Bishop sits in a strip club, alone in a crowd and wondering what comes next. It's three fifteen a.m. on a rainy night in Bay City; he catches his reflection in the mirror over the bar and wonders how events conspired to find him warming a barstool in a place like this. A friend once said that his smile made it seem like he saw the whole world as a joke to which only he knew the punch line.

And it’s true. Until yesterday, Bishop’s life was everything he could hope for, and the smile was his way of acknowledging how things had always seemed to fall his way. But not tonight. The grin is gone, the joke has fallen flat, and our hero is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because they always do.

by Randalynn

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Bishop sits in a strip club, alone in a crowd and wondering what comes next. It's three fifteen a.m. on a rainy night in Bay City; he catches his reflection in the mirror over the bar and wonders how events conspired to find him warming a barstool in a place like this.

Twenty nine years old, looking good enough to catch a woman when he wants one, but not handsome enough for one to want to catch him permanently. Tall with muscles like a swimmer, wearing black slacks, a black shirt, and a blacker attitude. Dark hair, bright blue eyes, and a troubled frown replacing the hint of a smile that usually touched his face. A friend once said that smile made it seem like he saw the whole world as a joke to which only he knew the punch line.

And it’s true. Until yesterday, Bishop’s life was everything he could hope for, and the smile was his way of acknowledging how things had always seemed to fall his way.

But not tonight. The grin is gone, the joke has fallen flat, and our hero is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because they always do.

Bishop sips his overpriced drink and uses the mirror over the bar to watch the other patrons. He knows he doesn't belong here, surrounded by the husks of men so empty only the power of their lust seems to keep them . . . erect. His smile returns, banishing the frown just for an instant. But circumstances send the smile away, and he takes another sip of his drink.

Because someone summoned him here with a threat he could not ignore, and he hates being told what to do by anyone.

He doesn't want to be here, our intrepid hero, oh, no. Bishop knows places like this drain souls dry, turning something basic and primal and natural into nothing more than dollars and cents; leaving nothing behind but stale cigarette smoke and the vague feeling of something lost.

Bishop turns his attention to the woman on stage, still using the mirror above the bar. She is physically magnificent — surprisingly pretty, with deep green eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and full sensuous lips. Her skin is unblemished and golden — everywhere, it seems, as his eyes wander down her totally naked form. A natural blonde, with a toned, fit body, her breasts sit high and proud on her rib cage, obviously unenhanced but with not a hint of sag. Her waist is tight with a hint of muscle tone that speaks of exercise and care, and her hips are round and full but exactly right for her body. Her legs are long and shapely, and they carry her well on stage. For all of that, her dancing is a trifle mechanical. She is sure-footed and graceful, but the spark is gone.

’That’s it,’ he thinks, looking up at her face. ‘That’s what’s missing. She’s totally naked, completely exposed, but empty. She’s just going through the motions.’

And its true. Her pretty green eyes hold nothing, as if she turns herself off at the beginning of each performance, and stays disconnected until she leaves the stage. If that really is the case, Bishop isn’t surprised. In fact, he wonders if she’s a kindred spirit.

Because if he had to perform on command, he’d turn himself off, too.

'Maybe it's love that's gone missing,' he tells his reflection. 'Maybe the woman on stage gave up on believing she should save her body to share with someone who loved her. She sold it for a paycheck and a place in the spotlight, never realizing she'd miss what she lost until it was long gone, with no way to get it back.'

His eyes scanned the crowd, and the frown became a grimace. 'Maybe the men in the audience made a similar choice. They grew tired of chasing the "One True Love" and abandoned the concept of wife, help mate, lover after too many lonely nights. They chose to feed their lust in places like this, and sold their sense of woman as people in exchange for a few moments of fantasy. They found out way too late that lust without love is just a shadow, and shadows are a thin meal to feed a hunger like desire.'

'No wonder they're all empty,' he whispers in his head. 'Chasing shadows every night, and going home alone when the light chases the shadows away. '

“Are you there, Your Eminence?” A voice with a slight Belfast accent bellows inside his head. The receiver is surgically embedded in his mastoid bone, and there is no volume control, so Bishop winces slightly before responding.

“Yes, Finn,” he replies, speaking into his glass to hide his lip movements. “Lower the gain before you make me deaf.”

“Sorry, Your Grace.” There is a trace of sarcasm in the tone, but Finn complies. “Is that better?”

“Much. Still no contact yet, but you’d know that if you were listening.”

There’s a microphone embedded in the roof of his mouth, and a second in his throat, but enunciating without moving his lips has never been one of his strong points, and Bishop doesn’t use the throat mike much. He needs to carry a transmitter on him so the signal can reach his support team in the van, but it doesn’t have to look like much — a pen, a belt buckle, whatever is appropriate. The transmitter has a microphone too, for ambient noise, but it’s usually off unless needed.

“Well, who can hear anything worthwhile over that white noise?” Finn grumbles. Bishop stifles a grin, since he’s heard it all before.

“Anything new on the club?”

“It’s mobbed up, to be sure, but what else is new in Bay City? So many holding companies holding other companies, it’s like a corporate orgy. And the trail only goes so far, but far enough to know you’re sitting in the middle of enemy territory.” His voice holds a note of disgust. “And I can hear that damned high-tech caterwauling every time you open your mouth, thank you very much.”

The thief can’t help but smile. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

The music stops, and the naked blonde freezes in place, half wrapped around the pole to one side of the stage.

“Thank Christ,” Finn mutters through the link.

There is applause from the audience, but she doesn’t acknowledge it at all. In fact, she doesn’t even pick up the few scraps of clothing she wore onto the stage. Instead, she exits forward, down the steps leading to the floor in front of the stage, still totally bare except for the sheen of sweat from the exertion and the hot lights. She sweeps past the throng of empty men, right through the center of them all. They are way too stunned to react, let alone reach out to touch the goddess who was unreachable only seconds before.

“Something’s happening,” Bishop whispers into his drink. “Switch on the ambient mike.”

She stalks through the center of the club and stops directly behind Bishop’s barstool. He looks up at her reflection in the mirror.

“You are wanted,” she says, her voice at once both sensual and businesslike.

“Nice to know,” he replies. “By you?”

She shakes her head gently. “No, Mister Bishop. By the man waiting in my dressing room.”

“Pity.” Bishop rises and throws a few bills on the table, then spins on the barstool until he is facing her. “I’d much rather be wanted by you. But truth be told, I’d rather get this over now with than spend another minute watching you play at being seductive when all you truly are is bored.”

Her eyes widen in surprise. “Not many men notice.”

“Not many men care,” he replies. “Most here only want to see your body, and think about what they would do with it if they had the chance. I’m more interested in the woman inside.”

“Then you are a most unusual man.”

Bishop shrugs. “Flesh is flesh, even when it is as beautiful as yours. It has its pleasures, but I’ve always felt people are far more interesting than skin ... don’t you think?”

“Depends on the skin,” she says, tilting her head. “And the people.”

He looks back, unafraid. “If I survive this meeting, we should talk more.”

She eyes him critically for a few seconds, and Bishop waits for her to finish.

“If you survive this meeting, we should do more than talk.” A smile grows on her lips, but before Bishop can do more than notice, she spins and walks back the way she came, those perfect hips rolling as she stalks through the crowd like a jungle cat. He follows her, his eyes more on the clientele than on her bottom. He really does want this over, and interruptions from the empty patrons are not welcome. Not now.

As they step through the curtains into the back of the club, a new act slips by them both. It’s a small brunette with large breasts in a bikini too sizes too small to hold them, hurrying to fill the stage before the audience recovers from the blonde’s unexpected stunt. As the awful dance music begins again, Bishop hears Finn cursing over the link and smothers a grin.

They continue through the mirrored length of the common area, where the rest of the strippers make up or wait for their turn to bare all in the service of whoever owns this place. It is strangely empty, although Bishop suspects that the reason he’s here may have something to do with the lack of traffic. There are a few doors in the rear wall, next to a long corridor where Bishop is sure bathrooms and a rear exit are close at hand.

“Just so you know, the back door is unlocked and he’s waiting for you there.” Finn again. “Just in case you need him. I’m sending the ambient feed his way, so he might come in whether you want him or not.” The hacker pauses for an instant, then sighs. “Not my idea, Your Holiness. He insisted.”

Bishop uses the simple tone transmitter at the back of his jaw to send a single beep acknowledging Finn’s message. Sometimes, words aren’t necessary.

She reaches a dark green door. A handwritten placard on the outside reads “Moira” in a feminine scrawl, and Bishop is surprised when she actually knocks.

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s your dressing room, isn’t it?”

She shrugs. “What’s mine is his, when he wants it to be. Right now, the room is his. So I knock.”

Bishop touches her arm, and she turns.

“Are you his?” His voice is soft.

“Come.” A single word, spoken clearly from inside, but with an unfamiliar accent.

“For now,” she replies, looking into his eyes. “But not by choice.”

Then she smiles, and it warms his heart, just a little. “And nothing lasts forever.”

He smiles back. “So I’ve noticed.”

Moira turns the knob and the door swings open to reveal a surprisingly spacious dressing room. Still naked, she motions for Bishop to enter before her, which he does, albeit slowly.

In a director’s chair at the make-up mirror, turned to face the door, a large man sits. He wears a dark Armani suit that almost but not quite hides his size. His dark hair is carefully arranged above a nondescript face that could belong to any one of a thousand men sitting in front of cafés in a hundred Middle Eastern capitals.

“Mister Bishop!” He smiles and rises to his feet. ‘So nice of you to come.”

“Your invitation was so compelling, it was too hard to resist.” Bishop steps to one side to allow Moira to enter. She moves quickly across the room to stand beside the mirror against the wall, and pulls a silk robe from the hook there. She starts to put it on.

“Leave it off.” The dark man says, his attention not wavering an instant from Bishop’s face. Moira looks at the back of his head and continues putting the robe on before standing with her back to the wall. She looks at Bishop, her emotionless mask back in place.

“Magnificent, isn’t she?” The dark man peers into Bishop’s eyes as if searching for his soul. “Perfection personified. More ...willful than I like a woman to be, but still a living monument to feminine beauty. Don’t you agree?”

Bishop inclines his head. “She is beautiful, that’s true. But a woman is always more than she appears, and for me, that’s always been part of the fun ... finding the beauty within.”

The dark man frowns, then gives him a curious look. “A philosopher, I see. Well, perhaps you have a feminine side of your own, Mister Bishop. Or should I say ... Magdalene?”

Bishop shrugs. “Misdirection is part of a thief’s stock and trade, Mister ...?”

“Call me Khaleel.”

“Mister Khaleel.” Bishop shakes his head. “No hidden desires here. Magdalene is just a name, after all. I enjoyed the religious connotations, and the fact that according to scripture, she had her demons, as we all do. And I must admit to enjoying the confusion it might cause to those who might try to find the woman instead of the man. But in the end, it is just a name.”

“It is a name you have hidden behind for many years, Mark Allen Bishop.” Khaleel wags his finger at his guest. “Magdalene, the great master thief, who only takes the jobs he wishes to take and is as picky with his clients as he is with his targets. Your refusal to work for so many members of the criminal community has left many bitter and angry men, who have lost many opportunities when you refused to steal for them.”

“My skills, my choice,” the thief replies.

“Perhaps. Still, they would very much like to find you and teach you respect.” Khaleel grins. “Or kill you. Perhaps both, given enough time. But I think you know all this, which is why you come here now, to meet with me.”

Bishop looks around the room, then back at his blackmailer. He sighs.

“You know, this is a terrible place for this particular meeting.” The thief’s voice is almost conversational. “I mean, metaphorically speaking, a strip club is a disaster. After all, I can hardly ‘bare all’ for you, now that you know my secrets.”

“Hardly all of them, sir.” The other man smiles. “I’m sure you still have many. But I’ll have those soon enough as well. Or rest assured, others will have you.”

“A brothel might have made more sense.” Bishop ignored the interruption. “Given what you do know, I’m sure you plan to turn me into your whore and sell my talents for your own profit.”

Khaleel raises both hands, palms forward, and shakes his head. “Nothing so crude as that. I was thinking more of a partnership.”

“The thing about a partnership is that partners are usually equal, and threats are seldom part of the mix.” Bishop shakes his head. “No, given how you have chosen to approach me, I’m thinking I’m not going to be given too much of a choice. Like Moira there, I’m sure I’m to be expected to do what I’m told.”

Khaleel smiles widely, his teeth bright white in the darkened room.

“Someone must always lead, Mister Bishop,” he purrs, putting his hands in his pockets. “You failed to hide who you were well enough, and I have discovered your true name. In many legends, that alone gives me the power to command you. But here and now, it is my ability to turn you over to those who would skin you alive that gives me the upper hand. I am the winner of our little game, so I have earned the right to lead.”

“I’m afraid I disagree,” the thief replies. “The game is not over yet, and I have no intention of giving up my freedom, to you or anyone else.”

The other man purses his lips and sighs. “You will die, then, at the hands of one of those who would make you suffer. In fact, I will see to it personally, if you refuse to cooperate. Isn’t that what blackmailers usually do?”

“I wouldn't know,” Bishop replies with a smile. “In any case, they, and you, will have to catch me first. And I am very good at what I do. As you well know.”

“But in the end, they will still catch you. There are too many of them, and as good as you are, you will die.” The dark man looks at him, and sighs heavily. “I am sorry, Mister Bishop, but I cannot let you run. Your skills are too valuable. I need you.”

He pulls his hand from his pockets, and in the palm of his right is a pale green gem that glows with its own internal light.

“I had not wished to do this,” he says softly, fingering the jewel. “I had hoped you would see reason. But I cannot afford to lose you to your own pride. I must catch you in such a way that you cannot run without losing yourself.”

“What is that?” Bishop says, both to Finn and Khaleel.

“My insurance,” Khaleel replies. “One way or another, I will have you.”

He spins with a grace that belies his bulk, and presses the glowing gem against Moira’s forehead. Her eyes widen as the jewel glows brightly, covering all of her in an unearthly shine. She gasps once, and then her entire body seems to dissolve and collapse into a pile of dust at the dark man’s feet. There is the sound of a distant chime, and Khaleel snatches the gem from the air before it can fall.

Shocked, Bishop takes a step back, his eyes dropping to the floor where Moira had been standing.

“What did you do to her?”

Khaleel smiles. “That is not what you should be asking, thief. What you should be asking is, what will I do to you?”

Bishop takes another step backward, but finds himself pressed against the door. Khaleel lunges forward and plants the gem firmly on the thief’s forehead.

For a timeless instant, Bishop feels his whole body shimmer and shift, then realign in a radically different configuration. Khaleel snatches the jewel away and steps back, and the thief looks down to find the most perfect breasts he’s ever seen filling out the black shirt that had covered his own chest moments ago.

He looks up, into the mirror behind the dark man, and sees Moira looking back at him, wearing his oversized clothing and a shocked and confused look on her oh-so-perfect face.

“What have you done?” She whispers, her hand wandering up to touch her face. Her eyes narrow, and her sweet voice becomes a snarl. “What did you do?”

“I have taken your body, your life, and your sex hostage,” Khaleel crows, tossing the jewel up in the air over and over again. “If you ever want to be a man again, you will do as I say, steal what I tell you to steal, and be a dutiful, respectful, and obediant woman until I decide whether or not to give you your manhood back.”

Bishop lunges forward, but she trips over her own shoes and stumbles past the dark man to brace herself on the dressing table. Laughing, Khaleel slaps her bottom hard as she passes, then turns to stand by the door, holding the jewel above his head.

“Careful, thief!” He grins. “All that you were is inside this jewel now.”

“If that were true,” Bishop growls, Moira’s musical voice now bitter and hard, “you could just find yourself another man and make him ‘all that I was.’ You need my skills, and they still reside here.”

She puts her hand on her chest and feels the softness there shift, just a little, at her touch. It makes her pause, and Khaleel sees her hesitation and smiles.

“Ah, but you see, your physical form is locked in here.” He holds out the gem, his voice taking on a teasing tone. “If I should lose it, or drop it, or crush it under my heel, your hopes for ever becoming the man you were again will disappear.”

“And her?” Bishop asks, her voice suddenly soft and unsure. “What did you do with Moira?”

“She is gone.” Khaleel grins. “The Janus jewel was empty before I used it on her. When I stole her shape, I started the chain, freed her from her body, and thrust you into it. Now your form is stored here, until I return it. Or destroy it. And what I choose to do is totally up to you.”

Bishop feels cold inside, thinking of the rare glimpses of the true Moira she had been given, and how easily the dark man threw her away. The cold gives way to an anger that will not be so easily dismissed, but the thief holds it at bay.

This is too dangerous a game to let emotions have their sway. Yet.

“Your Holiness?” The Finn’s voice echoes in her head. Still connected, after all.

“Yeah, Finn, I’m here.” She lets a bit of tiredness creep into her voice. “So to speak.”

“Shit! It’s for real?”

Khaleel cocks his head at Bishop. “Who are you talking to?”

“One of those secrets of mine you said you’d find out about,” the thief replies, baring her teeth in a savage grin. “The other one should be along right about ... now.”

The door slams open, catching Khaleel from behind and catapulting him forward. Bishop lunges for the jewel, but the dark man lurches backward —

-- directly into the arms of a scowling giant. With a squawk, the dark man finds himself picked up by the back of his neck and hoisted into the air.

After a few seconds, the huge man filling the doorway gives the thief a once-over, then gives the extortionist a shake.

“So it’s true. I heard it, but dared not believe it.” The disgust drips from his voice with a casual distain that only a Frenchman can deliver, and he shakes his head. “I am sorry, my friend. God is truly a cruel joker, to bring such magic into the world and then let it fall into the hands of scum like this.”

“Khaleel, meet Bateau. Bateau, meet Khaleel.” Bishop grins, but there is no joy in it. “That’s the man who made a new woman of me.”

“Let me go!” Khaleel shouts, waving his legs in the air.

“Not likely,” Bateau responds, and shakes him again. “Unless you would care to restore my friend?”

“If you do not put me down, you will regret it,” the dark man says, his voice shaking with anger.

“If I put you down, I will regret it more,” The giant hisses into the extortionist’s ear with a grin. “No, no, my juicy worm. I like you just where you are. Dangling on my hook, alone and powerless.”

“I am not quite as powerless as your man-mountain might think, thief.” Khaleel looks at his watch, then back down at Bishop. “I was prepared for your ... resourcefulness, and I made certain arrangements. If I don’t call my associates in two minutes, they will release your secret on the Internet, and all the hounds of hell will start chasing you. You will never be able to return to the man you were.”

He looks down at the transformed man. “So you should tell your oaf to let me go, now. Or there will be nothing awaiting you but pain and death, should I ever choose to restore what you once were.”

Bishop walks up to the pair and eyes Khaleel thoughtfully. Seconds pass, and finally the thief speaks.

“That is, of course, assuming you ever planned to restore me in the first place,” she says slowly.

The dark man squirms and looks away, and she nods. “That’s what I thought. You were planning to keep me like this all along, weren’t you?”

Bateau looks at Bishop. “He wanted you like that? From the start?”

She nods, her eyes never leaving Khaleel’s face.

“But why?”

“Because this way, he gets the best of both worlds.” She turned her attention back to Khaleel. “At first, you acted reluctant to use the jewel’s power, but that’s all it was — an act. That’s really why you chose this club, isn’t it? That’s why Moira was here at all, just so you could steal her form and trap me in it. Once you had me where you wanted me, I would become the perfect ... companion ... for you. You would have the world’s most talented thief when you wanted something taken ... and the perfect woman whenever you wanted to take me.”

The thief sighs. “In your mind, there would be no possibility of my escape or release. And how could I ever refuse you anything? After all, you would have two holds over me — your threat to expose my real identity, and my real form held hostage.”

“I might have changed you back.” The dark man seems almost defensive. Bishop gives him the same skeptical look.

“Don’t be stupid. Once you had me, you would never have let me go. And why should you? Having the great Magdalene steal for you and be your bitch, trapped the body of a goddess?” He shakes his head. “I have seen your type before. I know you would enjoy having me in your power too much to ever set me free.”

A small redheaded man peeks in the open door behind Bateau, and his jaw drops. It is, of course, Finn, and he is shocked by what he sees.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God” he says in a thickening brogue.

Bishop shakes his head. “Nope. Just me.”

The hacker slips around the giant and gawks at Bishop’s new form. “Your Grace ... is that really you?”

The woman nods. “In the flesh, Finn. Even if it did used to belong to somebody else.”

Khaleel looks at his watch and grins.

“Your time is up, thief, in more ways than one. You have lost who you were, and Mark Allen Bishop is now a wanted man.”

The thief shrugs. “I expected no less. Your phone call was just an empty bluff anyway. After all, you wanted me to stay like this. What better incentive than to make it impossible for me to ever be me again?”

Bateau growls and raises Khaleel higher, banging his head into the ceiling. The dark man winces, and looks down at the thief.

“As I said, your time is up.” The dark man shrugs. “Of course, my time is up, too, but I knew the risks when I started the game. I understand that every race has its ending ... although it seems yours is about to begin.”

He laughs out loud, and suddenly tosses the gem at Bishop, who snatches it out of the air with a delicate hand. She looks at it curiously, then back up at him.

“You see? I can be unpredictable, too.” Khaleel laughs again, although this time it takes on a ragged edge. “Now you are the victor, thief. The game is yours. So take the gem! Take back your body, and run for your life, what little there is left of it.”

His face contorts with a snarl. “Now that I am in your power, I can’t imagine you will set me free either, oh no. I know your trained ape will snap my neck at your command, and I will die. But as my soul leaves my body, I will have the satisfaction of knowing you will die too, and soon. You will be brought down by the very hounds I set upon you tonight, even if I won’t be there to watch.”

“So go ahead! Restore yourself, thief, and let the hunt begin! I welcome it! Kill me first, and I will save you a seat in Hell.”

Bishop looks at the dark man dangling in the air above her and sighs.

“If you knew anything about me ... about us ... you’d know we don’t kill people. That’s one of the reasons I was so picky about who I stole for. And why everyone you gave my name to seems to be the sort who like to make people die.”

She holds up the jewel and peers at him through it. It pulses green, just once — almost as if it approved of what the thief is thinking. Bishop wonders if she approves of what she’s thinking, too.

‘Still,” she mutters, “a good thief recognizes an opportunity when he — she sees one.”

Bishop looks over at the giant. “Put him down, Bateau. Gently.”

As the Frenchman began to lower Khaleel, the thief adds, “Then knock him out, if you please.”

Bateau grins. “Oh, I please.”

The instant the dark man’s feet hit the floor, the rest of him follows.

Khaleel opens his eyes slowly, but remains quite still, unable to believe his good fortune. He stares up at the ceiling, surprised to find he is still alive. It is hard to fathom why the thief would have spared him, but his continuing to breathe pleases him in some absurd way, since his immense ego makes it difficult for him to imagine the world without him in it.

There is a sense of time having passed, but Khaleel is unworried. Bishop probably wanted a head start before the hounds could catch his scent, not realizing how futile it was for him to even think about escaping. Unfortunately for the thief, Bishop’s Bay City location was part of the information put out on the Net along with his real name, long before that desperate ruse he tried when the oaf dangled him in the air. The dark man knew that every exit from the city was already being watched, one way or another. He almost feels sorry for Bishop.

Almost.

Turning his head, the dark man sees what’s left of the Janus crystal crushed into green dust only inches from his face.

‘It was a useful tool, and part of a masterful plan,’ he thinks, ‘but ultimately futile when faced with a man of Bishop’s determination. No wonder he chose to regain his manhood and try to outsmart those who would kill him. After all, what else would a real man do?’

Although he is not quite sure why, Khaleel is content that somehow, the fates had conspired to save him, presumably for better things. This contentment lasts for all of the ten seconds it takes for him to rise to a seated position on the hardwood floor and look at the floor-length mirror on the back of the door.

Bishop’s face stares back.

The dark man’s blood runs cold. As he rises quickly to his feet, he realizes that he is wearing the other man’s clothes along with his body. For the first time in years, he has energy to spare, along with all of Bishop’s physical conditioning, and his youthful vigor.

And Khaleel will keep them and use them well ... until the very first of the hounds finds him, bares its teeth, and lunges for his throat.

His throat ... it feels strange. Constricted somehow. He reaches up and massages it gently, then tries to speak. Nothing. Moving over to the mirror on the door, he looks closer, and sees two small needle marks on either side of his larynx. Numbed, possibly permanently.

Now he can’t even try to talk his way out of this. As if the hounds would listen.

The dark man begins to feel the first stirrings of panic, and his hands start to shake. He turns away from the door, looking for a way out, or a weapon ... anything to stop the nightmare before it begins.

And sees the message written in lipstick on the make-up mirror.

“THIS IS FOR MOIRA, YOU SON OF A BITCH.
YOU WANTED A HUNT? ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS.”

No one else in his organization knew of the Janus gem, or his plans for Moira and Bishop. As far as they know, Khaleel is Bishop. And without the jewel or another like it for evidence, he has no way to prove he’s not.

The dark man with Bishop’s face barely has time to realize he’s screwed before he hears the sound of his own men running through the strip club . . . and wonders how far he will get before the first bullet takes him down.

He won’t have to wonder for long.

###

The beautiful blonde leans over towards the driver’s side of the van, her low-cut black mini-dress artfully exposing the soft round upper curves of her well-shaped breasts while the cool night air makes her erect nipples show clearly through the fabric. She places a delicate hand on the driver’s arm to steady herself, and flashes a brilliant, perfect smile at the state trooper at the roadblock.

“Is there a problem, officer?” she asks sweetly.

“Not at all, miss,” he replies with a smile of his own. “We’re just looking for an escaped fugitive and wondering if you might have seen him.”

The trooper holds up a picture of Mark Allen Bishop, a candid photo taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. Both the driver, a dark-haired giant of a man, and his stunning companion study it intently.

“I’m afraid I’ve never seen him,” the woman says wistfully, her voice almost a sigh. “I am sorry, too. He’s quite ... handsome, wouldn’t you say, Henri?”

The driver shakes his head. “Listen to you, petit. Asking me to judge if another man is handsome. I should be all the man you need.”

She blushes and turns away, and the man turns back to the trooper with a grin that seems to imply he will be proving to her later just how little she needs another man, no matter how handsome he might be.

Turning back to the two of them, the woman hesitates, then speaks.

“What has he done, this man?” Her voice trembles, just a bit. “Is he ... dangerous?”

“Oh, no, miss.” The trooper smiles again. “He’s just a thief, that’s all. We’ll catch him, don’t you worry. You hang onto that picture, and if you see him, call the number on the back and we’ll be right there to help.”

She returns his smile and winks. “I feel safer already, knowing you’re just a phone call away.”

“Thank you, miss.” She could almost see his chest expand from her flattery. “Please move along now, and thank you for your cooperation.”

The driver grins at the trooper, shifts into gear, and pulls away from the checkpoint.

“And if he’s a state policeman, then I am Johnny Cash,” Bateau mutters, his eye on the rearview mirror. “Every crime syndicate on the planet must have this city surrounded. And to make these flyers in the time they’ve had? Khaleel obviously let the information slip long before you met. You made a good call, mon ami. As yourself, you would never have left the city alive.”

Bishop holds herself up for a few seconds more before collapsing in her seat, knees slightly apart. She pulls at the front of her dress, tugging down the hem and then pulling up the top. trying to cover herself more and failing miserably.

“Please ... could you find us a hotel sometime soon? If I have to spend another minute dressed like this ...” Words fail her, and she falls silent.

“I will try, but it might be more than a few minutes, I am afraid,” Bateau shoots a glance at his friend. “We need more distance between Bay City and us, oui? Do not let your ... northern exposure ... blind you to how close we are to the hunters, even if they do not see you as their prey anymore.”

Bishop nods wearily, realizing she might still be call upon to play the seductress. She sits up straight once more, throws her shoulder back and brings her knees together.

“When we can, my friend,” she whispers, looking out the window. “When it’s safe.”

“Here!” Finn lurches forward from the back of the van, steadying himself with one hand on the driver’s seat. He hands Bishop his old black leather jacket. “Cover yourself before you catch your death.”

“Thanks, ‘mother.’” She throws him a smile, realizing that it’s his way of showing her he cares, even though he’s uncomfortable with the way things have changed. Bishop slips her arms into the jacket, only to find it’s now two sizes too big for her. She sighs and wraps it tight around her unfamiliar form — both for warmth, and to hide what she has become.

As if she could hide it from herself.

“How the hell did you get so good at ... at ... at what you just did back there?”

The thief sighs. “Misdirection is part of a thief’s stock and trade, Finn. Moira’s body is enough to make any man lose his ability to think in a straight line. All I had to do was smile, be sweet to the man, and let his libido do the rest.”

Finn gives her a small smile. “Well, you did good. He’s gonna have himself a fine time telling the other fake troopers about the blonde beauty in the white van, and thinking of you is going to keep him awake tonight.”

Her eyes close, and as she leans back in her chair once more. “Terrific. Now I’m a schoolboy fantasy for a hired thug and all his friends, and something for him to wank off to in the days to come.”

Her voice betrays how tired she is ... and more. Bateau and Finn exchange glances, confused and unsure of what to say. The silence makes her open her eyes, and she turns her head to find Finn staring at her, and Bateau trying to watch her and the road at the same time. She sighs.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Both of you. I’m being bitchy, I know. But since I’m a woman now, maybe that’s ... appropriate somehow.”

Bishop sits up in her seat and turns to face the pair. In spite of the danger, Bateau slows down and pulls over to the side of the road. He cuts the engine, and the three listen to it ticking as it cools for a moment before Bateau turns and gives Bishop his total attention.

Whatever is coming next, it’s too important, to all of them, for him to drive and listen at the same time.

The thief sighs.

“I know you think it was the right call, Bateau, my staying like this. I did, too, at the time. I could have used the jewel to give Moira’s body to Khaleel, but I just couldn’t stomach the thought. It wouldn’t be right to her, somehow, to give him the beauty he killed her for, just so he could force me to be his whore. And strategically, my staying this way got us all out of Dodge without any of us having to die, and I still think that’s a good thing.”

She leans forward, and her voice catches in her throat. She has to start again.

“But now that we’re free, I’m just starting to realize that ... well, I’m not. Free, I mean. Not really. The life I saved isn’t a life I particularly want to live. What I did to that fake trooper just now made it painfully clear that things have changed for me, in ways I didn’t have a chance to think about until now.”

“Being a woman ... being this woman ... it scares me. It defines me, looking like this. Being this. I’ve been trying hard not to think about it, but look at me. As a man, I wasn’t anything special to look at. I could hide in plain sight if I had to. That’s not an option anymore. Hell, looking like this, all I want to do is hide. I know I won’t be able to walk down a street anywhere in the world without propositions and catcalls chasing me into the shadows.”

“And trying to just live? Like this?” She laughs, and it is bitter and empty. “Every man who sees me will spend less time talking to me as a person, and more time asking himself how big my tits really are, and whether they’re real or fake, whether I like them sucked or bitten when I fuck, and what I sound like when I cum ... and worst of all, how the hell can he get me into bed right now so he can find out all the answers for himself.”

Her voice trails off, and she sighs again. “In the meantime, here I am, and all I keep thinking is, ‘this is my life now? In the wrong body, with the wrong plumbing, and with everyone and his brother wanting to take me for a ride? Because let me tell you, boys, I am soooo not interested in being ridden. Not ever.”

She stops, and there is a long silence in the van. For some reason, Bishop is fighting to hold back tears, when the man she used to be hadn’t cried since his father had died when he was in high school. A few escape anyway, slipping down her cheeks. She hangs her head, using her hair to hide her hand as she brushes them away.

Then Bateau rises, but only long enough to go down on one knee before her. Of course, being a giant, his head still rises almost to the level of her own, and she finds herself looking into his eyes. There is such tenderness there ... such care ... that it takes her totally by surprise. He surprises her again by taking her hand in his, so gently, as if it were a frightened bird.

Then he speaks.

“Bishop,” he says softly. “You are a fool.”

Her eyes widen, and Bateau smiles. “Do not mistake me. You are not a fool because of how you feel, my friend. If I were in your pretty shoes, the wailing and gnashing of teeth would not be mine alone. Every women I have ever known from here to Marseilles would be wearing black, and I would be joining them in mourning the man I was, and would never be again.”

“But I am not you, and you are a fool, nonetheless, because you have forgotten who you are. Even now, in that magnificent body, as a woman men would gladly die for if you only said their names in a whisper ... even now, you are still the man you were. Still the man I fell in love with, all those years ago when we first met.”

She gasps softly, and the giant shrugs.

“This should come as no surprise to you, mon ami. As you know, I am a man who has always loved women. But since the very beginning of our partnership, I have loved you as only a Frenchman can love another man, with the deepest respect and admiration. The Bishop I fell in love with ... he lived each moment as he wished and chose how each moment was lived. He defined himself not by how others saw him, but by how he lived, and by the choices he made.”

“When I first saw you, when we first met for dinner in that restaurant in Monaco, you walked in as if you owned the place. I was impressed. But when you made the maitre de and the entire staff believe it, too? Well, I thought to myself, this is a man who makes the world what he wishes it to be. This is a man with more to teach me than how to pick a lock or steal a painting. This is a man from whom I can learn how to live.”

The tears Bishop tried so hard to stop finally begin to fall, one after the next, and she lets them. Bateau reaches up and touches one as it slides down the thief’s cheek, wiping it aside gently with his thumb.

“But now, you are confused. Ripped from your own body and from the life you knew, you have forgotten ... yourself. You have forgotten how you have lived.” He lifts her chin and looks into her eyes.

“So let me remind you, yes? Let the student become the teacher, just this once?”

Bishop nods, her eyes not leaving his. Bateau nods back.

“You are a woman now? So be it. Do not live in the past. Do as you did in that restaurant so long ago! Embrace it and make it your own. You are beautiful and desired? Use it to get what you desire, as you did tonight when your beauty and his lust won us our freedom. You do not wish to be defined by those who lust for you? Then define yourself as you always have, and let them live in their childish fantasies. What others think does not matter, and never has. What you think does.”

“And if you do not wish to be ridden?” Bateau grins. “Then no one will ride you, not ever. Because you will not allow it. Those men who would burn for you with such overwhelming passion? Let them die frustrated and alone, with your name lingering on their lips, because you said no.”

The giant leans forward and kisses the tears away, first from one cheek, then another. Bishop closes her eyes and lets him. He feels the Frenchman lean forward, and whisper in his ear.

“And you will not have to spend your life alone, my friend. There is a world full of women who would happily share their beds and their lives with you, just as you are. Again, your choice and theirs, as it has always been.”

Bateau pulls away and looks into her eyes once more. “And if somehow, the man I know you are finds it truly impossible to be the woman you have become? Well, you are living proof that there is magic in the world. There may be other jewels out there, or genies, or talismans, or a thousand other flavors of sorcery that will make you the man you were, or someone totally new — if you choose to find them.”

“You felt like your world was ending?” The Frenchman shakes his head. “This world is yours, mon ami, as it has always been. And Finn and I will be where we always will be, right beside you and behind you, watching you take your life wherever you want it to go. Because we love you, and there is nowhere else we would want to be but by your side.”

He smiles then, wide and welcoming, and opens his arms. Suddenly Bishop finds herself lurching forward with a wordless cry. She is surrounded by his warmth, pressed against this bear of a man and not sure how she got there, but not giving a damn, because there is nothing about this closeness that is the slightest bit sexual.

It’s just friendship, and caring. And love.

She looks over Bateau’s shoulder into her tech wizard’s bright red face and grins.

“How about it, Finn,” she whispers through the smile and the tears. “Do you love me, too?”

He fidgets for an instant, then sighs.

“Must’ve,” he mutters, looking away, “to put up with you all these years.”

She reaches out and touches his arm, and Finn throws her a slightly embarrassed sideways glance before slipping through the curtains into the back of the van.

“Whenever you two are finished,” his voice floats back with a touch of sarcasm, “I was thinkin’ we might want to be getting’ on with that narrow escape we were in the middle of a while ago?” There is a long pause, and a heavy sigh. “Just a thought, mind you. Lots of nasty chatter on the radio. Miles to go and all that.”

Bishop pulls back to look into the giant’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she says. Bateau nods once, still smiling, and opens his arms slowly.

She takes her time moving away. He watches her with a tiny smile as she makes it back to her seat and struggles a little with tucking the short skirt under her before she lowers herself gracefully and buckles in.

As she fiddles with the shoulder strap, trying to make it fall properly across her chest, the Frenchman imagines he sees a bit of the man he knew rising to the surface of the woman she has become. His small smile becomes a grin, and he looks away to hide it from her.

‘Soon,’ he thinks as he starts the van again. ‘She will see that life as a woman can be whatever she makes it. And I will have the Bishop I knew back again. Well, almost.’

He steals a glance at her as she crosses her beautiful legs at the knee, and gives his head a shake.

‘And maybe someday, she might want to see what it is like to be ... ridden ... after all, by someone who truly loves her.’ He shrugs. ‘Or not. As always, the choice is hers.’

Bateau pulls out on the highway. ‘No matter what she decides, I will protect her as I have always done, and keep her safe. Because that is who I am. And what I do.’

Bishop looks out the window, thinking about what Bateau said. She glances down at her old face on the front of the flyer, and catches a glimpse of Moira in the right side mirror. The woman there raises an eyebrow, and her bemused smile reflects the one in Bishop’s heart.

“I’m still in here,” she whispers, so that only she can hear. “Still me where it counts. And still alive. And where there’s life ...”

‘There’s hope,’ Moira’s voice echoes in her mind.

‘There is,’ Bishop thinks, ‘And maybe sometimes, hope is enough.’

She thinks for a minute, then opens her window. Extending her hand, she holds the flyer out by her fingertips, hanging on for a few seconds before letting the wind snatch it away. The thief watches in the mirror as it flutters and falls by the side of the road, until it is swallowed by distance and the vanishing darkness.

It’s getting light.

Damned if they aren’t driving east, and the sun is just starting to color the sky ahead.

“Almost dawn,” she says to Bateau. “A new day.”

“Oh, Christ on a crutch, Your Eminence,” Finn bellows from the back. “If you use the sunrise as a fucking metaphor, I swear by all that’s holy I’ll come up there and kill you myself.”

The thief laughs aloud, surprised at how musical it sounds, and even that she’s laughing at all. Bateau smiles to himself and keeps driving.

“His Eminence is dead, you crazy Mick,” she yells back, the smile still on her lips. She stops to think a minute, then grins. “Call me Maggie! And find us a hotel up ahead soon so I can change, or I swear by all that's holy I’ll make you wear this dress.”

Finn pokes his head through the curtains and gives her a look.

“I’d like to see you try, you dizzy bitch!” He growls. But there’s a smile on his face when he says it, and he ducks back behind the curtain to do as she says.

Maggie smiles to herself and looks at her reflection once more. This time, instead of Moira, the one looking back is her. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, after all.

‘Yes,’ she thought. ‘Maybe sometimes, hope is all you need.’

###

© 2010. Posted by the author.

Bishop slices through the water with an ease she finds more than a little disturbing. Her new body moves far too well through the warm, chlorinated wetness of the hotel pool. Lap after lap, all alone in her black one-piece from the pricey ladies shop in the lobby, her world growing smaller and smaller with each passing moment until it feels like she’s the only person in the universe. It’s just her and the warmth and the sounds muted by the water in her ears, and it feels so good to be alone in the here and now. Without company. Without context.

Without the world trying to label her and put her in what it thinks is her place.

by Randalynn

---

 

Bishop slices through the water with an ease she finds more than a little disturbing. Her new body moves far too well through the warm, chlorinated wetness of the hotel pool. Lap after lap, all alone in her black one-piece from the pricey ladies shop in the lobby, her world growing smaller and smaller with each passing moment until it feels like she’s the only person in the universe. It’s just her and the warmth and the sounds muted by the water in her ears, and it feels so good to be alone in the here and now. Without company. Without context.

Without the world trying to label her and put her in what it thinks is her place.

She wonders briefly about running away ... or if she even could run. Could she just take her soul and go, leaving Moira’s perfect body behind? Would it just keep going through the motions without her? Would there be nothing left but an empty shell, moving back and forth across the pool as mechanically as any music-box ballerina?

She knows it’s stupid to think that way. Running doesn’t solve anything, really. It only gives trouble that much more time to catch up with you, and if you run, it will meet you on its terms, not yours. For better or worse, she and what’s left of Moira are wedded, until death do we part. And she loves life too much to even think about leaving early.

‘I will get through this,’ she thinks as she starts another lap. ‘As awkward as it sometimes feels, being a woman beats being dead. Besides, I owe Moira. I need to give her a good life in exchange for the one she lost — something she can be proud of, if a thief’s life is anything to boast about.’

Moira’s life was taken from her by a man named Khaleel. He killed Moira and stole her form with a mystical jewel, then used that jewel to change Bishop into her twin, exactly as he had planned. He wanted to trap Bishop into becoming his pet thief and unwilling mistress.

Unfortunately for him, his plan backfired. To force Bishop to be his woman, Khaleel had released photos of Bishop’s true form to people who wanted him dead. To save himself, Bishop used the jewel to trap Khaleel in a copy of his original body, and gave up his chance to return to the man he used to be. Alone and on the run, the blackmailer found himself hunted to extinction by his own men.

Leaving Bishop stuck in the body of the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.

The woman Bishop has become moves easily from one side of the pool to the other, over and over, in a ritual as pointless as most other ways to stay fit. Water flows over and around her new curves, and it feels so easy that it scares her a little. It almost seems as if the pool is making room for her, accepting her intrusion as if she belongs there. It’s almost effortless, and every time she thinks about it, it confuses her that she’s so damned good at making this body do what she wants. It doesn’t make sense at all.

‘What happened to me shouldn’t make doing anything easier,’ Bishop thinks, her body on automatic as she spins and pushes off for another lap. ‘This body is so different from the one I grew up with, I should be stumbling from place to place like a drunk with half a liquor store in his ... her veins. I shouldn’t even be able to walk across a room, let alone pull off a runway strut.’

But no. When Bishop received Moira’s beauty, her grace came along for the ride. Her movements are as swift and sure— and strangely enough, just as feminine as they were when it had been Moira behind these eyes instead of Bishop. This body feels as much like home to her as her old one did before it was stolen. And to Bishop, that feels ... wrong, somehow.

Not for the first time, Bishop wonders just how much of the man she used to be actually survived what she’s become?

Turning away from that thought for the moment, Bishop changes direction and heads for the closest ladder. The pool is on the ground floor of the hotel, and this late in the season, it’s pretty well deserted. Still, she climbs out of the water to find a huge dark-haired man waiting for her in the chlorine-soaked humidity. She smiles and takes a towel from his hands.

He is Bateau, and he is her friend. And one of her partners in crime.

“A good swim?” The Frenchman stands a few feet away as Bishop dries her hair first, then pats the rest of her dry and hands the towel back to him.

“I don’t think I’m capable of having a bad one anymore,” she replies, putting on a white terrycloth robe over her suit and slipping her feet into her sandals. “It’s like the water welcomes this body, embraces it and carries it across the pool as a favor. It hardly feels like exercise.”

“Moira took good care of herself, mon ami, just as you did.” They walk towards the door, and Bateau throws the towel into a hamper as they pass. “As a dancer, that would be expected. But Finn looked into her past, and apparently, her ambitions went far beyond dance.”

“Oh?” Bishop turns her head as they move into the hall.

Bateau shrugs. “Growing up in one foster home after another, she learned to be independent. Then she reached womanhood and discovered the power that being young and beautiful could bring.”

They wait for the elevator. “But from what Finn found and what you told us about her, I think she did not want to rely on her looks to get what she needed. Moira wanted to make her own way, to earn what she received from life, not ride to success on the coattails of her beauty. She was studying at the Montfleur School of the Arts, learning to be an actress. According to Finn, her grades were excellent, and with a little skill and talent on top of her appearance, nothing could have stopped her. Unfortunately, her tuition payments were more than she could afford, and she turned to exotic dancing to make up the difference.”

“She wound up having to rely on her body after all. God, that must have hurt.” The Frenchman nods. The doors open and they step inside. Bishop presses the button for their floor. “And that’s where Khaleel found her?”

“The timing seems right. She only started working in the club a short time ago. We believe Khaleel saw her dancing, but she refused his advances and sent him packing. Being a blackmailer, he dug into her life until he discovered her secret. Then he used her fear of her reputation being ruined at the school to blackmail her into letting him use her room at the strip club for your meeting.”

Bishop thinks about what the last few days of Moira’s life must have been like. All of her hopes for the future, suddenly trapped under Khaleel’s thumb; the surprise when the jewel that stole her body touched her, followed by the brief realization that all her dreams were about to die in a cheap strip club, right before she dissolved into dust. Tears fill Bishop’s eyes and she blinks them away, letting anger replace the sadness before she realizes where her mind is going and tries to pull it back.

She fails, and shakes her head.

“I hate to admit it, Bateau, but sometimes ... I think he died too quickly.”

She feels his hand on her shoulder, and he squeezes gently.

“I think we all feel the same, my friend. Even though we do not invite death to be a part of what we do, there is no shame in wishing it upon those we think deserve it. With what he did to her, and what he did to you, I cannot think of anyone who deserved it more.”

The doors open once more. Bishop reaches up and put her hand on his. She pauses a few seconds before breaking contact and stepping off the elevator, and they walk to the suite in silence.

The hotel Finn had found for them to hide in was way more than a Comfort Inn but still less than a Park Plaza. The Presidential suite took up most of the top floor, and provided more than a little living space for all three to spread out and get comfortable. They needed a place to lay low while the Bay City manhunt for Bishop dissolved and drifted away, and this had exactly what they wanted.

It was close enough to Bay City to reach in a few hours, but far enough away to be out of consideration for someplace Bishop might have run to, if anyone decided to keep looking after they found Khaleel in Bishop’s stolen form. It was also high-end to the point where high-speed Net access was a given, and low enough to think that someone paying on a gold draft from a Swiss consortium had a right to privacy usually reserved for the mega-rich.

Bateau had presented himself to the hotel’s manager as the executive assistant of an Italian Contessa who was looking for a place to avoid the press for a few days. He made sure the manager understood the need for absolute secrecy, and several hundred dollars of the trio’s ill-gotten gains wound up in his pocket once he assured them that no one would breathe a word.

When Bishop and Bateau enter the room, they find it to be several degrees cooler than the temperature in the hall, probably because Finn likes to keep the AC on a few degrees lower than normal. Bishop wonders if its because of the time he spent learning the ins and outs of mainframe systems, since the older ones needed to be kept in temperature-controlled environments.

‘Or it could be he just likes it cold,’ she thinks, wrapping the damp robe around her tighter as exposed skin rises in goosebumps. She feels her new nipples grow hard against the built-in bra of the swimsuit. ‘Finn is ... well, Finn.’

The Finn in question sits at the dining room table, hunched over his laptop. Two projectors hooked into the computer put enlarged views of separate screens of information up on the expanse of white wall in front of him. His hands move in a strangely precise ballet, from keyboard to mouse to trackpad, playing his custom software like a master musician. At times he looks like a conductor in front of a symphony, but there are moments when he breaks from the graceful sweeps to dart in like a hungry insect, hunting data instead of dinner.

“Got a nice bunch of ruffians leaving Bay City, now that everyone thinks you’re dead,” Finn says without looking away from the screens. “Khaleel rang one hell of a dinner bell when he tried to serve you up. Representatives of the Five Families here in the States, three branches of the Yakuza, some Russian Mobsters, scattered minor crime lords from Africa, South America, and ... “ He hits a few keys and reads “... a group of thugs from New Zealand.”

“Phil McFeeley.” Bateau’s voice drips with disgust. “I thought we had seen the last of him years ago.”

“Some people hold a grudge so tight, they’ll never let it drop.” Finn keeps working the system while he speaks. “He really wanted that didgeridoo from the Sydney Opera House, and was kinda put out when we went and said no.”

“That particular instrument was full of charitable contributions,” Bishop says as she walks across to her bedroom. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars for children in need. We don’t steal from children.”

“That wasn’t a problem for Mr. McFeeley ... until he couldn’t get you to steal it for him.” Bateau flashes the master thief a grin. “I think he still misses the twenty thousand he put up as an advance when he hired the other thief to try.”

“Oh, yes.” Bishop smiles back. “The one who got caught almost immediately, if I remember correctly?”

“You do. It truly was a job only you could pull off, and you refused.”

She shrugs and opens her door.

“We refused, Bateau,” she says, “and with good reason. Professionals have ethics, and standards. Most people on our side of the law believe that whatever they want belongs to them. We prefer to pick and choose what we want to steal, who we steal it from, and why. That’s why we’re a team.”

“Amen to that.” Finn’s eyes never move from the screens, and his voice takes on an edge. “Good to know some things never change.”

Bishop smiles uneasily and slips into her room to change. Bateau stands behind Finn and watches as he hesitates for an instant, then suddenly attacks the keys with his fingertips, shoulders tense.

As if anger and frustration are battling for his soul.

Bishop and Bateau walk into the hotel’s restaurant, Bateau in a dark gray Italian suit, and Bishop once again in the dress she wore when they left Bay City. Strangely enough, it doesn’t affect her the way it did that first night, and that fact alone bothers her. It’s as if she is becoming acclimated to the thought of walking around wearing less fabric than you’d find in a couple of pillowcases.

It’s the standard issue little black dress, form-fitting with a short skirt and a scoop neck. Underneath she wears a black demi bra, a black thong, and black stockings. A black choker with a silver cat’s head cameo accents her throat, with echoes of silver all over her body in earrings and bracelets and belt. Her understated make-up only shows how little her new face needs enhancement.

Her new body balances so well on her three-inch heels, she almost looks like she’s walking barefoot on a beach. Even so, the shoes add a pronounced rolling to her perfect hips that draws every male eye (and a few female ones) to follow her progress as she and Bateau reach the maá®tre d' to confirm their reservation, and are shown to a table for two by the window.

Suddenly, she feels almost naked as she crosses the restaurant. The thought chills her and excites her at the same time, and fear rises inside her at the thought she might start enjoying dressing like this. At the same time, a part of her whispers, ‘would it really be that bad?’

The waiter holds Bishop’s chair for her, and she gives him a smile and a nod as she sweeps her skirt under her and sits. Bateau lowers himself into the seat across from her, and their server pauses long enough to light the candle in the center of the table before hustling off to find menus, leaving the two of them to stare at each other across the flame.

“Oh, my,” Bishop says softly, a half smile on her lips. “A candle. How romantic!”

“Ah, but you are with me, mon ami,” Bateau replies, responding to her smile with a grin of his own. “How could a dinner with me be anything but romantic?”

“Oh, yes! How true! Remember that time a few years ago, in the museum in Prague?” He tilts his head, slightly confused. Bishop rises her eyebrows, surprised. “No? We camped out in a storeroom for eighteen hours while Finn sat in the van outside in the snow and hacked the security system. We shared army-surplus MREs and stale Polish chocolate bars while we waited, looking into each other’s eyes and feeling desire wash over us like a tidal wave. It was magical.”

Bateau laughs, an infectious sound that carries across the restaurant and makes Bishop’s smile widen.

“Indeed it was, even if our desire was for the Rembrandt masterpieces we planned to steal.” He accepts the menu from the waiter whose eyes widen slightly at the word ‘steal.’

Bishop takes the menu from the waiter and smiles up at him. “My friend is just playing with you,” she says, as his eyes slip past hers to trace the contours of her chest. “Only a joke.”

“Of course, Miss.” Bishop raises the menu, more to cover her cleavage than to peruse its contents, and the waiter gracefully slips away.

“There is something to be said for stealing stolen paintings,” the Frenchman continues, peering at the menu. “Especially from someone who must have known how his father ... acquired them during World War II.”

“Herr Gruenwald must have been positively livid when they disappeared — especially from a closed, heavily guarded museum in the middle of a blizzard,” she replies, lowering her menu enough to look at what the kitchen is offering. “And I must say I enjoyed selling them in secret to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, even if we received only a fraction of what they were worth.”

“Ah, yes. But as we both know, money isn’t everything. And the irony alone was priceless, don’t you think?” Their eyes meet over the tops of the menus, and they share a smile and a memory before turning their attention to the dinner yet to come.

Bateau watches as Bishop uses precise, meticulous motions to cut a small piece from her petite New York strip steak. She conveys it to her mouth without so much as an unsure moment, then plucks the piece from her fork gracefully, using only her teeth to avoid ruining her lipstick. He shakes his head in admiration.

“You do that very well,” he says, his own meal forgotten.

Bishop waits until she swallows, then shrugs.

“It’s not like I have a choice,” she replies. “Like the swimming, the skill seems to have come along with Moira’s body. Muscle memory, I think. Like the way I sit, or move in heels.”

“You truly are a pleasure to watch.”

“Thank you, I think.” Placing her utensils down, she picks up her wine and sips daintily, then stops and looks at her thin fingers cradling the glass. “I have to admit that having my body tell me how it expects me to behave is a little annoying sometimes. It’s like, every time I sit down to eat, I feel a little frustrated. The ‘me’ I used to be still wants to take big bites, but in my new body, even a smallish steak seems to take forever. I’ve tried to ‘chow down’ a few times, and I can do it if I make the effort, but it just doesn’t feel right anymore.”

The thief takes another small sip and places the glass down beside her plate. “Truth is, I’m torn. Part of me wants to fight how easily Moira’s body takes over, as if I’m losing a bit of myself every time I let it tell me what to do. The other part wonders why I feel the need to fight what I can’t help but become. After all, this would be so much harder without these ... hints. It’s almost like Moira is giving me a legacy. She’s helping me deal with being her by making the simple stuff a done deal. I’m hoping that, once I settle into it and make it a part of me ... well, maybe it will lighten up a little.”

There is silence for a moment before Bishop looks up from his plate and into Bateau’s eyes.

“Finn didn’t join us,” she says softly. “This could be a problem.”

“He said he had something things to do, and he would grab room service later.” The Frenchman ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “You know how he gets when he’s deep in his machines.”

She shakes her head, feeling her hair caress her bare shoulders.

“It’s more than that. He didn’t want to come along, He went out of his way not to join us. I could feel him trying to come up with an excuse.” Bateau looks at her, then shrugs. She sighs.

“I’m pretty sure part of it is that he’s still trying to work through what happened.” Bishop picks up her glass, sips her wine, and lowers it to the table. “For all his creativity with computers, his world is rigidly logical. Magic has no place in it. But here I am, the Bishop he knew, suddenly and most definitely female, with no rational cause in sight. I’m impossible. But I’m here. And I’m not going away.”

Bateau nods. “That is part of it, yes. But only a part. The other part is that you are a woman now, and for Finn, that creates all sorts of problems.”

Bishop tilts her head. “How so?”

“Have you ever noticed how Finn gets along with women?” The thief shakes her head again and Bateau responds with a small, sad smile. “That’s because he doesn’t. He hasn’t got a clue how to relate to women as people. I have seen it, time and time again, whenever we’ve gone out together, he and I. Put him in a social situation where a woman is involved, and he tries to find a hole to hide in.”

“Why? God knows he’s not the shy, retiring type.” She grins, and Bateau’s smile grows for an instant to join hers, only to shrink again as he continues.

“Oh, it isn’t about being shy. Not at all. I think it is about desire, and control. Sometimes I think that is why he became a hacker. Finn likes being the master of his fate, and hates it when anyone tells him what to do. If he wants a woman, he fears her because he wants her.”

“That’s ... that’s ridiculous.”

“He’s a man, cher. Desire is not logical. You know that. It is primal, and uncontrollable, and Finn hates it because he can’t turn it off. Now here you are, beautiful and always there, and he has no clue how to deal with you as you are now.”

“But I’m still me!” Bishop sits up straight, and Bateau reaches across and takes her hand.

“Ah, but that’s another part of the problem. Finn knows it’s still you, so his first impulse is to treat you as if nothing has changed. You are Bishop, the master thief he follows and respects, and even loves in his own way. But then he sees you and wants you, as a man wants a beautiful woman. And suddenly, everything in his head goes straight to Hell.”

He leans forward. “Finn can’t really stop wanting you, because after all, he is a man and you are an uncommonly beautiful woman. But you still treat him as Finn, a friend, and that will not change. So the fire that drives him to want you will never go out. He will continue to be desire’s puppet. So even though he loves you, part of him also fears you, because you take the control he values above all else away from him and leave him with nothing but the hunger nature gave him — one that will never be sated.”

“Finally, of course, Finn has a touch of homophobia, which complicates things even more. You are both the man he knew and a beautiful woman he desires, and his reaction to you becomes just that much more confused.”

Bishop tries hard to take in everything Bateau has said, and he watches her as his fingers rest on hers. The back of her mind feels his touch and is strangely comforted by it. Finally, she looks into his eyes.

“How do you know all this?”

He shrugs. “Because I am Bateau.”

She makes a face he recognizes as uniquely female — a combination of skepticism and an acknowledgement of the fact that he is a man, and as such is expected to think of himself as more than he truly is. It is a face other women have used on him in the past, and that one look alone shuts down his attempt at pretention as completely as if he was doused with ice cold water.

Bateau grins, surprised at just how much of a woman Bishop has become already, then shakes his head and smiles.

“All right, mon ami, you caught me. The truth is more complex, if also more mundane.” He looks down at his glass of wine, looking for the right way to explain. “If you remember, before I met you, I was a grifter. To be a successful grifter, you need to be able to read people, to see them both as they are and how they want to be seen. So I have always been very good at knowing people ... inside. And because we have all been together for quite some time, I know both you and Finn, certainly better than either of you know yourselves.”

He picks up his wine glass and takes a small sip.

“Sadly, I believe you’ve become his worst nightmare — a strong, capable woman he respects, desires, and can never have. And when he remembers that the woman he is lusting after used to be the one man he respected above all others? Before you were changed, he came as close to loving you as he could ever come when thinking about another man. Now you frighten him on so many levels, all at once, that he doesn’t know what to do. At the same time, he’s still trying to cling to the relationship we all had while dealing with the destruction of all he thought he knew.”

Bishop thinks for a moment, then looks over at her friend.

“So how do we fix it?” she asks softly. Bateau shakes his head.

“I’m not sure we can, my friend,” he replies. “In the end, the only person who can fix how he feels ... is Finn.”

The thief looks across the table, then lifts her napkin, touches it to her lips, and rises to her feet.

“Not an option,” she says, picking up her clutch and tucking it under one elbow as if she’d done it all her life. “He’s hurting, and he’s family. I’m going to talk him through this. You wait here.”

“Is that wise, cher? To go alone? After all, in his mind, you are the problem.”

“That’s why I have to be the one to talk to him ... and why I have to do it alone.” She sees his hesitation, and reaches out to touch his hand. “This can’t become us versus him, Bateau. It has to stay between him and me. If you get involved, he’ll only feel more like an outsider.”

He feels the warmth of her fingertips, and looks up at her.

“If he becomes violent ...”

The thief shakes his head. “He won’t. He’s not angry with me. He’s afraid.”

“Men strike out from fear as well as anger.”

She shrugs. “If he does, I’ll do my best to avoid him without hurting him.”

Bateau’s eyes narrow. “Unacceptable. You haven’t seen what this is doing to him inside. There is deep emotion there, and it has nowhere to go. I know you care for him, as I do, but I would not see you hurt just because you wished to protect him from his own stupidity.”

“You don’t understand.” Her voice is soft, and he can see the pain in her eyes. “If I hurt him, Bateau ... if I hurt him at all, then there will be no coming back from this. He will leave us. And I can’t allow that. After all the years we’ve been together, Finn is family — maybe the only family we have, now. And I’m not about to lose him because of this. I can’t let it happen. I WON’T.”

Her voice grows rough with emotion. “Especially not with everything else I’ve lost.”

Bateau looks up at her, sees all of the pain of this unwanted transformation still lingering in her eyes, and realizes that this fight means more to her than even keeping the family together.

It’s keeping her together as well.

He turns his hand over, then gently wraps her fingers with his own, giving them a soft squeeze.

“I understand, cher,” the Frenchman says. “Go bring our brother back to us. I will wait for your call.” He smiles. “After all, I still have coffee to finish, yes?”

Finn stares at the laptop and his projection screens without seeing a thing. He knows it was stupid not to go to dinner with them. Of course they knew something wasn’t right — not that they couldn’t see it before. He was never very good at hiding anything from either of them.

Not that he ever wanted to hide anything this big from them before.

He hears the lock click, and the door swings open. He turns to find her standing there in that dress, silhouetted again the light from the hall. Bishop takes a step forward, and lets the door close behind her, shrouding her in the darkness.

Lit by the glow of the projection screens, she looks uneasy. Almost frightened. He looks into her eyes, and sees something he never saw in Bishop’s eyes before. Fear.

He says nothing. The silence is deafening.

“We missed you at dinner.”

Finn musters up a half grin. “Things to do, Your Eminence,” he says, the old honorific popping out before he could stop it. “We can’t all be kitted out in Sunday’s best, wining and dining when there’s work to be done.”

“It could have waited.” She fidgets slightly on her heels, and he wonders what’s going on inside her head that she should leave Bateau and come up here. She sighs. “We both miss you, Finn. I miss you. I can feel you avoiding me, and I hate it.”

He looks down at the laptop, not wanting her to see his eyes. Not wanting her to look inside him. More silence, and then he sighs, and begins to speak.

“I hate it, too. I wanted to go with you, I really did.” He whispers, his voice trembling. “I want it to be like ... like it was with us. But then you came outta your room, lookin’ like that. And I just couldn’t.”

Bishop shakes her head, confused. “Like what?”

“Like ... like that. You walked out in that dress, and you looked like the first woman God made when the world was young, before he realized perfection was a curse and not a blessin’.” Finn sighs, and his whole body sags as his anger fades. “How could I sit across from you, looking the way you do, and act like things are the same as they were before?”

She reaches out and touches his arm. He looks up, surprised.

“It’s still me in here, Finn,” she says softly. “I haven’t changed.”

His eyes fill with doubt and then pointedly drop to focus on her chest. Bishop blushes and looks away.

“Well, not where it counts,” she replies eventually.

“Oh, for the love of — “ He cuts himself off and shakes his head. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? Or are you just so blind that you can’t see yourself anymore?”

“You’re unbelievable!” Bishop shakes her head, clearly frustrated. “You know what I look like doesn’t define who I am. No matter what I look like, I’m still me, damn it — now and always!”

“You don’t understand!” Finn lets his own frustration slip out. “It’s not the same!”

From inside her, a whiteness grows that she doesn’t realize is rage until it fills her vision and by the time that happens, it’s too late. She tries to pull it back as best she can, but some of it spills through her eyes, and Finn takes a step back from the force of it.

“Oh, really?” Her voice drips sarcasm, and she leans forward, her hands on her hips, eyes narrow with anger. “You think I don’t understand it’s not the same? I don’t have to ‘see myself’ to know how different things are now, Finn. I feel it, all the time. Hell, I LIVE it! I used to sleep on my stomach. Not anymore, for obvious reasons. I wake up with hair in my eyes and mouth every single morning. Every shower is an adventure in being forcibly reminded of how my life has changed. And whenever I step out in public, men run their eyes over me like the one thing that would make their lives complete would be to memorize every inch of my body ... by touch. Every time I look in the mirror, I see a stranger. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t know it’s not the same!”

Finn still looks away, and Bishop watches him from behind. She takes a deep breath, letting her arms fall to her sides.

“You know, I never treated a woman like an object in my life,” she says, “and I resent the hell out of being treated like one now. But the worst thing about this is that I never expected to be treated that way by you — especially by you. Damn it, Finn, you’ve known me for years, and yet you can’t seem to get past what I look like. And now you’re acting like what you feel is somehow my fault! That’s like blaming a rape victim because she wore a short skirt. ‘Oh, she was so asking for it!’”

She could see the back of Finn’s neck turn red. “That’s not true!”

“Of course it is! I didn’t ask to look like this, and you know it. It was the best of a bunch of bad choices, and it kept us alive.”

There is a long silence, and Finn thinks for a moment. He looks down and sighs. “You’re right, Your Worship. I’m being stupid. And I’m sorry. ”

Bishop feels a weight lifting from her shoulders. “Thank you.”

“It’s just ... it’s so hard, getting past it all. And you have changed ... not just on the outside, but inside, too.” Bishop looks at him, surprised, and Finn looks back. “Look, I know you didn’t ask for it, but you don’t seem to mind it so much as you did. Not anymore.”

The hacker looked away again. “Four days ago, just wearing that dress in the van made you crazy. You wanted to risk everything to take ‘it off. Now the dress, the heels, the makeup ... you wear ‘em like it’s nothing.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” She steps towards him and puts her hand on his arm. “It’s only been a few days, but what am I supposed to do, Finn? For better or worse, this is what I am now. Should I fight it for as long as I can and then surrender, kicking and screaming? Or should I just get on with my life as best I can?” He looks away, chewing his lip. Her voice softens. “Tell the truth, now. Do you really want me to be miserable, Michael?”

He fidgets, then shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you want from me?” She lowers herself onto the sofa, her eyes never leaving his. “I’m trying to move forward, and in the van, when we were driving away from Bay City, I almost lost it. You and Bateau helped me see I could get through this. Together, you made me feel that nothing had really changed between us. You seemed a little awkward then, but somehow now ... what I’ve become is ... well, it’s hurting you, and I want to help.”

“You helped me then, and now it’s my turn.” Bishop reaches over and takes the hacker’s hand, then pats the cushion next to her. “Look, whatever is tying you in knots inside, we can work it out. Come on, Finn. Sit down and talk to me. Please?”

Finn sits slowly, not believing he’s actually doing it until it’s already done. His eyes are still locked on hers, and as he looks deep into them, he sees the man he used to know looking back at him. He sees the worry, the fear that somehow, some part of his pain is her fault. And finally, Finn stops seeing the woman, and starts seeing something he’d almost forgotten is there.

His friend.

Bishop looks up at the complex of buildings in front of her and sighs.

“I’m not sure I can do this, Bateau,” she says softly. “It’s too much, too soon. I’m not ready.”

“Oh, come now, mon ami. You’ve done things in the past that put this small task to shame. This? This is nothing.” Bateau puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze. “A simple thing, no? Just another step forward.”

She turns and looks at him. “But ... shopping?”

“You must, cher,” Bateau replies. “Moira only had so much with her at the strip club, and precious little at her apartment, considering the state of her finances. You cannot wear those things forever. You need a larger wardrobe, and you won’t get it by hiding in the van and wishing. I cannot buy them for you, and Finn would run screaming into the next county before he would even attempt it.”

From the back of the van comes a muffled protest. “Hey! I heard that!”

“You were meant to.” Bateau grins at Bishop, and she throws him a reluctant smile back.

“You could, of course, shop for clothing on the Internet,” he says, ignoring the flash of hope he sees in her eyes. “And, of course, given how we live our lives, there will be times you must. But not today. Today is not about finding something to preserve your modesty. This is about finding a style ... a way to show the world who you are. Oh, as Mark Allen Bishop, you wore what the situation required, and occasionally dressed to make a certain statement. But as a woman, as Maggie, everything you wear now is a statement. You need to think more about what each piece of clothing ... each ensemble ... says about the kind of woman you are — or how you wish others to see the woman you are, now.”

Bishop looks at the giant, his arm still around her, then looks away as she shakes her head. Bateau reaches over and touches her chin gently. She looks back at him, surprised.

“Think of them as tools, my friend,” he says softly. “As you have always been fond of saying, misdirection is part of a thief’s stock and trade. You make people see what you want them to see, or what you want them not to see, yes?” She nods once, and Bateau lights up, his happiness apparent.

“So, to continue to be the magnificent thief we all know you are, you need to see your new clothing exactly as you saw the things you used to wear — as a costume, meant only to establish character. So that when we are on a job, people will look at the beautiful woman you have become and see exactly what you want them to see ... or not see. You see?”

She nods again, and he watches as some of the tension leaves her shoulders. Encouraged, he presses on.

“The only difference between dressing as a man and dressing as a woman is that, even for every day, you must think about how what you wear affects the impression you make. For example, I know that, as a man, you chose your daily wear for some measure of anonymity. Your choices were simple, and that made being invisible an easy goal to achieve. But as a beautiful woman, trying to avoid calling attention to yourself would make you stand out even more than you already do. You would present a mystery to both men and women, trying to hide your beauty and failing. You need to walk that fine line between showing people who you are and showing them who you think they should see.”

The side door of the van slides open, and Finn’s head pops out.

“In all our years of workin’ together, I never thought I’d say this to you, Your Holiness.” He smiles tentatively, a black leather something in his hand, and holds it out at arm’s length as if it’s going to bite him. “But you forgot your purse.”

With a small smile in return, Bishop takes the bag and throws its strap over her shoulder. Her blouse is so thin, her bra strap easily holds the purse’s strap in place through the fabric.

“It’s all there,” the Irishman mutters, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Your ID and credit cards in your new name, plus a lot of other stuff Bateau claims belongs in a woman’s bag. Myself, now, I wouldn’t know, and I’m damned if I know how he knows.

Bishop fishes a long black wallet from the shoulder bag, and opens it. Moira’s picture stares back at her from a California driver’s license, with the thief’s new name putting another nail in the coffin of her old one.

Margaret Anne Bishop.

Bateau sees the emotions as they move across Bishop’s face, and his hand rises to touch her chin again. She turns to face him, confused.

“It is your name, mon ami,” the giant whispers, looking into Bishop’s eyes. “Nothing more. There are many Bishops in the world, after all, and you are still you, inside. Why not hold tight to at least that much of your past?”

“I appreciate the gesture.” The thief looks down at the license, and her finger brushes the cheek of the woman in the picture softly. She looks back up at Bateau. “It’s good to hang on to something. And being Maggie really isn’t the problem. I’ve got to be somebody now that the man I was is dead. But Finn changed Moira’s records to put Maggie in the system. I may be Maggie now, but all that Moira was is gone. In a way, we just helped the ones who stole her body erase her from existence. That feels ... wrong, in too many ways to count.”

Her voice takes on an edge of anger. “And the ones who helped steal my old life? They’re still around, celebrating my ‘death’ at their hands. Hell, they probably plan to use my execution as an club, to force other people to do what they say, ‘or else.’”

“I want to show them Magdalene is alive and well, and still doing as he ... as she pleases. I want to publicly rub their noses in the fact that they took a shot at me and missed. I want to take that club away and beat them over the head with it.” She looks towards the mall and sighs. “Instead ... I’m going shopping. For clothes.”

Bateau moves to stand behind her. “We spoke of this, remember? We are all agreed. But first, we find a suitable target for your skills. Finn is already working on that. Once a target is found, you will plan the theft and I will obtain any materials you need and provide any physical backup you require. That is how it has always worked. We show the world they lied about your death, by doing something only Magdalene can do.”

The giant leans forward, whispering in her ear to keep Finn from hearing. “But before we can do anything, my friend, you must be able to function in the world just as you are. And a good start would be being able to shop for and wear what a woman would wear without feeling like you’re about to climb Mount Everest, yes?”

Bishop nods and closes her eyes, oddly happy to feel Bateau so close behind her. Then she takes a deep breath and nods again.

“Right! Off I go!” She looks towards the mall, straightens her shoulders, and turns to look up into his eyes. “Oh, look! The sign says it’s BARGAIN day! I love a good sale! I’ll be smiling for days!”

The giant grins. “Oh, mon ami, you used to be such an excellent liar!”

Bishop turns and starts off across the parking lot. Bateau and Finn watch her go.

“You seem better,” Bateau says softly. Finn shrugs.

“I was an idiot. I let myself get all tangled up in what she looks like, and what that does to me. I thought too much about me instead of thinking about what it must be like for her. When she came up to the room the other night ... when she reached out to me, and I looked into her eyes, I remembered why I joined up with you two all those years ago. Because of who he was. Because of how he made me feel — like I could do the impossible.”

Bateau nods. “He had more confidence than any man I had ever known — and a heart as big as his ego. He could do anything he put his mind to, but he still knew the value of things other men would toss aside to get what they thought they wanted. Loyalty. Honor. Friendship. We have to get that confidence back.”

Finn watches the woman walk into the shopping mall. “I forgot he was still in there, Bateau. Doing the best he can, trying to get past havin’ his whole life ripped apart and gettin’ stuck lookin’ like that. And there I was dumping my own shit on her, making it harder.” He shakes his head. “Stupid.”

“Yes, you were.” Finn turns to look at him, and Bateau shrugs. “But we’re all stupid once in a while, my friend. That’s how we know we’re still human.”

“Best way to get her back to herself is with a job, and I think I found one.” The Irishman opens the door on the side of the van and jumps back inside. His voice becomes slightly muffled. “Something that might get the attention of the ones who think Magdalene is dead. Something she might find ... fun.”

Bateau raises an eyebrow. Finn sticks his head back out the door and smiles slowly.

“Harlan Straker is in the states,” he says, and Bateau’s smile grows to match Finn’s. “And he brought his whole collection with him. He’s hosting a big party in Miami to show off his latest acquisition, the Perenchio Emerald. And you know how Her Eminence feels about Straker after he bulldozed those orphanages in Veracruz. He shoved all those kids out into the streets just so he could build a chain of strip clubs and brothels.”

“She has been looking for a chance to take something pretty away from him for quite some time.” Bateau started thinking about how they could find a way past Straker’s legendary security, and then grins and shakes his head. “Oh, this is so perfect, in so many ways.”

“Why?” Finn asks, and the Frenchman looks into Finn’s eyes.

“Because jewels aren’t the only pretty things Straker likes to collect, my friend. And maybe this is just what Maggie needs to see that being a beautiful woman might make some things easier for a thief as talented as she is.”

He looks back at the mall as if watching Bishop’s progress through the walls.

“Bon chance, cher,” he whispers, as Finn heads back into the van. “You’ve come so far, with so far to go. But we will get there yet, all three of us. Soon the world will know ... Magdalene is back.”

###

© 2011. Posted by the author.

Bishop stands just outside the food court in the Renaissance Mall. Two hours have passed, and she’s frustrated and just a bit angry about how totally wasted those hours turned out to be. She’s wandered through six women’s clothing stores plus an upscale department store, and so far she’s managed to come up empty.

‘Not for lack of trying,’ she thinks bitterly. ‘Or of choice. How many different kinds of clothes do women wear, anyway? It’s crazy. And when I did take something to the dressing room to try it on, it didn’t look right. It all looked too old, or too young. Some of this stuff makes me feel like a clown. Worse, some of it makes me look like I’m for sale. God, I HATE this. I feel so helpless ... useless. Bateau said I used to walk into a room like I owned it. Now I can’t even pick my own clothes?’
 

by Randalynn

 

---

 

 
Lou Rossi sits at his extremely expensive oak desk and looks over a mountain of paper at Donnie “Three Fingers” DeLuca. Donnie, no stranger to Rossi’s cold stare, looks back at his boss for a while, then shrugs and waves a hand at the desktop.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Lou,” he says, “but I can’t change what’s what. I sure as hell don’t want you pissed at me, but you told me to check, and I did. It’s not my fault the answer isn’t what you wanted.”

DeLuca points to the stacks on the desk. “I got reports from a dozen tame PIs, three police departments, Interpol, and two federal agencies. They all say what you don’t wanna hear. The Arab was a lying scumbag, and that the guy the boss put in the ground isn’t who Khaleel said he was. It isn’t my fault we got conned, but if you want to beat on somebody about it ...” Donnie shrugs again.

Rossi looks at him a second, then waves a hand and shakes his head.

“I know you’re not the problem, Donnie,” he says. “After all, you just did what I told you to do. It isn’t your fault you had to tell me somethin’ I didn’t want to hear. I know Gino isn’t gonna want to hear it, either — not with all the bragging he’s been doing, talking about how he finally took down the one guy who crossed him and made him look stupid.”

“Fucking Magdalene,” Donnie says aloud, like the entire phrase is a name. Rossi nods. They’d heard it all before.

He picks up an 8x10 photo of the man Khaleel sold them, something shot with a telephoto, of a guy crossing the street. He was supposed to be the thief everybody wanted dead. Mark Allen Bishop.

“He didn’t look like much, this Bishop guy,” Rossi thinks out loud. “Not bad looking, built like a swimmer. Broads like that. Probably got his share of babes and then some.” He looks up at Donnie. “Still, a guy could pass him on the street every day and never look twice. But Khaleel said he was Magdalene, and he had proof. So people listened.”

“You and the boss weren’t the only ones he conned, Lou,” Donnie says. “He showed everybody proof that Bishop was in Marseilles at the same time that painting disappeared. Videos and everything.”

The older man grunts and stares at the picture some more. When Fiorentino’s Deposition disappeared from Nicolas Gaultier’s high-security vault in the basement of his mansion, nobody doubted it was Magdalene at work. Once the painting was gone, the thief set off the off-premises alarm at the local police headquarters. They responded quickly, with at least three cars arriving at Gaultier’s mansion above the vault. The thief kept the alarm from going off in the mansion itself, so their arrival took Gaultier completely by surprise.

The theft gave them the right to search his premises, supposedly for the thieves. But instead of villains, they found victims -- two young children naked and handcuffed in the French mobster’s bedroom. The torture implements spread out on the dresser along with Gaultier’s extensive collection of videos of past “playtimes,” made the theft a secondary priority as far as the police were concerned, and further searching uncovered evidence of years of criminal activity, resulting in a wave of arrests of Gaultier’s associates.

“The Arab said Bishop was there the same time Magdalene was.” Rossi tosses the photo on top of the pile of papers. “And it was definitely Magdalene who fucked up Gaultier. Hell, Donnie, it’s what he does when he pulls a job -- makes a profit and a point at the same time. Like some kind of freaking avenger. He finds out Gaultier tortures kids for kicks, and the thief ripped him up while he ripped him off. Tore him apart and took his empire with him.”

“Just like with the boss,” Donnie says slowly. Rossi’s eyes narrow and Donnie raises both hands. “Hey! I’m just sayin’ it’s how the guy works. I mean, when he robbed that casino, he musta known that was where the boss shacked up with his teenaged bimbo on Tuesday nights. But setting it up so his wife and the cops found him on top of a sixteen-year-old at the same time? Man, the balls this guy musta had.”

“Still has, if what you found is right.” Rossi takes a cigar out of the humidor on his desk and lights it.

“Well, what Khaleel had was pretty solid, or so we thought.” Donnie lowers his hands and sticks them in his pockets. “Bishop really had no business being in Marseilles. He was some kind of consultant, and he didn’t know anybody in France. Yet the photos showed him there, and Khaleel had airline and passport records to prove it.”

“Only they aren’t there anymore. If they ever were.”

Donnie nods. “When I looked at the airline and passport records — the ones still sitting on the company and state department computers, they said Bishop never left the country. He was home the whole time. All the PIs say the same thing — that Bishop was just another guy, going about his business, and that according to phone, Internet, credit card and video records, he never went anywhere.”

“So either what Khaleel showed everybody was fake, or somebody went through all those secure databases and rewrote everything to take Bishop out of ‘em. And why would anybody do that, when the guy is stone cold dead? It isn’t like they’re protecting him or nothin’.”

“So Khaleel gets this guy to come to Bay City.” Lou taps the photo with his fingertip. “And everybody decides to go hunting. Gino gets a hair up his butt, and when the dust clears, it’s Gino’s guys who track this Bishop guy down and shoot him stone dead in the back of some strip club in Bay City. The guy’s heart barely stops beating, and suddenly everybody and his brother starts hearing from the boss about how he took down ‘Fuckin’ Magdalene,’ the annoying bastard who had caused everybody so much grief for so long. Magdalene is dead. Long live Gino ‘the Bear’ Brunetti.”

Donnie smiles slowly. “And anybody trying to push back on Gino gets told to shut up, or he’ll wind up just as dead as Magdalene. At least, that’s how he’s telling it, and damn if some of his friends are starting to tell their people the same thing, just to keep ‘em in line.”

“Only now, you’re finding things that make us both think it isn’t true.”

Rossi rubs his eyes and turns his custom-made desk chair towards the windows behind him. As usual this time of day, the Dallas skyline cuts an angular chunk out of a deep blue sky, but Rossi doesn’t see any of it. All he sees is Donnie’s reflection staring at him, and that same damned pile of reports.

“Records could be faked,” Lou says, to both Dallas and Donnie. “Both the ones Khaleel showed us and the ones you just found. But the thing that throws the whole thing over for me is that Khaleel goes missing right about the same time Bishop gets dead. The Arab’s people don’t know where he is. Nobody knows where he is.”

“Khaleel earned some serious green for turning over somebody like Magdalene.” Donnie walks over to stand beside Rossi’s chair. “You think maybe it was a setup?”

Rossi nods. “That’s what it’s startin’ to look like. The Arab gave us Bishop for his own reasons, whatever the hell they were, and it’s starting to look like he wanted someone else to pull the trigger on the guy. So he set it up so that Brunetti and everybody else who was hunting Magdalene did the dirty work, while he cut and run with the cash.”

“But Gino isn’t the only guy who got suckered by this stunt, Lou. Everybody looks bad.”

Brunetti’s lieutenant shakes his head.

“I don’t have to worry about the reputations of every other clown Khaleel conned. All I got to worry about is Brunetti’s. But with Gino shooting his mouth off everywhere about taking out Magdalene, that’s more than enough.”

He turns his head and looks up at Donnie. “Nobody else knows about this, right?”

“Just you and me, Lou.”

Rossi lets himself relax, just a little.

“Let’s keep it that way. Maybe in a little while, this’ll all go away.”

“You know, there is one guy who would benefit if all Khaleel’s evidence turns out to be fake.”

Lou looks at Donnie and makes a face like he’s just bitten into a lemon. “Magdalene.”

Donnie nods. “Khaleel rigs up some evidence and makes it look legit, and then Gino kills Bishop. If Bishop wasn’t who the Arab said he was, the real Magdalene might want to make Gino look bad for claiming he killed Magdalene when he didn’t. So he erases what Khaleel rigged up and leaves Gino looking like a fool.” He thinks about it some, and shakes his head. ‘Hell, maybe he’s just pissed off because Brunetti’s running around claiming he’s dead when he’s not.’

Lou chews on his cigar and thinks, and after a while, it begins to make a little more sense.

“It could be somebody else trying to paint Gino as a peacock, but we’re not at war with anybody, and there isn’t anyone else out there with a grudge against Gino. And Magdalene is the kind of guy who would take the death of some innocent mook kinda personal, right?” Rossi sighs. “It’s gotta be Magdalene, if he isn’t dead. And that’s just what I need.”

Lou looks out over the Texas town and wishes he was in Vegas, or Chicago. Even Atlantic City. Gino came out here to start over after the bimbo thing, and Rossi came along because he’d been Gino’s right hand for longer than he liked to remember. And even though they’d been in Dallas for more than a year, it still feels wrong to him, somehow. It’s always felt off. It’s the rhythm of the place, maybe. Whatever it is, it makes Rossi’s skin crawl. Because to feel a threat coming, you have to know what your city feels like, so you can sense what doesn’t belong. In Dallas, it’s Brunetti, and Rossi, and all the crew that doesn’t belong.

So how the hell can Lou protect everything and everyone without being able to feel what’s coming?

‘If Bishop wasn’t Magdalene, then Magdalene is still alive, and pissed as Hell about what Gino’s sayin’,’ Rossi thinks, looking back to the piles of paper on his desk. ‘He isn’t gonna let it slide. For all we know, he’s the one who made Khaleel disappear for trying to use him to con ... well, everybody. He’s gonna come for Gino, somehow. I know it. But when? What’s his plan? What the hell is he gonna do?’

“Where IS he?” Lou mutters out loud, taking Donnie by surprise. “Damn it, you bastard. Where the hell are you, right now?”

 
Bishop stands just outside the food court in the Renaissance Mall. Two hours have passed, and she’s frustrated and just a bit angry about how totally wasted those hours turned out to be. She’s wandered through six women’s clothing stores plus an upscale department store, and so far she’s managed to come up empty.

‘Not for lack of trying,’ she thinks bitterly. ‘Or of choice. How many different kinds of clothes do women wear, anyway? It’s crazy. And when I did take something to the dressing room to try it on, it didn’t look right. It all looked too old, or too young. I looked like I was wearing my Mom’s clothes, or my baby sister’s. Some of this stuff makes me feel like a clown. Worse, some of it makes me look like I’m for sale. God, I HATE this. I feel so helpless ... useless. Bateau said I used to walk into a room like I owned it. Now I can’t even pick my own clothes?’

Bishop walks over to an open chair in the food court and sits down, noting with the back of her mind how gracefully Moira’s body does it. The amazing thing is, even sitting like this, posture perfect, shoulders back and knees together, she’s almost as comfortable as she would be collapsing on a sofa back at the hotel.

‘Still driving, I see,’ she thinks, then gives herself a half-smile that quickly becomes a frown. ‘You’d think I’d be happy not to have to learn how to move and sit the way a woman should. But every time my body does something I know it shouldn’t, I feel less and less like I’m me. I keep wondering how much of the man I used to be will still be around in a week, or two, or three.’

‘I wonder how much of the old me is still here now. If there’s anything’s left.’

Bishop blinks her eyes quickly, to keep the tears that rise from falling. Part of her is still working on closing the gap between the man she was and the woman she sees in the mirror, but another part still resists and she knows the reason why. As much as she knows she has to, she doesn’t want to give up the man she was, and the perfectly feminine movements and mannerisms that came with Moira’s body seem to make holding onto who she was harder. Whenever her new body takes over, she feels anything but empowered, and not at all like herself.

Of course, this trip to the mall isn’t helping at all. She’s walked for a few hours around the shops since Bateau dropped her off, and the more she moves, the more comfortable this body becomes — and the harder it is to take back control.

To remember how things used to be.

‘Another part of me gone. And damn it, I LIKED me.’ Bishop frowns and shakes her head. She almost puts her shoulder bag on the table before she realizes what a temptation it would be to a thief.

‘Well, another thief,’ she amends quickly. The smile grows before she can stop it, and she shakes her head again, leaving the strap around her body. ‘Thank God I can still laugh.’

“That’s the first real smile I’ve seen on your face since you walked in here.”

She looks up into the eyes of a tall slim black woman, standing near her table holding two tall paper cups of coffee from a nearby coffee shop.

“I swear, I have never seen anyone have less fun shopping in my life.” The woman smiles, and it’s full of warmth. “I mean, I’ve seen men dragged in by their girlfriends for an afternoon enjoy themselves more than you did, and that’s saying something.”

“You’ve been following me?” Bishop curses inside, wondering why she didn’t pick up on it. At the same time, part of her is oddly flattered by the attention, and wonders why this woman would want to follow her.

“Sort of.” The woman seems a little embarrassed. “I was making my rounds this morning, checking out all the stores for new acquisitions. Soon after I started, you showed up, and for a while there, we were heading in the same direction and visiting the same stores. You looked lost and a little confused, but you turned people away when they asked if you needed help. And in every store, you looked more depressed than the last. Anyway, I figured if anyone could use a latte right about now, it would be you.”

She holds out the cup and Bishop takes it, their fingers touching for a brief instant. That one touch sends a spark of ... something ... to her very core, and the thief brings the cup to her lips and takes a sip, trying to hide her body’s reaction.

Of course, she doesn’t count on her body having another reaction, this time to the latte. She never liked lattes before, but this time the smooth sweetness sweeps over her taste buds like an invading army, and she closes her eyes and feels herself shudder from the attack. Part of her hates how her new body reacts, but the rest of her clings to any pleasure she can get from being who she is now ... and thinks of how it felt when they touched ....

Bishop opens her eyes to find the other woman looking at her with a touch of a smile on her lips.

“That good?”

“Oh, yes,” the thief replies, her tongue darting out quickly to capture an errant bit of foam on her lips. She removes the plastic top and takes a longer sip. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The other woman holds out her free hand. “Amy Tilton.”

Bishop reaches up and takes her hand, remembering at the last second to be gentle. “Maggie Bishop.”

“Pleased to meet you, Maggie. May I join you?”

Bishop only hesitates an instant, then waves Amy to the seat across from her. “God, yes. Please do.”

Amy lowers herself onto the seat, leans over the table, and brings her coffee to her lips for a quick sip before looking Bishop in the eye.

“Before we go any further, I have a confession to make.”

Maggie feels her lip twitch, and looks up at Amy through her eyelashes. “Well, I am a Bishop, so I guess that’s okay, then. Hardly a father, though, but I guess in a shopping mall, you take what you can get.” She dips her finger in the latte and makes an abbreviated sign of the cross in the air in Amy’s general direction. “Okay, ‘my child.’ Confess away!”

Amy lets a small smile cross her lips, then holds her cup with both hands and sighs. “When I brought you the tasty coffee beverage, I had hoped to get you to tell me … what was bothering you earlier.”

The thief cocks her head to one side.

“You didn’t need to bribe me for that, although I’m grateful for the attempt,” she says, a touch of a smile in her voice. “But why are you so interested in a frustrated stranger?”

“Partly because I’m hoping I might be able to help,” Amy replies. She takes a sip from her cup, her eyes still fixed on Bishop’s. “When I saw you shopping ... well, I couldn’t turn away. You were so frustrated, but you looked so lost, so alone. Oh, you were trying to hide it, but I could feel it in you. As you moved from store to store, it almost seemed you were always just a few seconds from crying, even though you were trying to put a good face on.”

Amy sees the shock and surprise in the other woman’s eyes, even as Maggie struggles to bring her response under control.

“I was ... drawn to you, somehow.” Amy looks down, and Bishop wonders why. “I could feel you hurting. It’s like you’re fighting something inside you, all the time, and I just ... I couldn’t let it go on. I know it’s weird, but ... I just needed to make it all better.”

She looks back into Maggie’s eyes, then reaches out and touches her hand. The warmth of it spreads clear through them both, and Bishop gasps in surprise.

“Truth is, I have a good feeling about you, Maggie Bishop. I’ve always been a good judge of people, and I can tell you’ve got a good heart under all that hurt.”

The thief blushes and looks away.

“I’d like to think so,” she whispers.

“I can’t stop myself from wanting to help. I don’t want to stop myself.” Amy pauses, and then wraps her fingers around Bishop’s and gives a soft squeeze. “What I do want is to get to know you better, if you’d let me. I’d like to help if I can. I think you could use a friend, and I’d like to be one ... if that’s okay?”

She looks down at her hand in Amy’s, and suddenly her insides feel like she’s melting. At the same time, her thoughts spin too quickly to catch and hold. The Mark still inside her screams that this is all wrong, it’s happening too fast, while the Maggie she’s becoming wants nothing more than to reach over and hug this woman until the mall closes.

Or is that the Moira she was?

‘What the hell is wrong with me?’ She screams inside.

At first, there’s nothing. And she hears it. Almost a whisper, almost an echo. Moira’s voice fills her head.

‘Nothing and everything. You need to trust yourself again, or you’ll never be the man you were — or the woman you could be.’

Then it’s gone, and Bishop is alone once more.

Alone with a beautiful woman holding her hand, and asking her to be her friend.

“It’s ... it’s the weirdest thing,” Bishop whispers, looking up at Amy’s face while a tear slips down her own. “I feel like ... like we’ve been friends for years. But that makes no sense at all. Does it?”

Amy laughs, and reaches up with her other hand to touch the tear away.

“Girl, friendship is about as logical as love,” she says softly. “When two people click, they know it. Friends or lovers, it happens or it doesn’t. And sometimes, when it happens, it runs a lot deeper than you ever would have expected. You just feel the click, and something inside you knows it’s right.”

Bishop nods, thinking of the two friends she already has ... and the one she just acquired.

‘I’ve got to trust my instincts,’ she thinks, ‘and now’s as good a time as any. If I can’t make this kind of judgment anymore, I need to know now, before I get all of us caught, or killed.’

“Friends, then,” she says with a smile, taking Amy’s other hand in hers and squeezing them both.

Amy smiles and squeezes back, and Bishop instantly feels just a little better.

“So tell me, Maggie,” she says, letting go of both hands and picking up her coffee. “What’s twisting my best girl up inside?”

The thief stares down at her own cup, wrapping her hands around it and thinking hard. If Amy is a friend, she deserves the truth. But the truth is unbelievable, and even if it wasn’t, it could put Bateau and Finn in danger if her feelings about Amy have led her to trust someone she shouldn’t.

So how much truth can she share ... without lying?

She takes a deep breath.

“I was ... attacked, last week,” she says slowly. Amy stiffens, not expecting such a revelation. Bishop looks up at her, into her eyes. “This man ... he stole my life from me. He ... took my body like it belonged to him. I feel like everything that made me who I was, he stole. Well, almost everything. I mean, I’m still here, right?” Bishop smiles, but it’s fragile, and Amy doesn’t know how to respond. “But when he was done, he left me ... broken. I’m not right inside. It’s like I don’t know who I am anymore ... like the woman who bought the outfit I’m wearing doesn’t exist.”

She feels her voice start to shake, and realizes she’s letting out more truth than she had wanted to — or even that she thought she knew. “And I feel like an imposter trying to replace her.”

Maggie pauses, and she sighs. “That’s why I was frustrated earlier. I’m living out of a suitcase. It’s all I have left of who I was. But I can’t shop for clothes to replace what I lost, because I lost so much more than clothes. I mean, where do I begin? I wander through the stores and try things on, but I don’t know what’s right or wrong for me, because I don’t know who ‘me’ is now. The things I still have, the pieces of who I was? They scare me, too. I do things without knowing why or how, and it scares me. Like sitting in a short skirt, or walking in four-inch heels, or putting on make-up. My hands and fingers pick and choose and paint and draw, but I couldn’t tell you how my face wound up looking like this to save my life. I just ...”

She trails off, and shakes her head again.

“Honestly, Amy, I don’t know how you could help me.” Bishop lifts her cup and takes a drink, then looks down at the lipstick barely staining the rim. “But please don’t take it personally. I don’t know how anyone could help me.”

There is a silence, and the two women share it for a moment. Then Amy speaks.

“Maggie,” she says, then stops for a second before continuing. “I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through. But I think … I think maybe there is something I could do, if you’re willing to let me try.”

The thief’s sculpted eyebrows rise, and she sits up a little straighter. “Oh?”

“Well, the reason I was wandering around the stores this morning is because ... I’m a personal shopper.” Maggie looks confused, and Amy realizes that the woman in front of her has absolutely no idea what a personal shopper is. She takes a deep breath and tries again. “What I do is, people, mostly women, come to me to, well, figure out who they are, really. Most people wander through their lives and sort of stumble into a personal style without really thinking it through. But when someone comes to me, we work together to find out who they really are and what sorts of clothes are right for them. Once we work that out, I help them choose outfits that bring their real selves forward.”

The thief just stares, and Amy sighs. “Do you get it? You can’t shop because you’ve lost the woman you used to be. I’ll just ... find the real you ... just like I find her for any other customer. I can try, anyway.”

“It can’t be as simple as all that. Can it?” Bishop’s tone is slightly confused, but Amy hears a note of hope. She smiles and shrugs.

“We lose nothing by trying, right? Worst case, we’re back to square one. Best case, you get your ‘youness’ back. What do you say?”

Bishop looks at Amy for a moment, then turns and looks at her reflection in the glass window next to her. Moira stares back, and just for an instance, Maggie peeks out ... and smiles.

She turned back to Amy.

“I may not know who I am anymore,” she says, “but I know the kind of woman I want to be, and that’s not someone who surrenders without a fight. So I’m in ... girlfriend.”

That last endearment sort of slips out, and Amy smiles when she hears it.

“Okay, then,” the shopper responds, rising to her feet. “Come back to my office and let me show you my scrapbooks.”

Maggie rises, too, and shakes her head.

“That sounds suspiciously like an old-fashioned pick-up line,” she says, half-joking.

Amy laughs, and it touches something deep inside her. “That’s ‘cause it could be, if you want it to be. Do you?”

Maggie freezes, and Amy’s smile fades. She reaches up and touches Bishop’s cheek, and Maggie trembles, just a little. She lets her hand fall.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you. The last thing I ever want to do is scare you.”

Bishop opens her mouth to speak but Amy holds up her hand. “How about we help you figure out who you are, and then we’ll figure out what makes you happy, okay?”

Bishop nods, and Amy grins again. “Although judging from the way your body reacted when I touched you, I think we’re halfway to figuring out the second question first, don’t you?”

Maggie blushes a deep red, and Amy takes her hand and squeezes.

“Come on, girl. Let’s get you sorted.”

 
Finn sits in the van outside a branch of a fast food franchise that offers free Wifi access. After he and Bateau dropped Bishop off at the mall, he had knocked out the Internet access just long enough to intercept a call to the provider for service, then came back and put his own secure wireless tap on their router before pronouncing it “fixed.” Now he has high-speed Net access over secure military radio channels, with a range that includes a fifty-mile radius from the burger palace.

The only thing that could possibly reveal his “borrowing” of official channels would be if the U.S. Navy built a base on the town reservoir and wanted their communications frequencies back for the aircraft carrier and fighter squadron they would put there.

‘Not bloody likely,’ Finn thinks with a smile. He has multiple installations like this in every town the trio has ever stayed in for more than a day or two, and some places they were just passing through if he had enough time. In a tight spot, the hacker can tag a military satellite for web access from anywhere on the planet, but the time delay from a satellite hack is usually too long for Finn to be able to do what he does best.

Which is, of course, to pick virtual locks and go where he’s not wanted.

When they had first reached the hotel the week before, Finn went back and looked for places Khaleel might have inserted “proof” that Bishop was Magdalene into established records. After all, the underworld wouldn’t just take Khaleel’s word for it, and however he found out Bishop’s true name, it wouldn’t have been enough on its own to set that kind of manhunt in motion.

Almost immediately, Finn found both the passport and airline records that said Bishop was in Marseilles during the Gaultier job, as well as the doctored video recordings. Of course, Bishop was there, but Finn would never have been so sloppy as to ever leave records like that where anyone could find them. Insulted, he removed the hacked files and made sure all was as it had been before Khaleel’s tampering.

A meticulous man is our Mister Finn.

Finn is dressed for success ... at least for his success. Comfort is his watchword, since the one thing he needs in his line of work is to be able to focus, and ill-fitting clothing would break his concentration as sure as a passing freight train. He wears one of a large collection of bright Hawaiian shirts, a pair of old blue jeans that fit like a second skin, and a vintage pair of Keds canvas sneakers. He’s worn the shoes for so long that the outline of his toes shows through the fabric at the top front of each sneaker, and years of pressure have sculpted the bottoms of his feet into the padding that separates skin from sole.

In preparation for the time they will eventually wear out someday, he has a single back-up pair in his luggage at all times ... and four more pairs just like them in a hermetically sealed vault full of inert gasses in Zurich.

A peculiar man is Finn. But very, very good at what he does. For example, let us take a look at the preparation for the job at hand ...

When Harlan Straker’s entourage arrives from London at Miami International, Finn has already hacked into the airport’s Wifi and security surveillance systems. He identifies each one of them by linking the feed from the security cameras with the information from each man’s passport as the data from its RFID chip is read into the U.S. passport control system. Within minutes, Finn has compiled detailed dossiers on each member of Straker’s crew from all of his usual sources — addresses, bank accounts, hobbies, personality quirks. The files also include the make and model of each individual’s cell phone and respective carriers.

Before they reach baggage claim, Finn hacks the cell phones of each member of the entourage and installs two programs they will never know are there. One is a locator program that will broadcast their precise location to Finn whenever he activates it, and until he tells it to stop. It is accurate to within a foot of their actual location, both vertically and horizontally, and involves a triangulation matrix Finn developed that combines military GPS signals with wifi hubs, cell towers, and sub-frequency pings off of any random radio transmitter/receiver in the area.

The other program allows Finn to listen in to every conversation the user has — not just on the phone, but also in the phone’s immediate vicinity. He can turn on the speaker phone in every unit and bug any room the phone is in instantly, without anyone being the wiser.

He hears Keene Curtis, Straker’s number one, coordinating the entourage’s arrival with the hotel manager. Finn traces the number from Curtis’s phone and discovers they are staying at the Fountainbleu, one of the grand old ladies of Miami hotels. Supposedly, it's about as secure as the box of Whitman chocolates Granny leaves in a box next to the bed when her grandchildren are in town, but there have been rumors this might be just what the hotel wants people to believe. He reaches out remotely to some sources he knows, to see if the rumors are true. Texting the phone number and length of stay to Bateau, he leaves the hotel to him for a while. Straker himself is still unaccounted for, as is the emerald and the rest of the collection.

From the conversation in the limo on the way to the hotel, Finn knows Straker is already in the States and flying into Miami from Boston later today, so he launches a sub-program to rip through the ticketing computers of every airline flying from Boston to Miami looking for Straker’s first-class ticket. When that comes up negative, he doubles back and does a flight plan search for Straker’s private jet. He takes note of its arrival in Boston last night, and checks to see if Straker had flown in to Boston to meet it yesterday.

His name shows up on the manifest for the last plane in from Denver the day before.

Finn posts a reminder to use the hacked airport security cameras to check the unloading of the private jet in Miami when it arrives. The assumption is that the private jet will hold what they’re looking for, either the whole collection or just the Perenchio Emerald, but a good hacker (and a good thief) knows better than to count on an assumption, so he will check. And check. And check again.

He hacks into Straker’s files to find the name of the company where the shipment cases for his collection were purchased, then hacks the company’s database for specs for each custom-made case sold to Harlan Straker. All to identify what, if anything, will be offloaded in Miami from the private jet.

Very thorough is our Mister Finn.

While he’s waiting for the computers to do a CGI mockup of each case for comparison, he checks the blueprints on file for the Fountainbleu hotel and reviews each electrical and security upgrade filed since the hotel was first built back in 1909. None of the rooms Straker could conceivably hold his party in has any serious electronic security, other than motion sensors and hidden cameras that could be monitored from the small guard station in the offices behind the lobby.

When there is something of value to be protected, the hotel has relied on private guards and off-duty police officers to provide physical security. Checking the records for previous events at the hotel in the security officer’s “secure” desktop system, Finn finds that the default security setup once the event is over is for the motion sensors to remain active, the cameras to be constantly monitored, and the room’s perimeter to be constantly guarded from outside. The motion sensors inside each ballroom prevents the hotel from putting security personnel inside the room unless they choose to turn the sensors off, and Finn knows that the hotel’s insurance company would have several litters of kittens and deny payment in the event of a loss if they did.

Finn sends a silent prayer to Nicholas, the patron saint of thieves, and throws a snarky thank you in the insurance company’s general direction for their blind faith in technology. After all, tricking the motion sensors is a whole lot easier than dealing with a single rent-a-cop only a few feet from the target.

To his left, Porky Pig exclaims, “Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!” Finn turns to see his CGI renderings of the collection’s travel cases rotating slowly for his review. The hacker checks on the progress of an earlier program, and a window opens to reveal the flight plan for Straker’s private jet, gently liberated from the secure computers at General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport in Boston. The plane will be wheels up at approximately 12:04 p.m. and the clock on the screen says it is currently 11:47 a.m. in Miami, just like it is in Boston.

“Flight time will be ...” Finn enters a few commands and numbers fly up onto the screen. “ ... three hours and twenty five minutes.” Just enough time to take over the hotel’s security system and hack the security cameras in the hangers at the airport where Straker’s plane would most likely come to rest after its flight.

But first he’ll duck inside and grab a burger and fries ... and a Coke ... and maybe a shake and an apple pie, if there’s time.

After all, we’ve all heard tales about starving artists — and after everything he’s done this morning, you can be sure our Mister Finn is a very hungry man.

 
Amy Tilton’s office is in an area near the food court, one of a row of offices off of a hallway that leads out to the parking garage. It is neat and well-furnished, with a place for everything and everything in its place. When they first arrived, Maggie looked around, then looked back at Amy with a question in her eyes.

“This place doesn’t look like you at all,” she said, smiling. “Are you sure this is your office?”

“Oh, it’s mine,” Amy replied. “Don’t be fooled by what you see. An office is where you do business, and the sort of people who hire a personal shopper want someone they think is far more together and organized than they are. That’s why this place has all the personality of a model home in an upscale neighborhood.” She grins. “If you want to see the real me, go check out my apartment.”

Maggie blushed and looked away. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Now it’s two hours later, and Amy sits back with a soft sigh.

“We’ve been through the style books, and nothing jumps out at you,” she says softly. “Truth is, nothing jumps out at me either. You’re a puzzle, Maggie. You don’t seem to fit any of the established looks. No wonder you couldn’t find anything out in the mall.”

“Looks like I’m one of a kind.” Bishop smiles, but there’s no humor in it. Amy reaches out, puts her hand over Maggie’s, and gives it a squeeze.

“That’s not a bad thing, honey. It just means we have to look a little harder, that’s all.” The shopper thinks for a moment, then stands up and moves to a chair next to the sofa. “We’re going to have to try something new. Lie down, Maggie.”

Bishop looks up at her, confused, and Amy smiles back. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I want you as relaxed as you can be when I ask them. I don’t want you to think about them. Just answer them as fast as you can, as soon as I ask. Can you do that?”

Maggie nods. She senses that she’s being mothered by someone who should be a peer, and it makes her feel weaker somehow, and a little uncomfortable. But at the same time, she knows there’s no malice in it. It’s just Amy’s way of showing she cares.

With a sudden chill, Maggie realizes she’s accidentally wandered deep into unknown territory. For the first time since her transformation, she is alone with a woman ... with another woman, in that shared space that every woman knows, and where no man has ever been. In the life before her transformation, Bishop had watched women together, in pairs or groups of three or four or more, and had sensed something between them from a distance — a closeness, an easiness, that faded whenever a man entered the picture.

This was “womanland,” a place where the landscape seemed much less defined than the world she used to know. That little bit of Moira inside her whispers without words, reminding her that here, emotional barriers can be as thin as tissue paper between friends, and even the strongest woman can ask for help from someone close without feeling diminished by it.

Moira’s voice rises from her subconscious. ‘Just like you could ask Bateau or Finn for help and get it, no questions asked. You’re not as far from what you were as you think. With men, it takes longer to reach that place, that’s all.’

Maggie smiles, this time for real. Maybe being a woman isn’t quite as alien as she thought. She lies back on the sofa, folds her hands across her stomach.

“Good girl,” Amy says softly, and Maggie grins.

“Thanks, ‘Mom,’” she replies, and the other woman laughs out loud. Bishop closes her eyes and waits.

“I want you to think back, Maggie.” Amy’s voice is measured and calm. “Think back to before what happened last week. Think back to the woman you were. Can you see yourself?”

Bishop nods. “Tell me something about the woman you see.”

“She was strong, self-assured.” The thief speaks slowly, but Amy can hear the truth behind the words. She knows Maggie isn’t holding back. “She knew she was beautiful, but didn’t care. It didn’t define her. It just was. She had dreams, and plans, and she knew that she could get what she wanted, if she wanted it bad enough.”

Amy saw Maggie smile. “She was so confident and in control, she could walk naked through the middle of a crowd of men, and they wouldn’t dare touch her, or even speak to her, unless she allowed it.”

“Until one did.”

Bishop sees it all again, the look on her face when the jewel touched Moira, the glow as it traced her outline and sucked her into it. She gasps and shudders, and Amy’s hand reaches out and touches her shoulder.

“I’m here,” she whispers. “You’re safe.”

“Am I?” Bishop replies, her voice shaking. “I don’t know. How can I be safe when she’s gone, Amy? I’m here, but she’s gone. I’m gone, too, or going. Will I ever be who I was again?”

“Who was that, Maggie? Who did you used to be?”

She gives a shuddering sigh. “A friend told me, not too long ago, that I used to live each moment as I wished to live it. He said that I defined myself not by how others saw me, but by the choices I made. He told me I was someone who chose to make the world what ... what she wished it to be, and others saw that, and helped make my world real because they believed my choices.”

Bishop felt the tears start to flow, but did nothing to stop them. “But I didn’t choose this, not really. I couldn’t stop it from happening. There was one point, maybe, where I could have changed things ... but that choice was taken from me, too, because people I cared about were in danger and so I couldn’t turn back.”

“So he ... took me, and when everything was over, the part of me that felt like the world was mine was gone. I can’t choose and make other people believe in my choices anymore, because I know that control is nothing but an illusion. If he can do what he did to me, how could I ever believe I have control over anything again? I don’t believe in myself, anymore, and maybe that’s why I’m gone. And I’m still losing myself, a little bit at a time, every day, more of me disappearing into this thing I’ve become, and I can’t stop it, because there’s no way back! Oh God ... Amy, I’m lost ... I’m so lost!”

Amy kneels next to the sofa and takes Maggie in her arms as she finally lets go of her fear and frustration and cries — great body-wrenching sobs that shake Amy as well when the other woman’s arms wrap themselves around her. Eventually the crying ends, and Maggie looks up at Amy, her face streaked with tears.

“I guess we went a little farther than finding something for me to wear,” she says, her voice trembling as she blushes slightly.

“I guess we did,” Amy replies, smiling a little. “But that’s okay. We needed to. You needed to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Damn, girl, didn’t you hear yourself? It’s no wonder you can’t shop. You had such confidence before, Maggie. You believed you could do anything. It was just a part of you, and you grew up with it and lived your entire life absolutely sure you had a handle on how your world worked. Then, in an instant, everything you thought you were was ripped away, and all you had left to replace it was the knowledge that, in the end, you were as weak and powerless as everybody else. That bastard convinced you that you had no control over anything, anymore. Oh, you tried to keep going as best you could, but your mind held tight to that one damning conclusion, and you let it redefine you. Stupid girl.”

Maggie’s eyes widen, and she sits up suddenly. “What?”

“Honey, you were raped! It doesn’t matter what he did to you, but when he had power over you, you couldn’t fight him. You couldn’t take yourself back from him. You had to let it happen, whatever it was. But it’s over now. He’s gone. And he can’t really change who you are inside. Unless you let him.”

Bishop’s mind reels as she struggles to put what Amy is saying together with what happened. “No, you ... you don’t understand how it was ... what he did ...”

“The hell I don’t.” Amy stands up, and Bishop sees her eyes flash. “I’ve been there, too, Maggie. I was raped once. Bastard held a knife on me and threatened to cut me up. He used me and beat on me for hours and hours ... and then left me on the floor, sobbing, as if I was nothing. He nearly made me believe it, too. I hid away for weeks, frightened of my own shadow, until I got angry enough to see the truth.”

“The truth? What truth?”

“That if I let him define me, he would win, and I’d never be anything more than what he made me. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t. I used my anger at him to take back my own life. Don’t you see? It’s the same for you. He took control away from you, and when he did that, he stole your confidence as well. You couldn’t choose anymore, because he made you think you had no choice ... but he only controlled you while he had you in his power. He’s gone — but you’re still here.”

Amy sits down next to Maggie. “And you were you long before you ever met him. Now that he’s gone, you can be YOU again. You have to be.”

“How?”

“You have to choose, Maggie. Redefine yourself. Choose to be the person you used to be again, or as close as you can get after what you’ve been through. Even back then, you didn’t control everything. Nobody can. But you believed in yourself enough that you could handle whatever came along. That’s why you have to believe in yourself again. Because if you don’t, you’ll be letting him tell you who you are and who you’re supposed to be, for the rest of your life.”

“You need to believe in yourself ... to know in your heart that you’re better than him, and you always have been. Because it’s true. I see the person you used to be, looking back at me through the pain. She’s afraid, but I believe in her. Because I believe in you. And even though I barely know you ... I believe in us.”

She takes Maggie’s hands in hers and looks into her eyes. “There’s something here between us, Maggie. You feel it, too. It’s strong, and I want it to go further, but only on your terms.”

“You need to believe you have control of your own life again,” she whispers. “That’s why I’m going to give you a choice. I’m going to do something now, and you can turn away, or you can let it happen. The choice is yours. I know what I want, but this has got to be your decision, because this is about us, not just me. No matter what happens next, I want you to know ... it’s entirely up to you.”

Then Amy leans forward and her eyes close oh so slowly. Bishop’s heart starts beating wildly, and her whole body suddenly warms in that timeless instant before their lips meet ...

... and in the heat of a gentleness that kicks like an exploding star, Maggie makes her choice.

 
The sound of the door opening causes both men to turn towards it. Neither one wanted to say it out loud, but they’d both been worried for hours, and the sound of the lock disengaging makes them both sigh an instant before it swings open.

Bishop stands framed in the doorway.

“Hey, boys,” she says, and to Bateau’s ears, it almost sounds like she’s teasing. “Miss me?”

“Hell, no, Your Worship,” Finn replies, leaning back in the sofa and crossing his legs. “We’ve been way too busy finding something interesting for us to steal ... once you’ve finished shopping, that is.”

Standing by the projection of the Fountainbleu floorplan, Bateau notices that Bishop is wearing something new — and radically different from what she had been wearing when they dropped her off that morning. Her top is a sort of understated medium blue cashmere, a very thin fabric with a wide neckline and three-quarter-length sleeves. It’s tight enough to provide an understated emphasis to her breasts but loose enough to drape just so below them. The blouse ends just above her navel, accentuating how her firm her waist is and how it narrows before it flares moves outwards to meet her hips.

She wears a pair of dark blue slacks that almost (but not quite) cling to her curves like a second skin, all the way down to a pair of ankle-high black boots that have just enough heel to notice but not nearly enough to make her hips twitch more than they should when she walks.

Silver accents are everywhere, bracelets, necklace, and earrings with just enough dangle to flash slightly when she turns her head. Her makeup is understated, but applied with a sense of how much is just enough. She catches Bateau looking, and strikes a model’s pose.

“You like?”

The Frenchman smiles slowly and nods. “Very much, mon ami. So feminine, and yet ... so you. I am impressed. Truly, I did not expect for you to find a personal style quite so quickly.”

Bishop grins and ducks her head. “I have to admit … I cheated.”

Bateau’s eyebrows raise. “Oh?”

“I followed one of my oldest rules.” She stalks over to the bar like a cat hunting prey and pours a glass of bourbon, then turns around and leans against it while she sips. “Know your limitations, and how to overcome them. When you need an expert ... find one.”

“And did you?” Finn asks, tilting his head. Bishop looks at him through her eyelashes and shakes her head.

“I did better than that,” she replies. “I found a friend. And maybe ... something more.”

Finn looks at Bateau, and he gives the hacker a tiny shake of his head.

“I seem to make a habit of that, actually.” Bishop takes another sip.

“A habit of what?” Finn turns back to Maggie, and she laughs. It’s almost musical, and takes both men by surprise.

“Finding friends when I start out looking for experts.” She looks at them both, and they can see the emotion in her eyes. “Thank you both, for standing by me through all of this. It’s got to be almost as weird for you as it is for me.”

“It’s not like we had a choice, Your Eminence,” Finn declares, standing up. “After all we’ve been through, we’re more family than friends. And family sticks together — especially the family you choose, yeah?”

“Agreed.” Bateau smiles, crosses his arms and cocks his head. “And from what I see, it is not as weird for you as it was, I think?”

“Not as,” she replies. “I’m still working on what it means to be who I am now, but I think I’m past the worst of it. I have to remember that it’s still me in here, after all. Amy helped me do that.”

“Oh? I shall have to thank this ‘Amy’ when I meet her.” Bateau notices a flash of uncertainty in Bishop’s eyes, but when Maggie realizes that Bateau saw her hesitation, she straightens her shoulders and nods.

“I think I’d like her to meet you both. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

The Frenchman briefly inclines his head towards Finn, who is oblivious to the interplay. “It should be ... interesting.”

“Speaking of interesting,” the thief says, putting down her glass and walking towards the floor plan projected on the wall. “What’s this I hear about a possible job?”

“Oh, it’s not much.” Finn’s grin belies his words. “It turns out Harlan Straker is throwing a shindig in Miami. He’s bringing his entire collection to town, just to show off his newest acquisition ... the Perenchio Emerald. We were talking it over, Bateau and myself, and we thought you just might — might, mind you — enjoy taking his latest pretty away from him and rubbing his nose in the fact that Magdalene is back. Interested?”

“Maybe,” she mutters, her attention drawn to the wall. “Tell me about it.”

Bishop listens carefully while she looks at all the information Finn has put up on the hotel room walls. She weighs options while Finn and Bateau lay out what they’ve found — personnel, security arrangements, and potential guest lists. Finally, the explanations run down, and the two men look at her from behind. She is focused intently on the projections, her hands on her hips, and finally Finn can’t take it anymore.

“Well, your Holiness,” he asks. “What do you think? Shall we take the Emerald to announce Magdalene’s return?”

She freezes, just for a second, then shakes her head.

“No, gentlemen,” she replies, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that’s not nearly big enough.”

For a second they look at her in disbelief. Then she turns and gives them a smile that lights up her face.

“We’re going to have to take the whole collection. After all, Harlan went to all that trouble to bring it along. It would be a shame to leave any of it behind, don’t you think?”

###

© 2011. Posted by the author.

Bishop opens her eyes slowly and sees the back of Amy's head, and one beautiful bare shoulder peeking out from under the sheet. She follows the curves of her lover's body clear down to the lavender painted toenails on her feet, remembering every inch she had massaged, caressed, and kissed only a few hours before.

And then she wonders how she managed to wind up in bed with her.
 

by Randalynn

 

---

 

 
Bishop opens her eyes slowly and sees the back of Amy's head, and one beautiful bare shoulder peeking out from under the sheet. She follows the curves of her lover's body clear down to the lavender painted toenails on her feet, remembering every inch she had massaged, caressed, and kissed only a few hours before.

And then she wonders how she managed to wind up in bed with her.

She doesn’t wonder long. She doesn’t have to. Just looking at Amy sleeping besides her, Maggie feels warm clear through, like desire fills her and makes her dizzy with longing. There is this overwhelming urge to wiggle her way over and wrap herself around Amy, skin to skin. She wants to hold her close and kiss that bare shoulder, and whisper to her the things she had never whispered to a woman back when she had been Mark, because such whispers pushed relationships to places a master thief could never take them.

How could the man she had been ever tell a woman he loved her and mean it, when their life together would be based on lies? He would have had to be 100% sure they would always be together before he could share the secret of Magdalene with her – and sharing that part of his life would put both Bateau and Finn at risk if he made a bad call.

But last night …

Yesterday, when she and Amy had shopped, they had bought so many things that Maggie was amazed at how easy it was. Even though having Amy with her made it far less painful than it had been, she knew deep down it would never be something she enjoyed. As Mark, she had never been into acquiring things. The fact that it would seem to be a necessary qualification for a thief did not escape her notice, but upon reflection, the man she had been would have been the first to admit he had always been an extremely odd thief.

For him, it had started with money. After all, when he first decided on a life of crime, Bishop thought that’s what being a thief was supposed to be about. But after his first few multi-million dollar robberies went off without a hitch, he was surprised to discover that you actually can have too much money. In fact, he learned to his dismay that any more than “more than enough” was just wasted potential. At the same time, doing what he did without some kind of reward made it seem … pointless, and boring.

Unsure of what to do next, he found himself watching the Errol Flynn version of Robin Hood on a hotel TV in Budapest, and started to think about what he could do with what he did best. Overnight, his goals changed, and he decided to use his skills to do something more than just make himself richer. He decided to do good, by going around the rules instead of following them.

That’s when being a thief stopped being work and started being fun.

Back in the more recent past, they had the Mall’s personal services desk send her purchases back to Maggie’s hotel, although she was careful to send them to Abramo Aldafieri, Bateau’s Italian pseudonym. He was currently filling the role of the Contessa’s minder and confidant, providing that buffer between hotel management and the trio and maintaining the fiction that she required secrecy to avoid media attention. Maggie had asked Amy to get them both coffee, and the thief managed to get the clothing delivery order addressed before the personal shopper returned.

“So, plans for dinner?” Amy slipped her arm into Maggie’s and steered her towards the center of the Mall. The thief felt slightly odd, as if two women walking arm-in-arm wasn’t anything unusual at all. On the other hand, considering how little experience Maggie had as a woman, maybe it wasn't. She hesitated, just for a second, then admitted to herself that it felt nice being touched by Amy, and relaxed into it.

Amy felt her stiffen, and then relax, and smiled.

‘Bit by bit, baby,’ she thought, giving Maggie’s arm a squeeze. ‘One step at a time. We’ll tear down those walls, you’ll see.’

“No plans,” Bishop said, then paused for a second before she continued. “There is someone I should call so he doesn’t worry, but other than that ...”

“He?” Amy stopped, and Bishop turned to face her, surprised. Amy’s eyes narrowed. “Is there something I should know about, girlfriend? Or should I say, someone?”

Maggie was confused for a second, then saw where Amy’s mind had gone and laughed out loud. It was Amy’s turn to look puzzled.

“His name is Bateau. He is my friend, my business partner, and the closest thing to family I’ve ever known,” she said, smiling. The smile dimmed, just a little. “He also knows all about what happened last week, and he’s bound to worry if I don’t show up for dinner without calling first.”

“You’re not … his?” Amy stared into her eyes, and Maggie could see her concern, and a touch of jealousy. She was slightly taller than Bishop, and the thief found it a bit disorienting to have to look up at a woman.

‘Another woman,’ she thought, and held back a sigh. Instead, she took Amy’s hands in hers.

“It’s not like that,” Maggie said softly. “We’re not like that. It’s not a romance. He’s like – no, he is the brother I never had. And he’s not the only one.”

“You have another partner?”

“And friend. But we care about each other, too. We all do. We watch out for each other, like families do. You’ll see when you meet them.”

“Mags!! Do you really want to take me home to meet the family … so soon?” Amy grinned. “Wow, I’m honored!”

Bishop hadn’t been planning anything, just saying what she felt. But the realization that she was seriously thinking about introducing Amy to Bateau and Finn made her blush, and she saw Amy see it. Before she could figure out how to react, Amy leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

“Don’t freak, girl.” Her breath caressed Bishop’s neck, and the thief felt something rising inside her. “I really am honored, honest. And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you just now. But the fact you’re even thinking something like that … it just makes me feel so wonderful. You just don’t know.”

She moved closer, and pulled her head back to look down into Bishop’s eyes again.

“So, give your family a call and tell them you’re having dinner at my place tonight.” She grinned again. “Hell, Maggie … we might even eat something!”

When they reached Amy’s place, Bishop could easily see what Amy had meant when she had invited Maggie home to see the real her. The apartment was an extension of her in a way her office would never be. Vibrant colors and soft fabrics mixed with comfortable furniture, and a level of ground clutter that would have sent potential clients running if they saw it in her office at the Mall.

Dinner was Chinese take-out picked up on the way, and the two talked as they ate. Mindful of her own secrets, Bishop let Amy tell her all about her past, her family, where she went to school. The words washed over and through her and made her smile, and the sharing warmed her to the core. She could barely take her eyes off of Amy’s, and when the meal was done, Amy rose, and took her hand …

… and Maggie crossed that line between the living room and the bedroom without a thought. Without thinking of the consequences. Because she didn’t want to think about anything, except the look in Amy’s eyes when she whispered Bishop’s name, or the way her fingers felt when they touched.

Even now, Maggie can’t imagine staying this far away from her for another second. She slides over, slips one arm under Amy’s pillow and snuggles into her, laying her other arm across her lover’s tummy. Amy’s warm softness presses into her middle and she sighs.

‘Is this what love feels like?’ The thought takes her by surprise, even as she realizes it’s true. ‘It’s not lust, although that’s there too. I just need to touch her, be with her. I need to feel her there and know she’s real.’

Maggie buries her nose in Amy’s flesh and breathes her in, smelling sweat and perfume and deodorant and just a hint of the musk from the wetness that came from last night’s play. She feels Amy wake up, then roll over in bed to face her. The fingers that brought her so much pleasure last night reach over and touch Bishop’s chin so very gently, lifting her face to meet Amy’s lips as they softly touch hers. Maggie pulls back just a little and looks up to see her lover smile.

“Hey,” she whispers, and Amy hears the slight tremble in her voice.

“Hey back at you, girl,” she replies softly. “I’m really lovin’ the look in your eyes right now. Whatever you’re thinkin’, baby, hold that thought.”

She leans forward and kisses Maggie again. She is gentle as first, as if Bishop is so fragile she might break. Suddenly, Amy’s kisses become harder and deeper, full of hunger and passion, and she rolls over until she’s on top of her and both of their bodies are skin to skin. Maggie does her best to kiss her back, but Amy pushes her legs apart and rests her weight between them. She begins to rock on her gently as they kiss, her mound pressing softly into Maggie's clit over and over. The heat inside her begins to rise until she can barely think, and before she can stop herself, Bishop feels a sudden tidal wave of pleasure roll up from inside her and push her over an edge she didn’t even know was there. It’s so intense, she finds herself half-moaning and half-screaming into Amy’s mouth as she explodes inside, shuddering all over.

Amy holds her tight as Maggie trembles and bucks under her. When Bishop seems to be coming back to herself, Amy raises herself up slowly. She looks down into her lover’s eyes …

… and is surprised when she sees fear.

“Hey, baby,” she whispers. “You look scared.”

Maggie manages a shaky smile.

“That’s because I am scared.”

“You’re afraid … of me?”

“I’m afraid of us.” Amy’s confusion makes its way to her face, and Maggie kisses her softly. “What I feel for you … what we feel … I’ve never felt this way before. It’s like you’re holding a piece of my soul, and I’ll never get it back, but that’s okay, because I don’t want it back. While you’re holding it, it feels so damned good, I don’t ever want it to end.”

Amy smiles, and touches Maggie’s nose with hers. “You don’t need to be afraid of me, not now or ever. I … I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, the day I found you, when you decided to kiss me back. I knew what I felt for you, and finding out you were open to the possibility of there being an ‘us’ was just …? Especially after what happened to you … before.”

Bishop pulls her down into a hug, and sighs as Amy’s warmth flows down through her again.

“I’ve never really let myself love anyone before,” the thief whispers into her lover’s ear. “I’ve always been so confident, so self-assured … and loving someone felt like surrendering a part of that. A part of me. Which it was, come to think of it.”

Maggie’s hands wander down Amy’s back, enjoying the feel of her skin. She buries her face in Amy’s neck, breathing in her sweet scent.

“But maybe that’s what love is.” She tilts her head back and looks into Amy’s eyes. “The men I work with … they’re my family, and I love them like brothers. I would die for them, if I had to. Just like I would for you.”

“I do love you, Maggie.” Amy leans down and kisses her softly. “I don’t know how it happened, but you caught my heart, and I don’t want you to let go, either.”

Amy sees … something come into Maggie’s eyes, a realization … and then the beginnings of tears rise up to make them glisten.

“Amy … there are things you don’t know, about me or my friends.”

“Well, tell me, silly, and then I’ll know.”

Bishop looks up at her for a few seconds, then opens her mouth, but no sounds emerge. Suddenly, the look in Maggie’s eyes becomes unbearably sad. Before Amy can utter a sound, Maggie rolls them both over until she’s on top, then slides off of Amy and rises to her feet.

“They’re … they’re not my secrets to tell.” She stands there, naked, tears rolling down her face. “And if you knew my secrets … all of our secrets … we could be in danger. All of us … and you.”

She scrambles around the room, picking up her clothes and putting them on while Amy looks on, frozen and confused. “Oh God, I am so sorry. I’ve been so selfish. Damn it, I just didn’t think. I wanted you so much, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t think about what it would mean to someone else to take what I wanted. I just … just …”

Maggie practically runs to the door, then turns and looks back.

“I am so sorry, Amy. Just … don’t look for me. I’m nothing but trouble, and you deserve better.”

The door closes behind her, and Amy, her mind spinning, finally speaks.

“I … deserve you.”

###

Bateau disconnects and puts down the smart phone with a muffled sigh. He has just spent well over an hour on the phone, booking half a floor in the Fountainbleu with a draft on Senor Aldafieri’s Swiss account, and impressing on the hotel manager how extremely important it was that the Contessa’s presence there remain a secret.

“It is always better to run a con like that face to face,” he says, almost to himself. “There is only so much one can do over a telephone to sell a story. In the end, I didn’t truly have him on the hook until the money from Switzerland cleared. I feel … cheated, Michael.”

“Sorry to hear that, old son,” Finn replies, his attention split between Bateau and the piece of software gently hacking its way into the Italian State Department’s server in Washington, D.C. “I know how much you like doin’ your thing in person.”

He turns and looks over at the grifter. “You know, you could have flown there and done the ‘preparing the way for Her Worshipfulness’ gig on site.”

“I know, but I did not feel I could leave. Bishop is still … fragile.” Bateau rises from the sofa and walks over to the in-suite bar. The hacker raises an eyebrow.

“She seems almost normal t’me … well, except for the makeup, and the clothes, and the fact that she’s a she.” He shrugs. “And the fact that she seems a lot more okay with the ‘being a she’ part than she used to be.”

The larger man pours a drink as he shakes his head. “This Amy person she met … whoever she is, she has done much to help her these past few days, that is true. But I believe there is still a part of Maggie that is fighting her change. I am not sure what we can do to fix that … how to lay that demon to rest.”

The front door clicks and swings open, and Bishop rushes into the suite, red-faced from crying. She runs across to her room so quickly that neither man can say a word before she pushes open the door and disappears within. The door swings shut behind her.

For a moment, all is silence. Bateau turns slowly and looks at Finn. The hacker looks back, then shakes his head.

“Sorry, friend. This one is all yours.” Bateau cocks his head slightly, and Finn shrugs. “We both know I’m an awkward bastard. Always have been. And what I don’t know about women could fill the Internet. But she’s hurting, Bateau. She needs us … well, one of us, and you know as well as I do, it’s sure as Hell not me.”

The Frenchman sighs, then nods and puts down his glass. Taking a deep breath, he walks resolutely across to her door and knocks gently.

“Mon ami?”

Silence. Bateau tries the knob and finds the door unlocked. He swings it open slowly, and sees Bishop curled into a ball on her bed.

He approaches her slowly, and sits down on the edge of the bed.

“I love her, Bateau.” Bishop’s voice, half-muffled by the bedspread, is still full of pain.

“This Amy?” She nods without raising her head.

Bateau lets a bit of music into his voice, hoping to lull her to face him. “And this is a bad thing?”

“I can’t have her.”

“Why?”

“Because she would have to know … about us.”

It is his turn to nod, even though she cannot see.

“Does she love you?” She takes a breath that makes her whole body shudder in a half-sob, and turns just a little so she can see his face. The pain in her eyes stabs his heart.

“Yes, she does. And that makes it worse. I didn’t think things through, and now both of us get to suffer.”

Bateau reaches out and puts his hand gently on her shoulder.

“Love is never about thinking,” he says softly. “And the two of you have fallen in love too fast for it to be anything but love.”

She raises her head further, clearly confused. He sighs.

“Oh, cher, there are so many ways to find love. Slow and steady, over time, or suddenly, like a lightning bolt. But love is love, and you can’t just turn it off, anymore than you can find love when love is not there to find.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?”

He pats her shoulder and stands suddenly.

“For now, rest, mon ami.” He looks down at her, a small smile on his face. “Do you trust me?”

She nods. “You know I do.”

“Then sleep. Things will be better when you wake, I promise.”

Bishop hesitates a moment, nods, and lowers her head, eyes closing. Bateau stands for a few moments, watching her as she lays there. Eventually, her breathing becomes regular, and he knows she is asleep.

‘Even though her heart was broken a few moments before, she sleeps. Why? Because she trusts me,’ he thinks, and his lip twitches, just a little. ‘She trusts me to fix this for her, because I told her I would. And so I shall.’

As quietly as he can, Bateau makes his way out of her room and closes the door behind him. He stands for a few moments, thinking. Although Finn notices him when he first comes out, he returns to his own work and leaves Bateau to do what he does best.

“Finn?”

The hacker hits a few more keys and stops, then turns to face the Frenchman. “Yeah?”

“I am about to do something that could be insanely stupid.”

“That’s not like you.” Finn looks him in the eye. “But it’s for her, isn’t it?”

“Oui.”

“Will it make her happy?”

“I believe so,” he replies. “Or possibly kill us all, in the end. There is always an element of risk, as you know. Do you trust me?”

“Do you even have ta ask?” Finn shakes his head. “With my life and all, ya daft plonker. I shouldn’t hafta say it out loud after all we’ve been through together.”

Bateau nods once, and heads for the door.

“Bateau?” He stops and turns to look at Finn. The hacker stands up. “If there’s anything you can do to make her smile again, do it. Hang the risk. Hang everything. I’ll not watch her tear herself apart again, not after seein’ her just gettin’ on with it the past few days.”

“I will hold you to that, my friend.” Bateau says, and Finn watches as the door to the suite closes behind him.

###

Amy wanders around the apartment, wearing a long lavender sweater and black leggings she threw on quickly when Maggie left. She had rushed outside to try and catch her before she could get too far, but she failed. In the hours since, all of Amy’s attempts to find where Maggie had disappeared to had crashed and burned.

She did manage to find out that Maggie had asked mall services to send all of their purchases from the other day to a hotel, to someone named Aldafieri. Unfortunately, the hotel refused to admit any such person was staying there, leaving her wondering just what she was supposed to do next.

She has almost convinced herself to drive over to the hotel and wait for Maggie to show up in the lobby, but a knock at the door pushes that idea from her head. Amy rushes to the door and opens it without thinking, hoping Maggie has come back on her own. Instead of the woman she loves, a huge bearded man in a dark Italian suit fills the hallway. He looks down at her with a small smile.

“Ms. Tilson? I am a friend of Maggie Bishop. My name is Bateau. May I come in?”

At the mention of Maggie’s name, Amy steps back to let the huge well-dressed man into her apartment. He smiles at her and nods his head in thanks as he steps past her, then turns and take her hand.

“You are the one who has brought Bishop back to us,” he says softly, “at least part of the way. I wanted to thank you personally for that.”

Bringing her hand up to his lips, he kisses it softly. Amy feels a warmth spread through her, just for an instant. Looking up at her, he gives her hand a small squeeze, then releases it.

Bateau turns and looks over the apartment, then motions to the sofa in the living room.

“May we sit? I feel we need to talk.”

Amy thinks for a moment, then nods and leads the way. She leaves the sofa to him and settles on a chair across from it. Bateau takes note of this, and he nods approvingly as he lowers himself onto the much softer couch.

“Very well done, Ms. Tilson. Putting some distance between the two of us, and leaving me the piece of furniture from which rising would take more time, giving you more time to flee … or fight. Of course, you have nothing to fear from me, but you don’t know that, so caution is always a wise policy.”

“Are you … Abramo Aldafieri?”

“Ah, you followed the trail back to the hotel. I begin to see what she sees in you.” He grins, and she feels an irrational need to smile back at him. Looking away, she shakes her head.

“I was very motivated. And worried.” Her tone is even and measured. “Are you Aldafieri?”

“In a way. Now and always, I am Bateau, but there are times when Senor Aldafieri has his uses. At the moment, he is a useful name to hide behind.”

“Are you hiding, Mr. Bateau?”

“We are all hiding, Ms. Tilson, Bishop included. She told you something of what happened to her?” Amy nods. “That unfortunate event has put us all in a difficult position. People are hunting for her. We did our best to make them think she is dead, but they may still be looking for her, and by extension, myself and her other associate, Mister Finn. That is why she ran from you today.”

“I’m not sure I understand.” Amy leans forward. “She knows I’m not a threat. I love her.”

He sighs. “Ah, you misunderstand. She ran because you love her, and she loves you. She believes she might become a threat, to you. Oh, at first she ran because she did not feel that she could share our secrets with you, even though she loves you. She also believed she would be putting Mister Finn and myself in danger without our consent. And she knew that, as much as she wanted to, she could not tell you what was going on without putting you in danger as well. So she left you and ripped her own heart out to protect you.”

“But that’s … that’s crazy. What the hell are you people, spies? Assassins?”

“Before I answer that question, I need you to answer one. An important one. Do you love her? I mean, truly love her.”

She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Do you love her enough to risk all that you have to be with her?”

Bateau sees the confusion in her eyes, and reaches out to take her hand.

“I do not ask this lightly,” he says softly. “Finn and I … we love her, too. Enough to put our lives and hers in your hands, based only on the fact that she loves you. We both agreed that we would tell you everything. But if we do this … if I do this … then you will hold all of our lives in your hands. Also, knowing who we are and what we do will make you one of us, and that will put you in danger as well. There is a chance you might have to leave everything you have behind and run, at a moment’s notice. Because there are people who will want to kill you, because you are one of us. Do you understand?”

Amy nodded once, slowly.

“So … do you love her enough to risk all that you have?”

She looks down at her hand, resting gently in his, then looks back at his face, seeing only concern. “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Bateau?”

“Yes.”

She smiles. “Then you already know the answer.

Bateau returns her smile, and gives her hand a squeeze before releasing it.

“Well, then,” he says, sitting back on the sofa with a twinkle in his eye. “Welcome to our merry band, Ms. TIlson. Now … about the ‘family business.’ It all began with a movie about a noble thief in green tights, with a rather unusual mission statement …”

###

Bishop stares up at the ceiling, listening to the silence and wondering what to do next.

‘I can’t just lie here forever,’ she thinks. ‘As appealing as that option might be, boredom would chase me out of bed eventually. I really should do something, but that would mean committing to rejoining life as we know it, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.’

A smile touches her lips for an instant, as she thinks about the emotional roller coaster her life has become. So many years in control of her life, her destiny, reduced to this one moment in time — a beautiful woman crying her eyes out for the loss of a love she could never have had in the first place. It really was all her fault, after all. She should never have lied to herself, or thought she could really find love. It wasn’t fair to Amy, or to herself, let alone to Bateau and Finn.

She sighs. Being responsible is a bitch.

There is a knock on the door.

“Cher?”

Maggie raises her head and turns towards the voice. The door swings open slightly.

“Bateau?”

“The one and only.” He smiles briefly at her, then the smile disappears. “We must talk. Finn and I have discovered a problem with the task we have undertaken in Florida, and thus require your counsel.”

She sighs, her eyes closing for a few seconds as she decides what to do next. Shall she live again, or curl up in a ball and wait for reality to go away? She shakes her head, then rolls over and sits up at the edge of the bed.

“Give me a minute, please?”

“Of course.” Bateau withdraws and she walks to the bathroom, the sensuous glide as she walks no longer anything more than a way to move from place to place. When she realizes this, she stops, just for an instant, to consider what that means.

‘I have Amy to thank for that,’ she thinks as she brushes her hair. ‘For so much …’

For a moment, the sadness rises up, but she pushes it away.

“The job first,” she whispers to her reflection. “Grief comes later.”

When she walks into the living room of the suite, Bateau is standing by Finn, still at his keyboard.

"Do you remember our conversation the other day, about what your clothing says about you, and how important that is in what we do?"

Bishop nods, and Bateau smiles. "Now, ever since what happened to you, you have been struggling with what to wear and how to present yourself. If we are to punish Mister Straker for the things he’s done, we must make him believe you are an Italian contessa. We must move very soon, in order to arrive at his hotel a few days prior to the event. But you lack the ability to present yourself appropriately. You will need expensive European fashions, including evening wear and even swimwear, since we will be in Florida.”

Bateau steps forward and takes her gently by the shoulders. "In short, in order for you to successfully pretend to be a contessa, we will need an expert in choosing the appropriate make-up and clothing to present precisely the impression we wish to make.”

She looks up at him, and her bottom lip begins to quiver.

“How fortunate for us all … that you’ve managed to find one.” He leans down, kisses her forehead softly, and turns her towards the suite’s small kitchen.

Amy is there, arms crossed, leaning against the door jam.

“You didn’t think I’d let the woman I love run off on me, did you?” Her tone is playful, but her eyes are serious, full of an emotion that takes hold of Bishop’s heart and won’t let go. “I only just found you, baby. I’m not about to let you go, not ever. Love isn’t something you let go of without one hell of a fight.”

Time blinks, and Bishop finds herself in Amy’s arms, holding her tight. She tilts her head back and looks up to find Amy smiling down on her.

“So you’re a world-class thief with a heart of gold?” Bishop nods once, and the smile becomes a grin. “Damn, girl, that is so sexy.”

“You know … about us?”

“Hell yes, baby. Bateau came to me and told me everything.”

Bishop looks over at Bateau, and he gives her an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

‘Not quite everything,’ she thinks, and wonders if that one last lie is a good thing.

She looks back at Amy. “You know … it’s dangerous, being one of us.”

“I know.” The other woman shrugs. “So is crossing a street full of pit vipers and alligators, but I’ll risk it … if you’re on the other side.”

Maggie melts inside, just a little, and buries her face in Amy’s chest. “You say the sweetest things.”

Amy touches her chin, raising her face, and when Bishop looks into her eyes, Amy kisses her softly.

“Only because they’re true,” she replies.

Bishop raises her voice. “Finn? You’re okay with this?”

“She makes you happy, Your Holiness. I’d have ta be the king of all the fuckin’ asshats who ever lived to get between you and happiness.” She turns her head and sees him smile. “Besides, we need her as much as you do, yeah?”

“I doubt that,” the thief replies, smiling back. “But … thanks.”

“So, we have a timetable, mon ami,” Bateau says, and both Amy and Bishop turn towards him. “The party in Miami is in four days, and we must be at the hotel in two to establish our trip as unrelated. Amy, can you make our pretty partner a princess … or at least a contessa … by then?”

“Indeed I can, Mister Bateau.”

“Just Bateau, please,” he replies. “After all, we are family now.”

“Well, then, brother, this girl is on the job. We’ll hit the stores ASAP, Maggie. Some exclusive spots, high-end stuff. But first, I’m thinking somebody needs a shower.”

Bishop sighs. “I do?”

“No, honey, we both do!” She turns the thief around and pushes her towards the bathroom door. “We smell like we had a terrific time last night, which we did, but a contessa can’t stink like this and expect the best service at the local shops. Neither can her best friend and constant companion.”

“Friend?”

“Well, an Italian Contessa would have at least one woman in her entourage to pal around with, don’t you think? I can’t be seen as your lover if you’re gonna have a clear path towards seducing this Straker sleaze, if you need to.”

She slips an arm around Maggie and walks her to the bathroom while Bateau and Finn watch. “So friend I am and friend I’ll be, and more than that, always. But as your personal shopper and your friend, I really do need to tell you something.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I know that you’re supposed to be Robin Hood and all, but Mags? Seriously, green is so not your color.”

The bathroom door closes behind them both.

###

“Lou? I may have somethin’.”

Lou Rossi looks up from the stack of spreadsheets in his hands to see Donnie “Three Fingers” DeLuca at the door.

“What something?”

“Magdalene.”

Rossi tosses the papers onto the desk and waves DeLuca into the room. “Talk to me.”

“I’ve been lookin’ into the strip club where this Bishop guy got whacked. The Arab was there that night, a lot earlier.”

“Khaleel was there?”

“Yeah. Check this out.”

DeLuca puts a tablet on Rossi’s desk. Lou looks at it like it's a snake. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a tablet, Lou.”

“Okay, fine, so it’s a tablet. What am I supposed to do with it?”

DeLuca sighs. “Listen, the parking lot at the strip club had cameras, in case they had problems with a customer or car thieves or whatever. Maybe whoever owned the club blackmailed the guys who came there, I don’t know. But we got access to the recordings, and I got copies on the tablet, and I’m gonna show ‘em to you, okay?”

Rossi puts up both hands. “Hey! Donnie, don’t go gettin’ pissed at me. I’m a print guy, okay? I don’t do technology. To me, a tablet is somethin’ you take when you got a headache.”

DeLuca reaches down and touches the screen. It wakes up, and he presses “Play.” Khaleel is getting out of a car in front of the building. He slams the door, bangs once in the top of the car, and it drives away. Then he turns and walks towards the back of the building. Donnie hits the “Pause” button on screen.

“The time stamp says he got there four hours before this guy Bishop gets whacked by Gino’s men. Four hours, Lou. And not only is he there early, he sends his car away instead of having his guys wait for him. What’s up with that?”

Lou stares down at the screen, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. “You think maybe a meet, Donnie?”

Donnie nods. “Maybe he was gonna meet Bishop. Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise.”

“When you looked at the video, did you see Bishop come in?”

“You remember the guy’s pic. He wants to blend in, he blends in. So when he comes in to meet Khaleel, he's just another tired regular lookin’ for a little fantasy.”

Rossi taps the screen once, is surprised as the video moves forward for an instant, then taps it again to make it stop. “Sounds about right. That would explain why Khaleel sent his car away, to keep the mook from figuring out who he is from his guys. But this Bishop, he was a nobody. Why go to all this trouble, sending the car away? Why show up so early?”

“Maybe it was blackmail.” DeLuca paces a little behind Rossi’s chair. “Maybe this Bishop guy had somethin’ he wanted, and the Arab threatened him with tellin’ everybody he’s Magdalene unless he delivered.”

“But he wasn’t Magdalene!”

“Well, yeah, we know that. But Khaleel had plenty of evidence that said he was. Maybe he showed it to him, to get him to agree to Khaleel’s terms or else.”

“But he had already showed us that stuff. Bishop was blown anyway.”

“That’s true,” Donnie counters, “but maybe Bishop didn’t know that.”

“You think he was conning the mark?”

“Hey, he screwed us, didn’t he? And if he screwed us, you think he didn’t have it in him to screw Bishop, too? Especially since Bishop would be very dead before morning if his plan worked.”

Rossi looks at DeLuca. “This ain’t looking good.”

Donnie shook his head. “It gets worse.”

He reaches down and taps the “Fast Forward” button, and the image scrolls forward. The time stamp shows minutes as seconds, and Lou watches intently as the parking lot empties, until it’s nothing but asphalt under fluorescent lights. Lou reaches out and stops the playback.

“Khaleel never left.”

“Not through that door, anyway. And we searched the place from roof to basement, and got nothin’.”

Lou swivels his chair around and looks up at Donnie. “When the Arab got there, he walked away from that door, towards the back. What’s in the back?”

“Stage door, loading dock. Fence runs around the outside, so access is limited to where the camera sees. Anything that comes and goes gets recorded. Trust me, Khaleel never left.” Donnie reaches for the tablet. “But someone else came in. Check this out.”

He runs the video back two hours, and the parking lot is still mostly full. He presses “play” and then “slow.” A large black shadow slips into view for a split second and disappears.

“What the hell was that?”

“Somebody dressed in black. Can’t see his face, but he’s a big guy. And he’s not alone. Check this out.”

Donnie hits “play” again, then “fast forward” for a few seconds before hitting “pause.” A smaller figure is frozen, running towards the back.

“Two of ‘em.” Rossi grunts and tilts his head. “Still can’t see his face. What the fuck is going on?”

“It gets better.” Donnie hits “fast forward,” and the time counter moves for a while before he punches “play” again. The speed goes back to normal as the smaller figure runs out from behind the club. A few seconds later, a white van pulls up by the side of the building, license plates not visible. The larger figure climbs in the back, still half in shadow. A second after that, someone new enters the picture at the corner of the building, and Donnie hits “pause.”

“Who’s the blonde?”

“Probably one of the strippers. We talked to the floor manager for that night. It turns out one girl cut out on her last set, and somebody else had to take her place. A blonde, stacked, named Moira. The picture’s too blurry to know for sure, but it’s a good bet that’s her.”

He hits “play” again, and she climbs awkwardly into the back of the van. The door slams shut and it drives away. Donnie picks up the tablet and shuts it down, then walks to in front of the desk and sits in one of the chairs there.

“So, Khaleel never leaves, but he’s not there when the hit goes down on Bishop. The two new guys come in and leave like they’re on a mission or somethin’, and the broad cuts out on her job and goes with them.”

Rossi sits back and looks at Donnie across the desk. “Did you try to find her?”

“Tried, and failed. She worked off the books, and Moira is the only name she gave ‘em. Some of the other girls said she kept to herself, didn’t talk a lot about life away from the club.”

DeLuca stands up. “You want me to keep looking?”

Lou stares into space for a minute, then nods slowly. “Yeah, I think you need to. She’s the only other loose end we got for the night Khaleel went into that club and didn’t come out again. She may have nothin’ to do with it, but if we think that, it buys us nothin’. So we find her.”

“On it, boss.” Donnie turns and heads for the door. Rossi turns his chair around and looks at the skyline as he hears the door close behind him.

‘I hate mysteries,’ he thinks, rerunning the video in his head. ‘But this one’s too big to ignore.”

‘I just hope solving it takes us somewhere we want to go … and that we got some answers waiting for us when we get there.’

###

© 2013. Posted by the author.

Bishop smiled and Bateau returned her smile. “Always remember, for Francesca it is just a game, one she is very, very good at playing. He is the mouse to your cat, nothing more.”
 

by Randalynn

 

---

 

 
The Fountainbleu was the grand old girl of the Miami hotel trade. It was the first choice for kings, princes, and other heads of state who needed somewhere of quality to stay in Florida’s most populous city. Younger, hipper rich kids chose other luxury hotels as their stomping grounds when they headed south for the winter, but the older scions of America’s wealthier families always stayed at the Fountainbleu when the need arose.

The lobby was a monument to understated wealth, crafted from brass, wood, marble and leather. Its huge but elegant interior held many plush armchairs and sofas, covered in the softest glove leather. They were arranged in conversational groups, so meetings could be held if guests wished to do business, but far enough apart to ensure privacy. A waterfall three stories high made its way down the wall behind the front desk, to empty into a massive reflecting pool full of koi, drifting fat and lazy. And at the slightest word from an always-attentive concierge, a veritable platoon of busmen waited for the opportunity to leap into service if a guest required it.

Although the Fountainbleu lobby was often busy, it was also extremely quiet. Hushed tones were always employed by both guests and staff alike, almost as if the history of the place alone demanded that everyone involved conduct their affairs with a mixture of quiet respect and sober reverence.

Unfortunately, the afternoon it all began, the Fountainbleu and its guests would receive neither.

 
Harlan Straker stands by the front desk, supposedly waiting for his limo to be brought around but actually holding an impromptu press conference with the society reporters for Miami’s media outlets.

“Why hold a party for a jewel collection?” The Herald’s social editor asks, her tone curious. The question is an honest one. As a woman with too many years of experience filling the society pages, she has attended way too many social events over the years. After a while, she reached the point in her career where she wonders why anyone throws a party at all anymore.

“Why not have a party?” Straker responds, throwing her a Burt Reynolds smile that peeks out from under his mustache. “Hell, can’t a man throw a party if he wants to? I’ve got a whole lotta precious stones and a hankering to show ‘em off. If that ain’t a good enough reason, I don’t know what is.”

“Isn’t it a little dangerous?” This time, the question came from the reporter for the local NBC affiliate, a small man with thinning hair and a cameraman at his side. He holds out a microphone to Straker like he’s trying to feed bamboo to a panda, and the millionaire responds by looking down his nose at the reporter like he’s considering gutting him where he stands. The reporter looks up at him, unimpressed and unafraid, and continues. “I mean, a collection worth as much as yours is bound to attract … attention.”

“You mean thieves, don’t ya?” Straker grins so wide his dimples have dimples. “Who’d be stupid enough to try? My collection is so damned big, they’d need an armored car to get it out of the building. Besides, there’s guards and all manner of alarms … and I know the Miami police got their hands in all this somewhere. I ain’t worried, boy. Why the hell should you be?”

A few steps away, a large man in a well-tailored Italian suit is speaking urgently with the hotel manager.

“Are you insane, perhaps? Did you not understand what I told you when last we spoke?” The man’s voice begins to rise, a slight accent coloring the frustration in his voice as it grows louder. “She is due to arrive this afternoon. She specifically ordered me to keep her visit quiet.”

He raises a finger and shakes it at the manager. “I paid you good money to ensure her privacy. I paid YOU, sir. And yet, what do I find when I arrive? Media! In your lobby!”

"And what a job it was getting them there,” Finn mutters in his ear. "I had ta fake a call from Straker’s PR lady to each and every one of them, then use emails from higher-ups to get whoever was just above each of them in the food chain to give them all a push."

Bateau ignores Finn’s barely restrained bragging to continue. “This is totally unacceptable!”

“My sincerest apologies, Signor Aldafieri,” the hotel manager replies, his hands held up to try to quiet the irate Italian. “We had no idea Mister Straker was going to be holding a press conference in the lobby.”

“Really? Is this a normal thing for a five-star hotel?” Bateau blustered, finally catching the attention of a few of the outliers from Straker’s press group. “I was assured the Contessa’s presence here would be kept quiet, and yet there they are, like vultures waiting to pounce. Like jackals!”

“Please, sir, you’re attracting the very attention you wish to avoid!”

Several other members of the press pack had turned at his last outburst, and Bateau looked over his shoulder at the group, then back to the manager as he realized what he had said.

“Porca Puttanaccia! What have I done?” He looks wildly to the right and left. “It is not too late to save this. Is there another entrance we could get her to enter through? Some other place, a back door, anything!”

The hotel manager looks past his shoulder and sighs.

“Too late,” he replies. “I believe … she is here.”

Bateau spins around to find a raven-haired beauty ignoring the revolving door and entering the hotel through the standing door beside it. As a platoon of bell men unload the trunk of her waiting limo, she struts through the lobby in a Paris ensemble that hugs every curve, covering everything but leaving nothing to the imagination. She talks non-stop with the woman at her side, a tall dark-skinned beauty in a long white sleeveless dress, who smiles and nods at everything she says.

Some of the photographers and cameramen turn towards her, and flashes begin to strobe. She holds up a hand and speaks.

“Abramo!” Her tone is clear and commanding, and clearly not happy. Her voice fills the lobby. “You said you had handled everything. You said you had taken care of our privacy. Is this how they do that where you come from? By inviting the paparazzi to greet us?”

The huge man seems to wilt before her, becoming a flustered non-entity as everyone watched. “My apologies, Contessa. I am so very, very sorry. This was completely unforeseen. This gentlemen was talking to the press, and it was just coincidence it should take place now, when you were due to arrive.”

"As if," Finn snorts, and Amy suppresses a smile. Bishop doesn’t seem to even hear him, and gives Bateau a long angry scowl before softening, just a bit.

“Well, we are here,” she says, throwing him the barest hint of a smile, “and I am tired, and I know you cannot be responsible for everything — as much as I would like you to be.”

The flashes continue, and some of the reporters begin to throw questions at her. She ignores them and walks to the front desk. The crowd tries to follow, but the large man raises his arms and holds them back.

As she approaches, the hotel manager’s eyes drift to her chest, but rise upwards quickly when her palm slams down onto the desktop.

“A typical man,” she snarls. “You fail so spectacularly at the simplest of tasks, but the first thing you do when you meet me is look at my chest. Are my breasts so magnificent that they can distract you from your failure, even now?”

“No!” Her eyes narrow and he thinks about what he said. “I mean yes … I mean —“

‘What you meant is unimportant, just like you are. And just like you, your words do not matter. Whatever you think of them, they are my breasts, and you will never touch them, not now, not ever. Even having you look at them is an insult.” He opens his mouth and she reaches up and closes it for him with a finger. “Silence. I know it is difficult for you, but try to restrain your disappointment — and your eyes — and pay attention.”

His eyebrows raise, but he listens. Her voice becomes an exquisite growl.

“You were paid to make sure this did not happen, and yet it did. Since I cannot hold Senor Aldafieri accountable, I will blame you instead, because this is your hotel, and your city. Even though you failed me, I will stay … for now. And I will give you one more chance to impress me.” She leans forward. “But if you should fail me again, in even the smallest way, know this. I shall make sure that everyone who is anyone knows of your failure, and your hotel will pay the price. No one who wants to keep their lives away from the press will ever trust you again. Do you understand?”

He nods wordlessly. In an instant, her face relaxes into a smile. She reaches up and pats his cheek softly.

“Good. We are going to our floor now. Make them all go away.”

“Allow me, miss,” A deep voice comes from behind the crowd. “All right, ladies and gents, move along. Let the lady and her friends get where they’re goin’.”

The group hesitates a second, and the voice continues. “Let me put it another way. I’m gonna start countin’. Anybody that ain’t outta here by the time I hit ten won’t be getting’ an invite to the party. You won’t get a guest list or a menu, and you sure as hell won’t get pictures. I’ll make damned sure you won’t get nothin’ from nobody. Now git. One … two … three …”

The hoard of reporters walked as quickly as they could towards the exit, with several of them getting jammed up in the revolving door before managing to untangle themselves. The woman looks up at Harlan Straker and smiles.

“At last, a man of action.” She takes a step towards him as he smiles back. “Someone who can do what needs to be done, without staring at my chest like … how do you Americans say, like a deer in the headlights?”

“Thank you,” he says, reaching out to take her hand. She places it in his, and he bends slowly as he raises it to his lips for a soft kiss.

“No, thank you.” She takes her hand away from him gently. “Do you not like my breasts, Mister …? “

“Straker, miss. Harlan Straker.” He grins at her. “And I like ‘em just fine. But it seems a mite rude to be starin’ at ‘em when we haven’t been formally introduced.”

Aldafieri steps forward.

“This is the Contessa Francesca of Monteferrat.”

She looks at him through her eyelashes and gives him a small smile. “And now we have been introduced.”

The elevator chimes and the doors slide open. Francesca’s deep brown eyes don’t move from Straker’s, and he finds himself getting lost in her gaze, just a little.

It’s an unsettling experience for him.

“Are you staying here also, Mister Straker?”

“Harlan, please. And yes, I’m stayin’ here. Holdin’ a party here day after tomorrow.”

“Do you hear that, Amelie? A party!” She places a hand on his chest. “Let me guess. Your birthday?”

He shakes his head. “Nothin’ quite like that. Just wanted to have a good time is all.”

“I like a good time, too.” She throws him an impish grin. “Maybe we could have a good time … together, yes?”

Straker clears his throat and swallows.

“Would you … like to come?”

The Contessa smiles, her white teeth flashing.

“Ooooh, Harlan,” she says softly. “I love to come.”

His brain freezes, and she covers her mouth as she tries not to laugh.

‘Did she say what I think she said??’ Thinking about whether or not she knew what she said, his eyes stray downward for a second before snapping back up to hers again. He can tell from the look in her eyes that she noticed. She gives him a mock pout.

“And here I though you had so much willpower.” She raises a finger and touches his chin. “Look at you. My man of steel, now just a man after all.”

“Contessa, please … the elevator.” Aldafieri pleads from behind her.

Francesca stands on tiptoe and whispers in his ear, her breath hot on his cheek. “Still, you resisted so well, and for so long. That must count for something.”

Smiling, she moves away and begins walking backwards towards the rest of her group. “Very well, Harlan. Amelie and I will be at your party. Tell Abramo where and when it is. Maybe you and I, we come … together, yes?” Another grin, and she pauses before she gets into the elevator.

“And maybe, just for you, I will wear something that lets you look at these as much as you want.” A finger touches her chest gently, and she smiles. “A present … for your not-birthday.”

She steps back and the doors close in front of her.

“Damn,” he says aloud, and the manager, concierge, and the rest of the bell staff all nod behind him in unison.

 
When all of their luggage arrives and the last of the bellmen leaves, Maggie collapses on the sofa with a groan, knees together and feet apart.

“That was incredible!” Bateau looks at her, fairly bursting with pride. “I knew that you could do it, cher, but that was absolutely inspired!”

Amy sits down next to her and hugs her gently.

“Damn, girl, you’re trembling!” She holds Maggie a little tighter, and the thief responds with a small squeal, burying her face in Amy’s chest.

The smile slowly leave Bateau’s face, and he reaches over and places his hand softly on Bishop’s shoulder.

“What is wrong, ma grande? You were perfect!”

Maggie turns her head and looks up at him.

“No, I wasn’t,” she whispers. “I was terrified. But when I walked through that door, something changed. It was like I became Francesca. Every word, every gesture … everything I did, it was all her!”

“But if it wasn’t art,” he says slowly, “then where did it all come from?”

Her lower lip begins to tremble.

“I have no idea!”

 
12 hours before …

Bishop knew standing alone in a motel parking just outside the Miami airport late at night was a bad idea. But she also knew she was not alone. She knew Bateau had been watching over her since the instant she left the room, and she smiled to herself as he walked up behind her.

“How is Amy holding up?” She spoke without turning around, feeling strangely comforted by having him at her back. She can almost feel him smile.

“Discovering she is fluent in French was a blessing,” he replied. “Finn has been inside the French state department computers practically since my government had computers to hack. Having her play Amelie to your Francesca will give your own role more credibility. The fact that she is such a gifted actress as well was almost too much to ask for. You chose well, mon ami.”

“Love doesn’t choose,” Bishop said, turning her head to look at her friend. “You taught me that.”

Bateau shook his head. “You already knew. I just had to remind you.”

“How are you getting used to the new look?” He touched her hair, now a deep brown, almost black.

“I’ve had to get used to a lot more than this in the past few weeks,” she said with a smile. “Hair dye, colored contacts, and a full-body skin dye hardly measures up to a Bay City makeover, don’t you think?”

The Frenchman nodded, and let his hand fall. Bishop returned to looking at the skyline, and they stood in silence together for a time before she spoke again.

“I’m afraid, Bateau.”

“That is understandable, but you need not be.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she turned to face him. “You have been the Italian count before, you know. Being the contessa is not so very different, is it?” Bishop nods, just a little. “After all, you have known your fair share of women just like the Francesca you must portray. Trust yourself, cher. We all do.”

“But … seducing a man?” She looks up into his eyes. “How could I … where would I begin?”

“First, you must know it doesn’t have to go any further than you wish it to.” She nodded. “If you remember that, it will be easier. Francesca enjoys the effect she has on a man. Also, both you and she know what kind of man Harlan Straker is. Do you honestly think the contessa would WANT him in her bed?”

Bishop smiled and Bateau returned her smile. “Always remember, for Francesca it is just a game, one she is very, very good at playing. He is the mouse to your cat, nothing more.”

“Now, as for the seduction itself, I want you to think back to when you were Mark. We both know that women just as alluring as you are now have tried to seduce you in the past. And you enjoyed it, I know you did, even though you never let it get past the flirting unless you wanted it to. Still, you enjoyed the dance, yes?”

The thief nodded, and Bateau smiled. “We all do, mon ami, men and women. Even though you never needed the affirmation, you enjoyed feeling desired. But just as when I taught you the art of the con, you were genuinely curious about the things women did to try and tempt you. The process of seduction itself was … seductive. And it is all there in your head, is it not?”

Maggie blushed and lowered her head, then nodded.

“Then you will have plenty of tactical approaches at your disposal, should you choose to use them. As I know you will.”

“And if I fail? What happens to the plan then?”

The Frenchman shrugged. “Then you will come up with another option, as you have always done in the past. But you won’t fail. Certainly not with someone like Straker.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because of who you are, and who he is.” Bateau touched her cheek, and Maggie looked up. “In the past, women used everything they had to bring you to bed. Not because you were so very handsome or rich, but because Mark Bishop was confident in himself. He did not need anyone to tell him who he was, because he had figured it out long ago.”

“But Harlan Straker needs everyone to agree that he is special. He is always acquiring new things and showing off his wealth. Like a little boy waving his arms and yelling ‘look at me!’ He treats every woman as nothing more than just another conquest — as just another way to show the world he can have any woman he chooses. He wants to make sure that everyone knows he is what you Americans call a ‘big shot.’ And an Italian contessa would be quite a prize indeed.”

“Maggie, in the world of men, Mark Bishop was a diamond, and he always will be, even when he is a she. But Harlan Straker has never been anything more than clay, shaped by the opinions of everyone he tries to impress. He will be putty in your hands, you will see.”

 
Now, the Empress Suite at the Fountainbleu

Amy strokes her hair and cuddles her.

“Maybe the woman you were isn’t as lost as you thought, baby,” she says softly, and Bishop freezes, just for an instant. “You told me you did this kind of thing before, lots of times. Maybe that part of you comes out when you need it, like when you needed to move in a skirt or wear makeup, remember?”

Maggie raises her head and looks first at Bateau, then turns to face Amy.

“You think so?”

“Best guess, Mags. For my best girl.” She kisses her gently. “What do you think, Bateau?”

“I have never seen you better, cher.” He sits down beside them both. “Maybe all of your worrying was for nothing, yes?”

“And if its true, honey, it’s something to be happy about, isn’t it?” Amy takes her hands and squeezes. “It means you’re getting better, right?”

‘Or worse,’ Bishop thinks. ‘Moira was studying to be an actress, and now I go and pull off a perfect seduction and an Italian contessa at the same time, practically in my sleep. Just how much of that was me … and how much of that was the part of her I’m still carrying with me?’

She smiles for Amy’s sake, and takes a deep breath.

“I hope so,” she says out loud. “It was just really scary, like I wasn’t in control at all.”

Finn’s voice echoes in everyone’s ears.

“I’ve been listenin’ in on Straker’s suite. He sent his limo away and came back upstairs. It sounds like he’s totally besotted with your Italian bitch queen, Your Holiness, but I think he’s more than a bit afraid of her, too … though he’s doin’ his best to hide that from his crew. He’s got some of his people checkin’ into your background, sniffin’ back on the trail I left on the airport and state department computers. But he’s also sendin’ his right hand guy, Curtis, out to talk to the manager, see what he knows.”

Bishop nods. “Makes sense. He’s already treating Francesca like a project, trying to find a way to get her where he wants her. He doesn’t like how easily she handled him in the lobby.”

“Worse, Curtis has more marchin’ orders. After the manager, he’s supposed to track down Amelie and try to get her to spill what she knows about the contessa.”

Bateau stands up and moves away, thinking on his feet.

“Then we must let him find her, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Bateau. This wasn’t the plan, yeah? It was supposed to be him lookin’ for the contessa, and findin’ both ladies at the pool.” Finn pauses, then continues. “You were too good at being in control, Maggie. You scared him more than you were supposed to. So now he’s sendin’ the help instead of huntin’ for you himself.”

“And Mister Curtis is hunting for Amelie instead of you, mon ami.”

Bishop looks up at Bateau and shrugs. “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, remember? And Amelie is more likely to let things slip if Francesca isn’t around.” She faces Amy. “How about it, girlfriend? Want to take that white bikini we bought for a spin and see what you catch?’

It’s Amy’s turn to look scared. “You want me to solo on my first flight?”

Bateau speaks from across the room. “You have nothing to fear, Amy. You are a natural. I was nothing but impressed with you the entire time we were working together.”

‘That’s not quite how I remember it.”

He smiles. “I pushed you because I wanted you to be as prepared as possible. You have never been someone else before, let alone a rich French woman with a much different history. But as I said, you have gifts you never suspected you possessed, and I have faith in you.”

He walks to Amy and puts his hand on her shoulder. “I would not send you alone to the pool to toy with Mister Curtis unless I knew you could be Amelie for as long as you need to be. And I would never send you unless I was sure you were ready. Trust me.”

Amy turns to look at Bishop. “Mags?”

“If Bateau says you can handle it, you can.” She reaches up and touches Amy’s cheek. “I have faith in you too, honey. So go tell Mister Curtis what we want him to hear, and make him believe it.”

“How?”

Maggie shrugs. “Amelie knows she’s beautiful. Men approach her all the time, wanting what she has no desire to share. So be a French goddess to the crass American. I bet when you’re through with him, he’ll be happy to get anything from you at all.”

“You’ll be awesome, Amy. I know it.” Bishop gives her a hug, then grins. “I only wish I could be there to watch!”

 
Curtis slips into the rooftop pool area, his eyes searching for his target. His talk with the manager was singularly unhelpful. The woman that had made his boss turn into a damned lovesick schoolboy had scared the manager so much, he could barely remember what happened. A few minutes with the lobby staff (and a few hundred dollars changing hands) got him a detailed description of what happened in the lobby, including what the countess’s girl friend looked like. Model pretty, he’d heard. The color of milk chocolate, and dressed in a white dress that hugged her body from tits to ass.

‘Any bitch who wears a dress like that wants to be noticed,’ he thinks, ‘and a man like me is exactly who she wants doin’ the noticing.’

He checks his own reflection as he passes the pool house bar window, and smiles at himself.

“Still lookin’ good,” he whispers, and the smile turns into a grin.

Curtis knows he’s never met a woman who could resist him for long. It might take a little time, but when he finds her, he’s going to unwrap this chocolate girl, and lick her until she melts.

‘She’s going to be so sweet,’ he thinks, scanning the rooftop.

‘And then she’ll tell me everything I want to know.’

He sees her on the other side of the pool, lying on a lounge chair. She is wearing sunglasses, and a white bikini that’s covers so little, he wonders why she even bothered wearing it. Curtis takes his time wandering around the perimeter of the water until he stands a few feet away.

She is everything he expected from the descriptions he’s heard, and more. Her exposed skin glistens from a coating of sunscreen and just a hint of perspiration, and the lust that rises in him is almost enough to render him speechless.

Almost.

"Hello," he says, flashing her his best smile.

She speaks without moving anything except for her lips. "Can I 'elp you?"

"Maybe you can. Isn't that what angels do?"

She shrugs, still lying down. "I do not know what other angels do. This angel wants to lie in the sun without being bothered by strange men."

“I’m not a strange man.”

The woman sighs. “All men are strange. You are just the latest in a long line of men who think having me will make their lives complete. All of them remain … disappointed. You will, too.”

“You seem so sure of that.”

“I am.” She smiles. “After all, you don’t even know me. It is my body you want, n’est pas? If I have no intention of giving it to you, you will not have it.”

He looks down at her. “Not that I’m sayin’ I’d ever,” he says slowly, “but what if someone wanted you and decided to take you … whether you wanted them to or not?”

Without looking at him, she raises the hand closest to him and twists it into a claw. Her nails are long, and painted blood red.

“He could try.” She licks her lips, just once. “Then he would be forced to learn what it would be like to live his life without being a slave to his … desires.” She closes the claw into a fist. “My grip is very strong, pretty boy. And my nails are very, very hard. Not so sharp, but that is okay. I would think sharpening them would be a mercy. Just imagine how much worse it would feel to have your testicles removed with five very dull knives, yes?”

Curtis shudders in spite of himself. “I’d rather not.”

She lowers her hand. “And I would rather not be talking to you. If you continue to bother me, we might both get our wish. After all, you are sitting very close, are you not? Well within … reach, I would say.” She smiles without an ounce of humor. “Leave me alone, or you won’t have to imagine at all.”

He doesn’t move, but he keeps quiet for a moment before continuing.

"It's a beautiful day."

"It was." She sighs. "Until you arrived."

"Oh, come on, miss, I'm not that bad. Once you get to know me ..."

"I do not wish to know you. I thought I had made that clear. And I am Amelie, not 'miss.'"

"Hello, Amelie. I'm Keene."

"You certainly seem to be. That mean eager, yes?"

"No, it's my name. Keene Curtis."

"It may be your name, but it seems to me you are also very eager.” Her lips twitch with the beginnings of a smile. “After all, you do not seem to want to leave me alone.”

He shrugs, not knowing if she can see but not caring, either. “A guy does what he has to do to make a beautiful woman notice him.”

The woman in question raises herself onto her elbows, then reaches up and pulls the sunglasses away from her eyes and gives his body a long, lingering appraisal. Finally, she looks directly into his eyes.

“Well, Keene,” she says slowly. “I will not say I am pleased to meet you, since you have been both rude and insistent the entire time I have known you. But you have also been … entertaining, in your annoying American way, and it has been a while since I met a man who tried as hard as you do to get and keep my attention. Also, you have been surprisingly brave.”

Curtis raises an eyebrow, and she purses her lips. “I did threaten your manhood with my dull, hard claws, and yet, you refused to run. Either you do not treasure it, which I doubt, or you do not fear me. If it is the latter, you are very brave, indeed.”

Her teeth flash in the sun with a sudden smile. “So, with all of this in mind, I have decided that I will let you buy me a drink. Not because I am at all taken in by your flattery or persistence, you understand, but because I am gracious beyond words, and I know you need to do something to apologize to me for being such an impolite boor. Am I correct?"

He nods once and smiles. "Oh, yes. Thank you for the … opportunity."

"Good." Amelie holds up her hand. “Then help me up, eager boy. I am thirsty.”

 
When Amy arrives back at the room, she is immediately wrapped in Maggie, hugging her tight.

“You were terrific!” Maggie whispers in her ear, and she finds herself smiling. A distinctive pop she recognizes as the cork escaping from a champagne bottle makes her turn her head to find a smiling Bateau, bottle in hand.

“Indeed, Amy, you were magnifique!”

“How could you know?”

“The comm set in your sunglasses, of course,” Maggie says, letting her loose and taking two glasses to Bateau to be filled. “We were all linked up the entire time. We stayed quiet because we didn’t want to break your concentration, but you were every bit the professional.”

“Right enough,” Finn adds through everyone’s comms. “Never seen Maggie do any better. Bateau’s right, you’re a natural.”

“Thank you, Finn,” Amy says, taking a glass from Bateau.

“Credit where credit is due, yeah?”

“I wish you could be here for the champagne, Michael.”

“Not part of the plan, Your Holiness. Besides, you know that’s not my style. Anyway, I got a pint of Strongbow right here, so I’ll be toasting right along with the rest of ya.”

“Not Guinness, mon frere?”

They can almost feel him shrug through the com link. “I need to pull up and check in soon. Last thing I need when I’m tryin’ to talk like a Yank is carryin’ around the weight of a pint o’ stout.”

Bateau raises his glass. “To Amy, our sister in arms!”

“To Amy!” Maggie and Finn repeat, and Amy hides behind her glass, embarrassed.

“And to crime!” Finn adds, and this time Amy joins them. “Long may it pay!”

After they touch glasses and drink, Finn interrupts. "Keene’s back in the room. Let me send it through."

There is a brief pause, then they hear the sound relayed from the hacked cellphones in Straker’s suite.

“Well, you picked yourself a winner this time, Harlan.”

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know, son.” They could hear the smile in his voice.

“According to her friend Amelie, Francesca is a challenge and a half. She knows she’s beautiful, and she knows that men want her. In fact, she’s more than happy to let them have her — but only on her terms.”

“And those are?”

“As near as I can tell, different for every guy.”

“You’re not making me happy here, Curtis.”

“Just telling you what I know. You want me to make up something, tell me before the next time I have to climb a 100-foot wall of ice put up by a French bitch just to get you the truth.”

Maggie looks at Amy and grins. Amy shakes her head, then grins right back.

“Don’t go gettin’ all madder than a Wompus cat, son. You can’t tell me she wasn’t worth the time or effort. I seen her in the lobby, I know what you was gettin’ into.”

“She was easy on the eyes.”

“And I bet you’re gonna see her again, too, ain’t ya?”

“What makes you say that?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo, Curtis, and it sure as Hell aint yours either. I see you with women before. Just climbin’ that ice wall of hers probably earned you more than a little respect. And damn if I bet you didn’t like gettin’ past it either. Hell, son, we both know that’s why women really put them walls up anyway. So we can climb over ‘em or rip ‘em down. We both know you’re gonna get to bed her before we leave town, and that’s a fact.”

There is a long pause while Curtis thinks it over. “I suppose.”

“So stop getting’ all riled up and get back to the Contessa. What kinda man does she let into her bed?”

“Amelie says the men Francesca really likes are the ones who are … well, confident, I guess. Guys who are strong and not afraid to take charge, but still respect her.”

Straker’s snort is clearly audible. “Respect her? That’s a laugh. She ain’t nothin’ but a fine-looking rich bitch with a fancy title and an attitude. Just a well-bred heifer who needs to be tied down and taught who’s boss.”

“She may be a heifer to you, but if you want to rope and brand her, you’re gonna have to treat her like a lady … like she’s something special.”

“Oh, don’t you worry none ‘bout ol’ Harlan. She’s gonna feel like the queen of the cows, right up until I brand her. And I will brand her, Curtis. You just bet I will.”

Amy looks at Maggie. “How ‘bout it, girl? Feeling the love yet?”

Bishop looks back at her with her newly brown eyes, adopts a vacant expression, and moos. Amy grins, and Bateau shakes his head with a smile.

“So, what now?”

“We watch her, son. Hell, we watch ‘em all. We’re in the same hotel, it ain’t gonna be that hard.” Harlan’s voice is smug and self-assured. “Meet her a few times, by ‘accident,’ maybe set up a few scenes where I get to show her how strong I am, all casual-like. Set her up ta trust me, so I can make my move. But if she won’t take the bait? Well, I’ll just slip some of that stuff into her drink at the party, and she’s mine.”

Maggie and Amy lock eyes, and Bateau’s smile becomes a hard frown.

“You need some?” Curtis’s voice sounds like drugging a woman is something they do all the time.

“Naw, I still got plenty from the last time. Although if I use it on her, I’ll be out.”

“Can’t have that. I’ll take care of it. I’ve got somebody in Miami I can tap. I’ll get more.”

“That’s why you’re mah Numbah Two, Curtis. Resourceful, that’s what you are.”

“Thanks, boss. We aim to please.”

The connection goes silent for a moment.

“They’re done.” Finn’s voice holds nothing.

“And so are we.” Amy turns to Bateau, and he smiles at her.

“Not at all, dear Amy,” he replies. “What we have is not an obstacle, but an opportunity.”

Confused, Amy turns back to Maggie, and she nods.

“It's true, honey. He said he’d only use it if I didn’t ‘take the bait.’ So at the party, I shall be sure to create the impression that the one place I want to be that night is in his bed.”

“And that’s when the fun begins,” Finn says, his grin coming through loud and clear. “For us, anyway. That’s where it ends for Mr. Straker, I’m guessin’.”

“Michael,” Bishop says, grinning herself. “There’s something I want you to find for me. Better yet, have it custom-made ... and charge it to Mister Straker. For this, money is no object. After all, doesn't Harlan Straker deserve the best?”

“Oh, absolutely, Your Eminence!”

“What about Curtis?” Amy asks.

Maggie takes her hands. “Oh, once you hear my idea, I’m sure you can come up with something … appropriate.”

Bishop leans over and whispers in her ear. Amy grins slowly, and a devilish glint appears in her eyes.

“Oh yeah. I think I know just the thing.”

 
Standing in the office above Gino’s gambling club, Lou Rossi watches the marks playing down below. He’s in an expensive suit, in case he has to step in and handle something the floor manager can’t, and doesn’t turn around when Donnie walks up behind him. He can see his lieutenant’s reflection in the big window that mutes the sounds coming from the gaming tables.

“Any photos the club had of her are gone, Lou. The management didn’t even know they were missing until we asked for ‘em.”

“And what does that tell you?”

“That she’s what the cops call ‘a person of interest.’”

“Shit, Donnie, we already knew that.”

“We suspected. All we knew before was that she left early with a couple of guys in a white van. But the fact that they went to all the trouble of getting any pictures they had before they drove off tells me they didn’t want to leave anything behind anybody could use.”

“That means they would have had to think someone would come lookin’.”

Donnie shrugs. “It just means they’re good. The sharpest guys in our business plan for the worst and hope for the best, you know that. They took the pictures in case someone came lookin’, not cause they expected it. Whoever they are, they’re pros.”

Lou turns and walks over to a bottle on the desk. He pours himself a drink. “It’s still a mystery. And it’s not getting us any closer to Khaleel. Or Magdalene.”

“No, but I been askin’ around, and I got somethin’ else. One of our guys was pretending to be a State Trooper on one of the roadblocks outside of Bay City, lookin’ for Bishop before we found him dead. He don’t remember much, but he remembers stopping a white van with a big guy at the wheel and a blonde in a short black dress on the passenger side. He said the blonde in the video from the club coulda been the one in the van.”

‘Coulda been?”

“He wasn’t looking at her face. He said her tits was this close to poppin’ outta the top of the dress, and he didn’t want to miss it if they did.”

Rossi shakes his head, and Donnie gets a little irritated. “Whaddaya want, Lou? This guy ain’t smart. If he was, he never would have agreed to be stopping cars in the middle of the night in a Troopers uniform. Anybody bright enough to tie his own shoes would know that he was a heartbeat away from being busted for ‘impersonatin’ an officer’ the minute somebody from the local barracks tripped over him.”

Lou nods. “Okay, okay, I get it. Anything else?”

“He said the guy’s name was Barry, or Benny, or Henny. And he said the guy had an accent.”

“What kinda accent?”

“He didn’t know.”

“So now what?”

“He said the van was heading east.” Donnie shrugs again. “So we follow it and see where it leads.”

“They’re probably long gone.”

“If they’re as good as they seem to be, yeah. But we got nothin’ better. Right now, we’re just playing the percentages and hopin’ something falls our way.”

“Because we think this blonde knows somethin’?”

“Because she’s all we got, for now.”

Lou sighs, pauses, then digs into his pants pocket and hands Donnie a bunch of hundred dollar chips.

“Nice work. You’re doin’ the best you can with what you got, kid. So take a break. Go on down and grab yourself a drink or two, play a few games. We’ll pick it up tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, boss. Thanks.”

Donnie turns and leaves, and Lou turns back to the big window overlooking the casino floor.

‘Playing the percentages,’ he thinks, then shakes his head. ‘Too many damned wild cards for my taste. Better hope the house wins, though. If Magdalene makes a play, all bets are off.’

###

© 2013. Posted by the author.

Bishop lays naked in bed, her head resting on the soft warmth of Amy’s bare breast. Her lover’s fingers are wrapped around the curve of her hip, holding Maggie close, and that one tiny gesture alone makes her feel wanted and needed and loved. It’s something she’s never truly had before, and realizing what she had been missing in all the years before she found Amy almost overwhelms her. She wishes she could save this moment in time and experience it again and again in the years to come.

‘Love.’ She smiles to herself, and gives Amy’s breast a tiny kiss. ‘It’s the most precious thing in the universe.’

‘And I didn’t even have to steal it.’
 

by Randalynn

 

---

 

 
Bishop lays naked in bed, her head resting on the soft warmth of Amy’s bare breast. Her lover’s fingers are wrapped around the curve of her hip, holding Maggie close, and that one tiny gesture alone makes her feel wanted and needed and loved. It’s something she’s never truly had before, and realizing what she had been missing in all the years before she found Amy almost overwhelms her. She wishes she could save this moment in time and experience it again and again in the years to come.

‘Love.’ She smiles to herself, and gives Amy’s breast a tiny kiss. ‘It’s the most precious thing in the universe.’

‘And I didn’t even have to steal it.’

“Hey, baby … what are you thinking?”

Maggie snuggles closer. “That loving you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Amy hugs her with one arm, her hand giving Bishop’s bottom a gentle squeeze. “Well, I think you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, so it sounds like we’re doing okay.”

“Oh, we’re way better than okay. We’re magnificent.”

She feels and hears her lover’s laugh through her chest, and suddenly Bishop feels the urge to cry. She’s happy beyond the words to express it, but still the tears threaten to come, and Maggie bites her lip to keep them in. One escapes and lands on Amy’s breast.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Bishop’s voice trembles. “I’m just so happy, I want to cry.”

“Goddess, Mags,” Amy whispers, pulling her into a hug. “Sometimes, you’re such a girl!”

Maggie stops for an instant, then begins laughing through the tears.

“Yes,” she says, through the laughter, “I guess I am. But I think that’s part of what you like about me.”

“What I love about you, woman.” She feels Amy’s lips touch the top of her head in a gentle kiss, and she buries her face in Amy’s soft skin.

They lie still for a time, cherishing the moments alone. Bateau is doing God-knows-what, and Finn is getting ready to make his entrance onto the stage, so this time is theirs alone. No need to be anything but lovers, to exist in that space where souls merge and time seems to slow to a crawl because you can’t bear to think of it moving any faster.

“Angel? Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Sure,” Maggie replies, her voice barely a whisper.

“How long have you three been doing what you do?”

“At least six years, I guess. Probably longer.” She traces little circles on Amy’s stomach with a fingertip. “It’s hard for me to say exactly. It’s been at least four years since Finn joined us, and Bateau and I worked together for a few years before that. Why?”

There is a long silence, and Maggie looks up to see her lover looking a little uncomfortable.

“It’s okay. Just ask.” Amy looks surprised, but then realizes Maggie knows her better than she thought.

“I don’t want to pry, but … how much did you three steal? And how much of it do you have left?” Amy’s tone is genuinely curious, without even a hint of greed, and Bishop smiles. She found the right woman to love, after all.

“More than I’ve ever bothered to count,” the thief replies. “And a lot more than we stole, actually. Certainly more than we’ll ever need. Bateau and Finn know to the penny. It’s their job to know — Finn because he needs to keep it all safely hidden and make it grow, and Bateau because he needs to use it to get what we need when we need it.” She gives Amy’s breast another small kiss. “And it’s us four, now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re one of us now, Amy. Everything we have is yours, too.”

She feels Amy freeze, and her lover’s hand stops caressing her. “What’s wrong?”

“How can you do that? Give me so much, just like that? Without even asking the others?”

Maggie raises her head and looks into her lover’s eyes. All she sees is confusion, and she sighs.

“We all agreed, you’re family,” she says. “So you get an equal share of the family fortune, however much that is.”

“But … but you don’t even know how much you’re giving away!”

“First, I know roughly how much we have, and even divided by four, it is more than any of us will ever need. In fact, our money makes more money every second of every day.”

Amy stares at her, and Maggie reaches over and takes her hand. “Amy, the last time the three of us talked about finances, it was because Finn said our accounts were getting too big. We spread the cash around as many places as we could, but even the offshore banks we use were becoming … uncomfortable with how much currency we were moving through them. So we arranged for the interest on a bunch of our investments to be redirected to places where they could do some good. In fact, we’re the largest single anonymous source of donations for at least twenty seven separate charitable organizations worldwide. And we’re still making money.”

“How?”

Bishop shrugged. “Ask Finn. Something about exceeding what he calls ‘the financial event horizon.’ Which, believe it or not, is very bad for someone on our side of the law, because when you do what we do, the last thing you want is to be noticed. The bulk of our holdings are in places where they can’t NOT make money, and we have so much, we have to figure out new ways to give it away.”

“If you’ve got so much … why do you keep doing it?”

Maggie rises up and straddles Amy’s thighs, then lowers herself down until her chin rests between her lover’s breasts. She throws her girl an impish grin.

“Let me ask you something. Suppose I were to give you so much money right now that you would never have to work again. You could spend the rest of your days on a beach on a private island, drinking tropical drinks with little umbrellas in them and watching time slip by. Would you?”

There is a long silence as Amy tries desperately to come up with an answer. After a moment, Maggie smiles, raises herself and plants a small kiss on her lips.

“You don’t have to answer. I already know you wouldn’t. You’d want to do something, make a difference. Help people, like you did when I was walking around that shopping mall lost and confused when we first met. Because that’s the kind of person you are. That’s part of why I love you … and part of why you’re family.”

She lays her head back on Amy’s breast. “To answer your question, we do it because we can. Because we’re good at it. Because we can help people in ways nobody else can. And because all of us understand that there are better ways to measure success than money.”

“Like doing bad things to people like Harlan Straker?”

“Absolutely.”

###

The woman at the reception desk looks up as a small man in an expensive business suit walks through the revolving door. He carries a briefcase, and two bellmen come through the automatic doors with a cart, containing some luggage and a number of hard-sided cases. Even from the desk, she can see the complex locking seals on the sides, with rotating number groups and flashing lights.

“May I help you, sir?” The smile on her face grows as he approaches. The man smiles back. Between the grey in his dark hair and the lines around his eyes, he’s obviously more than an average salesman, and she finds him attractive, in an older sort of way.

“Yes, I have a reservation,” he replies, his accent placing his birthplace as somewhere in Northern Minnesota. He puts a business card and a credit card side by side on the desktop. “Michael Corcoran, Tektronica Systems.”

She types his name into the terminal embedded in the reception desk and nods.

“Yes, sir, four days, in one of the Executive Suites.”

Corcoran nods. “I also have some extremely valuable computer equipment that needs secure storage. My … associates told me that the Fountainbleu has a highly-secure vault room?”

“We do, Mister Corcoran. State-of-the-art security, monitored twenty-four/seven offsite.”

The executive raises an eyebrow. “I understand there’s some kind of jewelry exhibit taking place here this week?”

“A private party hosted by Harlan Straker, yes, sir.”

“Are those jewels being kept in the secure vault when not on display?”

“Oh, no, Mister Corcoran. Mister Straker doesn’t even know those vaults exist.”

“Keeping it a secret, even from the guests?” The guest threw her a grin that made him look years younger. “Now that IS secure!”

She winks. “He never asked, and we never offered, sir. His jewels are being guarded offsite by a private security firm until the night of the party. So the vault is all yours.”

“Good to hear.” He smiles. “When I heard about Straker’s party, I almost moved my stay somewhere else. I don’t want this tech anywhere near something that valuable.”

“I understand completely, sir. Would you like to head up to your suite? We’ll be happy to take your technology down to the vault for you.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let those cases out of my sight until they’re secured.” The woman behind the desk lifted an eyebrow. “The system is part of a classified government project, and I’m responsible for its safety. I chose your hotel more for your security arrangements than your accommodations, although both are impressive.”

“Well, then, let me call down to the security office. Mister Renfrew will be happy to escort you and your cases to the vault.”

“Thank you, I’d like that. The sooner these things are secure, the better off I’ll feel.” His cell phone buzzes, and he reaches for it and stares at the screen. “Excuse me, I need to take this.”

“Certainly, sir.” She nods at him and turns to the house phone to make her own call.

‘Guess all those lessons Bateau’s been givin’ me paid off,’ Finn thinks, smiling as he pretends to have a conversation with an imaginary colleague. ‘Sometimes the best hacks are hackin’ people … although I’ll not let the big guy know that.’

He pretends to press the disconnect button on the non-existent phone call, but the button he presses actually activates the full sensor suite embedded in his phone. It will record everything that happens from that moment on until he shuts it down, and send that information to all of Finn’s other systems – in real time if transmission is available, or as soon as possible whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Two security guards and a tall, dark-haired man in a gray suit appear from an unmarked door behind the desk, and the woman directs them all towards Finn. They approach.

“Good afternoon, sir.” The man in the suit puts out his hand, and Finn shakes it automatically. “I’m Len Renfrew, chief of security here. I’ll be showing you to our secure storage facilities.”

“Michael Corcoran. I look forward to seeing them … and getting this equipment stowed somewhere safe.”

“Are those Jeffries locks?” Michael nods, and the security chief lets out a low whistle. “Well, I am impressed. NSA-compliant, highest-level security.”

“What’s in those cases is highly classified, Mister Renfrew. I can’t even open them. If anyone tries …”

“… the contents of the case would be destroyed.” Renfrew finished for him. “I know security, sir. It is my job.”

Finn smiles. “The DoD personnel I’ll be showing the systems to will have the key codes when they arrive here to meet me on Friday afternoon, and it’s imperative we avoid having anyone touch those locks until then.”

“Then we’d best put them away as quickly as possible.” Renfrew motions to the bellmen and the guards. “If you’ll follow me, Mister Corcoran, we’ll get this done.”

“Absolutely.” He follows behind the security chief, the cases and guards falling in behind him.

‘Although I’m thinkin’ we’ve got different ideas of just what we’re getting done,’ Finn thinks, suppressing a smile. ‘Which is just how I like it.’

###

“Intelligent Designs, may I help you?”

“This is Keene Curtis, calling for Harlan Straker.”

“Oh, Mister Curtis, I’m so happy you called. The project is proceeding well. The measurements you gave us were very specific.”

“Made with laser scanning by computer, right down to the millimeter. Mister Straker wants this special order to be perfect.”

“And so it will be. But the timeframe is a bit … aggressive.”

“Which is why we’re paying you ten times what you usually get for an order like this. You received our draft, 50% up front.”

“Yes, sir. Extremely generous.”

“We paid prime rates because we need delivery by Thursday night. Period. So if you can’t do it, let us know so we can find another shop that can.”

“No, no! That won’t be necessary, really. Of course we can accommodate you.” A long pause. “Some of the specifications do seem a bit restrictive, however. Are you sure you want —?”

“Listen, we want what we ordered with all the extras, made to fit the measurements we sent, and we want it no later than six p.m. Thursday night at the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami, Florida.”

“The order will be there, even if we have to send a special courier.”

“Good! We’ll send the rest of the payment when you make delivery.” *click*

Bateau looks down at the phone receiver he’s just hung up and smiles. His impersonation of Mister Straker’s second-in-command was flawless, but of course he knew it would be.

After all, he is Bateau.

###

Bishop looks at herself in the mirror and sighs.

‘Sex in a skintight wrapper,’ she thinks, her lips falling into a frown. ‘Which is exactly what we need tomorrow night, I know. But I also know what will be going through Straker’s mind when he looks at me, and it turns my stomach just thinking about what he’ll be thinking,’

“Trouble, cher?” She looks past her reflection to see Bateau standing in the bedroom doorway.

“Yes and no,” she replies, the frown becoming a rueful smile. “Amy went down to the pool for a swim, and to pull Keene’s chain for a while if he should show up. I had to try it on, just to see.”

“And?”

“This dress is so tight, I can’t even wear anything under it. I don’t know what Amy was thinking.”

“She was thinking about turning Harlan Straker into a nervous schoolboy, of course.” He grins, and Maggie surprises herself by blushing. “Or maybe she just wanted to see you in it.”

“Maybe. But she doesn’t know I’m still getting used to … this.” She waves her hand down the front of the evening gown.

“I am thinking, considering all the time you and Amy are spending in your room, it is not as hard to get used to as it once was, yes?” Bishop looks away for a second and nods. Bateau leans against the door frame and crosses his arms.

“Do not be embarrassed. I have been in love before, too, you know. I understand the power it holds, and I can see it has its hold on you. You are more comfortable now. More centered than I have ever seen you … even as the man you were.”

“I know.” She looks into Bateau’s eyes. “I’m not sure I understand why, but I know it’s true.”

“The reason is obvious, mon ami. You were an extraordinary man, but for all of your genius and strength of will, you were always alone, even with Finn and myself at your side.” Bateau takes a step forward and takes her hand. “You never allowed yourself to love, because you perceived love as something that would weaken us all, make us vulnerable.”

“But what you failed to understand is that the love we three shared was what made us strong as a team. You may not have seen it for what it was, but it was love nonetheless, and it made us able to do the impossible, over and over again. Because we were always much more than a team. We are a family.”

“Now you have found someone who makes your heart beat as one with hers. She helped you open up. She brings you happiness and makes you complete. The one weakness the old you had was your isolation. But now we are closer to you, Finn and I, than we have ever been. A small part of that closeness came from what happened to you. It made you see how much we love you. The rest we owe to her … and to you lowering the walls that kept you apart from us.”

Maggie thinks for a moment, then nods. “I love Amy, and I am the woman she loves. That isn’t going to change. Even if I could go back now, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I’d have to be crazy to throw something this strong away.” She squeezes his hand. “And yes, I love you all, Bateau. Even Finn, although it would make him nervous if I told him.”

“I love you too, Your Eminence.” They looked at each other, surprised, but they could also hear the smile in his voice through the comms. “Although you might want to be a little more careful in the future about shutting down your signal booster before you have a heart-to-heart, yeah?”

“Bad protocol on a job, Michael. What if Straker and his goons were to burst in here?”

“With Bateau standing right there? I’d love to see ‘em try.”

The Frenchman grinned and shook his head. “Are you in place, my friend?”

“Right where I should be. Nice digs, too. Michael Corcoran is in the building, the cases are down in the basement vaults, and my systems are set up and ready, both here and in the van. All Net links are stable, the security systems are hacked, and I’m ready to play.”

“What about the rest of our surprise?” Bishop looks at Bateau, and he nods.

“Mister Curtis has made quite an impression on ‘his’ contractor in the west. The pieces will be here tomorrow, long before the party begins. And of course the phone calls and all of the financial records will point back to Curtis’s room and Mister Straker’s accounts, thanks to Finn’s skilled fingers.”

“We aim to please.”

“Oh, my!” Amy’s voice comes from the doorway. The smile on her face speaks volumes. “I saw you in that gown before we bought it, but with your new skin tone and hair? You look good enough to eat, girl.”

She walks over, still dressed in her white bikini, and cradles Bishop’s face with her fingertips. After a long deep kiss, she pulls back and looks into her lover’s eyes. “You know, baby, we may have to get dressed separately tomorrow.”

“Why?”

Amy lowers her voice to a growl. “Because if I see you in this dress again before we go out in public, we may not make it to the party at all. And we do have a job to do, right?”

Bishop nods, unable to speak.

“So let’s get that dress off of you.” Amy grabs her hand and pulls her further into the bedroom. “We don’t want anything to happen to it before we need it.”

“What could happen?” Bishop asks, confused.

“Can’t you guess? Damn, Mags! If we don’t get you out of it soon, I could rip it clean off!”

Maggie looks back at Bateau, her expression a mixture of embarassment love, and lust. Bateau shrugs as only a Frenchman can, then grins and grabs the pen-sized signal booster from the dresser before making a hasty retreat.

The door swings shut behind him.

###

Finn feeds the data from his trip to the vault into one of the laptops and lets it chew on it for a while. He’s not planning to leave this suite again until after the job is done, but that’s okay with him. After all, the rooms are big, the bed is soft, and the room service is impeccable. The fact that a cheeseburger and fries costs $32 doesn’t make it taste any less delicious, and if the Fountainbleu can’t make a decent pizza, there’s a place over on McFarland Road that can.

He thinks about what Bateau and Bishop said, and what he said in return. He did love the two of them, like brothers ... brother and sister, now. Finn sighs. Like family, Bateau said.

‘But better than family, yeah?’ He nods and hits a few keys.

‘And Her Eminence is in love. How about that?’ He leans back in his chair and watches his screens. ‘Bateau says it makes her stronger – that love makes us all stronger. Guess that’s true, too. I used to work with people I wouldn’t let hold my coat if my wallet was in it. But now I know who I can trust. And they know they can trust me.’

‘Not sure how I feel about Amy and Her Holiness being lovers, though. Father Patrick used to say it was a sin.’ He leans forward and enters a command, letting the machines start reverse engineering the vault’s locking protocols. Then he lets himself reverse engineer his last thought, and grins.

‘But tell the truth, now, Michael. When was the last time you listened to a priest about anything? They’re so in love, how could it be wrong? If they make each other happy, who does it hurt?’ Finn shakes his head. ’If that’s a sin, maybe we’d all be better off sinners than saints.’

Finn starts working his way through the vault’s code, letting his fingers prepare a hack while his mind was off elsewhere. ‘And if the Almighty’s got a problem with it, he can take it up with Seamus Finn’s youngest son. Because I ain’t afraid to mix it up with God Himself if I have to, and I got the best damned sinners on Earth watching my back. Amen.’

###

“Nothing?” Lou Rossi shakes his head and takes a sip from his coffee mug. “After all the time and people we put on this, how do we wind up with nothing, Donnie?”

They sit in The Roundup, the closest thing they can find to an East Coast diner in Dallas. Rossi is eating a breakfast that would drive a doctor to tears, but people in their line of work didn’t used to live very long as a rule, so he learned to eat what he wanted and let the future worry about itself. Donnie, being a younger man and still convinced of his own immortality, sticks to a cup of coffee and what passes for a bagel in Texas.

“None of the hotels east of here admit to seeing anybody who fits the description we’ve got, Lou,” he says. “Maybe they’re lying, but if they are, I don’t see why. For all we know, they just kept driving East until they ran outta land.”

“Or turned north, or south, or caught a flight to Buenos Aires, fer Chrissakes.”

Donnie shrugs and takes a bite of his bagel. “Hell, if one of them was Magdalene, they coulda driven to a private airport anywhere on the Gulf Coast and be halfway around the world by now.”

“Or they coulda turned around, ditched the van, and bought a house in the Bay City suburbs for all we know.” Lou puts the coffee mug down hard and stares at it like it’s done something wrong. “What are we missing?”

“Lou?”

“My gut tells me we’re closer than anybody’s ever been to nailing this guy down,” Rossi says slowly, still staring at his cup. “But every time we think we got a handle on him, he turns into smoke.”

“He’s had years of practice doin’ that. Coverin’ his tracks, I mean. Why should this time be any different?”

“Yeah, but we’re close, Donnie. We’re not just left holding the bag and wondering what the hell happened this time. We got something real to chase, and I’m not ready to just let it go yet.”

They think for a while, the noises from the other diners filling the silence. Finally, Donnie picks up his cup and holds it with both hands.

“I hate to say it, boss, but maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.”

“How so?”

“Okay, think about it for a second. We’ve been following these guys and the broad as best we can, but that’s done. There just ain’t nothing left to follow. So maybe, since we can’t chase ’em, we should be thinking ahead, and try to figure out where they might go next.”

“I see what you’re sayin’,” Lou says slowly. “But how are we supposed to do that?”

“Well, if we’re right, and one of those guys we been chasing is Magdalene,” Donnie leaned forward, and smiled, just a little, “we both know the bastard likes to work, and we know the kinds of jobs he likes to pull. So ...”

“So if there’s something happening somewhere – the kind of heist he can’t resist – we can go there and see if he shows up! Damn, Donnie, that’s fucking brilliant.”

“Thanks, Lou.” The younger man grins. “But that’s not all. If Magdalene was in that van, and it was headed east, that gives us a place to start looking.”

Rossi stands up and throws a few bills on the table, leaving half his breakfast behind.

“C’mon, kid. Let’s get back to my office and see if we can find something out there worth stealing — owned by a real card-carrying son of a bitch.”

He heads for the front door, leaving Donnie behind, scrambling to catch up.

‘Maybe it’s just another dead end,’ he thinks, a smile growing on his lips. ‘Or maybe I’m feeling lucky. But if I can find the real Magdalene, I can save Bruno’s reputation … before this whole Bishop thing gets out and bites him in the ass.’

The smile fades a little. ‘I gotta wonder, though. After all we’ve gone through to find him, what the hell will I do if I catch him?’

###

© 2013. Posted by the author.

Amy turns Maggie around and kisses her gently on the lips, and Maggie melts into her arms and holds her tight.

“I was so lucky when I found you,” she whispers, and Amy smiles.

“Not as lucky as I was to find you.”

“I’m lucky to find you both.” Finn’s voice comes over their comm units, startling them both. “Especially since you keep hiding yourselves away to whisper sweet things to each other. It’s almost time for you two to make your entrance. Are you ready?”

Bishop grins and gives her best girl a squeeze.

“Yes, Michael,” she replies, looking into Amy’s eyes, “Let’s go make Harlan Straker cry.”
 

by Randalynn

 

---

 

 
“Hey, Lou! I think I got something.”

Lou Rossi looks up from the computer screen with bleary eyes. They had been looking through East Coast newspapers since nine a.m., and it was getting on six now.

“If it’s not a cannoli and a cup of coffee the size of Detroit, I ain’t interested, Donnie.”

“It’s better than that,” the younger man says, putting a laptop down in front of his boss. “I’m pretty sure I found Magdalene’s next target.”

“Miami …” Lou skims the article in the paper’s Society section. “Millions in rare jewels on display in the middle of a party?”

“And owned by somebody with a long record of bein’ an asshole. Harlan Straker.” Donnie clicks over to the next tab for a profile of Straker in a business magazine. “I don’t know if there’s a word for the opposite of a good rich guy, but if there was and you looked it up, his picture would be there in the dictionary. He takes what he wants and he don’t care who gets hurt.”

Lou keeps reading, and Donnie stands there, waiting for a reaction.

“It’s the kind of target Magdalene chases, owned by the kind of man he hates.” Lou scrolls down a little, reading more. “I thought …”

Then Rossi looks up at Donnie and says, “You thought right. Call the airport and get the jet gassed up and ready to fly by the time we get there.”

“So quick, boss?”

“Look at the date of the party,” he replies, getting to his feet and grabbing his coat. “It’s tonight, in about three hours, give or take. If we want to catch Magdalene, we need to be in Miami yesterday.”

As he shoulders into his jacket, he looks over at Donnie. “This was nice work, kid. If we catch this guy, you’re gonna get a bonus check like you wouldn’t believe.”

Lou runs his fingers through his hair and looks over at his protege. “Hell, just call the airport from the car. We’re burning daylight, and we’ve got a thief to catch.”

###

Wilson Applebaum knocks on the door to Mr. Curtis’s private suite and waits. As a junior bellman, he supposes being given something this important has to be an honor, but this whole week has been what felt like an endless series of odd tasks from what has to be the hotel’s two most eccentric guests.

‘A Texas millionaire and an Italian countess.’ He sighs and knocks again. ‘The place has been a zoo since they showed up, and with the big party tonight, it’s only gonna get worse before it gets better.’

This job is a perfect example. The front desk had received urgent instructions to deliver the boxes on this trolley at exactly seven thirty, and he had received the detail. According to Manuel, the shipment came from a high-end custom shop in L.A. that did a lot of specialty work for movie studios. And why did it have to be here at exactly seven thirty?

“Mister Curtis? I have a delivery.”

The electronic lock beeps and the door swings open slightly. Curtis’s voice drifts to him from somewhere inside. “Yeah, okay. Come in, and bring it with you.”

Wilson pushes the door the rest of the way open and pulls the trolley with him into the room. The door to the bedroom is open, and he hears the shower running in the bathroom. Curtis’s voice comes from inside.

“Put the boxes in the closet by the front door and make sure it’s closed,” the voice continues, “then take the hundred off the table and get gone. I’m already late.”

A hundred? The Fountainbleu has always been a hotel for the wealthy, but as far as he knew, tips have always be tens and sometimes twenties. Wilson finishes putting the boxes in the closet, closes it tight, then grabs the hundred dollar bill and slips out the door before Curtis changes his mind.

‘Wait until the guys downstairs hear about this!’

Bateau waits until he hears the suite door close before shutting off the water. He moves back to the bedroom and continues the search he had started as soon as the suite emptied earlier in the afternoon. He isn't worried about anyone returning. He knows Curtis and the rest of Straker's entourage are too busy dealing with all the problems he and Finn created to keep them occupied.

It takes a few minutes, but the vials of colorless liquid are surprisingly easy to find. They are in a leather case, with eight velvet-lined pockets for bottles. Only seven of the slots are full. Since Finn's surveillance showed that Curtis had the supply refilled with his contact in Miami, Bateau knows that if he takes one, it will be missed.

‘So I will not take a bottle,’ he thinks, smiling. ‘I am Bateau, and I am always prepared. I will take the drug, but leave the bottle behind.’

Taking a small vial of his own and an eye dropper from his jacket pocket, the Frenchman opens each of the seven bottles and takes a carefully measured amount from each one to fill his own. Then he returns the case to the drawer in the bedside table and moves quickly through the empty apartment and out into the hall with a smile.

Bateau glides down the hallway towards the elevators, already dressed in his Abramo Aldafieri disguise and his expensive hand-tailored tuxedo.

‘The drug will serve its purpose for us, as it has for Straker and Curtis,’ he thinks, nodding to passing guests. ‘And that hundred dollar tip to the bellman will ensure that the story of the delivery and Curtis’s acknowledgement of it will be remembered, and repeated to all the staff. It is quite a lot of work for a single piece of paper to accomplish, but money tends to do quite a lot if used wisely.’

‘Let us hope the rest of this job goes as well.’

###

Bishop and Amy stand before the large mirror in their shared bedroom, looking at themselves critically. For this part of the plan to succeed, the beautiful contessa and her dark, exotic friend must outshine every other woman at the party, and no detail can be left to chance.

After a deep examination of her own dress and accessories, Amy turns to Maggie. Her long dark brown hair tumbles down in soft curls that gently caress her shoulders. Sparkling earrings glitter and flash in the light, and her face is painted with such understated skill that she appears even more beautiful than she actually is — something Amy believed would be impossible before watching her lover skillfully applying her make-up at the vanity table.

A simple gold chain and matching bracelets set off her golden skin, and her gown fits so well that it might be easily be mistaken for a second skin. Amy smiles briefly, remembering how uncomfortable it made Maggie not to wear anything at all underneath, but once the dress was on, she had to admit that even the briefest of thongs would have shown through the form-fitting fabric. Maggie’s strappy heels matched the color of her gown perfectly, framing her dainty feet and her perfectly done toenails.

‘She’s beautiful,’ Amy thinks with a smile, ‘and perfect for catching Straker’s … undivided attention.’

The smile shrinks as she sees how Maggie looks in the mirror, shifting her weight from one hip to the other and fiddling with the clasp on her evening bag. She slips behind her love and wraps her arms around Bishop’s waist in a gentle hug.

“What’s wrong, angel?” Amy whispers into Maggie’s ear, holding her close. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s what’s wrong,” Maggie replies, relaxing into Amy’s hug and sighing softly. “This is the first job we’ve done since … since what happened to me.”

Amy nods and gives her a gentle squeeze.

“I’m supposed to go in there and pretend to want Harlan Straker to sweep me off my feet and fuck me until I faint.” Bishop’s tone slides towards bitterness and disgust. “Even if I wanted a man to do that to me, which I don’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t want it to be him. But I have to make him think I would, tease him and make him work for his chance with me, even knowing he’s nothing but a slimy bastard who thinks the Contessa is little more than fresh meat. Even she knows what he truly is!”

Amy kisses the side of her neck, just under her ear.

“That’s gonna make it easier, baby, don’t you think?” She marks a trail of kisses down to where Maggie’s neck meets her shoulder.

“How so?”

“Well, if I got this right, the Contessa hates the kind of man he is, just as much as you do. And since she knows exactly what you plan to do to him, she’s gonna help you, because she’s on your side.”

“But she’s not real!”

“Seems like she’s real enough to me. She walked you through the whole entrance scene in the lobby the other day, didn’t she?” Amy looks into her eyes in the mirror, and Bishop nods back. “Look, honey, Straker thinks he’s in control because he’s sure you want him, and he wants you to think you’re in control because that’s the kind of woman he thinks you are — thanks to what I told Curtis.”

Maggie nods again, and Amy smiles.

“And in the end, you do want him, Mags, both you and Francesca. Just not in the way he thinks. But guys like him? That’s all he’s gonna see — that you want him. Best of all, he’s the kind of man who doesn’t think any woman is smart enough to outthink him. Work with that. Remember what our goal is. Make him work to catch you, make him think he’s playing you, so you can catch him instead.”

Amy turns Maggie around and kisses her gently on the lips, and Maggie melts into her arms and holds her tight.

“I was so lucky when I found you,” she whispers, and Amy smiles.

“Not as lucky as I was to find you.”

“I’m lucky to find you both.” Finn’s voice comes over their comm units, startling them both. “Especially since you keep hiding yourselves away to whisper sweet things to each other. It’s almost time for you two to make your entrance. Are you ready?”

Bishop grins and gives her best girl a squeeze.

“Yes, Michael,” she replies, looking into Amy’s eyes, “Let’s go make Harlan Straker cry.”

###

Standing by the display case in the center of the room, Harlan Straker watches Miami’s rich and famous admiring his collection. He is wearing the most expensive tuxedo in the world, the K50 by Kiton. The company was launched in the mid-1950’s by two Italian tailors, Ciro Paone and Antonio Carola, and its highest quality tuxedo normally costs $50,000. However, to ensure his suit was the most expensive ever sold by Kiton, Straker insisted that each button be cut from black diamonds of the highest quality, raising the price to well over a hundred thousand.

Each dish served at the party is a creation of a group of master chefs from all over the world. Each chef was flown into Miami early this morning and paid $25,000 to cook for this one event. The party music is performed by the Brodsky Quartet, with the Rolling Stones scheduled to play a single set later in the evening.

Everything is exactly as it should be, despite all the last-minute snags that popped up just hours before the shindig was supposed to start. Ingredients missing from the kitchen, decorations misplaced, shorts in the electrical system … the list went on. Straker didn’t believe how many things could go wrong at a top-drawer hotel like this one.

‘Just goes to show reputation doesn’t mean perfection, I guess,’ he thinks, fingering his bolo tie and glancing again at the door. ‘If I didn’t have Curtis and the boys to nail things down, I woulda looked mighty stupid. I can’t risk looking like an idiot if I’m gonna catch me a countess tonight, Ain’t gonna be able to rope and tie her lessen she respects me, and that’s a fact.’

The millionaire treats himself to a small smile. ‘A’course, once she tied up, things might get a bit less respectful, as least as far as my attentions toward her are concerned.’

He hears the quartet hesitate, almost together, before continuing with the music. As he turns to give them a disgusted look, his eyes stop at the main entrance and can’t move on. The band stops completely, and the silence speaks volumes.

The countess and her friend have arrived.

They stand in the doorway, wearing dresses that fit them so well, there’s no mistaking how beautiful their bodies are. Perfect hair, make-up applied with an artist’s care, and jewelry that accents without taking attention away from the woman wearing it. They define femininity, both with what society says is beautiful and an inner fire that makes Straker wonder, just for an instant, if he’s even up to the challenge of catching the countess, let alone bedding her.

He hears more than one sharp intake of breath from the women closest to him in the crowd, and turns his head for an instant to see eyes narrowing with jealousy and envy. Francesca and her companion aren’t making any friends with the Miami elite tonight, but Straker is pretty sure that doesn’t bother either of them — not for an instant.

“Damn,” Curtis says softly, only a few feet from his boss. “I have never seen a woman that fine close up.”

“Right with ya there, hoss.” Straker replies, taking in the sight that stops everyone in the room. “But I ain’t worried, and you shouldn’t be neither. We can be pretty darned persuasive if we gotta be.”

“And if we can’t get ‘em by stealth, we still got an ace in the hole.” Curtis pats his pocket where a small bottle of the date-rape drug rests. Straker gives him a look.

“Let’s not think about cheating just yet,” he says, as the band begins to play once more and conversation resumes. “The game’s just beginnin’ after all. Go rustle your cow, and let me rustle mine, and we’ll see who beds one first.”

Curtis grins at his boss and nods, and they both head for the door, just as the Contessa’s personal assistant arrives behind her, remaining a respectful distance away.

###

Finn relays their conversation with each other to everyone over the comms.

“Seems to me they’re making a game outta this,” he says. “Cocky bastards.”

“What they don’t know is who is playing who, yes?” The Contessa spoke under her breath, smiling and taking in the admiring and jealous stares of the crowd. “They may be cowboys, but Amelie and I are lionesses, not cows, and when we hunt, we do not play.”

Finn switches to a private channel.

“Looks like the bitch is back, Bateau. Should we be worried?”

The Frenchman turns his head and looks down the hall, masking the movement of his lips.

“Maybe it is as simple as it was in the lobby. As deep into her character as she was before, she never forgot the goal of her entrance. This is no different, yes? Maggie must be the Contessa to lure the mark to where we want him to go, that’s all.”

“You’re probably right. It’s just deeper than he — she used to go, yeah?”

Bateau’s eyes narrow as he thinks. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it was not as noticeable when she was a he, Michael.”

“I guess we just have to have faith.”

“Always, mon ami. Always.”

###

“Look at them, Amelie,” Francesca says with a smile as the two men come close enough to hear. “They walked all the way across the room to greet us, leaving all of the other women to stare at their backs and wish we were dead. We must be stunning, yes?”

“Oui, Contessa,” Amelie replies, a sparkle in her eyes. “How could you and I be anything else? One wonders how they could possibly have enjoyed themselves without us by their sides?”

“We were both doin’ our best to pretend we were having fun.” Straker took the Contessa’s hand and kissed it softly. “It is my party, y’know. Gotta keep up appearances.”

“Yeah,” Curtis takes Amelie’s hand and mirrors his boss. “But anybody who knew us could tell we were just marking time, waiting for the two of you to make the night complete.”

“Hell, now, Curtis, don’t go making me look bad!” The millionaire slaps Curtis on the shoulder. “Save some of the best lines for me!”

“Oh? Is that how this is?” Francesca raises an eyebrow and smiles, tilting her head forward to look at Straker through her lashes. “Is everything tonight scripted, Harlan? Is your admiration only a performance?”

“Not scripted, Contessa,” he replies, pulling back from what could be dangerous ground. “But you can’t expect a man like me to not do a little thinkin’ about what to say to a woman like you. As for performance? Well, maybe we’ll get to that later.”

She catches a predatory gleam in his eye through the flirting, and decides to turn the tables, just a little.

“Maybe we will,” she says softly. “But the night is young, yes?”

Francesca smiles slowly, then raises his hand to her lips and plants a small kiss that takes him by surprise.

“For now, we should enjoy the moment, and the party. And if you want to keep me happy?” She lets go of his hand and lets her fingers trail across her stomach. “I have been here two whole minutes, and I am still hungry and thirsty! You talk very sweetly, cowboy, but as you Americans say, ‘actions speak louder than words,’ yes? Where is this … abbondanza you Texans are known for? And how could either of us … perform on an empty stomach?”

Straker smiles and puts his arm out.

“Allow me to escort you to the grub, Contessa,” he says, as Curtis does the same for Amelie.

“I thought you would never ask,” she replies, slipping her arm into his.

The two couples make their way across the floor, with Aldafieri following at a respectful distance should his mistress need him for anything.

###

“Game over, man. Game over!”

The sound clip from James Cameron’s Aliens alerts Finn to the completion of his safecracking software’s successful deconstruction of the locking mechanism on the DoD-certified secure room in the basement of the building. Some of it involved finesse and some brute force, but as usual, he succeeded where others could only fail.

“Safe room lock codes are hacked, Your Eminence.”

“Buon, Michael, buon,” the contessa replies in a breathy whisper. The slight echo tells Finn her lips are hidden by a champagne glass. “Siete vero una gemma.”

His eyes flash to the voice recognition/auto-translation box in the corner of his main screen.

“Uh… thanks, I think.”

She delivers a throaty laugh that sends a shiver up his spine.

“Oh, Michael, you really must learn how to take a compliment.” Finn hears a clink, like glass hitting metal, and then Bishop’s voice raised in a teasing tone. “Harlan, I am thirsty!”

Straker’s voice, coming closer. “That’s why I brought you a bottle, Frankie!”

“My name is Francesca, Harlie! Frankie sounds like a tiny boy. Do I look like a boy to you?”

He could hear Straker retreating, trying to regain lost ground. “Not in any way, Francesca. Not at all.”

“Good.” Finn hears the self-satisfied smile in the Contessa’s voice. “I would hate to think this dress was wasted on a man who could not tell the difference between a woman and a boy.”

###

Hours pass, full of food and drink and celebration. Crowds and couples swirl around the long display case of jewels in time to the music, and another dance, this one of seduction, takes place on the dance floor as well. Warm bodies pressed together kindle a fire that is as old as humanity itself, and as the women fan the flames, the men are consumed by the heat.

The party begins to fade around one a.m., and both Straker and Curtis are feeling unimaginably lucky. The contessa and her friend seem very receptive to ending the night in bed, and the men can barely keep themselves from thinking about what comes next.

Watching as the last of the guests move out the main doors, Francesca grabs a bottle of champagne from the bar. Amelie comes to her as she pours four glasses, and watches as she adds a colorless liquid to two of them from the bottle Aldafieri passed to her earlier in the evening. Francesca catches Amelie’s eye and smiles, and they each take two glasses and go back to their dates.

“It is time for a toast,” the Contessa says, handing a glass to her date as Amelie hands one to hers. “To end this party … and begin another.”

She raises her glass. “To an evening … and a morning … we will never forget!”

Straker and Curtis glance at each other, raise their glasses and drink. Francesca and Amelie follow suit, and then all place their glasses on the nearest table as the hotel staff begin to clean the party debris from the room. Straker holds out this arm, and Curtis follows suit. The two women move to their respective escorts and together they leave the ballroom.

Outside, in the hallway, the security contingent waits for the clean-up to end, so they can relieve the guards in the ballroom, lock it down, and guard the space until the morning.

Not that guarding it will do them the slightest bit of good.

###

A few hours earlier …

“When I hacked the servers at the lab Curtis gets his stash from,” Finn said over the comm links as the party started rocking, “I got the chance to look at their testing data. This drug is a strong mix of mood elevators that make everything feel good and seem right. At the same time, it makes people very suggestible and suppresses the part of the brain that weighs alternatives and rejects things that make no sense.”

“So if you give this to a woman and tell her you’re her deepest fantasies made real, in her eyes, you will be?” Amy tried to keep a smile on her face as she sipped champagne and watched Maggie and Straker dance. Keeping her anger at bay wasn’t easy.

“Pretty much” She could almost feel Finn nodding back in his hotel room. “And if you tell her to forget everything that happened the night before, she will. The drug has its own amnesia effect that’ll help, too, I’m thinkin’. I’m pretty sure this stuff is illegal, so a DEA task force just might be getting an anonymous tip about the lab and Straker’s hotel room before we leave.”

“But if this drug does what you say it does,” Bateau said from his position against the wall. “I believe we can get it to work for us tonight. Both of them should cheerfully cooperate and then wonder what happened when the morning comes, just like every woman they have used this on in the past.”

“And way past that if we work it right, Bateau. When people are on this stuff, they get pretty suggestible. And hypnosis’ll last a lot longer with the drug. What do you think, Maggie?”

“Mmmhmmm,” she hummed, still dancing with the mark. Just to be clear, she pushed the signal contact in her mouth once with her back teeth to send a single ’yes” tone to the group.

“The women from Veracruz are in place, mon ami. Both the ones who ran the orphanages and some of the whores from the brothels our friend created in their place.” Bateau smiled. “As you can guess, neither group is happy with Mister Straker.”

“Bateau?”

“Oui, Amy?”

“I’m curious. What would we have done without the ‘miracle drug?” Amy asked, watching Curtis talking to some of the guards at the door.

“Oh, knockout drops would have been enough for what we needed, cher,” Bateau responded. “Once they were unconscious, we would have removed them from the situation, placed them in a more embarrassing one, and then moved forward with the plan from there.”

She looked over to where he stood, and he smiled at her with a twinkle in his eye. “But this … this will be so much better, don’t you think?”

###

Harlan Straker lets himself into his suite, although it seems a lot harder to fit the key card into the slot than it was earlier in the evening.

‘Wish she woulda come with me though,’ he thinks as the door swings closed behind him. All of his entourage are in rooms he’d rented just for tonight, thinking he’d need privacy to woo the countess.

“Glad I moved ‘em out. She’d sure as hell not want to be in the next room from a suite full of rowdy Texans, that’s for damned sure,” he says out loud as he wanders into the darkened room. “Always got to think ahead when you plan to rope a filly … or milk a shy cow.”

From the darkness comes a voice. “You got that right, boss. And you’ve always been the best at thinking ahead.”

“Curtis?” Straker peers into the living room. “Where’s your girl? What the hell you doin’ sitting in the dark?”

“Waiting on you, what else?” He sees a dark shadow moving on the sofa. “The girls said they had a surprise for us, and wanted me to wait here for you while they got it ready. And they said not to turn on the lights.”

“Girls and their games.” The millionaire shakes his head and sits down on the chair closest to him. “Take a simple little thing and turn it into a production.”

“Well, you know, Harlan, they think what they got is special,” Curtis says, the grin on his face hidden by the darkness but easily heard in his voice. “So they need to dress it up and be all enticing about it. Like we need to be encouraged to chase ‘em and catch ‘em, right?”

“Damn straight,” Straker replies, grinning back at his friend.

They sit in companionable silence for a while.

“Say, Harlan …” Curtis’s voice is still full of smiles. “Ever think about what that must be like?”

“What?” Straker’s reply comes out a little slow, as if he’s been drifting.

“Being wanted like that? Chased and caught, like a stallion on a filly.”

“Hell, no!”

“Oh, come on, boss, it’s just you and me here, and you trust me, right?”

“Sure do.” Harlan smiles. "I know you got my back, son. Always have. Always will.”

"So you musta wondered sometime what it felt like to be the filly, instead of the stallion, right? To be the one who gets to run and get chased, instead of having to work so hard for it? Cause we both know sometimes, it's damned hard to catch a filly. And who wants to work hard, right?”

Straker thinks for a moment, his mind drifting. "Yeah, I guess. When I was just getting old enough to want to chase 'em, I wondered what it must be like to be the one who was chased. Ain't nobody really ever wanted me, Curtis, and that's a fact.”

Bateau’s eye brows raised slightly in the darkness, but his impersonation of Curtis never wavered. “Finding that hard to believe, Harlan.”

“It’s true. My folks paid people to watch me, and shipped me off when I got old enough to send away to school. Nobody at school ever gave a damn about me, and I ain’t never met a woman who liked me for me. Finally, I figured if I was the only person I was ever gonna have in my life, everyone else could just go to hell.”

“So … wanna see what it’s like for someone to want you? To be the one being chased? Just this once?”

Harlan smiles slowly, almost dreamily. “Sure, Curtis. What the hell, right? But how?”

“I got you covered, boss. Just go in the bedroom, close your eyes, and do whatever the nice ladies say. And you’ll know what it feels like to be a filly. You’re gonna have to lose the ‘stache though.”

“You got it, son.” He stumbles to his feet and lurches towards the door.

‘No,’ Bateau thinks with a small smile, ‘We’ve got you.’

###

Amelie and Curtis sat side by side on the sofa in the group’s suite, glasses of wine in their hands. She could tell from the glazed look in his eyes that the drug had taken effect, and it was time to put her part of the plan into action.

“So, my brave, impetuous friend who did not fear my wrath,” she whispers softly, her French accented English sending shivers up his spine. “I am thinking you are so proud of yourself, for capturing the heart of the Ice Princess, yes?”

“You bet,” he replies, the drug acting almost like a truth serum. “You were real hard to catch, too. Even though I was damned charming, you kept making threats, putting up all those walls … damned hard.”

“Do you know why I was so difficult?”

“I know why. Because you’re a woman.” Curtis grins at her. “It’s your job to make it hard … in more ways than one.”

She lifts one finger with a blood red nail and waves it in his face. “It is NOT my job to … make it hard. But you were half right. I made it difficult because I am a woman, and you have no idea what a woman is, really. How she thinks or feels. That is why it is so hard for you. Because to you, I am not really human. I am just a thing to be captured, and used.”

“Do you know what it is like to always be chased? To never have a moment to yourself without some ‘charming’ man wanting to tell you whatever he think you wish to hear, so he can take you away, rip off your clothes, and treat you like a sex toy? Because that is what you wanted to do to me.”

Curtis stops to think about what she said. When she puts it like that, it sounds pretty awful. But it’s true.

“Did you know your mother, Curtis? Did you have any sisters?” He nods, his mind twisting around on itself. “What would you do to any man who treated them the way you wanted to treat me?”

“Make sure he’d never do it again, that’s for damned sure.”

“Then why are they people, and I am not?”

“But … but wait!” He put down his wine glass and looked into her eyes “I’m here, right? So what I did must have worked. You must want me to … to rip your clothes off and …”

“Treat me like a sex toy?” Amelie shook her head. “No, what I wanted was to get you here and give you a gift. Something that will make it so much easier for you to truly know a woman — how she thinks and feels, and who she is inside.”

“How can you do that?”

She smiles at him. “Because I am a witch. I can do magic.”

“You can!” Amelie nods. Curtis grins. “Damn, girl, that must be great.”

The girl barely suppressed a grin. “It has its moments. This is one of them. I am going to transform you into a woman, so you can feel what it means to be a woman, and see the world through our eyes.”

Curtis feels a chill run through his body. “Wait, now, I never said …”

Amelie raises her eyebrow. “Is my brave impetuous suitor not man enough to be a woman?”

Still thinking through the fog of the drug, Curtis’s anger flares. “I never said that, either. Okay, then, bring it on.”

She rose to her feet. “Stand up.”

He did, a trifle unsteady.

“Close your eyes and listen carefully. You will go into a deep sleep but obey every command I give you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“First, I want you to make your voice as high as you can make it without it breaking.” She thinks for a moment. “You will speak exactly like your oldest sister did when you saw her last. Right now, you will go into the other room where some women are waiting to give you a makeover, fix your hair and make-up, and dress you in something appropriate for your night out. Say thank you, Amelie.”

“Thank you, Amelie.” His voice had become higher and much more feminine — almost musical, with something of a New York accent.

“Go now, and enjoy!”

“I will.”

###

“The two kings are becoming queens, Your Holiness.” Finn suppresses a snicker. “The security people have checked the ballroom and sealed the doors. Ready to make some magic?”

“Past ready, Michael,” she replies, feeling a little shiver run down her spine. Her skintight black catsuit hugs her curves, and her black vest and belt hold everything she will need to pull this off.

Except, of course, the courage to take that first step.

‘After all the preparations and the play acting, it all comes down to this,’ she thinks. ‘But with everything I’ve been through, can I still be the Magdalene I was before?’

Bishop looks from the top of the elevator across to the maze of pipes and ventilation shafts that fill the drop ceiling between her and the ballroom. She smiles, and feels the rush that used to come whenever the man he was reached the beginning of the end of a job, a lifetime and just a few weeks ago.

‘I guess we’ll find out.’

###

© 2014. Posted by the author.