Countdown to

Into the Storm

8/10/06

6 days (and counting to Into the Storm, in stores on August 15th)

Note from Suz: It's always hard for someone new to join an already established team. It takes time for the newcomer to earn his or her place.

This next countdown story, When Jenk, Izzy, Gillman and Lopez Met Tony Vlachic takes place not when they first actually meet, but rather during new guy Tony Vlachic's getting-to-know-you period. It can't have been easy for him -- he's younger and far less experienced -- an outsider among four SEALs who have worked together for years.

Mark Jenkins is the hero of INTO THE STORM, and this latest countdown story is told from his point of view. Jenk's teammates Dan Gillman, Jay Lopez and Izzy Zanella also play major roles in INTO THE STORM. Their friendships -- with Jenk and with each other -- and interactions were a lot of fun to write.

So here it is: Part one of When Jenk, Izzy, Gillman and Lopez Met Tony Vlachic.

When Jenk, Izzy, Gillman and Lopez Met Tony Vlachic

By Suzanne Brockmann
Part One of Two

"Weirdest lesbian encounter ever," Izzy said as he dealt the cards around the desk that he'd helped Mark Jenkins move into the middle of the shabby motel room. "This girl comes up to me. I'm in a bar in Boulder, Colorado, and she is unbelievably beautiful. I'm talking a fifty on a scale of one to ten. Seriously Victoria's Secret gorgeous. Long dark hair, a face like Natalie Portman, a body like a porn star."

Gillman rolled his eyes. "You are so full of shit."

They'd been garrisoned in some low-rent places before, but this one, remote and located in a town that shut down and went to bed at 2030 every night, was about as nasty as Jenk had ever seen.

It did, however, include the essentials: a bathroom, a shower, beds to sleep in, an air conditioner that wheezed and chugged as it cooled down the room, a deck of cards, and a mini-fridge filled with beer.

So okay, the cards were Jenk's and the mini-fridge was Gillman's -- one of those insulated coolers you could carry in your truck and plug in when you reached your destination.

Izzy turned to Jenk, injury in his voice and on his face. "You didn't hear me strapping on the bullshit meter when Fishboy here was telling his lesbian supermodels-in-the-airport story, did you?"

Jenk had just been dealt three aces -- his best hand all night. There was actually a chance he'd win back the money he'd lost over the past few hours. "Let's just play cards."

Now Izzy's disgusted exhale was for Jenk.

Jay Lopez, as usual, tried to restore harmony. "So she's beautiful and she comes up to you, and says...?"

"I need a huge favor. And I'm thinking, like, Well, it's your lucky night, because I've got a huge favor," Izzy told them. "Only I managed to not say that. Probably because she was stupifyingly beautiful. I think what I ended up saying was Durh...? And I probably enhanced it with a little drool, you know, on my chin."

Izzy took two cards from Lopez, dealing him two new ones. Danny Gillman took only one -- which meant he either had a great hand or he was bluffing. Jenk stared at him, willing him to do it. Scratch his chin with the back of his hand. Gillman did it every time he bluffed -- it was the most obvious tell in the history of mankind.

But Gillman didn't move. Because at the start of the game, Izzy Zanella had let it slip that Gillman had a tell. In true Izzy fashion, he'd refused to tell Gillman what that tell was. So Gillman had sat, nearly stone still for the entire game.

Except when Izzy pissed him off. Or when he tried to piss off Izzy in return.

Of course, for the first time in all their years of poker playing, Gillman was winning. Big.

"I'm doomed." Tony Vlachik, aka Chickie, aka the New Guy, didn't have a tell. He simply announced whenever his hand sucked. This was his first time playing poker with them, and he'd good-naturedly put up with all of their crap. He had a Pepsi in front of him because they wouldn't let him have a beer, insisting he was too young.

"Maybe next year, when you turn thirteen," Izzy had told him.

Now Chick took another slug of his soda and traded the limit -- three cards.

"She goes, I told my brother you were my boyfriend. Will you help me fool him into thinking we've been together for a while?" Izzy scooped up Jenk's two discards and gave him two replacements.

A four and a seven, both hearts. Crap. Jenk kept his face carefully blank as Izzy traded three of his own cards for three new ones. "And that, boys and girls, was when she kissed me."

"Yeah, right," Gillman scoffed.

"She did," Izzy countered. "Chickie was there. Tell 'em, Chick."

Tony looked up from frowning at his no-doubt unbelievably crappy hand. "She definitely kissed him," he verified. "For close to five minutes without coming up for air."

"And when she finally does surface," Izzy said, "she goes, Do you have a car, because I really need a ride. So I tell her, yeah, I got a truck, is that okay? And she's like, You really don't mind? And something's up -- I mean, besides the obvious -- because she's got tears in her eyes and she's kind of shaking, and that was when I knew. I mean, I'm a good kisser, but... So we go out to my truck, and she tells me she's gay, that her parents sent her to this rehab-like place to make her straight, and she had to pretend she was 'cured' in order to get out. The brother follows her around, making it impossible for her to see her girlfriend, who, by the way, is also gorgeous. Long story short, I drove them both to Vegas. I get email from them every now and then. But Maddy, she's the one with the brother, right before she gets out of the car in Nevada, she goes, I'm definitely gay. Because if kissing you didn't turn me straight, nothing will."

"Really," Gilligan said, clearly not believing him. "If I emailed her and asked, she'd tell me that wasn't just something you made up?"

Chick raised the bet ten dollars. Was he really going to attempt to bluff after looking at his hand as if it was something he found at the bottom of a year-old dirty laundry pile?

"Why would I make that up?" Izzy asked as Lopez folded. "Now if I told you that with Maddy and Peg, I'd had the best three way I've had in years..."

"Yeah, like you've had a lot of three ways," Gilligan scoffed, raising the bid even higher. He didn't look at any of them, definitely afraid his tell was something they'd see in his eyes. He looked at the pile of cash in front of him, or his cards. Nowhere else.

"What, you haven't?" Izzy countered.

"We're not talking about me, asshole."

The not-looking-at-anyone thing was pretty much a tell in and of itself. If Gillman had a great hand, why would he be worried about giving that way? Unless he was bluffing about bluffing, so that Jenk would see his raise and...

"You haven't." Izzy just did not know when to let a subject drop. Gilligan was going to knock the table over, and they'd have to start the hand again. Of course, maybe that would be a good thing.

"Just shut up."

"You know, it's okay that you haven't--"

Jenk cut in. "I have," he said. "And it was kind of weird. The other guy had a really hairy back." Yeah, he'd caught their attention. Even Lopez was staring at him. "I'm kidding," he told them.

"You scared me for a second there, M." Izzy tossed his cards down. "I'm out. Too rich for my blood," he told Gillman, adding, "Even though it's obvious as shit that you're bluffing."

Gillman refused to take that particular bait, keeping his eyes solidly on his cards.

It was down to Jenk and Chickie, and it was Jenk's turn to play. See Gillman's bid, raise Gillman's bid, or fold...

Chick's phone rang. "Shit, sorry, I gotta take this," he announced, standing up and going out onto the motel driveway, which was fine with Jenk. It gave him a little extra stall time to try to psych Gillman out.

Jenk leaned back in his chair. With enough time and a little effort -- keep talking on the phone, Vlachic -- maybe he could get Gillman to forget about the poker game. "My weirdest lesbian encounter was when I spent Christmas with three drag queens."

Gillman looked up at that. Eye contact. He immediately looked back down, but it was definitely a start. "Drag queens can't be lesbians. Drag queens are guys."

"But they refer to each other as she," Jenk pointed out. "And if they're into each other..."

"Whoa, good point," Izzy said. "So it's a lesbian-ish thing on the surface, except they're really chicks with dicks. As opposed to guys with a surprise."

"Guys with a..." Now Gillman made eye contact with Izzy. He had to in order to give him a properly disdainful WTF look.

"A female cross-dresser," Jenk explained.

"There's no such thing," Gillman said. He actually put down his cards. "I mean, yeah, maybe back in the nineteenth century, when women had to wear hoop skirts, but nowadays women wear pants all the time."

"There's pants," Lopez said, "and there's pants."

Gillman wasn't convinced. "But--"

Izzy cut him off. "They exist, Wendy. Take my word for it."

"Wendy?" Now Lopez was confused.

"I think it's a Peter Pan reference," Jenk told him.

Gillman was easily outraged, especially by statements made by Zanella. It was interesting, this intense rivalry or personality clash or whatever it was between the two men. Jenk had been out in the real world with both of them, and they worked together in perfect harmony, no hint of any animosity, cogs in a well-oiled machine. But during R&R... Look out.

"Now you're saying Wendy was a cross-dresser?" Gillman challenged Izzy.

Iz laughed his frustration and disbelief. "I'm saying you're a fucking idiot, and that yes, there are female cross-dressers here where I live, outside of Never-never-land."

"What, do you know this because you're one of them?" Gillman asked, and Jenk cringed because Izzy unfolded, rising to his feet.

But he just stood there, all six plus feet of him, towering over the table. "Yeah, Dan," he deadpanned. "I'm a woman. And this girl needs to whiz, wicked bad." He disappeared into the bathroom.

Jenk exchanged a look with Lopez. Well, that happened. Or, more accurately, didn't happen. He raised his voice slightly so that Izzy could hear him through the bathroom door. "You know, my three drag queens were at least as tall as you."

(To be continued tomorrow...)

That's all for now! Be sure to come back tomorrow for Part Two of When Jenk, Izzy, Gillman & Lopez Met Tony Vlachic -- the next installment in the Countdown to INTO THE STORM!

(Note from Suz: I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before noon eastern time. Please be patient if I'm a little late...)

See you tomorrow!

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