Black Market

35

Manhattan

On the morning of December 18, in New York, Colonel David Hudson was feeling more self-conscious about his affliction than he had in many years. Nervously clutching Billie Bogan with his good arm, he steered her in a protective manner through the onrushing tide of people on Fifth Avenue. He didn't want to think about the resumption of Green Band, not for a few more hours, anyway.

David Hudson's self-consciousness was particularly unnecessary that morning. The two of them, paired together, were undeniably striking. They looked as if they'd been painted with thick, very bold strokes-while everyone else had been lightly drawn by pencil or pen.

Billie Bogan watched David from the corner of her eye-so very serious, charting their appointed path through the crowd. She felt an odd but growing fascination. That he was obviously taken with her made the attraction she felt much more irresistible. She allowed herself to be pulled along…

Toward whatever was looming ahead.

Where were they headed, anyway?

“Are you a Christmas lover?” Billie asked as they moved through the cold winter day around them.

“Oh, it depends on the Christmas. This Christmas, I have a strange passion for the season… I want to drink in the sights: the evergreen trees and the holiday wreaths, the glimmering store windows, Santa Clauses, churches, choral music.”

“You do seem to go all the way on things,” she teased Hudson.

“Or not at all. Just look at this insanity! This wonderful monstrosity!” He suddenly whooped and grinned broadly. It was quite unlike his usual self, at least the part she'd seen.

They'd finally come up close to the glittering extravagantly decorated Rockefeller Center tree. A crowd, college-age lovers mostly, was clustered overlooking the skating rink and attached restaurant. A boys choir, innocent in cassocks and surplices, sang the loveliest carols down below.

Colonel David Hudson's brain had finally slowed; he was relaxed and comfortable now. An exceedingly rare treat, one to be savored. He occasionally felt a stab of guilt about his mission, but he knew the release of tension could be valuable, too.

“Do you miss your family, your home? Being away from England during the holidays?” he asked.

In spite of the crowd, they felt as if they were all alone.

“I miss certain incidents from the past… Some charming things about my sister, my mother. I don't miss home too much, no. Life in the Midlands. All the young people, all the bright ones, want to get away from Birmingham. If you remain, you work for British Steel, or perhaps the exhibition center. Once you marry, you stay home with your brood. Watch the new morning BBC. You get fat, your thinking petrifies. After a few years, no one can imagine that any of the women were ever pretty slips of young girls. Almost no one over forty looks like they were ever young.”

“So you escaped? London? Paris?”

“I went to London when I turned eighteen. I was very crude, unpolished, in the way that I looked, the way I thought about the world. I wanted to be an actress, a fashion model, anything that would keep me from ever going back to Birmingham. Ever.”

Billie smiled, and she was so charming and self-effacing. “I made a few minor misjudgments in London,” she said with a mocking laugh.

“And then?”

“After, I guess it was five years there, I decided to come to New York, or Paris. That's me up to the present. I'm hopeful I can do well as a model. I'm putting together a book for press advertising-magazines and newspapers. I know I'm attractive-physically attractive, at least.”

She had delivered most of the autobiographical speech very shyly, with her eyes downcast, glancing anywhere but into David Hudson's eyes. Color had crept up from her neck, finally covering her face.

“I've made a few tiny misjudgments myself. Just a few.” Hudson laughed. So many stored-up emotions were being released. It had been so long since he'd allowed himself this.

Billie began to laugh again. “Oh, to hell with the past,” she said. Her eyes were a little sad, however, ironic, slightly pinched at the corners. They both ran out of words at exactly the same time. The moment seemed especially poignant to them.

Billie turned to face Hudson again. She spoke very softly, feathers of her warm breath touching his ear.

“Please kiss me, David. That might not sound like anything so very dramatic… Except that I don't think I've said it to anyone, and meant it, since I was about sixteen or seventeen years old.”

David Hudson and Billie Bogan kissed in the deep shadows of the grand Christmas tree. Holiday music played sweetly around them: “Adeste Fidelis,” “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World.”

For that moment, Colonel David Hudson conveniently forgot his other plans for the world.

Something that was badly needed.

Revenge for a very special few.

Justice for mankind.