Chapter 3: Revelations
AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
For Disclaimer and other notes, see chapter one
Another hour of scouring the beach turned up more
surfers, beach bums and vendors who had seen the Thin
Man the previous day. Most of them described him the
same way - intense and focused, with an aura that
screamed Don't bug me or I'll kick your ass. A
few of the plumper ice cream sellers had been
downright afraid of him. By the end of the afternoon,
Natalie and Alex had a description of his car, the
direction he'd come in from, and the direction in
which he left.
"Is it me," Alex asked as she and Natalie cruised northward along the busy Strip in the Agency's candy apple red convertible, "or is this just too easy? I mean, the Thin Man was a master of disappearing into a crowd. That's what made him such a great assassin; he could get in anywhere. Just look at the Coal Bowl - no one knew he was there till he showed himself. None of us had a clue." Natalie saw the darker woman shift into a more comfortable position in the passenger seat. "I don't get it. Why's he being so visible now?"
"Maybe he's counting on us thinking he's dead," Natalie posited, slowing to let a troupe of giggling teenage girls cross the street in front of them. "Maybe he figures that we won't suspect him, since we saw him die." She furrowed her brow. "Or, thought we saw him die. It's kind of confusing, trying to describe it, don't you think? What verb tense should we use?"
"I don't think so," Alex argued, skipping over Natalie's question. "The Thin Man's a mute, but he's not stupid. He's got to know he sticks out like a sore thumb. And he already came back from the dead once. Admittedly, it's hard to think of anyone pulling that trick twice, but why not? He's just freaky enough to make it feasible." She shook her head. "This just feels too easy. I don't like it."
Natalie nodded in agreement and chewed her bottom lip. There was something hinky at work here. Dylan disappearing, followed by the miraculous reappearance of the Thin Man, who just HAPPENED to leave behind a boatload of clues for them to follow... Hinky didn't even begin to describe it.
"Uber-hinky," she acknowledged with another nod. Yes, that fit. It sounded good, too. Like a German soap opera. "This whole thing is uber-hinky."
Alex nodded but didn't say anything, sunk deep in thought. Natalie brought the car to a gentle stop at the next red light, and let her eyes wander over the traffic and pedestrians who lined the thoroughfare. The Angels were getting away from the tourist centers and heading into the commercial and business sector of the seafront. To the right was a massive shipyard, with three or four tankers and freighters docked where she could see them. She started to whistle the theme from Beverly Hills Cop and drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel as she waited for the light to turn green again.
"Hey Nat?"
"Yeah?" she looked at Alex, who was gazing distractedly out the passenger window.
"What kind of car did that blue-haired surfer say the Thin Man was driving?"
"A trophy blue MG TF 120 with black, all leather interior, alloy wheels, projector headlights, removable hard top - which was removed - and an integrated lip spoiler," Natalie said, trying not to coo. Just imagining the car was enough to make her swoon - it must have been beautiful.
"Don't you think that's a bit flashy for someone who's trying to keep themselves under wraps?"
"Yeah," Natalie agreed.
Alex looked at her. "Unless the one with the car WANTED to be found," she said, and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, towards the shipyard.
Natalie frowned and peered through the passenger window, in the direction Alex indicated. There, parked amongst the dirty shipping crates and piles of heavy netting, was a sleek, shiny, trophy blue MG TF 120. It sparkled like a sapphire amongst the black tar and driftwood of the shipyard.
"Way too easy," Natalie and Alex said in unison.
"Ambush?" Alex asked.
"Definitely ambush," Natalie affirmed.
"Bluff 'em?'
"Absolutely."
"Let's spring a trap," Alex said, as the light turned green and Natalie turned right.
They stowed the car out of sight and snuck up to the MG. There was nothing inside to indicate that Dylan had been harmed, or indeed that she'd been there at all. The car might as well have been brand new and fresh off the assembly line for all the visible information it provided. Still, Natalie opened the driver's side door, leaned over and sniffed the gas pedal. "Lincoln Shoe Polish," she confirmed, looking over her shoulder at Alex. "This is his car all right."
Before Alex could respond, a bullet shattered the driver's side mirror. It came so close, Natalie could feel its hot breath graze over her tailbone. Both women dropped to the ground and rolled away from the car, before leaping to their feet in a kung fu stance, back to back, ready for a fight.
None seemed forthcoming.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Alex hissed over her shoulder to Natalie. Before Nat could answer, another bullet blew apart a shipping crate that topped a pile of identical boxes behind the two women. They threw their arms over their heads to protect their eyes from the flying splinters of wood.
"He's using a silencer!" Natalie exclaimed.
"That freighter!" Alex called, pointing in the direction of the nearest docked ship. Natalie looked up and saw a flash of light on the deck, against the blood red sunset sky. A second later, the tarmac immediately in front of Alex's boots exploded as a bullet tore into it.
"That's IT!" Alex exclaimed. "I don't like people shooting at me!" She began to run for the ship, dodging left and right and hiding behind crates to avoid the sniper's frighteningly accurate aim. Natalie went with her, following a different, equally erratic course.
Getting onto the ship was easy enough. If either of them had taken the time to notice, they would have agreed it was too easy. Instead, they went haring up the gangplank and dove onto the rusty metal deck of the ship, fully prepared to be attacked from all sides by twenty burly henchmen.
No one appeared. And the gunman was gone.
"The hell…?" Alex panted, never dropping her guard for a second.
Natalie was beginning to rethink this whole Storm the Battlements idea. Springing a trap was all well and good, but the Thin Man had proven to be smart as well as resilient - he could easily have anticipated their brash behavior. This whole business was beginning to seriously creep her out. It seemed to her they were far too exposed, and she was about to say so when the familiar cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against the base of her skull.
"Hey there, cutie," a harsh voice rasped in her ear. "Not too bright, now are you?"
Natalie stiffened instantly, and knew from the way Alex tightened beside her that she was in a similar predicament. //Not good, not good, definitely not good,// Natalie thought frantically, eyes darting around the ship's deck in search of a mode of escape. None presented itself - every stray chain, rope, and piece of freight had been removed. The deck looked almost surgically clean. Which meant two things. One, this was definitely a trap. And two, this was ONE HELL of a trap.
"You're the ones threatening two women in broad daylight," Alex observed levelly, maintaining her trademark aloof tone. "Which one of you is wearing the I'm with Stupid t-shirt?"
Natalie giggled.
A new voice spoke - presumably the man pressing the gun to Alex's neck; Natalie hadn't been able to look over her shoulder yet. "Actually, we're threatening you in broad twilight, not daylight, darling." A British voice. "Things like that tend to play godawful tricks with the eyes. I'm sure any passing motorist who sees our little diorama is going to blink and move along. Just like you're going to do, like a good little lamb, all right?"
Natalie felt her captor push hard against her tailbone with a harsh palm. "Fine, fine, sheesh," she complained, moving towards the nearest open hatchway. "Didn't you graduate sixth grade? If you want to get a girl to like you, you don't throw things at her, you don't call her names, and you don't point guns at her head. It's in Dating Guidebook 101."
"I'm not paid to make you like me." Another hard shove. "Move!"
"I'm moving! I'm moving! Geez!" She shared a brief sideways look with Alex. There was no way they were getting out of this situation easily. They'd just have to go with it for now.
"Aren't we supposed to say Take us to your leader first?" Alex asked drily as they approached the hatchway.
"Boss ain't here yet," Natalie's captor said gruffly.
"Besides, that usually comes after the We come in peace bit, luv," Brit Boy (as Natalie had dubbed him) quipped. "And I assure you, dearies, that we don't."
Dinner was over and done, but Dylan had a feeling the Thin Man was going to be back before the night was out. So when she heard the key turn in the lock, she was ready.
"GOTCHA!" she crowed as he slipped into the room. Leaping from behind the door, she landed square on his back and knocked him forward to the floor. "Now I want a-AHH!"
The Thin Man - never one to be taken by surprise - promptly flipped over beneath her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and rolled them so that he was hovering over her and she was the one pinned to the floor.
Dylan squinted at him. "Cute," she snapped sarcastically. "But you forgot one thing."
He cocked his head.
"This." She swiftly brought her knee up between his legs and clipped him square in the crotch.
The effect was instantaneous and oddly gratifying. The Thin Man fell to the side with a garbled cry, curling into a ball, face screwed into a grimace of pain. Dylan rolled into a sitting position and crouched beside him, jaw set and eyes firm. "Now that we've proven you're not a eunuch," she said, ignoring his heated glare, "let's get down to the business at hand." She grabbed one of his hands and pulled it away from his protective curl. There, nestled on his index finger, was the familiar titanium ring. "Or rather, the business on YOUR hand." She slid the ring off, and tossed his hand away. Toying with the band, she looked down at him. "Didn't anyone ever teach you not to play with other people's toys?"
He glared up at her, breathing heavily, and slowly struggled into a sitting position. He started to reach for the ring, but she held it away from him. "Uh-uh," she chided, waggling a finger in front of his face. "I want answers first."
Stony silence. The ice blue of his eyes was colder than ever.
"Look, you can keep playing games with me if you want, but if you do, I'm going to get up and walk right out that door, and take this with me." She waved the ring in front of his face. At his stricken look, she shook her head, "No, I don't care. Promise or not, I'm taking off, understand? And don't think you can stop me, either. You think that first knee was bad, I have another one just like it." His eyes thinned at her, but she kept on talking. "I don't know why you brought me here, and if you're not going to tell me, then I'm not going to stick around to find out. I'm not some kind of bird you can keep in a cage and only let out when you want to. I'm an Angel - we have bigger wings."
She watched his eyes dart back and forth between the ring, the door, and her eyes. Dylan kept her gaze level, and never looked away from his face.
"I could have left already," she said after a few moments had passed, bringing his attention back to her fully. Leaning forward, she murmured, "I didn't." She held the ring up for him to see. "I could take this with me." She set it on the floor between them, and sat back. "I won't."
He started to reach for the ring, but Dylan placed her foot over the titanium band before his hand could complete the journey.
"On one condition," she said when he looked up at her. "You tell me everything." She raised one eyebrow. "No secrets. Okay?"
The conflict in his eyes was palpable. It was obvious he wanted to get his hands on that ring - and guarantee that she wasn't going to spirit herself away in the bargain - but he was still afraid to tell her. She had to sway him in her favor somehow.
Reaching out, she grabbed his wrist. The Thin Man stiffened and tried to pull away, but she tightened her grip and wouldn't let go. "I'm taking a chance here," she said, pulling his hand towards her. "I'm trusting you. I'm guessing that's something you don't get a lot, what with the creepiness and the killing people and all. Even criminals don't trust assassins. You think I don't know that? I was a criminal too, you know. I get it."
Slowly, she pulled his hand upward. As if he knew what she was doing, his hand stretched out, grasping at the air. Moving carefully, Dylan slid his fingers into her hair. Or rather, she started the action - he finished it, burying his hand to the wrist in her rich auburn tresses. His insanely thin fingers cradled the base of her skull, then stilled.
He was shaking. She could feel the tremors moving up his arm.
"I trust you," she murmured, watching his eyes, which were watching her hair. "Now I need you to return the favor, all right? You've gotta trust me back. Hey." She reached out and tilted his chin so that he was looking at her; with distant eyes and a dazed expression, perhaps, but at least he was facing in her direction. "Did you hear me?"
A faint nod.
"Good." A pause. "So… you want to start, or should I?"
Sitting on the floor was uncomfortable, so they moved to the bed. Or rather, Dylan moved, the Thin Man followed, keeping his fingers firmly planted in her hair. This was going to be difficult, Dylan could tell. "You're going to have to let go to write," she reminded him as she sat in the center of the bed, folding her legs comfortably while he perched on the edge of the mattress. "Unless you want to say it out loud, that is."
That got his attention. His gaze cleared and for a moment of stunning clarity, she could see everything he was thinking in those frigid blue irises. And strangely enough, it was all one word.
NO.
"All right then," she said calmly, feeling his fingers tighten in her hair and trying to stave off the inevitable pull. "You want to let go?"
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, with a groan akin to real pain, the Thin Man pulled his hand from her hair, lingering for a few seconds to finger the fiery strands before dropping his hand to the bed and holding it rigidly still. Dylan breathed a sigh of relief; no bald spots yet. He was showing tremendous restraint; which made her wonder how big a wad he was going to take when he finally gave in.
"Do you have any paper?" she asked.
He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew the familiar small pad and pen. He scribbled something on the top sheet of paper and held it up for her to see.
Yes.
Dylan gave him a teasing look. "Yeah, I gathered that," she said, giving him an impish grin. Then, "Did you just make a joke? I didn't think you knew how. I thought it was genetically impossible for you."
She couldn't be sure, but she thought his eyes sparkled, just for a moment. It was the closest she'd gotten to a laugh from him, and made her smile.
"All right, first question, and please don't take this the wrong way." She lounged back onto her elbows, looking up at his narrow face and razor sharp cheekbones. "Why the hell aren't you DEAD?"
He pondered on that one for a long time before finally writing out his answer. Luck.
"That's putting it mildly, pal. That was an 8-story fall, with a sword sticking through your chest to spice things up. I'd say it was a hell of a lot more than luck."
He put a checkmark next to Luck and held it up for her again.
She sighed and shook her head. "Okay, you know what? I don't care. You're alive, that's all that matters at the moment, so we're going to move on. All right?"
Nod.
"Good. Next question." She tossed her head, and saw his gaze wander to follow the sinewy wave of her hair. She cleared her throat to regain his attention. "Where did you get the ring? Did you steal it?"
Yes.
"Why? HOW? The government doesn't exactly make those things easy to get at. You're good, but I think even YOU'D have trouble getting close enough to their carriers to get that ring. And I think we'd have heard if the head of the US Marshall's turned up dead. Again."
Another note scribbled on the pad and held up for her inspection. No one dead
Dylan frowned. "You mean you didn't kill someone to get that?"
He circled No one.
"So how did you GET it?"
Stole
She groaned with frustration and flopped back on the bed, staring at the cottage cheese ceiling. "We're talking in circles," she complained, shifting her gaze so she was looking down her body at him. "You stole it. Okay. Why?"
Keep safe
"It WAS safe. We sort of set that up after you didn't die."
No
"How can you say that? All right, yeah, you managed to get your hands on one, but you're an exception."
He circled No again.
Dylan shook her head and sat up again. "It wasn't safe? Why not? Roger Wixon said he was going to have those things under-"
Not Roger Wixon
She stopped talking and blinked at his message. Her gaze shifted from the pad to his face, to the pad, and back again. His face was expressionless, as if he hadn't just given her a blow to the stomach with a heavy-handled mallet.
"What?" she asked, for lack of anything better to say. "What do you mean, Not Roger Wixon?" She thought for a moment as he wrote his answer, then added, "Was he in disguise or something?"
The Thin Man shook his head as he held up his answer. Never had them
Dylan stared at the answer. "Okay, WHAT?" she asked in disbelief, staring at his face. "Look, you're wrong, all right? He had them. We GAVE them to him. I handed them over myself. I was THERE."
A check mark next to Never had them
"Well what the hell DID we give him? Nickel-plated Fruit Loops?"
Fakes
"Excuse me if I find that a LITTLE bit hard to believe. They would have tested them the second they got them back - made sure they were the right ones. They would have told us if they didn't check out."
No check
"Yes check. Checking all over the place. This is the government we're talking about. They double check the sheet count on their toilet paper."
No check. Serial number.
Dylan thought that over. "Serial number…," she mused. "You mean… the rings each had a serial number?" Nod. "And THAT was what they used to check if they were real or not?" Another nod. "Why?"
Risk
"Ri- Ohhhhh…" She nodded slowly as his reasoning crystallized for her. "You mean, if they'd physically opened the files on the rings, they'd have been risking someone seeing something they shouldn't. Right? And there was no way they were going to do that, especially not after the things had already been stolen once, by someone on the inside." Her gaze went distant as she thought about it. "Everyone was a suspect…"
It took her a moment to realize he was holding up his notepad for her again. Focusing on the paper, she read what he had just written. Someone on the inside. "Yeah, what about it?" she asked.
He tapped Serial number with the pen, then pointed back to Someone on the inside.
Dylan's eyes flew open. "Right!" she exclaimed, sitting forward and grabbing the pad away from him to stare at what he'd written. "It had to be someone on the inside. Someone who knew the serial numbers; who could make perfect fakes." She bit her lip, gazing into space as she mulled over the suspects in her head. "That's not a lot of people."
A few seconds later, she noticed he had his hand out, and realized she hadn't handed him back the notepad. She smiled nervously. "Sorry," she apologized, and handed it back.
He took it, flipped to a clean page, and wrote, One person..
"Who?"
He wrote a name. She read it. She blinked, and read it again.
She looked at him. "You've gotta be kidding me."
Natalie and Alex spent the next hour tied and cuffed to chairs in a spotless, empty cargo hold. The place was huge, lit from high above by long tracks of fluorescent bulbs. Their captors had obviously planned on their arrival, and just as with the deck of the ship, anything that could be used as an escape tool had been taken away, leaving the cargo hold eerily abandoned.
Approximately 20 yards separated Nat and Alex's chairs, which were themselves bolted and soldered to the floor. "You think the Thin Man maybe overdid the accommodations?" Natalie wondered aloud as she struggled against her bonds. The cuffs were just tight enough to make twisting her wrists extremely painful, and the ropes were tied in just such a way that trying to get at the knots was a backbreaking effort. "I mean, we've been held prisoner plenty of times, but this is ridiculous."
"He's good," Alex agreed, and Natalie could tell from the out of breath quality of her friend's voice that the other woman was trying just as hard as she was to escape. "But anybody who's risen from the dead twice has got to have an edge somewhere."
"I never imagined him as the crime lord type, though," Natalie mused, idly working her fingers to restore some lost circulation. "He's always been such a loner. I mean, you remember what the Mother Superior said - he's always been painfully shy. With that complexion, who could blame him? Why would he suddenly start seeking out thugs?"
"Maybe he hit his head in the fall and started to think he was Sonny Corleone."
Before Natalie could make any kind of comment, a door opened in front of them. In front was, of course, a relative term, since the massive proportions of the cargo hold meant the door was actually a good forty feet away. A shadowy figure stood framed in the dark doorway - tall and lanky - and leaned arrogantly against the doorframe.
"Hello, ladies," he said, which was only the first of many surprises.
"He spoke!" Natalie exclaimed, blinking. "The Thin Man never speaks!"
"That's not the Thin Man, Nat," Alex said, and Nat could hear the almost invisible note of anxiety in her friend's voice.
Of course it wasn't the Thin Man. Nat knew that. She'd just been expecting him so completely… This was absolutely, 100% unexpected.
"But… You're DEAD," she stated, dumbfounded. She knew it sounded ridiculous, since he obviously wasn't, but she felt someone ought to say it.
The figure in the doorway pushed away from the frame and strode into the main body of the cargo hold. Two thugs flanked him from behind. "Life's a funny thing, isn't it?" he said as he stopped, halfway between them and the door. "Then again, so's death. It's amazing how easy it is to fake that kind of thing, when you have enough dirt on the right kind of people. That's how Jimmy Hoffa managed it, you know. Dirt, and plenty of it. See, I know that, because I've read the file."
Grinning at them, intense blue eyes twinkling, was disgraced US Marshall Raymond Carter, formerly deceased, but currently very much alive.
"Hey, you two want to play a game?" he asked, as if they were at a dinner party. "It's called Who's Got the Angel, and Where the Hell's My Other Ring." He shrugged, and the twinkle in his eyes died as he stared at them. "Not a very catchy name, I guess. So how about this. You've got five minutes to cough up where the redhead is, or one of you gets to see the other's throat slit. Now talk."
For the first time in their working history, both women were absolutely speechless. And the clock was ticking.
TBC…
Author's Notes: Hi again, everyone! I hope the ending of this chapter was a bit of a surprise for all you intrepid CA readers out there. ;) I originally went to see "Full Throttle" for Robert Patrick, who is (and has always been) one of my premiere obsessions. LOL! The addition of Crispin was an unexpected bonus! I just had to resurrect the dastardly Ray Carter, so I could have free reign to play around with him. *cackle/cough* Read that anyway you wish; I won't mind. ;) LOL!
Thank you all for sticking with the story this far! I hope this chapter (despite being wordy as all get out) was enjoyable for you! And here's hoping I can get chapter 4 up lickity-split. :-D Please review!
