The Choice Is Yours

[Raphael Dallins]

“Come in.”

Caroline Dallins’ corner office was of the most inconspicuous variety. To find the office in the first place, one had to undertake a small trek up several floors either by stairs or elevator. The building in question was owned by a huge law firm with Caroline only happening to make up part of their Public Relations arm. Judging by random framed photos of up-and-coming collegiate athletics turned pro on the way to her office, she was at least half decent enough at her job.

There was no secretary for her, no public assistant. All it took was knocking on the oak door to get her attention. She was running her fingers through the top drawer of a filing cabinet, harmlessly humming to herself. There was a call waiting on hold, red light flashing at the phone on her desk. Quick as one pleased she found the folder she was looking for and dropped it on the desk, just in front of the astrolabe brandished next to her name plaque.

“I believe the financials you wanted will all be there. Everything accounted for. I have to admire that you have done your homework. You’ll probably do better for his career than I would, short-term or long-term. His sanity to boot too.” The way she said that was in a tone of sheer distaste. As though the idea that a specific client of hers would not suffer was one she could not oblige. “Before you do go though...Would you mind sitting? I’d like a word.”

Caroline was speaking to Calico Case. She’d received this invite from Caroline directly, not through Raphael. They had spoken most sparingly prior to this, of course. What had started as a personal flirtation and fling and then a personal relationship between Calico and Caroline’s brother had most recently became a business arrangement, with Calico assuming the managerial role for the man known professionally as Sparrow. She’d even commissioned a new US Championship belt for him as an opening salvo gesture of good faith on her part.

Finding this place wasn’t too difficult; Caroline had given her the address after all. One could get lost in the downtown district amid the high rises of glass and steel. The colors of gray and black and copper and cobalt blue were a kaleidoscope on the corporate landscape. Passing through the lobby, up the elevator and down hallways it had reminded Calico of a previous time in her life albeit brief where she had worked in sports management for professional baseball. She had gotten in over her head and had disappeared after dealings with shady organizations, finally finding solace managing a bed and breakfast in New England when Sparrow had reconnected with her.

Now having entered this luxurious office, it was clear that Caroline was doing quite well for herself. Calico had some trepidations about coming here, and not telling Raphael. But that was the request, and that was the common courtesy extended woman to woman. Calico had chosen a simple outfit: a gray tweed dress to the knee over a sheer black turtleneck, chunky black heels. Hair in a bun, drab horn rimmed glasses; she looked like a ‘60s college girl. Mentally she had demurred, not wanting to try and upstage Caroline in any way, even through her attire. It was highly unlikely in any regard, but she did not want to upset the apple cart as it were. This was to be the final bit of professional switch over from the otherwise handshake deal granted so far.

“Thank you for inviting me, Ms. Dallins. I realize all of this wasn’t ideal. But I was hoping for a smooth transition. What would you like to talk about?”

“I would just like to admit when I’m beaten fair and square,” Caroline offered casually, looking over the top of her glasses. Her attire was even simpler than Calico’s, beige pants suit, open blazer, gold buttons to match the triangular earrings that dangled. She breathed in and exhaled. “You know it’s funny how things work. I have plans for my baby brother. Big plans and I thought everything was ready. I--and I suppose it really bears nothing for me to tell you this: I got rid of Gwen. Blonde girl, spitfire, his ex?

You know the one. I, in so many words, threatened pushing legal action on her uncle. You know, bringing a minor backstage to wrestling shows, because the man raised her after all. Letting a young, impressional pre-teen hang around the seedy elements when he was her guardian, all this, all that. The litigation alone would have bankrupted him, obviously. Carny shit is still carny shit in a court of law and she loves that old fool more than anything. I bumped her...Off.”

Caroline made a flick motion with her index finger, as if to knock away dust. “His friend Sammie though. Well I beat her in a match. Now that doesn’t bare much in a court but there’s some weird understood code among wrestlers, like--like wrestling settles shit or something. So she can and will say a lot, be very vocal about my existence around my baby brother but unless he all but begs her to intervene...That’s her stepping aside too. You though? You are a different animal than the bestie and the ex. I can’t plausibly fight you because you’re not a wrestler. I can’t drag you through court or come up with half-baked suits because you know what you’re doing. At least you know enough to cut me off at the pass before I get something cooking.”

Caroline sighed. Her shoulders fell, and her head turned to the phone on her desk; a blinking light signifying that she still had someone on hold. “You are a force of positive direction when I’m trying to send him the other way.”

Calico noticed the phone, couldn’t help but wonder if Caroline should get that. But that was her way wasn’t it? To make people wait. To strike at the right time and make things happen exactly when she wanted them too. She knew enough about Gwen and Sammie, but probably not enough about the machinations behind the scenes that Caroline had pulled. Even this handoff of documents could’ve been handled via the mail perhaps. But she wanted a grand stage to say her piece, right? To fully show off her flair for the dramatic.

“It’s pretty simple, I love your brother. I care about him and want what’s best for him. But I have never treated this like some competition or that he was some prize to be won, you know? You may see it differently. Certainly seems that way….”

She trailed off and adjusted her glasses. She wanted to be careful with how she phrased things, to resist raising her voice. She hadn’t really noticed any security in the building at all, which was a bit odd. Perhaps she’d just missed them. But they seemed to be the only two people on this floor of this building, perhaps in the entire building. Calico’s mind imagined steel bars slamming down over the windows and Caroline imprisoning her here, never to be heard from again. Caroline could wipe the floor with her physically in her office with no witnesses. Make her take a tumble out the window hundreds of feet to her death? It was everything she could do to maintain the poker face of professional indifference to Caroline, but the truth was Calico feared her. It seemed that Caroline was the cruel guardian of her younger brother, and that no woman was good enough for him. Except for one. Sister knows best, or something to that effect.

“I’m not sure if this is some sort of 11th hour appeal for me to change my mind or what. You made it pretty clear you were done managing Raph. Whatever plans you have for him, he’s a grown man. Neither of us like your negativity. We are quite happy with how things are now. And I must admit I have admired your professionalism thus far in what could’ve otherwise been a hairy situation. You two are family and I can never come between that. This change has been a positive. If you could see how he has a certain light in his eye and pep in his step that wasn’t there before. It’s wonderful. And we thank you for what you’ve allowed to occur for us.”

She talked, but seemed to almost be witnessing this outside her body. Talking to Caroline who sat there stone faced but clearly simmering under the surface. A volcano fraught with potential to destroy everything in its path but lay dormant above a fruitful city. Calico felt like Pompeii right about now. The red heat rising, pulsating like that damn blinking light on Caroline’s desk phone.

“Excuse me, but don’t you think you should answer that?”

“Well one of us is,” Caroline said so casually that Calico might not have even thought she heard it correctly. “Although what happens if I answer it or if you answer has drastically different outcomes.”

She leaned back in her chair now, and the hardened gaze that Caroline had held slowly began to melt away. She looked almost relaxed, or perhaps as relaxed as Caroline Dallins ever could be in her life. For a moment she seemed to scan over Calico like she was trying to read her or maybe commit her to memory.

“Did you know that you and I share more than one mutual contact? Probably not. See that person on the other line? That is a man named Alex. Now you probably don’t know him as Alex. No, no. You wouldn’t. You see, you would probably know him as Alecko. Y’know? Alecko? That name sound familiar? Nights in Sochi, putting that big brain of yours to work for him and his people. Now me, I would never get into an actual bed with Alecko and his money. Metaphorically I mean, you seem like a nice...Person.”

She seemed to have trouble with that last part.
“I mean I’m a former athlete, so his people, his family, it’s just smart business to steer clear of him because God, Calico! Their concept of interest is terrifying sis. In fact, he’ll be the first to tell you, ‘don’t get into business with me if you can’t handle it’. You gotta become a ghost to get away from them.” Caroline cleared her throat. Gently as the breeze, her fingers reached for the same papers that she had put on the desk.

“So here’s what happens now. He’s expecting one of us to pick up the phone and take him off hold. Now if I do it? That leaves you with a very short amount of time to disappear off the face of this earth and never be heard from again. Get yourself into witness protection maybe, or make good with your family before they come to find you. Because you and I both know he will find you. If you answer? Well, that gives you a little more leeway. He’s forgiving, he can find ways for you to work off that debt you got goin’ sis. I mean the choice is yours of course how this goes. I’m just...I’m just pointing out your options.”

Calico sat there looking at Caroline. No, that wasn’t it. She was looking at a spot a few inches above Caroline’s right ear. Not at the far wall exactly either. Looking at a corner of the painting hanging there, a roiling seascape with a schooner being tossed around on choppy waters. Like the dark dangerous waters of the Black Sea and that bustling beach resort on the coast. Sochi. Russia. She was listening and not listening at the same time. Zoning out and feeling like she was falling down an endless shaft even as she sat in the luxuriant leatherbound office chair.

At the lower left corner of the painting nestled against the dark oak of the frame was a little gossamer spider web. That had to be real right? But for someone as meticulous as Caroline Dallins, this seemed supremely out of place. And there perched in the tender strands was a spider. A black widow spider. No, perhaps it wasn’t out of place at all. This was probably Caroline’s pet. Maybe it didn’t exist except in Calico’s mind's eye. Real or imagined, she just looked at it and let that image burn through her retina. Calico was the fly wasn’t she? Caught in the web, walking right into this trap with options that weren’t really options at all. Bad and even worse aren’t much to select from.

Alecko. He wasn’t the head of the “organization”. He was just the handler and the one who got things done. Or had things undone. She had met him through a friend of a friend of a friend, in a sort of industry where friends are fleeting and situational and mostly not really your friends at all. The allure of money had taken Calico in at a young age. Her family had been borderline poor, ultra religious. They never approved of the way she dressed. God forbid her body developed curves. That was a sin. She had gotten out of that situation as quick as she could, got a scholarship and went to college. She was highly intelligent, both in scholarly affairs and reading people. But she also liked to play with danger, even though she was mostly defenseless. A quick wit and looks won’t save you in every situation. She knew that some of the things she did were wrong, and once you started bending the rules or even breaking them the line you would cross kept getting a little further from her safe zone each time. So far that when she looked back over her shoulder she couldn’t even see salvation.

Executives and athletes in professional sports are really no different than anyone else that comes into amounts of money that are just numbers after a certain point. You start spending it on people, places, and things to make you feel anything in a numb desensitized world as your reality becomes more and more unrealistic. Mansions, yachts, women, gambling, drugs… it’s an illicit laundry list as old as time. Calico was good at laundering money, shell corporations, cooking books, the whole nine yards. It was just math with a pinch of danger. It’s when the pinches started to break the skin that she realized it wasn’t for her anymore. But that’s not how it works, right? Once you let it in, and become what they need… you become essential. To a point, until such time you become a liability and are deemed replaceable. And when you’re so good at laundering? Well, sometimes even whilst laundering clothing a sock might go missing from time to time. Calico had decided she needed a bit more of the cut, more than what they were offering. Who else looked at the numbers as finely as she did? Her hubris had been her downfall. Apparently someone else had done just that.

So Calico had decided to run. It was hard. She had been in bed with the family and their money. She had gotten in bed with Alecko literally too. He wasn’t bad looking, and she needed a friend. Someone on her side. Using her brain and her looks again to establish some safety. But Alecko was using her, just in another way. A pet, a thing. A one stop shop for all his needs. He probably laughed about her behind closed doors with others in the organization. So it made it doubly hard to leave. She had spirited away a nest egg that was raising questions. And she had walked away from someone you just don’t do that to. She never loved him, far from it. Alecko had gaslighted her into something feeble and needy even worse than before she met him. Getting away from him and hiding out in New England took everything she had. She had to cocoon up to emerge as something halfway normal. Nobody understood her. Raphael was the only man that ever really understood her in her whole life.

Now? She was done running. She had imagined this day would come, honestly.

“I’d… like to speak with Alex… Alecko. If that’s alright with you. I don’t have the stamina or resolve to run one more mile away from him or his people. Does that disappoint you… to hear me cave?”

Caroline’s fingers gently tapped the surface of her desk. It was the ring finger with the pale band of skin where a ring once was that struck especially fierce. “No. No, it doesn’t disappoint me at all. It actually relieves me if you can believe it. There was a part of me that thought you would take the risk anyway. ‘Maybe she’s bluffing’ you might have thought. ‘She can’t possibly know Alecko’ too. This is far from a disappointment.”

Her head craned back and she eyed the direction that Calico had been staring at for the longest time. Caroline didn’t seem to see whatever it was that the woman sitting on the opposite side of the desk saw. Perhaps she was pretending she didn’t see it. Her eyes glanced back at the woman in the turtleneck, but those same eyes betrayed nothing. So full of contempt for not just Calico sitting in front of Caroline but the desk, the window behind her, and even the very air they breathed. It was the presence of a woman who had not known peace or happiness for years. All things, joy, giddiness, optimism, any sense of whimsy, all were lost on the stony visage of the woman in front of Calico.

There were no photos of Caroline’s children on the desk, something Raphael would have mentioned to Calico but it had to be seen to be believed, surely. Any signs that the woman even had the slightest concept of attachment did not exist here. She was merely herself. A tightly wound, over-rotated ball of bitterness and spite.

This was what she meant to do to Raphael. This was what she meant to turn him into. Perhaps worse than her, but was that any surprise? Caroline had once been the talk of many. Years ago she was someone special, infinitely capable in the ring, a star, an athlete, an example of everything a wrestler could strive to be. Now? Who was this woman in front of Calico? Was she even truly a person anymore, or simply festering emotions in an overpriced three-piece?

Caroline gently pushed the phone in Calico’s way, but her hand stayed on the receiver to stop the young woman from picking it up.

“Do me a favor: ask him when he lets you speak, how much would it be to pretend you no longer exist. You can tell him I’m asking. Uh...” Caroline thought about it for a second and physically grimaced before moving her hand away from the phone. “Ask him if my retirement account would be enough to forget about you. For good.”

Her hand had started to reach for the phone but had frozen in midair when Caroline hadn’t let go of it. Listening to her words it had started to tremble a bit. Why had she offered that last bit? Another choice that wasn’t really a choice at all? A last minute bit of clemency, if Alecko had allowed such a thing? She almost felt like a prized cow on the hoof at auction. No matter who the highest bidder was, she’d be slaughtered eventually. Caroline wanted her to no longer exist at any rate, or at least fade from her brother’s heart and mind; another thing taken away.

“Caroline, I couldn’t ask that of you to…”

Calico trailed off. The stern look and arched eyebrow of a corporate jackal put her in her place then. Caroline didn’t have to say a word. It wasn’t really a favor was it? Calico would ask the question or else. Otherwise Caroline likely would snap up the phone and offer another choice that wasn’t a choice to Alecko if she didn’t hear the satisfactory words drip from Calico’s lips. Caroline either always got her way or created so much havoc when she didn’t that it didn’t matter who ‘won’ in a particular situation.

“I’ll ask him. That’s very… gracious of you.”

Calico picked up the phone and tapped the button off hold. She imagined Caroline would tap the speaker phone so she could listen in on Calico twisting in the wind, but she didn’t. Not yet anyway. She cleared her throat and meekly put the phone to her lips and ear.

“H-hello… this… this is Calico… Cali. Yes… it really is, Alecko. I…”

She was cut off and for a long time only spouted off a ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘mhmm’ here and there. It really wasn’t necessary to hear exactly what the Russian mobster was saying to her, but one could imagine it wasn’t very good. Alecko was the most domineering man Calico had ever met. Well, probably a close second to Caroline but the sheer amount of time she’d spent with him trumped the pecking order due to longevity. She was nodding her head to many replies even though obviously he couldn’t see her. She had been gaslighted so much, the old ways were bubbling back to the surface.

Eventually, he had stopped speaking and Calico took a deep breath and her shoulders sagged. She then feebly asked about the favor, about how much it would cost for him to pretend she never existed. That it was Caroline Dallins that was inquiring and that it would be from her own personal accounts. Finally she pressed her lips together and clenched her eyes shut, a single tear trailed down her cheek. She held the phone out slowly to Caroline.

“He… he wants to talk to you…”

It was becoming clear that whatever peace and happiness and tranquility Calico had enjoyed with Raphael was coming to an end. Hell, she’d probably never get to see him again. She was hanging in the balance on a threadbare strand over an endless chasm of nothingness. Would it be Alecko or Calico that would flick her away like an irritating piece of lint?

“Of course.”

Caroline took the receiver in hand with the barest gesture of courtesy. She listened quietly, curiously to the man on the other line. A single ‘Mhm’ and another ‘Mmm’ followed. After a few moments in time she let a sound between her lips, sucking her teeth in disdain. Her nostrils flared and she rolled her head from side-to-side. It was as though she was waiting for Alecko to eventually make a point.

“I don’t care--No, no. I don’t care about the money. That was your payout for my consultations, no more, no less. No--no, of course, I know how much that is. I’m just asking if it’s--uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. Yes I know, that. Yes, I know that too.”

There was a pause and Caroline eyed Calico quietly, making a certain study of her. She was deciding on something perhaps. Had Alecko said that it was better that Caroline keep her money and he get Calico? Whatever the case, she coughed in her hand.

“No, I’m not going to go back on it. What? She doesn’t have anything on me. Yes. Okay. Yes. Fine. It’s uh...Seven-two-five--” Caroline rattled off a series of numbers and waited. The voice on the other line went quiet. After a few moments, a few more words were said and then Calico would see Caroline simply hang up the phone.

“You’re free,” Caroline said after a few moments. She peered at Calico over the top of her glasses, easy as you please. “You understand of course what I need you to do now right? I want you...To go. Disappear into the wind. Don’t tell anyone. No contact. Make a new life for yourself, make a new name, and go live a life of normalcy, away from the public eye and away from him. You can take how much ever you’ll need from whatever you were making the ungrateful little shit brother I have. Open a gas station, or a laundromat in Alaska, I don’t give a fuck. Check in once a month for the next six months. No, no. Twelve. I’ll be done by then. Just disappear or I really will put you into dust too. Marry someone. Have kids. Adopt. I don’t really give a shit Calico, you’ve cost me more money than the other two headaches combined. Just take a lesson to heart and know that love...”

Caroline thought about it.

“Love is a poison. The most effective poison there is.”

Calico drew in perhaps the deepest breath she’d ever taken and just held it then. She didn’t know what to say, definitely not ‘thank you’ but how do you acknowledge someone who both saves and destroys you in the same breath? She just nodded and reached into her purse. What she produced caused Caroline to purse her lips slightly. Calico pointed a SIG Sauer P238 .380 caliber handgun at her.

“I know now what I suppose I’ve always known that happiness is often an illusion, especially with anything hanging over your head. I always felt the shadow of Alecko and his organization, his cold fingers squeezing at my shoulder like an ever-present phantom. I told myself that if he ever got his hands on me again, I’d use this gun. Not on him, but myself.”

She laid the gun flat on the table and slid it across to Caroline with her index finger.

“It would appear I don’t need it anymore. If love is a poison as you say, then fear is a viral infection that is incurable. There’s antidotes for poison, but what I have… this fear? It’s terminal. With no real timetable where it ultimately ends me. A cancer that consumes me. But I won’t take the easy way out. I’ll endure it until the day I die. So I want you to have that gun. My penance is to live and to suffer without Raphael. Giving you that satisfaction. And if… IF I do find someone and marry, have kids? I hope I have a son and a daughter, and I’ll name them Raphael and Caroline. And they’ll be loved, and hopefully they’ll get along. Lord knows Raphael can’t be happy with you around. So I’ll see how the next batch turns out, hmmm? I left him a note on his pillow like I do every single morning that says ‘I love you always and forever, no matter what.’ It’s the same phrase every time, like a mantra. I’ll let that be our last communication since I can’t say it any better than that. That’s something your money can’t buy. But otherwise, you win. I’m gone. I wish I was brave enough to say I wish I was there when your plans ultimately backfire. But I’m not. Maybe one day I’ll stop caring, maybe I won’t. But I’m in the wind. I’ll change my name. You can look at that gun from time to time and remind yourself that Calico Case is dead, and you killed her. Goodbye, Caroline…”

With that she gathered herself up and rushed out of the room. She couldn’t bear to let Caroline get one more dig in on her. She rushed down the hall, allowing herself to get inside the elevator before she completely broke down. She gathered up some money, and chartered a flight to the Pacific Northwest. Got a job in a coffee shop, changed her name and lived out her days. The girl who disappeared… again.