Flirting With Danger

"You know there's a woman out here waiting to see you Luke?" a scruffy, unshaven looking man in his late fifties said, popping his face around the office door.

Luke lifted his head and ran a weary hand through his dark, unruly hair. "Yeah, I know Sid."

The problem was, what was he going to say to her this time? Sure, he needed the money she was prepared to pay him for finding that woman she was looking for, but something wasn't right. She had been cagey about what she wanted with the woman. What was worse, he had strong suspicions that she had previously been dealing with the Borelli's, the mafia mob that he had been trying to bring to justice for the last seven years! How ironic.

But what choice did he have? He had to bring down the Borelli's for Danny. He'd been like a younger brother to Luke. Luke had always looked out for him. And if only he had got back to New York quicker...before they got to him...who knows? But he hadn't got back in time from London, damn it, so now the least he could do was to stop the animals who had killed Danny, and scores of other men like him. It wasn't even so much the thought of taking money off this woman ... money that was most probably tainted with blood if it had come via the Borelli's. After all, what better justice to have their money pay for their own downfall. But that wasn't it; it was the thought of what they were going to do to this poor woman once Luke had found her for them.

Taking on private clients like this was a profitable business, and he needed the money to fund his investigations into the Borelli's, but he hadn't bargained on having to deal with so many heartless lowlives in the process. Trying to bring down the most notorious family in New York was a costly business, but taking on the kind of private clients that reared their ugly heads in this part of town was taking its toll on his conscience too.

Luke sighed again and swivelled on his chair to gaze out over the city below him. He leant back into the brown, worn out leather of his seat and threw his feet up onto the window ledge, letting the scene before him come into focus, like a polaroid photograph. He narrowed his treacle coloured eyes as he scanned them suspiciously across the city, as if hoping to uncover something there and then that would finally, once and for all, help him to bring down the Borelli's. It was useless. How was he to know whether the woman was working with the Borelli's? Simply because the whole damn city were! It was a web of corruption that had spread so far, and become so entangled that Luke was seriously questioning his ability to untangle it.

A loud knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts and he swung around to see the woman striding purposefully across his office.

"Nobody messes with me Mr Adams. You want to keep me waiting again some more, eh?" she slurred, planting her hands on his desk and glowering angrily down at him.

A great waft of alcohol hit him as she swayed towards him. At close quarters, he could see more clearly the evidence of multiple plastic surgeries on her face: the overly taught skin distorting her features and the attempts to balance that out with Botox and God knows what other forms of plastic. He wondered whose lives had been ruined to provide the dough for those kinds of luxuries. And what a waste; she looked so incredibly fake: an ugly, brash contorted fake. A bitter and twisted woman hell bent on revenge. No integrity. Heartless... For a second, he became aware then of where his train of thought was heading yet again. To the woman who was the complete and utter polar opposite of this woman, or to anyone in that godforsaken place for that matter, his ex-partner at London's MI5, Charlotte. When he'd first been partnered with her he'd thought the boss had gone nuts or something. A real glamour girl, rich too, and so damn stunning, but she looked as if any one of the anarchists they had worked to bring down would have had her for breakfast. But how wrong had he been about her? She was probably about the best agent he had ever worked with, and together, they had been unstoppable.

"I know some guys who would bust your cahonies just for making me wait. You don't know who you're messing with," she added.

"Oh, don't I!" he snapped back, springing off his chair and creating a loud, uncomfortable screeching noise as the metal chair legs scraped across the floor. The sudden sound and commotion visibly shocked the woman for a second. Okay, so he had already made up his mind he was not taking on her case, but the last thing he needed now was some woman like her making trouble for him. He lightened his tone. "Look, sorry, I can't find anyone for you right now. I'm working on something else. Sorry for wasting your time," he said, turning around dismissively.

"You what?" she screeched, before beginning to laugh, a loud and mocking sound. "No can do Mr Adams..."

He turned slowly, crossing his arms, observing her with distaste.

"Tony Borelli sent me. You got till Friday to find her. You're working for them now, or they'll come for you, and believe me, they know where you are." She looked satisfied with her parting shot and turned to leave.

Luke had her by the arm in seconds and swung her around, pinning her to the wall.

"Now you listen lady," he said, jabbing a finger into her shoulder, "You can tell Tony and Roberto from me, and quote, even if every gang in New York is looking to tear me to shreds before, after or in-between, I don't care, because you see, I've made a lifetime obsession out of bringing the Borelli's down, and I ain't afraid to die to do it!" he hollered.

The woman became silent, for once. Her eyes shot resentment into Luke's, but she was too wary to voice it.

He let go of his grip suddenly and turned from her once more.

"Get out of here," he shouted, over his shoulder.

She turned and darted to the office door, opening it, but pausing before she left.

"You're making a big mistake Mr Adams," she said.

Then he heard the door slam and she was gone.

He spent the next fifteen or so minutes trashing his office. At some point he was vaguely aware of the door opening and Sid cautiously peering into the room. He said something to Luke, what, he wasn't sure, for he was so enraged that the sound of furniture crashing around the room drowned out Sid's voice. Seconds later, the door closed and no one bothered him after that.

Finally, exhausted, both physically and emotionally, he waded through the carnage, sought out his office chair, upturned it and sunk into its leather. He sat amongst the wreckage, in darkness, with all the light bulbs smashed. Swirling around in his chair, he flung his feet up onto the window ledge and stared out at the city below him.

x

An hour later, after half a bottle of whisky and a lot of soul searching, Luke had made a decision, one which he had been contemplating more and more over the last few months: he was going back to London. He had to, or he would be dead in days. Besides, it was about time he found Charlotte once and for all and had it out with her about what had happened when he'd left London seven years ago.

He had to make her realise it was a mistake. How was he to know that leaving for just a few weeks, would mean that by the time he went back, there'd be no job for him at MI5? He'd told the boss about Danny, and how Danny was a dead man if he hadn't gone to New York to help him. Boy had he been right about that! Okay, so he should have made that phone call to the boss, and to Charlotte, before he'd left, rather than two days after, but his mind had only been on getting back before they got to Danny. He'd thought they would understand once they knew the situation. But Charlotte had refused to even speak to him when the boss had tried to pass the phone to her, so how could he explain if she wouldn't let him?

Then had come the sickening realisation of just what a mistake he had made. He'd found that out when he'd flown back to London two weeks later.

Just one phone call before he had left, one lousy phone call, and the bureaucrats would have had no authority to send him back for good. It would have been down to the boss to grant him leave. But he hadn't made that phone call, from the right place, at the right time, and so it was out of the boss's hands. That was what had come between him and his life in the UK, a life he was more than happy with, a life he had not been ready to give up. Then the second bomb had dropped. Charlotte had gone... left MI5. He knew she'd been fuming at him, but he'd tried to find her to explain. She'd done a great job of dropping off the map! Where the hell had she gone?

Then the boss had been on his back about him having to get on a plane pronto before he was arrested for being illegal, but the boss had promised he would explain to Charlotte...get her to phone him. By about the end of the first year in New York, he had finally stopped hoping for a call. Besides, he was far too deeply involved in the whole Borelli mess by then to hope for anything else. By that time, the Borelli's were everything in his life; what else did he have?

Still, there had been many times late at night in that dismal office of his, when he'd looked out over the city and drifted back to the MI5 years. He'd see Charlotte in his head and drive himself nuts wondering what she was doing at that very moment. Then he'd remember some of their conversations, the jokes, the teasing, even the shouting matches. But the good memories had been tainted with regret. He'd never even got to kiss her in the way he'd imagined over and over for years since he'd first met her. And his imaginings had grown in those days, and become more detailed as time went by. During long sleepless nights, on operations that had eaten away at him, he'd picture her in bed across town... and him with her... and what he would do and say, and how she would give in to him completely...and he'd burned with frustration which had continued well into the morning, and simmered as he'd sat at his desk across from her. But everything had been so cruelly and suddenly cut short, and any opportunity he'd had was, without warning, taken away from him. He'd always truly believed that somehow, someday he'd know what it would be like to be in that bed with her, to wake up with her, and in between, to make all his imaginings a reality.

Maybe he'd been kidding himself. He'd always known that she was well out of his league; she came from the British Aristocracy for goodness sake, and he'd grown up in the ghetto. But even if their relationship had always only been professional, there had been something between them, a spark, a connection, something simmering, just waiting to explode. If he was going back, he was going to find her. He just had to.