Chapter 23

After spending two years in one of the most luxurious studio-efficiency apartments Honduras had to offer, then an exhausting couple of days catching sleep where he could on aircraft carriers and helicopters, his room at the Mercer Hotel seemed like something from another planet. The hotel was relatively small, it housed only twenty-eight rooms in all, two of which James knew were occupied by members of his agency, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they all were. He expected a five star hotel, but realized as the attendant deposited his luggage in his suite (despite it now being so late the sun was coming up) that he had clearly forgotten just how nice five star hotels were. Three walls were finished in an off white that wasn’t quite beige, but could pass for it, while the fourth wall that the bed board rested against was exposed brick. James couldn’t reach the ceiling if he wanted to, and supposed the room to be about fifteen feet tall. That sort of thing would probably seem normal to most tourists in Barcelona, but in Honduras, being six feet tall is something of an oddity. James was accustomed to having to watch his head, not to all this open space.

DePietro told him she’d pick him up at noon, which gave him about six and a half hours before he was back on the clock. On the way there, he had intended to spend all of it asleep, but now that he’d gotten to his room, excitement had set in. He’d never have to sleep on his uncomfortable mattress again, never wake up because of the stifling humidity Central America blessed you with each morning before even the sun was willing to show its face. He had a new life ahead of him, one where you could drink the water. For the first time in days, James permitted a little bit of happiness to creep over him. Since the explosion, he’d devoted so much energy to making sure he was as miserable as he felt he deserved to be, it seemed as though standing there, watching the sun rise over the Cathedral of Barcelona through a picture window that extended from floor to ceiling, things might not be so bad after all. His reverie expired as quickly as it came on, however. As the sun crept up from beyond the horizon, James sat down on his memory foam mattress and started to cry. First, a single tear managed to free itself from the corner of his eye, creeping lazily down the ridge between his nose and cheek and settling amid the forest of stubble protruding from his upper lip. He brought his sore right hand up to wipe it away but with the subtle pain in his hand came more memories: thoughts of Eve, then of the explosion, thoughts of how she must feel right now, or if she was thinking of him. Another tear made it past his defenses, then another, until he placed his face into his hands and let them all flow. It had been years since James had cried like that, and there in his tailored suit, in a hotel room that probably cost more than he used to make a month, he promised himself that he wouldn’t again. The more you are one thing, the less you are something else, he told himself once again, reminding himself that he needed to be hard to see this through.

After a few minutes, James stood back up and gathered his faculties. He needed a shower, he needed some sleep, and he didn’t need Agent DePietro to hear him crying like a child with a skinned knee if her room was nearby. He walked across the room to the small refrigerator set flush inside a counter with a notepad, telephone and television remote on it. A silver key hung out of the lock on the door. He turned it and opened it to find the standard selection of liquors and sodas sitting inside, each with a price tag he could only assume was astronomical. Good thing the room’s not in my name, he thought as he pulled two nips of vodka and a can of ginger ale out of the door. He poured them both into a glass and carried it with him into the shower.

James woke up to the sound pounding on his door. The realization that he'd slept in set in before his eyes even opened and he was already up and opening the door before it occurred to him that sometime between falling asleep and his rude awakening he'd woken up and stripped down to only his boxer-briefs. He may not have noticed for a bit longer if he hadn't opened the door to find a full, pouty set of lips that seemed even bigger than they had been the night before, but somehow still perfectly proportioned to the rest of her face. Her eyes, once again, were accentuated by dark eye shadow and eye lashes that seemed like they could reach into James' head and shake loose any remaining cobwebs on his libido.

"Now you decide to wake up." She rolled those big brown eyes in contempt, but a part of James was still swooning.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," James repeated as he turned away from her to hurriedly get dressed. His sleep clouded brain wasn't firing on all cylinders. He stumbled as he tried to slide his foot back into yesterday's pants.

"Do you not have more clothes?" The disdain in her tone was palatable.

"Oh... Yeah... Just gimme a few minutes here," James stopped what he was doing to gather his thoughts.

"I'll come back in one hour. Bathe yourself too." She closed the door without waiting for a response. James sat down on the bed after the door slammed and chuckled to himself. She may be beautiful, but she's not much for bedside manner, he thought. He stood back up slowly, allowing his sore back and ribs to stretch subtly. He was up and moving in an instant when he woke up, but now he had an opportunity to hear all the complaints his worn out body had to lodge. His ribs were sore, his knee was burning, his hand was killing him and his mouth was full of mucus as a result of the post nasal drip that had set in somewhere around the sixth hour of his flight across the ocean. Once more, James figured, another thing he'd never seen Fleming's Bond have to deal with.

A few hours of sleep had brightened James' outlook a bit. It wasn't until he'd gotten out of the shower and had begun unpacking his two other suits that his mind drifted back to the clear waters of Honduras. He paused with the hangers in his hand and tried to shake the thought of the bodies he'd seen. His stomach churned as he thought of Eve watching the rest of the bodies getting fished out of the water, thinking of him and wondering where he was. James had never had much of a photographic memory when he wanted it, so it took a bit of effort to hold onto the image of her face in his mind. Try as he might, he couldn't do her twinkling blue eyes justice and even in his imagination, she just couldn't smile. There had been too much death for smiling. James dropped the hangers and made it to the sink in time to catch his vomit in the pearly white basin. He rubbed his blurry eyes and turned the gold plated knob to try to smother the smell under a waterfall of cold water. Once the vomit had been sufficiently broken up by the faucet, he cupped some of the cold water in his hands and splashed it onto his face. "Get your shit together," he spoke to his reflection in the mirror.

When DePietro knocked on his door again a little less than an hour later, James was dressed in a dark grey, single breasted suit. His eyes were still a bit bloodshot from a combination of grogginess and vomiting, but he hoped not enough to be overtly noticeable. His black dress shoes (which had cost nearly as much as the suit and were somehow even more comfortable) matched the belt hidden beneath the coat. His hair was getting a bit long for him, but still too short to style properly, so he'd used a dab of toothpaste mixed with water to reel in his cow lick - a little trick he'd learned when he traveled a lot as a younger man.

"You clean up quick." DePietro said as he opened the door in a decidedly more casual manner than before.

"I have a feeling that's the closest thing to a compliment I'm gonna be getting today."

"It is from me. Where's your coat?" Her scorn hadn't subsided from earlier.

"I don't have one. Gonna need to pick up some toiletries too." James closed his mouth and self-consciously ran his lips over his unbrushed teeth. He wondered how poisonous his breath must be.

"Come on. We'll go shopping while I show you around." She turned and started walking down the hallway without another word. James grabbed his wallet and hotel room key card off the bureau and hurried after her.

The hotel valet pulled up to the curb in a black Mercedes C-class sedan just as the two of them stepped outside. A brisk winter breeze cut through the light fabric of James' sport coat and he swore under his breath. "Did you not think it would be cold here?" DePietro asked incredulously as she adjusted her fashionable scarf and tucked it into her coat. "I honestly didn't put much thought into it at all." James answered her politely, but he was growing tired of her combative demeanor. He reminded himself that he'd kept her waiting this morning, and apparently kept her up late the night before. Maybe a little bit of frustration on her part was warranted. "Well let's get you some proper clothing, then we'll move on to the tour." Her softened delivery made him wonder if she was making similar allowances for him in her head. She walked around the car with the same beautiful elegance she'd insisted upon doing everything with: something that frustrated James. He wasn't attracted to her on an emotional level, but gorgeous is gorgeous and sometimes that can be difficult to ignore.

They spent the next few hours meandering through downtown Barcelona. James bought a full length trench coat DePietro convinced him would look appropriate with any suit he brought, and for a split second, she even seemed like she was having a good time. James slid the jacket on and wore it out, but all of his Dick Tracy puns were lost on his Italian counterpart. After spending a few moments comparing the Sagrada Familia Cathedral to Castle Greyskull from the old Heman cartoon in his head, the two went back to the office building they’d met in the night before.

“So why no lock on the door?” James broke what had been a long silence.

“We own the whole block. Nobody can even turn onto the street without us knowing about it. Locked doors elicit curiosity.” She answered with more patience than she’d exhibited all day. James wondered if it was also a question she’d once asked.

“So why this?” The elevator door closed them in together.

“You really don’t like using the elevator?” She looked at him quizzically.

“No,” James paused, “well, yeah I don’t particularly like elevators, but that’s not what I was asking about. Why are you doing this?”

“Would you ask a male agent that question?” She crossed her arms and shifted her weight, but didn’t look at him.

“If he could have had a career on the cover of GQ instead of showing me around… yeah.” James smiled, but continued to face the door as well.

“You’re very distracted by my looks.” Now she turned, squaring her body toward him and looking at the side of his face. Her lips curved up ever so slightly at the ends. Somehow, her accent made her even more attractive.

“I um,” James flushed a bit, realizing he may have bitten off more than he could chew, “that is to say that… I mean, yeah, of course I noticed, but I mean, I’m kinda in a thing…”

“No you fool,” James noted that her accent made her sound like a Bond villain when she insulted him, “that’s why I do this. Men are very distracted by beautiful women. It makes them lose focus, makes them easier to manipulate.” Her words rang true in James’ ears and the pit of his stomach let him know. James knew all too well how easily a beautiful woman could distract someone from the task at hand.

“Point taken.” James answered her without meeting her stare. She let it linger for another second before exhaling what seemed like a disappointed scoff through her mouth. He wasn’t sure what she’d expected from him, maybe more of a fight, but whatever it was, he’d let her down. James had interacted with people every day in Honduras, but somehow it was different now. He had grown accustomed to being a part of a secret that, in his mind, made him important. He was a big fish in a small pond just by being a white man with business to conduct, but keeping the secret (and the fantasy) of his status as a “secret agent” gave him a social confidence he’d grown accustomed to. Now, however, he’d been stripped of that feeling of importance. He was a very small fish and the pond kept growing. The elevator dinged their arrival on the fourth floor and James was the first to step out the door.

“Nice of you two to show up,” Agent Cunningham announced over the roar of the room as they walked through the wooden door. He had changed his clothes, though from the looks of them, not into clean ones. His hands were full with a paper coffee cup and a legal notepad that looked to have been fleeced of most of its pages.

“Good evening sir,” Agent DePietro answered demurely. James just nodded to him, aware that no answer would be the right one. DePietro led him around the maze of desks to an empty one near the bathroom. It wasn’t a desk, so much as an unused end of a table that was otherwise occupied by a large map of Barcelona and stacks of folders, bulging in disapproval at being so over stuffed. There was a laptop, a pencil cup with two standard ballpoint pens James recognized as from the same supplier that the Marine Corps used, and a dark wood box that was large enough for paperwork with the words “bandeja de entrada” inscribed in calligraphy. James ran his fingers over the wood, thinking about how much it stood out against the modern steel and plastic it was surrounded with.

“That belonged to Cunningham. Now it goes to whoever’s new, because you’ll be doing his busy work.” Her smile betrayed the real reason she knew exactly where to bring him.

“This was your desk.” Now James looked into her eyes.

“And now it’s yours,” her smile widened, “you can start by fixing the filing.” James followed her hand as it pointed toward the bulging folders on the table. His heart sank. All government agencies have strict guidelines about what could be filed, how to file it, how to label it, and so forth. It ensured that agents from other offices could come in and find important documents without any trouble. It also meant someone had to sit around making sure all the files adhered to the standard. As Agent DePietro dropped the first stack of files into his fancy inbox, James confirmed his fear that he was now that poor agent.

“He’ll need this,” a voice chimed in from behind him. A good looking man with an athletic build and a Brooklyn accent stepped around him and dropped a three ring binder on his desk. The cover said, “FILING REGS” in bold font. James decided not to thank him. “Think of it as a rite of passage.” He said to James with a pat on the shoulder. DePietro didn’t offer any further encouragement, and with that, James was alone with his new job.