blurring_the_edges_36_i'll_show_you_each_spring birdmad The political wrangles over the land deal continue to leave Henry's base of operations relatively safe and undiscovered. The last of the undealt stash you were carrying from your last big transaction with MeeKrob now resides in a closet by the staircase. Due to a change in ownership at the apartment complex and the fact that you don't move enough volume to float another large block of advance rent, you've given up the lease. Besides, the place has been going further and further downhill since before you got there. Sooner or later someone was either gonna hijack your shit or a nosy manager might call the cops with the irregular paterns of human traffic that moved through there. You entertain the notion to call the number that Marisol gave you and when you tell the girl on the phone who you are, she switches you over to Marisol who has a proposition to make. Marisol offers you five hundred dollars to be driver and bodyguard to a couple of girls she runs out of her little operation, but first she wants to have lunch with you. You meet her at one of the ramadas up on South Mountain on a friday afternoon, surprised by how cool and windy the day is, you wnated to meet her a little further away from home, but the river is still running high after the rains and you have to go rather far out of your way to cross it, either all the way to Central or all the way out to 59th Avenue. The day the water was released, you sat out by the 35th Avenue bridge and watched from a high berm with a cigarette hanging from your mouth as the water came rushing like a miniature tsunami down through the riverbed after sitting dry and nearly lifeless for years. Pieces of the Mill Avenue bridge which had been under contruction on the other side of town could be sen tumbling in and out of the raging water. You wished that you had not lost your guns in that shallow grave because you thought it would be great fun to shoot the half-empty propane tank that came bobbing by caught in the current. Not the kind of tank that one buys to strap to the bottom of a gas-grill, this was the kind of tank that gets mounted on the ground to fil those tanks. It rolled unevenly in the muddy turbulence and you thought it would be a hell of a sight to watch it blow if you could squeeze off a couple of nine millimerer rounds into it from about a hundred yards out as it was headed downstream to meet the Gila River on it's way to pay tribute to the Colorado Marisol meets you at the ramada, looking out at the overcast sky. She explains to you that she and MeeKrob are trying to get out of the dope business and into other, less dangerous games. "I don't know that i'd call this business totally safe either, Marisol, I mean seriously, you never know if one of your girls might end up in the hands of some complete weirdo, or worse, someone like Tripod Billy." "That's just it," she starts "Siri didn't find out until too late about the kind of trouble you guys have had with Billy and he booked a couple of our girls for him. I don't want anything happening to them that they didn't sign up for and i know you know what i mean." Reaching into the little cooler she brought as a picnic basket, Marisol hands shows you the butt end of a fairly large gun. You wait, seeing a ranger's truck coming from the other direction. you raise an eyebrow at Marisol indicating with a motion of your head in the truck's direction that there is reason to be cautions. Lowering the gun back into the cooler, she hands you a sandwich and a can of Pepsi. In your mind, you are struck with the disconnected thought that a good white wine would go better with this sandwich, which is not as simple as cold-cuts on ordinary bread. Marinated vegetables in a baguette, pressed, hints of pesto and vinegar and a soft, mild white cheese. The ranger truck drives on, going around the bend, when you are sure you can see it around the next big bend near the next peak, you take the .357 and put it in your backpack. Later that night, your mom hands you the phone and Marisol is on the line. You are on for tomorrow night, in the meantime, if you are so inclined, Marisol says she has a present lined up for you in a suite at the Hyatt downtown. When you get downtown, you are surprised to see how packed the area is, discovering how big of a draw the Suns have become as they make their push to the playoffs. You listen to Al McCoy call the game as you drive over, passing by a party of people at some party event at the IceHouse down on Jackson street. Why are you taking such a roundabout way of getting there? Anyway, when you get to the Hyatt, you go to the desk and ask for LaVeaux, room for two as Marisol instructed you. The desk clerk hands you a card-key and says Mrs. LaVeaux is already checked in. Taking the glass elevator up, you decide not to take the extra time of getting a drink from the lounge in the Compass Room, you've been feeling slightly dizzy just on general principle lately and you don't think a revolving room combined with a stiff drink is going to help that any. Using the card-key, you step through the door to hear the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. There is a familiar scent in the room, a particular perfume, but only in so faint a trace that you can't quite make it out above the ambient smell of the room. Taking advantage of the open bathroom door, since after all, it seems that the advantages are here for the taking anyway, you walk in just as the water stops running. Through the frosted, textured glass, you see a small familiar shape. If you don't leave now, it means you are a masochist of the worst kind. Yeah, right. She's left you for dead in the hands of Billy and Henry twice and you aren't leaving? Somebody might as well just tattoo the word SUCKER right across your forehead, doesn't matter who has the seeming advantage here, you ought to know by now that sooner or later you'll regret this. Stepping from the shower enclosure wearing nothing but a smile she walks up to you and puts her hand on your cheek. She is beautiful, isn't she? Goddamn, what is it about her? As incredible as she is, it's not as if she's the most beautiful woman you've ever been with, it's not like she gives you a reason to keep trying and you already know she'll hang your ass out to dry when the shit hits the fan. Add that to the fact that she warned you way back in the beginning not to love her. You stand there facing her, thinking you want to draw away from her touch but not really wanting to. It's just a game she plays, Alex. She knows she's got you and she'll keep twisting you around as long as you keep letting her. Fool that you are, you don't resist. In a matter of a minutes, this little tango of yours has danced its way into the bed. When you are finally done, you ponder the lights of the city and the view out the window from the bed. Rolling from your back to your side to look right at her, you place your hand on her chest, right on the space just below and roughly between her breasts, you ask her what you wanted to ask her when you saw her last. "Zoe," you whisper sweetly, pausing to kiss her in the curve of her collarbone, "what in the hell are you doing here?" 030513 what's it to you? who go blather from