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Cooper Crazy
(6/21/05 10:34 pm)
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Giving In - Chapter 6
“This is like some really bad nightmare,” Harley said quietly as she and Gus looked over more reports on the missing girls, including new information on the girl from Chicago.
“I know,” he nodded.
“My daughter is only two years younger than Alicia. She has blue eyes and blonde hair too…”
“Don’t think like that,” Gus stopped her. “Think like a cop. Let’s look at the facts, the victims, the perps, the locations. The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night at seven o’clock,” he said and she nodded.
“In the old wine warehouse on Rue de Grenelle,” she nodded. “Victim one, Senator Jacqueline Rousseau from Moselle, France.”
“Who will be delivered to the Mezzini family by the Laroque family,” Gus picked up. “The representative from should be Christophe Laroque. He’s the eldest son of Gerard Laroque who is now out of the business. Christophe has taken over, in every sense of the word. He’ll probably have a good number of bodyguards though. I’d say at least three of them. Next.”
“Francesca Romano from Milan. Twenty-eight year old model,” Harley began. “Obviously coming with Antonio Mezzini and was requested by Laroque, right?”
“As far as we know,” Gus nodded. “Last one – we hope – Alicia Davis. Seventeen, Chicago, personally requested by Sasha Kozlovic, supposedly being brought by the Santos family,” he said hesitantly.
“Yeah…” she replied. “Gus, do you really think it’s the Santos family?” she asked.
“I don’t know…it doesn’t make any sense to me. As strange as this sounds, I think Danny and even Carmen are better than this,” he answered.
“But why would their name be coming up so much if they didn’t have something to do with it?” she wondered aloud and Gus didn’t answer her. “What about Tony?”
“Hmm…I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, he has a bad temper, but as a mobster, he’s pretty much a wimp,” he replied and Harley’s eyebrows rose. “His bark is worse than his bite – he doesn’t do any of the dirty work himself and usually takes orders from Danny and Carmen.”
“Maybe he’s calling the shots this time,” Harley shrugged.
“It’s possible I guess, but it still doesn’t all fit to me,” he said as the door opened and a secretary stuck her head into the room.
“Agent Aitoro, there is a phone call for you, line three,” she informed him in a thick French accent.
“Thank you,” Gus replied then picked up the phone on the table and pressed a button to be connected. “Oh, really? Where? Any good reason why? Alright. Thanks,” he finished then hung up.
“What’s up?” Harley asked.
“Danny Santos went out of town today,” he answered and wrote some things down in his notebook.
“Where did he go?”
“Good question,” he replied. “No one seems to know, but he’s definitely gone. Apparently he was flying himself and we can’t get a flight plan. Hopefully he’s on his way here,” he added.
“What?” Harley asked. “You just told me you didn’t think it was him.”
“Well, yeah, but that was before we knew he left town. The meeting is tomorrow night, we’re pretty sure the Santos family is involved and today Danny flies himself somewhere and no one knows where? You think that’s just a coincidence?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t know. But I’m surprised at your quick change,” she shot back.
“I’m looking at the facts Harley. I’m not pulling this out of thin air, come on!”
“I know, but you actually want him to be a part of this!” she said.
“Yeah, I do. I would love to nail the Santos family for this – is that what you want to hear? I’m a cop Harley, I want to catch the bad guys and the Santos’s are bad guys, no matter what your little friends Michelle and Rick tell you. I want to catch the people who are doing this and if it is Santos, that’s like killing two birds with one stone, so you’re damn right I want them to be a part of this,” he replied angrily before storming out of the room.
Harley rushed out after him and finally found him outside smoking.
“Hey! What the hell was that?” she asked.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“Five minutes ago, you actually sounded like you were making progress. Then you get one phone call and you’re back on your stupid vendetta.”
“I guess I am,” he replied and took a drag of his cigarette.
“Why? Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Why not? I don’t have any reason not to go after them,” he said and met Harley’s confused eyes.
“You know, when I left Springfield, I had closure on my father’s death, at least a little bit of closure. I realized that I couldn’t waste my life going after Danny Santos, and that was because of you. I had finally started to move on from that part of my life and I meant it. And then this happens. You’re here, with me and then the other night in D.C…I thought that maybe things were finally starting to go right for me. But when you heard the word Santos, it was over. Anything that was or could have been was over, and I knew that. You’re right, they are always there, even when I don’t want them to be, and maybe they always will be. I hate that I can’t get them out of my life and my head, I hate them and I hate myself.”
“Gus, don’t say that…” Harley interrupted sadly.
“Don’t interrupt me, please. I’m trying to admit that you’re right here. I was stupid to think that a few months and hundreds of miles could really get them out of my life. I was honest with you when I said this wasn’t about revenge. It’s not, it’s really not, but I understand now why you can’t do this. And as much as I would like to change that, I know that I can’t now.”
Harley stood silently in front of the railing on the balcony, surprised at Gus’s honesty and saddened by his words and self-loathing. Finally, she took a step forward closer to Gus.
“I, uh…” she began but he stopped her, placing a finger over her lips and shaking his head.
“Can you just give me a few minutes? I need another cigarette, and then we can go. It’s getting late,” he said and removed his finger.
“Okay,” she nodded and went back inside the building leaving Gus alone on the balcony.
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Harley crawled into bed later that night while Gus took his turn in the bathroom. She moved as close to the edge as possible and smoothed out the covers around her before she slid under them and pulled them up to her neck.
“This is going to be a long night,” she mumbled as she rolled onto her side and faced the bathroom door, her back to the middle of the bed.
Gus came out of the bathroom a few minutes later and got in the other side of the bed. With Harley clinging to the other edge, there was enough room for two other people between them.
“Are you okay with me sleeping here?” Gus asked.
“Yeah,” she replied, without turning towards him.
“Okay,” he replied and shut off the lamp next to the bed and rolled onto his side, facing Harley’s back.
He laid there for a few minutes trying to force himself to close his eyes, but all he could concentrate on was the curve of Harley’s body underneath the covers and the way her hair fell across the pillow. For the first time, he noticed she was letting her hair grow and he suddenly felt the urge to reach out and run his hand through it then wrap his arms around her the way he did only a few nights earlier.
“I’m going to sleep on the floor,” Gus said, sitting up.
“What?” Harley asked as she rolled over.
“We have a long day tomorrow and you’re not going to get much sleep clinging to the edge of the bed and I’m…just get some sleep,” he said and took his pillow and an extra blanket from the closet and tried to get comfortable on the floor next to the bed.
“Good night,” he said when he got settled.
“Night,” she replied quietly and buried herself into the covers.
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“Coffee,” Gus said as he came back into the conference room and handed Harley a cup of steaming coffee.
“Thank you,” she replied. As much as she tried, she didn’t sleep well the night before. She missed her kids, the case was bothering her, and she was bothered by what happened with Gus earlier in the day. She really believed that he wanted to be rid of the Santos’s from his life, and he had tried to do that, but they were still there. The attempt to get past it was a big step for Gus, she knew that, but it didn’t change anything between them.
Gus fought back a yawn as he took the seat next to Harley and stirred his coffee. The floor of the hotel room was hard and uncomfortable, but his mind wouldn’t let him sleep much anyway. When he finally did drift off, he had a dream that he was in a big warehouse like the one the meeting was supposed to take place in later that day and he was being held at gunpoint by an unseen man with Harley on one side of him and Danny Santos on the other and he had to choose which side to go to. He woke up in a cold sweat before he made his choice, and it bothered him, because he was sure that he would have chosen Harley over Danny…at least he hoped that that’s what he would have chosen. Not that it really mattered, he chose months ago to stop his vendetta against the Santos family and it got him in Harley’s hotel room a few nights earlier, but then all of a sudden, they were in his life again, making the gap between him and Harley bigger by the minute.
Gus sighed and gulped his coffee as one of the Judicial Police who was heading up the investigation, Captain Lumiere, came into the room and started the meeting.
They started by updating all of the agents on what they had learned overnight, which wasn’t much other than some flight plans for Kozlovic and some rumblings from the Laroque family about getting a room ready for their “delivery”. Apparently Christophe Laroque was very particular about what he wanted in the room. He had called his decorator in the middle of the night, screaming at her in French about the bedding not being the correct shade of red as he requested.
“I can’t believe this guy’s worried about the color of the bedspread he’s going to make his prize sleep in,” Gus said quietly, leaning over towards Harley.
“I can’t believe any of this,” she replied.
After they looked over a blueprint of the warehouse the meeting was to take place in and ran through the plan of attack what seemed like a hundred times, they broke for lunch and Gus and Harley took the opportunity to leave the station and grab a bite to eat at a café a few blocks away.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” Harley asked Gus before she took a bite of her sandwich.
“I’m terrified,” he admitted. “I am afraid we are too late, and the girls have already been hurt or sold. I am afraid that those families will get away with this, and I am afraid we’re walking into a lion’s den.”
“Well, you’re not allowed to be afraid of that because you told me that we would be safe. And we will be,” she replied with a smile which Gus returned.
“You’re right,” he nodded. “How’s your sandwich?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Fabulous,” she gushed and took another big bite.
Ten minutes later, they were walking back to the station when all of a sudden, Gus grabbed Harley around the waist and pulled her close to him and backed her up against the wall of a building.
“Play along,” he whispered before he pushed her into the wall and kissed her.
After a few seconds of shock, she felt herself give into his kisses and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“What was that?” she breathed when they broke the kiss, leaning their foreheads against each other.
“I saw someone I recognized,” Gus said. “He’s at four o’clock. Black, long hair pulled back, goatee, black leather coat,” he described and Harley pulled him close in her arms and looked over his shoulder.
“You just described eighty percent of the men on this street,” she whispered.
“You’ll see him. It’s Sasha Kozlovic,” he replied.
“I see him. Do you think he would know you if he saw you?” she asked, still confused about what just happened.
“No, I…I just panicked,” he replied and looked down as he backed away from her finally. “Sorry,” he added.
“Better safe than sorry,” she said and put her arm around his waist. “Let’s not draw any more attention to ourselves though, okay?” she teased and they walked down the street past Kozlovic and noticed he had at least two bodyguards with him.
“Well, at least with him being in town, we know we’re on the right track,” she said as Gus turned his head and looked back at their target.
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“What’s going on?” Gus asked one of the agents that came with them when he and Harley walked back into the conference room and save the Captain on the phone looking angry.
“I don’t know, but my guess is that it’s not good,” the agent replied and Gus and Harley took their seats again and waited.
After hanging up the phone and a long string of curse words in French, Captain Lumiere sat at the head of the table and took a drink of water while the rest of the room sat, waiting for an explanation.
“The meeting is off,” he finally said and the room erupted in confusion. He motioned them all to quiet down and continued, “We just heard that the Mezzini family cannot deliver, so the meeting is off.”
“What about the other girls?” someone asked.
“I don’t know,” Lumiere shrugged.
“We just saw Kozlovic out on the street. Are we sure this isn’t just to throw us off?” Gus asked.
“You saw Kozlovic? Was he alone? Did you see any of the girls?” Lumiere asked.
“He had a few bodyguards with him, but there was no sign of anyone else with him,” Gus shook his head.
“There are no indications that they are on to us, but we know Laroque is angry that he’s not getting his girl tonight. He had big plans for her,” a French Lieutenant added.
“Why can’t Mezzini deliver? Can he not get here tonight, did something happen with Francesca? Do we have any word on her?” Harley asked.
“Nothing yet,” Lumiere replied.
“Well, now what are we supposed to do?” Gus asked and the room became silent as everyone waited for an answer.
“Go home. Or in your case, go sightseeing,” Lumiere sighed and left the room.
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