The Interrogation.

"Special Agent Ryan, this is Mira Black, famed assassin wanted in connection with the death of Senator Hobart. Please have a seat."

I took my seat opposite the fiendish looking woman. Black hair laced with streaks of red. A commanding presence about her. She eyed me carefully, looking for a change in expression. I offered a cursory nod but turned my attention towards my supervisor Kassandra Vox. 

"Why is she in cuffs ?" I asked signaling towards the woman sitting patiently next to her.

"You kidding me Ryan ?" she asked looking up at me incredulously. "She's a god damn threat to this entire building. Frankly I'm tempted to put on a couple more pairs on her, just to make sure"

Mira smiled, a boastful smile, and then proceeded to sing to herself.

"Alright", I said with a shrug.

"And there ain't going to be any good-cop bad-cop bullshit going down here. Just so I'm clear. She either leaves this place headed towards Vauxhall or I put a bullet through the both of your heads, is that understood ?"

"I understand, boss," I said meeting her steady gaze.

"Alright then, the stage is yours". Kassandra pushed herself back in her chair and produced a piece of gum that she tossed into her mouth.

I took a moment to consider both the subjects in the room. Mira, who was looking up at the ceiling, humming an Italian song to herself, not in the least bothered by the severity of the charges against her, and in the back of the room, Kassandra, who was trying to portray a calm woman, but having known her for as long as I had, I knew she would have been burning on the inside, eager to reach a conclusion in the room soon. She didn't have the patience required for formal procedures like interrogations. The red tape of bureaucracy irked her to no end and she wished that the world had a lot lesser rules in them. To her, it was as simple as good vs. evil. And the evil, in this case Mira, didn't deserve the privileges that were being afforded to her.

I sized the situation up and nodded to myself, leaning forward, placing my hands on the table in a fist. Mira took notice of the gesture.

"How are you Ryan ?" she said tilting her head.

"I'll tell you how he is. He can't god damn wait to bust your ass and hand you over to those brutes at Vauxhall". 

I didn't have to trace the origin of those words. Kassandra had brought herself back closer to the table, clearly not in the mood to take a peripheral position in proceedings.

"Mira Black" I began, choosing to ignore the small outburst from my commander, "You have been brought in here under the charge of conspiring to murder high ranking figures in the U.S Senate and in particular, to examine your role in the death of Senator Oswald Hobart. I'm going to read you your rights and you can then choose to respond according to your own accord"

"I wave my rights away, Ryan," she said in her thick Italian accent.

 She leaned in closer towards me and whispered, "I find life racier when lived on the edge. Wouldn't you agree, dear ?"

I looked into her purple irises and smiled. "You wave your rights away? Fine. Frankly, I'm not sure I even want to read them to you. It was a mere courtesy. "

She reclined back into her chair and smiled back. "That's more like it Ryan Ericson"

I flipped a few pages, on them no doubt words that ought to have been read to the interrogatee, but if I were to tell you the truth, I had never bothered reading the whole document myself. If Kassandra hated bureaucracy, I hated the "behind the desk" work, as I liked to call mundane work such as this. I wasn't a formal interrogator. The Bureau had been forced to improvise since their poster boy for extracting confessions from high profile detainees, Niles Marathon, was on a weeklong sabbatical somewhere in the Caribbean. As the image of him sipping on a coconut floated across my head, I grimaced. The air inside was humid and had an unbearable stench about it. I made an attempt to hurry up proceedings.

"Mira, look, this doesn't look good for you," I said pretending to read through the pages of the document. "There's a lot here that they could get you for. And by they, I mean the folks down at Justice. Co-operate, and tell us who hired you. You don't have to face the music of the American Judicial System if you voluntarily divulge this information. I could even chalk a few years off, of your impending stint down in Vauxhall "

She looked at me rather displeased and replied with the air of a woman who had all the freedom in the world. "I like how close we are right now, Ryan. I wouldn't want to change anything about that. Would you ?"

I looked at my supervisor, who was now shaking her legs impatiently, hardly taking notice of what was being said. She was chewing her gum furiously and when my eyes met hers, she blurted out a crude, "What ?"

I shook my head and turned my attention towards our detainee.

"Mira, how have you been ?"

Her demeanor changed, and as if she had been waiting for that particular question to be asked, she said with a relieved intonation, "I've been good, Ryan. I'm glad you asked me that question."

Kassandra wheeled herself forward and slammed her fist on the table.

"Are you going to do this or what ?" she said looking at me incredulously. "Get done with this "he said she said" farce already and let me have a crack at her. Her kind hardly ever comes clean the first time of asking. I see the look on her face. She thinks she's all smug and smart and think's we're going to let her out of here without any reprimand. Her kind needs special coaxing. Good ol fashioned asking, if you will. And I know exactly how to do that. So yeah, you best hurry up and let me have a crack at her boy."

I had never made Kassandra aware of the fact that I didn't appreciate her insinuation of me being a "boy. I had three successful covert ops in Iran, Vietnam and Argentina under my belt. I was now a Special Agent. And in the plainer sense of things, I was 34, divorced, and had tattoos on my arm that no "boy" worth his salt would have even considered zapping down onto his skin permanently.

"We're all adults here," I muttered under my breath grudgingly and proceeded to change the pace of questioning.

"Mira Black, I think we are running out of time here. As you can see, my supervisor here doesn't share my virtue of patience. She is mean, bored and eager to get her hands on you. I am obliged to tell you that you don't have many options from where I'm standing. It's either a confession or " - I looked towards Kassandra who was much more pleased with the current approach of questioning -" or I let her have a crack at you. What's it going to be? Hm? "

Mira was terribly bored. I could sense it in her movements and her completely relaxed demeanor. She wanted to get a move on with things.

"Look, I want to come clean," she said leaning forward. Kassandra wheeled forward again in excited anticipation.

I felt the moisture on my lips, such was the humidity encompassing the room. My hands were now starting to become sweaty and I had to wipe them down on my pants just so I wasn't unprepared if my fists were called into action.

"I murdered Senator Hobart," she said as curtly as she could. There was a gasp and an exclamation of jubilation from my supervisor.

"Did you get that, Ryan ?" she asked turning towards me, her eyes practically dancing in excitement. "Oh boy, Chief Pitt is going to be all over me when I tell him we've got her. It's about time I got a raise too. I've been surviving in the middle rungs of this operation for too long"

I patiently waited for the loud woman to shut up. She eventually did, donning a boastful look on her face. She looked contemptuous in that moment.

"I just wish you'd have left a note or something," I said muttering to Mira, addressing the detainee and not my supervisor this time. She looked disappointed.

"How could I, dear? It was a Friday."

A Friday.

Of course. It all made sense now.

"I think we're done here," I said closing the file and turning to Kassandra. "Vauxhall it is". I smiled and took a deep breath.

Kassandra didn't have time to react. Mira leaped onto her and in one admirably swift maneuver, had her in handcuffs with some duct tape wrapped around her mouth. There was the Brazilian Jiu-jitsu coming through. She truly was a fiesty Italian lady, was Mira.

 Pleased with herself, she walked over to Kassandra and stood over her all haughty. 

I ran up to her and pulled her around.

"What'd you have to do that for? I was going to handle it, wasn't I ?"

"Oh stop it, Ryan," she said flicking her hair back in glorious arrogance. "I think Kassandra and I will both agree that you were mind-numbingly tedious and boring throughout, don't you think Kassy ?"

Kassandra had a look of horror in her eyes. She looked first at Mira and then at me. I would have imagined that behind that tape, lay loaded into a cannon, a mouthful of not too niceties ready to be flung onto us with a fury if given the required mechanism to do so. But, I had other things on my mind. My wife looked beautiful today.

I went up to her and swooped her down dramatically, as they would in Latin dances, looked into her splendid purple eyes, and said like a Western hero would when he saves the damsel in distress from the goons ;

"Is it just me or does somebody owe someone an apology here ?"

Hovering almost tangentially to the floor she rolled her eyes and crossed her hands, "Yeah, I'm waiting Ryan."

I smirked and lifted her up, straight onto my lips, and kissed her as you would your first date after an excellent dinner and a romantic walk on the curb. It was awkward and sweet at the same time. I say awkward, because I imagine it wasn't too pleasant to have your boss watch as you kiss the spy brought in for interrogation in connection to a murder.

"Forgive me darling," she said once we parted lips, "But you know how Friday morning massages are essential to my self-care routine, don't you ?. Besides Cho doesn't operate the parlour in the evening. She works a night shift at a local Japanese Deli. So you will forgive me when I say I truly was in a rush when I left the house that Friday morning. Cho gave me the massage, I paid her in cash, and then I left to meet Senator Hobart's car on Routledge Avenue. It was easy. I took a spot on the roof of the run-down apartment complex adjacent to the Michael's Square, tucked into my bagel, and shot the old man right through his head when they stopped at the light."

She sighed as she looked at me with a genuine apologetic look.

"It was either that or taking care of business later at night; an endeavor I didn't fancy given the Senator's propensity towards an active nightlife. Never seen as immoral a politician as our Senator. And that's saying something, isn't it? He likes to get around if you know what I mean. Quite the loyal patron at Betthany's Hooker House, he was. The little scheming rat."

"Yeah but you could have left a note, couldn't have you ?" I replied exasperatedly. "Would have saved me so much trouble."

"I'm sorry, darling. I truly am."

"Will you make it up to me ?"

Mira stood pondering the answer. After about a minute's consideration, she smiled.

"Perfect," I said grinning broadly.

I turned towards my boss.

"Kassandra, I'm sorry. But this has just been unfortunate. You'll hand in my resignation to Chief Pitt, won't you? It's lying on my desk. I had it typed out this morning. It's got all the legal recourses present. Due Notice. My attorney's signature and everything. Yeah, I know, surprise surprise. Who would have thought with me, right? It's been a pleasure Kassandra, but sadly, I must part ways with the Bureau now. I had three very informative years here. Now, it must all come to an end. I wish you all the very best. Or maybe not. I never truly appreciated American office politics. They seem to have a penchant for...how shall we call it...unnecessary bureaucracy. Anyways, those are sentiments all in the past now. We must take your leave. A plane awaits us at The Kennedy airstrip. Pretty soon we shall be back in sunny Venice. Until then, Ciao !"

She could do nothing but offer us her usual "don't you dare" look.

We waved at her on our way out, before sharing a final quick kiss in the doorway.

As we exited the room, I placed my wife in handcuffs and led her down the hall. We got a few heads turning but I didn't care. I was a master at blocking out uncomfortable glances. Heck, that is practically what my entire career had been down at the Bureau. Making my way past suspecting people. The trick was you looked back and smiled. Not a smile that says, "How are you ?" but a smile that says "Stay the hell away from me".

Chief Pitt waved at me from his office. He seemed pleased that I was taking the notorious assassin to Vauxhall Penitentiary. Another feather in the F.B.I's hallowed institutionary cap. I didn't enjoy imagining the displeasure on his face when he'd find us gone in a few hours from now. I had always like Chief Pratley Pitt. He was the only one who understood the value of loyalty. And respect. Maybe I'd write to him once I made it to the other side safely.

I imagined Mira was enjoying all of this. It had been her idea to be paraded through the office, and not instead take the easier route out of the window. She wished to see the smug look on their faces, thinking they'd got her. There was an electric, mystic vibe about Mira, that had drawn me to her the very day I'd lain my eyes on her. She was a waitress in Sicily. She had that spring in her step that you talk about when describing a woman. With her around, you knew that adventure wasn't very far away.

I often thought that marrying a woman of Mira's adventuristic appetite had been quite a bold move on my part. My father was the one surprised the most.

"You ?" he said regarding me with an aghast look. "With her ?". He shook his head firmly and had a mournful look on his face. "That woman will either be the end of you or you'll both end up having the best time in the world, mark my words"

It had been the latter with Mira. She was the only one I could imagine spending the rest of my days with as a fugitive from the law.

My transition from Special Agent Ryan to husband to the most feared assassin in the world had been a smooth one. It was time to go back to Italy. Back to the Mob. That's where it all had begun for us. I missed the smell of Italian bread and the easiness on the eyes of the Italian women. Not that I ever looked beyond a matter of appreciation. But one misses these things altogether when one is deprived of home for too long.

Kassandra had been left a large cheque for her troubles of course. After all was said and done, she was a woman loyal to her country. I could appreciate that. She did what she had to, and we did what we had come here to do.

Mira had been the end of me in a figurative sense. She had overseen the death of Special Agent Ryan Ericson. But from those ashes, the man I truly was could finally rise. I could finally go back to my true identity once more. To a man respected and feared throughout Italy. Alberto Gillardini. And for that, I had to thank her.

Senator Hobart would never cross the Gillardini mob family again. He would never steal from them and dare to dream that they'd take it lying down. No. That is not how us Italian's conduct our business. We are polite and warm if you play fair. If you don't, we send assassins to your doorstep.

That is the Italian Motto.

And one, as a Gillardini, I am proud to live by.