Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 36

You know that old saw about how when things get bad, they almost always get worse? Without hesitating, Mercer picked up the phone and called Kim, his KCIA partner. He hastily explained what happened and told him to pick up Choi immediately. Kim calmly explained that everything was under control, that Choi and three of his fellow cops were at that moment having lunch inside a kimchi restaurant in the heart of Itaewon. A KCIA agent had followed them inside, and four more agents were planted outside, observing the front of the restaurant. Good, Mercer told him. Don’t waste another minute. Send them in to get him.

Kim called back ten minutes later. The team had gone into the restaurant to get Choi, only Choi and his boys were nowhere to be found. They did find the agent who followed them inside. His corpse was propped up on a toilet inside a stall in the men’s room. His throat had acquired a nasty new gash that ran from earlobe to earlobe. While the surveillance team had kept watch on the front of the restaurant, Choi and his goons had fled out the back.

Kim was terrifically embarrassed by this, but Mercer was equally abashed about losing Bales, so it came out a wash. This was somewhat of a blessing. It spared me from having to witness the normal nasty catcalling and finger-pointing that would certainly have occurred if only one side had committed a gaffe. When it comes to government agencies, there’s always a lofty comfort found in a joint failure. The fact was, Choi and his colleagues were obviously trained agents and both Mercer and Kim had underestimated them.

But Mercer and Kim were pros, too, and rather than rehash their mistakes, they immediately instigated a nationwide search to catch the bastards. They started arguing about whose job it was to ransack Bales’s and Choi’s offices and apartments but soon, after a few terse exchanges, they decided to form joint teams so both sides would have firsthand looks at every clue and piece of evidence. I sat and listened, but it didn’t concern me, so I thought of other things.

Things like how Eddie Golden’s case had just gotten the floor pulled out from under it. The walls were still standing, but they were teetering and maybe ready to collapse. Two of his prize witnesses had just gone on the lam, and that was going to pose fairly intriguing challenges for Eddie. As soon as he learned of this, he’d be calling Carruthers to ask for a postponement while he tried to rebuild the state’s case.

Which reminded me: It was already after two-thirty, so I went to Mercer and told him I had other work to do, since I was still part of Whitehall’s defense team, and we still had a trial that started at eight the next morning. He scratched his head and tried to think of a reason to keep me around, but couldn’t, so he excused me, after making me swear not to tell a soul what had happened.

I said I wouldn’t, as long as he’d call Judge Barry Carruthers and inform him that two of the prosecution’s key witnesses had just disappeared and were wanted in connection with whatever plausible cover crime Mercer wanted to invent. He said okay, so I left.

By the time I got to the HOMOS office, Mercer had obviously already called the judge, and Carruthers had just as obviously called Katherine to break the news. Everybody was doing a war dance. Bad news travels fast, but catastrophic news moves like lightning bolts. Of course, what was catastrophic news to Eddie’s pearly ears was manna from heaven here.

Imelda gave me a funny look when I came in, like she just knew I had something to do with this, although she wasn’t sure exactly what. Nobody else seemed curious or suspicious. The general mood was that God must really love gay folk because he’d just done a mighty big service for the cause.

I went back to Katherine’s office and poked my head in. She was seated at her desk, swiveling back and forth in her chair, looking quietly elated.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, the picture of ignorant innocence.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Bales and Choi disappeared. A nationwide search has been initiated.”

“No kidding? Disappeared, huh? Just like that, poof?”

“Weird, isn’t it? Carruthers called to tell me.”

“Yeah?”

“He wants to meet with me and Golden in his office in thirty minutes.”

I stepped in and dropped some papers on her desk. It was the voir dire strategy. I said, “Great news. Here’s what you asked for.” Then I turned around to leave.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“To the bar in the hotel.”

“What?”

“Lady, my day’s done. I busted my ass on these. I’m tired as hell, and I’m thirsty. I’m going to get roaring drunk and then climb into bed.”

A quizzical, perplexed look popped onto her face. “You don’t want to accompany me to see Carruthers?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Aren’t you at least curious?”

“Not the least bit.”

She stood up and came around to face me. She leaned against the front edge, butt backed against the desk, legs and arms crossed. “You think I can handle him myself?”

“You? You were first in the class. I’m just some second-place dunce who never got over it.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said, taking a step toward me. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“And you probably didn’t mean that part about no more meetings with the judge? No more strategy sessions? No more talking to the client?”

“Drummond, I was angry. Don’t you ever say things you regret when you’re angry?”

I ignored that. “Look, it’s no big thing. Really. I figure we’ve got, what – two, maybe three weeks of trial? I’m gonna treat it like the vacation you ruined. There’s plenty of good bars in this town, and some of those Korean women are gorgeous.”

“Damn it, Drummond, I’m sorry.”

“What is it about me that always makes you so mad?”

“You don’t always make me so mad.”

“The hell you say. Every time you look at me, your face turns red and you look like you want to break something.”

She walked right up to me. And she did the strangest damn thing. She reached up, pulled my head down, and kissed me. Not one of those puffy, wimpy, dry pecks either, but a glandular, wet, lingering one. On the lips, too.

I froze. She pressed her slim body against mine, and I froze more.

She finally pulled back, then looked up into my eyes, like she was searching for something. What, I didn’t know, but my eyes were blinking madly, because I was utterly, unconditionally confused. Just a few hours before she’d been ready to strangle me, and now she was pressed up against my body in a most tantalizing way. The woman was like a typhoon spinning out of control. What in the hell was going on?

“What was that?”

“What do you think it was?”

I gave her an awkward, silly smile. “I guess it was a, uh, a kiss, but I-”

But before I could get that thought out, she did it again. Only this time, I pulled her tightly against me and all our curves and angles and hollows and lumps fitted together. I can be gulled and suckered as easily as the next guy, but I swear I felt some real heat and electricity here. Her arms were wrapped tightly around my neck, and her hips were grinding against my lower body in a way that was pleasantly beguiling, which is a courtly way of describing a biological response one doesn’t bring up in mixed company.

I ran my fingers lightly down the middle of her back and felt her body tingle and shiver like a cat’s. I heard heavy breathing, only maybe it was me, because my own lungs were starting to make that happy heaving motion that lets your head know the rest of your body’s in the mood to do something naughty.

Now here’s something you’d probably never in a million years ever guess about me. When it comes to fragile emotional situations, I’m like… well, hopeless. I’m afflicted with the romantic equivalent of the bull-in-the-china-shop disease. I can’t help myself. I always say the wrong thing at the right moment. I’m brusque when I should be ticklish, blunt when I should be discreet, wisecracky when I should be mushy. In matters of the heart, I’m Dr. Kevorkian.

I felt this irrepressible need to say, “Hey, what the hell is this? Lesbians don’t kiss like that. Lesbians don’t rub their hips against guys that way. Lesbians don’t flush and tingle and get body purrs when guys caress them.”

I didn’t, though. I was about to, except suddenly someone was rapping knuckles on the door. I was saved by the bell, or the knock. Whatever.

Katherine hastily stepped back, rearranged her dress, unmussed her hair, and took a few deep breaths. I just leaned against the wall and watched her. I was too stunned to move. I was utterly bewildered.

She opened the door and Imelda barged in. She took one look at Katherine, then at me, still pressed against the wall, and her eyes suddenly got real narrow and her lips twisted at an odd angle.

But all she said was, “Time to leave for the judge’s office. You got everything you need?”

Katherine smiled demurely. “I think so. Major Drummond and I were just debating whether he should come along.”

“ ’Course he should,” Imelda huffed. “Allie, too. She’s been workin’ hard. Let her taste the moment.”

Katherine nodded at Imelda like this was what she’d intended all along. Her eyes were glued on me, though. “Drummond here seems to think he shouldn’t be there. I was just trying to persuade him that I might need his military expertise.”

Imelda whirled at me with a fierce glower. “You got some problem with that?”

I said, “No, uh, absolutely not. I’d be only too pleased.”

“Good,” Imelda announced, then departed, whistling through her teeth; an unconscious gesture of hers whenever she encounters something she can’t quite put a finger on.

Katherine walked past me, provocatively brushing her body against mine. “Come along, Attila.”