Keep The Car Running - Part 1
Prologue
Gabe stirred around, feeling a very hard bed under his back. Everything ached and he had no idea where he was, but he was alive. That was a start.
“Well, good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Are you coming to join the real world now?”
He froze, trying his best not to groan. Gently, he looked over to see a tiny woman with long curly blonde hair sitting in a chair across from the bed. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. “Hi Greta.”
“You know, when most people break up with their girlfriends, they get a new emergency contact.”
One thing they should teach when you become a spy? Never hook up with a mercenary. Any grudge they hold over things such as breakups and jobs gone wrong would make warlords blush.
“Well, you didn’t kill me in my sleep,” he said, trying his best to sit up in the bed. “Shows I can still trust you. Besides, you really expect me to remember to change it right away?”
Greta sighed and rested her head on her hand. “I thought I’d let nature take it’s course since they weren’t sure if you were going to live when they called me. Besides, who says I won’t kill you now? You did break my heart.”
Gabe didn’t respond. He just looked at the ceiling of the tiny hotel room. “Am I in Chicago then?”
Greta snorted as she got up from her chair and crossed the room. That answer was obviously a no. “Not even close. For some reason, they were some very high up requests to dump you in Atlanta. At least that’s what the heavily accented Colombian man said on the phone about three days ago.”
Gabe groaned. Chicago would have been better. He knew people in Chicago. People with power to get this burn notice taken care of. New York would have been perfect too. He grew up there. He knew people there too. It would have been a home turf advantage. He didn’t mind Atlanta. It just wasn’t an optimal choice.
A slamming door down the hall broke him out of his thoughts. He looked over at Greta, who was eating peanuts straight out of the jar. “Okay, so where am I in Atlanta exactly?”
“The Ponce De Leon Hotel,” she said with a full mouth. “I thought about taking you to the Clermont Motor Hotel, but the place has been closed for health code violations. The Lounge is still open if you’re feeling lonely.”
“I don’t think Blondie crushing a beer can with her tits is going to make me feel any better about getting burned and getting my ass kicked by large Colombians.”
Greta stopped her eating and looked at Gabe with the first look of actual concern he had seen on her face since he woke up. “You were burned?”
Gabe nodded gently. He knew that Greta knew a lot of spies, so he was relieved that the concept of a burn notice wasn’t lost on her.
“I’m so sorry, Gabe,” she said quietly, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “Do you know why?”
“Not yet,” he said, gently swinging his legs over the other side of the bed to avoid any more pain. “I don’t remember doing anything that would have warranted a burn notice. It could be a misunderstanding or someone is out to get me. Either way, I need to take care of this quickly or a few broken bones are going to be the least of my problems.”
Greta just silently poured another handful of peanuts into her hand and offered them to Gabe in sympathy. He shook his head and got up to look out the window. Quietly, Greta muttered, “That explains the tail, then...”
Gabe looked over at her. “What was that?”
“There’s been a tail following my rental car since the airport,” she said, standing up and walking away from the bed. “I just thought it was something regarding me, but considering you got burned...”
Gabe looked in between the blinds to see two guys in suits sitting in a black Crown Victoria outside the hotel. A homeless man approached their car but a hand quickly shooed him away. “How do you know they’re not tailing you?”
“I haven’t done anything to piss off the federal government,” she said, popping a peanut in her mouth. “Well, not lately anyway.”
He sighed and looked out the window again. “I need to get into a better hotel. I mean... this place is lovely and all, but it’s...”
“Not great?” Greta finished. “I know, but I needed somewhere cheap that wasn’t going to ask questions about why I was dragging an unconscious man through the lobby.”
Gabe smirked. She had done her work well. “Still, being stuck here with me probably wasn’t comfortable. At all.”
Greta just shrugged. “Sleeping on the floor isn’t too bad when you’re not worried about being stepped on. Besides, I’ve slept in worse. You know this.”
“I know,” Gabe said, removing his fingers from the blinds. “You want to help me get rid of them? The sooner I get out of here, the sooner you can be back in Chicago.”
Greta looked through the blinds, then back at Gabe. “What do you want me to do?”
“Well, I’d suggest doing one of your surprise tactics that involves a beanbag round and your teeth, but I think calling the police and accusing them of trying to get kids in their car might be easier. Especially since we’re on Ponce.”
She nodded and placed the rest of her peanuts on the side table before picking up her phone and dialing 911. “You owe me for this,” she muttered before hitting dial.
“I’ll take you to dinner,” he mouthed before going to the bathroom to wash the dried blood off his face. Greta smiled to herself at that offer before the call operator picked up. “Hello? Oh thank God you picked up. There’s two men outside of the Ponce De Leon Hotel in a black Crown Victoria...Or at least I think it is...”
----------------------
“Make it quick.”
Gabe looked over at Greta as she pulled up in the drive of the W Hotel in Midtown. “What? You don’t want to go in with me?”
Greta scrunched her nose at him. “No. The last thing I need is to be mistaken for your girlfriend while you try to get a nicer hotel room. I’ll wait here, you check in, we get dinner, I’m back to Chicago by the morning. You got that?”
Gabe sighed and popped the door open. “Loud and clear.”
He stepped out onto the curb and into the hotel lobby. It was by far the cleanest place he had been in for nearly a month.
It still didn’t mean that he was completely home free. If anyone with a grudge found out he was staying here, one of the nicest hotels in Atlanta would become a war zone before the first body hit the ground.
“Welcome to the W Hotel,” said one of the women behind the counter as Gabe walked up. “How can we help you today?”
Gabe mustered his best smile, despite the fact he was still hurting all over. “Yeah, I was wondering if you had any rooms left. Something small. No windows, if that’s possible.”
The woman laughed as she began to look in the computer for openings. Gabe laughed along with her, trying to play it off as a joke. It was probably for the best if she didn’t know it was a serious request. She finished typing and looked up. “We do have an opening in one of our Wonderful Rooms. Will that do, sir?”
“That’ll be just perfect,” he said, pulling out his wallet and handing over his credit card with a smile. “Thank you, miss.”
She took the card from him and began to type in the numbers on it. Her face twisted up as she handed the card back to Gabe. “Ummm...sir? Do you have another card, because this one has been denied.”
“What? That can’t be possible.”
He craned over the countertop and looked at the computer. He only caught a glimpse of the denial notice before the woman pushed him back. He gave her an uneasy smile. He had a strong feeling in his gut that if one card was denied, it wouldn’t be the only one. “I think I have some issues I need to clear up first. Thank you, ma’am.”
Before she could say anything else, Gabe took his card back and quickly exited the lobby and rushed over to Greta’s rental car. She was smirking as he opened the door. “Okay, where are we going to eat? I’ve always heard that Midtown is the best place to eat.”
“Not now, Greta,” Gabe said, slamming the door. “I need you to take me to the closest bank...”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Which one?”
“Bank of America, I think. Yeah... that one. Just go!”
Greta opened her mouth quickly, then shut it again as she turned the engine on and began to speed out of the drive.
------------------
Gabe stared at the clerk as she stared at Gabe’s account status on her computer screen. She looked back at Gabe and laughed uneasily. “Umm...will you excuse me for just a second, Mister Saporta?”
She stood up and walked away from her desk, ducking into the office of one of her higher ups. Gabe sighed, sinking lower into the uncomfortable chair. All his worse job nightmares were coming true in less than a week.
When a spy is burned, they can’t take away the knowledge and skills they’ve built up over the years, leaving the government with two options. The option of killing the agent is usually frowned upon, so they go with the latter: the freezing of the assets. By doing so, they leave the agent with little resources and in a deep hole that’s nearly impossible to get out of. No matter how good said agent is at getting out of those holes.
The clerk walked back to the desk and gave another awkward smile. “Mister Saporta, I’m afraid there’s a government lock on your account. There’s nothing we can do about it. You could try to speak to my supervisor directly, but...”
Gabe held up his hand as he began to stand up. “Don’t worry about it. You did all you could. Thank you, ma’am.”
Before she could say anything else, Gabe turned and headed out the door. Greta was sitting on the hood of her rental car, staring at him behind her big sunglasses. “Well?”
Gabe could only sigh as he took his jacket off. “I need a drink.”
“Are you paying?”
“I owe you that much, at least,” he said with a sigh as he climbed in the passenger side. “Should have enough cash to cover it.”
She looked over at him as she started the engine. “I’m not going to make it back to Chicago, am I?”
“Not today, at least.”
She groaned and backed out of the parking spot. “Not a word until we find a bar, Gabe. Not a word.”
“Unless you really feel like leaving me in Atlanta to fend for myself...”
“Not. A. Word.”
“I mean, I’m not stopp-”
Gabe felt a hand move over his mouth as Greta pulled to a stop at a light. She turned her head and softly said, “Speak another word and I will either push you out the car door or remind you of everything that went wrong while we were dating. Your choice.”
She moved her hand as the light turned green. Gabe shut his mouth and leaned his head against the window. He was starting to regret not changing his emergency contact after their breakup.
He just didn’t know anyone else who would have come.
---------------------
“So, let me get this all straight, you’ve basically been fired without being fired, you’ve been dumped in Atlanta with an FBI tail on you and the only money you have access to is the five hundred dollars in your wallet that you didn’t give the Colombian drug lord’s driver while you were trying to escape the country. Did I miss anything?”
Gabe had his head down on the bar of The Righteous Room as Greta rambled off everything that had gone wrong that week. “Nope.”
He heard the thud on the bar top as their drinks had been delivered. Gabe reached out for his bottle without looking up. He heard Greta sigh over the jukebox. “So what are you going to do then?”
Gabe finally looked up at her, resting his head on the palm of his hand. “I honestly don’t know, Greta. I really want to try to find out why I’m suddenly a matter of national security, but no one is talking to me except for you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not with the Federal Government, remember? Kind of wish I was sometimes. At least the pay would be consistent...”
She took a swig of her drink and Gabe looked over at her. “Have you been having money troubles?”
Greta almost choked on her drink as she looked up at Gabe. “No... okay, yeah. You try being freelance in this economy!”
Being a mercenary is a lot like having a job that lives paycheck to paycheck sometimes. If you have a lot of jobs, you have nothing to worry about. However, when those jobs grow few and far between, every deduction in your bank account starts to weigh down on you and you start hoping for anything to at least pay off your rent for the next few months.
“Why didn’t you say something,” Gabe said, pulling his bottle closer to him. “Now I feel like a total jackass for you being out here.”
Greta looked over at him from the rim of her glass. “Well, now you’ve learned a lesson about changing your emergency contacts, huh?”
Gabe pursed his lips before taking a long pull of his drink. They sat in silence for a very long minute, then Gabe put his drink back down on the bar. “So, I guess I need to find somewhere to live then. And someway to get money. And someway to get my handler to talk to me.”
“One thing at a time,” Greta said. “Start with the living thing. I mean, as wonderful as the Ponce De Leon Hotel is...”
“It’s not ideal to camp out in there forever.”
“Right. I mean, do you actually know anyone in Atlanta you could stay with?”
Gabe put the bottle to his head, racking his brain for a few seconds. Most people he knew that lived in Atlanta had either died, moved on, or would probably have strict orders to not even mention Gabe’s name in polite conversation.
All except one.
“Well... there is Butch.”
Greta’s eyes widened. “Butch? You seriously can’t be thinking of asking Butch for help?”
Gabe shrugged. “Well, why not? Sure, last time we saw each other, we weren’t on the best of terms...”
“Gabe, last time you saw Butch, he broke your arm in three places.”
“Like I said, not on the best of terms.”
Greta began rubbing her eyes. “I can’t believe this. How desperate are you?”
Gabe slammed his bottle down on the bar. “Greta, in the past three days, I have been burned, had the shit kicked out of me by very large Colombian men to the point where passed out in an airport terminal less than ten minutes later and didn’t wake up until two hours ago, was dropped into a city I have very few contacts in, I have a tail that’s going to find me again eventually and I can’t access my money at all. If you’re really going to ask how desperate I am that I’m willing to beg for help from a guy who broke my arm after a job went south three years ago, the answer is ‘extremely.’”
Greta blinked at him a few times before sighing and downing the rest of her drink in one go. “Okay. Where can we find him?”
-----------------------
There are differences between good bodyguards and great bodyguards.
A good bodyguard is intimidating. Whether it’s their size or their appearance, one look at them tells you that you would be insane to mess with them. Those who do, you can be assured that they won’t be making that mistake again anytime soon. They tend to be in the same line of work their whole life.
However, a great bodyguard is one you don’t know is there. The one you least expect. They can blend in with your crew and take out anyone meaning to cause you harm before you even know that your life was in danger. With the kind of pay they get, they can retire early in life and live off the grid if they really wanted to.
Or if your name is Butch Walker, you go back to living in your hometown and work part time at a record store.
“Are we at the right place now?”
Gabe looked down at Greta as they stood in the front of Criminal Records. “How was I supposed to know the bartender was fucking with me?”
“Well, at least the people at the coffee shop were nice enough to give you directions.” Greta then raised her sunglasses and took an obnoxiously loud slurp of her iced coffee. Gabe just rolled his eyes and scanned over the store, looking for a familiar face.
“Can I help you with something?”
Gabe looked down at the tiny clerk who had been rearranging CDs in the front bin. He figured that most people were probably thrown off by her pompadour hairstyle, but nothing about people seemed to phase Gabe anymore. “Yeah... uhhh... I’m actually looking for someone. Not sure if he actually works here anymore, but is Butch Wa-”
Before he could finish, the clerk pointed to the back without even looking. “In the back. He’s pricing vinyl with Cassadee the Intern.”
Gabe blinked at her for a few seconds, surprised at how quickly she had answered. Greta just grabbed him by the hand and started pulling him towards the back of the store. “Thank you, ma’am. And sorry for my friend.”
The clerk just shrugged and went back to her CDs. “It’s no problem.”
Gabe yanked his hand away from Greta as they went down one of the CD aisles. “Okay, that was easier than I thought.”
“Gabriel Saporta, not everyone is trying to resist questioning in the real world,” Greta said, stopping in the middle of the aisle and looking up at him. “If you’re going to live in it, you need to get used to that.”
“The ‘real world’ isn’t as different as you think, Greta. I thought you would notice that.”
Greta opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice going, “Nuh uh. You’re lying!”
The two of them turned to see two people rearranging vinyl records. One of them was a small girl with streaked brown hair and a price gun in hand, the other a tall lanky man with dark flyaway hair and arms covered in tattoos. The girl was looking up at him. “There is no way that Sandinista! is a better record than London Calling.”
The man shook his head. “You’re putting words in my mouth, Cassadee. I never said it was a better record. I just said it was underrated.”
Cassadee scrunched her nose. “How so?”
“Well, have you ever had a favorite band that released a really good record and their followup was so drastically different that you felt sort of alienated?”
There was a long silence from Cassadee before she hesitantly answered, “...Yeah?”
“That’s sort of what happened with Sandinista! People were expecting something like London Calling and what they got were three records full of experimentation. It’s a bit disconcerting at first, but over time, I think it’s proved to be one of there more underrated albums. I mean, who else could do an album that featured your kids singing a song from your first album and a rap song as your first single?”
Cassadee bit her lip and went back to the price gun without a word. The man just shrugged. “Well, that answers my question then.”
Gabe shook his head and walked closer to the vinyl bins. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”
The man looked up and stared at Gabe in surprise for a few long and silent seconds. Gabe just awkwardly waved. “Hey Butch.”
When you see someone you haven’t seen in years after a bad last encounter, there are several things that could happen. It could be violent, it could be messy or it could be very passive aggressive. You have to prepare for anything that could happen, especially in a public place.
The man named Butch smiled widely and rounded over to the other side of the bin. “Gabe! How are you, man?”
Gabe was too shocked to say anything before Butch reached him and gave him a hug. He looked over at Greta to see she was just as confused as him. “How long has it been? Four years?”
However, sometimes they’re actually friendly with you and don’t seem to be putting on a front. That’s when it’s the most disconcerting.
“Three, actually,” Gabe answered, still feeling surprised from Butch’s apparent friendliness.
“You remember,” Greta said, finally popping in, “The Margeaux Incident?”
Butch pulled away from Gabe and remained silent for a few seconds before his eyes cast a look at Gabe’s arm. “Oh yeah... uh... sorry about that. I got a bit carried away, I guess.”
“You broke his arm in three places!”
“Okay, a LOT carried away.”
Butch then cast a look at Greta, looking surprised at the fact she was even standing there with Gabe. “Are you two still dating? I thought you would have killed each other by now.”
Gabe and Greta looked at each other and shook their heads. “We’re not dating.”
Butch looked between them and raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth, but quickly shut it. “Y’know, I sense something else going on here all of a sudden. Let’s go next door and talk this over lunch...”
Before Gabe and Greta could say anything else, Butch was gone again, rushing to the front of the store and shouting “Hey Janelle!” at the clerk working at the front. Gabe looked down at Greta, still feeling stunned. He then looked at the intern, who was trying her best to pretend that she didn’t hear any of the conversation. “Hey, kid, can I ask you something?”
She looked up, blushing a little when she realized she had been caught. “Y-yeah? What is it?”
“Did that really just happen or have I finally snapped?”
Part 2
Gabe stirred around, feeling a very hard bed under his back. Everything ached and he had no idea where he was, but he was alive. That was a start.
“Well, good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Are you coming to join the real world now?”
He froze, trying his best not to groan. Gently, he looked over to see a tiny woman with long curly blonde hair sitting in a chair across from the bed. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. “Hi Greta.”
“You know, when most people break up with their girlfriends, they get a new emergency contact.”
One thing they should teach when you become a spy? Never hook up with a mercenary. Any grudge they hold over things such as breakups and jobs gone wrong would make warlords blush.
“Well, you didn’t kill me in my sleep,” he said, trying his best to sit up in the bed. “Shows I can still trust you. Besides, you really expect me to remember to change it right away?”
Greta sighed and rested her head on her hand. “I thought I’d let nature take it’s course since they weren’t sure if you were going to live when they called me. Besides, who says I won’t kill you now? You did break my heart.”
Gabe didn’t respond. He just looked at the ceiling of the tiny hotel room. “Am I in Chicago then?”
Greta snorted as she got up from her chair and crossed the room. That answer was obviously a no. “Not even close. For some reason, they were some very high up requests to dump you in Atlanta. At least that’s what the heavily accented Colombian man said on the phone about three days ago.”
Gabe groaned. Chicago would have been better. He knew people in Chicago. People with power to get this burn notice taken care of. New York would have been perfect too. He grew up there. He knew people there too. It would have been a home turf advantage. He didn’t mind Atlanta. It just wasn’t an optimal choice.
A slamming door down the hall broke him out of his thoughts. He looked over at Greta, who was eating peanuts straight out of the jar. “Okay, so where am I in Atlanta exactly?”
“The Ponce De Leon Hotel,” she said with a full mouth. “I thought about taking you to the Clermont Motor Hotel, but the place has been closed for health code violations. The Lounge is still open if you’re feeling lonely.”
“I don’t think Blondie crushing a beer can with her tits is going to make me feel any better about getting burned and getting my ass kicked by large Colombians.”
Greta stopped her eating and looked at Gabe with the first look of actual concern he had seen on her face since he woke up. “You were burned?”
Gabe nodded gently. He knew that Greta knew a lot of spies, so he was relieved that the concept of a burn notice wasn’t lost on her.
“I’m so sorry, Gabe,” she said quietly, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “Do you know why?”
“Not yet,” he said, gently swinging his legs over the other side of the bed to avoid any more pain. “I don’t remember doing anything that would have warranted a burn notice. It could be a misunderstanding or someone is out to get me. Either way, I need to take care of this quickly or a few broken bones are going to be the least of my problems.”
Greta just silently poured another handful of peanuts into her hand and offered them to Gabe in sympathy. He shook his head and got up to look out the window. Quietly, Greta muttered, “That explains the tail, then...”
Gabe looked over at her. “What was that?”
“There’s been a tail following my rental car since the airport,” she said, standing up and walking away from the bed. “I just thought it was something regarding me, but considering you got burned...”
Gabe looked in between the blinds to see two guys in suits sitting in a black Crown Victoria outside the hotel. A homeless man approached their car but a hand quickly shooed him away. “How do you know they’re not tailing you?”
“I haven’t done anything to piss off the federal government,” she said, popping a peanut in her mouth. “Well, not lately anyway.”
He sighed and looked out the window again. “I need to get into a better hotel. I mean... this place is lovely and all, but it’s...”
“Not great?” Greta finished. “I know, but I needed somewhere cheap that wasn’t going to ask questions about why I was dragging an unconscious man through the lobby.”
Gabe smirked. She had done her work well. “Still, being stuck here with me probably wasn’t comfortable. At all.”
Greta just shrugged. “Sleeping on the floor isn’t too bad when you’re not worried about being stepped on. Besides, I’ve slept in worse. You know this.”
“I know,” Gabe said, removing his fingers from the blinds. “You want to help me get rid of them? The sooner I get out of here, the sooner you can be back in Chicago.”
Greta looked through the blinds, then back at Gabe. “What do you want me to do?”
“Well, I’d suggest doing one of your surprise tactics that involves a beanbag round and your teeth, but I think calling the police and accusing them of trying to get kids in their car might be easier. Especially since we’re on Ponce.”
She nodded and placed the rest of her peanuts on the side table before picking up her phone and dialing 911. “You owe me for this,” she muttered before hitting dial.
“I’ll take you to dinner,” he mouthed before going to the bathroom to wash the dried blood off his face. Greta smiled to herself at that offer before the call operator picked up. “Hello? Oh thank God you picked up. There’s two men outside of the Ponce De Leon Hotel in a black Crown Victoria...Or at least I think it is...”
----------------------
“Make it quick.”
Gabe looked over at Greta as she pulled up in the drive of the W Hotel in Midtown. “What? You don’t want to go in with me?”
Greta scrunched her nose at him. “No. The last thing I need is to be mistaken for your girlfriend while you try to get a nicer hotel room. I’ll wait here, you check in, we get dinner, I’m back to Chicago by the morning. You got that?”
Gabe sighed and popped the door open. “Loud and clear.”
He stepped out onto the curb and into the hotel lobby. It was by far the cleanest place he had been in for nearly a month.
It still didn’t mean that he was completely home free. If anyone with a grudge found out he was staying here, one of the nicest hotels in Atlanta would become a war zone before the first body hit the ground.
“Welcome to the W Hotel,” said one of the women behind the counter as Gabe walked up. “How can we help you today?”
Gabe mustered his best smile, despite the fact he was still hurting all over. “Yeah, I was wondering if you had any rooms left. Something small. No windows, if that’s possible.”
The woman laughed as she began to look in the computer for openings. Gabe laughed along with her, trying to play it off as a joke. It was probably for the best if she didn’t know it was a serious request. She finished typing and looked up. “We do have an opening in one of our Wonderful Rooms. Will that do, sir?”
“That’ll be just perfect,” he said, pulling out his wallet and handing over his credit card with a smile. “Thank you, miss.”
She took the card from him and began to type in the numbers on it. Her face twisted up as she handed the card back to Gabe. “Ummm...sir? Do you have another card, because this one has been denied.”
“What? That can’t be possible.”
He craned over the countertop and looked at the computer. He only caught a glimpse of the denial notice before the woman pushed him back. He gave her an uneasy smile. He had a strong feeling in his gut that if one card was denied, it wouldn’t be the only one. “I think I have some issues I need to clear up first. Thank you, ma’am.”
Before she could say anything else, Gabe took his card back and quickly exited the lobby and rushed over to Greta’s rental car. She was smirking as he opened the door. “Okay, where are we going to eat? I’ve always heard that Midtown is the best place to eat.”
“Not now, Greta,” Gabe said, slamming the door. “I need you to take me to the closest bank...”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Which one?”
“Bank of America, I think. Yeah... that one. Just go!”
Greta opened her mouth quickly, then shut it again as she turned the engine on and began to speed out of the drive.
------------------
Gabe stared at the clerk as she stared at Gabe’s account status on her computer screen. She looked back at Gabe and laughed uneasily. “Umm...will you excuse me for just a second, Mister Saporta?”
She stood up and walked away from her desk, ducking into the office of one of her higher ups. Gabe sighed, sinking lower into the uncomfortable chair. All his worse job nightmares were coming true in less than a week.
When a spy is burned, they can’t take away the knowledge and skills they’ve built up over the years, leaving the government with two options. The option of killing the agent is usually frowned upon, so they go with the latter: the freezing of the assets. By doing so, they leave the agent with little resources and in a deep hole that’s nearly impossible to get out of. No matter how good said agent is at getting out of those holes.
The clerk walked back to the desk and gave another awkward smile. “Mister Saporta, I’m afraid there’s a government lock on your account. There’s nothing we can do about it. You could try to speak to my supervisor directly, but...”
Gabe held up his hand as he began to stand up. “Don’t worry about it. You did all you could. Thank you, ma’am.”
Before she could say anything else, Gabe turned and headed out the door. Greta was sitting on the hood of her rental car, staring at him behind her big sunglasses. “Well?”
Gabe could only sigh as he took his jacket off. “I need a drink.”
“Are you paying?”
“I owe you that much, at least,” he said with a sigh as he climbed in the passenger side. “Should have enough cash to cover it.”
She looked over at him as she started the engine. “I’m not going to make it back to Chicago, am I?”
“Not today, at least.”
She groaned and backed out of the parking spot. “Not a word until we find a bar, Gabe. Not a word.”
“Unless you really feel like leaving me in Atlanta to fend for myself...”
“Not. A. Word.”
“I mean, I’m not stopp-”
Gabe felt a hand move over his mouth as Greta pulled to a stop at a light. She turned her head and softly said, “Speak another word and I will either push you out the car door or remind you of everything that went wrong while we were dating. Your choice.”
She moved her hand as the light turned green. Gabe shut his mouth and leaned his head against the window. He was starting to regret not changing his emergency contact after their breakup.
He just didn’t know anyone else who would have come.
---------------------
“So, let me get this all straight, you’ve basically been fired without being fired, you’ve been dumped in Atlanta with an FBI tail on you and the only money you have access to is the five hundred dollars in your wallet that you didn’t give the Colombian drug lord’s driver while you were trying to escape the country. Did I miss anything?”
Gabe had his head down on the bar of The Righteous Room as Greta rambled off everything that had gone wrong that week. “Nope.”
He heard the thud on the bar top as their drinks had been delivered. Gabe reached out for his bottle without looking up. He heard Greta sigh over the jukebox. “So what are you going to do then?”
Gabe finally looked up at her, resting his head on the palm of his hand. “I honestly don’t know, Greta. I really want to try to find out why I’m suddenly a matter of national security, but no one is talking to me except for you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not with the Federal Government, remember? Kind of wish I was sometimes. At least the pay would be consistent...”
She took a swig of her drink and Gabe looked over at her. “Have you been having money troubles?”
Greta almost choked on her drink as she looked up at Gabe. “No... okay, yeah. You try being freelance in this economy!”
Being a mercenary is a lot like having a job that lives paycheck to paycheck sometimes. If you have a lot of jobs, you have nothing to worry about. However, when those jobs grow few and far between, every deduction in your bank account starts to weigh down on you and you start hoping for anything to at least pay off your rent for the next few months.
“Why didn’t you say something,” Gabe said, pulling his bottle closer to him. “Now I feel like a total jackass for you being out here.”
Greta looked over at him from the rim of her glass. “Well, now you’ve learned a lesson about changing your emergency contacts, huh?”
Gabe pursed his lips before taking a long pull of his drink. They sat in silence for a very long minute, then Gabe put his drink back down on the bar. “So, I guess I need to find somewhere to live then. And someway to get money. And someway to get my handler to talk to me.”
“One thing at a time,” Greta said. “Start with the living thing. I mean, as wonderful as the Ponce De Leon Hotel is...”
“It’s not ideal to camp out in there forever.”
“Right. I mean, do you actually know anyone in Atlanta you could stay with?”
Gabe put the bottle to his head, racking his brain for a few seconds. Most people he knew that lived in Atlanta had either died, moved on, or would probably have strict orders to not even mention Gabe’s name in polite conversation.
All except one.
“Well... there is Butch.”
Greta’s eyes widened. “Butch? You seriously can’t be thinking of asking Butch for help?”
Gabe shrugged. “Well, why not? Sure, last time we saw each other, we weren’t on the best of terms...”
“Gabe, last time you saw Butch, he broke your arm in three places.”
“Like I said, not on the best of terms.”
Greta began rubbing her eyes. “I can’t believe this. How desperate are you?”
Gabe slammed his bottle down on the bar. “Greta, in the past three days, I have been burned, had the shit kicked out of me by very large Colombian men to the point where passed out in an airport terminal less than ten minutes later and didn’t wake up until two hours ago, was dropped into a city I have very few contacts in, I have a tail that’s going to find me again eventually and I can’t access my money at all. If you’re really going to ask how desperate I am that I’m willing to beg for help from a guy who broke my arm after a job went south three years ago, the answer is ‘extremely.’”
Greta blinked at him a few times before sighing and downing the rest of her drink in one go. “Okay. Where can we find him?”
-----------------------
There are differences between good bodyguards and great bodyguards.
A good bodyguard is intimidating. Whether it’s their size or their appearance, one look at them tells you that you would be insane to mess with them. Those who do, you can be assured that they won’t be making that mistake again anytime soon. They tend to be in the same line of work their whole life.
However, a great bodyguard is one you don’t know is there. The one you least expect. They can blend in with your crew and take out anyone meaning to cause you harm before you even know that your life was in danger. With the kind of pay they get, they can retire early in life and live off the grid if they really wanted to.
Or if your name is Butch Walker, you go back to living in your hometown and work part time at a record store.
“Are we at the right place now?”
Gabe looked down at Greta as they stood in the front of Criminal Records. “How was I supposed to know the bartender was fucking with me?”
“Well, at least the people at the coffee shop were nice enough to give you directions.” Greta then raised her sunglasses and took an obnoxiously loud slurp of her iced coffee. Gabe just rolled his eyes and scanned over the store, looking for a familiar face.
“Can I help you with something?”
Gabe looked down at the tiny clerk who had been rearranging CDs in the front bin. He figured that most people were probably thrown off by her pompadour hairstyle, but nothing about people seemed to phase Gabe anymore. “Yeah... uhhh... I’m actually looking for someone. Not sure if he actually works here anymore, but is Butch Wa-”
Before he could finish, the clerk pointed to the back without even looking. “In the back. He’s pricing vinyl with Cassadee the Intern.”
Gabe blinked at her for a few seconds, surprised at how quickly she had answered. Greta just grabbed him by the hand and started pulling him towards the back of the store. “Thank you, ma’am. And sorry for my friend.”
The clerk just shrugged and went back to her CDs. “It’s no problem.”
Gabe yanked his hand away from Greta as they went down one of the CD aisles. “Okay, that was easier than I thought.”
“Gabriel Saporta, not everyone is trying to resist questioning in the real world,” Greta said, stopping in the middle of the aisle and looking up at him. “If you’re going to live in it, you need to get used to that.”
“The ‘real world’ isn’t as different as you think, Greta. I thought you would notice that.”
Greta opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice going, “Nuh uh. You’re lying!”
The two of them turned to see two people rearranging vinyl records. One of them was a small girl with streaked brown hair and a price gun in hand, the other a tall lanky man with dark flyaway hair and arms covered in tattoos. The girl was looking up at him. “There is no way that Sandinista! is a better record than London Calling.”
The man shook his head. “You’re putting words in my mouth, Cassadee. I never said it was a better record. I just said it was underrated.”
Cassadee scrunched her nose. “How so?”
“Well, have you ever had a favorite band that released a really good record and their followup was so drastically different that you felt sort of alienated?”
There was a long silence from Cassadee before she hesitantly answered, “...Yeah?”
“That’s sort of what happened with Sandinista! People were expecting something like London Calling and what they got were three records full of experimentation. It’s a bit disconcerting at first, but over time, I think it’s proved to be one of there more underrated albums. I mean, who else could do an album that featured your kids singing a song from your first album and a rap song as your first single?”
Cassadee bit her lip and went back to the price gun without a word. The man just shrugged. “Well, that answers my question then.”
Gabe shook his head and walked closer to the vinyl bins. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”
The man looked up and stared at Gabe in surprise for a few long and silent seconds. Gabe just awkwardly waved. “Hey Butch.”
When you see someone you haven’t seen in years after a bad last encounter, there are several things that could happen. It could be violent, it could be messy or it could be very passive aggressive. You have to prepare for anything that could happen, especially in a public place.
The man named Butch smiled widely and rounded over to the other side of the bin. “Gabe! How are you, man?”
Gabe was too shocked to say anything before Butch reached him and gave him a hug. He looked over at Greta to see she was just as confused as him. “How long has it been? Four years?”
However, sometimes they’re actually friendly with you and don’t seem to be putting on a front. That’s when it’s the most disconcerting.
“Three, actually,” Gabe answered, still feeling surprised from Butch’s apparent friendliness.
“You remember,” Greta said, finally popping in, “The Margeaux Incident?”
Butch pulled away from Gabe and remained silent for a few seconds before his eyes cast a look at Gabe’s arm. “Oh yeah... uh... sorry about that. I got a bit carried away, I guess.”
“You broke his arm in three places!”
“Okay, a LOT carried away.”
Butch then cast a look at Greta, looking surprised at the fact she was even standing there with Gabe. “Are you two still dating? I thought you would have killed each other by now.”
Gabe and Greta looked at each other and shook their heads. “We’re not dating.”
Butch looked between them and raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth, but quickly shut it. “Y’know, I sense something else going on here all of a sudden. Let’s go next door and talk this over lunch...”
Before Gabe and Greta could say anything else, Butch was gone again, rushing to the front of the store and shouting “Hey Janelle!” at the clerk working at the front. Gabe looked down at Greta, still feeling stunned. He then looked at the intern, who was trying her best to pretend that she didn’t hear any of the conversation. “Hey, kid, can I ask you something?”
She looked up, blushing a little when she realized she had been caught. “Y-yeah? What is it?”
“Did that really just happen or have I finally snapped?”
Part 2