Werewolf single dad 3, p.32
Werewolf Single Dad 3, page 32
“I shifted to restrain the one that came at me even though he didn’t know I wasn’t a human,” I said.
A grave look fell over both Wilkinson’s and Borello’s faces.
“I didn’t know they couldn’t smell me, I was more focused on how I couldn’t smell them,” I added.
“You couldn’t…?” Wilkinson’s voice trailed off, and he and Borello looked toward each other with a confused expression on their faces.
“Couldn’t smell them,” I reiterated. “The one who went for me said something about not being able to smell messing with his head, but I don’t think they knew I couldn’t smell them, either.”
“So, L blocks out scent receptors and scent transmitters.” Wilkinson stroked his smooth chin. “Very interesting… And while we’re on the subject of smells, you’re taking a high dosage of scent blockers, aren’t you, Mr. Brewyer? That’s what it says on your file, after all.”
“Yeah, I am.” I shrugged. “I acknowledge that I have a lot of turf to run, but I don’t want to be sniffed out and chased down the street every time I step outside.”
“And that’s perfectly understandable,” Wilkinson said. “It just gives me a better idea of the extent to which L-takers’ scent receptors are disabled. Perhaps had you been emitting your usual Alpha musk, they’d have been able to pick that up. But it’s good to know those two weren’t able to identify you by your current scent output. It rather makes you the perfect candidate to say you’re a prevalent L-user, doesn’t it?”
“I thought so,” I said with a half-smirk, before directing the conversation back to business. “So, I need to get the dealers on camera and on audio, clearly stating they’re selling me Lycanisolone, and I have to get footage of the monetary transaction taking place.”
“Yes.” Borello pointed his finger sharply at me to signify I was correct, and I could tell he was eager to continue briefing me. “AWOO will provide you with the money, all you need to do is get the goods. It couldn’t be simpler, could it?”
“Sure, on paper,” I chuckled.
“Ah, you’ll be golden.” Borello’s face twisted into something that vaguely resembled a smile this time. “Okay, so we’ve got the logistical side of things out of the way. Now, the fun part.”
“I thought it was all fun.” I smirked.
“Oh, trust me, this part is even more fun.” There was a twinkle in Borello’s eye I instantly recognized. “Very shortly, I’m going to take you to the wardrobe department where we’re going to pick an outfit out. Something that says ‘casual, laidback,’ but also puts you in the category of someone who uses Lyco. So that means no suit and tie, no shirts, nothing like that. We’re talking gym gear, casual sweats, hoodies, that kind of stuff.”
I wasn’t sure if this guy was on the road to tarring two demographics with a very large brush, but he was the expert here, so I let him continue.
“Then, once we’ve picked out an outfit for you, we’re going to give you an alias, okay?” the agent continued. “You’re gonna want a fake name. Now, did you already give them a name to call you when you gave them your number?”
“Uh, I told them to call me ‘V,’” I said.
“Great, nice one.” Agent Borello was getting excited now, and I could tell theatre was his true calling. “Very vague. We can do a lot with that. Okay. So once you’ve been given a name, you’re going to stick with it, and you’re going to answer to it, and all iterations and shortenings of it, as though it were your natural-born name. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I said enthusiastically.
“Wonderful,” Borello said. “I think that’s all bases covered then isn’t it, sir?”
“I believe it is.” Wilkinson grinned. “Do you have any further questions, Mr. Brewyer?”
“I don’t reckon I do,” I replied with just the smallest hint of a Southern accent.
“Ah-- getting into character already, I see!” Wilkinson chuckled. “Just make sure you can keep it up!”
I was still feeling a bit forlorn about Grace not being here, but I was beginning to really like these guys, and that made the whole process easier.
After we were all sure we’d been through the details of the oncoming mission, the agents escorted me through the bustling AWOO offices, and we took the elevator to the next floor where the wardrobe department was based.
On our short journey, Borello told me he’d already thought of a name that would fit my new character: Vincent Jones.
I liked the name, but I was concerned it was a bit too Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, especially since we were going in for a drugs bust, so I offered the agent a slight alteration to my new moniker-- one that would hopefully sound a bit less like the name of a guy who was in a movie about ensnaring drug dealers.
And thus, Vincent Davies entered stage left.
The elevator dinged open, and we followed a long corridor to a door right at the end, and when we opened it, it was like we’d stepped onto the set of The Devil Wears Prada.
Hey, it was one of my wife’s favorite movies. And don’t ask me why, but Meryl Streep just did it for me in that role.
Upon arrival into the walk-in closet with its rails and rails of endless choices and possibilities, I immediately understood what the guys were saying about the decisions I had to make when choosing an outfit.
As I walked around the room and marveled at the fine silk shirts and the tailored three-piece suits, I could feel myself turning into Scrooge McDuck, but with Gucci logos in my eyes rather than dollar signs.
I was almost helpless against the pull of all those expensive designer clothes.
Maybe the drug dealers had just met Vinnie on his day off, and that was a friend’s busted old minivan he was driving. The real Vincent Davies was a billionaire who wore a diamond signet ring, an expensive Italian suit, and manta ray leather loafers, and he never skimped on the Clive Christian cologne.
It was obviously in Wilkinson and Borello’s best interests to make sure I was having a good time-- and I got the feeling they were genuinely having fun, too-- but the two agents had to gently remind me I wasn’t going undercover as a member of government or to a royal party, and I hung my head in defeat as I allowed them to walk me over to the tracksuits and hoodies department.
And I almost felt a tear escape my eye when we bypassed the new-looking stuff and went to the “preloved” section.
I understood I had to dress a little closer to my own station in life if Vincent’s character was going to be believable, but would it have really damaged my claim to have put on some of that seven hundred dollar cologne?
Those Lyco users wouldn’t be able to smell it on me, anyway.
Like a child being denied the expensive candy, Wilkinson let me down gently as he explained the importance of every element of my character being realistic, and I swallowed the difficult pill as I browsed the wares fit more for a pauper than a king.
“Hey, so I recently bought a couple of bits of WereWear clothing lined with Kevlar.” I remembered Trent’s idea as I picked out a sweatshirt very similar to the one I had in mind. “It’s a sweatshirt just like this. And I’ve got a beanie hat, too. Do you think I could wear those tonight, if we put a camera in my top button or something? Or maybe just the beanie hat? I just think I’d feel a little bit safer if I went in fully protected, and it makes sense if I wear something I already own, doesn’t it? After all, they met me wearing clothes I already own.”
I automatically looked down at what I was wearing and saw my jeans had a rip at the knee, and my shirt was well-worn with splashbacks of Charlie’s spittle flecked across the chest. I couldn’t remember what I was wearing when I met the two drug dealers, Beanie and Gel-O, but I suddenly understood why the agents wouldn’t let me shop in the expensive part of the wardrobe department.
“Mr. Brewyer,” Agent Wilkinson said with a gentle smile. “Vincent Davies is a man of low economic standing. He can’t afford things like Kevlar and WereWear because all the money he does earn, he immediately spends on Moonies, you see? Vincent’s been exceeding the recommended dose of Lycanisolone to get to the size he is, and he’s been doing it fast. L isn’t cheap, that must have cost him a fortune. He is not in the position to be spending hundreds of dollars on expensive WereWear items of clothing, especially as you say the garments you already own are new. Seeing you in brand-new clothing could raise suspicions if you meet the same people you met before, and we simply can’t let a small detail such as the quality of your clothing bring the whole operation down.”
“I could go home and rough them up a bit…”
“And what’s more,” Wilkinson continued. “Vincent doesn’t feel the need to wear protective clothing while attending a drug deal. He’s been to one hundred and one deals before, remember? And he’s always come out of them safe and with the goods firmly in his pocket. He’s a big guy, and he’s ready to defend himself, so he doesn’t feel the need to go out wearing Kevlar, or any other forms of protective clothing whatsoever.”
“Ooh, that reminds me!” There was a gleam in Borello’s eye as he scuttled toward me with three pairs of grubby-looking sweatpants folded over his arm. “Vincent’s been exceeding the recommended dose of Lyco to get to the size he is, like Agent Wilkinson said. Remember, a side effect of Lycanisolone is anger. Vincent is a big fella-- and unnaturally so. It would be perfectly normal for him to be a little bit short-tempered when things aren’t going how he’s used to them tonight.”
“Well… yes.” Confliction played on Wilkinson’s face. “Yes, that would possibly be expected… But don’t push the anger too far. We don’t want it to turn into a dogfight out there.”
“Okay, so get mad enough to play the convincing part of an L abuser, but don’t get so mad that you make them madder and all end up at each other’s throats,” I repeated with a smirk. “Couldn’t be simpler.”
Wilkinson looked a little bit clammy at this point, but Borello’s skewed smile was looking more and more like an actual smile as we continued this briefing.
I had to say, I was really liking my stand-in caseworker now.
“It’ll be fine.” Borello winked, but it was aimed more at Wilkinson than it was at me. “And don’t worry about your safety, Mr. Brewyer, you’ll be wearing a very thin bulletproof vest underneath your chosen garments. Just to be on the safe side.”
Phew.
Those sly dogs had me sweating for a moment, there.
With careful curation of Vinnie’s character between Wilkinson, Borello, and myself, and after trying on loads of garments from the government’s dress-up box, the three of us came to a unified conclusion that a pair of jeans with a rip in the knee-- borrowed from the Mike Brewyer collection-- and a dark gray hoodie were fitting of a feckless street urchin who spent all his time and money in pursuit of hardcore drugs.
I didn’t really know how to take that, seeing as this was pretty similar to what I usually wore, but I didn’t entertain that thought long and instead whooped and laughed in celebration along with the government big dogs.
Once we’d determined the hoody was a good fit, Wilkinson asked a woman called Sue to meet us in the giant closet.
Sue was a sweet older lady, who I guessed must have been up there with AWOO’s longest-serving members owing to her age and the reverence the agents clearly treated her with, and she explained the wire in this particular garment was sewn into the neckline of the hoodie and traveled around the outer edge of the hood itself and down the two drawstrings.
There was a hidden camera in the aglet at the end of one of the drawstrings and an audio recorder in the other, and I was sure glad Phineas and Ferb had a whole song teaching me what the word “aglet” meant, or I’d have looked like a damned fool in front of Sue.
With the briefing and the wardrobe fitting done-- including giving me a tiny earpiece the size of a sequin that I would be required to insert into my ear shortly before nine-- there wasn’t a lot left for me to do at the AWOO headquarters, and it was with a heavy heart that I left Agents Borello and Wilkinson and went back to the humdrum existence of a normal day in the life of Mike Brewyer.
Well, as normal as it could be.
I went home and looked to Trent for moral support as I faced up to the rippling waves of revolution that sprung from the well of Amadeus’ shocking reveal. Thankfully, I found they weren’t anywhere near as volatile as I thought they’d be, and in celebration, I ate my body weight in Slim Jims and chicken thighs and chilled out for a while with my buddy. Then we both went to WereCare to pick the kids up and flirt with Whitney-- well, I flirted.
I loved Trent, but if he tried to make a move on my girlfriend-not-girlfriend, then the NIN megafan would be in for a whole new world of hurt.
And I wasn’t talking about a new cover of the hit song being released.
Us two daddies spent a normal afternoon playing with the kids and running around the garden with them, and I was able to settle Dionne into bed just before eight like I said I would.
But, as much as my afternoon filled with domestic responsibilities tried to make me forget the action-packed night that lay ahead of me, the night soon grew dark, and I couldn’t ignore the knot of tension in my stomach any longer.
And pretty soon, it was time for me to leave.
Funny, this was the second time in a short space of time that I was meeting a shady character in the park to fulfil some sort of shady deal.
It was a gamble for sure, but if I played my cards right, I’d surely come up all aces at the end of the hand.
Chapter 18
I knew my war-veteran van wasn’t the most subtle of vehicles, but I’d at least hoped I’d be able to pull up to the park without being spotted in it, so if anything did go wrong, any potential steroid-abusing enemies I made wouldn’t be able to spot me quite so easily out and about in my usual day-to-day life.
But, even when I pulled in at the farthest end of the parking lot from the park entrance ten minutes early, I saw the glow of a pair of yellow eyes immediately registering me from inside the park, and I understood I was dealing with a seriously paranoid customer.
Though, as I looked down at the small cross-body satchel stuffed with one thousand dollars of government money, I needed to remember that I was the customer in this scenario.
From the limited market research AWOO had been able to conduct, the going price of Lycanisolone seemed to be around one hundred and twenty dollars per gram. That may have seemed like a lot of money, but the agents and I had already established that Vincent Davies was someone who abused this street drug to an extraordinary degree, so he was going in prepared to stock his supply up with however much the dealer had to offer.
Although those yellow eyes were boring into my brain, I played it cool and stayed in my van. After all, they told me nine, so that’s when I’d be meeting them.
Besides, I was still waiting to hear Borello’s dulcet tones ringing deep inside my ear canal and telling me we were online.
The sequin-sized earpiece had a piece of seriously adhesive sticky stuff on the back, and I’d already removed the sticker on the back and stuck the tiny metal disc deep inside my ear when it was shifted, just as the agents instructed me to.
In a werewolf ear, there was more than enough room for the little listening device-- I barely even felt it in there. But in my human ear, it felt like something enormous was lodged deep inside, and it took everything I had to resist the urge to shove my finger in my ear and pull the obstruction out.
I sat in the van a while longer with those glowing eyes locked onto me, and just before five to nine, I finally heard a whisper in my ear.
Borello asked me to clear my throat if I could hear him, and when I did, he told me he’d turned the camera and the microphone on, and they were transmitting audio and visual records live to headquarters.
He also told me from that point on, I shouldn’t reply to anything he says, or acknowledge it in any way. He then gave me a quick reiteration of what I was expected to capture on audio and visual, and he asked me to cough to verify I’d understood his message.
So, I coughed.
“Ah, thought I told you not to respond to or acknowledge anything I said?” I could practically hear the wry sorta-smile wrapping around Borello’s words.
It was a serious test of my resolve not to scoff, and I wanted to give the pesky little voice inside my ear a good-natured earful. But that would have to wait until our celebratory meet-up, since it was now under five minutes ‘til meeting time with the glowing-eyed monster.
If the pair of lurking yellow eyes did belong to my mystery dealer, then they were at the other end of the park, so it was in my best interests to start walking over to them now to be there at nine on the dot. And if those eyes didn’t belong to the dealer and was just some other ne’er-do-well or nosy bastard, then I’d have to walk around a little bit to find who I was actually looking for.
And if that was the case, I should have gotten out of the van ten minutes ago.
Whatever the case, I needed to start moving.
That’s the thing with these dealers, they seemed to keep it overly vague. First, we had Gel-O and Beanie not wanting me to have the number for the guy they were hooking me up with, and now we had whoever this was not offering me any landmarks so I’d know precisely where I was meeting them. No coordinates, no What3Words, no sharing locations on maps, nothing.
Then again, I suppose if you were handling the most illegal substance in the shifter cache right now, you’d have to exercise a pretty strong degree of caution, so I knew I didn’t have a right to feel overly inconvenienced.
Borello made a similar comment to what I’d already been thinking and told me I should probably make a move now, and I was really impressed at the way I opted to take a deep, calming breath rather than disguise the words “Fuck” and “Off” inside a cough like I actually wanted to do.
