Chapter 5
801 Words
Chapter 5
Frank: 1988
They filmed Moonstruck here last year.” Beatrice told him as they sat side by side on the park bench and looked out at the East River and Manhattan shimmering in the nighttime heat steaming off the water’s surface. Once again in their street clothes, he couldn’t help remembering her in her workout gear. Her chest gave the big, white U.S.S.S. logo a whole new meaning. No vest hiding curves that really needed to be seen and appreciated. And legs, damn but the woman had amazingly serious legs.
“Moonstruck.” Frank had no idea what she was talking about. He just knew his chin still hurt like hell, it was two a.m., and he was sweating like a pig because the temperature hadn’t broken in almost two weeks. And he knew that Beatrice was limping bad on the right and trying not to show it. Damn but she was tough. No whining at all though they were both sore. “What’s that?”
“Boy, we’ve got to do something about your movie education. It is seriously lacking.”
Movie? He looked around the dock. It didn’t look like much. It stuck out a little ways into the East River, Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge made for an amazing skyline, from the Twin Towers right up to Roosevelt Island. Here there was just water, warped old wood on the dock, and a couple of steel benches so clean that tourists must come here. Sure weren’t no benches this clean in his neighborhood. To the south was a small park. To the north, a fancy restaurant all closed and dark inside, though the perimeter lights were on so it would be hard to sneak around. He spotted a couple of security cameras up high, but they didn’t have cables to them. Fakes. Dumb fakes. He knew some boys into smash-and-grab, maybe he should tip them off.
“So what movies did you see?”
What was it with this woman and movies? “Platoon kicked ass.”
“Okay, it did. I’ll give you that one.”
“Uh, Stallone was good.”
“Rambo III. Like two weren’t enough. Sequels are a waste of celluloid. We really gotta do something about this. You’re a walking disaster.”
“What? First, you’re dissing my man Sly. And now you’re gonna make another weak-a*s attempt to kick my a*s or something?”
That got a smile out of her. He seriously liked that smile. And he’d bet if he tried to do anything about trying to kiss it, he’d end up with a faceful of dock splinters.
“That will be up to you.”
Whether or not he got to kiss her? No. He shook his head. Whether or not she tried to kick his a*s.
Beatrice looked out over the water. Tide was coming in so it smelled of salt and the Atlantic rather than old diesel fuel and other crap that floated down the river when the tide was running.
“I think you’ve got what it takes. The United States Secret Service is not for the weak of heart. We’ve got two mandates. Money laundering, counterfeiting, and fraud is the first. Then there’s head-of-state protection. All dangerous as can be. That’s if they let you in. First they’ll do so much investigating on you that an alien crawling out of your chest would be a relief. They’ll know so much about you that you won’t know what hit you.”
While he had a weak spot for Sigourney in too little clothes packing a serious damn g*n, the thought of what an investigation would dig up about him sent a chill up his back. He’d just twice committed grand theft auto by carjacking. That wouldn’t go down good at all if they found out.
“I, uh, don’t think that’s gonna be happening.”
“I know I wasn’t your first carjack. You were too sure of yourself.”
“Until you stuck that damn g*n in my face.”
“Until I stuck my g*n in your face. But what you’ve got going for you is rarer than you think. It’s also a way out of your present mess. I’ve been an agent for a year and it’s awesome. I learned enough to stop you.”
Frank considered that while a tugboat worked its way against the tide, a long barge of gravel piled in tall mounds trailing far behind. She had stopped him, stopped him cold. If there was ever a good advertisement for what she was sellin’, she was it. The woman looked and smelled amazing, and had almost beat his a*s on the wrestling mat. He sure wasn’t going to think about how good she’d felt in his arms even as she’d planted a knee in his gut and he’d had to partly sprain her ankle to get her off him.
“So why did you join?”
“I’m going to be on the Presidential Protection Detail some day.”
“Why there?” He tried to picture that. Riding with the Main Man. Sure, and catching a bullet so that he didn’t. Frank had seen enough gunshot wounds and deaths to last him a hundred times his twenty years. Wouldn’t find him steppin’ in front of no bullets on purpose.
“Because the PPD are the very best on the planet.”
“And you’re just that damn good.”
“Damn straight.”
He gave her a knowing smirk. But the thing was, he believed her.
- Writer
