Bodyguard of Lies

CHAPTER 21

Hannah and Neeley stepped out of the airport parking lot shuttle with a surprisingly light load. They couldn't very well haul everything with them so they had spent most of the past hour cleaning and oiling and carefully repacking the guns in the back of the truck.

They had then left the truck in long term parking at DIA where it would not be noticed for months at least, given the volume of vehicles that went through that lot. They didn't have enough clothes between them for one person to be out of style in France, much less two. Neeley had offered the limited contents of a back closet that she described as having a few things. It turned out to be skiing apparel, a wet suit, and some stuff Emma Peel would have loved. So now they were searching for their gate in the jumble of Denver International Airport wearing a lot of tight black clothing. Hannah noticed that when your butt was poured into black ski pants, men hardly noticed ragged nails. Neeley was wearing a one-piece cat suit with a wide black belt that she said she had only worn once before: to crawl through a long narrow pipe. Hannah believed her.

They had an hour before the flight so they stopped at the European Cafe on Concourse B and had a combination of the last five meals they had missed. For the first time in years, Hannah ate her fill without counting fat grams. She and Neeley looked fit and healthy, their tummies as flat as boards and their complexions glowing from exercise and the sheer stress of imminent death. Neeley spent most of the lunch in disbelief that Hannah wasn't sore from the climb and the incident in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Neeley made all the flight arrangements at the counter. She knew she was on the right track, but she wondered if they would live long enough to find Gant's cache.

Then she excused herself from Neeley to make a phone call. She took a stack of quarters and sat down at a pay phone. She pulled out the 212 number that Gant had given her.

She dialed it and the operator told her how much she needed to pay. Neeley slid the coins in, then the phone rang. It was picked up on the third ring.

“Yo!” a voice boomed into Neeley’s ear.

“Is this Joe?”

“You did the dialing, sweetie. You make a mistake? And you got the advantage because I don’t got a fucking clue who you are.”

Despite the harsh words, the tone was light, the accent clearly New York City.

“I’m a friend of Anthony Gant.”

“My little Tony! How’s he doing?”

Neeley closed her eyes tight. “He’s dead.”

“Fuck.”

A long silence reigned. Then the voice came back, all lightness gone. “How?”

“Cancer.”

“Mother of Mercy. That’s a bad way to go. You the woman he’s been with these past ten years or so?”

“Yes.”

“You there when he died?”

“Yes. I buried him.”

“Good. That’s good. He wasn’t alone. His mother know?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t told anyone but you just now.”

“Then his brother doesn’t know either. OK. Damn. I guess I’ll have to tell her. And Jack. That ain’t gonna be good.” There was a short pause. “But you’re calling for another reason, right?”

“I need a little help. Gant said I should call you if I needed help.”

“Did you visit the Bronx recently?”

“Yes.”

“You done good there. Helped me out what you done. What you need, sweetie?”

“Passports.”

“When and where?”

“I’ll be landing in Atlanta in about four hours. Then heading to France.”

“A passport got a short shelf life these days,” Uncle Joe said. “You can get out of the country and have maybe forty-eight hours, but then it will be hot.”

“That’s good enough.”

“You coming back?”

“I hope so.”

“Good. Good. I’d like to meet you some time. Tony was a good boy. A good man. I’m glad you were there for him. OK. Here’s the deal. There’s a guy who owes Gant from their time in the service. He does the best. Real deal. Checks out. But I can’t guarantee that the names used won’t roll into the system. Like I said, maybe forty-eight hours, then someone’s going to see your name. Maybe quicker if your name is hot and on a list. I don’t know if that’s good or bad for you, but I’m just telling you like it is.”

Neeley knew it was bad, but she also knew they had no choice. She hoped they could get to France and back within forty-eight hours. Neeley quickly copied down the instructions Uncle Joe gave her. He ended by telling her to call him when she got back in country and thanking her for being there at the end for Gant.

Neeley didn’t talk to Hannah as they waited to board. On the plane, Neeley scanned the other passengers, wondering which one was the shadow. It could be anyone, Neeley decided, even one of the crew. Given the stricter security, she would have to wait until France to arm herself and that made her nervous.

Hannah was talking to a woman seated across the aisle. She was leaning into the open space to the irritation of the other passengers who were still finding their seats and putting away luggage.

Neeley watched in fascination as Hannah continued to chat with her new found friend. If Neeley leaned a little closer she could catch pieces but it seemed to be meaningless talk. They finally stopped for take-off and once the plane was airborne, they seemed to forget about each other.

Hannah pulled some cream from the tote to rub into her ragged cuticles. Neeley watched her in silent wonder. She looked so normal despite all that had happened in the last few days. "How do you do that?"

Hannah turned in surprise. "What do you mean? This?" She motioned with her cream colored fingertips.

"No, well, partly. I mean how do you do all these normal things? Like talk to that woman and do your nails with all this stuff going on?"

Hannah continued massaging her nails. She was thoughtfully using her thumbnail to push back the dead skin around the half moon of her nails. "I do day-to-day living well. I've had to."

Ignoring Neeley's confused expression, she continued. "My parents died in a car crash when I was six. There was no family for me to go to since they were both orphans. I guess they were drawn to that aloneness in each other, but sometimes I see it as very selfish: to have had a child who had no real connection to anyone. When they died no one was responsible for me except some bureaucrats, the ones who step in and take care of children like me.

"I was lucky in a way. My first foster parents were decent enough. No hanging me upside down in closets or anything, but they were joyless people. They did day-to-day living as if life is a series of tasks that you just finish, not for any particular reason other than you can't live any more if you don't do it right.

"It was a very quiet way to grow up, if you can call it growing up. Sometimes I think I just got physically bigger and that was the extent of my maturing. Because I had done the right thing for so many years I was able to go to college. I met John in my second year and that was the end of Hannah as a coed.

"By then I was too dependent to see my own life as an opportunity, an adventure. I took the security and direction he offered and helped him make his life the center of our lives. Men like John need women like me; anchors to boring reality, partners in the mundane."

Neeley shook her head. “Hannah, if you believe that your personality was basically fixed and John married you for that reason, then how can you allow for what happened between you and him?”

"What do you mean?"

Neeley tugged on the tight jumpsuit to find a more comfortable fit. "It's pretty obvious, isn't it, that if John had married you for your placid acquiescence, he would have told you about his past. Why should he hide all that if you're the obedient little wife living vicariously through your successful husband?"

Hannah shrugged. "I was the obedient wife. I just existed."

"What changed?" Neeley asked. “That’s not what you’ve been the last couple of days.”

"Besides you coming into my living room with a gun? And John getting killed?" Hannah didn't pause for an answer. "The change really happened before that. When I truly accepted what John had done to me when he split, taking everything, that was all too much. I got mad. Angry. Pissed. I could have lived with all the wasted years being his wife but the son-of-a-bitch should have been grateful for that. Disappearing the way he did and leaving me with nothing; acting like it had all been nothing, now that was going too far. Something snapped in me."

"You want to know what I think?" Neeley said. "I think you just existed until someone like John came along and programmed you. Maybe we're a lot alike. Maybe most women are like this — the way society, despite its proclamations to the contrary, wants us to be. Notice that they still make Barbie dolls and in the Super Bowl it’s the guys on the field and the women on the sidelines swinging the pom-poms. What’s the female equivalent of the Super Bowl? You don’t see a stadium full of women watching the Miss America Pageant.

“It's like you have a computer just sitting there. It's a good piece of equipment, works fine, no glitches in the hardware, but there's no program loaded in. So along comes some guy needing a computer to support him in living his life. Depending on who they are they're going to have their own software.

"The accountant has his tax stuff, the lawyer's got all the case history stuff and an architect would have some cool drawing software. The point is that now the computer only has the ability to do what they need it to. It could have done anything but instead it ends up very specialized. That’s the way it is for so many women."

Hannah nodded. "Is that what happened to you?"

Neeley cocked her head sarcastically. "No, actually my childhood dream was to be a professional assassin with no identity."

"Sorry. Sometimes I forget you kill people, you're so nice to me."

Neeley turned to look out the window. Nothing but clouds and blue skies. "I never forget."

"But remember," Hannah said, "computers can be reprogrammed. I think what John did to me blew a fuse and I'll never function that way again, making someone else more important than me." She reached out and put a hand on Neeley's arm. "But now you'd better get some rest. We've got a lot to do in a little time and I have a feeling France is going to be a pain in the ass if the last couple of days are any indication."