Part One: Business Or Pleasure

PART ONE:

September 3rd, 2001.
Brooklyn, New York

September is an odd month, especially in the northeast. As the first month after the summer vacation comes to a close, every day is a seasonal adventure. One day may be chilly, the next it may be hot, there is just no telling what September will bring. It's actually similar to life in that respect, you just never know what you are going to get. One day you are a warm-hearted citizen making a consistent contribution to the community you live in, and in the blink of an eye you are a cold-blooded savage blinded by your personal ideals and vendettas. Alright, maybe I am being a bit extreme but don't let my awkward sense of humor take away from the point I am trying to convey. Life can change in the blink of an eye, providing your eyes are open in the first place.

"I'm not going," I said to my mother as we took our seats across from each other to eat our breakfast.

"You're going to go Kevin, and to every single class. I am not going to say it again."

"I want to go to the police. We should go to the police," I said, stirring my spoon around the rim of the bowl of cheerios in front of me.

"I already spoke to the police. We cannot file a missing persons report until forty eight hours has passed. You are giving up on your father so quickly Kevin?" she said, quirking an eye brow and staring at me intently.

"Of course not."

"Then why the long face? Why such huge concern? Your father is more than capable of handling himself."

"Maybe something is wrong, maybe he needs help," I said. I was beginning to become a little irritated at the extreme change in my mother's attitude and composure overnight.

"He is fine, I'm sure." She said with what seemed to be a false sense of confidence. "He survived that awful war, these horrid streets..."

"Are you trying to convince me Mom, or yourself?"

"He even survived that terrible black bear attack up north," she continued, obviously avoiding my rebuttal.

I had had enough. I dropped the spoon into my bowl and stood up. The sound of the metal coming in contact with the porcelain seemed to echo throughout our small house, and my mother flinched slightly and blinked in response to the sound. "Yes he did. He still had help, didn't he?" I said, as I pushed my chair under the table and started for the closet to fetch my jacket.

"Pay attention in school. Pass all of your classes," she said, I could hear a small bit of frustration in her voice. "You want to help your father Kevin? Don't jeopardize everything you worked for these past four years just to..."

"Help him?" I zippered the jacket up to my neckline and grabbed my book-bag off of the floor next to the door. My mother followed me with her eyes, and looking down before speaking.

"I love you Kevin," I heard as I closed the door. I was sure of that much. I knew she loved me. What I didn't know was the location of my father, or if he was even still alive.

My mind ran rampant. I moved down the cement block steps of our small one family home and started off in the direction of my high school. The walk to school was a long trek over busy city blocks that were equally as crowded as my head at the time. I just could not seem to focus on anything else but my father. We had spent so much time together, accomplished so much, and I was powerless. Powerless to change whatever events had transpired. He spent many years teaching me how to protect myself, but he never taught me how to protect him. Hell, I didn't even know what the man did for a living. I had nothing, less than nothing, but I had to help. I had to find him, I had to know what kept my father from coming home that night to the one thing he loved most; his family.

As my mind continued running countless scenarios through my head, I was approaching St. Edwards High School. I had my head down most of the walk, and just as I picked it up to navigate the turn onto school grounds, I collided into a female and knocked her straight to the ground.

"Don't you have eyes?" she snapped, as she moved onto her left knee and began to stand up.

" I'm -- I'm sorry." I extended my hand and offered help, but she ignored it as she rolled onto one knee in order to stand back up.

"Sorry does not fix the dirt stain on my brand new jeans," she said with a firm look of discontent across her face, managing to get back to her feet. She then stared into my eyes for a long moment, which had seemed like forever to me. I did not know her as well as I do now, and I would have sworn up and down she was trying to figure out where she recognized me from. Experience with her tells me she was most likely considering how many witnesses were in the general proximity, and where she would flee to after she disemboweled me. "You are Kevin Harley, are you not?"

My lips curled into a small smile, a bit taken back that she had remembered my full name. "Last time I checked."

"Ah. We have had classes in the past together."

I grinned, way more flattered than I should have been. "Yes, and history this year."

"Right. I thought I recognized your scent ... "

"My scent?" I asked. Did she smell me often? "It's just a Calvin Klein knockoff,"

"It's marijuana," she said quickly, before leaning in, putting her nose to the cloth that covered my left shoulder, "--and yesterday's shower."

A bit embarrassed, I smiled nervously, but before I could begin to reply and defend myself she had already started to walk away. "Wait! I was not even aware you knew who I was!" I said as I broke into a light trot to keep up with her fast pace.

"I don't," she said as she kept her pace brisk, and her eyes forward.

"Well, can you slow down?" I asked as I reached out and wrapped my open hand around her arm.

In one fluid motion she wrapped her left arm around mine and forced me into an arm brace, her right hand racing up towards my neck. I managed to slip my own left arm around her right as it came up to grab my throat, a defensive maneuver which it appeared we both knew well. She backed me up into a conveniently placed street light, both of our arms tangled within each others grasp.

"I just wanted to talk Cassandra."

Just as I finished her name I felt her knee move between my thighs, as she began to put pressure on the part of a man he prizes most. "Let go of me now--and don't call me that," applying a progressive amount of force to my groin during her sentence.

"Fine, well, what can I call you then?" I untangled both my arms from hers, and she leaned back fixing the sleeves on her black hooded sweatshirt.

"You can call me Sasa,"

"Sasa?" I grinned. "I like that. It's sort of ... sassy."

She was not entertained. "Are you high?" she asked inquisitively, as her deep blue eyes pierced my own.

"No, why?" I asked with haste and a bit defensively.

"Your eyes are bloodshot and you reek. I don't associate with people who use drugs."

"I am not high. This hoody needs to be cleaned," I said as I relieved the street light of my weight, and unzipped the sweater, preparing to take it off. "I was up all night, that is probably why I look like shit."

"Well, sleep is important."

"So is finding my father ... " I said, again, with haste.

Cassandra was still straightening herself out, but stopped everything when I mentioned my father's disappearance. After a few moments of silence and stillness, she spoke, "Most adult men find themselves in bars after work. Perhaps he didn't come home because he got too drunk and passed out somewhere."

"My father doesn't drink. How did you know he didn't make it home from work?"

"I assumed."

"A very accurate assumption ..."

"Lucky guess," Cassandra said dismissively. She took a look around at our surroundings as she often did, before beginning to walk in the opposite direction from our high school.

"Where are you going?" I asked, taking a few quick steps to bring myself up to speed.

"We should start asking questions at a bar. Regardless of whether or not you think your father drank or not, a bar is the perfect social habitat for rumors and hearsay to flourish. Businessmen of all calibers can be found there, and more often than not they socialize with at least one person, if only the barkeep."

"We?" I asked. The fact she was not only immediately volunteering to help, but also attempting to lead my investigation had caught me entirely off guard.

"Yes," she stopped walking and turned to her right so she was facing me. "You want my help, do you not?"

I bump into her, knock her straight down to the ground, scuff her jeans, and now she wants to help? I admit I had an initial feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was not exactly right with the scenario unfolding, but I could not afford to deny her assistance. She obviously had some form of training. Like I had warned you earlier, I knew next to nothing about her at the time, but high school kids gossip, and I had heard before that her father had owned a military funded research company called Valon Industries. Maybe she was trained for a more complex and physically demanding version of corporate espionage? Perhaps they were unfounded rumors? Either way, I wasn't prepared to say no. The opportunity to get closer to Cassandra Valon, who I spent many a day imagining myself with, was not going to slip through my fingers so easily. I only wished I could detect her motives.

"Well, sure, I'll take any help I can get," I stated, but I was still so curious about her, I had to push the envelope a bit further. "How did you become so knowledgeable of the adult male's after-work social behavior anyway?"

"My father is like a cop. He taught me some ... useful things," she said as we had once again began walking the busy city streets toward a destination unbeknownst to me. "Especially about catching the largest and most elusive criminal," she paused and turned her head towards me, "the American businessman."

"Ah, I see. What does your father do?" I was surely interested, and it must have sounded like I was, because she instantaneously shot me an agitated glare.

"Are we looking for my father or yours?" she snapped.

"Right, well I was just--"

"What does your father do Kevin?" she asked, the attitude in her voice insinuated that her patience was already depleting.

"He's a businessman,"

It had been ten or fifteen minutes since we had first started walking away from our school, and after a few more steps Cassandra stopped walking and turned to our right once more. I followed her gaze to a large florescent green sign. I supposed that this was the bar she was speaking about. I could never picture my father walking inside and having a drink, let alone associating with people who would populate such a place.

"Perrrrfectt," she said with a faint half-smile, holding her stare on the sign before glancing quickly to her left, and then to her right.

"Business or Pleasure? The name sounds like a strip club," I said, staring at the name of the tavern which was large enough to be a billboard hanging over the top of the entrance.

"It does. I suppose they did not think that one through," she said as she let a small smile creep over her plump, pale pink lips. "Well, go inside," she raised her arm toward the door as a butler would to his employer.

"Ladies first," I grinned, extending a hand towards the door, pulling it open for her and standing aside so she could pass.

"Try not to look like a drug addict," she snarled as the door closed behind us.

I could not help but keep that stupid grin on my face, even with a possible tragedy looming over my head and tons of unanswered questions. Something about her light Spanish accent--it whirled in and out of her words, like the September city breeze did with the strands of her dark hair. It was settling. Despite her stern, borderline nasty attitude, I found comfort in her voice, and her eyes. Those eyes, those nearly shining, mesmerizing blue eyes of hers ... had for a moment made me feel like everything was going to be alright.

That moment was fleeting. The door shut with a hard slam, and we only made it a few steps inside the tavern before a large, burly middle-eastern man stomped into our path.

"Identification please?"

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