Chapter 19
Sue let Reed’s call go to voicemail. She didn’t even listen to it, she just poured herself a second stiff drink and took a long sip of it while nestled in the couch’s corner. She talked aloud to herself, clutching her waist with one arm and holding the drink up with her free hand. The cubes clinked against the glass tumbler while the famous heroine spoke to the empty room.
“I can’t not call him back. It’s been several days. That would be inexcusable. He’s probably going nuts with me being out of contact this long. But what can I even say? What the hell can I tell Reed? The truth? I don’t think so! He’d abandon his mission and come straight home. I’m not sure he’d even wait for Johnny or Ben. I can’t let him know what’s going on here!”
He’s your husband. You need him! You deserve him by your side. For better or worse, right?
Sue removed her arm from her waist and ran her fingertip around the top rim of the glass, thinking of her options.
“No! I’m Invisible Woman. Not some Super-babe-in-the-woods! I’ve faced Dr. Doom and won, dammit!! I need to tell Reed that I’ve been undercover. Yes, that will explain my absence, why I never returned his calls. A couple of days in deep cover for…for…uuuhmm… an undercover sting operation in tandem with the New York narcotics squad. Yeah, that works…for a big meth lab operation. Only one special sting team knew about it. In case he calls and asks. That’s such a Reed move.”
Sue took another sip of liquid courage and sighed.
“I’ll tell him it’s done and was a big success. Three million in meth off the street. Just another day’s work for the remarkable Invisible Woman. Yaadah, yaadah, ‘We’ll celebrate when you get back, Reed sweetheart! A nice night out at a restaurant. Love ya’. Bye!’”
That ought to work. I’m lying to him for a good reason. His mission is important. Sue nodded her head at her solution, took a small sip and then leaned forward and set down her glass on the black glass coffee table. She picked up the landline phone from its base and almost dialed Reed’s cellphone number before she realized she should listen to his incoming message. It had come in 90 minutes ago. She replaced the handset and pressed the message replay button on the base unit and listened intently.
“Sue, it’s Reed again. It’s official, I’m worried about you. It’s been three days now with no word. If I don’t hear from you in the next two hours then I’m pulling back the guys and we’re heading home. This mission isn’t worth completing if something’s gone wrong there with you. I hope you’re okay. Call me ASAP, darling. I’m here for you! And I’ll be there for you as fast as the Fantastic Car can fly! Mach 3.458 in case you forgot. CALL! PLEASE!!”
The message ended with a click and Sue looked at the phone in its base. The worry in his voice on the machine was palpable. The air around her was doused with his concern like it was his cologne. She softened and smiled, both from his devotion to her and the heavy imbibing she’d done since she’d opened the vodka.
“The big lug! He loves me so!”
Sue picked up the handset and dialed Reed’s cell phone and didn’t have to wait two seconds before she heard his voice.
“Sue, is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me, silly. Honestly, you’re being so dramatic, Reed. It feels like you think I can’t be home here without you thinking I’m some helpless Southern belle in need of a big manly man!”
“What? You don’t return my calls for three days and I’m the one in the wrong? How are you? What the hell’s happening back there?”
“Nothing’s happened, Reed. Nothing bad certainly. In fact, it’s been all good here. I just had to go undercover for a quick NYPD op to take down a meth lab. It’s all sewn up. A big success!”
“Meth lab? They pulled you in on something like that? Were the leaders so dangerous that they needed you…Invisible Woman?”
“Well, uhhmm, yes, to be honest, it was dicey there… but just for, you know, a few minutes. Nothing to worry about. We got about three million bucks off the street of pure product. How about that, huh?”
“You sound funny, Sue. A bit off. Did something happen during the raid?”
“Off, sweetheart? How do you mean?” Sue nervously picked up her glass and sipped more vodka.
“You just sound a bit, I don’t know, slurred. Your voice sounds different.”
“Oh, does it? Well, Reed, I confess that I did… I mean there was a stray bullet that uuhmm, might have hit a bag of meth. Big cloud of the stuff I had to run through to catch the head guy. But it’s all fine, sweetie. Nothing to worry about. Are you wrapping up your mission there?”
“Why didn’t you use an invisible force field, Sue. With the meth cloud?”
“Oh, that, well, there was a…uhm.. another police officer running though that same cloud. I couldn’t very have well created a force field. He’d have knocked himself silly running into it, right, Reed?” Nervously, Sue sipped again.
“Am I hearing ice? Are you having a drink on top of being exposed to Meth?”
“Just a tiny celebratory cocktail, Reed. Honestly! A girl’s allowed to kick back after a successful mission. I don’t get all third degreey with you when you and the guys knock back some brewskies after the team, you know, wins against who..mever!”
“But meth and alcohol, Sue….” Reed left the anguish hanging there.
“I’ll be fine, Reed. When you come back, we’ll go out for dinner alone and celebrate the success of both our missions, okay? Sound good?”
“Well, yes, sure. As long as things are okay there. Of course, sweetie. You can understand my concern though, don’t you?”
“Yes, you love me very much, ya’ big lug. I get it. But don’t be such a worry wort. Invisible Woman can handle herself, you know. Or don’t you think so?”
“Of course, you can, Sue. That’s not the…look. I miss you. I was worried. But having heard from you, I feel relieved. This mission should wrap up in another two days and we’ll be together a day after that. I look forward to a long hug. And much more.”
“Me too, Reed. Take care. Love you. See you soon. Bye.”
Sue replaced the handset into its base before Reed could reply to that. She let out a long breath and then downed the rest of her drink before replacing the tumbler on the table. She looked at the small framed Klee work on the opposite wall and just replayed the call in her head.
That went as well as could be expected. He sensed something. Maybe he won’t dwell on it, be too busy with his own mission. Hopefully by the time he gets back I’ll have Dante and Minh and her crew in jail and I can tell Reed what really happened. In the right place at the right time.
“God, I need a shower and some sleep,” Sue said, putting her hands on her knees before attempting to stand up straight. The vodka and all the strain and exhaustion of the past few days had her falling back into the cushions with a yelp. She stayed there for a few minutes, not even aware of the tears running down her cheeks. When she realized she’d zoned out, feeling her cheeks wet, she brushed away the tears with the backs of both hands and arose a bit more steadily and made her way up the open glass and chrome staircase to her and Reed’s private quarters.
“Doctor Palmetto, you are causing me pain. Cease what you are doing now!”
“Stop your whining, Dante, I am almost done.” The two men were huddled close together. Dante had his shirt off and was sitting on a tall kitchen stool next to a granite-topped island. The doctor sitting close beside him on a second stool was peering at the carefully sewn gash before him. “Just this final stitch and your shoulder wound will be completely closed. Then you will get your lollipop.” The old man with a crown of silver hair swept back off his face and cemented in place with shiny hair gel smiled at his patient as he pulled the last thread loop closed, drawing the fleshy flap at the very end of the wound tight to its mate.
“I am no longer the little boy you treated thirty years ago, Doctor.”
“No, you’re worse behaved now. When I stitched your leg after you fell off the swing onto that rusty saw blade, you were much quieter and much braver.” The older man expertly tied a knot in the fine black thread with a flourish. “Not a peep from you the entire time I was sewing that gash up. 18 stitches without any numbing agent of any kind and not even a lip tremble from you.” Taking a pair of medical scissors from his bag, the doctor clipped off the excess thread and surveyed his work with a nod of satisfaction. Then he looked straight into Dante’s gray eyes and asked with a comic pout. “Where did that brave little stoic go?”
“He’s still in here. It was the threat of my father’s wrath at the time kept me quiet.”
“Yes, well, your father did command a large measure of fear in many people. Even me and we were best friends. Let me get a bandage on that and I’ll be on my way.”
“Will your usual decanter of Graham’s ‘Ne Oublie’ 1882 port suffice as payment, Mario?”
“Just the one? I did come over with no notice given and had to leave the opera.”
“Of course, you’re right. I’m not thinking straight. Clearly, this wound has upset me. It will be two decanters delivered in two days or so. I thank you for your speed and, as always, your discretion.”
“Of course, Dante. What are old friends for?” The doctor gently smoothed the oversized Band Aid against his patient’s bare shoulder and then packed up his medical kit, giving instructions as he did. “Give the shoulder some rest over the next week. No undue exercise and take ibuprofen for the pain. I don’t envy the person who gave you that.”
“A price will be paid by that individual. Don’t trouble yourself about it. I will handle things with my usual flair.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of… for whomever. Good night, my boy. I know my way out.”
“Thank you again, Doctor. I hope it is years before we need see each other again.”
“Yes, well then, I shall have to make that lovely port last then, shan’t I?” With a final wave, the doctor who had treated Dante and his father and his father’s Mafia soldiers over the long course of his lucrative practice made his way out the door of the huge apartment. He pressed the elevator button and rocked back on his heels, very pleased at his payment of two decanters of port for the going rate of $6500 each.
After his “family” doctor left, Dante picked up the debris of bandage wrapping and loose thread and carried it over to the lower door in his island cabinet that housed the trash basket. He opened the door and dropped the thin bits of paper and surgical thread into the garbage. They floated down onto the thick wad of bloody paper towels he’d used to clean up the pool of blood from his fake stomach appliance. His plan had worked just as he’d laid it out, with Susan Richards stabbing him in the gut that he carefully angled toward her. She would think her escape a sudden stroke of luck as he’d led her to believe.
He’d arranged things perfectly, right up to the shocking moment when the bitch stabbed him a second time. That blade to his shoulder was a shock and Dante Allamordo was very rarely shocked. He would reconsider the subject’s extra motivation very carefully before she returned in her costume just as Minh wanted her. For the most part, things had gone according to his plan. Now he would just have another scar to show off at the Assassins Club.
Who knows, it might even get me laid.
Nevertheless, surprises were much better when sprung on others and Dante had a beauty planned for Invisible Woman when she returned in all her costumed glory.