Day at the Beach Ch 36

Chapter 36

“Come on.” Bill said as he turned from their pursuit of Brad and Susan and stepped to the curb, waiting for traffic to give him an opening.

“Hey! Wait a minute.” His partner said, not budging. “Where the hell we going? They're right in front of us.”

“We don't need them anymore.” Bill said.

“Well – we can't do that.” his partner stammered in stubborn frustration.

Bill turned and stared at him curiously. “Can't do what? What the hell are you talking about?”

“These two have put us through a lot of crap.” he said. “They have some payback coming. I want to painfully squeeze every bit of information out of these two and then kill them in my own special way.”

Bill glanced around at the crowd of people who swarmed around them, moving up and down the walkway like ants with a focused purpose. They were not listening to what the two men said to each other, and Bill realized that a discussion of murder and mayhem on this sidewalk was no less reclusive than standing alone in a forest.

“Listen to me, you psychotic fuck, we are not doing this to satisfy your sick desires.” Bill said quietly. “We are getting paid to follow Spikes orders. His orders do not include these two.” He said nodding towards Brad and Susan who still stood at the display window a half a block away watching them. “At least not at the moment. Maybe you'll get lucky and Spike will let you torture and kill them later.”

A look of hopefulness crossed his face. “Do you think so, Bill? I would really like that if he did.”

Bill looked at his partner with serious concern. 'Pure psycho.' Bill thought. 'I'll never make a professional out of a crazy shit like him.'

Reluctantly accepting the situation, psycho turned to Brad and Susan, pointed a finger and cocked it like a gun. Susan smiled back at him, raised her hand high in the air and showed him her middle finger.

“I will kill that arrogant birch.” he mumbled as Bill dragged him across the street.

“Looks like there has been a major change in plans.” Susan commented as they watched the two men go into the parking lot. “Shall we go catch them before they get away?”

“Nope.” Brad said. “Let them go. I would bet money that they just got a call to go to your house and retrieve the jewelry box. I would say our plan is in motion.”

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Alberto De La Cruz leaned back in his easy chair on the veranda, watching as two, young women with large bare breasts laughingly tossed a beach ball back and forth on the pristine, white sanded beach directly in front of him. Two other young women, completely naked ran towards the ball tossers from the ocean, their bodies glistening from a swim in the warm Pacific waters. All four of them sported complete tans, attesting to much time in the sun wearing absolutely nothing. It was as Alberto liked it, and Alberto De La Cruz always got exactly what he liked. The girls, totally aware that they were their for his enjoyment, turned and waved to him, making sure that their breasts moved seductively with each wave.

The young women knew that they had the beach entirely to themselves. God help anyone who accidentally wandered on to this strip of ocean front, for just beyond the veranda on the beach side, almost out of sight, stood a large muscular man with an AK 47 automatic rifle hanging from a strap on his shoulder, a 30 clip magazine curved menacingly from its center. The young man didn't seem that interested in watching the women, as if he saw them do this daily and had lost interest over time. His interest was on the horizon of the sea and either direction of the long, sandy beach.

As entertaining as Alberto found the buxom young ladies, at the moment he seemed to barely be aware of their existence. His attention was completely focused on the individual to whom he was speaking. “That is correct, Mister Secretary. The information device has been retrieved and will be in my hands by tonight.” He paused as he listened. “Yes sir. We can make those arrangements, once, of course, my fees have been deposited in the Cayman account.” He paused again. “The man who arranged the gathering of this information is very high up in a secret American agency. This could not be more accurate.”

Alberto's face turned a flush of red and he waited a moment before responding. “Yes, Mister Secretary, I am quite aware of the consequences of diverting from our established plan or not living up to our agreement. Remember, sir, I am a professional arms dealer, and even though this is a bit different, essentially it is still an arms transaction, which I have proven to you and others in the past, that I always conduct with honor.”

Without losing a beat Alberto continued, “Now, as I am essentially in possession of the information at this point, as my men are now delivering it to me, I expect one half of 1.2 billion dollars to be deposited in the account that I just mentioned. The other half will be deposited upon your people receiving and inspecting the material for authenticity. Do we agree?” He paused. “Wonderful, Mister Secretary. You will hear from me soon, and it is good to do business with you. Please give my best to your President, the Commandant.”

Alberto placed the phone on the mosaic tiled table top and sighed contentedly as he snapped his fingers and said, “An espresso, Manuel.”

Without looking over his shoulder, Alberto knew that the young man with the Glock 9 mm semi-automatic pistol in a shoulder holster had silently nodded and turned to prepare his boss an espresso on the full outside espresso bar that was next to the twenty foot, fully stocked wet bar that ran across the back of the veranda. With confidence, Alberto sat back in his chair, knowing that his team was efficiently working towards his goal. Fortunately for Alberto, he did not know Bill or his partner. They did dirty work, which was Spikes responsibility to see completed successfully. At the moment they were arguing over what to do with Brad and Susan, wheels were moving on an international level in very secret circles. Wheels that would crush Bill and his partner like the smallest insects on the sidewalk if they screwed up in the most minor way. They were not aware of that. If they were they would have been moving much faster with extreme focus.

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Brad and Susan knew where the two men were going. At least they were pretty sure. Reluctant as Susan was, they let the two men move on to the sting operation project that Susan had set up with the agency. She wanted these people off of her back and she wanted to bust the operation that had cost her a brother.

Finally free of all pursuers, Brad and Susan returned to the Land Rover and got back on highway 17. They drove up to The Cat's, a restaurant just below Lexington Dam, the last flat area before the looming mountain.

The Cat's had sat in the same spot long before the 4-laned highway in front of it existed, or even the

2 laned highway before that. When the road to Santa Cruz was a wide dirt swath through the forest, \wagon trains would pull over into the wide dirt parking lot of The Cat's. Their horses could be watered and rested before the long, winding climb over the steep, forested mountain. Travelers and wagon masters could get a bite to eat and have a stiff drink before continuing their journey. That was over a hundred years ago. Now, off to the side of the highway, a cyclone fence separated The Cat's property line from the highway. Over the years crawling vines had taken over the fence and The Cat's was nothing more than glimpses of an old building through the thick vegetation to the quickly passing traffic. This was a 'locals' bar and restaurant. Nobody else would know how to find it.

When you walk inside, the bar still looks the same as it had for most of the 20^th century. Back in the 1930's or 40's an owner built a small stage off in the corner and set up some small speakers. A thousand jazz trio's have played in that corner over the years.

In it's earliest, most wild west days, the upstairs was a booming brothel, offering the weary traveler more comforts than a good meal, which The Cat's offered as the decades passed without a single variation in the menu. To the right of the bar was a restaurant that had obviously been added as an afterthought not long after the place was built.

Horses and wagons had been replaced by sports cars and Land Rovers. Hot, dusty travelers who smelled like sweat, leather and horses had been replaced by suntanned yuppies and tourists who smelled of cocoanut and lotions. The old dirt lot was a paved parking lot with spaces neatly placed out so that people don't even have to think when parking their cars.

This was one of Brad's favorite places to eat. Their menu was pretty basic; steaks, chicken and ribs, but it was all oak grilled, and they had the best blue cheese dressing in the world. Some people came in to order a big salad just for the dressing.

The food was great. The ambiance friendly, the music always good. The upstairs whore house had ceased to exist decades ago. Hitching rails and hay barns had succumbed to blankets of cement. Only the building and the food remained stubbornly the same as it had been in the long ago past.

At the bar Brad requested a dinner table for two and than found a bar table a little larger than a corvette steering wheel near the small music stage.

“Why are bar tables so damned small?” Susan asked rhetorically.

Brad answered anyway. “They don't want you to eat in here.”

A waitress walked up and they both ordered Margarita’s. As they sat back and relaxed in the old world pub ambiance, a man started setting up his musical equipment on the small stage for the evening entertainment. He was a tall thin man, blonde hair and a goatee. He looked to be about Brads age – in his mid-thirties. He glanced over at their table as he worked, nodded in recognition and said, “Hey, Brad.” He reached over and shook Brad's hand before continuing his work. “I heard that you retired with a chest full of medals after secretly saving the world and moved back home. Somebody said you're working your dad's old ranch again.”

Brad shrugged. “That's right, Tom. Once you save the world a few times, there isn't much else to do but ranching.”

Tom chuckled. “Who's the beautiful lady, and what is she doing with someone like you?”

“Susan, this is Tom Clemments. Unless they fired him, he's the local high school music teacher and one hell of a jazz guitarist. Tom and I went to high school together.”

Tom nodded at Susan and said to Brad, “So what are you doing these days?”

“Well, Susan and I are secret agents for a branch of Homeland Security, and we're having a quiet dinner break while working an assignment to save to the world from devastating destruction.”

Tom laughed as he picked up his guitar. “You were always a funny guy with a wild imagination.” he said before running through a riff of cords on the guitar as he tuned the strings. Tom leaned back on his stool and started his set, which was easy jazz tunes, perfect background music for a room of intimate conversation.

Susan leaned towards Brad and said, “Should you be telling people things like that? It seems like this isn't something the Director would want people to know.

Brad laughed. “Are you kidding? Who would believe a story like that?”

The waitress came with their drinks and took their dinner orders, telling them that it would be about twenty minutes before a table is available. They settled back into the comfort of the guitar music and let the margarita's warm their insides and relax the tensions of the day. Brad stretched forward and crossed his legs. Turning his head to Susan he said, “My dad used to stop here with the family for dinner when we would be coming home from trips to San Jose. I can remember him telling me that his parents brought him here when he was a kid also.”

“Well,” Susan said, “believe it or not my father brought the family here also when I was a kid.” They both smiled at the common element of their childhoods.

“That was kind of bizarre, the way those goons found us at the Pruneyard today.” Susan said contemplatively. “I hope we don't have a repeat performance in this place.”

“I don't think we will.” Brad said. “That was a coincidence. I thought about it afterward. You know, the hospital is right next door, practically, and I think they had to drop their other guy off their. It looked like you hurt him pretty bad.”

“I guess I should feel badly about that, but I don't.” Susan said. “As close as I can tell, the end plan of these people is to kill us.”

“Yep. It does seem that way. Also, if these people didn't actually kill your brother, they certainly will if they can find him alive, and anyone associated with him. These aren't the kind of people who like to leave witnesses.”

Susan looked at Brad in silence as they listened to the music. She put her hand on his. “As dangerous as our situation has been, you seem to take it with relatively good stride. You've offered me a lot of strength with a show of your own. I don't know if could have handled this without you.”

“That's just good training.” Brad said with a grin. “I'm an officer. We aren't suppose to show fear. Only confidence. In reality I've been scared shitless through most of this.”

“Why would you do this?” She asked. “Why would you put your life in such danger for someone you hardly know?”

“I've spent the last twenty years putting my life in danger by orders, concerning people that I didn't know at all, none of them as good looking or as charming as you.”

She laughed. “Sure, make a joke of it. I would think you're trying to seduce me if you hadn't already done so.”

“Okay, you want a straight answer?” he stopped and thought a minute. “Actually, I'm not sure if I can give you one. Maybe I suffer from the cowboy in the white hat syndrome. You know, saving the lady in distress. The only problem with that perspective, is that I think you've saved me more than I've saved you since this started. You're a crack shot with a gun, a karate expert, smart and you don't panic under pressure. I couldn't ask for much more than that from someone with whom I was working an operation.”

“Frankly, I had no idea that I was capable of all that I have done since this started.” She looked at him. “So, let me ask you again, why are you still here?” she asked.

“I don't know, Susan. You set off emotional explosions in me that I forgot I was capable of having. I find I want to get to know you better, hopefully in a more peaceful setting. For that to happen it's very important to keep you alive.”

“I must admit, I have similar feelings, and want to keep you alive also.” she said.

He took her hand and said, “I think I'm getting excited. You want to cancel dinner?”

“No, you animal. I'm starving. I want a steak, baked potato and a salad.”

“Don't forget the french bread.” Brad added.

“And french bread.” She repeated after Brad. “I want a big basket of hot, french bread.”

She took a sip of her drink and then studied the glass, flicking bits of salt off of the rim. “You know, I've thought a lot about how we met. All of it seems so bizarre to me.” she said looking over at him, as he studied her in the light of the candle on the table. “You were there on the side of the road out in the middle of no where fixing a fence. I've driven down that road a thousand times and have never seem a human being, but yet there you were right when I needed you to be there. And!” she added with enthusiasm as she took another drink, “It had to be you. It couldn't have been anybody else. Anybody else wouldn't have worked.

“I was as clueless as you were what was going on. I thought I was in danger of a stalker but not the desperate danger on the level that it is.” She forced a sardonic laugh. “At that time I couldn't even imagine the things that have happened since then.”

She looked at him again. “Think about it. I needed someone exactly like you. Anybody else would have been killed almost immediately, and by now, I would be dead too.”

Brad nodded his head slowly in agreement and felt he had to say something. “Yep.' he said quietly.

“Yep?!” She said in astonishment and then couldn't help but laugh. “Yep, is all you have to say to such mind blowing coincidences and events? What a cowboy response.”

He shrugged. “I don't know what else to say. I mean, what you said is exactly what happened. I admit it does seem a bit bizarre. I've thought about it a little bit myself, but I have no great revelations to give you. We could get mystical and metaphoric and talk about the attractions of energy, or how sometimes things happen that were meant to be, but we can't really be sure of those, can we. They might be true, or it may have been luck or just how the cards fell at that moment.”

“God, Brad, you are such a realist for a guy who looks like you do.”

He smiled and leaned towards her, taking her hand into his. “I would gladly discuss our bizarreness from any metaphysical direction you would like to explore, but I won't let it give me a headache trying to figure it out. Honestly, I'm glad that you stopped that day when I was fixing the fence. I would never have met you otherwise, and that's a very depressing thought to me.”

She smiled at him, “Even with all that you have been through since meeting me?”

“Are you kidding? I had no idea how boring my life had become until you entered it.”

They both laughed and she punched him playfully on the arm. She took another sip of the margarita. Susan was feeling pretty good.

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