den it finally happens… Now of all times, in dis
godforsaken, fucked up excuse for a world.
Dieu, it was so perfect…”
He looked out
again; the moon was invisible, wherever it was.
Rita still had the half-smile on her face. For the first time she really felt like she
was touching the man named Remy LeBeau.
“And where is she
now?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged,
scratched his left arm, took a drag.
“I don't know. She's in de business - she could be anywhere,
doin' anyt'ing.”
“And that's why
you're here with me?” she probed lightly, tapping the cigarette over the
ashtray with a small frown on her face. “Instead of with her? 'Cos she's in 'the business', and
relationships are outside of 'the business'?”
“Relationships?” He
laughed coldly. “It ain't got not'ing t' do wit' relationships. You and me, we have a relationship, Rita -
it's strictly business, but dat's fine.”
“So what's not
fine?” she inquired testily.
He shrugged, before
saying decidedly: “Attachment.
Attachment's not fine.”
“Bullshit.” For the
first time she sounded angry.
“What?”
“You. You and your arrogant, machismo bullshit.”
She swivelled onto her side and propped her head into a palm. “This whole
business thing is bullshit. It's just an
excuse. Something to make you feel
better because you're really pathetic and alone.” Her frown deepened; now she
was in free flow and anything he said would not stop her. “You need me 'cos
you're lonely, and I need you 'cos I'm lonely.
Hell, I think you're sexy, and you have a crazy sense of style and you
fuck real good, but I'd drop you in a minute if the man I loved didn't leave me
mind-numbingly, soul-destroyingly lonely.” She halted, checking her temper as
she always did because her temper never exceeded a certain degree of Fahrenheit
and she was determined to keep it that way. “Yeah, I'd kick you to the kerb in
a second if, just for once, Murray decided I actually existed. But who takes me out to dinner, who buys me
drinks and romances me, who takes the time to kiss me before we fuck? You.”
“Which is why you
keep me around, huh?” he interjected bitterly.
“Quid pro quo, LeBeau. I take the time to make you feel good about
yourself too, y'know.”
“Yeah, you're just
doin' wonders for my ego right about now,” he returned sardonically. “What's
your point?”
“My point is, I
love Murray and I wouldn't throw the fool away, even for a smooth-talkin' Cajun
Casanova such as yourself.”
“Good for you,” he
muttered caustically. He suddenly
decided it had been a mistake to talk about her. Rita never got jealous but she could be
incredibly preachy once you got her onto a certain subject that had she
happened to have a bee in her bonnet about.
“Love,” she said
suddenly, as if it should mean something to him.
“Huh?”
“You said 'made
love to her'. That's a bigger give-away
than if you'd said 'I'm crazy about this girl and want to spend the rest of my
life with her'.”
He frowned and
flicked his cigarette out the window, not saying anything, not liking what he
was hearing one iota. Moreover he
disagreed with it wholeheartedly, but only because it made perfect sense.
“So why don't you
go find her?” she concluded when he made no reply.
He leant against
the windowsill and closed his eyes. Why not find her…? Because it was foolhardy, because it
disobeyed all the rules, because he would end up getting bored and hurting her
anyway. Sometimes it was infuriating how
simple things seemed to be to Rita. To
her, there really was only just loving and fucking and very little else
in-between. And for some reason, that
single one-night stand with the green-eyed brunette had encompassed that grey
area of something 'in-between'. Still,
why not find her? All he wanted was
another glimpse, another touch, another kiss, another night…
He turned and moved
across the room with sudden purpose, finding his clothes still strewn
haphazardly across the floor and pulling them on.
“Where're you
going?” she asked; her voice was once again artfully nonchalant.
“Got a job
t'night,” he explained, slipping into his pants and zipping them up. “T'anks
for de goods, chere. Looks like I'll
probably be needin' dem.”
She watched him for
a while, the words formulating in her head, fighting for articulation so that
it took a while for her to finally spit out: “Remy… You're not mad at me, are
you?”
“Non.” He pulled
his shirt back on and reached for his trench coat. “It's just dat you're always
so right, p'tite, and sometimes a man can find dat a little intimidatin'.”
She was half-lying,
half-sitting on her back now, gazing at him from under her eyelashes; a sexy,
husky chuckle bubbled up in her throat.
“You'll be back,”
she said indulgently. “Whether you find your pretty brunette or not.”
“Don't you and I
both know it,” he murmured, shrugging his coat over his shoulders. He stood there and looked at her. “I guess
I'll see you around then, Rita.”
“Yeah, I'll see you
around.” She waved a hand at him as if to say 'be off with you' and smiled. “If
you ever get lonely again, you know where to find me.”
“And if you ever
get into de stunt business, don't forget t' leave me a forwardin' address,” he
reminded her. It was what he always
reminded her, because he really meant it.
“Hmph. Next time you come round, I'll be here.” She
sighed and rolled over, snuggling down under the covers as if it were her
grave. “I'll always be here,” she added as a sober and somehow apt afterthought.
*
There were very few
things that Remy LeBeau took the time to feel guilty about. Guilt and shame were just about as dangerous
as love and attachment in his line of business; it was in his best interests to
be as dispassionate and amoral as he could be.
Many men who worked in the business gave vent to an inevitable guilt
overload by turning hard and cold, or psychotic and insane. Others went home and devoted their lives to
their families, or their cars, or tending to their front yards and winning
awards for them once a year.
There were three
things that kept Remy going whenever he had particular trouble keeping his
guilt in check: thievery, gambling, and sex with pretty women. While on the job he was nothing but calm,
focused, impassive and utterly professional.
Off it he was charming, seductive, glib and passionate. He was a strange dichotomy of personalities
that may have surprised some and worried others. It wasn't the way he was born, it was just
the way he'd learnt to survive.
At this particular
moment in time he'd taken care to switch off the emotional, guilt-ridden part
of his personality and turn on the cold, analytical one.
He was lying flat
on his stomach inside a cramped little air vent, staring down through the
grille at two nameless and faceless security guards with one of Rita's knives
poised very deliberately in his hand. He
was having a hard time concentrating on the job at hand because the
conversation he'd had with Rita that evening was still very firmly on his
mind. Along with the green-eyed brunette
he'd managed to seduce a whole six months before, and who he'd conveniently
managed to ignore until nine a.m. that morning when he'd woken up and
inexplicably decided he wanted to see her again. He didn't particularly mind Rita being astute
- he appreciated the fact that she was clever as well as easy on the eyes - but
he did mind it when she was astute about things he was trying to keep to, or
rather from, himself.
Besides, Rogue had
been a mistake.
A very nice mistake,
but one he could definitely do with less of.
He decided to give
up concentrating, trust his instincts, and just throw the goddamn knife.
It buried itself in
the back of the neck of the first guard, who toppled to the floor as if his
legs had unaccountably given way. The
second security guard stared down at his fallen comrade in confusion.
“What the f--”
But of course,
before he'd had the opportunity to finish what he was saying, he too had
crumpled on the floor with a knife stuck unceremoniously in the back of his
head.
Remy unscrewed the
grille and jumped out of the air vent with an expression of relief.
The annoying thing
was, he hadn't thought of her in years.
Well, not that much anyway. He'd
thought she was dead. He didn’t know why
he thought this, when she could just as easily have been incarcerated along
with the other surviving X-Men in an internment camp. It was easier to think she was dead; it
didn't make him want to go and play the knight-in-shining-armour to her
damsel-in-distress. So it had been
something of a shock to see her in that Sentinel parts factory.
He'd been lying
around, minding his own business in an air vent much like the one he'd just
jumped from, when she'd walked by right below him. She'd been dressed in one of those hideous
yellow boiler suits all the Trask Technologies maintenance men wore, but he'd
recognised her straight away. The small,
upturned nose, the sultry, slightly petulant mouth, the high cheekbones and the
eyebrows that always seemed to come together in that defensive frown she'd
always bestowed him with. And the
eyes. He'd never forget those smoky
green eyes, not ever.
He picked his way
past the guards, thinking that the night security really was pretty abysmal in
this place. He located the door control
panel in a niche in a nearby wall and tapped a few buttons. The doors the guards had been guarding gave a
resounding thunk and began to slide
open. Yup, security here was really very
lax. Lucky him.
He hadn’t meant to
follow her, but he had because he had been curious as to what she was doing
blowing up factories in the first place.
And he hadn’t meant to take her back to his place, but he hadn’t been
able to help himself because when she'd turned those smoky green eyes on him
he'd felt the same kind of electricity he'd felt the first moment they'd laid
eyes on each other all those years before, and it was the kind of electricity
that didn't go with rational thought.
By the time they'd
arrived at the safe house, he'd known he was going to have sex with her. Still, he really hadn't meant to take her
virginity; it was just that when he'd found out she still had it he'd been too
selfish and horny to stop, because she was a hundred times more beautiful and
more heartbreaking than he'd ever remembered, and he wanted her so bad he knew
it was going to kill him if he didn't have her.
This was one of the
very few things Remy felt guilty about.
He felt guilty
about it because even though she had been inexperienced, somehow she'd made it
incredibly good for him and he'd made it incredibly good for her and
consequently the whole thing had been so incredibly good that he knew that one
of them had been investing too much into it, and he didn't think it had been
him.
He halted in the
middle of the corridor, feeling stupid when he saw the rows of eyes staring at
him from out of the bars running along either side of it. He started walking again, the absent look
still on his face.
Merde.
I t'ink it was de both of us.
He'd made a mistake
that morning. He should've left as soon
as he was ready. Instead he'd hung around, waiting for her to wake up for some
reason he couldn't identify. Maybe he'd
wanted to gauge her reaction, see how well she'd take it. But on the other hand, what did he care? He'd never cared about what any other woman
thought, come the morning after.
Still, she'd taken
it pretty well, he thought. She hadn't
wept, she hadn't wailed, she hadn't gone into self-denial and begged him to
stay. It didn't change the fact that
he'd been stupid in waiting around for her to wake up, because she was as
beautiful in the morning as she was by night, and he'd begun to think that he
was the one being seduced.
He got to the end
of the corridor, found another control panel and absent-mindedly circumvented its
security interface.
Still, she'd taken
it incredibly well, he thought.
There was a
clanking whooshing sound as forty metal-barred doors slid open behind him. The rustling of uncertain feet as forty
mutant prisoners grappled with the fact that they were free. He knew how they felt. Sometimes, it was easier to be in prison than
to be free and to have to make decisions.
He himself - he didn't care where they chose to go now, nor how they
chose to get out. They were free now, he
was no longer responsible for them - he had no intention of turning himself
into their saviour as well as their rescuer.
Besides, there was only one of them he was interested in.
The woman inside
cell no. 21 was gaunter than he had ever remembered her in pleasanter days, not
that any encounter with her previously had been pleasant. The finely sculpted face was now pale and
sallow; what colour had been left in her cheeks was leeched away by the
impossibly black hair on her head. Her
countenance was haughty, imperious, yet there was a fear in her blue eyes that
had never been there before.
Remy leaned against
the wall and stared at her.
“Tessa, I presume?”
he greeted her. She made no effort to
speak. There was no love lost between
them, and besides, he fancied she wasn't going to waste any brainpower speaking
to him. A thousand computations a second
were probably going through her once-pretty head as she sat there and stared at
him, trying to work out why exactly
he was here.
“I got a surprise
for you, chere,” he informed her with the air of a game-show host. “You're de
lucky mutant who gets escorted out of dis joint by yours truly.” He unpicked
the shackles from her wrists and added wryly: “Congratulations.”
*
It was the
following evening and his head still hurt from where Tessa had promptly whacked
him round the side of the skull with her boot heel once she'd finally figured
out what he was up to.
He'd always known
the job with Tessa wasn't going to be an easy one - she was a human-computer after all - but he hadn't been prepared for
just how nimble she was when she was in full martial arts flow, even
considering the fact that the internment camp hadn't given her the chance to
practice her martial arts talents in years.
It'd taken all his skill just to dodge her moves, and in the end he'd
ended up having to half kill her in order to get her to come along quietly.
Needless to say, the
boss had been far from happy.
Remy didn't
care. He preferred it if he could rile
his employer in some way - at least then it would stop him from feeling so
guilty about what it was he actually did.
He got out of bed,
slipped on his boxers and reached for the packet of Tylenol still lying on the
dresser, swallowing a couple of the pills whole. In the shower the pretty busker was humming
the same tune she'd been singing on the street the day before, and it reminded
him of what he'd actually been meaning to do since he'd woken up that morning
with a horrible headache and the need to get himself laid as fast as humanly
possible.
His cell phone was
still in his trench coat pocket and he fished it out, dialling the same number
he used when he wanted particular info on a particular person. There were several rings before the call was
answered by a cheap and cheerful male voice.
“Yo, Remy. I was expectin' your call last night.”
“I had a delivery
to make,” Remy replied vaguely, picking up the remote control and turning on
the TV, making sure that the volume was unnecessarily loud. “Thanks for de
info, by de way.”
“So how did it
go? Didn't I tell you the security there
was joke?”
“Damn straight it
was. I dunno how dat Tessa didn't break
outta dere all by her clever little self ages ago.” He nursed his aching head
and winced painfully.
“Hell, there ain't
nobody who can fathom that lady. She probably
liked it in there. Probably gave her
time and space and quiet to think.”
Remy threw himself
back on the bed and laughed. “Probably.”
“So what's up? You got a new job lined up? Want me to lend yah my considerable brain?”
“Well, dis is kind
of a side project I'm workin' on right now,” Remy replied evasively. “In other
words, low priority. Just somethin' for
you t' occupy your expansive mind wit' durin' your leisure time, homme.”
“A side-project,
hmm? Nothin' involvin' blowin' up
factories again, I hope. 'Cos man, I was
expecting something better from you the last time you blew one up.”
“Dat wasn't
me. And technically, no it doesn't have
anythin' to do wit' blowin' up factories.”
“So what?”
Remy paused. The shower was still on, and the busker was
still singing that same song. His heart
gave an involuntary pang.
“I need you t' find
someone for me.”
“It's what I do,
man. Who?”
“A girl. She's in de business. Five foot eight, about twenty-four, green
eyes, long hair - brunette wit' a white streak.
Slim, kinda sassy.”
“Hmm. She sounds cute.”
“She is.”
“Got a name?”
“Nope.” He was
reluctant even to give her codename, just in case it got her into trouble at
some point in the future. “Just de stats.”
“Well, it ain't
that much to go by…”
“I don't mind. Like I say, dis a side project, and I ain't
in any great hurry t' see it done. Just
if you see her, let me know where she is.
Don't wanna know what she's doin', who she's workin' for or who she's
hangin' wit'. Just tell me where she is
and how she's doin'. Dat's all.”
“Okay, I'll look
into it. Are you sure that's all you
want to know?”
“Very sure. You can find out all you want about her if'n
it floats your boat, but don’t tell me, okay?
Just call me if you see her.”
“Dude, you just get
weirder and weirder. But since it's you,
I'll do it. Just don't expect a call any
time soon with the specs you've given me.”
“D'accord.” The
shower stopped. “Look, I gotta go. I'll
call you back when de boss gives me somet'ing big. See ya.”
He ended the call
before anymore could be said.
As it turned out,
the call he'd been hoping for came in June.
* * * * *
Go to Chapter 6
: Go to Chapter 8