Last Days of the Condor (6 page)

Seven minutes.

The lamp in the living room cast more shadows than light. Scant illumination came from the white bulb under the metal hood over her stove.

Faye unlocked her door to the world.

Stood far enough away not to get overwhelmed by a charge-in breach.

Stood in the flow of the indigo night beyond her walls of glass.

Stared at the unlocked wooden door. At the chain dangling from its mount.

You spend your life waiting for whoever walks through your door.

The tick-tock world fell away as she stood there. She made herself breathe from her belly. Made herself not look at any clock. Made herself
wait
.

The knock—
one two three,
soft but strong.

She stretched from her neck cords to her at-her-sides empty hands.

“Come in,” she said.

The door swung open. There he stood, backlit by the yellow light in the hall.

He said: “How's my timing?”

“You're here now,” said Faye.

BOLO (Be On Look Out
for)
data: male, Caucasian, early thirties, six foot two, 177 pounds. California-surfer prematurely thinning blond hair, face like a handsome eagle, glasses over blue eyes giving him a scholarly look, but muscled, graceful.

She faked a light tone: “Shut the door behind you. And lock it.”

He even put the chain on.

The government lawyer–like black shoes he wore were a workweek away from their last shine. His dark blue suit complemented his classic blue dress shirt and nicely offset his red cloth tie that dangled like a leash knotted around his neck.

The best move against a man wearing a tie is to charm your way in close, half your arm's length away.
Smile
. Slide the tie into your loose two-handed grip and lift it off the man's chest like you're admiring—

—grip the tie, whirl & duck so it's pulled across your shoulder as you slam your hips back into him and snap forward/down, jerking the tie toward the floor. Odds are, he'll flip over your back like judo's
Morote-seoi-nage
throw, crash at your feet as you go with inertia, drop your knees into his chest. Even if your knees don't explode his heart, his skeletal shock, vertigo, and blasted-away breath let you grip the tie's knot with one hand as your weight presses through that fist to his throat and your other hand pulls the slack end of the tie. His face turns purple, seventeen seconds to unconsciousness if the strangling tie cinches the right blood vessels as you choke off rescuing air.

Other options include
ring the bell,
the quick grab & jerk the tie to slam him bent over/
down,
but it's easy to miss the debilitating knee-to-face contact. The
garrote from behind
technique is more likely to fail and put you in position to get fucked up by his spinning counter than it is to be your clean kill.

Still, grab a man by his tie and you're halfway home.

He filled his eyes with Faye, said: “How was your Monday?”

“Same-old, same-old.”

“I'll pretend that's good.”

He watched her barefoot pad toward him, nine steps away, eight.

“Getting to see you,” he said, six steps away, five, “that's not good, that's the best.”

Faye slid her arms under his suit coat, along his
empty
belt until they met at his spine. Her face pressed against him. Her head reached the knot on his tie, his red cloth tie that smelled like wool and
smell,
she could smell him, his heat, his skin.

Arms wrapped around her—strong, eager.

She said: “Did anybody see you come here?”

“I hope the world.”

When she said nothing, he told her: “I saw nobody who knew they saw me.”

“Did you tell anybody?” she asked.

“I know your deal,” he said.

Your:
Subtle assertion through a possessive adjective.

Faye mimicked a TV game-show host: “
And the answer is…?
”

He moved her just far enough away so they could see each other face-to-face.

Said: “We're our secret.”

Then he kissed her. She felt his surprise—
joy
—as she opened her lips and flicked her tongue to his, led it into her mouth. Lifetimes later as she pulled her face away from his, her hands still holding his sides, their chests heaving, he brushed her cheek with his right hand, said: “So you said tonight has got to be special?”

He watched her nod as she said: “One time.”

“Not just one-time special,” he said. “We've got—”

She pursed her lips.
“Shhh.”

Her hands slid from his spine, under his suit coat, along the sides of his blue shirt.

“I have to know something,” she said.

“What?”

Faye's fingers found his tie, his red cloth tie. Held it. Stroked it.

“If I can trust you.”

“I've—”

Her fingers closed on the tie with a slight tug to snap short his sentence.

She said: “It's not you, it's me. I have to know I can allow myself to trust.”

“What more—”

Her finger covered his lips as if now he were supposed to say
shhh
. She slid her fingers to his shirt collar. Watched his blue eyes dance behind his minimalist-frame glasses that would have been dorky on anyone else but on him …

Just right
.

He blinked as he felt her undo the knot of his tie.

Pull it off his neck with a
snap!

She turned and walked away from him, barefoot, red tie dangling from her hand.

As she walked toward the open-door bedroom where he, where they'd been before, yes and yes and even
yes,
but now …

She felt him pulled into her wake. Felt the burn of his eyes as she unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall, her back naked as she reached the bedroom. She unfastened her slacks, stepped out of them. Knew he was close behind her, his eyes on her bare ass,
like my whole world's globe
he'd said to her once as he ran his hand over its curve while she lay on her stomach hiding her smile, as his lips pressed against her flesh
there
.

The lamp on her night table glowed.

Naked, on her knees, she worked her way to the black iron headboard, heard his shoes hitting the floor, the zip of his pants as she lashed the thick end of the tie to the black iron. Kept her back to him as she knelt on her bed facing the wall where she'd mounted a framed poster-sized sepia art photograph, a wild horse plunging through a blizzard. She knotted the skinny end of his red tie around her wrists with loops she'd learned at E&E (Escape & Evasion Course). Her teeth tightened the last loop.

Trapped, unable to undo the tie alone, she turned, the short bond making her stretch out on her back, lie naked there in front of him.

He'd undressed. Put his glasses somewhere. Stared at her with wonder.

Said: “What—”

“Now be who you are,” she said. “Do whatever you want, not what you think won't piss me off or will make me happy. Forget about me—fuck that,
fuck me
. I'm tied up because I have to know that I can't guide or stop you. I have to know that I've still got the ability to trust. To tie myself up without a chance, without a choice.”

He climbed on the bed beside her, rose on her right side as she lay stretched out naked, her hands lashed up to the bed above her head.

And he kissed her
oh
and she kissed him back—

—nothing in her need said she couldn't take what she could get on the way to what she had to know—

—deep wet kisses, probing gnawing each other's mouths, faces, neck,
he's kissing my neck, down and oh yes, squeeze I'm not big yes yes I am squeeze oh!
he sucked her nipple into his mouth, his tongue rubbing it, lush and full and wet, she was so wet as his kisses marched down between her breasts, past the scar, not dwelling on it, not ignoring it
yes,
kissing down she saw his blond hair as he pushed her thighs wider—

Spun like by a strong wind, Faye felt and watched him pull her to the edge of the bed, stretch her out from her hands lashed above her head, turning her so she was straight, legs dangling over the edge of the bed where he knelt between them and
oh, oh yes, his mouth, his tongue and then his hands on me, liquid fire caressing my breasts heart going to explode his hands won't stop don't—

She heard herself scream, a guttural animal cry as again and again—

Then he was up on the bed.

Pushing her.

Rolling her over.

Lashed wrists and she was on her stomach, facedown on the bed.

Then
oh,
rolling her on her right side: pressed against her, kissing her,
taste us, yes
her left leg up over his before his hand came down, pulled her leg higher guiding himself
in
and he cupped her ass pulled her so tight/deep to him and—

His pressed his left hand over her mouth.

So she couldn't scream.

Tied to the bed, I'm an idiot can't strike, deep in me, he's deep in me, pulling me closer, his hands pressing my hips wet hard to his, can't fight—

He said: “I love you.”

Her world spun. She felt the push of one hand over her mouth, cupped like the perfect take-out of a sentry, pressing her against her spine so she couldn't look away, his other hand pulling her hips into him
oh
so she can't spin free, use her legs
oh
 …

Can't turn away from his blue eyes: “
I love you
. You can't say anything back even if you want to or think you need to. Even if you're afraid, don't know what to say. Because you trusted me to take that away from you. You trusted me to do what I'm afraid you'll reject. But you can't reject a thing because no one can hear you scream.

“Whatever you want to say, you're not ready. Too soon. Too much. Too
not now
.

“So after I take my hand off your mouth, you got nothing to say. I'm gonna say it when I want to, when it bursts out of me because I'm all tied up in loving you. But you can't tell me you love me or you don't. Not now. Someday that's gotta come and now you know you can trust somebody—
me
because I love you, I love you!”

One hand pushed her smothered mouth back against her spine, one hand pulled her thrusting hips against his and he must have felt her come & come again as he cried out
I love you
like a mantra, faster and faster until he cried out beyond words as she screamed against his hand that cupped her mouth and muffled the sounds of her soul.

Done,
frenzy slipping away, muscles relaxing, her leg heavy over him, his left hand now cupping her right cheek, the brush of his thumb against her swollen lips.

She had to coach him on how to free her hands.

That made them laugh and the laugh was everything, let them hold each other, slide down on the bed, let her lie across his chest, put her right cheek on his flesh where if she listened, she could hear every beat of his heart.

He kissed the top of her head, the coconut shampoo smell of her hair.

They held each other loosely. They held each other for forever.

His name is Chris Harvie.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Love isn't lethal.”

Faye said: “Sure it is.”

 

7

Sure it is.

—Faye Dozier

“
Now, it's now!
”
shouted ghosts to Condor as he woke the next morning.

He rolled out of bed.

Eased back the window's white curtains.

Dawn in Washington. Headlights still glowed on vehicles driving past his home. A seagull's shadow flickered across the morning's sunlit wall of town houses across the street. The dog next door barked at a passing jogger. A car horn honked.

Vin imagined he heard a bugle blowing reveille three blocks away at the redbrick-walled, block-sized barracks for the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The Marines host public parades there on summer Friday nights. Bands play rousing patriotic horn & snare drum anthems. Rows of brave & brilliant men and women in snappy white hats, tan shirts, and bright blue trousers march to the beat of political witches banging spoons against a low-bid government black pot boiling on the bonfire of time. What the witches see & sip from that brew helps decide if flag-draped coffins get shipped home to Beaver Crossing, Nebraska, and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and Shelby, Montana.

No white car lurked beyond the cool glass of the second-floor bedroom window.

Not seeing them means the Oppo has great street smarts.

Or they're not there,
thought Condor.
Or something else happened.

Today, it'll happen today.

Condor let the white curtain drop back over his window.

Didn't look in the mirror on the cabinet of stoned sanity as he used the bathroom.

No matter what's coming, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

He didn't look at the mirror as he washed his hands.

Left the bathroom with the gurgle of the flushing toilet.

Like a Marine on patrol, he descended the staircase. Turquoise door, still shut. No ninja crouched in the living room. Nothing seems disturbed on the wall of secrets. No vampire waited in the downstairs bathroom
. Do not look in the mirror!
Seen through the back door bars, the weathered gray wooden fence surrounding his blond pressure-treated wooden back deck contained no ambushers, only the lonely Japanese maple tree.

He flipped the wall switch.
A miracle
: light arrived. He filled the teakettle on the gas stove where he lit a blue flame with a
whump
. Vin ground his coffee. Threw out the leftover old brew, rigged the coffeepot to receive the new. Padded back upstairs in his bare feet to change. As the water boiled.