The Recruiter (A Thriller) (16 page)

The perfume is right. The makeup is right. The clothes are right.

It’s the knee that’s wrong.

The goddamned knee.

Beth, sitting on her bed, looks down at her leg, at the thick brace that joins the two normal parts of her leg like some mutant Tinker Toy. Like some kind of snap-together model. It’s thick and bulky and just plain ugly.

Slowly, she unbuckles the brace. She winces in pain and thinks about what her doctor would say. What Judy her physical therapist would think. They would no doubt tell her that being impatient, that pushing things too soon will have only the opposite result—she’ll have to be in the brace longer and do more physical therapy.

Well, hell,
she thinks,
I’ve got a date.

No,
she corrects herself.
It’s not a date. Samuel is a Navy recruiter and he wants me to join the Navy. It’s that simple, nothing more.
This is business for him, a salesman working on closing the deal. It’s pleasure for me,
she thinks.
I’m already leaning toward going into the Navy, but I’m not going to tell him that. I need some male company, and I like Samuel.

Still, she feels bad. She’s using Samuel. Using him to get her out of the house, to help her forget about Peter Forbes.

Beth pushes the brace aside and looks at her knee. Even with the latest in arthroscopic laser surgery, the scars are inevitable. There was just too much damage. Too much rebuilding needed to be done. Hey, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right?

The knee has finally stopped draining, and the healing is well underway, although that night—when she’d tripped running from the image of flesh on flesh in Peter’s Explorer—well, that hurt in more ways than one. She’d lost about two weeks of healing with that little fall.

She sets the brace aside and selects a bandage wrap from her dresser drawer. According to the handy schedule her doctor and Judy put together, this stage wasn’t supposed to happen yet. Jumping the gun, they’d say. But there’s one thing those two are definitely not the experts on—just how much she wants to have a fun, normal evening. She’s been doing nothing but dealing with the pain of her knee, her drunken mother, and the depressing nothingness of her future.

A night on the town isn’t going to change any of it, but it might take her mind off things for an hour or two. And right now to Beth, that would be a godsend.

Beth takes the scissors and cuts the bandage in half. She carefully wraps her knee, wincing often, her tongue pressed firmly against her upper lip in concentration. She needs to make it tight enough to provide the right amount of support, but mostly she’s worried about the thickness of the bandage. It absolutely has to fit beneath her jeans. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. She wants to achieve some semblance of normal. And putting it over her jeans just isn’t an option.

It’s silly. She’ll still have her crutches. But that’s different. She wants to dress normally, to be able to sit at dinner, put the crutches out of sight, and feel like an adult again. She wants Samuel to be able to see her the way she used to look: whole.

She momentarily imagines Samuel’s face. He’s so handsome, so open, so trusting.

She feels guilty thinking about him. He probably has no idea that she’s thinking these thoughts. Why would he? Samuel’s thinking about business, and she’s thinking about…what? What exactly
is
she thinking about? Seducing him?
Hah
, she thinks.
That’ll be the day.

Oh, Christ. This is ridiculous! She laughs out loud. Samuel is…what, at least five years older? An older man? That’s nuts! She hardly knows Samuel. Still, the idea of an older, more experienced man excites her.

Beth,
she tells herself,
just relax, go out, see this movie, talk to Samuel about the Navy, and come home. Your knee is still fragile, and so are you. Enjoy yourself, but don’t throw yourself at him. Don’t let what happened with Peter push you in a direction you don’t want to go.

But,
she counters,
what if it is the direction I want to go?

She cinches the bandage tight, clips it in place, and puts on her jeans, then checks herself in the mirror.

Damn.

She looks good.

“Now you know, that’s not
really
what the Navy’s like,” Samuel says.

“You mean the Navy’s not really full of good-looking guys saving the world without disturbing a single hair on their heads?”

Samuel shakes his head. “And not all Navy pilots end up in bed with some woman who looks like she stepped right off a fashion runway in New York.”

“Propaganda!” Beth says in mock alarm.

Samuel helps her through the theatre’s front door. “But some of the basic themes—honor, courage, commitment—those things really do exist,” he says. “I have to admit, though, I was pretty upset when I enlisted and didn’t get a single call from a supermodel.”

“So when I sign up,” Beth says, “I shouldn’t expect a hot action hero to be knocking on my door?”

“Ordinarily I’d say no,” Samuel answers. “But in your case, it wouldn’t surprise me if that happened.”

She laughs, flushes slightly at the compliment.

The theater wasn’t crowded, not surprising as the movie hadn’t gotten the greatest reviews. It was called
Depth Charge
, about some obscurely famous search for an enemy sub during World War II. It had all the classic Hollywood elements: sweaty young sailors; a stowaway aspiring actress, who ends up being the main character’s love interest; a ton of special effects; and a happy ending. The film had been mildly interesting to Beth but hadn’t really made her more excited about joining the Navy. Samuel had told her that wasn’t why he brought her here. It was more about the bigger issues that entail service in the military.

Samuel gets to the car first, opens the door for Beth, and takes her crutches. When she swings herself in, he hands her the crutches. He goes around to the driver’s side, gets in, and starts up the car.

Beth sits there, holding her crutches as Samuel maneuvers the car out of the busy parking lot.

“So why did you join the Navy?” she asks. “You’re too smart to be taken in by any of that Hollywood stuff. And I don’t think you’d let a recruiter sweet-talk you into it, either.”

“Recruiters sweet-talking? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he says, a smile on his face.

He pulls the car out of the lot and onto Telegraph Road, heading south. Back toward her home, Beth realizes.

“A lot of reasons,” Samuel says. He pauses, then says, “No, that’s not right. There was really only one reason. I mean, I did like everything the Navy had to offer. I liked that it was out there, you know? The first line of defense and all that. I liked that it was a little bit of everything: ships, subs, airplanes. I wouldn’t be just a grunt humping it through the jungle somewhere.”

He turns left onto Square Lake Road.

“But really, I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.”

Beth nods, is about to speak when he goes on.

“My family…well, it wasn’t the whole Ward and June Cleaver kind of thing, if you know what I mean.”

The car is silent, save for the sound of the engine. “It wasn’t the best situation, and there weren’t a lot of options for me.”

Beth reaches across the car and touches his arm. “Thank you for being honest with me,” she says. She’s truly moved. He could have bullshitted her, but he didn’t. At that moment, she wants to tell him to take her somewhere else. She doesn’t want to go home. She wants the night to continue, to lead up to something better. She thinks back to what Peter was talking about. How the scholarship led him to believe that he was on the eve of new changes, of greater life experiences ahead, and how he couldn’t wait to
start
.

She’s like that now.

She imagines taking Samuel somewhere secluded, kissing him, feeling his body. Yielding to him.

“Shall we call it a night?” he asks.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she says. She allowed a little disappointment into her voice, but he seems not to pick up on it. But it was all she could do.

A few minutes later, they pull up in front of her house. Samuel shuts the car off, and they both walk toward the house, Beth swinging along on her crutches. She’d like to invite him in, but she’s hesitant. Her mother hasn’t been drinking lately, but you never know when she’s going to fall off the wagon—and she will; it’s just a matter of when. No, Beth decides, tonight’s not the night to invite him in. It isn’t wise to rush things.

“Do you want to come in?” she asks, the words escaping from her mouth like a hiccup.

Samuel pauses, and in that instant, Beth blushes furiously. It’s a good thing it’s dark out.

“I’m going to have to take a rain check, Beth. But I was wondering if you weren’t busy this weekend, if you’d like to do something.”

The embarrassment leaves Beth in an instant.

“Sure,” she says.

She opens the door and Samuel turns back toward the car. She stops. “Samuel?”

When he turns, she surprises both of them by leaning forward and kissing him.

On the mouth.

She turns and goes into the house.

The pain in her knee is gone.

The coffee is weak. Anna sips from the cup, like a repentant parishioner returning to the flock.

The good news is the shakes, the sweats, the worst of the drying out seems to be over. The bad news is Anna isn’t sure how long she can keep it up. She has thought about AA. But she tried that, once, long ago, and didn’t like it. The whole concept of a higher power, thinly veiled to satisfy the nonreligious, has always troubled her.

She takes another sip of the coffee, her stomach calm for the moment, but the waves of nausea hit without warning.

Anna doesn’t believe in God, at least not the way it’s presented by organized religion. She believes in the possibility of some kind of dimension, perhaps, that is currently beyond the realm of our perception. But nothing more. And probably less. For all intents and purposes, she believes that when someone is dead and in the ground, it all stops.

The doorbell rings, and Anna sets her now-empty coffee cup in the sink then goes to the door.

She recognizes Peter Forbes and opens the door for him.

“Hi, Mrs. Fischer.” Anna can see the way he studies her, looking for signs of drunkenness. She idly wonders how long she’ll have to stay sober before people stop looking at her that way. And then wonders if they’ll ever stop looking at her that way.

“Hi, Peter.”

“Is Beth home?”

“No, she’s not.”

“Good. May I come in?” He steps into the living room, and she closes the door after him. He takes a seat on the couch. She stands uncertainly for a moment then settles into the wing chair across from him.

“Good?”  

He nods. “You and I have to talk. It’s about Beth.”

“What’s wrong?” Her heart starts beating quickly, and a sudden urge for a drink flares up, but she beats it back down.

“The Navy is what’s wrong, Mrs. Fischer. Do you know she’s planning on enlisting?”

She breathes a sigh of relief. “I know. But I don’t think she actually will.”

“I think she will. I think she’s got her heart set on it.”

“What if she gets a scholarship?”

Peter shakes his head. “No one else is interested. Not since she blew her knee out. She only had the one offer, and they gave that one to someone else. That’s why she’s thinking about enlisting.”

“There may be more colleges interested.” She hesitates. Should she tell him? Will he tell Beth? He doesn’t want to set Beth up for more disappointment. She decides for the time being to keep it to herself.

Peter shakes his head.

“This recruiter is playing her like a fiddle.”

“Samuel?”

“Is that his name? Whatever. He’s working her, Mrs. Fischer. These guys are slick. And he’s working her. Can you imagine Beth on a battleship? Heading into a war zone? I don’t want that. You don’t want that. And Beth doesn’t want that…but she doesn’t know it.”

Anna is slightly taken aback by Peter’s vehemence. His face is flushed, and he talks with his hands, nearly losing his breath with the urgency in his voice.

“This guy has her convinced it’s perfect for her when in reality it’s all totally, way wrong for her,” he says. “We’ve got to put a stop to this. Do some kind of intervention like they do for addicts—”

Peter stops himself, but not before they’re both embarrassed.

“You make it sound so…calculated,” she says.

“It’s what he does for a living. She’s just a number to him.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Anna says, feeling herself come to the defense of Beth. “I think she…trusts him.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, for Christ’s sake!” Peter gets to his feet. “Why does she trust him and not me…us?”

Anna has no answer for that.

“You’ve told her you’re against the Navy, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And I’ve told her. Why does she have this in her head? What’s gotten into her?”

“Come on, Peter. She watched her scholarship go up in smoke. She didn’t feel like she had any other options. I know her. I know what she wants. She wants to get out of this house. Out of this town. She wants to get away from Lake Orion.”

Anna heaves a deep sigh.

“She wants to get away from me. That’s why she’s considering the Navy. It’s her ticket out of here.” Anna feels her own words hit her. She knows they’re true, but to hear them said out loud in her own voice…she immediately starts crying. She looks up and sees Peter looking at her. A mask of anger and shame. He feels sorry for her, she realizes. But he also blames her.

“Where’s Beth? We have to talk to her, together.”

“She’s out,” Anna says, wiping the tears from her face. If Peter wasn’t here, she thinks she might just have a drink.

“Where?”

“I don’t know where. I know who, though.”

“No, don’t tell me it’s—”

Anna nods. “She’s with Samuel.”

The first kiss is tentative. His lips barely brush Beth’s, but Samuel feels an electric charge run through his body. It courses through his blood, sears his nerves, and finally gathers around his groin.

The second kiss is firmer. More urgent. It leaves a lasting impression on Samuel, but not so long that he doesn’t want a third, a fourth, and a fifth.

He runs his hands over Beth’s body, feels her respond. She presses against him, urging him on.

Her hands are over his body. Running down his stomach. Down below his belt. His breath is raspy.

Suddenly, he breaks away from her.

“Beth, maybe we—”

She kisses his mouth before he can get the words out. His mind is racing. The day was perfect. Their conversation was easy. Natural. He’d never felt so comfortable with anyone, including himself.

Samuel feels her tongue probe inside his mouth, and he responds, running his hands over her body, kissing her neck. He wants nothing more than to pick her up and carry her into the bedroom.

But he can’t.

He breaks the kiss. “Beth.”

She runs her hands through his hair. Kisses him gently on the mouth. “What possibly could be more important than what we’re doing?”

“I—” he begins, but nothing else comes out.

She gives him another kiss, a long one that nearly curls his toes. He wants to tell her that he desperately wants to make love to her. But then he has a flash: Beth pregnant. Him, Samuel, leaving the Navy, getting a job at the GM factory in Warren. A shitty little ranch house, a beer belly, and a couple kids. All he would have is Beth.

But would it be so bad?

The questions pops into his brain before he can get ready. Would it be so bad? To be married to Beth? This beautiful, smart, tough young woman? What exactly, if anything, would possibly be bad about it?

Samuel is about to say
no
, that it wouldn’t be bad. In fact, it would be quite wonderful. To have someone like her, someone to love, to accept him for who he is, to—

His train of thought is shattered with one idea, one singular realization that bursts his newly created bubble like fine crystal next to a high E note.

He would be just like his father.

Suddenly, the pain in his temple erupts, and he momentarily loses his balance. He reaches out to Beth and holds her, his eyes clamped shut.

“Are you okay, Samuel?” she asks.

“I think—”

She kisses him, pulls his hands from his head, and places them on her breasts. He opens his eyes, and she is smiling at him, looking more beautiful than any woman he’s ever been with. She unbuttons her blouse and lowers her bra. Her firm, ample breasts spill into his hands.

He moans softly as she unbuckles his pants.

The lust comes over him, and he sets his jaw. He would love nothing more than to carry her into his bedroom, lay her on the bed, and make love to her all night.

But he can’t.

Because he cannot love her more than anything in the world - there is one thing he puts before her.

His mind clears. If he does sleep with Beth, there’s a good possibility that she might fall in love with him. How good a chance? He doesn’t know. But no matter how small the chance is, he doesn’t want to take it. Because he does know one thing with certainty: the day will come when she has to ship out. She will have to get on board a ship and say goodbye to everyone she knows for at least six months.

Most recruits have trouble with that concept to begin with. But put a young woman who’s having family trouble, who’s overcoming a physical hardship, and who’s romantically attached to a man…the odds are good she’ll bail before it’s time to get on board.

And if she bails, there goes his quota. There goes his satisfactory review. And there goes his chance to be a Navy SEAL. Suddenly, the lust in his heart is replaced by fear. Fear of what could happen. Fear of how close he just came to throwing it all away.

“I don’t think we should,” he says at last.

She pulls away from him, the surprise and anger written all over her face. “Are you serious? You want to stop? You gotta be kidding me!”

He holds his hands out to her. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think this is—”

“Why?” she asks. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh God no,” he says.

“Then what?”

“Look, I’m recruiting you, Beth. I’m new at it, but I don’t think it’s good policy to get involved.”

“What does your heart tell you?”

He can’t answer that. Doesn’t know how to answer it.

He looks at Beth, looks into her eyes, and sees her torment. And suddenly, he realizes that if he doesn’t sleep with her, if he rejects her, like her mother has, like her boyfriend has, like the people who yanked her scholarship, then he will surely lose her. She’ll take his Navy brochures and burn them in the Weber grill in her backyard.

“My heart is telling me…”

“What?”

“…to shut up and kiss you.”

He moves forward and they embrace, their lips smashed together, their hands all over each other’s bodies. Their clothes come off in a torrent of agility, and Samuel carefully picks her up, carries her into his bedroom.