20-04-2019, 09:55 PM
Still me. The bellhops had "gone the extra mile" for their boss-lady, so Helen's bags had been taken to the suite's master bedroom, and ours were still in the living room with us.
"Helen's got the other thing she wants now. She's forced a confrontation." I told Julie as we began rummaging through shopping bags for something suitable for Helen's plans. There were boutiques in the lobby that would have had something perfect and were either still open or would open up specially at any time for a call from the La Contessa Suite, but I didn't want to go into another store for quite a while after today. "It seems like the best thing we could all do right now would be to go back to the house, sit behind our wall of Ultimados, and wait for him and his thugs to try something stupid, only to face them."
"People have been out to kill Helena before." Julie replied, finding herself a mini-skirt. "That started long before she was La Contessa."
"Well," I replied, finding myself something. "This game of theirs can't go on much longer, especially with Troy bankrupting Whyte." I thought about that a second. "Which puts Troy at number two on his list after her!"
"Helena's thought of that. And that's exactly why she's not going to let Whyte walk away. Evil rich fucks have come back from bankruptcy before." Julie said back. "They don't come back from crossing Helena." She grabbed something else she thought would work. "You remember how, when we were there, you saw kids playing and walking the streets after dark?"
I nodded.
"That's because there are no pedophiles in San Finzione."
That confused me.
"How can they be sure..." I began to ask, before Julie stopped me.
"When La Policia get a report of someone harming children, they don't send a couple of officers around to check it out. They call Helena, and SHE pays them a visit. La Contessa is welcome everywhere in San Finzione, after all. Nine times out of ten, it's a misunderstanding; a difference in parenting philosophies, the family ends up happy she stopped by and a bit better off for it.
"But that one in ten, that don't kill themselves as soon as her limo pulls up out front? Or run out the back into the arms of waiting Ultimados? They end up going peaceably for a ride with Helena. And that's the last time anyone sees them. By dawn, if they don't have a family, their former home is either government housing or a freshly-bulldozed vacant lot, and any public records of that person cease to exist. If they have family, nobody speaks of them again, and La Contessa drops by again now and then to make sure everyone's OK."
Julie looked at me evenly before continuing.
"There are no pedophiles in San Finzione. And as soon as she finds him, there's not going to be a Leonard Whyte, either. You may have noticed how not-freaked-out I am that someone tried to blow up my best friend and the home that all of us share a couple of hours ago." (I had noticed that, actually.) "You're not the only one with multiple women in your head, Susan. Yours are just more... well... pronounced, I guess." (That's accurate.) "Whyte might have thought he was attacking Troy Equals to get to Contessa Helena de San Finzione, but you should understand better than anyone else; that isn't the scorecard. He attacked Troy Medina, which means that he's got Helena Medina to deal with now. I keep telling myself that I want to be there when she catches him, but I know that deep down, I really don't. One thing I absolutely know, though, is that some time between when we part company with Helena tonight, and when we see her next, Leonard Whyte CBE will have died. And I will not care why or question how. I will just be happy to see My First Girlfriend fucking relax and be herself again for a second."
My mind kept going back to the image of the twisted metal doors in the hallway outside as we got changed. Something was really bothering me about those. Perhaps because they looked so surreal to me. Like, I know what doors are: those things in walls with the hinges and the knobs. And these things looked like them, but you usually didn't see them crumpled in the hallway. Oh, Chad kicked in a door or two, I know what THAT looks like. This was more like a child had been attempting to make a door out of Play-Doh, and it was almost perfect, but there was still something about it that they didn't like, so the kid had crushed it in their hand and dropped it on the floor.
My train of thought was interrupted by the sight of Helen re-emerging from the master bedroom.
Julie says that Helen's name has always suited her. She says that spending a night watching Helen sleep, you come to understand what makes a man start a war over a woman. That she's always been Kinsey-rating-questioningly beautiful. That even before the tiara, when the two of them were teenagers, mall-ratting around Dimond Center in Anchorage, guys came up and did stuff that she'd thought they only did in cartoons when a pretty girl walked by. Julie's beautiful herself, and didn't know guys could get that nutty in real life unless she was with Helen.
"Helen's got the other thing she wants now. She's forced a confrontation." I told Julie as we began rummaging through shopping bags for something suitable for Helen's plans. There were boutiques in the lobby that would have had something perfect and were either still open or would open up specially at any time for a call from the La Contessa Suite, but I didn't want to go into another store for quite a while after today. "It seems like the best thing we could all do right now would be to go back to the house, sit behind our wall of Ultimados, and wait for him and his thugs to try something stupid, only to face them."
"People have been out to kill Helena before." Julie replied, finding herself a mini-skirt. "That started long before she was La Contessa."
"Well," I replied, finding myself something. "This game of theirs can't go on much longer, especially with Troy bankrupting Whyte." I thought about that a second. "Which puts Troy at number two on his list after her!"
"Helena's thought of that. And that's exactly why she's not going to let Whyte walk away. Evil rich fucks have come back from bankruptcy before." Julie said back. "They don't come back from crossing Helena." She grabbed something else she thought would work. "You remember how, when we were there, you saw kids playing and walking the streets after dark?"
I nodded.
"That's because there are no pedophiles in San Finzione."
That confused me.
"How can they be sure..." I began to ask, before Julie stopped me.
"When La Policia get a report of someone harming children, they don't send a couple of officers around to check it out. They call Helena, and SHE pays them a visit. La Contessa is welcome everywhere in San Finzione, after all. Nine times out of ten, it's a misunderstanding; a difference in parenting philosophies, the family ends up happy she stopped by and a bit better off for it.
"But that one in ten, that don't kill themselves as soon as her limo pulls up out front? Or run out the back into the arms of waiting Ultimados? They end up going peaceably for a ride with Helena. And that's the last time anyone sees them. By dawn, if they don't have a family, their former home is either government housing or a freshly-bulldozed vacant lot, and any public records of that person cease to exist. If they have family, nobody speaks of them again, and La Contessa drops by again now and then to make sure everyone's OK."
Julie looked at me evenly before continuing.
"There are no pedophiles in San Finzione. And as soon as she finds him, there's not going to be a Leonard Whyte, either. You may have noticed how not-freaked-out I am that someone tried to blow up my best friend and the home that all of us share a couple of hours ago." (I had noticed that, actually.) "You're not the only one with multiple women in your head, Susan. Yours are just more... well... pronounced, I guess." (That's accurate.) "Whyte might have thought he was attacking Troy Equals to get to Contessa Helena de San Finzione, but you should understand better than anyone else; that isn't the scorecard. He attacked Troy Medina, which means that he's got Helena Medina to deal with now. I keep telling myself that I want to be there when she catches him, but I know that deep down, I really don't. One thing I absolutely know, though, is that some time between when we part company with Helena tonight, and when we see her next, Leonard Whyte CBE will have died. And I will not care why or question how. I will just be happy to see My First Girlfriend fucking relax and be herself again for a second."
My mind kept going back to the image of the twisted metal doors in the hallway outside as we got changed. Something was really bothering me about those. Perhaps because they looked so surreal to me. Like, I know what doors are: those things in walls with the hinges and the knobs. And these things looked like them, but you usually didn't see them crumpled in the hallway. Oh, Chad kicked in a door or two, I know what THAT looks like. This was more like a child had been attempting to make a door out of Play-Doh, and it was almost perfect, but there was still something about it that they didn't like, so the kid had crushed it in their hand and dropped it on the floor.
My train of thought was interrupted by the sight of Helen re-emerging from the master bedroom.
Julie says that Helen's name has always suited her. She says that spending a night watching Helen sleep, you come to understand what makes a man start a war over a woman. That she's always been Kinsey-rating-questioningly beautiful. That even before the tiara, when the two of them were teenagers, mall-ratting around Dimond Center in Anchorage, guys came up and did stuff that she'd thought they only did in cartoons when a pretty girl walked by. Julie's beautiful herself, and didn't know guys could get that nutty in real life unless she was with Helen.
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