Chapter 17 …And how does that make you feel?
Disclaimers: Sands is not mine
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Sara paused a moment as they were served coffee, she told herself she was taking a professional amount of time to study Sands reaction.Bbut it really didn't take that long to assess, what he kept hidden, remained stubbornly hidden. What he let show was not too hard to read; more than a smidgen of anger and frustration in there.. what was really taking all her professional efforts and time was to assess how she was taking this. "So what now?" she asked as she set her coffee cup down
"You pay the bill.. I'd recommend cash.. not some traceable thing, as a general rule." Sands stated, in a detached tone
"I know that much" Sara replied with more than a hint of irritation in her voice, which Sands simply smiled at
"So you do, I keep forgetting your part agent, part mind-doctor" he said with that amused tone in his voice
"You make me sound like some hybrid creature" she complained
"Like a mermaid, part fish.. part woman.. luring men to their doom with your siren call" he teased "Mermaids, whores and death" he mused
"What did you call me!" she retorted
"I never called you a thing, "Sands said with a sigh " I was commenting on mermaids, in ancient times they were code, slang for a whore, and at that time, as now.. sex and death were inexplicably linked" he mused, still distantly "So you see, nothing about you in that sentence, unless you are feeling in need of confiding some deep dark secret second job you have to me? Along with your hourly rates" he quipped
"No, and that's my sole job, the being confided in, not the whoring." she pointed out
"Pity… Ah well To confide in you or not… But that supposes that I trust you enough to confide in you. Anyway I am sure my file somewhere has to say something about 'trust issues" he smirked
"Especially with women now, I guess." she said, though that was hardly a professional observation, more a jab back at him, and she mentally kicked herself for it. She held her breath, wondering just how extreme his reaction would be.
Against all her expectations he chuckled
"And there was me just absentmindedly feeding you a line, you were meant to say 'yes; they don't trust you' and you go and say something so vicious and true" he said back, in a tone she couldn't quite place. "Cos yeah.. with women I guess I don't see it coming, aren't they all the same.. that's a joke about twins, before you go overboard psychoanalysing me" he pointed out, sharply.
Sara took a breath, and tried to decide which parts of this to ask about now, and which to file away for later.. , "So you think the truth is vicious?" she chose to ask. She got the definite impression Sands would be rolling his eyes around now, he contented himself with a short almost unperceivable sigh instead.
"Only sometimes, like when its in the hands of an expert, the truth is like everything else, a weapon" he added "Its almost always more useful than a lie, find someone's truth and its your key in, to manipulate them" he said "Lies never have that power" he said "That the sort of thing you want, insight wise?" he said, as if this was all too boring and predictable
"So what is Jaque's truth, or this Ajedrez's truth?" she asked
"Just when I was losing faith in you, you go and actually ask an interesting question" he said. Despite herself Sara smiled at this praise, before remembering to ask if praise from him was a wise route to go down.
"And what do you think the answer is?" she asked
"You want it all so fast" he teasingly rebuked "What's wrong with a little foreplay?" he asked
"Foreplay?" she asked about his choice of terms
"Well if knowledge is power, and power is an aphrodisiac, then what else is this but a little mental foreplay" he added
"Ok.. I will leave that one for now" she said, trying to hide a smile.
"Well, you're the psycho- analytical one" he said adopting a red neck southern drawl "But I can let slip a lil of the plan, Ma'am, and soon as I work out which one is the evil twin.. its " he gestured a gun with two fingers and then firing it "right between the eyes" he joked
"Not a really scientific approach" Sara sighed
"Hell isn't that 'pot' and 'kettle' " he said "Your game isn't really science at all.. you psychologists are really all perverts" he said smiling provocatively
"You're the one that thinks the truth is foreplay" she retorted
"That's positively innocent compared to your lots little Freud's Oedipus fantasy at the heart of it all.. all sex and death and what the hell.. throw in a mermaid there too, make a party of it" he taunted as he stood.
"So how did you get on with your mother?" she fired back at him
Sands laughed "She was a cold fish.. or did she just have a fishes tail.. you tell me" he chuckled "Come on" he said standing and taking her hand and pulling her up next to him "We have places to go" he said
Sara nodded, "What just happened there?" she asked
"What? You thinking I have intimacy issues?" he smirked, at her being unable to predict his sudden change of subject. But really that was the reason for it, to show her she couldn't read him, that she was not that close.
"You know the jargon.. " she said, in a tone that gave him no credit for it "You been on someone's couch for a long, long time, or did you just pick it up from a book?" she asked, determined to give him no credit, she had already fallen into talking and laughing too easily with him, she could not let this slide any further into something more familiar, than strictly professional, her job was still to assess him.
"You're the one able to read my file" he pointed out as he walked towards the street.
Sara sighed, paid the bill hurriedly and caught up with him outside.
"Ok, what now?" she asked, the man was infuriating.
"Get me a taxi.. we are going on a little trip" he said
"Where to?" she asked as a taxi pulled up and they got inside
"My place" he said.. a slight tease in his voice.
"Ok.. I get it, you can do the innuendo and sexual tension thing, and I also get that the next woman to hit the sack with you.. "
"Needs her head examining?" he cut in, with that damn smirk
"I was going to say, is to be pitied" she finished
"Ouch.. that cuts to the quick, " he said,
"I.. I didn't mean it like that" she stuttered, "Why do you make everything about sex, I meant it about how well balanced you'd be" she said
"Wasn't me that did that; make the whole deal about sex... your little hero Freud did that.. saying all that dirty stuff about mom, and making Pop's all nervous around me" he teased "But you needn't worry, that way.. your quite safe" He said casually
Sara looked at him, from him this almost seemed an insult. She was going to make a sharp, cutting witty comment, the kind that would make him do that little smirk of his, and fire something right back at her, as soon as she could think of one. But the Taxi parked up before she could "Ahhh we are here.. my place, well not my real place, I am not going back there, with Cartels war going on,.. and the Barillo Cartel maybe not having me on their Christmas card list" he said "Pay the man" he said as he got out
Sara sighed and did so.. getting out and found Sands trying to place exactly where he was in the street "Green door?" he said
"Oh" Sara said catching on as the Taxi sped away "Its here" she took his arm and walked towards it
"Great, but I want the alley three houses down from it, ever see the graveyard scene in the good the bad and the Ugly?… and I don't trust Taxi drivers" he said
"I saw the film.. oh.. ok.. " she said, as she realized he had hidden the exact hiding place, and wondering if this counted as paranoid probably not, when people really were plotting against you "ok we are at the alley" she said when they got there
"There is a little room.. more a shack at the end of it" he handed her a key "A bolthole, my unofficial safe house.. safe-shack.. one of a few, if I ever really felt the need to disappear.. and you know keep on breathing" he explained as they got inside the place, Sands insisting she locked the door again once they were inside.
Sara looked around.. it was a small place, a few odd home comforts, a bed, a old beat up armchair and a bottle of tequila with a light coating of dust. She then read the titles of the books he had on a bookshelf, several she never expected to be in his library. She then got fascinated in a strange collection of fake moustaches, that he had for some bizarre reason.
At a noise she turned and saw him lifting a floorboard under the bed, and retrieving an arsenal of pistols and semi-automatics and stacks of ammo. .it suddenly brought home with a fearful chill to her bones that this was real. People were going to die. .they might die.. she suddenly realized her breathing was shallow and rapid with fear
"What are you planning?" she asked
Sands ignored her a moment, as he loaded the guns into a large bag "Got to stir things up a little, when this Cartel war is going on, Ajedrez is going to stay hidden, I plan on settling things and getting her out in the open" he said
"And then you are going to kill her?" Sara asked
"Well I wasn't going to propose" he stated.. as he zipped up the bag "Anyway.. this damn Cartel war throws off the balance here, it needs evening out" he said
"Balance again?" she said, as if this made him the most unbalanced man on the planet "What in Gods name makes you think this makes sense to do, that you .. we can survive, messing with the Cartels?" she said with horror
"Hate to break it to you Sugarbut.. But why do you think the CIA let me come back here? To do this, to restore the balance, its what I do. Plus the little other details, that I know what's going on in the Barillo Cartel better than most; saw too much remember?" he added.
"But you.. I could die" she stated, as if he had to be hard of hearing to have not missed that little gems importance
"Yeah" he grinned "But its not half as much fun, if you know your gonna survive" he said. "Anyway.. its only gonna be me they are aiming at.. run at the right moment.. and you'll be fine, unless your caught in the cross fire" he said with a shrug
"I was only meant to assess you" she protested
"Bull" he stated as they left the Shack "You are here to help me, and you know it, and you knew all along what sort of thing I was going to be doing down here" he stated "And now we have to go meet the guy who wants to run Barillo's Cartel, see it puts a little dent in my plans if he succeeds." He said
"What are you, we going to do?" she asked
"Go pay him a visit, I know where he lives" Sands stated as he tossed her his car keys
"We are going to be outnumbered by really bad men" she said nervously
"I got lots of guns" Sands said leaning into her whispering it conspiratorially
"I don't feel that much better about it" Sara said nervously
"We got trust issues baby?" he said with a smile as they got in his car