= = = CHAPTER 6= = =

SEATTLE – CLUB CRASH

MAY 5, 1944

Colonel Lydecker's eyes normally gave little away to the outside world – a product of his military training. His gaze on Max however would have disgraced his boot camp drill sergeant. To any stranger it would appear that he and Max were old acquaintances, father and daughter maybe or –even more scandalous – two former lovers wanting to rekindle the sweat of their romance. But only Max and Lydecker knew the real truth about their relationship and neither one of them was going to say anything about it.

"You gave one hell of a show Ms. Guevara," Lydecker added on to his previous comment on Max's talent.

"Isn't there a war that needs your attention out there Colonel?" Max snapped at a man she would have rather seen deep sea diving in cement shoes then right there in front of her. Lydecker was an old wound that kept constantly coming open by his own hand. As if nine stolen years of my childhood isn't enough, he has to track me down too.

"The Nazis are being taken care of by the proper channels," Lydecker clarified, swirling the last hit of Scotch in his glass before swallowing it.

"So you decided to sit back with booze and sugar baby lays at the expense of the American tax payer." Max retorted.

"I enjoy a good Scotch only once in a while," Lydecker agreed, pulling out a single stick with his mouth from a pack of Morley's he kept in the ammunition pocket of his pants. "And as for chasing ass, I only contribute to the ones who are really hard up for cash." A stream of hazy smoke blew from his mouth.

"You're a true American Patriot." Max hated every second of her conversation with Lydecker. His cold-as-steel gaze hadn't changed in eleven years, which was the last time she had seen him.

/FLASH: The tiny Army base hospital was packed with children – orphans, some off the streets, and a handful from a new group home that catered to kids abandoned by their parents. Nine-year-old Max sat in a plain folding chair. Her feet were bare and she swished them in front of her in such a way that her dowdy shaped youth home uniform dress fluttered away from her legs.

She had been waiting all day for 'her turn' to be taken into the little room at the end of the hall where the other children kept disappearing into. She had no idea what went on in that box of a room but the frightened look on the other kids' faces made her want to get whatever it was over with.

Finally the round-bodied brunette nurse called her name and told her to go in. The first thing Max saw when she opened the room's door was a middle aged man dressed in a green Army dress uniform standing next to a sterile metal exam table with a sheet of milky plastic resting across its middle. A metal step had been pulled out from the bottom of the exam table and the Army man coaxed to use it to step up to reach the top of the table.

Max already didn't like the man. He was a more sterile object then the examination table. And his eyes had too much of a calming gaze for someone who dealt with piss scared kids undergoing some kind of medical exam.

"Ms. Guevara," the strange man addressed Max like a woman he would tip his hat to on the street. But his voice wasn't as polite as his words suggested. "NEVER keep an Army Colonel waiting."

Max's eyes wandered around to the countertops built in against the wall. Rows of test tubes in wooden trays lined their surfaces along with large bore syringes filled to the top marked line with a syrupy amber colored liquid. All at once a terror seized her and she no longer wanted to simply get the procedure over with; she didn't want to be there at all. She turned around and ran for the door but a strong hand gripped at her shoulder before she could even get three steps away.

"You have tried my patience long enough." Gone was any deception of politeness from Lydecker's tone as he forced Max to turn back around. "Now, I suggest you let me continue with

my procedures or they'll be hell to pay."/

The memory of that time was permanently carved into Max's brain. It had shaped her entire adult life. After what had happened she had lost her trust in humanity. And working as a spotlight singer was a fitting job to take because of it. She sang all night – sometimes until five in the morning to gatherings of drunks, loners and pimps with their entourages of female flesh. And none of them cared anything about her except for her song and her rack. It was a perfect hiding place for a woman who wanted to forget that some people desired her for something other then her mammary glands and long legs.

It was her legs – tanned, shapely and long as eternity – that were catching the attention of Colonel Lydecker. In the turbulent war stricken time many Americans began to live with the assumption that all of the enlisted soldiers –especially those as senior in their years as Lydecker – no longer harbored any lustful desire towards women. The standing theory was that the honorable duty of defending ones country had castrated any yearning for something as trivial as sex. But Lydecker and all the other soldiers in the United States knew that this was a farce. Desire didn't dwindle away because of combat; it actually heightened it. When a soldier in the War missed his girl back home he wouldn't cry for a woman he couldn't touch overseas; he would screw a Dutch barmaid to help ease his longing.

Lydecker however admired Max not just for her voluptuous female beauty. He was more entranced with the perfectly shaped design of her entire form. He knew all people – even beautiful women – were nothing but sacks of flesh and meat strung over bones. But Max was a different kind then the usual skin coat hangers. She was an immaculate creation that Lydecker himself got to help take part in.

Max couldn't read Lydecker's mind, but she didn't give a damn what he was thinking. She didn't appreciate his eyes wandering all over her body like a doctor who had decided to brush up on his anatomy by watching a naked stripper. "This views not free," Max informed moving as much of the black fabric of her skirt as she could to cover her bare legs.

The beginning strands of "Moonlight Serenade" flowed through the air like a warm summer breeze –slow and seductive to those wrapped up in it. Max pulled her body away from Lydecker's scrutiny and took in the appealing melodic sounds coming from the live band on stage.

From his seat next to the Colonel Logan Cale silently admired the way Max cocked her head to better hear the music. She looked for all the world like a curious child deciding on whether or not the song won over her customary choice of nursery rhymes. The way she fit into her black wrap of a dress however soon threw out any beliefs that she was only just a little girl. Logan prided himself on being a gentleman; but the sultry way Max had one leg lazily crossed over the other made him want to be anything but courteous and polite. My God. I'm surprised men aren't lined up to look at her. He had a burning desire all night to be close to her. But he was still a gentleman after all and wasn't about to grab her in a fit of passion and bring her back to his bedroom and start ripping her clothes off. There was more ways to be closer to her then just sex.

He stood up from his stool, deciding to act on his impulses. When he came to a stop in front of Max Guevara she turned a sculpture perfect head to face him. There was no trace of emotion on her face but Logan got the distinct impression she was checking him out by the way her eyes roamed a second too long over his body before she met his gaze.

"Ms. Guevara," Logan politely broke the silence offering her a single upturned hand. "Would you honor me with this dance?"

Max stared at his hand as if she were unsure if it was real. She wasn't a woman who indulged admires in dance invitations because most of them men she encountered only wanted to get under her skirt. But Logan Cale looked to be a different sort of man then she was used to. She had only casually met up with him at newspaper stands where he would buy copies of the newspaper he worked for to keep clippings of his articles for himself. But each time he intrigued her. He was handsome with five o'clock stubble and eyes like the ocean; but more important then his physical appearance was his charismatic, intellectual personality that Max found incredibly sexy each time she encountered it.

"Is that a formal invitation?" Max asked finally. Sexy or not she wasn't about to make a run at Logan like he was her last chance at procreation.

"No," Logan responded, but then quickly added on to that because it sounded very much like he was subbing her. "This is hardly the setting for me to fill out your dance card. I just find pleasure in the company of beautiful women."

Max smiled – a slow pull of her lips that crept up the sides of her face. "Right answer." She accepted Logan's hand and soon found herself pulled to her feet and led out across the polished plank wood dance floor.

The 50 x 30 foot square space was already filled with a dozen couples that had come out to take advantage of the tantalizing melody of Glen Miller's jazzy creation. It was behind one of these dancing duos – an auburn haired beauty in a red plunging wrap dress and a coal black haired man in a gray zoot suit – that Logan stopped with Max. He instantly took the lead and placed one arm low on her back where her dress was absent because of the cut of the fabric. Her coffee-and-cream tanned skin was smooth and warm under his hands. God she's beautiful even where I can't see.

"Thanks," Max suddenly blurted out as she reached her hand up and interlaced her fingers with his.

Logan looked down at her in confusion. "For what?" He guided her body to the sultry rhythm they had been presented to dance with.

Max glanced sideways to where Lydecker was still positioned like a statue at the barstool. His gray green eyes were still on her. "Gettin' me out of a hot spot," she finally answered Logan's question, falling instep with all of his leading moves.

I'm in a hot spot right now. "I don't think it was something that you couldn't handle," he responded in an all-knowing tone. "I mean you seem like the kind of woman who can take care of herself."

"It's not exactly a desired trait," Max informed, swinging around when he turned her body to go with a slow waltzing jazz note. "Most men are turned off to a girl who won't indulge in their 'protection of the fairer sex' deal."

"It's their loss," Logan said truthfully. "Personally I don't find the whole 'damsel in distress' act appealing whatsoever. Women fought a hard battle for their independence and equality and now some of them want to fall back on the stereotype of a helpless, sexually alluring plaything that men placed on them in the first place."

"An honest reporter," Max questioned in disbelief. "I thought you guys didn't exist."

"And up until now I never believed a woman existed who placed such high regards on her prowess to speak."

"How about we reach a quid pro quo?" Max suggested. "You believe in my existence and I'll believe in yours."

"It doesn't take a quid pro quo to tell me how very real you are Ms. Guevara-"

"Max," she corrected.

"Max," the name rolled of Logan's tongue like a melting ice cube. "Since we're being informal, my name is Logan."

"I think I may have read that name below the titles of a few articles."

"You did?" Logan stated in a rhetorical question. "I hope then that you like what you saw there."

"Not as much as I like what I'm seeing now," Max responded, smiling just steamy enough that Logan wished for nothing more then a bucket of ice water to dump over himself.

"Moonlight Serenade" finally faded away into a soft lingering after taste of a note. The pleased dances stopped in their hot moves for a moment to applaud the band on stage.

"Thank you ladies and gentleman; we'll be here all night." Bling spoke into his microphone on stage.

Logan's arms were still connected to Max's body long after the crowd around them had left to reclaim their tables. He found himself unable to pull away from her.

Finally Max had to initiate their break of contact by 'undoing' his arm from across her back, though her actions held a discernable reluctance. "Thanks for the dance."

He could've said something terribly witty but all words had escaped him the moment he felt her hands on his. After several long seconds had elapsed Logan finally said in a low spoken voice: "It was my pleasure."

Max smiled like a Cheshire cat, pulling away from his body heat, suddenly finding the dance floor much larger then she had remembered. But she didn't want to contemplate it because then she might start justifying doing something completely ridiculous like impose Logan Cale for another dance. She turned on one heal and left him standing there looking at her in a longing and stunned silence. She had hoped Colonel Lydecker would be gone by the time she had returned but unfortunately fate was against her because he was still sitting on the same barstool she had left him at. Only one difference was noticeable in the scene at the bar –the previously vacant stool to the right of Lydecker was now filled.

The occupant was a man in his mid-twenties, light blonde hair and beach blue eyes; at least that was the police composite description of him. Closer examination revealed him to be handsome, but unlike like Logan Cale, whose handsomeness derived from a combination of intellectualism and elegant good looks this man's attractiveness was based on pure reeking sex. His navy blue pinstripe suit hung off him like it had been taylor made to show off his muscled physique. A burgundy silk tie completed the suit flowing down a white linen shirt like a drying blood trail. A dark black fedora hat rested in a slight slant atop his head revealing small peaks of slicked golden blonde hair. He was sitting on the barstool, one long leg braced on the ground turning burnt brown eyes over to the scantily clad female escorts of gangsters and pimps that were checking him out as they passed.

"Just merchandise son," Colonel Lydecker relayed beside the man. The women who had been eyeing the Colonel before had now switched their attention to the hot stud of a man beside him.

"Nothing but pretty wrappers and phony slogans."

"That's what most of this cities' about," the younger man returned in a voice as every bit as sexy as his appearance suggested. "If you can't find pleasure in that you might as well castrate yourself." He craned his head back to throw back the last remaining bit of his rum, slamming the empty glass back down on the bar when he was finished.

"You wouldn't castrate yourself around that-" Lydecker corrected, nodding at Max who was standing –legs slinked apart – a foot away observing the two men like oil and water had suddenly found a way to converge.

The man turned to the woman Colonel Lydecker was verbally admiring. "You're a sick bastard you know that?" It wasn't that this man didn't find Max alluring; it was just disgusting to lust after a woman who happened to be his sister.

"Is it the hooch or the flesh that attracted you here Zack?" Max asked from her observation point.

The man now identified as 'Zack' turned his head to face her. He took a long seducing glance at his empty rum glass before averting his eyes up to her and answered her earlier question: "Both."

Max screwed up her face and walked the rest of the way to the bar. "I could've gone all night without thoughts of incest runnin' through my head." She pushed past him and snatched his empty glass sniffing the remnants of its contents coating the balls of ice. "Maybe this had somethin' to do with you hitting on your sister."

"Rum is a light hit for me Maxie," Zack informed calling her by the pet name he had given to her when they were just kids. He watched her set his glass down and then said: "You lookin' for some proofs to lick up try setting up a bar tab."

"I only take a few hits. I don't need a receipt to keep track of them all like you."

Zack couldn't help but smile at this – a slow pulling back of his lips that made women agonize over him to finish it so they could see it in its sexy entirety. "Heard that you were layin' out the chops earlier; you were smooth." Zack was a master at changing the subject.

"I thought you weren't an admirer of the art of jazz." Max stated.

"I'm an admirer of anything you put down baby sister." Zack returned.

"When did that start?" Max teased.

"I'm not sure," Zack came back, falling into their old game of verbally dancing around each other.

Max smiled now; it had become easier after Zack had initiated it. Neither one of them were people who smiled often; so when one of them did it was a sight to see. "Now that sounds more like the brother I know."

"Who was that guy you were dancing with?" was Zack's next question.

"None of your business," Max told him matter-of-factly.

"You said you wanted me sounding like the brother you know," Zack insisted.

Max knew that he had snagged her on that remark but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. "It was innocent. And I'm a grown woman, I would do it even if it wasn't." Her response as straight forward – something that Zack was forced to respect.

"My apologizes to the Spitfire Girl," Zack stood up from the stool – reaching his full height of 5'9" – and tilted a square chin down to Max.

"If you don't mind my saying so –" Lydecker's voice cut into the mixture of Max and Zack's "It's very –'refreshing' to witnesses you two resurrect the lost art of sibling protectiveness and raw rivalry. Families nowadays barely make time for such trivial matters."

"Well no one cares what you think," Zack deadpanned.

"You were always a smart ass son." Lydecker wasn't fazed at all by Zack's threat. He had heard that kind of line from him before when Zack was much younger.

/FLASH: "What are you doing?" The young blonde boy – a twelve-year-old Zack – asked. He was sitting on a sterile metal exam table with noting on except for a pair of plain cloth boxer shorts.

A long syringe hovered directly above his right bicep held in Lydecker's poised hand. "This is an inoculation."

Zack snorted. "I've already had my shots old man; you're wasting your time."

"This is a different kind of inoculation son," Lydecker stated in point black fact.

"Oh really-" Zack was as convinced of this as he was of magical elves living inside his testicals. "What am I being inoculated against?"

Lydecker stared at him emotionless before advancing the needle inside his arm responding flatly: "Yourself./

"And you were always hung up on fucking with little kids." Zack's words were a hissing growl. The hostility between him and Colonel Lydecker was larger then any form of measurement could calculate. "Maybe that's why you rushed home so fast from the European Theatre; couldn't wait to try out all the latest Nazi experiments on your guinea pigs." Zack was 26 now but the memories of what had happened to him when he was 12 were as fresh to him as if they had just occurred last night. Countless procedures had been performed on him and then he was left to the after effects inside a cell no bigger then a janitor's closet. And he wouldn't be alone. Through the bars of his prison he could see Max curled up in a tiny ball on a thin naked mattress in another cell, fighting not to throw up because she had already done so then times in three hours and had nothing left to come up.

"Nazi technology isn't new Zack," Lydecker responded tersely. "You think that the Third Reich was the only group that saw the value of experimentation on live subjects? They didn't create it; they stole it from others and added on their own sick little twists."

"That's a strange remark coming from am man who made it a hobby of luring kids off the street in order to perform torturous medical experiments on them," Max snapped like a tigress at Lydecker. She didn't know why he had come there tonight but she wanted his ass gone.

"You – Ms. Guevara – owe your very existence on my medical experiments," Lydecker matched her hostility through one cool, authorative voice. "Because if it wasn't for me you'd be a starving mongrel begging for food on the streets."

"I must've missed somethin' cause I can't recall the moment you slipped that glass slipper on my foot and brought me back to live in your castle." Max returned.

Lydecker could have responded to this any way he wanted to – rage, a well placed male dominating quip – but he instead chose to laugh dryly, a rattling sound like wind blowing through a collection of dead leaves. "I knew there was something that separated you from the others I picked up. That kind of live wire wit can't be taught, not even by me."

"Gee thanks for the pep talk dad," Max stated sarcastically. She didn't take the kind of 'complements' Colonel Lydecker dished out. She recoiled from him and slid into the next stool like he had just tried to put non-reciprocated moves on her.

She tapped one hand on the bar jolting Sketchy out of his daydream about the blonde pinup girl on the Coca-Cola calendar that was hanging on the wall. "Hit me up with somethin' that would get a drunk faded."

"That would be a Vodka Stinger," Sketchy announced laying an empty Collins glass down in front of her and started to pour out the clear liquor from a long necked glass bottle. "75 percent Vodka and 25 percent lime juice." He poured the latter into the drink as he spoke and stirred it with a cobalt blue glass swizzle stick.

"That's only 95 percent," Max corrected.

"You can't compare lime juice and Vodka Max," Sketchy insisted as he removed the swizzle and held out the glass out in front of her.

"Another free thinker hiding behind the booze, who'da thought?" Max slammed back her drink keeping her expression normal despite the fact that she now knew why they called it a Vodka Stinger.

Sketchy watched her lay the glass back down that was now emptied halfway. "This out of character drainage of alcohol on your part suggests that you've got something itching on your very sexy brain. And I'm paid to watch you scratch it."

"The thing is Sketch-" Max swirled what was left of her drink and stole a glance over at Lydecker. "The harder you scratch, the more it itches-" She broke off when a slip of folded paper fell into her lap.

She picked it up and pulled apart its square shaped fold to reveal one phrase handwritten in black ink:

Meet me at the back entrance.

Max looked up into the crowd to see who had 'mailed' the message to her. The hardcore pimps were all enthralled at having their girls take turns sitting on their laps over their throbbing crotches and none of them even noticed her. It was after she had dismissed their involvement in the matter that her eyes came across Logan Cale watching her from the back entrance of Crash.