Insider
Angela awoke to a deep rumbling sound. The whole apartment shook.
Someone was pounding on the front door. Must be-
"Open up!"
-yep, Miguel.
Angela's mood was foul. "This is getting to be a habit. You need to lay off the Big Bad Wolf shit."
Miguel's eyes went wide.
Had she said the S-word? Well, so what if she had?
He quickly recovered and stormed past her.
"By all means, come on in."
She didn't need this. She needed to get back to bed. She needed some aspirin. She felt like her head was filled with lead. And a subwoofer. The last time she remembered feeling this way was the morning after her first time with Josh. That was from too much schnapps. This was from... she wasn't sure.
But at least her hands weren't shaking yet.
Miguel was livid. "Are you out of your fucking mind? Are you *out* of your *fucking* mind?" He paced back and forth, stopping occasionally to look at her, or to look down and shake his fists.
This was new -- Miguel so mad he couldn't speak. At least now she knew how to shut him up.
"Look, I had a late night. Can you make this short? I'd like to get back to bed."
Miguel looked at her, his eyes big as saucers, his face red. After a long stare, he just shook his head and went back to pacing, muttering to himself. "She's out of her fucking mind. What the fuck was I thinking? God-damned vigilante nutcase. Should've known. Fucking teenagers -- fucking girls! No God-damned sense. Shop's cleared out by now. Probably set up somewhere else already. Gotta start from scratch. Shit, probably just broke it up, wait six months. I don't have that kind of fucking time!"
Angela thought she should be respectful or afraid of the police detective, but she wasn't. She realized she was tired of his crap. No, she was tired of everybody's crap. Last night, she'd finally broken out of the prison her life had become. She'd felt powerful and in control and *good* again. She wasn't going to give that up.
Angela wasn't going to let Miguel hold her back anymore. And she wasn't going to let Dino make a fool of her, either.
Miguel had stopped pacing and glared at her, frustrated beyond any smartass diatribe. "FFFFF-FUCK!" he shouted.
"You finished?"
"No!" he blustered. "You better start telling me exactly what happened -- *exactly* -- so I can figure out just how much damage you've done."
"Damn, I don't need this," Angela said to herself. She crossed the path Miguel had worn into the carpet and got herself a glass of water. The bottle of Xanax was there on the counter. She thought about it, looking inward for signs that she needed another dose. No shaking. No weird fluttery feeling. No running-out-of-control thoughts. No jumble of helpless emotions. Through the pounding headache, she felt... strong.
She looked at Miguel, then looked out the window; he didn't deserve eye contact. She did her best to look as bored as she felt. "I followed him. I wanted to see how he worked."
"You *WHAT*? Jesus Christ, what for?"
"I don't know. Curious, I guess."
"Curious? CURIOUS?! Good God, girl, what if he saw you?"
"He did. But not until he was in the middle of stealing a car."
"Jesus, what'd you do, *land* on it?" He noticed her surprised look. "Oh my God, you *did*. What the fuck for?"
Well, she'd been trying to stop him. But then that patrol car showed up, and she got distracted, and he got away, *somehow*... she still wasn't sure exactly.
Miguel's face smoothed in wonder. "You went vigilante on me. You were gonna fuckin' arrest him." He seemed to read the look on her face. "Sonofabitch. It's like you're starting to believe your own bullshit. Well fuck me naked. It's almost funny. *Almost*. I mean, the image of you with your hands on your hips telling him 'You're under arrest,' that's funny. You getting fucking *cold-cocked* by this guy, that's funny. But you tied up in a warehouse blabbing all about the case in a pathetic attempt to keep him from using you as his personal fuck-doll, and me taking shit from the Captain for not putting you on a tighter leash, that's *not* funny."
Angela glowered. Next time Miguel comes over, I should suit up and cold-cock *him*.
Miguel didn't wait for a response. "And how do you know he didn't see you follow him all the way from the chop shop? He's a professional car thief, honey, he's always watching his ass. That rustbucket Toyota of yours, it's not like there's a lot of them left on the road."
He thought she'd followed them in a *car*! Angela shook her head. It was right in front of his face, but he couldn't see it. She supposed the idea of an actual superpowered vigilante was just too fantastic a concept for him to grasp. No, not too fantastic -- too threatening. If Sapphire was real it would diminish the importance of Miguel the Amazing Police Detective.
But she'd wait for another day to burst his bubble; there was a simpler explanation, one he should have thought of himself. "If he saw me following him from the chop shop, why would he go ahead and try to steal a car?"
"I don't know, maybe he's stupid."
"I've seen him bring in something like four cars just in the time I've watched him. Expensive cars with high-tech security systems. *You* haven't caught him yet. Do you even know who he is?"
"You haven't given me anything to work with."
"Never mind, I'll find out for myself."
Miguel seemed to sense an opportunity to turn the conversation.
"Listen. I'll tell you what you're gonna do. First off, you're gonna cease and desist your little high-wire act. This ain't Cirque du Fuckin' Soleil. We don't need them thinking they're under surveillance. Then you're gonna get close to Dino. Real close. You're gonna get him wrapped around your little finger. You're gonna use every *ass*et you have at your disposal. You're gonna be his little freak. Whatever sick and twisted shit he's into, and believe me, they're all into some kind of weird shit, you're gonna let him do it to you.
"Then, you're gonna upgrade from your little waitress job to stripper. You're gonna get friendly with all his important Mafiya buddies. *Real* friendly. *Intimate* even. And you're gonna tell your boyfriend that you're just *dying* to be the featured entertainment at his next private party. You're even gonna cozy up to the old man, Moroshkin. I hear he likes it rough. You're gonna be all up in these guys' back-door business -- and I mean that both ways. And then you know what you're gonna do?"
"What?" Tape his conversations? Bug his home, his office, his clothes? Drug him? Make copies of his files?
"NOTHING. You're gonna do nothing. You're just gonna be his little whore until I tell you what to do. You're not gonna get cute, you're not gonna play hero, you're just gonna do what you're fuckin' told."
Angela was having a hard time resisting the urge to leap across the room and throttle this man. It was a good thing she wasn't wearing her sapphires...
"And you know *why* you're gonna do it? Because if you don't, I'll sell your ass out to Moroshkin. I'll tell him you've been buddying up to his boy to fuck him over. And he'll believe me -- you know why? Because I've got tape of you coming to me offering to do it. And of me turning you down. And of you saying you'll do it anyway. You think he's gonna enlist a forensics lab to see if it's a fake?"
Angela clenched her fists. Was there any man in her life who wasn't a total scumbag?
She couldn't tell from looking at him whether he was lying about the tape. Miguel was sneaky enough to be telling the truth, and sneaky enough to be lying. Dammit!
Angela had been blackmailed before. It brought back bad memories. Scary memories. For a moment she feared the onset of another panic attack, but strangely it didn't come.
As crafty as Miguel might be, she could see that he was in over his head. He didn't understand the significance. He didn't understand how little his threat meant to her.
He didn't know who he was dealing with.
None of them did.
But they were going to find out.
A man like Miguel was easier to deal with when he thought he was in control. And she wasn't ready to burn this bridge just yet. Anyway, she hadn't really thought beyond getting close to Dino herself, so she might as well act like it was his show.
Angela softened. "All right. I'm sorry." She avoided eye contact. Hopefully he'd buy it. "You're right. I'll do whatever you say." Then she thought she should try to be more like the girl he thought she was. "Just promise me I'll be safe. I won't really have to do anything... bad, will I?"
"As long as we're careful, you don't have anything to worry about. You haven't done anything to him yet. I *always* take care of my informants." He said it too emphatically to be telling the truth. "As for doing 'bad things'..." he suppressed a chuckle at her childish terminology, "...if you can find a way to be a good girl and still get close to him and his organization, more power to you. Just watch out for the competition." He winked.
It made her skin crawl.