Encounters

by George Gauthier

Chapter 7

Credentials

It turns out that I had been wrong about the possibility of licensing as a private investigator. I could never provably meet the experience and education requirements. In all my centuries I have never worked as an investigator or in law enforcement.

I did ask Will and Delaney about getting credentialed as a bodyguard so that I might legally carry concealed anywhere in town and around the state. Neither of them thought it was a good idea. A license as a bodyguard did not automatically entail permission to carry concealed or to carry at all. Bodyguards still had to comply with local laws about guns and apply for a gun license like anyone else. That was why bodyguards in Britain for instance could not carry guns at all.

Will told me that his license to carry concealed came not from his job as a bodyguard but from an appointment as a sworn law enforcement officer. Will's initial training in the Canadian Army had been as a member of the Canadian Forces Military Police which made him a peace officer with the same powers as civilian law enforcement officers. He had also earned an associate degree in criminology. It was only later that he got assigned to the Canadian special forces.

"How did that happen?" I asked.

Somewhat sheepishly he answered.

"I volunteered. I craved action as only a red-blooded nineteen year old can." Shaking his head he asked rhetorically. "What was I thinking?"

"Nineteen, eh. So young."

"I was actually two weeks short of my twentieth when I transferred."

"No offense, Will, but why did they take you, the special forces. You were a military cop."

"You've seen me in action, Troy. I am a natural with weapons of almost any kind except swords, and I am a black belt in two martial arts. Also I fit the profile by attitude and personality, and a willingness to take the initiative. I'd showed that as an MP in instantly assaulting a would-be spree killer before he could start shooting rather than wait for backup.

Lives were on the line. I could not just shoot him in the back, not with a platoon of soldiers doing PT in the line of fire. So I did not hesitate to wrestle him to the ground then broke two of the fingers of his gun hand which I bent back to keep him under control, with him screaming the whole time. With that incident on my record, the special forces directorate realized that I was just what they wanted in their ranks."

"You should have seen me in my uniform, beret at a jaunty angle, looking every inch the soldier, a lean and mean green fighting machine, as the saying goes. Armies throw around lots of fun phrases like that."

"My dad had served in the forces as had his father and his father, my great grandfather, before him who served as a commando in WW II. I never knew him, but I'd heard many stories about him growing up. As a teen I read his letters back home. No mushy parts; his girl friend had dumped him for a wimp working in a naval shipyard, so the jerk was exempt from the draft. My great grandfather had been interviewed for an oral history project so I got to watch him as an energetic old man. I cannot tell you how much I respected that old soldier. A true hero, he was."

As was Will himself, but I did not embarrass him by saying so.

"Any regrets about your service?"

"Only for those who lost their lives fighting beside me. I like to think that my efforts saved lives, both those of my fellow soldiers and those of the public we were sworn to protect from bad actors."

Thanks in large part to Dyson's influence Will had a concurrent appointment on the police force of a suburban town which, not so coincidentally, depended on employment at two of Dyson's facilities, a research laboratory and one of his factories. Drawing no salary, Will was on permanent detached duty as Dyson's bodyguard. It was understood that he would not exercise his police powers routinely.

I also learned that Will's initial connection with Dyson was not professional but personal. Will became Dyson's boyfriend before they realized he had the makings of a good bodyguard. Personal secretary was a job Will asked for both to make himself useful and to actually work beside his lover. And lately he is an autogyro pilot. Multifaceted in my friend Will Laurier.

By contrast to Will, all my fighting experience to date has been in protecting myself not someone else. Besides bodyguards work much more toward preventing than fending off attacks. My own practice of maintaining situational awareness was nothing like the meticulous planning and preparatory work characteristic of the role of a bodyguard. Having to battle it out was really a sign of failure or at least of misfortune.

There was another problem which Will and Delaney were careful to dance around. Without coming right out and saying why, both thought licensing might require too intrusive a background check. I caught their drift.

Now the paper records and computer data entries behind my assumed identity would stand up to normal scrutiny but not to a full field investigation by a national security agency like the FBI.

Only so many discrepancies might be explained away. Why does no one from my old high school remember me -- neither teachers nor students in my graduating class? Why is my photo not in any copy of the yearbook? Why is it that former neighbors at my old address never saw or heard of me? Had I not had friends in the gay scene. My looks should have made me unforgettable.

Given my supposed age of twenty-three, which was already stretching it for someone looking several years younger, nothing could lie so far in the past as to leave only the dimmest of memory traces. Regretfully I had to abandon any thought of getting licensed as Will was.

It used to be so simple. You armed yourself as you pleased to the extent that you could afford to. It was only certain stratified societies which restricted the right to bear arms. For instance, in pre-modern Japan only samurai could bear the two swords, the katana and wakizashi. A peasant who tried it would be challenged or just cut down where he stood. Samurai prided themselves on their ability to make a single diagonal cut starting at the shoulder and sweeping down to the hip, cutting their opponent in two. Literally.

So it looks like I will have to settle for pepper spray as my ranged weapon, though I will keep the sling for its greater range and lethality. Single sticks were harder to keep with you at all times. Where do you stick them...er carry them... especially when in lightweight summer clothing? A tote bag is the best option in summer. In colder weather, jackets will work just fine.

Not that I have an itchy trigger finger, never that. It is just that with all the recent mass shootings and attacks by zealots of every hue, I no longer feel safe. It makes me resentful. I feel cheated. Civil society is not supposed to be a combat zone. I really missed the feeling of public safety I'd had in the New York City of the 1950s and 60s, before everything went downhill in the 1970s. That was when I made it a practice while standing on a subway platform to keep my back to a wall or a pillar lest some crazy person push me onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train.

I sometimes wondered what would happen if I were killed. Would that be the end of me? Or would the Olympians resurrect me, perhaps as a downloaded personality in a supercomputer. If so I would want to be let in on it. As in a lucid dream where you know you are dreaming I would want to know that I was inside a simulation so that I could consciously exercise my imagination and give myself the superpowers or wizardly abilities that I have long fantasized about.

Of maybe the Olympian would install my consciousness in a wholly new body created from scratch, a much stronger and resilient organic body, much like those of demigods such as my friend Perseus. Had they surreptitiously recorded my consciousness and do they update it on each visit to Olympus, just in case? Or was that idle dreaming on my part. Dared I broach the subject with Old Doc Asclepius on my next visit? I know that they still value my occasional services as an agent among humans, one who could plausibly pass for normal whereas they themselves could not. And Zeus still prized my services as his, ahem, cupbearer.

[By Olympus I mean, of course, the pocket dimension just out of phase with Planet Earth, not that windy mountaintop in Greece.]

Bus Ride

I had been invited to Sunday dinner at Paolo's. I have really come to like my in-laws as I am starting to think of them. They have made me welcome in their home. Both parents are delighted that we converse in Italian and that I am inordinately fond of their home cooked northern Italian cuisine. I impressed them when I showed that I was fully cognizant of Italian table manners, including the order of the courses and the use of knife and fork in the European manner with none of the pointless switching back and forth so common in America.

I suspected that they were testing me when they placed a piping hot thick uncut individual pizza before me. Without missing a beat I went at it with knife and fork in the approved manner: stick the fork in convex side up, cut out a bite sized piece, bring it to the mouth, chew. Another time, during the fruit course, I did the same with a banana.

Yes, a banana. In a sit down dinner in Italy you most certainly do not pick up the banana with your fingers, bend the stem, peel back the skin part way and take a bite. In Italy those would be considered the table manners of monkeys.

The approved way eat a banana at the dinner table is to stab the selected banana with the fork and set it in the center of the dessert plate, maintain pressure on the fork to hold it in place while you slice off the tips. Next make a shallow cut through the skin all along the length, then pop the meat out. Set the skin aside. Then go at it with knife and fork. Remember no fingers. Of course, for a snack Italians will peel the skin down with their fingers and take bites out of it just as Americans do.

Paolo had to go on shift right afterwards so he did not have time to run me home in his rental car. I simply took the bus. As a dedicated urbanite not to mention an environmentalist, I don't own a car myself though I could easily afford one. I prefer to take public transportation which lets me hop off the bus at my destination without having to look for an empty parking spot on the street or to pay for parking in a lot. I don't mind a bit of a walk as long as the weather cooperates.

I sat on the left side in the first row of seats facing the direction of travel just aft of the seats for seniors and the handicapped which were set laterally along the sides of the bus. That arrangement created a wider space, an embayment if you will, at the front of the bus behind the driver. It was not so much that I needed the leg room as that I had greater freedom of movement, just in case. In case of what you might ask. If I knew that, I wouldn't be there in the first place.

In the evening not long after dusk the bus was not crowded. There was fewer than a dozen passengers. A big guy sat across the aisle from me in the same row but on the right side of the bus. In back was a miscellany of humanity, an old codger, a young couple, a nun, a janitor in uniform, and a trio of young men who looked from their uniforms and athletic shoes as if they were coming from a volleyball game.

The bus route is mostly through safe neighborhoods though it did pass through a run down area for about half a mile. Alas, at one of the stops two males in their late teens boarded the bus and pulled out guns announcing that this was a robbery. The bus driver was forced to move to the back with his passengers. The thieves were not going to chance his sending a distress signal from his driver's seat.

While the older teen stayed up front and kept anyone covered, the younger guy handed him his pistol so it could not be wrested from him as he walked the aisle holding out a bag into which we passengers were to drop their wallets and phones. His partner kept both pistols trained at the passengers.

I was first up and complied as the younger robber came to me. I dropped my dummy wallet full of twenties whose serial numbers I had recorded for just such a contingency. I added my Boox Palma book reader disguised to look like an iPhone in a flip cover case with an Apple decal on the back. The kid smiled and said smugly

"I am always happy to collect an iPhone; they really hold their value even in what I may call the aftermarket. I just hope none of your fellow passengers tries to palm us off with some cheap feature phone. No Jitterbugs!" he warned.

The older teen was watching closely and called for his partner to stop and asked.

"Hey why did the blonde kid reach into his front pocket for his wallet. Maybe that was a dummy wallet he dropped into the bag and he has the real one in a rear pocket. What do you have to say for yourself Blondie?"

"The wallet was in my front pocket because these shorts don't have pockets in the rear. I don't like to sit on my keys."

"That sounds reasonable but stand up anyway and twirl around so we can get see for ourselves."

"Fine!"

I did so, which drew a whistle from the older teen. He chortled:

"That has got to be the tightest set of buns I've ever seen on a guy. You better hope you never get sent up the river. I know guys in prison there that would love to make your acquaintance, and I do mean love."

"You have gay friends in prison?"

"Nah, they're not gay, just horny. Okay, you can sit down now. Next."

The guy who was next was not having any of it. A really big guy, almost six five, he stepped into the aisle and tried to rouse the passengers to resist.

"They're just punks. Who even knows if those guns are real and not toys. Or that they are loaded, or that they won't misfire from poor maintenance. We're all going to feel like idiots if, just as they leave with our possessions, they throw a couple of rubber guns at us to mock our stupidity and cowardice. Let's rush them, disarm them, and hold them for the cops. Maybe beat on them a bit while we are at it."

The younger kid looked uncertain what to do so he backed off a couple of paces and looked nervously over to his comrade for guidance. The older teen stayed cool and addressed the big guy and the rest of us, channeling Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry.

"Now I know what you are thinking. Are those guns in his hands real or are they fake? To tell you the truth, from all this distance it's gotta be hard to tell. You need to ask yourselves though if you feel lucky, lucky enough to rush guns which might be toys or movie props or just maybe the genuine article. Well, what about it? Do you feel lucky, do you folks?"

After a pregnant pause during which no one stirred he continued.

"As for you big man, you've been watching too many episodes of 'Jack Reacher'. As big and strong as you are that just makes you a better target. These two guns in my hands are very real, and they are very loaded. They will fire, so do not test us. You will not like what happens. Just give up your valuables and no one gets hurt."

I could see in his face that the big guy was going to fight anyway so I rose to my feet and grabbed his off hand in a joint lock and put pressure on it, immobilizing him.

"What the fuck! You're working with them!"

"No, I am not. I am try to keep you from getting yourself killed and some of the rest of us as well. You may want to play the hero, but I don't. I especially don't want to get hit accidentally by bullets fired at you. And it's not just us two. Everyone behind us is also in the line of fire. It is not your decision to put all their lives in jeopardy. Your own life maybe, but not theirs and not mine."

"Listen to him Big Man and thank him. Blondie there may have just saved your life. You know you are lucky that this is not a gang initiation where my younger colleague would be anxious to make his first kill to establish his street cred. We aren't in any gang, just independent operators, so we are not looking for blood, only for loot. Let's everyone stay cool so everyone lives to walk away from this alive and unhurt."

With that the big guy shrugged, sat down and dropped his valuables into the bag as did everyone else. The younger robber returned to the front of the bus and took back his gun. He then pulled the driver's keys from the dashboard, drawing an approving nod from the senior partner. Before they went out the door of the bus the leader looked at us passengers, smiled, and said.

"One more thing. Two things actually, which is why we haven't run off already with the loot.

"Now I know the video of what just happened aboard this bus was securely streamed to the Cloud. Fair enough. The main takeaway is about the robbery itself, but Blondie's actions tonight deserve a medal or maybe the key to the city. He kept everything copacetic so no one got hurt. I still don't know how he got our Jack Reacher wannabe under control, but more power to him. Oh, and Blondie, if we ever rob another bus with you aboard, you'll get to keep your valuables."

"You folks have been so cooperative and generous that it would be churlish to leave you wondering for the rest of your lives whether our guns were fake or would actually fire."

Turning to his comrade he said: "Let's show these nice folks just how real our guns are."

With that, the grinning thief and his pal both fired two shots through the roof of the bus, acknowledged me with a nod, then ran off into the night.

A thief all right, but one with style. You had to give him that.

Unfortunately for the thieves the four reports from their pistols were detected by the police gunshot surveillance network. In moments police cruisers were rolling to our location. Thanks to the video on the bus the cops knew whom to look for. By the time the cops located the pair they had ditched their weapons and removed the cash and credit cards from the wallets which were soon located under a park bench. Many were like my fake iPhone, easy to establish ownership from a mailing label pasted on the back cover. For the rest, detectives already had the phone numbers of the stolen phones, so it was a simple matter of making a call and see which phone rang.

During his interrogation they asked the leader why he had not thrown so much potentially incriminating evidence down a storm drain. Those wallets had their fingerprints all over them.

"Nah, we knew that our prints were not on file, and we had gotten what we were after, the phones, the cash, and the credit cards. Why put those folks through all the hassle of getting new drivers licenses and workplace IDs and library cards or whatever or irreplaceable snapshots of their loved ones. We had nothing against the passengers personally. I knew that you cops would search the area for a dump site so I dropped them under that park bench where they would be easy to find. Hey, I may be a thief, but I am not a bad person. My papa raised me right."

His papa who was in prison for a couple of liquor store holdups. What can you do with a guy like that?

Between the video, the witnesses and the matching serial numbers on the twenties in my drop wallet, the prosecutor had an open-and-shut case. The teens took a plea bargain. With good behavior they should be out in just a few years, hopefully taking up a more honest line of work. Stand up comedian was a distinct possibility for the older of the two.

The surveillance video had recorded what happened, so once again I got some good press and impressed some good friends.

The five of us, Will, Paolo, Kyle, me, plus Sergeant Delaney made an evening of it: drinks at my place of employment, the gay watering hole Something Else Again, dinner at Lapis Lazuli, a pops concert at the bandshell in the park, then back to my place for night caps, though Delaney bailed for that phase of it. None of us was driving. All four would spend the night in our spooky old mansion. Will paired with Kyle with Esmeralda joining them later after the bed stopped bouncing. I took Paolo to my bed.

Our lovemaking that night was slow and sensual, almost a physical sacrament, a paean to the beauty of the male body and a renewal of a bond between two young men who were in love with each other. Now I sleep only three hours a night, so I read for a few hours before rejoining Paolo in bed. We woke up together, Paolo looking bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to bounce right out of bed and take on whatever the day had in store. That is one thing I love about Paolo Franco, his energy, his joie de vivre. And did I mention how very sexy he is. Palpitations!