Chapter 19: What a Glorious Feeling, I’m Happy Again...

Nelson Xing took a deep breath, approached Jia Li Ch’ing, and spoke shyly, “Ma’am, Drake and I would be honored if you’d have lunch with us tomorrow.”

They were gathered at the New York Yacht Club on West 44th Street. The club’s 200th anniversary would be in 2044. This cocktail reception — to fund summer camp visits for inner-city children — was held in the gracious Model Room with its magnificent model ships. Almost 150 full-hull, rigged replicas out of over 1200 models were on display.

Jia Li glanced at the bodyguard to her left. He quickly scrolled to her Calendar and held it for her to read.

“Sorry, the only free slot I have is next Wednesday in San Francisco.”

Drake jumped into the conversation, “Perfect! When and where?”

“One-thirty at the P-U Club.”

Pacific-Union Club on Nob Hill. Naturally, Chase had an out-of-town membership. Up until now, he had purposely never been seen with Jia Li. That would change in San Francisco.

Lacy said, “I don’t need to tell you that he was never here.” Then she left to meet Ash Collins, a senior FBI agent working out of J. Edgar. He was doing a favor for Constance Grayson — conducting an unofficial, low-profile search for Quintin Apache.

Logan watched on the security monitor as Lacy led the tall Black man through the underground passageway to Ethan’s apartment building. Collins moved with an easy, athlete’s grace, and Logan thought: Wide receiver.

Lacy introduced the older man, and Logan said, “We appreciate everything you’re doing.”

Ash shrugged, “Any friend of Connie’s...” He gave a small smile, “I’m about to pull the pin anyway.”

Lacy knew Ash was impatient to get back to work, and said, “No luck, I’m afraid.”

Logan said, “Well.”

Ash shook his head, “Short of a nationwide BOLO, there wasn’t much I could do. And Connie said to keep it on the QT.”

“I understand.”

“We know who Apache is — fingerprints, DNA, Army records. But it’s easy to disappear if you have cash and even a little experience. Don’t use credit cards, stay in no-tell motels ... well, you know the drill.”

Lacy, “Ash did pick up one small thing.”

Logan looked at the FBI agent, who said, “Apache carried a burner phone when he fled on his Kawasaki. I have a ... a friend at the bureau’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team.”

“Okay.”

“Because Apache had the burner with him — and Wyoming is pretty sparsely populated — we were able to eliminate every other cell phone in the vicinity at the time Apache skedaddled.”

Lacy said, “So they had the number of Apache’s cell phone.”

“It didn’t help us much; and we hadn’t really been counting on it. Eventually we were able to trace the route — Apache left Wyoming, went through Nebraska, and ... we lost the signal completely near Harlan, Iowa.”

Lacy said, “Which is on Highway 44, hardly a major east-west thoroughfare.”

Logan, “But he was traveling towards DC.”

Lacy, “Or at least in the direction of DC.”

Eulalie dropped Madison and Bull off at the tidal pool. He’d been particularly interested in the Jon boat. “You can drive it back home.”

“Thanks, Eulalie.”

Madison sighed. Men.

It was around 8 in the morning, still cool. “What time do you lovebirds want me to pick you up?”

Madison, “Oh, around an hour. If he’s still fucking me, you can watch.”

The little girl winked at Bull, “I wouldn’t mind that, not at all.”

Logan said, “I’ve sent Apache’s photo to about everyone I know in DC.”

Lacy nodded, “I sent it out to a few folks myself. So did Chase, and he knows more watchers than I do.”

“I wish we could use Bull and his drone.”

“Too heavy, well over the 55-pound limit. Too close to DC. The feds are monitoring the area. Even at 60,000 feet.”

“I know. And it’d be hard to spot him anyway. No telling what he’s driving. And I doubt that he’s just walking around on the street.”

Lacy grinned, bent down, “Nothing to do but wait until someone spots him.”

She took his considerable girth in her mouth. She could have deep-throated, but chose not to show off that particular skill. One that Chase, using a couple of friends, had made sure she mastered early on in the game. It was, literally, mind over matter.

In Sausalito, both Marie and Eulalie were quietly pleased to have gradually lowered many of the town’s conversational barriers regarding all things sexual. Miss Kitty’s had been the original catalyst of course, but the Guidry sisters had encouraged dinner table discussions on the BJ Room, pussy-wedge photos, $40 blowjobs, swallowing.

For Marie, her earlier championing of Miss Kitty’s had been mostly an experiment. To test her own powers of persuasion, and then to gauge the town’s reaction.

Eulalie? It was partly curiosity. Could she really get away with this particular tactic? That one? But, as her confidence grew, she became less interested in pushing boundaries simply for the sake of pushing boundaries.

In the Cajun Bayous, however, there had been few normative barriers to break down. Family discussions had always been open, frank, straightforward.

When you learn how to shuck oysters at five years of age, you’ve also discovered that sharp shells cut, work is hard, and reality is in your face. Similar life-lessons faced hundreds of bayou children on a daily basis. Hauling buckets of water to boil for baths before indoor plumbing arrived. Avoiding the scalding heat of a crawfish boil.

Hunting, trapping, fishing for your family’s next meal.

Privacy? In a tiny house with one bathroom and a second shower out on the deck? Laundry in the same galvanized tub where the family bathes? Underwear hung up to dry on fishing lines, inside and out?

The heat and humidity were sometimes so intense that mothers were lucky to keep a stitch of clothing on their kids. In addition, there were streams of friends and relatives and music and dancing and drinking. WZYD a constant background hum from the little kitchen radios. It was the music of life to those families — where everyone heard the same song at the same time.

No, there wasn’t much privacy, and the Cajuns down in the bayous didn’t think twice about seeing each other naked. Fathers checked their daughters out automatically. Men.

Most mothers cheerfully admitted they were curious about their boys. And openly compared penis sizes with other moms. “No, Greggy ain’t as long as your Roger, but he about twice as thick.”

“Thick is good, Maudie. I wish my boys was fatter, me.”

Yes, sex was simply part of the daily dialogue.

Gretch said, “When you start sucking cock, Francine, what you always remember to do?”

The little girl sighed, “Swallow, Mama, swallow, swallow, swallow.”

“Don’t you sass me, young lady. Cum is real important, boys. You got to treat it like it’s ... holy, something like that.”

Francine used a singsong voice, “Oh, Richie, your cum is so delicious! I’m so lucky you cum in my mouth. Yum, yum, yum.”

Gretch gave her daughter a knuckle-rap on the back of her head, “Chile, I done tole you, you ain’t sucking off your brother, no ma’am.”

After dinner, after she finished the dishes, Francine whispered, “Mama, Richie got the cutest dick, all four of my brothers.”

Gretch smiled to herself. True.

Ethan and Bull had been favorably impressed with each other’s performance during the Paul Citron venture in Wyoming. Neither man seemed to be full of himself, nor overly proud of his own actions.

Here, in the sleepy rhythms of the bayous, Ethan said, “I don’t like being away from the action.”

Bull nodded.

Ethan said, “But I think Logan and Lacy are playing it right. A small frontline team, a lot of watchers. I’d just be in the way. Someone Logan would have to worry about.”

“He doesn’t worry much, Senator. Even if you and I were both up in Baltimore, he’d go his own way. Lacy too, that’s the impression I have of her.”

Madison tried not to do a double-take. Eulalie’s bike shorts looked painted on. Like someone had taken a micro-detail artist’s brush and painted a white watercolor version of fabric. Her butt cheeks were clearly delineated, and if those weren’t hints of tiny pussy lips...

The top? A barely-there, bare-midriff number that was marketed as Pussy Pink.

“Okay if I borrow your boyfriend, Madison?”

“Help yourself.”

“Come on Bull, I’m going to treat you to the best breakfast cheeseburger on East Main Street.”

“Oh?”

“Contrary Mary’s orders the cheese from New Zealand. They age it for six years or so. And, let’s see ... wrap it in beeswax paper with organic cotton and jojoba oil.”

Bull and Madison stared at Eulalie.

“Cheese needs to breathe, you know. Just like wine.”

Lacy said, “That was pretty damn clever — how Ethan slipped that rider into the strip-mining legislation.”

Logan smiled, “Actually, he got the idea from a John Grisham novel.”

Lacy sat up and laughed, “Ethan and I ... great minds...”

“Think alike?”

Lacy waggled Logan’s penis in the air. “You know about David Attenborough?”

He frowned, “Television? British?”

Lacy slapped his thigh, “You need a cultural awakening. No ... remedial work, a lot of it.”

“Elucidate.” He was rapidly becoming erect.

“We’re hunting Apache. But he’s been running for a long time. Probably most of his adult life, and no one’s caught him yet.”

“Okay.”

“You and I are taking two different approaches. You’re a pursuit predator. Direct and aggressive. Which means — according to Planet Earth — you have to be faster, and smarter, or at least wilier than Apache.”

“Planet Earth?”

“Attenborough. BBC. Everything I learned about my ... profession, I learned from Planet Earth.”

She licked the tip of his cock.

“Right. And what did you learn about Apache?”

“You don’t want to chase him into the open unless you’re sure, absolutely certain, you can take him down.”

Logan watched her head start to bob slowly up and down. “Is this some kind of reverse-psychology pep talk?’’

Lacy sat up and grinned merrily, “I’m not a pursuit predator.”

“You’re a sexual predator.”

“That too. But I’m an ambush predator. I don’t have to be faster, tougher, smarter — although I am. I just remain in hiding, ready to pounce.”

“And you learned all of that, and everything else, from Planet Earth?”

“And the Art of War. Sun Tzu.”

She bent back down to the task in front of her.

Logan looked thoughtful. Somehow he knew Lacy wasn’t kidding about the different kinds of predation. Then he stopped thinking about Apache.

Eulalie let Bull drive the Jon boat, then the Vespa. Men.

He tried, without success to ignore the erect nipples pressing into his back as she hugged him tightly.

“It makes me so nervous to ride in back.”

“Right.”

Lacy, looking like the cat who had swallowed the cum, said, “Back to ambush predators. By that, I mean me.”

“Okay.”

“You want to chase Apache out into the open. I want to make him come to me.”

“How?”

“Madison is in hiding. In Baltimore, so far as Apache knows. And he’s decided Madison is more vulnerable. An easier target who will lead him to Ethan.”

“We already faked a Madison kidnapping.”

“True. And that won’t work again, not with Mr. Apache. But he’ll try to think like Madison, try to imagine her life cooped up somewhere, week after week.”

Logan nodded.

“Now what will Madison — what will any young woman — need that she can’t have delivered?”

Logan frowned, “Delivered. Food, clothing, toiletries — Uber and Amazon have that covered. And Apache will know she isn’t using her real name. Wait! Medicine. What if she’s a ... diabetic?”

“Every major insurance company sends prescriptions out by mail these days. But, you’re on the right track. Not bad for a slow-witted gomer.”

Logan frowned again, “Meds ... meds ... a doctor’s appointment!”

“Yep. Many of them can be virtual appointments these days. But some, like ob/gyn exams, have to be done in person.”

“Got it.”

“Madison needs a vaginal and cervical exam, and she’s not about to use her own speculum.”

“So, your guy leaks to Goose-Step’s guy who leaks to Goose-Step Gorman and...”

“We’re in business. We’ll do it back in DC; a real appointment with Madison’s real pussy doctor.”

“Nice talk. I suppose you already know who he is.”

“Who she is. By the way, the appointment is next Tuesday at 10 in the morning.”

YesBut Nelson spotted the pink Vespa and parked his squad car. He wore his usual frown as he walked from bright sunshine into the perpetual honey-colored twilight of Contrary Mary’s. He headed straight for the last booth on the left, where he was surprised to see Eulalie sitting with her back to the door.