Knockout! A Passionate Police Romance (25 page)

John Mayer drove sedately out to Carmel. Freddie sat alongside containing his impatience and anger.

“She’s gonna be fine.” Said the agent. “She’s been in some spots I can tell you.” Freddie relaxed a little.

“You know John - it seems amazing. I simply met a wonderful girl - I had no idea. Those beautiful eyes - her silky skin-that long black hair - a cop? I still can’t believe it.”

“You don’t really seem too much like my idea of a boxer.”

“I guess not.”

“Can I ask you a personal question Freddie?”

“Sure.”

“What round will you win the fight?”

“If we get her out and she’s not hurt I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen. If you listen to what I tell you and trust me you won’t have to worry too much about your pension one way or the other.”

Agent Mayer smiled and drove on. A few minutes later they pulled up behind a U haul truck in a small car park surrounded by trees. An old Camaro was parked alongside. They scrambled into the truck. The huge black skater guy was wearing earphones. Two other agents shifted to make room.

“Meet the team.”

Freddie shook hands all round.

“You guys are amazing... I’ll never just pass anyone in the street again.”

“The house is about 150 yards away to the left. We’re listening to every word. She’s on a mattress on the floor in the front room. Tondelli’s there but things are fairly loose. They’re not expecting anything. They’ve moved her car to a lonely beach. Just another story of a missing girl, maybe walked into the sea with a broken heart. The driver’s been pulled over by the Highway Patrol. He’s already started to talk. The thug who was following to pick him up is in the morgue. What they call an exchange of fire. These guys are going away Freddie!”

“The morgue - what the hell are we doing letting them keep her?”

His thoughts churned with the loveliness of her - in the hands of killers.

He remembered her last kiss as she had met him on the path that morning. He wanted her for a lifetime and maybe now there could never be even another touch - another moment.

“What’s happening in there?” He snapped.

“Nothing - sounds like he’s looking through some stuff - maybe her bag.” Drawled the ex-skater.

Mayer seemed relaxed.

“There won’t be any police ID. She’s a pro - we’ll go in at Four o’clock. That’s when the body slows down. That’s when the truck driver’s fall off the road and the junkies die.”

Freddie reflected. These guys were from a different world. This was Anna’s life too - where the terrible and the obscene was just a line of casual conversation. When all this was over could she be the woman he had met and fallen in love with at first sight?

Now he understood some of the things she had said - about the poor and the sorrow of things. Behind her mask she had to be a different woman, just so much more of a woman than he could ever have imagined. Now she lay tied up while a killer stood over her. She could have stayed safe back in London. He was unworthy of her love. He had been so heartless and cruel on that boat when he had stormed off. He could see the love in her eyes and yet his pride overwhelmed him because she had fooled him. No one got the better of Freddie La Salle even though he could feel her soft true love for him in every touch. Still he had not backed down and called her or taken her in his arms. Once before his pride had snapped a response and his friend lay dead. He had learned nothing.

He surveyed the agents calmly waiting to raid the house. The skater appeared to tense a little and press the earphones more closely. He flicked a switch and a speaker came on. It was the voice of Mauro Tondelli.

She watched as Tondelli examined a business card. Her heart raced. Her palms sweated. Her feet were still tied but her arms were free and had come back to life. This was trouble. She watched as he tried to read the small writing. She had been careless and it could cost her dear. She saw his lips attempting to spell out the unfamiliar words. Christine Jones - Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.

He looked at her with a quizzical expression, appearing not to understand the possibilities immediately.

“New Scotland Yard... that’s limey police... Sherlock Holmes and that guy Watson.”

“Sherlock Holmes was a private detective.” Anna informed him, hoping to appear untroubled. Tondelli gazed at her and turned the card over and over in his fat hands.

“I’m thinking you’re a cop...” He snarled.

“Cop! Do I look like a cop?”She laughed, remembering only too well when she had last spoken those words.

###

The joke was not lost on Freddie. She had said the same thing in the London taxi a few minutes after they had met.

Mayer spoke into a police radio.

“All units stand-by.” He glanced at the skater. “They’re still in that front room…”

“Go! Go! Go!” Yelled Mayer, springing from the truck.

Freddie followed, ignoring his pleas to hold back. He thought of nothing but her - his lover - his woman.

Agents were running at the bungalow. A team was at the porch door with a battering ram. Freddie saw the front window with a light behind. The bulk of a standing male figure was his target. The glass looked old and thin. His hooded top was thick. He pulled it up to cover his head and built up speed. He drew his forearms up over his face and played one final flashback of her face across his consciousness before he took off and waited for the crash.

“You bitch!” exclaimed Tondelli, clenching the muscles in his cheek as a rage of realization swept over him. “You’re gonna start explaining...”

He pulled out the knife and stared at her breasts. She squirmed, guessing that some kind of favorite torture was about to commence.

“You don’t need the knife...” She began.

She heard a stun grenade in the back room and a commotion at the front door. Tondelli remained transfixed.

A terrific crash smashed the window to fragments of flying glass. Some guy in a hooded top and jeans hurtled in to the room like a canon ball and rolled to absorb the impact. She just had the time to scrabble aside. Tondelli fumbled in his jacket. She saw the handle of a firearm. In a split second the hooded guy fired a punch so hard that Tondelli’s nose was replaced by a squelch of blood.

Anna grabbed the knife and cut the tape around her ankles. Tondelli gurgled on the floor holding his hands to his face. The door flew open and Agent Mayer bustled in holding some other guy in a headlock.

“Freddie - you promised to stay out of this!” He gasped.

“And I promised you some of the best advice you’ll ever get...”

Anna’s senses swam. Freddie? Did he say Freddie?

The guy was brushing himself off and had his back to her. Another agent rushed in and cuffed Tondelli. Then he calmly stowed the gun and the knife in evidence bags. Anna stared at him in amazement...

“You had a bandana. You drive a Camaro...”

The agent smiled. Everything was becoming clear. The FBI had expected this. She had been under surveillance. Mayer’s indifference had been a front. But just who was the guy who had arrived via the window? That was not a police technique and the punch...

Then she saw him. A wide smile lit up his face as his dark eyes burned with love. She saw the massive width of his shoulders and the rock hard bulk of his thighs in his tight faded blue jeans.

“Freddie! How can you be here?” She shrieked in disbelief.

“I got friends.”

Agent Mayer snorted. “We don’t encourage citizens to leap through windows.”

“I’m not a citizen John - I’m a Frog. That’s how come I can jump. Anyhow when you write this up I was never here. The fat guy on the floor won’t remember much.”

Both Anna and Mayer laughed as Freddie drew her into his arms and kissed her. She felt the solid strength of his body and the softness of his lips and knew deep down that she was loved.

“Guys... I’d love to let everyone go but...” Began Agent Mayer.

“But there’s paperwork right...” Added Anna with a smile.

“Different continent - same crap...”

###

She snuggled into him as they walked back down the driveway. Never had she felt so safe and protected. She smiled as she spotted the skater and the female jogger in the car park. Hadn’t she nearly driven into a U Haul truck outside Linda’s house?

She squeezed into Mayer’s car. Freddie stayed outside and put his arm around the agent’s shoulder and walked him away from the car. She heard the beginning of what was said.

“John - you know in this life that things can’t always work out. No one else will know this but this is the way I’m seeing it...”

She watched them move away and saw Freddie demonstrate a couple of punches. The agent nodded seriously. They began to walk back. She caught Freddie’s final words.

“If it doesn’t work out - there is no plan B. It has to work!”

Both men slid into the car and rolled down to the Monterey Police Station in Madison Street. So much for the action. Now for the grind of police procedure. At least no one expected her to know all the form numbers.

It was dawn as they tumbled into the back of a police cruiser for the ride back to the hotel.

“Can you guys drop us at the wharf?” Said Freddie suddenly.

The cop shrugged and pulled over. It had been a long night. The world was still quiet, hovering on the brink of a new day and new beginnings. She felt his strong arm around her as they strolled onto the boardwalk. The creak of boats at their moorings and the calm lub-dub of the swell around the pier soothed her like a lullaby. There was so much to say - so much to explain.

He seemed to have read her thoughts and smiled down at her.

“I thought back in London that at last my life had truly begun... that the past was the past. Perhaps we should start today.”

“Love starts every day Freddie - how many days can we start again?” She asked staring up into his face. Once again she reached up to touch the scar over his beautiful eye.

Her eyes misted with tears, focusing once more on what still lay ahead of him. He was gambling everything for the sake of the Foundation. He softly brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers.

“I am Champion of the world you know. I’m gonna make it.”

“But I heard you tell Agent Mayer that there was no plan B.”

“No one who ever won much had a plan B Honey! You were the plan A of my dreams since I had dreams. I kept dreaming you up until you were real. It was a rocky old road... if you still want me... even if I wind up with nothing.”

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him as he picked her up and cradled her as if she were weightless. She felt the force of his knotted steel body and the rasp of his stubble as her kissed her again. She closed her eyes and let herself melt into him, losing the boundaries between her being and his.

“It’s not enough to say I love you Anna - it seems too little - such pale little words.”

“Like the pale light of dawn - like a new day.” She whispered.

“Maybe love is just the beginning of what a man and a woman are to each other - like a bud promising a flower.” He replied in a deep slow voice.

The warmth of his body seeped into her as he held her tirelessly in his arms. Now that all the drama had passed, her mind rolled idly to her belly. There had been so many things to think about. She too had gone for broke… there was no plan B and Nature held the plan A. Soon enough she would get a clue...

The distant throb of a fishing boat nosing out into the swell, the sound of a radio belting out the latest hit on the breakfast show, a line of pelicans in echelon sweeping along the shore announced the unstoppable rise of the sun. Sea lions barked, blinked and preened their whiskers for the tourists. It was a routine day for the teeming life in Monterey Bay. Several prisoners prepared for their moment in court. Two lovers strolled hand in hand down Cannery Row to the Monterey Bay Inn.

He lay back on the bed watching her. He was tired and yet her beauty enlivened and excited him. Her richly dark hair cascaded down her back. Her deep gray blue eyes were soft and loving. He stood and stripped off - aware of her eyes on him. All he wore was a jogging top and jeans with worn out trainers that he had grabbed as he had left the house.

Wordlessly they shared the shower, laughing as they soaped each other’s bodies, both aware that things could have ended very differently.

He felt the joy of her breasts as his hands soothed across her nipples. The act aroused him. She giggled and let her hand stroke down across the rippled six pack of his stomach until he jolted with a deep grunt as she touched the spot. He wanted her - but not in urgency - not as a release. He enjoyed the tension of his desire for her. This was something he had never felt for any woman until now. Her soft breasts, her womb were his opposite and by contrast defined the hardness of him. Yet it was also his origin - the place where he had found life and succor. Suddenly he knew the secrets of the ancient priestess - how this well of life had drawn men to worship its beauty. For now he did not want to break the spell of her loveliness. One day his child would grow from her gentle strength and he could do no more than offer the pulse of his life to the vessel of her promise.