Keep The Car Running - Part 6
Part 5
“So, that’s everything?”
Greta nodded as Nate looked over the files on the flash drive the next morning. “Well, a good portion of them according to Gabe. The important part is that Victoria is still in town and we still have a chance of finding her and any other girls that may be with her.”
“We just don’t know where they are yet,” Gabe said, not having the heart to mention that there were only three days to find her. “I’m working on that right now.”
Nate breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Gabe shook his head. “Don’t go thanking us yet. We still have some work to do.”
Suddenly, Gabe’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number. Quickly, he excused himself and walked out onto the porch. “Who is this,” Gabe asked as soon as he flipped open the phone.
“I want to talk about your proposal, Alexander,” said Patrick’s voice. “Not in public though. I have to go on a trip today. Do you want to ride along?”
Gabe smirked on the other end of the phone. “Where do you want to pick me up?”
----------------
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Greta’s voice said in Gabe’s ear.
Gabe quickly adjusted the bluetooth headset he was wearing. He looked over at her through the windshield of her car as they waited outside Zesto’s. “What about this says ‘good’ anyway?”
“Gabe, I’m just worried. Patrick seems a lot smarter than his boss. I just don’t want you getting hurt if he finds out you’re playing him.”
“I’ll be fine. Just stick to the plan, keep a tail on us and see if we’re going to where they’re keeping the girls, and watch for my signals. I took the wire off for this meeting, so we’re flying a bit blind until we can reconvene.”
He saw Greta nod through the windshield. “Hey Gabe.”
“Yeah, Greta?”
“I do have my gun under my seat just in case things do go bad though. Just thought you should know.”
Gabe tried his best to not smile at that, but he knew he was failing. “I guess some things never change.”
Suddenly, a black car with Patrick in the driver’s seat pulled up in the parking lot. He motioned for Gabe to get in. Gabe quickly pocketed his bluetooth and flashed a brief ‘okay’ gesture to Greta as he got in. He gave Patrick a grin as he closed the door. “Nice to see you again, Patrick. And thanks for taking me on the field trip.”
Patrick rolled his eyes as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I wouldn’t call it a field trip. More like a quick business run. Pete’s too chicken to do it himself, so he always makes me do it.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow, watching Greta pull out of the parking lot in the rearview mirror out of the corner of his eye. “Does it involve the girls?”
“What else would it involve?”
Gabe leaned back in his seat and shrugged. Patrick rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’m just tired of it. Tired of Pete kicking me around and making me do the dirty work he doesn’t want to do. I’m better than that! He knows I’m better than that!”
Patrick slammed the steering wheel of the car with his hand, making Gabe jump back slightly. Patrick sighed and composed himself. “Sorry about that.”
“No no,” Gabe said, holding up his hand. “I get it. I’ve been screwed over before too.”
Patrick drove for a bit longer in silence. Gabe kept his eyes moving between the window to look at his surroundings and the mirrors to check to see if Greta was still tailing them. After several minutes, Patrick finally spoke up. “What exactly do you want to do?”
Gabe looked at him, pretending to be confused. “Hm?”
“Your plan? What’s this grand plan to take power from Pete? Or were you just talking out of your ass the other night?”
Gabe chuckled a little bit. “Oh, that. I was maybe talking out of my ass a tiny bit, but I was honest about that. We can take power from Pete.”
“Yeah, but how? You’d be surprised at how many connections he has.”
Patrick took a turn down a narrow lane. Gabe noticed how run down the area of town looked and wondered how close they were getting to the girls. “Yeah, but what if we cut him out?”
Patrick looked over at Gabe, confused. “Cut him out?”
“Yeah,” said Gabe, sitting up in his seat. “If we take Pete out of the equation, you leave the whole business to start tearing itself apart. However, if we swoop in at the right time to save the day and show that we’re better than Pete ever was at running his own business, people will be throwing themselves at us. It’ll all be ours.”
Patrick nodded as he came to a stop in front of what looked like an abandoned apartment building. “I like the sound of that... But how do we cut Pete out?”
“We’ll think of something. Maybe sell him out to the cops for something he didn’t do,” Gabe said, staring out the window of the car. He saw a few large men milling around the top floor of the building. “This is the place?”
Patrick nodded as he stepped out of the car. Gabe followed suit. “Yeah, this is it. We have one girl locked in one room each. The guys up there keep guard, but no one really suspects anything on this side of town. The cops have other things to worry about besides some guys loitering a seemingly abandoned apartment complex.”
Gabe nodded as he saw Greta’s Mustang start to drive past. He reached behind his back and flashed her another quick ‘okay’ sign before he started following Patrick. As they walked up the stairs, Patrick looked over his shoulder cautiously. “Have you noticed that Mustang following us?”
Gabe felt his heart jump, but played stupid again. “What Mustang?”
“The red one,” Patrick said as they stopped at the landing. “I mean, I saw it in Little 5 and assumed it was just trying to get to Ponce, but I think it’s following us.”
Gabe rolled his eyes, ignoring the warning bells going off in his head. “Well, you know what they say. If you see one Mustang, you see five. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Patrick eyed the road cautiously one more time, then walked towards one of the bodyguards. Gabe followed, pulling out his phone and heading for the text message box.
trick catching on. need u 2 drive by and shoot @ us.
If someone is suspicious of being tailed when they are being tailed, you have to be willing to improvise to make them worry less. You also have to hope that your partner is willing to improvise with you.
Patrick began to talking to one of the guards about the state of the girls and if they would be ready by the twelfth when Gabe’s phone beeped back at him with a one word response from Greta.
WHAT?!
Gabe tried his best not to groan out loud as he turned his back to Patrick and texted back furiously.
just do it!!!!
Gabe pocketed his phone and turned back to Patrick. He was taking papers from one of the bodyguards and gave him a tiny salute. “See you in a couple of days, Brian.” He then motioned to Gabe as he walked down the stairs. “C’mon, Alexander. Let’s go.”
He nodded as he followed him down, wondering where Greta was, worried that she had just went ahead and left. Suddenly, her Mustang came speeding up the block and came to a screeching stop in front of the apartment building. Gabe could see that Greta already had the passenger side window rolled down and was drawing her gun. As Patrick saw her, Gabe shouted, “Patrick! Get down!”
Gabe tackled Patrick from behind as Greta started shooting. He could hear the bullets zing overhead and even heard it take out pieces of concrete. The bodyguards began to shoot back at her, but she was already speeding off down the road. Gabe breathed a tiny sigh of relief as he helped Patrick up. “Hey man, are you okay?”
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT,” Patrick shouted. He was very visibly shaken as he looked down the road. Gabe wondered if he was expecting the mysterious Mustang to come back.
“I don’t know,” said Gabe, pushing Patrick towards his car. “But let’s get out of here before the police show up.”
Patrick moved towards the car, but he still looked like a traumatized little kid. “D-d-do you think Pete sent her?”
Gabe looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
He looked up at Gabe with complete worry in his eyes. “Do you think Pete is onto us and he’s trying to let us know?”
“I don’t know,” said Gabe hurriedly. “Just get in the damn car!”
He pushed Patrick back into his car, feeling an odd feeling of satisfaction in his chest knowing that things were going according to plan for once in his life.
---------------
The first words Greta greeted Gabe with as soon as he got in her car an hour later were “You are a complete and total idiot!”
Gabe was taken aback. “What? But the plan is working! We know where the girls are being kept and Patrick is paranoid about Pete. Everything is perfect right now!”
“You made me shoot you!”
“What?! You didn’t shoot me! You shot at me! You used to do that all the time!”
“Gabe, do you even realize what could happen because of this?! If Patrick confronts Pete about, you could get dragged deeper into this whole thing than you wanted to be. And how long can you keep the cover up? You may be some super spy with nothing to do now, but you’re not invincible. You can’t pretend to be Alexander Wilde forever and I don’t want you going out while you’re still persona non gratis to the people who used to give a shit if you got in over your head while you were undercover. I don’t want to be the only person who cares!”
Gabe couldn’t even think of a response as Greta started up the car. He never thought that she still cared that way about him. Or at all. He stared at his lap for what felt like an eternity when his phone began to ring. He looked at Greta expectantly. “Do you mind if...?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Go ahead and answer it.”
Gabe pulled the phone out of his pocket. He expected it to be either Pete or Patrick, so he was surprised when Bob’s name was on the screen. He quickly flipped open the phone and couldn’t help but grin a little as he answered “Well hello, Bob.”
“Gabe Saporta,” Bob McLynn said in a rather annoyed voice, “you have some set of balls on you.”
“I like to think so,” Gabe said casually. “You got my package then?”
“Yeah, I got it. I have to say, for something that’s not actually supposed to explode, you definitely pulled all the stops to make us think it would.”
“Well, that’s exactly what I was going for. Did it get your attention?”
He heard Bob mutter something angrily on the other end before he answered with “Would I be calling you if it didn’t? I could lose my job for this conversation I’m having with you right now.”
“I know you could,” Gabe said coolly, “Which is why I appreciate this call. Now do you want to tell me why I suddenly have a burn notice on me when I haven’t done anything to warrant it?”
Bob sighed and Gabe imagined him rubbing his eyes in frustration like he would usually do. “Look, I don’t know why either. It blindsided us too, but I have to follow protocol.”
Gabe tried his best not to sigh, nodding at what Bob said. “Well, is there anything you can do?”
There was a pause on the line before Bob lowed his voice and said, “Let me see what I can do. I’ll have a way of letting you know what I come up with. Oh, and Gabe?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t call this number, or do anything this stupid, again.”
The line went dead and Gabe hung up the phone. Greta looked over at him, trying to look sympathetic, but Gabe could tell she was still a bit mad. “Anything?”
“Well, I got Bob’s attention all right,” Gabe said, leaning his head against the window. “I just don’t know if he can help me.”
Greta pursed her lips and nodded as they pulled up in front of the house. Without a word, she put the car in park, turned the engine off and got out before Gabe even had his seatbelt unbuckled. Gabe sighed and pressed his forehead against the passenger side window. Maybe things weren’t going as great as he thought they were.
Part 7
“So, that’s everything?”
Greta nodded as Nate looked over the files on the flash drive the next morning. “Well, a good portion of them according to Gabe. The important part is that Victoria is still in town and we still have a chance of finding her and any other girls that may be with her.”
“We just don’t know where they are yet,” Gabe said, not having the heart to mention that there were only three days to find her. “I’m working on that right now.”
Nate breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Gabe shook his head. “Don’t go thanking us yet. We still have some work to do.”
Suddenly, Gabe’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number. Quickly, he excused himself and walked out onto the porch. “Who is this,” Gabe asked as soon as he flipped open the phone.
“I want to talk about your proposal, Alexander,” said Patrick’s voice. “Not in public though. I have to go on a trip today. Do you want to ride along?”
Gabe smirked on the other end of the phone. “Where do you want to pick me up?”
----------------
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Greta’s voice said in Gabe’s ear.
Gabe quickly adjusted the bluetooth headset he was wearing. He looked over at her through the windshield of her car as they waited outside Zesto’s. “What about this says ‘good’ anyway?”
“Gabe, I’m just worried. Patrick seems a lot smarter than his boss. I just don’t want you getting hurt if he finds out you’re playing him.”
“I’ll be fine. Just stick to the plan, keep a tail on us and see if we’re going to where they’re keeping the girls, and watch for my signals. I took the wire off for this meeting, so we’re flying a bit blind until we can reconvene.”
He saw Greta nod through the windshield. “Hey Gabe.”
“Yeah, Greta?”
“I do have my gun under my seat just in case things do go bad though. Just thought you should know.”
Gabe tried his best to not smile at that, but he knew he was failing. “I guess some things never change.”
Suddenly, a black car with Patrick in the driver’s seat pulled up in the parking lot. He motioned for Gabe to get in. Gabe quickly pocketed his bluetooth and flashed a brief ‘okay’ gesture to Greta as he got in. He gave Patrick a grin as he closed the door. “Nice to see you again, Patrick. And thanks for taking me on the field trip.”
Patrick rolled his eyes as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I wouldn’t call it a field trip. More like a quick business run. Pete’s too chicken to do it himself, so he always makes me do it.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow, watching Greta pull out of the parking lot in the rearview mirror out of the corner of his eye. “Does it involve the girls?”
“What else would it involve?”
Gabe leaned back in his seat and shrugged. Patrick rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’m just tired of it. Tired of Pete kicking me around and making me do the dirty work he doesn’t want to do. I’m better than that! He knows I’m better than that!”
Patrick slammed the steering wheel of the car with his hand, making Gabe jump back slightly. Patrick sighed and composed himself. “Sorry about that.”
“No no,” Gabe said, holding up his hand. “I get it. I’ve been screwed over before too.”
Patrick drove for a bit longer in silence. Gabe kept his eyes moving between the window to look at his surroundings and the mirrors to check to see if Greta was still tailing them. After several minutes, Patrick finally spoke up. “What exactly do you want to do?”
Gabe looked at him, pretending to be confused. “Hm?”
“Your plan? What’s this grand plan to take power from Pete? Or were you just talking out of your ass the other night?”
Gabe chuckled a little bit. “Oh, that. I was maybe talking out of my ass a tiny bit, but I was honest about that. We can take power from Pete.”
“Yeah, but how? You’d be surprised at how many connections he has.”
Patrick took a turn down a narrow lane. Gabe noticed how run down the area of town looked and wondered how close they were getting to the girls. “Yeah, but what if we cut him out?”
Patrick looked over at Gabe, confused. “Cut him out?”
“Yeah,” said Gabe, sitting up in his seat. “If we take Pete out of the equation, you leave the whole business to start tearing itself apart. However, if we swoop in at the right time to save the day and show that we’re better than Pete ever was at running his own business, people will be throwing themselves at us. It’ll all be ours.”
Patrick nodded as he came to a stop in front of what looked like an abandoned apartment building. “I like the sound of that... But how do we cut Pete out?”
“We’ll think of something. Maybe sell him out to the cops for something he didn’t do,” Gabe said, staring out the window of the car. He saw a few large men milling around the top floor of the building. “This is the place?”
Patrick nodded as he stepped out of the car. Gabe followed suit. “Yeah, this is it. We have one girl locked in one room each. The guys up there keep guard, but no one really suspects anything on this side of town. The cops have other things to worry about besides some guys loitering a seemingly abandoned apartment complex.”
Gabe nodded as he saw Greta’s Mustang start to drive past. He reached behind his back and flashed her another quick ‘okay’ sign before he started following Patrick. As they walked up the stairs, Patrick looked over his shoulder cautiously. “Have you noticed that Mustang following us?”
Gabe felt his heart jump, but played stupid again. “What Mustang?”
“The red one,” Patrick said as they stopped at the landing. “I mean, I saw it in Little 5 and assumed it was just trying to get to Ponce, but I think it’s following us.”
Gabe rolled his eyes, ignoring the warning bells going off in his head. “Well, you know what they say. If you see one Mustang, you see five. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Patrick eyed the road cautiously one more time, then walked towards one of the bodyguards. Gabe followed, pulling out his phone and heading for the text message box.
trick catching on. need u 2 drive by and shoot @ us.
If someone is suspicious of being tailed when they are being tailed, you have to be willing to improvise to make them worry less. You also have to hope that your partner is willing to improvise with you.
Patrick began to talking to one of the guards about the state of the girls and if they would be ready by the twelfth when Gabe’s phone beeped back at him with a one word response from Greta.
WHAT?!
Gabe tried his best not to groan out loud as he turned his back to Patrick and texted back furiously.
just do it!!!!
Gabe pocketed his phone and turned back to Patrick. He was taking papers from one of the bodyguards and gave him a tiny salute. “See you in a couple of days, Brian.” He then motioned to Gabe as he walked down the stairs. “C’mon, Alexander. Let’s go.”
He nodded as he followed him down, wondering where Greta was, worried that she had just went ahead and left. Suddenly, her Mustang came speeding up the block and came to a screeching stop in front of the apartment building. Gabe could see that Greta already had the passenger side window rolled down and was drawing her gun. As Patrick saw her, Gabe shouted, “Patrick! Get down!”
Gabe tackled Patrick from behind as Greta started shooting. He could hear the bullets zing overhead and even heard it take out pieces of concrete. The bodyguards began to shoot back at her, but she was already speeding off down the road. Gabe breathed a tiny sigh of relief as he helped Patrick up. “Hey man, are you okay?”
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT,” Patrick shouted. He was very visibly shaken as he looked down the road. Gabe wondered if he was expecting the mysterious Mustang to come back.
“I don’t know,” said Gabe, pushing Patrick towards his car. “But let’s get out of here before the police show up.”
Patrick moved towards the car, but he still looked like a traumatized little kid. “D-d-do you think Pete sent her?”
Gabe looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
He looked up at Gabe with complete worry in his eyes. “Do you think Pete is onto us and he’s trying to let us know?”
“I don’t know,” said Gabe hurriedly. “Just get in the damn car!”
He pushed Patrick back into his car, feeling an odd feeling of satisfaction in his chest knowing that things were going according to plan for once in his life.
---------------
The first words Greta greeted Gabe with as soon as he got in her car an hour later were “You are a complete and total idiot!”
Gabe was taken aback. “What? But the plan is working! We know where the girls are being kept and Patrick is paranoid about Pete. Everything is perfect right now!”
“You made me shoot you!”
“What?! You didn’t shoot me! You shot at me! You used to do that all the time!”
“Gabe, do you even realize what could happen because of this?! If Patrick confronts Pete about, you could get dragged deeper into this whole thing than you wanted to be. And how long can you keep the cover up? You may be some super spy with nothing to do now, but you’re not invincible. You can’t pretend to be Alexander Wilde forever and I don’t want you going out while you’re still persona non gratis to the people who used to give a shit if you got in over your head while you were undercover. I don’t want to be the only person who cares!”
Gabe couldn’t even think of a response as Greta started up the car. He never thought that she still cared that way about him. Or at all. He stared at his lap for what felt like an eternity when his phone began to ring. He looked at Greta expectantly. “Do you mind if...?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Go ahead and answer it.”
Gabe pulled the phone out of his pocket. He expected it to be either Pete or Patrick, so he was surprised when Bob’s name was on the screen. He quickly flipped open the phone and couldn’t help but grin a little as he answered “Well hello, Bob.”
“Gabe Saporta,” Bob McLynn said in a rather annoyed voice, “you have some set of balls on you.”
“I like to think so,” Gabe said casually. “You got my package then?”
“Yeah, I got it. I have to say, for something that’s not actually supposed to explode, you definitely pulled all the stops to make us think it would.”
“Well, that’s exactly what I was going for. Did it get your attention?”
He heard Bob mutter something angrily on the other end before he answered with “Would I be calling you if it didn’t? I could lose my job for this conversation I’m having with you right now.”
“I know you could,” Gabe said coolly, “Which is why I appreciate this call. Now do you want to tell me why I suddenly have a burn notice on me when I haven’t done anything to warrant it?”
Bob sighed and Gabe imagined him rubbing his eyes in frustration like he would usually do. “Look, I don’t know why either. It blindsided us too, but I have to follow protocol.”
Gabe tried his best not to sigh, nodding at what Bob said. “Well, is there anything you can do?”
There was a pause on the line before Bob lowed his voice and said, “Let me see what I can do. I’ll have a way of letting you know what I come up with. Oh, and Gabe?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t call this number, or do anything this stupid, again.”
The line went dead and Gabe hung up the phone. Greta looked over at him, trying to look sympathetic, but Gabe could tell she was still a bit mad. “Anything?”
“Well, I got Bob’s attention all right,” Gabe said, leaning his head against the window. “I just don’t know if he can help me.”
Greta pursed her lips and nodded as they pulled up in front of the house. Without a word, she put the car in park, turned the engine off and got out before Gabe even had his seatbelt unbuckled. Gabe sighed and pressed his forehead against the passenger side window. Maybe things weren’t going as great as he thought they were.
Part 7