PASSION FOR TINION (WIP Novel 120,000 words)
© Cupideros, October 21, 2006
CHAPTER 44: LUCKY DEAD OR ALIVE?
© Cupideros, Thursday, May 28, 2009
Jaine walked into the public meeting hall wearing her lemon half smile. Her strong front teeth capped by peach straight upper lip and circled by her lower lip. She wore a black turtleneck, black slacks and flats.
“Gosh. You scared me to death. Floating in on angel’s wings.” Said the Polynesian lower QSA staff guy, in his white shirt, black pants and shoes, placing the last SILTH SECURITY MANUAL to the left of Jaine’s seat. At least, Lady Lomara sometimes purposely stomp around the palace announcing herself.”
Halfway to the polished rectangular table, Jaine quickly slapped her feet down in machine gun animation. “There. Noise for your empty ears.“
The male staffer stood up straight as if to salute her. “My music allotment for the day. All done” he pointed to the documents on the long rectangular table.”
Jaine pulled out her chair. She stopped. She surveyed every piece of paper, every name card placement for neatness and orderliness. Satisfied, she sat down. “We can’t go around spoiling Lord Tweezer peace with our ladylike clicky clacking feet. Now can we?” Jaine said, her lemon-bowl smile complimented by her squinting upper curved lemon eyes. Lady Lomara called it Jaine’s cartoon smile, the perfectly dipped lower lips and straight upper lip, appeared on cartoon characters all the time on CyberPages. Jaine’s public smile: straight-line lips capped off by left and right thirty-degree slants in her cheeks. This public smile revealed little about the woman head of the vast intelligence network spanning Quodarian, Galan and Gian. Those seeing Jaine on the street probably believed she was a graduate student. Her long-nose steady on the research trail.
“How’s the King holding up?”
“As well as any man trapped in a lair of women,” Jaine cracked her cartoonist smile again. “Like a little worker bee.”
“I better go back to the security office.” Lady Lomara wants to review this meeting later.
“Um. Hard to concentrate on such a high level meeting on two fronts.” Jaine said solemn. The staffer turned and left. He cloddish feet resembling sleepy Clydesdale horses. Today is the day she thought. The final piece of a beautiful puzzle—the Scorpion’s dreaded, stinging tail. She picked up the SILTH Security Manual. She flipped through it'’ Table of Contents. Yes…Lucky Nardino’s earned his promotion. Yes he has.”
After thirty minutes, everyone, military brass from the four divisions, Quo branch office Inputria from Galan and Rubiootrem from Gian, QSA Head Water Engineer Keystip Iselgh, Vectndra Blket from Poison Doves, two journalist Ms. Multigunde and Mr. Draibwyn from Q-1: Fast Accurate News First, the official news organ of Quodarian six news networks, key radio personalities, seated down, had their coffee or tea or water, or donuts and were ready to work. One chair remained empty, Lucky Nardino’s.
Keystip said, “Will we wait for Lucky to arrive?”
Jaine’s straight-black long hair, parted slightly off center over her left eye, fell behind her back. She stopped writing and glanced at Lucky’s empty chair—right in the middle on the left side. Her eyes opened wider into a rounder shape. “Simply arriving at a QSA meeting may not be sufficient motivation for his exceptional skills.” Everyone laughed. And Lucky Nardino walked into the door at exactly that moment. “See. Making a grand entrance was sufficient motivation for Lucky,” Jaine said.
Lucky strutted in his black turtleneck, pants and soft loafers. He took off his sunglasses.
“Lucky!” Keystip offered.
Ms. Multigunde said, “Our Lucky Spy vs Spy caper.”
“Good job,” Inputria said
“His charming smile, remains,” said Vectndra Blket from Poison Doves.
Lucky stopped half way to the long rectangular table. He took a deep bow. “What! Not greeted by the Queen of the House, Morah.” He shook his head disappointed playfully and held both hands over his heart. “I’m a hurt man now.”
“Scarred forever,” said the marine military brass.
“She’s doing for the planet, Lucky, what you do everyday for pleasure,” quipped Jaine.
Everyone laughed.
“I forgot.” He tried to walk quietly to his chair, pulled it out and sat down. “The King himself is in the lady’s lair upstairs.”
Jaine said after dropping her long straight-line smile, “She’s keeping turning our prey into our friend, slowly drop by drop.”
Military man from the Air Force said, “Can he be turned, really?”
Jaine replied confidently, “We’ve got access to inside material.”
“How?” They all asked simultaneously.
“The gift from a female knight,” was all Jaine said.
They remained puzzled and awestruck.
Mr. Draibwyn from Q-1: Fast Accurate News First said, “I’m getting an emergency vibration signal. I have to take this. He scooted his chair back. He stood up. Look at it. “Turn on the CyberPages, Jaine. You need—we all need to see this.”
Jaine pressed a button under her papers and a small screen appeared two inches above everyone’s paper work. Then seeing the picture of a group of people standing around a body, Jaine pressed a side button on the screen and launched CyberPages full screen on the far-left wall. Everyone’s brain wave code preinserted into the unit saw the images of a man about five-foot ten inches, with a health body lying on the ground with a flower cloth wound tightly around his neck. The sound came on.
“This is Galan National News. The man you’re seeing on the ground is dead. [The camera zoomed in and showed the right side of his face. He lay arms to his side, legs slightly apart. He wore expensive casual clothes. They type you’d see at the polo clubs, and yacht racing on the far west coast of Galan where the rich and famous frolic away from the dregs of war and death.]
***
“Damn. Lucky,” said Keystip. Sure you don’t have a clone.”
***
“This man. He’s is reportedly the Quodarian Gigolo named Lucky?”
“Don’t say he is an Quodarian spy!” blurted, a rough looking man in an orange leather jacket, white T-shirt and blue pants and black shoes. “We don’t know if he was Quodarian.”
The reporter backtracked a bit. “Did the man have a real name,” the reporter asked a short black hair lady, looking cute in her petite blue skirt suit and black Gian Fashion House dance boots.
She kept staring at him. She thought about all her Arist clients she booked for Lucky. How he went from penniless maintenance man to high priced gigolo because of her business contacts. Tears welled up in her eyes, she turned away holding her shaky hand over her pretty “O” shaped red lips. No. Just Lucky.”
Another SILTH in plain clothes said, “This man fucked a lot of aristocrat babes!” He’s finally met his karma. “So many husbands wanted him gutted.”
“Is that right,” The Galan National Newsman asked? “He was a high-priced gigolo?”
“He was so damn cute,” said a woman with curly black hair, an African woman. “I slept with him. He could do it like no other.”
“So he was a Quodarian?”
“A lover.” She made a gentle hand motion over the body—saying goodbye. “He loved all us lonely Arist ladies.”
Another lady came up holding her small dog. “She looked seriously and sadly at Lucky laying dead. “He had a thing for women in HTT lingerie.”
***
“Lucky, you sly dog,” said the Army brass.
“Shssss,” Jaine said, “I take it, Mr. Draibwyn, our mirrored response is ready to air?”
He smiled wickedly. “Yes it is.”
***
“HTT stands for,” he held the microphone in front of the posh dressed blonde lady in her late thirties. “Hot To Trot panty line. All the girls and women on two planets wear them. Ask your wife?” the woman sneered. “If you pay any attention—“ She stopped and held back a sob. “Lucky—Lucky.” She turned and slinked away.
The camera zoomed in closer as the orange leather man fingered the lingerie and pulled out a tag. “Hot To Trot panty from Gian House of Fashion (GHOF). Hmmm…a panty freak too. Pervert.”
The African lady gasped and turned in disgust at the man’s characterization of Lucky.
“This man [the camera zoomed in on his face,] as the orange leather man pulled out an ID card. “See. The ID matches this one found in his house.”
“Can we take the camera to his house?”
“Gian Ambassador Rillem Clinee rents the house now. It’s off limits. This man Lucky’s been missing for a two months. Housing is scarce in the capital. Lucky had a few debts. The house was sold to pay them off.”
Vice Chancellor Akyria arrived in her car, her security detail, the Hearlden Guard with her. She bent down and looked at the body. The orange leather man backed away and dropped the panties down by Lucky’s neck.
Akyria held up the panties, and placed them around his neck, trying to get a measure of how Lucky died. The strangle marked showed clearly on the camera close up.”
“Vice Chancellor Akyria, did you know this man Lucky was a Gigolo?”
“We suspected it.” She paused and gently held Lucky’s gorgeous face and turned it showing a slight bit of its unviewable left side. “He was under observation. He disappeared one night, when he said he’d be at a local bar.” Akyria stood up. She thought: A look-a-like. Poor innocent guy. A stunt double. A stand in. Someone long on file by SILTH for exactly this moment. She turned to the Galan News Reporter. His faced showed a slight softening under her gaze. This reporter knows this is all a shame. A game of informational ballet, informational ping-pong. Leading questions pitched to key members who have preanswers to go in response. This is why no one will turn this look-a-like man’s face to the left profile. Only from the right profile does he resemble Lucky. She turned a suspicious eye at the orange leather guy. Stupid Rolith thugs. She stared at his orange leather. Who wears an orange leather jacket? He’s one of Rolith’s men. They killed this sap when they couldn’t find Lucky. Damn Lucky, you’ve left all us aristocratic women and upper class women in quite a jam. You loveable Quodarian spy. “Gigolo’s are a dime a dozen during war time.” She stepped back and said, “He was no Quodarian Spy but he may have taken blackmail pictures of wealthy women during his sexual escapades.”
The New Reporter hardened his face again, “So this man was a spy, but probably for the SMAG underworld. They pay high prices for nude pictures of Arists. Wait there is a report coming on from Quodarian Tennis War Charity Event.” He turned his camera to another channel. He saw a peaceful tennis scene.
***
“This is Mr. Draibwyn from Q-1: Fast Accurate News First, the official news organ of Quodarian. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. We’re here… as you can see by the banner at the Quodarian Tennis War Charity event.” He stopped and panned the camera so the CyberPage viewers saw a running buff-looking, now deep tanned Lucky Nardino, in white shorts and white tennis shirt, hitting light-green tennis balls back and forth with an elderly lady in black short skirt and black top ringed in sky blue trim. Natsuko Masuyo swung and missed with her lazuline metal tennis racket. She slowly walked back and the young ball girl handed her another light-green sphere.
“Thank you, young girl.” The sixty-year-old lady smiled. “What’s your name, I’ll send you a prototype of the Pritee U2 box.”
“Really! Soup!” The young ball girl jumped up and down once. “Heather Vesuvius!”
“Bribing the ball girl won’t help you score, Natsuko.” Lucky said, smacking his black metal tennis racket against his palm. “I can’t believe this. The creator of the Pritee U1 box can’t keep up a rhythm on the tennis court!” He let out ruckus laughter.
“You watch this, youngster,” Natsuko yelled. She tossed the ball up in the air. Her perfectly timed lazuline blue racket punched the ball a good forty miles per hour over the net. Lucky scrambled to hit the ball. His delivery didn’t reach over the net. “Lucky swing, Ms Masuyo.”
The news reporter continued. “Ms. Masuyo, whom some of you may not know is the creator of the Pritee U1 box, is warming up to play the man known over here in Quodarian, as Lucky Nardino. We have no idea how he came to be associated with spying, the SMAG underworld and gigolos in Galan High Society. Lucky has been a maintenance man all his life, with a Lucky break coming as a Tennis instructor. No doubt, he could be a gigolo. Being a gigolo is legal in Quodarian society. But this man is hardly aware of the ins and outs of slipping past sophisticated security like SILTH employs.“ In the background, the CyberPage viewers hear Lucky saying, “I, too, get a new Pritee U-2 box if I win, right, Ms. Masuyo?”
“Keep wishing, young man. Keep wishing,” [Put and the CyberPages audience hears another tennis ball being hit between the pair.]
***
Akyria heard the small television on the Galan News Reporter’s and kept a straight face. Inside elation raced in her blood. “Probably a look-a-like,” she said as she got into her car where one Hearldan guard sat, keeping the motor running. Her Hearldan guard escorts got back into their car behind her. Then they all drove off. Akyria felt her belly. Now that she knows, he’s alive. She would keep their baby. However, she can't stay pregnant--not now. Not while all is crumbling around her. She’d have to store it somewhere, somehow. Until…until she and Lucky could get back together.
The orange leather wearing man watched them speed off. He grimaced at them and turned his anger to the news reporter. “Don’t you know anything about coordination, ballet, team sports, you idiot? Why you have to show that now?”
“Vice Chancellor would see it later anyway!” the Galan News Reporter scoffed. Two police cars drove up, their sirens blaring.
***
All in the meeting clapped.
“Excellent work.” Jaine bobbed her head, her sleek black hair falling over the front of her shoulders. A perfect mirror ploy, Mr. Draibwyn.”
He put away his reporter’s beeper. “Never let the enemy relax. Never let them believe they’re getting ahead,” said Mr.Draibwyn.
And well done, Inputria Head of Quodarian’s Galan Network.
Lucky Nardino smiled. His prerecorded stunt from two weeks ago worked perfectly. He thought. Lovely Akyria. She’s pregnant. I can tell. I know it’s our child. And she’s going to have my baby, because she knows I love her too.
End Chapter 44.
And G and G will contend for the throne of Tinon.
FROM THE 3,500 SAYINGS OF THE LAST PROPHET CE
Those who watch others, can themselves be watched;
Their patterns discovered; their rhythms used against them.
FROM THE 3,500 SAYINGS OF THE LAST PROPHET CE
