Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1999 20:56:28 -0000
From: Ernie <ernies@ionia-mi.net>
Subject: Secrets chapter 9

Secrets
by Ian DeShils

Chapter 9

EAST COAST INTERLUDE

On the surface this was just another business trip, yet we planned well in
advance to coincide with a very special date. Ostensibly, we were opening
our newest east coast office, but the truth is the trip was more for play
than work.

We celebrated with a fine meal followed by a bit too much to drink and
ended up walking hand in hand along the esplanade, oblivious to the stares
we received. The alcohol loosened our inhibitions making us mellow, and
since we knew almost no one in New York, we didn't give a damn what
strangers thought. This was our time, and we intended to enjoy it.

"I would still like to give you something." Jake said quietly as we looked
out across the water. I knew it would come up again, I counted on it and
immediately went into a fully rehearsed routine complete with fake
histrionics.

"What now, a parting gift? That's it, isn't it you're planning on leaving!"

I smote forehead with palm and moaned, "Oh, and after I've given him the
best years of my life!"

Jake laughed, "Yeah, sure, I'll be trucking out any decade now!" he
replied, popping me lightly on the back of the head. "Seriously though,
wouldn't you like some little reminder of this day? After all, it is our
fifteenth anniversary!"

"Oh, all right, if you think it's that important. Only this means I have to
rush out and buy you something too, and you know what a cheapskate I am!"

All day I carried on as though I didn't know what he had in his
pocket. Jake was the bearer of gifts and for many years, I a major
recipient, so much so that it sometimes drove me up the wall. Our apartment
was filled with stuff I can never get rid of simply because they came from
Jake. This time I flatly said No Gift and had been unyielding in that
decision, right up until that moment.

Jake was delighted, he got such pleasure out of giving that I never had the
heart to just say 'no', and I must admit the thought behind each of those
things touched me deeply. He just didn't realize they were all
unnecessary. Fifteen years ago he'd given me the most precious gift of all;
his friendship and love and an unwavering commitment that had lasted
through all our difficulties.

I never told him, but for years I've been aware when he was about to bring
me something. He'd start acting sly and pleased with himself then suddenly
he'd spring it on me and it usually cost a bundle.

One of the advantages of being head of the investigative branch was my
ability to find out what Jake was up to when he began acting 'gifty'. These
last few years, in pure self defense, I had him tailed whenever he began
acting like that and as soon as I found out what he was up to, I got busy
and tried to direct the gift buying towards more modest items. This time, a
change of tactics was in order, so I never said a word about not wanting a
Rolex. Instead I ordered an identical one for Jake complete with matching
inscription and wrapping paper, and when he handed me 'the little
something' he'd been carrying around all day, I handed him my gift, then
watched his face while trying not to laugh.

Later that evening as I began emptying my pockets onto the dresser, Jake
stepped up behind me, draped his arms around my neck and stood looking at
our reflection in the mirror.

"You know, Teddy, I think it worked out pretty good."

"What?" I asked.

"You and me. All the articles I used to read pointed to six or seven years
as the limit for a relationship like ours, yet we've been together more
than twice that long. I used to worry that you'd get tired of me. Reading
all that stuff made me nervous, but it never crosses my mind anymore.

I looked at his mirrored image in astonishment,

"My God, we've been together so long we think alike. I had the same idea
about you, especially after Annie came along. I figured we were done for.

"That'll be the day!" he laughed, pulling us tightly together, "You know
how I feel about Annie. She's the finest woman who ever walked the earth
and I won't lie, there was something exciting there, only I think it had
more to do with the thought of fathering a child than anything else. It's a
good thing I'm a perfect gentleman." He chuckled, "I used to get so hot
watching you two, that a few times I came close to giving you a little
surprise!"

Jake bumping against me suggestively and I guffawed,

"Well, at least Annie would have been surprised! I hate to burst your
bubble, big fella, but it's been a long time since that would have
surprised me and even longer since you were a perfect gentleman about it."

We laughed, rocking against each other. I pulled his arms tighter about
me. God he was handsome, I swear he got better looking every year. After
all this time I still found him irrisistable.

"Have you ever wondered what our life would be like now if we had stayed
with the Department?" I asked

"Sure have." He chuckled, "Only I can't see us making it this long. We were
sure to get nailed eventually. Remember those nights in the patrol car? I
couldn't keep my hands off you, I remember thinking that you just too damn
sexy in a uniform."

"Is that why you kept trying to take it off? All this time I thought you
wanted me naked for an entirely different reason."

Jake laughed and began nuzzling my ear. After a moment he whispered, "Turn
around."  With slow deliberation he began undressing me, one button at a
time, carefully folding my shirt and tie and making a big production of it
until at last I stood before him wearing only briefs. He touched me through
the material, tracing the outline of my burgeoning hardness, then
delicately ran his hands along my body, barely touching, sending shivers up
my spine. When he again arrived at the briefs, he slipped his fingers down
inside the waist band and began working them downward as he sank to his
knees.

This was but the overture to a evening filled with delight, and he released
me when he felt my first pangs of urgency. Nuzzling his way upward, he
found my lips and that strong sweet tongue brought with it a desire for
something more. Where Jake had been slow in his undressing, I worked in
feverish haste, then turned him slightly so he could watch in the mirror.

Later we used the bed to continue that same sweet torture. Intense kisses
interspersed with tantalizing moments of teasing, coming close, then
slacking off, until finally the pressure built beyond restraint and we
switched around to reach for the climax simultaneously. In moments Jake
burst forth and with the taste of that great flood, I came in wrenching
shudders and Jake moaned, echoing my ecstasy.

Warm and mellow we lay lazy in the afterglow, murmuring in the darkness,
and Jake said,

"Here we are, nearly forty and I don't feel any older now than when we
met. "

"Maybe this is the wrong moment to bring it up," I teased, "But you are
loosing your hair. I believe I ran onto that bare spot just awhile
ago. It's right here!." I said, reaching up to finger a quarter sized
vacancy.

"I know, its a bitch!." he replied, "But don't get too smug my furry headed
pal. Your smile lines are hanging around now even when you're not
smiling. Anyway, that's not what I meant. It's just that we still act like
kids. You turn me on as much now as you did that very first night when you
dragged me to your bed and forced me into this life of shame."

"Whoa, there, I don't recall any force! As a matter of fact, I distinctly
remember hearing 'Oh, God, Yes, Yes, Yes,' or something along those lines."

Jake chuckled as he snuggled closer,

"But, you did force me, you know." he said softly, "You forced me to make a
decision. I could have remained silent and miserable, instead I chose to
speak up and I've never been sorry, Teddy. Of all my thirty-eight years,
these last fifteen with you are the ones I treasure and I want it to stay
this way for the rest of our lives. You know, sometimes I can see us fifty
years from now, two old men in rest home, shocking the shit out of the
staff and enjoying every minute of it. That's assuming, of course, you'll
still love me when I'm ancient, bald and toothless."

"Jeez, that sounds so delightful, I can hardly wait!" I laughed, "On the
other hand, if we're still capable of having sex at that age, it will
probably shock us more than the staff."

I combed my fingers through that mass of curly chest hair, reveling in it
as always, and said, "But you are right about these last fifteen
years. It's been more than I had ever hoped for and we have beaten the
odds, haven't we? You're still my sweet friend, my love, and when you're
away at night, I wake up searching the bed for you just like always." Then,
nuzzling closer I added puckishly, "I guess that means we're good for at
least another fifteen and by then I'm pretty sure I'll be over the shock of
seeing you bald."

Jake tried to smother me with a pillow, but that ended in a spat of sincere
and tender kisses, then, spooned together, legs entwined we fell
asleep. The perfect ending to a perfect day.


Notes

A wondrous change is overtaking Jake. It's all coming back to him. I sat
down to write the story of our anniversary and he began hanging over my
shoulder, reading as I typed. Suddenly he said,

"No, not the park, we were on the esplanade that night. Remember the
boats?"

And he was exactly right. He urged me on, offering clear and concise
memories of that day, and when I finished, he put his arms around me and
said, "Thank you, Teddy, thank you for everything."  It was a truly tender
moment.

Jake continues to slip away at times, but it's amazing how much he
remembers now. I never know what he's going to bring up next. The other day
he asked how Sammy was doing and I had to tell him that Sam died last
year. Jake was saddened, but it didn't cause a retreat.

It's almost like old times now, except one for thing. I can't explain it,
but it seems like Jake is trying too hard to be the person I've written
about. I went back over the stories and realized I had overly romanticized
our life together. Those were only incidents, not our daily existence. What
I haven't touched on were our unshared interests and those later business
commitments that kept us apart for days and weeks on end. My stories made
it look like we were together every day walking hand in hand from the
moment we met. . .  Hardly. . . Over the years we developed many divergent
interests. He gave up flying even before we left Mira Lida and never
pursued a private license. It is still one of my hobbies although not so
high on the list that I've ever considered buying a plane. Jake took up
sailing some fifteen years ago. I tried it only once and decided there
wasn't enough dramamine in the world to get me out there again. After GSI
started making money we got involved in various charity events. One of the
fund raisers was golf and it became a real passion of mine. Jake hated
it. He considered the game about as exciting as watching cows graze. There
were lot of things like that I didn't write about.

Another glaring mistake in those stories is my description of Jake's
personality. He wasn't Just the compassionate lover I described. Committed;
yes. Faithful; I'm sure. Always gentle and tender? Not by a long shot!

I remember picking him up at the airport one day after a trip to
Chicago. He came back flushed with victory, having just closed a deal worth
several hundred grand, and I thought maybe he wanted to celebrate that
evening. He kept answering, "Yeah. .  OK. .  Whatever. ." to the
suggestions I made, while at the same time steering me toward the airport
bathrooms. Once inside, he pulled me into a stall and there on the cold
fixture we had sex without the slightest bit tenderness. It was so wild and
dangerous, so completely unexpected that it turned me on like nothing we
ever did before. It also scared the hell out of me. It's a wonder we didn't
get nailed, we were in there for half an hour.

Over the years, it became a regular thing with Jake. Carl once got an
eyeful while driving us back from a meeting in Fresno, and then there was
that time at the office when Jake forgot to lock the door and Josey walked
in. Poor Josephine, she gained a whole new appreciation for knocking on
closed doors.

I still don't know why a successful business deal turned him into a horny
raging bull. I guess it's just one of those quirks there's no accounting
for. After that first time, I refused to meet him at the airport. I figured
if he ever closed a million dollar deal, he would probably rape me right
there on the concourse.

Why haven't I written about those incidents I wonder? Maybe I just wanted
Jake to see the person I've missed the most these last three years. Not
that his other side wasn't exciting, it certainly was, and I miss that
daredevil spontaneity as well, but evidently not as much as I missed his
sweetness. . .

These last few days I've been carefully probing to find the extent of
Jake's recovery. He still can't recall the shooting or any of the things
leading up to it. Also, he is rather vague about some things, it's like he
remembers, but can't quite connecting himself to those
memories. Occasionally he will refer to himself as "he" instead of "I", and
that makes me think my stories are all mixed up with his actual memories of
the events.

Last night at dinner I made the mistake of mentioning Carla. Again that
look of fear. In seconds he retreated to wherever it is he hides and I
finished the meal across from a child jabbering about playing a board game
after dinner. The change was almost instantaneous. One moment he was here,
the next, gone, but I now know for sure that Carla is the key. Carla and
the shooting. But how do they come together? To my knowledge, the last time
Jake saw Carla was at the divorce proceedings almost twenty-five years
ago. There is nothing I can lay my finger on, but I'm sure there is a
connection, if only in Jake's mind.

We finished the game early and went to bed. Jake was restless. Usually
after he retreats, he will just snuggle down and go to sleep, but not this
time. It took a long quiet talk to get him settled. He hasn't acted this
way since we left California, but I could plainly see he was in for one of
his old bad nights.



Nightmares


 <CRACK> <CRACKCRACKCRACK>

Lightning struck all around me and I was scared. Then I saw a girl I used
to know, her black hair shinning in the moonlight, her red lips
smiling. She was sitting in the kitchen, the sun shinning on the table and
I.. . . Then the lightning stuck again and this time it hit me and it hit
her too and. . . I woke up screaming!  Teddy had his arms about me telling
me everything was OK, but I was still so awful scared.


Jake had his lightning dream again last night. I know it's the shooting,
but he dreams about a storm with thunder and lightning.

Alex and I sat in the back up car watching Art hold the limo door for the
young couple. They were joking about something, Art was laughing, then gun
shots thundered, echoing through the cavernous parking ramp. Art spun and
dropped. The girl clutched her side and went down screaming while her
husband tried to reach her through a hail of bullets that spattered all
around them. Jake popped up from the driver's side, gun drawn, and began
firing at someone out of sight behind a support column. Alex bailed out at
a dead run toward the rear of that column while I kicked the car into gear,
flooring it to get between the kids and their assailant. As I whipped up
beside the limo, another roar of guns came from behind Jake shattering the
glass in both cars and I saw Jake turn and fire.

It was over in a moment. Art lay dead, Jake badly wounded. The girl had
taken a bullet across the ribs, painful but not life threatening. The two
assailants were down, one of them dead. Jake's last shot caught her between
the eyes and she lay there in the dim light, dark hair spattered with blood
and brains, the top of her head blown away. Alex had her partner, a man
face down, tied with plastic strip cuffs. By the time the police and
ambulance arrived, he had worked the fellow over a bit, but had gotten
little information.

I was working on Jake when they came, trying to staunch the blood, telling
him to hang on. He was out cold and I thought I was going to loose him at
any moment. He had a gash above his ear. I could see the whiteness of his
skull through the blood. Bits of bone protruded outward like slivers and I
couldn't tell if a bullet had actually entered there or just grazed him. He
had two more wounds in his back, none, thank God, near the spine, but how
he ever managed to return fire on that woman, I'll never know.

Six hours later the surgeons told us Jake would live. He was in a coma and
they would only guess for how long, but all indications were that he would
live. The head wound was not as serious as first thought. It was a hard
graze, sufficient to cause a skull fracture, but no bullet particle
actually entered. They thought the most serious wound was the punctured
lung. That, they said might cause problems later on. The rest, I was
assured was only a matter of normal recovery. How wrong they were. . .

I couldn't do a thing for Jake waiting at the hospital, but I could try to
find out who the hell was behind the shooting. Art's widow was
inconsolable. Art spent twenty-five years in the LAPD, retiring without a
scratch only to die on a routine escort job. It didn't make any sense.

The newlywed couple, Jason and Ellie Shaw, came to us almost the minute
they hit LA. They were looking to hire bodyguards for their stay, two weeks
max, and then they were leaving on an extended tour of the islands and the
Far East. Wealth has its privileges, of course, but it did seem rather
strange. Honeymooners seldom want other people underfoot, especially gun
toting middle aged men, and yet armed guards were exactly what they
specified. According to Shaw, his wife Ellie had recently been mugged. Her
jewelry and purse stolen in broad daylight on a crowded Boston street and
she was now too frightened to go anywhere without protection. It sounded
reasonable to Josephine who did the interview, especially when the Shaw's
shelled out ten grand in advance.

I heard absolutely no complaints from the men assigned to the Shaws. The
couple took them to fancy restaurants, always picking up the tab, gave them
little gifts and made their job pleasant in every way. The youngsters
really had little to worry about. They stayed at a fine hotel, shopped the
Wilshire boutiques and likely gained more attention for their hired
entourage then anything else. Jake chuckled as he went over daily reports,
saying, that the places those two visited, Ellie could have worn the crown
jewels of England in perfect safety. The job went totally without incident
until the second week when a boat they hired for a cruise to Catalina blew
up at the dock. Even that didn't ring alarm bells. The fire department
ruled the explosion an accident, an LP cook stove with a faulty gas valve
and we foolishly took their word for it.

Newlyweds have a tendency to be late for appointments and in this case it
was a very lucky thing. That morning, their over active hormones kept those
kids and four of our men from becoming shark bait halfway between Long
Beach and Catalina.

We offered bodyguard services in only a few large cities like LA, but even
there, providing armed personal guards is not an easy task. At the La Brea
office, only Art and few others had concealed weapons permits. Bodyguard
work usually requires nothing more than keeping fans and photographers away
from celebrities, so weapons were never a priority with us. Of course Jake
and I had gun permits, unused and unneeded for years, yet still
active. I've often wished that wasn't the case. It was the possession of
those permits that got Jake shot.

Flu had taken a toll of our La Brea office that month. Half our people were
either coming down with it, or just getting over it. On the night of the
shooting, Jake and I were covering for two of our regular men who were home
puking their guts out. Neither of us had done that kind of work in years,
but I enjoyed the change. It was almost like old times when Jake and I used
to do all the leg work.

That night we were heading for a rock concert with only one little fly in
the ointment. There were six of us and the youngsters could get their hands
on only four tickets. It didn't matter to me, I'm not fond of heavy metal
anyway. Alex wanted to see it, Art didn't, but Jake over ruled him, so Art
and Alex escorted the couple inside while Jake and I went for coffee at a
nearby cafe. It was over coffee that he told me that there was something
about Ellie Shaw that bothered him. On the way to the concert, she kept
looking out the window and pulling back if a car stayed along side, yet she
didn't seem the least bit nervous about being in a crowd, in fact she
appeared to relax.

After the shooting, the first thing I did was run a background check of our
clients. They seemed to have unlimited funds and the boy did come from a
fairly wealthy family, but the girl was a complete enigma. She was only
eighteen yet for the last eight years appeared to have traveled almost
continuously, her passport showed stamps from half the countries in the
world. Both her parents were dead and the grandmother who raised her,
apparently had not yet returned from a trip taken at about the time the
kids came to LA.

Something was fishy. A supposedly wealthy child who had done nothing but
travel since she was ten? When the hell did she go to school? The more we
delved, the more it became obvious that the girl existed in a vacuum. We
could find no school records, trust funds or bank accounts, no tax records,
not even a drivers license, and beyond a passport and birth certificate,
little to show the girl was alive. We got so wound up in tracing her, we
nearly missed the fact that the boy's parents were now almost broke. They
lost nearly everything in a land deal just a few months earlier and yet the
kids spent money as if they'd struck the mother lode. A few inquiries and I
found the Shaw's had dropped nearly two hundred grand in the two weeks
they'd been in LA.

Drugs. It was a natural assumption considering the money involved and maybe
it wasn't that far from wrong, but it turned out to be simple larceny. Only
it wasn't simple because it was a theft from someone who's idea of
indemnity insurance was six well placed hollow point slugs.

The name Gambini surfaced in connection with the grandmother and we began
weaving the ends together. The girl's grandmother was about the same age as
old man Gambini himself, perhaps a distant relative or an old girlfriend,
but the actual relationship was so well hidden we never found it. The lady
however, appeared above reproach and spent her time and money taking her
granddaughter on innumerable pleasure trips to Europe, Asia and the Middle
East. It became obvious to us that she was some sort of courier, probably
moving money from one place to another and when we presented the kids with
the facts we had, the girl broke down and told us the rest. On their last
trip, the old lady died of a heart attack. On instructions, Ellie passed
the goods on to another courier, but first lightened the load by some ten
million dollars in bearer bonds and cash.

The girl didn't look stupid, but she had acted like a complete fool. Did
she think the mob wouldn't miss the money?  Plainly, an operation like that
required a lot of people on the take, everyone from baggage handlers to
minor officials in at least a dozen countries. Alex, who has a touch of
larceny in his soul, remarked that she'd passed up a perfect opportunity,
then offered several ways she could have absconded with the entire lot by
simply throwing suspicion on a few foreign officials.

The kids were placed in protective custody and if it hadn't been for Jake,
I would have just turned the whole thing over to the FBI and been done with
it. Only, I just couldn't do it. I found that Gambini wasn't the only one
who could hold a grudge, and what he had done to Art and Jake called for
retribution!

GSI gave second careers to hundreds of ex cops, retired government agents
and the like and we paid them well, perhaps not as well as the taxpayers
had, but more than enough to keep them off the bread lines. Our main
business was security services. We had guards in thousands of sites across
the country and to go along with that, I built the investigative branch
into a tightly knit group of people who were extremely good at what they
did. I carefully picking the best of the best, and then made sure they
maintained contact with their old friends still working in the various
agencies. Our forte was gathering data and boiling it down to a substance
we could use. If a theft occurred at one of our guarded sites, we usually
nailed the culprit in a matter of hours.

We shagged Gambini, looking for some opening into his organization where
we could slip a finger in without getting it cut off. Strangely enough, we
discovered that GSI provided security for several of his supposedly
legitimate enterprises and so we began there, turning every stone, looking
for the connections between Mob and those business and as we dug them out,
we quietly turned everything over to the FBI.

By the time I learned just how much that assassination attempt cost Jake,
Gambini was already feeling pressure as his various businesses came under
scrutiny. We never exposed ourselves, just sat back and applied a red hot
poker were it hurt the most, but when I was done with Gambini and his
crowd, their losses to the little thief was but a drop in the bucket by
comparison.

I am not a power freak nor the least bit vindictive about most things, but
don't fuck with my family and expect me to do nothing about it!

The next morning Jake was restless. His nightmare still bothered him and he
wandered around the house doing unneeded little jobs to occupy his mind. It
was late afternoon before he once more took an interest in the writing and
by then I was nearly finished, only I wouldn't show it to him until he
described the dream. I thought it important that he compare his nightmare
to what actually happened that night, so I entered it just as he told it
and then printed it out. Jake read it over and over,

"I don't remember this." he said, "Are you sure it happened? Who did I
kill?"

I told him her name, Rosita Pandaris and he shook his head,

"This doesn't seem real, I don't remember any of it."

"Pandaris was tough cookie, Jake. She was half a hard ball hit
team. They've connected her to at least a dozen murders, here and in Mexico
and believe me, she would have blown you away without thinking twice. It
was hard to believe though from the pictures I saw. Pandaris was pretty
enough to be a model, beautiful actually, with long black hair like
Carla's. . ."

The moment I mentioned Carla's name, Jake's eyes grew large and he
retreated. His childish persona took over instantly, but in such a frenzied
state as I have never seen before. He began babbling about everything and
nothing, running about playing with the souvenirs of the house like a child
in his terrible two's. He has retreated further from reality than ever
before. I despaired, why hadn't I let it go when he was almost back to the
present? Why did I keep pushing? I fear I have caused irreparable harm.

The following morning he was only slightly better. It took three days for
any calmness to return to Jake, but when it did, he was his old self
again. His old childish self. In the week since then he has not returned
once.

I have lost him to the past, to the place where no decisions are required,
where there is no need to face the unthinkable. It wasn't Carla on the
parking ramp that night, but for some reason Jake thinks it was. How or why
such an idea could seat so heavily in his mind is something I cannot
comprehend.

Once long ago Jake told me, "Good, bad or indifferent, we never really get
over our first love." I thought he was talking about my confrontation with
Sarge, but he must have meant Carla as well. Hidden in our hearts seems to
lie a shadow of that first love that can touch us for the rest of our
lives.

When I think about it now, I realize that if not for Jake, I would have
left the Sidewinder with Sarge that night and I'm equally sure that had
Carla been a faithful loving wife, Jake would have never looked in my
direction in the first place. Whether anyone would have been happy is
another question. First loves cannot guarantee that, they only guarantee
that you will always be affected by them.

There are still a couple of months before the road is passable. I'll try
again to interest him in the journal. Right now he doesn't want to look at
it, not even the earlier parts that so intrigued him before.

Since this last upset, Jake has come down with a bad case of cabin fever
and is anxious to go hiking again. There's been no fresh snow for several
days now. He is outside for a short time everyday, walking the yard and
testing the snow depth. Tomorrow he wants to hike down to the last corral
and back. It seems safe enough. The snow is now less than knee deep in most
places, but there is a forecast of another storm moving in. . .

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