Frontline (42 page)

“Yeah, born and raised,” the girl says.

“How long have you been in New York?”

“Almost a week. I flew in last weekend and my boxes just arrived today, though not exactly in the same condition I sent them.” She smiles, motioning to the mess in front of her.

“Well, let me give you a hand.” Kelly pulls her coat off and sets it on top of the nearest pile of boxes.

“Gee, thanks! I only have the elevator on service for another ten minutes.”

“We probably won’t even need that long to load the rest of these once Denim gets back.”

“You guys are so nice! Everyone I’ve met so far has been such an asshole. I was starting to question my decision to move here.”

Kelly kneels, picks up a jagged piece of dishware, and tosses it into the pile. “I know what you mean. But don’t let it bother you. Underneath their dick-headed exteriors, deep down, I guess most New Yorkers really do have a nice side. It just takes time before you’re able see it.”

The girl nods. “I hope so.”

Kelly thrusts her hand out. “Well, like I said, Miss Retro Fashion that just ran upstairs is Denim Jacobson, and I’m Kelly Sheridan.”

The girl takes Kelly’s hand. The deep creases around her mouth and across her forehead ease. She offers Kelly a grateful smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kelly.
My name is Sara. Sara Peters.”

A Tuesday afternoon in late May on a quiet street in New York’s Fort Greene neighborhood . . .

Minivans, hatchbacks, and station wagons line both sides of a one-way street. Asphalt, wet from recent rain, glistens as the sun pokes through shifting gray clouds. The morning chill gives way to a warm afternoon breeze that sends dry leaves skittering over the sidewalk.

From behind the tinted windshield of a navy Town Car, two men watch the commotion between a woman and a young girl. Minutes before, the girl pulled free from the woman’s hand and jumped off the sidewalk, splashing into a deep puddle formed at the mouth of a clogged sewer drain. The woman scolded the child. The scolds gradually turned to pleading the more the girl waded around in the water.

One of the men chuckles at the sight, the other frowns and shakes his head.

“What’s got you so sour? You didn’t leap into puddles and piss off your mom when you were a kid?” says Sean Mavis, defender of every trouble-making kid in America. In Sean’s mind, what else are kids for if not keeping their parents on their toes every minute?

“I would expect a little more discipline on the mother’s part,” answers the frowning man, Christopher Maida. “Look at her now.”

The mother has given up pleading and stands with her arms crossed, unsurprised at the child’s disregard for her authority.

“My mom would’ve yanked me outta that puddle and marched me home. Then she would’ve taken me over her knee and spanked the shit outta me.”

“Jesus,” Sean says, “your mom was that harsh? I could’ve drowned in a puddle and no one would’ve found me for hours.”

Chris smiles at Sean. “And look how good you turned out.”

Sean laughs. “Exactly.”

Chris eases his head back against the seat. He closes his eyes behind his sunglasses and enjoys the warmth of the spring sun on his face. “You hungry?”

“Starving.” Sean glances at the dashboard clock. “Where the hell is this guy? I wanna get this over with.”

Sean’s eyes shift to two photographs sitting on the seat between him and Chris. One is a small color headshot of Mi
chael O’Day that appears beneath the headline of his daily column for the
New York Times
. Bright red hair hangs in tangled strands from his head, and thick bangs almost cover his small green eyes. A faint coating of freckles scatters over his long nose and high cheekbones. He wears the same smirk as a know-it-all punk kid Sean remembers from the Academy who always rushed around the classroom immediately after getting a test back and asked what everyone else got, only because his paper always had an A+ at the top.

The second photograph, taken at a fundraiser two months ago, shows Mike standing in the middle of a group. His slight, wiry frame is dressed in beige khakis and a brown and green plaid shirt buttoned almost to the top, obscuring some sort of logo on a bright yellow shirt underneath. Red stubble peppers his jaw and green plastic glasses that don’t appear to contain lenses sit halfway down his nose. An American Eagle fedora tops it all off.

“Quite a ladies’ man we have here,” Sean says. “No wonder he’s doing that Kelly chick some favors.”

“A guy like that has access to classified info.” Chris scowls. “It’s a wonder everyone’s cover isn’t blown.”

Sean scans the street ahead of them while Chris glances in the side view mirror.

“So what are your thoughts on
that Kelly chick
anyway?”

“My thoughts?” Sean shrugs. “She’s hot. And she’s a royal bitch.”

“So precisely your type, then.”

Sean shakes his head. “Not my type. Just the type I like to tame.”

The men share a chuckle.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And your thoughts on her cute little friend? What’s her name? Darlene?”

“Denim,” Chris says.

“Denim. That’s it.”

“I don’t know. She seems nice.”

“Well, you always pick up the ones who fling themselves at you. Me, I prefer a bit of a challenge.”

Chris props his elbow against the window and rests his cheek against the knuckles of his fist. “For the last time, she did not
fling herself
at me. She merely made it known that she might have some interest in seeing me again sometime. Then she gave me her phone number.”

“Which means she wants you.”

The discussion pauses the way it always does between two men on a stakeout, but it doesn’t end. Conversations these days are hyper-compressed, squeezed in over lunch breaks, coffees, dinner, or text messages. Stakeouts are the exact opposite. Conversations have time to spread themselves out over hours with plenty of natural lulls in between. A single topic between Chris and Sean can last a whole day, especially when that topic focuses on women.

Chris thinks back on the women he met in the past that indicated, at the time of their first meeting, eagerly or with a hint of subtlety, that they’d be interested in meeting a second time in the very near future. On one hand, he appreciated it. A woman stepping up and putting herself out there takes a lot of confidence.

He remembers one encounter, years ago, with a girl in his Quantico NCO training unit named Amanda. The unit had been granted leave that Labor Day weekend. Chris stood next to Amanda in the bus shelter at the main gates and made small talk for a few minutes, mostly about the program.

Amanda felt the same as Chris
—she enjoyed aspects of the training, but at the same time, couldn’t wait for it to be over. She stood almost to Chris’ shoulders with short blonde hair, a tight, sleeveless T-shirt emblazoned with U.S. MARINES in bold black letters across her firm breasts, her torso lean but muscular, especially over her shoulders.

Her thick pink lips, freshly moistened with Chap Stick, offered a friendly smile and the sweet smell of strawberry perfume drew Chris closer. Such pleasant aromas were rarely found at a military base. He asked Amanda if she had any plans during leave, not for any other reason than to simply continue the conversation while they waited together in the small space.

“Tonight I’m going to visit my aunt and uncle in Alexandria, but tomorrow, I should be totally free.”

Chris initially took it as just a simple answer, but the hope in her voice when she emphasized
should be totally free
and looked at him, eyebrows raised, in a
Come and get it
way quickly clued him in.

On the other hand, in Chris’ mind, something is lost when a woman takes the lead. It robs the situation of its mystery
—
she likes me, she likes me not
—and the thrill of the chase, which is one of the most exciting aspects for any man in pursuit of the opposite sex. Not that he regretted what Amanda’s forwardness led to the next day, and the next one after that, both spent in a Washington hotel room.

Denim laid it on thick, but Chris remembers enjoying every drop. Behind the buzz from Denim’s flirtations, Chris felt she held more than just a casual interest in him. The way she looked at him when they were first introduced, and the way she hugged him when he made sure Sara’s apartment was clear of danger, made Chris feel not only appreciated, but needed. He’d been thinking about that look on her face a lot since then. He’d been thinking about the rest of her a lot since then, too.

“So tell me about the importance of a challenge,” Chris says.

By the size of the grin that appears on Sean’s face, he’s only too willing to oblige.

“The thing about chicks like Kelly is that inasmuch as they talk to you like they want you to go away, they’re really saying they want you to come closer. It’s a test to see how determined you are. That determination is a measurement of how much you value them. And chicks like Kelly need to be valued.”

“See, I think it’s exactly the opposite,” Chris says. “When a woman plays games with you, it’s just for her own entertainment. She wants to see how much of your dignity you’re willing to sacrifice. And it’s only when she’s stolen every ounce of that dignity and you’re on your knees in front of her that she’ll finally take pity. How can there be a future in that? How can she even respect you?”

Sean chuckles. “Well, aren’t you a romantic.”

“I’m just saying some women are capable of real evil.”

“That’s only the case if you step onto the field unprepared, my friend.” Sean glances in his side mirror as a man in a long, black trench coat carrying a duffle bag limps past the car, either drunk, or injured, or both. “It’s like being handed a rifle and getting deployed before even completing basic training. You’re doomed.”

Chris sighs. “No training is enough. Women are crazy.”

“You’re right. They are. And you’re right about something else, too: Women play games. But if you’re armed with a system I developed called The Five R’s, you will win every round. That’s a guarantee.”

“I know you’re gonna tell me anyway, so you don’t have to wait for me to ask.”

Sean rubs his hands together and nods. “Finally you take an interest in furthering your education. It goes like this: Relax. That’s what the first R stands for, and it’s probably the most important one. Any time you’re talking to a chick, you gotta relax.”

Chris lifts his head from its perch against his fist and glares at Sean. “Yeah, that kinda goes without saying.”

Sean points his finger directly in the air like a university professor at his pulpit, bestowing his wisdom on the young, eager masses. “No, it most certainly does not. When men are nervous, they don’t think straight. They say stupid things. They fidget. Women can sense that and it makes them uncomfortable. They retreat to their friends. You’ll never get another chance if you fuck up like that. She’ll stay away for good.”

Sean would never admit it if asked
—his stock answer being that he developed The Five R’s after years of watching other men make mistakes, his personal track record with women being flawless—but a few points are actually derived from personal experience. He can’t even count the number of times, early on, of course, that conversations with girls ended awkwardly. He’d walk away, cursing himself, wondering how the hell he came up with such goofy statements. It’s like a floodgate opened in his brain and sent a torrent of nonsense rushing out of his mouth that he couldn’t plug.

Years passed before Sean invented one mantra that became his game changer:
They all want you
. Those four words served him more faithfully than a standard issue M-16 assault rifle and proved just as deadly. From then on, no matter how gorgeous the girl he approached, with his bold declaration repeating in his head, the floodgates crumbled and the torrent of nonsense evaporated. Victory followed.

“Okay, that makes sense. Go on. Second R.”

Sean points to his right ring finger. “The second R is Relate. Women have different ways of probing men if they’re interested in them. Most will ask a bunch of questions—the everyday stuff like what do you do, where you’re from, blah, blah, blah—and they’re hoping for the same in return. It shows you’re as interested in them as they are in you. Some will try to be witty, speak real quick, use a lot of one-liners. Some will even tease you good-naturedly. You gotta give that back to them.”

Chris rolls his eyes. “I’m not big on the witty attempts.”

“Or they’ll be bitches and try to intimidate you to see what you’re made of. That’s Kelly’s tactic.”

Sean remembers the encounter just days ago outside the hospital when Trenton had the bright idea to invade Sara’s place of work in order to force her to see him. Kelly’s hellcat approach on the sidewalk had Trenton’s men on high alert, and Sean was thankful for the sunglasses that masked what may have been a hint of intimidation watering his eyes when she came at him, all teeth and claws.

It took a moment to summon his mantra and engage her appropriately. He knew he gave her what she needed the moment she flicked her hair over her shoulders and retreated to her cab. He caught the tiny smirk on her lips, a sign of approval that he’d passed her first test, though certainly many more trials awaited. No single thought excited him more.

“The point here is to try to relate to her. Never be intimidated. And if she’s the twenty-thousand-questions type, she’s trying to find some kind of common bond that you can use as a jump-off point. ‘Oh, you grew up in Long Island? No shit! Me, too!’ And then it starts.”

Chris blinks a few times as the realization hits him that there might be some actual wisdom in Sean’s words, rather than the macho bravado and endless stories of female conquest he expected at the outset of the lecture.

Certain tips seem familiar to him but he learned them during different times in his life. He never collected his own insights into female pursuit and compiled it into a lesson like this. Now he’s glad Sean did.

“Relate. Okay, that makes sense, too. Continue.” Chris straightens his posture.

“Very well, then, the third R stands for Respond. Once a certain amount of relating has taken place, it’s natural that things will progress. Beyond what’s similar in your experiences, how will you now react if, let’s say you’re standing in front of each other, maybe leaning on the bar, and you say something funny, she laughs, and she puts her hand up and shoves you gently, kind of an
Oh, get outta here!
thing, but instead of a push, it’s more of a way to touch your chest? Or her foot brushes your shin beneath the table when you’re sitting across from her? Or the back of her hand touches yours if you’re walking alongside each other?”