Brewster's Brood - Ch. 33

Part Thirty-three

Danny Garney – 3/11/2017 – Sunday – 05:35 am

“Christ,” Danny said to himself, looking on with binoculars as a mysterious figure left Max, disappeared behind the house and walked off into the underbrush around the house. “I knew something was odd when the cameras blinked off. Did they think we weren’t going to notice?”

It was too early to call Mrs. Churchill – she’d still be sleeping, and nothing at this point seemed urgent enough to wake her up over. Not yet anyway. But it certainly merited some severe concern on his part. He needed to know what the hell had changed, what Max had been told, what Max knew and who he’d learned it from.

Whoever it was Max had been talking to, they’d somehow managed to disappear without being spotted. In fact, Danny hadn’t even been able to get a look at the person’s face, or even what gender they were. The early morning fog had obscured a lot of his vision, and whoever had been talking to Max, they’d used that to help them disappear. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone, tapping the quick call for Heather. It didn’t even finish its first ring.

“What’s up, Chief?” the nightwatch woman said to him.

“You peep anyone around Max last night?”

“Not anyone who’s not supposed to be,” she said. There was a pause on the end of the and Danny knew it was a mistake as soon as he let it happen. “Shit, what did I miss?”

“What did wemiss, you mean,” Danny sighed. “I’m not entirely sure. The video links to the van were down for like fifteen minutes about two hours ago and nobody called me. Or you. Or even noticed, for that matter.”

“It was the middle of the night, Danny,” Heather said. “It’s not the kind of thing we normally keep eyes on.”

“Yeah, well, the feed cut out in the middle of the last night, and we didn’t get notified about it, which we should’ve. We need to make sure they aren’t tapping the lines, but we can’t do that until Max is out of the truck again.”

“We can check the signals coming out, make sure it’s only one.”

“I did that, boss,” Heather assured him. “I’ve got the signal packet sniffer running the whole time I’m on overwatch, and it hasn’t picked up new signals.”

“But you didn’t notice when it wasn’t sending anything?”

“I’m watching for new signals, boss, not making sure the existing ones are still on.”

“Well, from now on, we will also keep tabs on the signals making sure they don’t go off again. It means someone could’ve been doing something inside of the van.”

“Max wasn’t anywhere near there.”

“That’s what worries me most, Heather. We’ve got to be on the lookout, make sure nobody’s tapping into our lines,” he said. “Also, someone just got done meeting with Max.”

“Wait, what? Who?”

“I don’t know. Couldn’t see them.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t see them?”

“I mean, I wasn’t aware there was a blind spot until literally whoever it was, stood and had a five-minute conversation with Max, that I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear and couldn’t find out a lick of. They even had Max positioned in such a way that his back was to me, and I couldn’t even try and read his lips. The whole thing’s just a fucking blank.”

“That… Danny, that shouldn’t be fucking possible. We’ve both checked everywhere Max goes, minimized blind spots and…”

“And we fucking missed some, apparently.”

“How the fuck did we miss them, Danny?”

Danny chuckled. “Somebody’s better than us, Heather, as loathe as I am to admit it. But we don’t have to let it stand. We just need to get better, get smarter, get sharper.”

“You going to tell Mrs. Churchill?”

“Of course I’m going to tell her,” he grumbled. “Better to admit we got beat than her finding out, and it doesn’t seem like Max is doing anything that far out of the normal now that whoever he’s talking to has disappeared.”

“Wait, this person just left right before you called me, and neither one of us saw them leave?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Shit, Danny,” Heather whistled in admiration. “That’s some serious skill there. But Max doesn’t look upset or anything?”

He glanced at the camera feeds, watching Max simply doing his morning prep work, starting to get a batch of chili brewing, spending time chopping onions, fresh garlic, and dicing fresh tomatoes before pouring them, the beans, the diced chili peppers and more into one big pot. Danny had watched the man perform the ritual of making the chili several times now, but he still wasn’t sure he could recreate the recipe from scratch. Not yet, but he was going to be able to do it eventually. The man’s use of spices was what made it tricky, and Danny couldn’t exactly take the best of notes while he was keeping watch, but he was trying. Cumin. White pepper. There were a handful of things he wouldn’t have expected, but just knowing the spices were there wasn’t enough – he needed to know how much and in what proportions, otherwise he’d end up making a batch that could feel the whole operation for a day, which was far too much for his first go at it. “Nope, he’s just making his standard chili, without even looking bothered by the fact that he’s doing it without Frankie. In fact, if anything, I think he actually looks more comfortable being in his cooking space than he does when he’ s surrounded by all the women.”

“You think it’s going to bother him to see a handful of girls loitering around his truck while he’s working?”

“I think Max has made it pretty clear that he doesn’t mind if they’re around, as long as they’re not getting in the way of his working in the pursuit of the food truck,” Danny told her. “Anyway, you’re just going home and going to bed anyway, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to get breakfast from his truck before I do, as dinner,” Heather said confidently. “The biggest benefit of being on this gig is going to be getting to have his food all the time, and I intend to take advantage of that as much as possible.”

“You don’t think he’s going to recognize you eventually?”

“You know that the food truck, before the Game, averaged about 80 orders an hour, or more than one a minute?” Heather asked him. “Not only is that great, that’s fucking amazing. That means that even if he could pay attention to the customers, which he can’t because that’s why he’s got Frankie, he would be seeing over 600 faces every day, and there’s no way he’s got the ability to remember them all. Even if he does, I’ll just be another one of the pretty girls hanging around looking for his attention, and I’ll fade right into the background.”

“He’s smarter than a lot of the girls give him credit for, Heath,” Danny told her. “Don’t you be someone who underestimates him like they do, okay?”

“You got it, boss. I’ll keep my guard up. And I’ll start keeping my eyes out for anyone too ordinary to be hanging around all the time. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble across whoever our boy was meeting.”

“As much as I wish that was likely, Heather, I ain’t holding my breath.”

After cutting the call with Heather, he watched Max finish the morning prepwork before finally calling Mrs. Churchill, giving her the same information he’d just given to Heather earlier, although Mrs. Churchill didn’t seem at all panicked. In fact, she explained to Danny that she’d expected they would have a handful of things like this over the course of the Game, but that if Max was still on task and acting like he didn’t know anything about what they were doing, they could play on. Mrs. Churchill’s calm was contagious, and it reminded him that he needed to not get too worked up about these kinds of things in advance. And Max, by all accounts, looked like he was still very much on task, and not worrying about anything else.

Frankie finally showed up, and Max spent at least a minute or two berating the man, the expression on Frankie’s face revealing this was the sort of thing they went through regularly. Danny had noticed that Frankie habitually showed up a little bit late to nearly every shift, maybe doing it intentionally just to rile up Max a little and get his blood pumping.

Then, quick as a flash, the truck was on the road, and Danny was off like a shot following it throughout the streets of Oakland, a little glad to be with them in motion again. When Max was following his routine, it was easier, less disturbing, less sense that something could go wrong, and the point where Max was most in his routine was when he was cooking.

Once they got to the location, it was smooth sailing, and Danny could sit back and enjoy the show. During all their surveillance, the Saturday and Sunday mornings around the food truck had been the most fun to watch. The patrons were a fascinating mix of people going to or coming from church and those who were still clearly in last night’s clubbing clothes, many of whom were still carrying their shoes for reasons Danny didn’t quite get. And yet, nobody seemed to be willing to argue or get into fights with one another on their lifestyle choices – everyone was just happy to get their morning food and politely exchange conversation about how the previous day and/or night had been. People were less judgmental so early in the morning, so even if a woman admitted she’d stumbled out of a orgy less than an couple of hours ago, it seemed like religious folk were just happy to be having someone new to talk to and would find new ways to avoid passing judgment, just to carry on talking with a person they’d never met before.

A handful of Foxtrot Group were lingering around, having ordered food for the first time, or just simply making their presence known, as if they suspected Max was going to come out from behind the truck and sweep them off their feet, which just went to show how little research most of the girls in Foxtrot had been doing in advance.

That was the one thing Danny had to admit the entire Brand Game was certainly doing – it was revealing which of the girls in the competition had gotten by most of their lives relying on their beauty as the only weapon in their arsenal and which girls were more capable and had trained their brains to become just as powerful as their looks.

Most of the earlier groups had chosen not to swarm Max while he was working. They’d learned that there was only noise to be generated while Max was cooking, and even when he was on break during the shift, he seemed to be mostly thinking about what else he needed to do as soon as he got back to work.

Frankie Yen – 3/11/2017 – Sunday – 05:35 am

He hoped like fuck he was doing the right thing, with keeping Max unaware of what was going on. They’d been friends forever, but the amount of weirdness that was coming at Max on the daily now was only just getting started, and Frankie had to admit, he was fucking jealous.

Oh sure, he was starting to get his fair share of benefits from it. Half a dozen girls inside of the game had either offered to or had actually sucked his cock so intently it was clear they didn’t have any reservations about doing whatever it took to get additional information, not that he had a lot to offer them, but it was funny how they always seemed to have good questions that would spark answers from him, and he would be lying if he said the answers didn’t come to him a lot easier after he’d gotten a load out.

Before the Brand Game had started, it had been nearly five months since Frankie had gotten laid, but now? Shit, he’d been blown five times already and had two fucks that seemed more like the girls were into it than the last three partners he’d had, who’d mostly just laid there. Neither of the fucks had been bareback, naturally, just because nobody wanted even the slightest risk they could get pregnant with his child instead of Max’s. Most of the girls were fucking him at inopportune moments in their cycles anyway, choosing to use Frankie to keep themselves from getting too worked up when they couldn’t get a turn on the old Max Pogo.

All of that had been the easy part, though. Lying to Max had been way harder.

“Seriously, Frankie,” Max said, sliding a hot dog into the bun before layering some of his famous chili atop it. “Two weeks ago I could barely remember what it was like to be fucked, and now it feels like I can fuck any woman I want to, and I almost need to take a break.”

“You’re on a ride, man,” Frankie told him. “You just need to keep going with the flow and enjoying yourself. Sooner or later, this might all go away and then you’re going to be looking back and wondering why you weren’t enjoying it more.”

“I’m enjoying it a lot, Frankie, but still, there’s something weird about it, and I’m wondering if I’m going to get a chance to get a good night’s sleep any time soon.”

“Sleep when you’re dead, Max,” Frankie laughed. “You’ve had any favorites out of the bunch you want to tell me about?”

“A gentleman never kisses and tells,” Max said, dumping some fries into the carboard tray along with the chili dog. “That’s 36 ready.”

“THIRTY-SIX, PICKUP!” Frankie yelled out of the front of the truck, as one of the sea of people stepped forward to claim their order, handing Frankie the slip of paper proving it was their order. “Sure, that’d be fine if you were a gentleman, but what’s your excuse?”

“C’mon, Frankie,” Max said, tossing two more burgers onto the grill. “You don’t really want the blow-by-blow on all my sexual adventures, do you?”

“No,” Frankie said, “mostly because I’d be going out of my mind with envy. But I would like to know the ones you’re feeling more attachment to, so I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes, now that they offered me an invite up to Ironwood as well.”

“Nobody at Ironwood is attached to anybody, Frankie,” Max said, tossing more fries into the frier as the metal tray of them was dangerously close to running empty. “That’s sort of the whole point of Ironwood. You can fuck anybody you want to, anytime you want to, as long as they agree to it.”

“Right, but if you’re getting into somebody, Max, I don’t want to cause ruffles.”

“You think I’m getting into somebody?” Max asked, arching one of his eyebrows, pausing long enough to look carefully at Frankie.

“Knowing you, and considering you’ve banged like a couple dozen people this week, I’m thinking you’re getting into a handful of somebodies. And that’s totally cool, Max,” Frankie said to him simultaneously while taking an order from one of the various girls in the game who’d shown up to try and score some brownie points by having some of Max’s food. “But you’re the one who got invited first and I’m just a tag a long, so I’m going to respect whatever connections you’re already making.”

“Who says I’m making connections?” Max had the ability to constantly do five or six things in his kitchen space while talking, so he’d gotten two more orders ready – one steak sandwich with onion rings, and one breakfast burrito with his chili folded inside.

“You just did, Max,” Frankie laughed, taking the orders and setting them on the edge of the counter, available for pick up. “THIRTY-SEVEN! THIRTY-EIGHT!”

“Fine fine,” Max chuckled, rolling up two more breakfast burritos, having to double layer one of them as . “Yeah, there’s like three or four women who feel like they’re into me for more than just my dick, but I don’t think any of them are really lining up to want to stake a claim on my bed, you know?”

“No, Max, I really don’t,” Frankie laughed, “and even if I did know, I don’t think I’d believe you. How long have we been friends? THIRTY-NINE!”

“Longer than I think either one of us really remembers, Frankie.” Max glanced at the tablet screen with the orders on it and grabbed a handful more of the tater tots, throwing them into the secondary fry basket. “Does it matter?”

“In all that time, Max, have you ever had a real relationship with anyone that lasted for any real length of time?”

“Hey!” Max said, actually stopping in his cooking for half a second to look offended. “I’ve had relationships!”

“Yes, but how long have they lasted?” Frankie took the credit card the woman had given him, which was failing to swipe, dragged it across his pantleg a few times and then swiped it again, it having worked just fine after that, allowing him to hand the woman back her card, as well as the slip with her order number on it.

“A year or so!”

“Maaaaax…”

“Okay, fine, more like three or four months, but it ain’t like I’m not trying!”

“Nobody’s saying you aren’t, Max! Nobody’s accusing you of being the at fault person in the relationship!”

“It sure sounds like that’s what you’re accusing me of, Frankie!” He sighed, grabbing two slices of bread, opening up the lunchmeats section, pulling all the various elements he needed to make a club sandwich, and properly – ham, turkey and bacon. “Relationships don’t work out! Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

“Sure, Max, because I think most of the women before now have looked at you as a project.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“Women loveprojects, Max, and in you, they think they’ve found the ultimate fixer upper,” Frankie said with a huge sigh. “You’re, like, a golden retriever with a broken leg. They think you’re cute, but they know you’re damaged, and they’re sure if they fix the damage they’ve found in your heart, you’ll be exactly the kind of man they want you to be.”

“Which is what?” Max reached into the small metal cube and pulled out a pickle spear, putting it on the cardboard tray with the club sandwich, which had been smartly ordered without tomato or lettuce. “What kind of man do they want? Why aren’t I good enough already?”

“That’s just the thing, Max. You are good enough already.” Frankie sighed. “A lot of women, they just don’t accept men for who they are. They’re always trying to put their own personal stamp on someone or something. But they think how they’ve always imagined a man is how a man should be, even if it makes no fucking sense. That ain’t true for a lot of these women, though, is it?”

“Hmmm.” Max tossed another three hamburger buns – both top and bottom – onto the grill, letting them toast up just a little before scooping them off with a spatula, sliding bison burgers onto each of them in turn, then moving on to the condiments, each one its own little collection of requests. “I guess you’re right. Some of them, anyway. Some of them definitely feel like they want to change me, though, to make me into something I’m not.”

“Well, with those girls, fuck’em and forget’em, I say. You don’t gotta look back, and you don’t gotta worry about what they think about you, so if you have to give’em the super ice cold shoulder, do it! It’ll let you focus on the ones who aren’t trying to do that.”

“But what if you’re attracted to the girls who aren’t trying to do that?” Max laughed.

That made Frankie laugh even harder. “Max. MAX! You literally still smell of so many different perfumes right now that I’d swear you were a free sample stop in a Macy’s. I would be sneezing, but thankfully you have so much fresh garlic in that chili and in those steak sandwiches that it helps drown it all out while I’m here with you. Just tell me who you might want to keep around if the whole Ironwood thing mysteriously goes up in smoke.”

Max worked in silence for the next few minutes, and Frankie knew enough to let the man consider his options, to run them through and come to a fair conclusion, one that he’d given ample time to review. “Okay, so I’ve got, like, three or four that, I dunno, maybe I could see it working later, but there’s some big caveats with each of them.”

“Like what?”

“Like age. Like distance.”

“Feh. Nothing that can’t be solved with a little bit of work. So spill!”

“A’ight. So there’s Kelly, but she’s a little young. There’s Jenny, but I don’t know that she’s from around here. Brooklyn Travers was a good time, assuming she’d settle for someone like me. Lisseth seems nice, and so does Madison, that musician I had a few dances with.”

“Good thing you don’t have to choose, huh?”

“Not yet anyway,” Max sighed. “Sooner or later, I just know somebody’s gonna want to cut everybody else out. Catching feelings is always complicated.”

“Take your time, Max,” Frankie said to him. “If the feelings happen, then they happen. A year from now, you’re gonna look back at this and think it’s all wild.”

“God, I fucking hope so, Frankie…”