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So every journey that I make Krycek hated airports, but then few people like them. Despite different layouts, different cities, different carpets, and different chairs, somehow they are all the same. No matter the cheery welcome posters from city mayors bent on drumming up tourist dollars, airports are the least welcoming places in the world. They are places of long lines, surly security guards, and over-priced hot dogs. They are dispensers of disorientation. Besides, they never seemed to take Krycek anywhere he really wanted to go to. Case in point, today he was flying to Detroit by way of O'Hare. As he waited in line to go through the metal detectors, he gazed at an advertisement for Quantas. Happy people were sailing on an ocean the same clear color as a certain girl's eyes. It dredged up the memory of Rita, her fair skin tanned golden, wearing barely enough black cloth to qualify as a bikini. They'd taken her father's yacht from Papeete, and before they'd been caught had managed to get drunk in most of the major ports in the Marquesas. He'd been twenty, then. Or nineteen. It was so long ago. And that had been his last real vacation. There was never any rest for the wicked. Krycek started to go through the laborious practice of removing jacket, keys, wallet, and belt so he could go through security. Lately he'd been feeling not so much wicked as corrupt. Wicked, for instance, was the sorts of things he'd done to old man Covarrubias' daughter on his stolen yacht. Corrupt was going to Detroit to kill a scientist who had strayed a little too close to the truth. There was a definite difference. Corruption had gotten his arm chopped off, when you got down to the nitty-gritty. The most wickedness had ever gotten him was a horse whipping at the orders from Marita's father. Granted, that had hurt like a bitch at the time, and he still bore the evidence on his back, but in terms of desirability, wickedness was heads and shoulders above corruption. Of course, wickedness often led to corruption. Best not to forget that. No matter how much he wanted to. On cue, the alarm went off as he went though the metal detector. The security brandished a hand-held sensor that went nuts when it hit Krycek's arm. Krycek leaned forward so that he could try to explain the situation quietly, but the guard would have none of it. "That's close enough, sir. I need you to wait right here." Krycek, who knew the drill all too well, leaned his hip against the x- ray machine and waited while a supervisor was brought over. Behind him, he could hear the beginnings of surliness and frank curiosity from the impatient crowd. The two guards went over his paperwork carefully, making sure every t was crossed and i dotted in his medical forms then finally let him through, having determined that he wasn't a threat. Which showed what little they knew. By this time, the words "prosthetic" and "arm" and "amputee" had been said often and loudly. He tried to ignore the people behind him in line, but still felt the stares and heard the earnest questions (Does he have a fake arm, Mommy?) of all the snot-nosed little kids, the carefully averted eyes (Hush, sweetie) of their parents, the irritated and impatient (Goddamned cripple) businessmen, and the frank pity (Oh, the poor man!) of a few hippie- wannabe college girls. As soon as he could, the man immediately in line behind Krycek pushed roughly past, knocking him slightly off kilter. "Some of us have flights to catch," the man growled as he hurried by. Krycek imagined shooting the prick in the head with the .45 that was carefully disguised and hidden away in his luggage. He could see the blood spray, the shocked faces, could hear the screams. It helped a little. I need a vacation, he thought. *** "I want to go to Tahiti," Alex said. "Why?" Rita was painting her toenails and pretending to not be interested in Alex. "What's in Tahiti, Sasha?" She looked up and narrowed her eyes. "Who is in Tahiti?" Jealousy made Rita even more beautiful, in a mean, pit viper sort of way. Her look was lethal, but it was the kind of death that would be worth it. "Nothing, Rita-my-Rita." Alex leaned forward to brush a kiss on Rita's pursed mouth. "No one. I'm just bored. There's nothing to do here. And I've never been there. They say it's Shangri la." "Mm," she intoned, noncommittal. Under her breath, she muttered something that sounded like, "Shangri la-di-da." Alex smothered a snort of laughter and pursued the topic. "Doesn't your father keep a yacht in Papeete?" Rita looked up and her aspect changed from one predator to another. Now she was a cat on the verge of mischief. "My father would kill you if you took his yacht." She said it like it was a challenge. Kill you, not us. Alex made a note of that. "What if I took his yacht and his daughter?" "I don't think he could kill you twice," she said. "Let's go," he said. "Okay." *** Getting off the plane in Chicago, Krycek could feel the drop in temperature in the gangway. The day outside was gray and raw, the clouds low and full of either rain or snow -- it was hard to tell. He was glad he'd packed his pea coat for the cold in Detroit, but now wished it wasn't in his checked luggage. Just looking at the tarmac made him feel chilled. He cruised through the terminal and found a bar to while away his layover. He didn't dwell on the job ahead of him because there was no point. He already knew the details in and out. Instead, his thoughts kept turning to Rita, and their stolen summer. On one beach, she had made him re-enact the scene in "From Here To Eternity" with her. He had never seen the movie, but even he knew what she was talking about. Obligingly, he'd rolled about with her on the sand, making love as bathwater warm waves broke over them, half-drowning them in the process. Rita had been right, as she often was. It had been fucking incredible. On a whim, or perhaps out of bone deep loneliness, Krycek got out his phone and dialed Marita. True, she wasn't happy with him right now, but that didn't erase the curl of warmth within him whenever he heard her voice. Her phone rang and rang and rang. Eventually, he pushed disconnect and ordered another beer. *** "Oh God oh God oh God," she moaned. "See, I told you this was a good idea," he murmured against her skin, still creamy pale but with the first tinge of a tan. She smelled like limes and coconuts and tasted both salty and sweet. When he pushed inside her she cradled his hips with her own. He threw back his head and she sucked in her breath. "My Sasha," she crooned, "you are so damn beautiful." Her nails dug into his shoulders, and her eyes had a feral shine. "You're mine. Say you're mine." Of course he was hers. He had been since age six or seven. But she was wrong. She was the beautiful one. He said none of this, because he wasn't capable. The only thing that came out of his mouth was, "Rita-my-Rita-my-Rita," over and over again as he thrust himself inside her. Later, they sprawled on the sand of their Shangri la, gasping for breath lost by too many kisses and too much laughter. Above them were stars so large and so close that you'd swear you could touch them. She pointed out Crux, the Southern Cross, with one graceful arm that he'd drawn to his lips and kissed. "I'm tired, Alex." His hand skimmed over her breast then across her belly. "Too tired?" "No," she sighed. "I guess not." *** It was snowing in Detroit and Krycek was grateful to finally be wearing his wool coat. He took a taxi to his hotel room and spent an hour or so there in preparation. He cleaned then reassembled his gun. He took out the professor's dossier and reread it, even though he already had it memorized. He took a shower hot enough to nearly peel the skin from his back. Eventually, he felt ready, or at least ready enough. No matter how many times he stood behind the weapon, his finger on the trigger, it was still hard. This made a small part of him glad, as if remaining squeamishness confirmed a shred of humanity. Perhaps it did. Nevertheless, he did his job, a corrupt man becoming a little more corrupt in the process. As always, he afterwards found a bar to become good and drunk in. Nothing like alcohol to make you forget the cold, both in and out. Generations of his ancestors had known this well. The taxi took him to the Avalon, a little dive south of the city and north of the airport in a suburb so blue collar that Honda was a curse word. A few people looked up as he walked in, then looked back down at their drinks or back up to the Red Wings game on the TV. No one cared if he was there or not. Perfect. This was his kind of place. Krycek had gotten drunk in dozens of such bars over the years. Memphis or Albuquerque or Boston -- they were all the same. *** After the fiasco that ended their time in Tahiti, Alex didn't see Rita again until her father's funeral. After they'd been caught out, the Tahitian police had separated them. Benito Covarrubias had come with his goon squad to collect his daughter and oversee Alex's beating. After that had come Alex's short stay in the hospital. Meanwhile, Rita had gone to Europe to go shopping with her mother. Like Europe was a mall or something. While he was still recuperating, Alex's father disappeared. They had held a small memorial service for him, but no funeral, because you couldn't bury a body no one could find. His mother had been on his right side and Mr. Spender on his left. His mother cried and Spender asked him leading questions, sounding him out, interviewing him for his missing father's job. He'd waited hopefully, but Rita (his Rita) had never shown up. Still hard at work at the mall of Europe, no doubt. Whatever. Alex didn't need her. Besides, Spender needed him. He kept saying so. For the fight, for the future, for a little job that needed doing quickly. A job that coincidentally would gain him the revenge that his raw back and bruised ego wanted badly. That had been weeks ago. Now she was here, and she wasn't the same. She looked both older and younger, a little lost girl who had seen too much. He guessed shopping was a rough gig. "Alex," she said, walking up to him after the service. She reached out to put a hand on his sleeve, but he pulled his arm away. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said woodenly. "No, you're not," she said, her tone matter of fact. "You never liked my father." "He never liked me." "I can't imagine why." Was that his imagination, or was there almost a smile in her voice? Alex looked at Rita's face and decided that he must have been mistaken. She was as serious as he'd ever seen her. "Was it you?" "Me?" pretending to not know what she was talking about. "Did you kill my father?" she pressed. As his silence drew out and grew taut between them, Alex saw a door slam in her eyes. Just as well. Where was his giggling girl? Where was the sea creature that had haunted his wet dreams over the past weeks? He didn't trust this girl/woman with her too-knowing eyes. "Are you mad?" Stupid thing to say. He wanted to take it back the instant it was out of his mouth. "Mad? Don't be ridiculous, Alex. I'm furious!" She advanced on him, a black clad wrathful angel. "You killed my father, and that's bad enough, but I've been bracing for it for years. I've had my whole life to prepare. But you also killed Sasha, and I will never forgive you for that. Not ever." He experienced a flash of memory (luv u 4 ever spelled out in sand and sea-foam on his chest by her finger and her eyes full of laughter and sex and life) that made his knees feel watery. He heard doors slamming in his head, hard and reverberating. It was done. Mr. Spender had even warned him, had told him it would be for the best, but still... Unshed tears glittered in her previously dry eyes. Now it was his turn to reach out and be rebuffed. "No," she said. "Not now. Just...don't." All the pain and confusion and fear that he'd been blocking away from himself since Tahiti shot through him and he blurted out, "But I love you." Rita looked him in the eyes and what Alex saw made him cringe inside. She shook her head. "Not enough." *** The reception was shitty in the bar so Krycek went outside in the falling snow to try and call Marita again. The sobering wind showed him how drunk he was, as did his clumsy fingers that dialed the wrong number twice. His heart always constricted a little, thinking that one day, a male voice would answer her phone. Not that one ever had. Not that it mattered. He hadn't been Rita's Sasha for a very long time. 'You don't love me enough,' she'd said to him, once upon a time. How much was enough? "Hello," said her sleepy voice. They were in the same time zone for a change, but she was in the habit of going to bed early. "It's me," he said. "Alex," she sighed, probably with exasperation and irritation, but he liked to think regret as well. "What the hell do you want?" "Jus' to hear your voice, Rita-my-Rita." He hadn't called her that in a long time, either. "You're drunk." she said. He could practically see her, scooting up in bed, tucking one arm around her knees. "Are you okay?" "No. Yes." "Which one?" "Neither." he said. "No, wait. Both." I miss you, he thought. So much that it hurts worse than what your dad did to my back. "Did you have a job tonight?" she asked. "Yeah." She always knew. "Anyone I know?" "No, at least I don't think so. I'm in Michigan." "That's good." He wasn't sure if she meant it was good that she didn't know the person or that he was far away in Michigan. "Well, I've got to get to sleep." "No, wait, don't hang up yet." "You are in a mood, Alex. What's going on?" "I was just thinking about..." "Yes?" Marita prompted. "You and me. Mostly me." "Of course. Do you have a point?" She was back to sounding grumpy and irritated. "Just how we started out, and then how we turned out. We cheated and lied. We thought we were different, but...we failed." Krycek shuddered as an icy gust of wind snuck inside his open coat. "We never failed to fail. Why? Just...why?" Marita sighed, then was silent for a long time. "Rita?" "It was the easiest thing to do," she finally said, a catch in her voice like she was about to cry. But that couldn't be, not from Rita, his Rita. "We did what we had to do. We still do." After that, there was nothing to be said but good-bye. *** "I love you, Sasha," Rita said, her girlish face solemn, her eyes full of laughter. "For ever and ever and ever." "That long?" Alex asked. He put his arms around her from behind and tucked her head under his chin. Together they watched the sunrise from the deck of the yacht. It was already warm and the day ahead promised to be a scorcher. The days stretched ahead of them like perfect Tahitian pearls on a string. "Longer," she said turning to face him, that magical smile of hers shining across her face like sunlight on the ocean. "You belong to me. Don't you know that?" *** The next day Krycek made the return trip to the Detroit airport. His flight to O'Hare was cancelled due to heavy snowfall. "We're clear here, sir," the receptionist told him, "but it's still snowing in Chicago. There are no flights going in or coming out." "Can I change my flight to another city?" "Well, yes, sir, but-" "You fly to Miami, right?" At her nod, he continued. "Book me on the next flight to Miami. First class if you have it. I think I want to go someplace warm." The receptionist smiled. "I don't blame you. I could sure use a vacation." "Me, too." Once in Miami, he would go to the first bar he could find on the beach and order a Corona. Then he would call Marita and tell her that her eyes just matched the ocean he was looking at. He couldn't shed his corruption, but he could make another go at wickedness. Surely it wasn't too late. end *** Lyrics, courtesy of Carla Jane Southern Cross Got out of town on a boat Chorus When you see the Southern Cross Chorus So we cheated and we lied |
Leaving Shangri Laby Kelly Keil |