Shelter from the Storm
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a/n This takes place the following year, after last week's Easter story, and after Jane's Dilemma. Zoe is 5...I have put pictures and links for the Manoso family's weekend on my blog, come look! The link is in my profile here.
enjoy!
Chapter Thirty-seven ~ Easter Bunny
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Arkady Petrovich, aka Monster, Rangeman employee POV
I am not the nanny! I shouted silently after Stephanie Plum. But she grabbed her oversized purse and my colleague Jorge from Miami Rangeman and ran out of the Bemelmans Cafe at The Carlyle Hotel in NYC. The brass doors swung shut behind her and I slumped in my chair, watching the faces of my two remaining charges. Two beautiful children, primly seated under one of the storybook paintings, stoically eating croissants and drinking hot chocolate. Abandoned again, with me for their babysitter.
I knew it was a famous storybook picture because I had sat here listening to the women discuss it in overly infinite detail while they ate breakfast.
The Manoso family—including Julie, up from Miami for spring break—was in NYC for Easter weekend, a rain check trip to the city since their Christmas visit was marred by a catastrophic event somewhere, elsewhere. My name is Arkady Petrovich though I go by Andre Petrocelli these days. Doesn't matter because everyone calls me Monster. I am employed by these girls' father as a shooter and a bodyguard, not as a babysitter. And despite the holiday, yes, I am working. If I was inclined to celebrate Easter, my Easter—Russian Easter—is not until mid-April. And as a former agent of the KGB, I do not celebrate any holidays at all. That was strictly forbidden and I have never gotten out of the habit. Til now.
For the long weekend, we were staying at the Four Seasons (along with all the sheiks and their very armed guards. I do not know why Ranger is so fond of the place...), and while Ranger had an important meeting with who know who, the women had decided to breakfast at the Carlyle so that they could yammer on about nuns and madeleines. Halfway through the croissants Stephanie got a call about a "skip", grabbed the young man who was Miss Julie's bodyguard, bestowed kisses all around and made a fast getaway, calling over her shoulder as she went, "Take the kids to the park or something, Arkady. Ranger and I will meet you all at the Plaza's Palm Court at noon, for Easter brunch. Have fun!" Finger wave and she was gone.
Zoë Manoso, aged five, said softly, "I wanted to see the Easter Bunny!"
Her mouth wobbled and her huge brown pansy eyes filled with tears. Her big sister Julie threw her napkin on the table and said, "You will, Zoë! I promise!" To me she added, "C'mon. Pay the check and let's get out of here. I want to go to Fifth Avenue to see the parade!"
"Pay?"
"Oh fer pete's sake!" She pulled a black Am Ex card out of her little purse and waved it at the server. Julie Manoso is twelve going on twenty-five. Or forty.
... ... ...
"I expected a parade," she said a few minutes later."Like St. Patrick's Day or Macy's Thanksgiving Parade."
From my years in America as a KGB hitman and agent, I knew NYC well and I knew the so-called parade was just a promenade of NYC weirdos and tourists, dressed up in tacky Easter costumes.
I shrugged. Zoë, who was clutching my hand, watched wide-eyed as a 6' 6'' cross-dressed "lady" went by in a straw sombrero covered with plush bunnies and plastic eggs and a spandex mini skirt that barely covered his/her—um—assets.
Zoë started singing: "In your Eeeeastah Bonn-ET! Wi'thall the drills Up On it! You'll be the finest lady..."
Julie, close to my right shoulder cringed, while Zoë stopped mid-chorus and said, "That lady needs to shave her legs, Monster!"
The well-dressed he/she glared. I flashed my gun and he-?—turned away quickly.
"I should never have taught her that song," moaned Julie.
"On dah AVE N You! We'll make a drawer! Fish Avenue! And I am suuuure...!"
I said, "Come, ladies! A few blocks up, it is Central Park, very pretty, safe in daytime. We will go to children zoo, yes?"
"It looks like rain," said Julie. "It rained earlier when daddy and I went running. The park will be muddy."
"Well..." I waffled, knowing she was right, but what's a man to do?
"No! I want to go, I want the zoo!" yelled Zoë.
"Geez, okay, okay." To me, Julie whispered, "Just do NOT let her see the carriage horses, she'll cry and want daddy to buy them and save them!"
"Good thinking, Miss Julie," I said approvingly. We cut across to the east side of Fifth, then went towards the park entrance across from The Pierre, safely avoiding the horses pitfall and other droppings. The park was pleasant despite the earlier dampness: chartreuse grass, looked fake, spring flowers in bloom, trees with pink leaves, who knew?—and filled with romantic couples and happy families and the ever-present tourists in bad shorts and huge sneakers.
My charges sedately licked the lemon Italian ices I bought them and surveyed the scene with wide brown eyes. We drew attention, much to my dismay. For one thing, in a springtime world of brightly dressed humanity, the two children were dressed in (I assume) expensive children's couture silk dresses that were—black. Black silk, smocked and ruffled with tiny pink rosebuds on the bodice in Zoë's case; short, tight and tailored with a tiny bolero for Julie—but stark Rangeman black. Julie had chosen the outfits this morning and she likes black.
And for another thing, the girls, with their long shiny black hair, porcelain cafe au lait skin and delicate features, were exquisitely beautiful—and graceful, vivacious, charmingly well-mannered. They had the aura of ancient Spanish princesses, like the Infantas in the paintings by Velasquez.(I know about paintings from my KGB days, just in case we ran across any old Nazi loot to save for Mother Russia. They gave us a class at the Kremlin, go figure.) And there they were with ugly old armed and dangerous me. People tend to stare.
The park pathway heading north meandered around a bit, became more isolated, dare I say bucolic? Amazingly so, because if I glanced to my right the tall apartment buildings and hotels on Fifth Avenue loomed above the cherry trees. To our left, in the distance, was a grassy swale and a pond with swans and toy sailboats. To our north, just off the path was an outcropping of the black granite stone that was the bedrock of Manhattan Island. It shone shiny, wet, and mud-splashed from the heavy spring rain that had fallen earlier, droplets now glistening in the weak spring sun.
The sudden solitude spooked me.
I unsnapped my shoulder holster, loosened my gun. Julie eyed me curiously but Zoë's attention was elsewhere. She clutched my hand and stopped dead. "Lookit! lookit!" I drew my gun. "The Easter Bunny I saw him! I saw him, he ran onto the rocks over there! Loook! Bunneeee! Oh, Bunneee! Wait, it's me, Zoe!"
She dropped my hand and ran towards the rocks, but I caught the back of her dress by its bow and said, "You cannot run off like that."
"Yes I can I saw him!"
"You are all dressed up, little missy. You don't want to mess up your pretty clothes, do you?"
Beside me Julie said, "Little Missy? This is real life, Monster, not a rerun of Gone with the Wind."
"Gone with the Wind?"
"It's movie that Steph likes, did you never notice? I think she relates to that silly woman..."
I was no longer listening, because Zoë had surged forward, the bow untied in my hand and slithered through my fingers. Zoë scrambled over the wet, muddy rocks and disappeared.
"Good one, dude." Oh my heavens the girl looked just like her father, the cold eyes and stern face and I remembered that this little girl, well not sooo little anymore though I'd never ever mention that to her father—I recalled she had killed a man, shot him point blank with the boss's Glock.
Now she gave me the evil eye and stormed off up the rocks after her little sister. When I clambered over I could not see the girls but I could hear them calling, "Bunnnneee!" and "Yo! Z.!" I fell down the far side of the crevasse (seemed like, why the eff was this here anyway?)—and got up, looked for my gun.
"Here. You dropped it. Geez." Julie popped up next to me and handed me my weapon, her face like the boss's when Stephanie does something dumb. Then we both heard, "Oooh. Look."
We climbed over more rocks and found Zoë, standing hands on hips staring at the "bunny" that was sitting on yet another boulder, dead rat at its side, cleaning its...self. The animal put its foot down and looked at us. I drew my weapon again."Holy shi—heck! It is a mountain lion! A, a, a cougar, a bobcat!" I sputtered. "A puma, do you have pumas here in the US?" I was babbling.
"Only if they're shoes," said Julie sarcastically.
"Here, kitty kitty kitty!" Zoë was talking to the thing.
"No! Do not touch it!" I yelled. Zoë glanced at me and frowned. She looked just like her father too—only prettier, same as her big sister. I said, "You are all dressed up! That thing is wet and dirty! It is dangerous."
"Not dangerous!" The foot in the shiny black patent leather mary jane, brand new from Botticellini yesterday, set the boss back two hundred bucks, stomped in the mud. Splat.
"Don't you want to be Little Miss Perfect, all nice and clean when your daddy meets you at the Palm place? You know he wants you to look nice, Miss Zoë! Please don't touch the lion!"
The huge cat sniffed Zoë's fingers and growled.
"Oh it is purring," said Julie, walking towards it too. "It must be lost. And hungry. Probably it doesn't like rats. Who would? Nice kitty..."
Zoë said, "Little Miss Perfect sucks dick, Monster!"
I gasped.
"That's what Uncle Lester says when Daddy says his uniform is not so neat and clean, when he helps Mommy and rolls in garbage and stuff."
Julie said absently, "Probably you don't wanna quote Lester, Z."
"Why not?
"Because."
"Oh."
Zoë reached out her little-girl skinny toothpick arms and gathered the creature to her silk-clad chest. It growled some more. Julie said, "I think it is a Maine coon cat. I read about them, they are big and stripe-y like this." Both girls turned to me, the enormous cat clutched in Zoë's arms and said in unison, "Can we take it home?"
"No!"
"Yes."
"Daddy will say yes," added Zoë.
Julie gave me her best Ranger stare. She did his tiny nod."He will say yes, you know he will."
"The animal is bigger than your doggy, Miss Zoë. Killer will be scared."
"Huh. I don't think so. Killy wants a sister."
Julie and I inadvertently glanced down and we both said, "Brother."
Zoë: "Whatever."
... ... ...
We lugged the animal back to the Four Seasons and smuggled it into the family's suite. En route we fed it dirty-water hot dogs from a street vendor. We settled it on Ranger's bed on a bath towel. Put water in a clean ashtray. And we went to the Palm Court at the Plaza to see the real Easter Bunny.
the end
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happy spring!
love
sunny