Making the Galaxy Great

Jason stared down at Evie and her lovely twenty-two-year-old art project body and sighed for what seemed like ten seconds. “It could be my neighbor, Mrs. Ralston. She’s about ninety and she forgets things and wanders over here. I’ll go see. Stay right there — please!”

Jason grabbed sweatpants off the back of a chair and raced downstairs. He didn’t even check the peephole before swinging the door open, so he was startled when he confronted not Mrs. Ralston, but a much younger woman with incredible shoulders. For a moment, he leaned motionless against the door, clad only in his sweatpants and a mantle of annoyance.

“Hi again,” she said, as if there was nothing unusual about showing up at his house. “Ooh, you really did hurt your head.”

“What the hell? Did you follow me home?” he asked. “And yes, I hurt my head when I got knocked down by that girl in the hoodie.”

“Sorry to hear that. But I need to ask about her — the one who ran into you,” she said cooly. Her voice was deep, but not unpleasant.

“You followed me home,” Jason reiterated. He fought the urge to back up, though there was something intimidating, even a bit frightening about her stance. Closer inspection under the light of his front stoop revealed that she was older than Evie, though probably still not as old as Jason. She wore a black, form-fitting top and leggings, both of some sort of fabric that made her look like a silhouette instead of a three-dimensional person. That was notable, but what struck Jason most was her face; an angular jaw and long, arcing nose with exquisitely aggressive aquiline nostrils, beneath deep-set darting eyes. He could almost see violence lurking beneath her toned skin. And when she reached into a hidden pocket in her leggings, he involuntarily jumped. But the only thing she pulled out was a small leather pouch with an ID of some sort that looked like it might, possibly, be official government issue.

“I’m a federal agent,” she said.

Jason peered at the badge, trying to look as if he actually knew how to recognize a genuine ID from a fake. “Isn’t it supposed to say FBI or something?”

“I’m not FBI.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m not FBI.”

“So what is the name of your agency, Ms. . . . McKinley?”

“McCauley,” she corrected, without answering the question.

Annoyance was beginning to win out over fear, and Jason tried to stay on the offensive. “Why are you after that girl?” he asked. “And what about that other guy — was he working with you?”

“Classified information.”

“I thought you said she was ninety,” said Evie, who had ignored Jason’s request and was now standing right behind him, wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts.

Agent McCauley tossed a dismissive glance at her, and turned back to Jason. “Listen, we’re wasting time. Just tell me what happened in the parking lot.”

Jason exhaled slowly to indicate how irritated he was growing. It was, in fact, making his head hurt again. “Two people were standing in the dark behind my car when I was about to leave. They may have been arguing, but I couldn’t understand a word they said; it wasn’t English. Then when I said something to them the bigger one grabbed the smaller one, so I was about to call 911, but she broke loose and ran into me when she took off. And by the way, her face was strange, bizarre. No eyebrows, and really pale.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

Jason returned her hard stare with a gaze of wide-eyed astonishment. “Did you hear me about the weird face?”

“Did she say anything to you?” McCauley repeated. Her nostrils flared slightly and her eyes narrowed.

“She landed on top of me. It wasn’t really a conversational moment.”

“Did she give you anything, then?”

Jason threw up his hands. “Like what? Her phone number?” A thought popped into his head. “Is she some kind of informant? Did something happen to her?” Jason imagined all sorts of possibilities, from radiation exposure to a bomb blast. The word terrorism drifted through his brain.

Again, Agent McCauley failed to answer his question. Instead, she held out her hand. “Here’s my card. Let me know if you think of anything. It’s important.”

The card read:

Angela McCauley

Special Agent At Large

Federal Security Operations

United States of America

“Federal Security Operations? That’s the agency you work for? That sounds bogus. I’ve heard of the NSA, the CIA . . .”

Agent McCauley turned and walked down the steps. “Call me if you think of something,” she said without looking back. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“You haven’t even asked me about the guy,” Jason called out after her. “He jumped over a gulley that was at least 15 feet wide. He could be in the Olympics. That was a little strange, don’t you think?”

Agent McCauley stopped walking, but still did not turn around. “Appreciate your assistance, Mr. Fleming.”

Jason’s blood turned cold. “How do you know my name?”

“Federal agent.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” whispered Evie, her head practically resting on Jason’s left shoulder.

“You know,” Jason called out after the retreating agent, “I pay taxes so you technically you work for me.”

This time, Agent McCauley turned and eyed Jason with what almost seemed to be amusement. “Working for you is what I’m trying to do. And by the way, check that bandage. It looks like it’s falling off. And Mr. Fleming, don’t keep your daughter up too late. School starts up again in a few weeks, doesn’t it?”

My daughter? Goddammit. Jason clenched his teeth as she turned again and strode quickly down the sidewalk to a vehicle on the opposite side of the street.

“She’s seriously scary,” whispered Evie. “And I don’t think she’s really a government agent. I’m glad you didn’t tell her anything.”

“I don’t know anything,” Jason grumbled. He closed the door, made certain it was locked, then stood with his hands on his hips while he let the anxiety and anger within him slowly subside.

“This whole thing is peculiar,” he muttered. It was a word he hardly ever used. “You should have seen the guy and the girl. I was starting to wonder . . .”

“Why don’t we go back upstairs and relax?” Evie said. “But first maybe we need to redo your bandage. She was right about that.”

Jason took a long, deep breath. He felt around and adjusted the bandage on his head. He was fairly certain that what he really should do — what he should have done much earlier — was get Evie a ride home and then get some sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen. At the top of the steps, Evie pointed to a series of three black and white photos that Jason had hung on the landing wall. “Is that your daughter?”

Jason’s heart sank. All he could do was nod.

Daughter. Daughter. Daughter.

After Jason had climbed the beanstalk, which he enjoyed immensely, he lay behind Evie, with his arm around her and tucked just under her breasts.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “I mean, you got your head bashed in the parking lot. Then some scary-ass chick pretending to be a government agent shows up at your house asking questions. I was wondering how hard you’d be willing to work for it.”

“Work for what?”

“This. The chance to fuck me.”

Jason’s felt as if every inch of his naked body was turning red, even though his blood stopped pumping. He was startled – no, dismayed – to realize he wasn’t the one who’d just made a conquest.

“You think I—” he began to protest.

“I see how you watch me when I walk by your office, and follow me down the hall for no reason.”

“I like to walk around the halls,” he said. “And I just happen to like it even more when you’re in front of me. Those vines on your legs are pretty spectacular.”

“Yeah,” she said drowsily, “I was dating the guy who did them. He really liked my legs.”

Jason couldn’t fault him for that, and he reflexively ran his right hand along the back of her right thigh.

“So, your daughter—”

Jason stopped rubbing Evie’s thigh.

“—what’s her name?”

“Shelby.”

“Do you see her much?”

“Every other weekend and two weeks at the end of summer, which is coming up soon.”

“So what happened to the girlfriend who was supposed to be on the pill?”

“We got married, for seven years.”

“Because of Shelby? So it was that woman at The Grinder?”

“I think we’re straying beyond appropriate pillow talk,” Jason said.

“Pillow talk?” said Evie. “I’ve never heard that expression.”

Oh Christ, it’s because you’re young enough to be Shelby’s sister.