Alpha Incorporated

V - v WE ARE DEFINITIVE

The room is alive. Lucy sees a crowd of people, big wigs, around Fryer, or Vincent Duke, now. They are shaking his hand and laughing and backslapping. Old buddy kind of stuff, or, more like the ball team congratulating the winning pitcher after the last out. It has been a while since she went to a baseball game. Right James? It's time we went to a game again.

Soon, babe.

Vincent Duke tries to look up occasionally, over the crowd that surrounds him. It is like they're all trying to get a piece of him, and all he is concerned about is looking around the room, like he is looking for someone.

It isn't Angelo. They are avoiding each other's gaze. Angelo has a man with him and they are each talking on their phones, with the occasional hand over the phone interruption as one asks the other a quick question. There are a lot of wait-a-minute and not-now gestures between the two of them. Looks like some heavy duty scrambling is going on.

Isabella is talking to the woman dressed in the school-girl outfit, Mariana Frederick. She looks like a pretty together chick, considering that she just sauntered in here, in full costume, and dropped the bombshell that totally destroyed Angelo. Not the person you want to have as your enemy. It looks like she knows Isabella though, and Lucy makes her way towards them.

"You okay, kid?" Lucy asks.

Isabella sounds shaken. "Ya. Thanks Lucy, for helping me out."

"Helping you out? I think I am the one who got you into this mess."

She turns to Mariana. "Hi, I am Lucy."

"I am pleased to meet you, Lucy." Her voice is pleasant, yet the phrasing is business-like. "What do you say the three of us girls dash out of here for a bit. Let the boys figure out how they are going to spin this one. I'll have my car brought around to the front."

Tucked into a nondescript mall, the Indian restaurant is casual, yet a step up from the usual East Indian lunch spot, crowded and noisy. Lucy has never been in this place before and is impressed that Mariana knew of a spot where they could actually talk. They are sitting in a booth, menus closed, ice water, ice tea and a cosmopolitain on the table. 

 During the drive here, Lucy wanted to get some answers. She tried, a number of times, to ask Mariana about Vincent Duke. Did she know about the imposter? Did she know the real Vincent Duke? Does she think Lucy might have screwed herself by shooting her mouth off, trying to be the smart ass. Again. 

 But she didn't get any answers. There was the sense that all will be revealed in due course, and Lucy is hoping that will happen now, here at lunch. 

 Isabella has been quiet. She hasn't said a word, actually. It is like she is in a daze or something, the way she just stared out of the car window, and now, at their table, she is just looking ahead at the padded back of the booth seat in front of her, or pushing down the ice cube in her glass of water, trying to keep it submerged, but, each time Isabella takes away the spoon, it floats back up to the surface. 

 "Are you alright?" Mariana asks Isabella first. 

 "Yes. Thanks. It all has been quite a blow, that is all." 

 Lucy knows that Isabella hasn't revealed much about what happened to her when she went away. She said something about a fling with a married man, but Isabella clearly had not wanted to talk about it. 

 Isabella finally asks, "Did you know that Fryer is actually Vincent Duke, Mariana?" 

"Yes. Vincent and I have known each other, through business, for a long time."