Chapter 7

Thursday, December 4th – Alex, Redux

I woke up with a woody so we took advantage of it. Very fast, very hard, very good. The absolute best way in the world to start the day. This was way beyond record material for me. I sat up in bed and thought about taking a shower. Before I did, I turned to Elsa and with a straight face asked, "Would you go steady with me?" For my troubles she shoved me out of bed with her foot on my butt. I stopped by my place and fed Bonkers before heading in to work.

Normally, when I have lunch duty I don't have to work the car line at the end of the day. This was my day for lunch duty. Maja came over and sat next to me half way through lunch, the earliest yet. She sat but she didn't say anything. Normally, she would start the conversation simply and end it even more simply but that day we just sat together for a while.

"Hi," I said. "Fun time at Maria's?"

"Yeah. Fun time at Elsa's?" Ahem. How was I supposed to answer that? Did she have a clue? What was going on in that young mind?

"I always have fun with Elsa. Almost always."

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

"Good." And she was gone. What was I supposed to say? "You bet I had a great time with your mom. I boffed her about six times so I'm glad you were gone because she was really loud." Good. That's what she said. Good. What did she mean by that? "I'll bet you and my mom did 'and stuff' together last night because the divorce was final." She was twelve. Did she know about the birds and the bees? Amazingly, some kids that age don't. Others are educated way beyond what they should be. Which one was she? I gave Elsa a quick call during my planning period and let her know. I thought she might need some advance warning before Maria's folks dropped her off after school.

I hadn't thought much about how Maja would react to a slightly different relationship or even if she would notice. How would mom handle that? Touchy subject or easy to explain? I felt I knew them both pretty well but on this topic I had no idea how Elsa would handle it. I hadn't told Bonkers yet either.

I had just sat down to grade some papers when I got a call from the front desk, letting me know that Maja was waiting in the office. She was supposed to be picked up by the Krupps and I couldn't figure out why she hadn't. I figured they were late or we had gotten our signals crossed and they left without Maja. But that wasn't it. Alex had tried to pick her up from school and she refused. There was an argument and she went inside. When I reached the front he was long gone.

Maja was sitting in the front lobby, waiting. The teachers working the car line were pretty upset but he was gone so all was right with the world. I sat down with Maja and asked her what happened and she told me, "I didn't want to go with Alex. He left." That's all there was to it. Except there was more. Alex had a marginal role in Maja's life for the couple of months they lived together and had shown no interest since. With a court date the next day I knew there was a connection. I had to think he was trying to grab Maja to leverage some cash from Elsa. Something. I didn't know what.

I called Elsa to let her know what was going on and after a few moments, I got through. She sounded busy but when I put the words Maja and Alex together in the same sentence her focus became laser sharp. I told her my idea, that he wanted to use her for leverage. She agreed. He had found what school Maja attended and he had escalated this. We agreed to take every precaution that night. Until he was in jail, he was simply too unpredictable. She had another hour to go and promised to call me then. I told her I'd have a plan by then.

No one could identify the car he drove; imported, blue or gray or black or maybe dark green – definitely one of those. I didn't bother to ask about a license number. No one had called asking about Maja so he didn't get the info from them. We had no idea how he found Elsa coming back from Virginia and no idea how he found her school. He did know what my car looked like although probably not the make and model. Still, a Red Ferrari 308GT is not a common car. More like a neon light. I decided that it was the single most identifiable thing any of us had.

I called a rental agency and headed there to swap out my neon light for something a bit more subtle, at least for a day. In our newly rented blue Ford Fusion we headed to Goldwater, Price. I've seen NCIS so I know how to spot if someone is following me. That's not really true but I do know it's hard to follow someone if there's only one car doing the work. We parked a half mile from Goldwater, Price and I called Elsa. She was going to head for home, we'd wait until she passed us and then we'd follow at a distance. Between the two of us, we should be able to spot him if that was what he was doing. We fell in about a quarter mile back, well out of sight. Every now and then we'd catch a glimpse of her but neither of us saw him.

Elsa pulled deep into her carport and we pulled in behind her. When we got inside, Elsa practiced fuming, Maja clung to mom and I called the police. They didn't care. Ok, that's not fair. They probably did care but they couldn't do anything about it. I called the solicitor to see if he carried any weight but got a recording. Alex was on the docket for the next day at 8AM. Then I got a stroke of genius and asked who the bondsman was. With a bit of coaxing he revealed that Alex had used Ajax Surety. When I told Elsa she practiced fuming even more. Ajax Surety was owned by one of her clients. There had to be a connection.

Maja had a death grip on her mom's waist and she slowly looked around to see me at the door. I motioned for her to come to me. She let go of mom and ran to me. I scooped her up and she put a death crush on me. I held her with my right arm and walked over to Elsa. I hugged her with my left and she smiled at me nodding at Maja, her protector.

We sat on the couch and talked, Maja on my lap, still holding my neck, although not so tightly. How did he figure out where Maja was? Did he know where we were? Would he have bought a gun because he'd been threatened with one? What did he hope to accomplish? How would this affect his case tomorrow or would it? We circled around those questions for an hour and still had no definitive answers.

Finally, Maja told us, "He found your car. Everyone on IOP knows your car. All he had to do was ask." That was only thing I could think of, too. Elsa knew about protecting personally identifiable information or PII as she called it. She had to protect clients. Finding my car was probably the easiest thing. Once he did that he could follow me to school one morning. He probably would have seen Maja riding in one morning. Possible. Now that he had lost us, there was only one place for him to go to pick up the trail again; my place. But my car wasn't there. Did he already know where I lived? He must. The only explanation.

I made a long call to Franco. First to bounce some ideas off him and second to test him for availability. I still didn't know what we were going to do but I wanted to know if Franco was available to help. Always game, and if it was to help Elsa, even more so. I was about to hang up and asked him if he could see any unusual cars near my house. You couldn't see my house from his but you could see the street in three out of four directions that run past it. Two were easy and the third required a trip upstairs. From upstairs he confirmed a blue rice burner about five or six years old with a big guy just sitting in it. That had to be him. Maja was right.

I thought through my options while the ladies talked in the other room. I could call the police and report him, ask for a drive-by. I could simply spend the night and let him sit there. I thought perhaps I could ask Franco to park in front of him while I came in from the back to block him in, and then confront him. I was angry and it was appealing but I didn't see a good ending to it. He hadn't done anything illegal. Well, he had but he was out on bail and this wasn't a violation. It would be dark soon. I figured that whatever we did, the later it got, the more tired he would be, and hungrier. I thought about sending him a pizza. I saw that in a movie once. I put myself in his shoes and tried to imagine being desperate. I would have bought a gun if I was going to sit in front of my house. I had to figure he had one. Crazy not to, I thought.

If I went down to confront him, I'd want to leave my Sig with Elsa. That would leave me at a disadvantage. If I could get into my house, I could grab my shotgun. But why would I need to go to my house? No good reason. Except to feed Bonkers, get a change of clothing. An idea started to take shape in my mind. One that would require Franco's help and my silence. If I told Elsa about it she'd have a fit. I decided that I could have dinner with them and head home after dark, see what happened. I called Franco back and told him I would probably need his help in an hour or so and if he saw the car gone to call me back. I'd been talking and thinking with Franco for 30 minutes.

When I headed into the kitchen to join my ladies, Elsa had a ridiculous grin on her face. She looked like she was on the edge of busting out laughing, a strange thing considering what was going on.

"Hey, ladies." "Heys" in return.

"What's cooking?"

"Mom is," said Maja and her face contorted and twisted and she looked close to laughter too. That, and she wouldn't look me in the eye.

"Did I miss something?"

"I don't think so," Maja replied, now practically quaking to keep from laughing or crying or something.

"Well, if it's important, I'm sure one of you will tell me."

"My phone's ringing" and Maja was off for her bedroom, shaking water off her hands.

When she was out of range I asked, "What was that all about?"

"She asked me a question and I answered her, that's all."

"I'm pretty sure that's not all. C'mon, give." Elsa was crying before she started slicing onions. "Give it. What's up?"

"Ok, ok. Maja knew you spent the night because Maria's family drove by on the way to school in the morning. Early. Earlier than you."

"And?"

"And your car was still here."

"Ooooh," the dawning realization.

"So she asked about it? How is that funny? We haven't talked about how to talk about it with her. What is so funny?"

"She may be little but she's a big girl. We had a conversation a couple of years ago. She knows all about men and women and relationships. We talked about it a little after our day on the water."

"And so you told her?"

"Not until after she asked. She asked if we were doing the horizontal bop." And she started laughing.

"The horizontal bop? Where did she get that?"

"The horizontal bop. Why yes, I think that's what you call it."

"And you told her..."

"I told her we did the horizontal bop. And the vertical bop. And the diagonal bop."

"You didn't."

"I did." I know I blushed. I don't think I've blushed since high school but I know I did then. Elsa found it amusing but I was just this side of mortified. "She knows where kids come from, Danny. She knows we love each other. She expected it, I guess. I think she was surprised how I answered but it seemed as good an answer as any. How would you have answered?"

"I might not have elaborated," I sighed.

"Yeah. That might not have been a good idea."

"So that's why you two were laughing,"

"Not exactly."

"So horizontal, vertical and diagonal wasn't why you were laughing? That wasn't enough?"

"No, it more to do with the nickname she bestowed upon you."

"I can't begin to imagine."

"Probably not but I kind of like it."

"Great. What should I expect?"

"She said you were the big bopper. I had no argument for that." Now I was mortified, and laughing. Great. Wonderful. How was I going to look at this kid in science class with a straight face again? And then it dawned on me. I didn't have to wait for science class to teach. I would deal with this directly and immediately.

"Maja. C'mon down girl." I hollered up the stairs in an even voice, like I was calling her to dinner. Then to Elsa, "How long until dinner?"

"About five minutes, why? What's on your mind?" I raised my eyebrows, smiled a bit and then got serious.

Maja came down the stairs with some trepidation, not sure if she had crossed some line. I motioned for her to have a seat at the table and I sat diagonally from her. She sat slowly and I had Elsa's complete attention too. Elsa was directly in front of me but Maja would have to twist around to see her and that's what I wanted.

"I'd like to share something with you. Something important so I need you to be on the same wavelength with me." She might have squeaked out an 'ok' but it was quiet. She knew teacher mode when she saw it. "I want to talk with you about your mother and me. About what you suspected we'd been up to yesterday. You were sort of right but completely wrong. I want to make sure you understand." She nodded. "First, I'm not angry with you and I understand that it might be hard to handle all the stuff that's going on but we're going to tackle this subject head-on, ok?" Another nod.

"Your mom tells me you've had a talk about the birds and the bees and you understand the plumbing and all that." She nodded, definitely uncomfortable. "When two animals have sex they're acting on instinct. That's all. But when two people do there may be some instinct in it but there are typically other factors as well and that's what I want to talk about. I can tell that you're really uncomfortable. I get it. I hope that in a minute or three you won't be. People having sex is about making babies or getting pleasure. Mostly, it's about getting pleasure. Sex is pleasurable. Sometimes, really pleasurable." She wasn't squirming so much but she was uncomfortable and that was ok.

"For $200 or so, I can make a phone call and a woman will come to my house, we can have sex and I can get some pleasure. Sex can be bought. Same for a woman. She can hire a gigolo, they can have sex and she can get pleasure. That's sex. Sex is about your own pleasure and perhaps making babies. But there's something else. Something animals don't know about. Something that makes us different. When two people make love, they expect to receive pleasure and perhaps make babies. But they are doing so much more. Making love is just that. It's showing a sincere love for another person. It's giving yourself completely to them. When you make love, you are more concerned with the pleasure of the other person. It's not a greedy thing. It's not a selfish thing. It's giving of yourself. You are totally exposed. You are at your very weakest but you're also at your very strongest. There is nothing like it." She was getting this and Elsa was sort of frowning/smiling behind her, approving and perhaps wondering why she hadn't had this particular talk with Maja.