Lodestone #2: My Dinner With Andre

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Lodestone

" My Dinner With Andre " by Martin Maenza

One rainy night earlier in a seedy motel room forty miles south of Victoria, Georgia, two men with dark, European features waited. The muscular elder attempted to concentrate on the evening newscast but finally lost patience with the frantic pacing of the other. "Lancelin!" he shouted in his native French tongue. "You will sit down this instant or I will see to it that you don't do any walking for a long time!"

The thinner man in his early twenties winced at his brother's words. "Of course, sorry." Not wishing to incur Michel's wraith again, Lancelin nervously found a seat and picked up a pencil. He scribbled some random lines, as quietly as possible, on a sheet of paper before him. That kept him busy for a few moments, until a loud thunderclap outside frightened him so that he snapped the lead point.

They exchanged no further words until a knock came at the door. Lancelin jumped with the sudden sound; Michel just leered at him as he walked by to answer it. After a quick glance out of the peephole, he removed the chain and opened the door. "Bonsoir, monsieur Carlin," he said.

Their guest was a heavyset man in his mid forties, slightly balding. He shook the rain from his trench coat, stepped into the motel room and laid his briefcase down on the table near Lancelin. "I understand that y'all are experts in your field," he stated in a southern accent, putting emphasis on the last word. "Y'all came highly recommended."

"Indeed we are," Michel boomed. "The Hardouin name is renowned throughout Europe in the area of industrial espionage."

Lancelin remained quiet for he knew his brother was far superior at the sales pitch. Far superior at a lot of things, in fact.

Mr. Carlin smiled. "Good. For that is just what I have need for." He snapped open his briefcase, and Lancelin's eyes grew wide. Inside were tens of thousands of dollars in cash. "I would like you gentlemen to retrieve something that is rightfully mine." Out of one of the pockets of the case he pulled a manila folder with the label AtlanTech on it and handed it to Michel. "You'll find everything y'all need to know in there."

***

Saturday evening, music blared from the boombox on the counter, and the smell of a roast filled the kitchen. Knives, forks and spoons bounced through the air to the beat and found their proper places around the plates at the table.

As the hammond organ droned in, a blonde teenager sang along, "...and their kids were hippie chicks and hypocrites...because fashion is smashin' the true meaning of it...".

The buzzer on the oven went off, drawing her attention to the dinner cooking therein. When she opened the door, the heat caused her to draw back. "Now where are those pot holders?" Not seeing them readily available, she shrugged her right shoulder and concentrated. The roaster pan rose off the rack and moved as if carried by invisible hands out of the oven.

Just then, Kyle and Beverly Harper walked into the kitchen, still dressed in the festive clothes from their tropical vacation. Startled by their arrival, the girl allowed the roaster drop the last half inch to the stove top, causing the lid to shift and drop into the roaster pan. "Mom! Daddy! I didn't hear you come in the front door."

Her father redirected his stern look from the stove to the counter, reached over to the boombox and dropped the volume from fifteen to one. "Obviously." He glanced down at the jewel box and its parental advisory symbol on front, adjusting his sunglasses to read it. "Smashmouth? It sounded, for a second, like you had one of my Doors CDs." He then thought As if she would listen to anything resembling decent music.

"Clare, we missed you," Beverly said as she hugged her daughter. "You didn't have to go to all this trouble to make a big dinner."

"I knew you guys probably didn't get anything substantial to eat on the flight back so I thought I would whip up one of Daddy's favorite." Clare looked to her father for a reaction, but he seemed to be in less than pleasant mood.

"I'll take the bags upstairs, Bev, while you help Clare finish getting things ready." He glanced once more at the roaster on the stove. "Looks like she could use an extra set of hands." He emphasized the last word as he left the room.

Clare looked at her mother. "Daddy doesn't seem too relaxed from his vacation."

Beverly smiled reassuringly. "He'll be fine. It'll pass soon enough." Or so she hoped.

***

The Hardouin brothers were traveling north on I-675 in a black compact car. Lancelin nervously stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. "Michel, do you have the directions?" he asked in French.

"Of course!" his brother snapped. "Don't take me for an imbecile like yourself! You just follow my instructions and this will go off without a faute!" Lancelin turned his head away and stared out the window.

Michel shook his head disapprovingly at his brother. He knew Lancelin possessed the skills of a world class thief, but his extreme nervousness and paranoia held him back. Perhaps this job might give him some of the confidence he needed to succeed in the business. For if he did not get some soon, he might end up getting himself killed instead.

***

Around the Harper dinner table, Beverly finished a forkful of potatoes and answered her daughter's question. "The villa had a little stone pathway down to the beach. Very convenient for early morning swims or late night walks ."

"Did you do any scuba diving?" Clare asked.

"We did some early in the week," Kyle grumbled. "But I wasn't up for it by the end."

"Oh?"

"Something didn't agree with your father." Beverly added and gently nudged her husband under the table with her foot.

"Did you get some bad seafood, Daddy? You know how you sometimes react to shrimp cocktails."

"No, dear. The food was excellent." Beverly chimed in. "In fact, there was a wonderful restaurant just walking distance from the villa. They had the most wonderful buffet at lunch time. Clams, fresh fish, beef, chicken, vegetables. Why just so much to chose from. We ate there a number of times."

"Yes," Kyle nodded. "In fact, we even went to the bar there for drinks a few nights. It was one of the few places that I could catch the broadcasts from CNN." Beverly tried to nudge him under the table again. This time he was ready for her and moved his leg out of the way. "There was one particularly interesting news story I caught." He looked very intently in Clare's direction. "It was about a hostage crisis and our old enemy Assault! "

Clare choked on the carrot piece she was swallowing. Beverly sprung to her daughter's side and began to tap her firmly on the back. "Honey, are you all right?"

Clare stopped coughing, took a sip of her Diet Coke and then answered. "I'm okay, Mom. Just went down the wrong pipe is all."

"Good to see you're okay," Kyle stated. "Now, would you care to tell us why you were involved in a dangerous situation against a notorious terrorist, posing as your mother?" He glared at his daughter, waiting for an answer. An awkward silence filled the room for a brief moment.

"Daddy, Assault was demanding that Magnet and Steel show up," Clare finally explained.

"He always tended to demand a lot of things," Kyle replied. "That doesn't mean he deserved to get them or that you should risk your life!"

Clare frowned. "There was no time to contact you two much less anything you could do from Jamaica. I figured I could borrow Mom's costume and help out. I fooled him long enough for the Police to get the situation under control." ¹

"You aren't a super-hero! You are a seventeen year old girl."

"But I have powers."

"You have no experience!"

"I have Mom's training!" Then Clare realized what she had blurted out.

Kyle focused his glare at his wife. "You've been training her?"

"Just some basic things," Beverly responded calmly. "When Clare reached puberty and her body started to develop her special abilities, she had questions. I was best equipped to handle them, given I'd been there myself." She paused to gauge Kyle's response; he didn't seem convinced. "She was a very quick study, though I made her practice a lot."

Kyle raised his right hand then quickly closed it tightly. Sometimes he got so angry that he wanted to hit something, to release the built up aggression. That was one thing he missed, a retired hero: the release it gave him. Of course, he never would hit anyone he cared about, regardless of the situation. "We'll discuss that later, Bev!" He turned back to Clare. "Still, what made you think you could take on someone like Assault? Do you realize how dangerous he can be?"

"Of course I do, Daddy." Clare recalled that, after her powers developed, her parents sat her down and told her all about their secret lives as super-heroes during the 1970's and early 1980's. They wanted her to realize why she had these powers and also the great responsibility that came with them. They also drilled into her the importance of keeping it a secret. "I remember how you two first encountered him when he tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford at Disney World." Then she added, "If I remember, that was early on in your careers too."

"That is true," Beverly agreed. She recalled that it was Spring Break and their school had chosen Orlando over the often crowded Dayton Beach. At that time she did not know who was underneath Steel's mask, but it became pretty obvious after this adventure that they both went to the same university. It wasn't that long after that the two would share their secret identities.

"No, it is not the same!" Kyle stated. "Your mother and I were already in college at the time! Plus, we had worked together so we were able to back one another up! And, Assault did not have access to the type of weapons that are available today!"

"But, Daddy. He is also not the same man you faced. He had been in prison for years, and he seemed more obsessed with killing you guys than to come up with a decent plan. Besides he's got to be at least as old as you if not more so."

Beverly tried to suppress a giggle at her daughter's last statement.