So Night Follows Day Pt. 29

"Then on to Monte Carlo, to play chemin de fer.
I threw away the fortune I made transplanting hair.
I put my last few francs down on a prostitute,
who took me up to her room to perform the flag salute.
Whereupon, I stole her passport and her wig.
And headed for the airport, and the midnight flight, ya dig?
And fourteen hours later, I was down in Adelaide,
looking through the want ads, sipping Foster's in the shade."
-Warren Zevon, "Mr. Bad Example"

"Troilus," Contessa Helena de San Finzione grumbled to Troy Equals over the earpiece comms they were both wearing. "All those times I said, 'anything you want, my love; all that I have is yours?' Most of those were about sex, and I was NOT expecting you to cash them ALL in on a single night!"

"We're still using Whyte's money." Troy mumbled back to her. "I sort of promised him it'd all go to good causes."

Troy had convinced Helen to buy most of the items that had been up for bid as the Auction had gone on. A side area held the items that had already been sold, and a pile of terror weapons had been gathered in the area roped off for Helen's purchases. Troy's reasoning had been that San Finzione's Ministry of Science had the means to safely dispose of them, and that was far preferable to allowing any of the other world, criminal, business, and terrorist leaders present to walk out with them. He had been making mental note of who won the items that he couldn't get Helen to bid on so that he could pass the information along to her Ministry of Intelligence later. He could let them inform the CIA, and they'd keep his family's names out of it; now that he was a paid consultant for them.

"The next time I take you along to play Spy, Troy, we're going to a casino. Preferably one I already own. Even if not, buying the joint will be easier than this."

"There's no sport. I always win at your casinos, Helen." Troy replied. "Every time, in fact. Even if you're not with me."

"Yeah, weird, that." Helen answered. She looked over at the stockpile of death that she'd bought. "We'd need a space program to use half this shit."

"Mind ya," the voice of Mander came over their comms as he stood in an area with the other bodyguards off to the side. "I wouldn't mind having that laser cannon thing for the island, if you don't have other plans for it, Your Countessness. Self-defense and all."

Helen turned to Troy, a mock pleading look on her face.

"He'll only use it on people who deserve it."

"We can discuss it after." Troy replied. "That one WAS pretty Man with the Golden Gun, all right."

Mander and Helen both smiled when Troy wasn't looking. Mander had only known Troy a few days, but he knew as well as Helen that James Bond was how one appealed to Troy Equals.

"And now," the Auctioneer announced. "Our final item of the evening. The one you've all been waiting for. Our featured item. Lot fifteen: Springheel."

It was wheeled out on a cart like the other items, the suit on what Helen hoped was a dummy, standing in a revolving display case. A manual bearing the stylized Springheel "S" was on the cart in front of it. Only Troy noticed the tiny start Helen made when the cart wheeled over the space between one of the carpets they'd laid down like tarps inside the barn, and the suit seemed to move slightly.

"You have all seen the video." The Auctioneer continued, peeking out from behind the holes in his black hood. "You know what it can do, what it has done already, and you have imagined what you might do with it. What enemy's secrets you might plumb. What enemy might suddenly cease to exist."

Helen felt most of the eyes of the room fall upon her. Troy continued looking ahead, but took hold of her hand, realizing that she'd been right; most of them had Contessa Helena de San Finzione at or near the top of their Springheel To-Do list.

"If I may be so bold," the Announcer concluded. "Whoever walks out of here with it tonight, will certainly have fewer problems tomorrow. Bidding to begin at one-hundred million dollars."

Helen's hand, the one holding the sign, shot upwards.

* * *

Troy Equals remembered a couple of hours ago, when Contessa Helena de San Finzione had kissed, then licked the tip of his nose. She brought the hand she'd raised to tilt his head down, so she could touch his ear, activating the earbud that Troy was wearing.

"That ought to do it." Helen said with a smile. Troy nodded that he was receiving her. She then told him to "Mingle" and wandered into the crowd.

Troy touched his ring before walking toward another part of the crowd. He wasn't used to wearing one on that finger. His wedding ring was a simple gold band with "I love you" engraved inside. It was identical to Julie's, except hers was engraved with the words "I know." This ring was on his right hand, on his pinky. It pinched slightly, because it had been resized from a hand much smaller than his and couldn't get past his second knuckle without risking breaking the ring or its contents.

The ring was special for two reasons. The first was that it was one of very few authorized reproductions of the original rings that it had been designed to resemble. The second was what made it unique: that it had been fitted with a tiny microphone, completely invisible amongst the cuts and grooves of the emerald signet rings worn by members of La Familia Royale de San Finzione. It belonged to Rita Delvecchio and had a special purpose for when she used her resemblance to Contessa Helena de San Finzione to fill in for her at certain events.

As Troy associated with people whom he recognized as some of the most horrible in the world, he held a drink in his hand so that the ring wouldn't slip off, and he had an excuse to bring it up high enough for the voice of the person he was speaking with to be picked up by the microphone. Normally, when Rita wore the ring, there were translators on the other end who would listen to what was being said and tell her what to say back in the language of the person she was speaking to. It was necessary for her duties as Contessa Helena de San Finzione's double, to simulate Helen's natural gift for languages. Although Rita was a native of San Finzione and spoke all of the official languages, La Contessa was known for speaking a great number more of them. All of them, if one believed La Contessa.

Because Troy's conversations with the Auctioneers' guests were going to be much shorter, the full team of translators wasn't required. Helen was able to do the job herself, with an earbud in her own ear that would transmit to Troy's via bone vibration, so that muttering the words was sufficient for Troy to hear clearly when Helen would listen to the language of the person that he was speaking to, determine what it was, and tell Troy how to say a specific phrase to each person he spoke to, while she was doing the same with others.

The phrase was "You don't want Lot 15. Don't bid on it." Occasionally, depending on whom Troy was speaking to, she added the phrase "Just be afraid of the person who DOES get it." There were other messages for specific voices that Helen recognized. She simply had to tell Troy what to say in one of the three languages that he knew before telling him the phrase. One of the important parts of The Thing was understanding what one was trying to convey with the command. This meant that Helen had to be honest about what she was telling Troy to say, allowing him to use his own judgment on whether or not to relay Helen's messages.

"You love using all these languages, don't you?" He asked her.

"Most days, I end up so hot from it that I need Jeanne to come speak French between my legs, Oui."

"This is what you do all the time, isn't it?" Troy murmured over the comms to Helen in Greek. "All those charity balls and parties with 'the elite.' This is where you get most of your work as Contessa done."

"I've stopped wars over the course of a dance, yes." Came her reply in the same language. "And just for you, Troilus, I fight the urge to tell genocidal maniacs to drive off a cliff on their way home. The ones who are stupid enough to come near me themselves."

"If I haven't actually said the words, Helen; I apologize for saying that Propappou wouldn't be proud of how you got where you are. He was always proud of you. When we took him to Greece for his final days, he'd tell the cousins 'My Petalouda Mikro, she a QUEEN! They call her Komissa, but she really queen! But don't you go bugging her for stuff. She busy, she gots the queening to do."

Helena's patented "Delighted-to-Meet-You" smile changed to a genuine one as she mingled and gave the people she spoke to the same subtle commands.

"I fucking love you, Master." Came Helen's response, still in Greek. "I wouldn't even know HOW to not love you, Troy."

Troy detected the note of her fighting back tears. The next time they encountered each other as they mingled, Helen gave Troy a longer, deeper kiss.

"I don't think I even have a choice in loving you anymore, Mistress. I think it's a law of the universe. Lemme think: E=MC squared, Cognito Ergo Sum, Troy loves Helen, an object in motion... wait, it's that last one."

They smiled and held hands a moment before going back to mingling until it was time to be seated.

* * *

Contessa Helena de San Finzione bid one-hundred million dollars. Grumbling filled the room, but nobody bid against her.

"Do I hear one-ten? One-hundred-and-ten million? No? One-hundred going once... twice." He gave an overly-long pause before banging his gavel. "Sold to Contessa Helena de San Finzione for one-hundred million dollars. That concludes this evening's proceedings. You have thirty minutes to finalize your purchases and arrange transport. Good evening, we hope to see you all next time."

And with that, the Auction was over. Helen and Troy walked over to the cashier to arrange the money transfer. Mander rejoined them as Ultimados arrived to load the items into the two Winnebagos and the back of a pickup truck.

Because she'd bought most of the items, they stayed longer than anyone else. Troy took note of all of the bad looks the two of them were getting; then remembered that he was a "nobody," and all of them were directed at Contessa Helena de San Finzione. A woman they hated and feared before she was the owner of the world's most powerful assassination tool, and her buying it out from under them all had done nothing to improve their attitude towards her.

"It's strange," the Auctioneer told La Contessa as her transfer cleared and the Ultimados packed everything up. "How nobody bid against you for what was supposed to be the featured item of the evening."

"Maybe they just weren't convinced by the video." She responded with a sweet smile. As Helena bent to enter her code to finalize the transaction, she gave a side-glance to Troy. "I hope the next Auction will have a few more surprises." She finished and looked back up at the Auctioneer. "I trust my money will still be good next time?"

There were a few moments of silence before he answered.

"I daresay that La Contessa's money was the ONLY money that was good this time. She needn't worry."

Helena smiled at that. The Ultimados hauled the items away. She, Troy, and Mander departed the barn where they'd spent the past few hours with some of the most horrible people on Earth, so that some of the other most horrible people on Earth could clean up and vanish.

* * *

The next morning, their family was gathered around the breakfast table again. It was in the early hours when they returned home from the Auction. Susan had gone to bed in her own room that evening, and since Helen was going to have to leave later that day, she went to bed with Julie so that they could say goodbye properly, and Troy went up to Susan's room and joined her.

"I'd been hoping we'd have you here for the rest of the week." Susan said to Helen, pouring everyone coffee. "Brenda's been looking forward to meeting you again."

"Oh! I wanted to meet her again, too." Helen replied, looking straight at Troy. "However, I hadn't planned on walking out of there with an entire doomsday arsenal to need to get back to San Finzione and dispose of."

"You're making the world a better place, Helen." Troy said, patting her hand. Helen's response was to turn to Julie.

"Your husband made me buy anthrax!" She tattled to Julie. "Not the band! I could've HIRED Anthrax to come play the Greens' Lawn this morning, on this short a notice, for a lot less than I paid for THIS anthrax!"

Julie patted Troy's hand.

"I'm sure he had a good reason." Was her response.

Susan returned to the table.

"Helen," she said. "It's you, so it's worth asking: Are we going to open the front door to wave goodbye to your limo and see Anthrax playing across the street?"

"Driving off into the sunset to 'I'm The Man' would be kind of cool, but I just now thought of it."

"You don't plan to fly back to San Finzione with all that, do you?" Julie asked.

"Oh, hell no!" Helen replied. "My plane's back here from taking Rita home. That stuff'll go on San Finzione One with the Ultimados, and the fighter escorts, and everything. Mander, Bluey, a few Ultimados, and I will be using Rita's Contessa Class suite to get home, so Maria can get back to having a life. Oh, and I'm sorry for the busy week you're going to have next week, Mistress. But be sure to give that Tom Arnette guy an exclusive; he's pretty sharp, he remembered you and your work from your shoes at the thing in Spokane. I think he might really 'get' your stuff. Kept thinking his name was 'Bob' earlier. Weird."

Julie nodded and took a sip of her coffee.

"It counts as a prank, Also Mistress."

Susan decided a subject change was in order.

"I guess we can use a couple days to get ourselves off of being on San Finzione time."

Helen remembered something and reached into her purse for it.

"That reminds me. I left that voice message for her, but you'll probably see Claire again before anyone else, if you'll pass this along to her for Mander."

She slid Susan one of her own cards but written on the back was another phone number with a San Finzione country code, along with a set of GPS coordinates. Susan took the card and nodded.

"I'll be sure to give it to her. Not sure how long I'm going to be staying at the yoga studio, though. There's less to do as a secretary there than you'd think. And after what you and Troy did to Whyte's businesses, I've definitely got enough money to not have to worry about a job for quite a while. I've never really had 'breathing room' like that. Maybe I should take a bit to give this 'figuring out who I am' thing my full attention."

"You can definitely afford to take as much time as you need, Susan." Troy agreed. "And that sounds like a good idea. I know I've liked the Susan I've gotten to know so far. Finding more of her would be amazing."

She smiled at that and took his hand.

"Hell, you guys could even start charging me rent at last, and I'd probably still be ok."

"You don't pay rent to live at home, Susan." Helen answered, taking a sip of her coffee. "That's not the Greek way. You help out, sure, but if they love you, they're not going to charge you."

"Told ya Propappou and I have had this discussion with someone else." Troy answered Susan. "And it's all just easier for me to handle the bills through the household corporation."

"And I guess if anything happens, my bank robbery plan WAS pretty good."

Everyone laughed at that.

"Well, Susan." Helen replied, finishing her coffee. "If finding yourself involves any travel, don't let ME find out you're paying for airfare and hotels! Give your name, and if possible, ID, at any Air Finzione ticket counter or Società Finzione establishment and they'll take care of you."

Susan smiled at that.

"I haven't heard of many journeys of self-discovery that involved first-class accommodations."

"Ours did." Julie offered. "All over Europe. We just, ya know, didn't pay."

"This time," Helen added. "You know the owner and she's cool with it."

"Thanks, guys. I don't know that the 'go to Tibet and scale a mountain' thing is something I'm going to need to do; I was thinking of starting off small, like finding my parents' old house in Tacoma and seeing if any of the neighbors remember them and what they can tell me about them, but it's nice to know the option's there."

There was a knock at the door. Capitan Ortega reported that most of the Ultimados had left with the packages and that her escort were ready to depart. Mander and Bluey were ready when she was, and he would be leaving a few Ultimados to stay out the rest of the week and monitor the area, in case Whyte had arranged any final surprises before he died. There were few enough staying that there was no need for the Green Family Reunion ruse anymore, and everything on the lawn had been packed up.

They would, of course, wait however long La Contessa wished. She would have loved to tell him to let the Ministry of Science handle it all and spend the rest of the week with her family. But Maria and San Finzione needed her back, and now she had a personal matter to attend to there.

There was no putting off her departure any longer. Troy, Julie, and Susan walked to the front porch to say goodbye. Julie came up first and wrapped her arms around Helen. Helen did the same and kissed her first girlfriend deeply.

"I think we're coming to San Finzione from now on." Julie told her. "When we came to see you, there was only the one explosion."

"Mmm..." Helen Mmmed in Julie's ear. "I promise you a lot more than the one next time."

"Then stop getting stabbed and caught up in psychos' power games so we can."

"I'll avoid the stabbing. The power games kind of come with the job."

"Then you remember that we're here to help; because Ohana means Family, you fucking cunt."

"And Family means no skanky cow gets left behind."

Julie stepped out onto the front porch to wave to Mander and Bluey, who were getting in the limo. Troy stepped up, wrapped his arms around her, picked her up and set her down, then hugged her.

"Julie already gave you the whole 'family' speech, I know." Troy told her.

"Yeah. So, you're going to have to come up with something else wise or deep now."

Troy thought a moment.

"Maybe you didn't notice, Helen; but at some point, you stopped 'visiting' and started 'being home.' You know where your key is, you know the alarm code. There is ALWAYS some place for Helen to run."

"You've seen the sort of thing I'd be running from, now. The kind of thing that nobody else stands against. Despite what I tell Maria, there's a LOT more to this job than ordering people around and looking beautiful for the cameras. I try to do it your way, or Propappou's way, or Vincenzo's way. A lot of these fucks give me no choice but to do it my way. It's too much for a 22-year-old to handle; too much to just dump on Maria."

"It was too much for another 22-year-old, too." Troy said, kissing her. "Often times, it still seems too much for a 28-year-old."

"It CAN be a pretty lonely job." Helen said to him with pleading eyes.

Troy's answer was to kiss her again and whisper in her ear.

"Have Maisson text me."

She nodded, and Troy went to join Julie outside.

Susan was the last to approach her. They stood in silence and smiled at each other awkwardly before Helen stepped forward and hugged Susan. She returned it.

"I love..." Susan whispered in Helen's ear. "When you Don't Die."

"Don't you do it either, and I'll try to keep it up for you."

A small kiss and they broke the embrace.

Mander and Bluey were still waving to Troy and Julie when Helen and Susan emerged. Helen walked toward the limo. Bluey got in, Mander staying behind to hold the door for La Contessa. She walked up the driveway, onto the street, and stopped at the door. Helen waved sadly to the three people and the place that she called "home, the local one," before going back to the bigger one with different people whom she loved. She stepped in the limo and Mander waved to them one last time before getting in himself and closing the door.