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Authors: Anthony Bidulka

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art world scene, the ever-mysterious, K, aka—Kay Quant nee Wistonchuk—aka Mom. Go figure.

“But I…why me…I don’t understand this,” Marie-Genevieve got out between happy sobs.

“Come here, Sis,” JP said, pulling her into a hug. “After all you’ve been through…having to raise Joshua alone now…you

deserve this. Consider it a gift from Jane.”

“I think this calls for another round of margaritas!” Anthony decreed, kissing the top of Joshua’s sleepy head.

“Would anyone like me to cook up more food?” Sereena offered, taking quite nicely to her new role as Julia Child reborn.

My mother muttered something under her breath, then wobbled away toward the kitchen to begin cooking things with butter

and cream.

It was a jubilant afternoon, which quickly led to early evening. Eventually, once enough of Mom’s cooking had been ingested to soak up the excess salt and tequila, everyone straggled off to their own homes. Marie-Genevieve and Joshua, who were staying with us—uh, I mean staying with
me
—retired to the guest room, exhausted from all the excitement. And, I hoped, to roll around in all that money. Finally, only JP and I were left. And of course Barbra and Brutus, who’d managed to convince us to light the fire. It was a good idea. We’d left the door open a bit too long, and as the effects of the margaritas died off, the season’s true intentions were evident in the still frigid night air invading the house.

“You feel like going to bed early?” JP asked, cuddling up next to me on the couch, facing the fire. “Maybe watch a movie in

bed with popcorn?”

“Sure. But first, there’s one more present to give out.”

JP bolted upright, his sudden excitement causing Barbra to do the same. As she sat watching us with her inquiring doggie

eyes, I noticed that JP was doing much the same.

I patted both their heads, then leaned forward to reach under the couch. With dramatic flare, I pulled out a long, flat package.

“Did you get me eighty-six-thousand-three-hundred dollars too?” JP asked.

I smiled at him, appreciating how the light from the fire-

place’s dancing flames reflected in his eyes. “Not quite,” I said.

“Should I open it now?” he wondered, suddenly a little shy. He was totally not expecting this.

“First, I need something from you,” I told him in all seriousness. e responded in kind. “What is it?”

“I need you to tell me how you got into this house, tied me up, and did it all without alarming Barbra and Brutus.”

JP sucked in his cheeks as he regarded me with slitted eyes. I could tell his brain was whirring away as he considered

whether or not to come clean. Finally he sat back and said, “Well, I’m sorry to inform you of this, Mr. Quant, but breaking into your house, and getting by your dogs, is pitifully easy.”

What? Really?

“You see, most people who have dogs get lax about home security. They either decide that having dogs is enough protection,

H and don’t even bother buying an alarm system. Or, if they had a system before they got the dogs, they end up rebelling against having to spend lots of money to update to a more sophisticated one, once they realize their dogs, roaming free in the house, are tripping their old, no-frills alarm on a regular basis.”

It was true. I’d had some issues with my security system and the dogs in the past. The dogs won, especially after one

particular instance, when Barbra *, saved the day—and my life. She’d attacked a man who was bent on killing me in my own

home. Who wouldn’t trust a dog like that over a machine?

“The day we met…” JP continued.

I held up a hand to stop him there. “You refer to breaking into my house and hog-tying me as ‘the day we met’? Really? I

think in the future, when people ask how we met, we’ve got to come up with something a little less illicit than that. And

technically, the day we met was when we tried to knock each other’s blocks off in Jane’s office,” I pointed out. “All that aside, while we’re on the topic,” I rallied on, “do you mean to tell me, that you—once a man of God—think that break and enter and

uncalled-for violence towards good guys like me, is okay?”

“First of all,” he calmly explained, “I was an apprentice in a monastery, not a man of God. Second of all, I think the bad-

boy-cum-monk-wannabe is kind of sexy, don’t you?”

I inwardly agreed, but said nothing aloud about that. “Okay, just get back to the explanation. It was the day you broke into my life…come on, go on.”

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “I kinda like that…the day I broke into your life…”

I drummed my fingers against the package on my lap. “And then what?”

“Actually, I had already
entered
your house earlier that same day. I did it all very calmly, as if I was meant to be there, so the dogs wouldn’t be too freaked out. I came prepared, with plenty of kibble in my pockets.” He gave Barbra an affectionate

ear scratch. Brutus was still near the fire, enjoying a moment to himself. “You can’t really blame them. Like all good dogs, their actions revolve around whatever smells and tastes good.”

Kind of like me, I thought to myself.

“I spent a good bit of time with them, making friends. Then I checked out the food and wine situation in the fridge for my

subsequent visit.”

“Food and wine?”

At this juncture, JP had the good sense to act a little sheepish. “Food for the dogs—for when I came back and wanted them

distracted.” “Okay, I got that. But you didn’t get my dogs drunk, did you?”

“Of course not,” he sounded offended by the suggestion. “I would never give alcohol to an animal. The wine was for you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get it. You wanted to make sure I had wine in the fridge to drink? JP, if you’re trying to tell me the reason I didn’t wake up while you were breaking into my house and tying me up like a stuffed pork loin roast was because I

was passed out from drinking too much wine, you’re crazy. I always have wine in the fridge. But I rarely drink too much. And I certainly never pass out.”

“Weeeeeeeelllllllllll, not from drinking too much wine. Just from drinking some wine.”

Again I shook my head, exasperated.

“When people have an open bottle of wine in the fridge, it means one of two things,” he elaborated. “One, they rarely drink

wine. And when they do, not very much. They put what’s left in the fridge, thinking they’ll finish off the bottle someday, or have it there for company. But usually, it just goes to waste and ends up down the sink a month later.

“Or, two, they like having a glass of wine on a regular basis. Probably a little each day: maybe a glass after work, or with dinner. More on the weekends. When I saw the open bottle in your fridge, I knew that you were a number two. I tasted the wine and it was fresh. It was also a mid to high-end priced bottle of something good. Not a wine you waste. I noticed you’d used one of those special corks that when attached to a pump device, sucks all the air out of the bottle after corking. You’d made an effort to keep the wine fresher longer. These are the habits of someone who usually has a glass or so every day. So, I was quite confident that you would be having a glass, if not that night, then a night very soon.”

“I like your deductive thinking. Jessica Fletcher and Hercule Poirot would be very proud of you,” I told him. “But I’m sorry, JP, I’m still lost. It doesn’t lead to anything. So you knew I’d have a glass of wine when I got home. So what? How does that possibly make it possible for you to break in and tie me up?”

He looked away. He petted Barbra. He idly scratched at a corner of the wrapping paper that covered his present. He sipped

at a glass of water. He gave me a pretty smile, which although not powerless on me, was not about to sway me from my line of questioning. He was stalling.

“Well, Russell, you have to understand one thing. I was desperate. I wasn’t entirely sure of who you were, or what you were

capable of. And you know I’m the kind of guy who likes to take chances. I take risks. I go out on a limb. I like to be a litt…”

“JP! Out with it!”

His answer came quickly. “I drugged your wine.”

“What?”

“Just a little muscle relaxant, that’s all. Something to put you in a pretty little dream state. Just long enough for me to do my business. Nobody got hurt, right?” More pleasing smiles.

I was momentarily speechless. I scrutinized him more closely than I ever had before. This guy had balls. Once again, I found myself thinking that if I hadn’t been his hapless victim, I’d be more than a little impressed with his sneaky and creative ways.

Sneaky and creative are very good traits in a detective. And maybe in a boyfriend too?

“Are you mad?”

“I’m not mad.” I was almost seventy percent sure I was telling the truth.

Barbra whined a bit, as if in apology for her role in all this.

“It’s always best to tell the truth about things like this right from the beginning,” I told her. I was ignoring JP for the moment.

Barbra gave my hand a quick lick. Apparently she felt absolved of all wrong-doing and fully forgiven. She retreated to join

her brother near the grate.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” JP pleaded.

“I think this gift is more appropriate than ever. I think you should open it now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“But first, this.” JP brought his handsome face up to mine, looked me in the eyes, smiled, then kissed me long and deeply.

When the smooching was done, JP ripped into his gift with the abandon of a ten-year-old boy expecting his first iPod.

JP’s eyes widened in wonder as he revealed a long, weathered piece of wood. Attached to it were two chains. At first he

didn’t know what it was. He noticed writing on the wood. He turned the thing around so he could read the words. He said them quietly, almost reverentially: “Quant…& Taine, Private Investigators.” He looked up at me, a big question in his gorgeous eyes.

I nodded.

“Am I….?”

Another nod.

My future never felt brighter. Over the past year of being a worldly vagabond, I’d learned a lot. I was only now suspecting

that much of it, like a gift slowly unwrapping itself, I had yet to discover. But I knew this. I knew to respect my past. To be present in today. To confidently direct my future as only I knew how. I was a man in full, exuberant control of the rudder of his own boat.

Being a man who enjoys his time as a lone wolf is not a bad thing. I embrace it, but I’m also a man who welcomes new

challenges, new desires, new experiences. I thrive on seeing where they take me. I love my career. It’s just as much a part of who I am, as is being a son, a friend, being gay or Ukrainian, being a guy who likes baloney sandwiches and fine wine. I can be a detective and be all those things too. And more. I have been Russell Quant, PI for a long time. Now, opening this new

chapter, I will be one half of Quant & Taine. Together, we would hang out our shingle for all to see. Who knows where this will lead.

Who knows.

*
Sundowner Ubuntu

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