= = = = CHAPTER 10= = = =
SEATTLE – CLUB CRASH
MAY 5, 1945
"Here," Logan took the silk handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the bloodied split in Max's lip.
Max accepted the gesture, taking control of holding the cloth to her lip. "You still wanna hang with a piece of work like me?"
"I'm not about to abandon you now things are just getting interesting," Logan answered.
"Sexy and honest. You'd better watch it with those kinda traits. We might be here long enough to start somethin'," Max stated with a smile that would melt glass.
"Excuse my interruption on your sex talk," Zack said walking in-between the two storage crates where Max and Logan were sitting at in order to get to the spy hole.
Max sighed at Zack spoiling the best mood she would have barricaded from the military in a secret back room. "Anyone movin'?" she asked. If she couldn't have her private erotic moment she was going to revert back to being a game player.
Zack watched the soldiers questioning people in the crowd while more paraded on the stage waving their guns around. "From the looks of things their about to do a show."
"Should we throw money?"
"It's not the kind of show you would want to throw cheddar at Maxie," Zack replied, quickly closing the spy hole.
"So what the hell do we do now?" Original Cindy questioned holding up the hem of her dress so it wouldn't brush the filthy floor. "I've already played cops and robbers and bein' left out of the loop and I don't wanna play no more."
"It's complicated," Max told her honestly picking up on Cindy's unspoken question.
"No boo a transvestites complicated; this is a straight up bitch. Whatever Colonel Lydecker's dealio is with you know I got your back. But I can't do that if I don't know what I'm backin'"
Max bit back a sigh of longing about not being able to tell Original Cindy about her past. After she had ran from Lydecker' military men she had lived on the streets as a panhandler and pickpocket. One night when she was 15 she followed a man into Crash intending on scoring his wallet, but he stepped out with a five-dollar hooker so fast that she didn't get the chance. On her way out she ran into Original Cindy. Cindy took one look at Max's developing curves and smokey features and convinced the owner to hire her as an act. And it was through this that they became friends, sisters in reality.
Staring at Cindy now after all there years together Max knew she deserved the truth but it wasn't as easy as that. "I use to work at Ft. McClelland in Issaquah, just a secretary. Got hired by some guy who liked what I brought to his office so he looked past my age. Colonel Lydecker was the CO on base." She hated lying to her girl, but locked in a Speak Easy to hide out from Lydecker's men was not the time to unveil her whole life story. If someone found out Original Cindy knew about her past Cindy's life would become an expendable formality.
"So what happened?" Cindy gave into the lie; whether she truly believed it or not Max didn't know but Cindy never let on if she didn't.
"I walked in on him performing experiments on children."
"What kind of experiments?" Cindy asked.
/FLASHBACK: "Please!" Max screamed at the camo dressed MP's holding her down to a steel exam table. "Please don't cut anymore!"
Above her stood Lydecker in green surgical scrubs working a bone saw through the ulna bone in her arm. A scalpel had already cut into her flesh to expose the bone and each movement of the saw caused a shockwave of pain to coarse up and down her body.
Lydecker ignored her cries and continued on while she screamed./
"You don't wanna know," Max could still hear the cracking hiss of the saw teeth cutting though her. Her right arm – the one that Lydecker had broken – began to throb dully in phantom pain. She resisted the urge to rub it because it was an ache she couldn't just massage away. "The hospital on base was full of kids he had gotten off the street for a sick cover project of his. I walked after that but he knew I would go straight to the authorities so he tracked me down to shut me up. I managed to get away from him then but he's been after me ever since."
"Damn," Cindy cursed after hearing Max's well-concocted lie. "But I still don't get it. If this guy so down on silencing you why were you all huggy bugged on him at the bar?"
"It's part of my act," Max reminded. "Lydecker knew where to find me if he wanted me; he's known for a year. But he hasn't done anything cause he wanted to make me think I had a stable life before he grabbed me. But I'm onto his moves anyway. Donald Lydecker is a high ranking army Colonel. He could find me in a dark room without two arms and a flashlight so hidin' from him is pointless and a waste of energy. I just have to keep one step ahead of him."
"Boo ain't we hidin' from him right now?" Cindy didn't understand how Max's thinking would work in her favor.
"No Original Cindy this is tactical maneuvers," Zack corrected lighting up a quick cigarette, the last one inside a gold monogrammed case. He normally didn't smoke but he lifted them off Lydecker at the bar and he wasn't about to give them back – at least not unused. "Lydecker didn't expect Max to hide from him, this way she has the advantage because he can't anticipate her moves as well as he thought he could."
Original Cindy's eyes displayed confusion at Zack knowing her name. "Where'd you pick up my ID?"
"You're a headliner remember?" Zack told her pitching the fizzled out match onto the floor while taking a quick drag from the cigarette. "I just read the writing on the wall."
Despite the hide out situation they were currently in Original Cindy smiled appreciatively. "Original Cindy can appreciate the power of the well placed written word – but about the well placed spoken words you just dropped – 'tactical maneuvers' – care to elaborate on that?"
"Just a procedural thing," Zack informed. "And when I find that bitch Colonel I have a few procedural things with my fist to work out with him."
"Despite your over zealous confidence Zack Lydecker's not just going to let you get close enough for hand-to-hand combat," Logan said realistically. "Not without heavy gunfire as a barrier."
Zack shot Logan a look that could only be accurately described as one he would give a dog that had just crapped all over his shoes. "Maybe you act as a shield for that gunfire barrier Mr-Big-Shot-Cale. Have it be your contribution as a civilian."
"Ladies if you're done bitching," Max snapped to the two men physically stepping in-between them – not because she wanted to keep them from coming to blows, but because she wanted to express some dominance of her own. "We need to establish a plan of action." Her lip had finally stopped bleeding and a trail of blood had dried like a scar on her chin under her lip. Most gang lords in Seattle never considered admitting a woman into their groups, but if they saw the way Max was standing there it would make them reconsider their prejudice.
"What plan of action Maxie?" Zack asked vehemently. "You think Lydecker's gonna just let you walk outta here?"
"I'm not going to just sit here and wait for him to die of old age before I make my move Zack," Max established.
"He'll be on you the second you step outta here and you know it," Zack retorted snubbing out his half finished cigarette. Max may not be his sister biologically but he didn't give a crap about their blood matching. She was his sister, plain and simple and as such it was his obligation to protect her. "This isn't a game Max!"
"Then stop treating me like a beginning player!" When Max was passionate about something she could outdo Zack in being pissed off. "In case you forgot there are more people held up in here then just me and I'm not gonna just leave them here for free for all assaults. I don't swing that way big brother."
"Then how about you just go out there and flounce around in front of Lydecker again. Since you don't mind risky escapes you might as well entertain the Colonel-" Zack was cut off by Max knocking him into the wall.
"Don't you ever disrespect my body like that again understand?" Her question was rhetorical and she didn't give him the opportunity to respond before speaking again. "Now the way I see it is we're all screwed as long as we're in the same place as the cross hairs of guns. So how about we work on gettin' the hell outta here instead of just sitting around arguing like little girls until Lydecker finally finds this place?"
"Sugah I agree with you but that's impossible from where I'm sittin'" Original Cindy notified secretly proud at how Max handled herself with Zack. She was as tough as she was beautiful.
"Despite his prick balls your boy's right; they'd be all over you like masturbation on a lonely drunk before you ever get out the front door."
"I'm walkin' girl. Colonel Lydecker's just gonna hafta get over his problems," Max informed.
"Except you're his problem Max," Logan reminded. "And Lydecker would just as rather get on top of you then get over you."
"Logan now's not the time for a horror story," Max snapped.
"How about a realist story then?" Logan returned. "Because that's what you're going to get if you step out of here and into a crowd of armed soldiers."
"I can handle myself."
"Oh really? I never knew a women who was so at ease with her own impending death."
"I never said I was plannin' on dying Mr. Cale. I'm reserving my croaking for a later date, which is where I'm also reserving space for this conversation. So that narrows your options down to two choices: help me or stay the hell outta my way."
Logan sighed an internal sigh that only he could hear. Even though he had just met Max that night he could tell that she wasn't someone who'd give up the fight for what she wanted.
Max pushed past Logan and stared to unbolt the steel door with quick precision.
"Girl what are you plannin' to do?" Cindy asked because she had heard no mention of a plan of action.
"I haven't a damn clue," Max answered honestly freeing the last metal latch from its fitted slot. I just make it up as I go along."
"Take this," Zack stepped forward and held out his gun.
"You know I don't handle weapons." Max protested.
"You just might have to piss of your irrational shyness of guns Maxie if you want to make it outta here without a military escort."
"And you're just gonna have to piss of Zack 'cause I don't do guns okay?" She gave the door a solid push with her shoulder and the door opened silently to the dimly lit hallway that concealed the Speak Easy hideout.
Max stepped out slowly, cautiously checking out small sections of the hallway for any signs of people hiding in them. The only eyes that stared back at her were those of Miles Davis beaming at her from the black and white photo that hung just to the left of the hidden doorway.
"We're clear," Max announced in the hushed tones of a soldier relaying information to his unit in the foxhole.
Logan was the first one to walk stealthily onto the thin pine board that covered the hallway. "This place isn't going to be clear for much longer – it's only a matter of time before Lydecker finds us out."
"Why do you think I'm movin'?" Max asked in more of a statement then a question as Cindy stepped out in her sky high heals with Zack bringing up the rear with his cocked gun. "Bein' hauled out at gunpoint from a place no bigger then a shoebox is not gonna be the end my already crappy night."
Max started stepping quietly down the hallway looking ridiculously out of dress for such a military style undertaking. The walls were still quiet – too quiet. Crash was an all night orgy of hot jazz, booze and meaningless sex – silence was not something that existed within its walls.
"It's too quiet up in here," Original Cindy commented hitching up her skirt so she wouldn't trip on it. "This place is too full of drunks to be so silent-"
The sound of a cocking gun echoed in the hallway. One of Lydecker's men that had been hiding in the remains of a crawlspace in the wall revealed himself to them, his Beretta cocked. "My thoughts exactly." He was the Lance Corporal who had taken aim on Max before. He glowered at them in the sight of his gun. "Silence can be deafening and you might just miss out on something important if you can't hear."
"Looks like being hauled out of a place no bigger then a shoebox isn't gonna be the end to your shitty night after all," Zack proclaimed beside Max.