Second Thoughts and Last Chances
By
Latikia
Edited by
The Old Fart
Copyright © 2007,
2008
Chapter 22
Two distinctly different sounds assaulted my ears and woke me up.
The first was the insistent electronic beeping of a cell phone near my head. The second was the low, thudding pounding on the hotel room’s door.
I rolled over on my side, gently easing Lilly onto the carpet next to me, looked around and spotted the cell phone lying under the coffee table. I picked it up and thumbed the button.
“Hello?”
“Ike?” It was my sister.
“Hey beautiful.”
“I’ve been calling for two hours. Where have you two been?”
I chuckled. The pounding on the door intensified.
“Asleep on the floor. Look, there’s someone at the door. Let me see who it is and I’ll call you back, alright?”
“Ike, who is it?” Lilly asked, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.
More pounding on the door. I handed the phone to Lilly, gave her a quick kiss and got to my knees.
“It’s Izzy. I’ll get the door.”
I stood up, walked out of the living room, around the corner, thru the shallow entryway and opened the door.
Two men and a woman formed a vee wedge on the other side. The man at the apex pushed forward, holding up a leather case and a folded sheet of paper.
“LA Sheriff. I have a warrant to search the premises.”
The man on his left was Hispanic, middle aged and mean looking; about six feet tall, slicked back hair and his nose looked as if it had been broken several times. The woman was younger, black, a little shorter but looked just as mean, her hair was tightly bound in corn rows and she held her right hand behind her back.
The man in front with the badge and the warrant was short, about the same height as Lilly, maybe a little taller. His hair was a fine sandy brown, his nose unbroken, pale skin with a splash of freckles across a high forehead. He didn’t look very mean at all.
But he sure was pushy. He kept coming forward, supposing I’d move out of the way and let them in. He was aggressive, in the way that only really short people who consider themselves superior can be, self-important, determined, and…annoyed. He was annoyed?
I didn’t move and he ran right into me. He bounced back, a look of mild surprise on his farm boy face.
His emotions were so clear and apparent to me. I didn’t usually get such clean readings without linking. There was no fuzziness, no distortion and no reduction. Clear as crystal.
It was the same with the other two, and I hadn’t even paid them much attention. The woman was slightly distracted by my nudity, giving off just a hint of sexual interest; for the most part though she was worried and confused. The mean looking man with the slicked back hair, on the other hand, he was aroused, which I have to admit kind of creeped me out; aroused and eager, although I’d have never guessed from his stoic appearance.
“IDs first.” I said. “All of you. Then I want to see the warrant.”
“What are you, some kind of lawyer?” the mean looking woman wanted to know.
“Actually, I’m a psychologist. You gonna show me your ID or do I slam the door in your faces and call the police?”
“Show him your IDs.” the small man instructed, glaring at me.
They did and I took my time examining them, comparing the photos to the faces. I nodded. “Okay, now the warrant.” I said, holding my left hand out.
Shorty thrust the paper at me. I unfolded it, quickly scanning the contents.
“So you’re Chambers.” I said, not bothering to look up from the page. “I wondered when you were going to show up.”
Nodding to myself, I re-folded the paper and looked him in the eye. “I’ll hold on to this. My lawyers might find it useful.”
The blood drained from his face and then he looked almost as mean as the other two.
“Lilly! Put some clothes on sweetie, we have visitors.” I shouted over my shoulder as I backed up.
“You might want to put some on as well.” the woman said with a smirk.
I shrugged. “If you insist.” I said, shutting the door and following the three into the living room. Lilly was nowhere in sight.
“So, what do you expect to find?” I asked as they fanned out around the room.
“We’ll know it when we see it.” Chambers replied absently.
“Right.” I said sarcastically.
Chambers turned around sharply. “What are you doing here in LA, mister Blacktower?”
I smiled just a tiny bit. “My business is none of your business. And it’s Doctor Blacktower.”
“Find the woman.” Chambers snapped.
“You mean me.” Lilly said stepping out of the bedroom wearing one of my shirts, with one of my pistols held out in front of her and pointed right at Chambers’ head.
I linked with the black woman and the Hispanic man and burnt rings into both. I was amazed by how quick and easy it was. Every other time I’d had to concentrate, evaluate and regulate how much of each emotion to use when creating the rings. Not this time. It was almost an afterthought.
“Lt. Chambers, my wife Lilly. Honey, this is Lt. Chambers of the LA Sheriff’s department. Our old buddy Captain Haggarty’s handoff man.” I said, by way of introduction.
I moved up next to Chambers, who was intently watching Lilly and the gun in her hand.
“Don’t move.” I warned him. Then I frisked the guy thoroughly, relieving him of the pistol under his jacket, the little revolver on his ankle, the folding knife in his front pocket and the little bag of white power in his jacket pocket.
“Is this what I think it is, Lieutenant?” I asked, holding the bag in front of his face. Chambers’ lips thinned.
I turned to face the other two. “Why don’t you deputies sit down and get comfortable. Lt. Chambers and I need to have a little chat.”
“Thank you sir.” the woman said politely and took a seat on the nearest chair. The silent man nodded and sat down at the far end of the couch.
I walked past Chambers and held the confiscated weapons out to Lilly. “Put these in the bedroom, would you lover?”
“What about them?” she asked, jerking her tousled head in the direction of the seated deputies.
I smiled. “Don’t worry, they’re on our side.”
Lilly beamed at me. “Okay.” she said. I dumped the weapons into her arms and she headed back into the bedroom.
“And bring me my pants on your way back?”
“Oh, done of showing off your ass?” she shot back.
“Yes dear.” I chuckled. “All done.”
I turned slowly, crossing my arms over my chest. “Sit down Lt. Chambers, and explain to me why you were going to plant drugs in our room.”
Chambers looked over his shoulder at his two deputies. They stared back at him curiously. Apparently they hadn’t been in on the gag.
I took a couple of silent steps forward. Chambers looked back and I was within arms reach. He looked very small and helpless. He felt that way too. I bared my teeth.
“I’m waiting.” I said.
He noticeably deflated. “I was told to scare you off. Get you to leave the state.”
Lilly returned, holding the pants I’d been wearing the day before bundled up under her arm. She shoved them into my gut, slapped me on the ass and plopped herself down on the arm of the couch nearest me.
“Thanks sweetie.” I said, shaking out the pants and stepping into them. “Who told you?” I asked Chambers as I zipped up the fly.
“I don’t know who.” He was telling truth. He really didn’t know.
“How did you get your instructions?”
“Electronic mail.”
“Do you usually get your orders that way?”
“Of course not.”
“There had to be an address of some kind.”
“It was a string of meaningless numbers and letters.”
“So why follow the instructions?”
He hesitated. I hit him with a motivational blast of the pain I’d had that morning. Chambers shrieked like a hawk and dropped to his knees.
“There was a file in the message.” he whimpered. “Things no one could know. Names, dates…the message said that if I didn’t do what they wanted they’d send that information to my superiors and the newspapers. I didn’t have any choice.”
I nodded. It made sense.
“Why not just kill me? Why go to all the trouble of setting up a frame?”
“The message was very specific. Get you out of the state, but no violence.”
Interesting.
“You tried to trace the message?”
“Yes. The address was a fake and the provider didn’t exist.”
“Who handles your department’s computer security?”
“Computek.”
I nodded and looked over to Lilly.
“Lucifer?” she asked.
“Yeah, pretty sure.”
“Have you figured out who he is?”
“No. But I’ve got a really good idea where he is.”
“Tell me. I’ll kill the motherfucker!” Chambers raged, climbing to his feet.
“Watch your language in front of my wife.” I suggested and burst-jabbed him again. He dropped like a rock, landing flat on his back.
“No, Lucifer is mine, and I want him alive. But what am I going to do with you?” I wondered aloud.
I stepped around the fallen man and sat down next to Lilly. She leaned over and put her head against mine.
“Maybe you should make him inhale whatever it is that’s in that little bag. Then you could have the other two arrest him.” she suggested.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. And once he sobers up, he can confess to whatever it was in that message.”
Lilly kissed the top of my head. “Sounds like justice to me.”
I reached over, took hold of one leg and pulled her into my lap. She squealed happily, settled down and snuggled her shoulder under my arm.
“I like the way you think.” I told her.
“Is that the only thing you like?” she asked coyly.
I slid my hand up under the shirt and tweaked her nipple. “Nope. Love the whole package.” Lilly moaned quietly. “Now, be a dear and go get the baggie. The sooner we say goodbye to these nice folks…” I left the rest unspoken.
Lilly didn’t need any additional prompting. She was up off my lap and dashing into the bedroom before I had a chance to finish the sentence.
Tweedle Mean and Tweedle Meaner carried Lt. Chambers out into the hall, his nose and upper lip heavily dusted with what could have passed for powdered sugar, but wasn’t.
“Don’t forget to send me a copy of his arrest photos.” I said, half in jest, before I swung the door shut and flicked over the deadbolt.
Returning to the living room I saw Lilly standing next to the couch, staring out the sliding glass doors. I moved up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders.
“That Mexican guy was staring at your ass every chance he got.” she informed me out of the blue.
“Thank you so much for reminding me.” I shuddered. Lilly laughed and leaned back.
“Don’t you like being an object of desire?”
“Not his.”
She tilted her head back far enough that her eyes were perpendicular with the ceiling.
“How ‘bout mine?”
I smiled down at her and chuckled. “Well…if I have to somebody’s, I’d rather it be you.” I replied grudgingly.
“Smart choice, lover boy.” she smirked up at me.
I bent down and planted a quick kiss on her lips. Her arms came up around the back of my head and I pulled away.
“I’m sorry sweetie, I know I hinted that once they were gone we’d have a little fun, but we need to get out of town fast.”
Lilly pouted and gave me a sad little look of disappointment. “Spoilsport.”
“Tell you what…once we get up there; anything you want is yours for the asking.”
“Anything?” she leered.
“Anything.”
“No cheating?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Deal.”
I kissed her again, swatted her on the bottom and we hurried into the bedroom to get dressed and pack.
My original plan called for a visit to the USC and UC-Irvine campuses but, after my chat with Lt. Chambers and the revelation Lilly got from the puke at UCLA, it seemed a good time to scrap that plan.
We packed up, retrieved the briefcase filled with cash from the hotel’s safe, checked out, loaded up and headed out. Elapsed time, seventy minutes.
I asked Lilly to drive; there were calls and arrangements only I could make.
I worked the combination locks on the briefcase then took a tiny key from the slot in my watch band, inserted it in the opening between the locks and twisted. The case would open without the key, but no one within a fifty foot radius would have cared much for the results.
Lilly glanced over for an instant when I lifted the lid and her eyes got a big as saucers.
“Holy shit!” she gasped. “How much money have you got in there?”
“Half a million dollars.” I replied absently, digging into the pockets built into the lid. I pulled out a gadget about the size and thickness of a deck of playing cards, put it on the dash, closed the briefcase, locked it back up and slid it under my seat.
“What’s the money for?”
“Lucifer, I hope.”
Lilly maneuvered out onto the freeway and we headed north out of LA.
“You never intended to kill him, did you?”
“Nope.”
“What if you can’t buy him? What then?”
“Money can’t buy loyalty; rent it maybe, but that’s about the best anyone should expect, because there’s always someone around with more. The money is my way of easing his transition.”
“Transition?”
“Yeah, from independence to interdependence. Lucifer doesn’t know it yet but, unless he’s already started running, he and everything he has and knows are going to belong to me by this time tomorrow.”
“Do you think he’ll run?”
“I doubt it. He’s eluded the NSA, the FBI, and every other agency that’s been after him for so long he probably thinks he’s untouchable. Why else would Alex have gone to all the trouble of putting me on his trail?”
Lilly nodded. “And what about Alex? Won’t he find out?”
“Eventually, but by then it’ll be too late.”
“I don’t…” she hesitated and then understanding filled her. “You sneaky devil.” she laughed. “You’re going to use Lucifer against him the way he’s been using the police against us.”
“Not quite, but close. Lucifer’s only been trying to scare us off. I won’t be that discrete or humane.”
I retrieved the gadget and began pressing the keypad on its face, pulling the long alpha-numerical sequence from memory.
“Internal security, how may I help you?” a scratchy voice answered.
“Eric, this is Doctor Blacktower.”
“Verification.”
“Ghost-ninety one.”
“Good evening Doctor. What can I do for you?”
“I need everything we’ve got on a
“White Dragon. I’ll get right on it sir.”
“Thank you Eric.” I disconnected and began entering a new sequence of letters and numbers.
“Records, Posey here.” came the tinny reply.
“Megan, this is Doctor Blacktower.” Lilly’s head snapped around suddenly. I waved my free hand in the direction of the windshield. My wife stuck her tongue out at me before returning her eyes to the road.
“Hey handsome, what’s up?”
“Megan, I need a favor. A big one.”
“The boss said we were to give you anything you asked for, so ask away.”
“I want everything you’ve got on a computer security company
in
There was several seconds of static filled silence then, “Would this be related in any way to your previous inquiry?”
“Possibly. I’m still looking for some missing pieces to the puzzle.”
“Ike, the boss really wants this guy.”
“Megan, I want this guy.” I stated flatly.
More scratchy silence. “Alright, I’ll call you back as soon as I have anything.”
“Thank you.” I disconnected and started to enter a new sequence when Lilly broke my train of thought.
“Was that her?”
“Her who?” I asked, distractedly.
“Peggy’s younger woman?”
The image of Peggy slapping me appeared before my eyes. “Yeah, that was her.”
“Is she pretty?”
“I think most people would say she’s beautiful.”
“She’s one of the ones you were talking about; the ones you thought about.”
I exhaled softly and dropped my hands into my lap. “Lilly, I’m not going to lie to you; the woman is physically attractive, yes, she offered and yes, I gave it some thought…for all of five seconds. The truth is she doesn’t interest me; I don’t feel anything for her, I don’t want her, I don’t need her and I sure as hell don’t love her. I’ve known Megan for a while now, and I like her, but other than that there’s nothing between us. And there never will be. Okay?”
Lilly was quietly contrite. “Okay.”
“Besides,” I said, reaching across and cupping her right breast, rubbing her nipple thru layers of shirt and bra with my thumb, “her boobs aren’t nearly as nice as yours.”
“Oh, so you noticed her tits?”
I shrugged and lightly pinched her nipple. “I noticed she had a pair. They didn’t make me want to spend an afternoon licking them the way yours do.”
“You’re such a pig.” she laughed breathlessly just before the car’s speed increased by several miles an hour.
After a few seconds I removed my hand and Lilly moaned unhappily.
“Later, sweetie. Remember, anything you want.”
“Oh…alright.” she agreed grumpily.
I returned to pressing buttons. “What is that thing?” Lilly asked.
“It’s a cellular phone with built in scrambler and encoder. The signal goes thru a special government satellite, nearly impossible to trace and unless your receiving system has the right kind of decoder, all anyone will hear is noise.”
“FBI, Agent Battaglia.”
“Number Five, this is Doctor Blacktower.”
“Good evening sir.”
“Number Five, I want an immediate and thorough check run on
a
“Understood sir.”
I leaned back, turned off the little device and put it into my shirt pocket.
I laid my head back, crossed my arms and closed my eyes.
Things were relatively quiet for about fifteen minutes, apart from the sounds of the engine, tires and traffic.
“Ike?”
“Hmmm?”
“Why did you get so angry yesterday?”
I kept my eyes closed.
“There are three and a half million people in LA.” I told her.
“So?”
“Have you ever had mixed emotions Lilly; completely different, even opposite feelings?”
“Sure, lots of times.”
“Right, we all have. It’s a perfectly normal condition; confusing, frustrating, infuriating, but normal. Now imagine what it’d be like to have every imaginable emotion all the time?”
“That’s not possible…is it?”
“I’ve gotten more sensitive over the years. A lot more. I don’t have to link with people anymore to know what they’re feeling. For the past four years I’ve just had to be near them. Two days ago, when we first got into town, for some reason I don’t pretend to understand, even that changed. I can sense the emotions of people all over LA.”
“Really? That’s…wow! Can you tell where they are? How many different people?”
“All of them. Every single solitary one.”
Silence. Awkward, uncomfortable silence.
“Uhmm…what…I mean…how….shit!”
“Take your time. It’s not an easy thing to get your head around. I’m still having trouble accepting the idea.”
“I’ve got a ton of questions, but I don’t even know where to start.” she complained.
“That makes two of us.”
“How did it happen? Why did it happen?” she asked in a rush.
“I don’t know how. Why it happened…one possibility is that it’s a kind of puberty.”
Lilly nearly choked on her laughter.
“I’m sorry Ike. I know this is serious…but puberty?” and she cracked up again.
I smiled, rolled my head to the side and opened one eye.
Lilly had one hand on the wheel, and the other held tightly over her mouth trying to stifle her laughter. She saw me looking at her and struggled to compose herself.
“Why didn’t I feel what was happening? Ever since you tied us all together there’ve been…moments…when I just knew what you, or Izzy or Peggy were feeling. I didn’t feel anything last night.”
“You were so excited and having such a good time when we first got here. I didn’t know what was going on, why I felt the way I did, but I wasn’t going to let it spoil things for you. So I took your feelings and reflected them back, hoping you’d believe they were mine.”
“That’s so sweet…and damn close to lying.”
“Yeah, well…maybe a little white one. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep it up. Your buddy, the professor, turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Ike, it was nothing....”
“It wasn’t your fault Lilly. Or his. You are a very sexy woman, and he’d have to be either dead or gay not to see that. There’s nothing wrong with you enjoying and being flattered by the attention, and I can’t find it in me to blame the guy for wanting you. It feels good to know you’re wanted. What doesn’t feel very good though is knowing that someone might actually try to take someone as special, as precious, and as absolutely vital to my existence as you are, away from me. That doesn’t feel very good at all.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Lilly said coldly.
“And believe me, I apologize for being so completely dense. I had no idea how much it bothered you girls. The only excuse I can offer is that I honestly didn’t see what was going on. I mean, why would I? I’m madly in love with the three most wonderful women in the world. As far as I’m concerned you three are the only women in the world who matter.”
“How could you not notice? It’s been happening for as long as I’ve known you.”
“I never got in the habit of linking with every person who crossed my path. Until recently that was the only way I could tell what someone was feeling. Take my word on this; it’s usually not a very pleasant experience, slogging thru people’s emotions. And with the exception of a very small group, the majority of folks I meet don’t like me. It’s one thing to imagine that people don’t like you; it’s much worse to know for sure exactly how much they don’t.”
“I didn’t think you gave a damn what other people thought about you.” Lilly said, a hint of surprise in her tone.
“I don’t. Why should I? I can’t hear what they’re thinking. But once their feelings stopped being as silent as their thoughts… That’s probably a big part of why I started suppressing the way I did. Just to shut the damn noise off so I wouldn’t have to listen to it anymore.”
“I don’t…I don’t know. To me you always seemed to be so self-possessed, so sure of yourself. Always more concerned about other people than you ever were about yourself.”
“Lilly, between the time Carlie died and I ended up on the Psych Ward, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone, including me. I went to work, did my job, met people, talked to people, killed people and didn’t feel a goddamned thing. I didn’t like anything or anyone, didn’t hate anything or anyone, never had a strong feeling or emotion that didn’t come from someone else. I met you and things changed. I changed. My mother used to say I was over-sensitive, and I was. I felt things so strongly when I was little. The smallest hint of affection meant the world to me. The most insignificant slight or insult was like having my heart broken. I didn’t understand why I was like that for a long, long time, but I get it now. I might look like a statue, sweetie, but I’m not made of stone.” I coughed to clear my throat. “Besides, it’s easier to ignore my feelings when I’m up to my eyeballs in someone else’s.”
We passed several miles in silence.
“Did it hurt much, feeling a whole city’s emotions?”
“More than you can possibly imagine.”
“What about now? You seemed okay when you woke up this morning.”
“I can still feel them, but they don’t bother me the way they did.”
“What did you do? To make it stop hurting?”
“I don’t know exactly. I just pulled them in. In to me.”
“Isn’t that what you do when you link?”
“Yeah, but this was different. There’s no way I could link with an entire city. At least I don’t think there is.”
There was a lull in the conversation while Lilly passed two semis, a school bus and a tow truck.
“When I came out of the bedroom, you were talking to empty space. But you acted as if someone was there. At first I thought there was someone out there on the balcony with you, someone small, ‘cause you were looking down, but there was just you. It’s been a long time since you did anything like that.”
“I know. I figured out a while back how to keep that kind of thing inside. For a time I stopped doing it altogether.”
“Why do you think he came back?”
“Sweetheart, there is no he. There never was. No Granddad, no Izzy, no Carlie…no Mom. He is nothing more than an aspect of my own personality. The voices in me are me. When he or they start talking, it’s just me trying to make sense of things I already know or think or think I know. Face it Lilly, I’m not quite right in the head. I haven’t been since I walked out of that desert, and I may be this way for the rest of my life.”
“If you stopped once, you can stop again.” she insisted.
“Stress created them in the first place, stress brought them back.”
“You mean we brought them back, don’t you?”
“I don’t mean any such thing. I won’t deny that you girls played a part, but it’s not just you. It’s me too. My work, the life I lead, all the people I have to deal with. But I believe, more than anything else, it was my ability that brought them back. You said the other night that my ability is as much a part of me as my skin. And you were absolutely right. I have to stop acting like it’s something I can put on when I want it, and toss into the closet when I don’t. The thing is, and this was really hard to accept, it’s changing, and since it’s changing I’m changing. Part of me tried to explain that, but I wouldn’t believe it because I don’t trust that part.”
“The dark part?”
“Yes. I don’t trust myself Lilly. I don’t. And because I don’t…the change might have killed me.”
“But it didn’t, did it?”
“Not this time.”
“So what did you do? Besides burning me and turning blue.”
I chuckled at the image she described. It wasn’t funny, but there are times when laughter is the only rational form of expression available.
“Swallowed up the emotions of three and a half million people.”
“You told us that being filled up with years of repressed emotions was what made you blow up those trees. If you couldn’t control those without destroying things, how could you possibly handle an entire city’s worth?”
“I didn’t think I could. The darkness believed that not only was it possible, but necessary. Turns out, he was right and I was wrong.”
“What was it like, having all those emotions inside?”
“Scary. Very scary. When I was thirteen, a few days after I discovered I could link, I tried doing it with a bunch of people at a mall. Linking was easy, but having all those emotions coming at me was more than I could handle. It was as though I lost my identity, my sense of self. Last night was kinda like that, only on a much grander scale. It hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt before. Imagine pouring the ocean into a balloon, with me as the balloon. I was burning and freezing, swelling up and being stretched out as thin as a wire, here and somewhere else, absolutely everything and utterly nothing…all at the same time. At the very end there was an explosion and I thought I died.”
“I didn’t hear any explosion, but that would explain the lightning.”
“I guess. When I woke up I felt your skin, your warmth against my face, and heard you talking to someone. I think it was Izzy, but I’m not sure; I could only hear your voice.”
Another few miles passed in silence, and then:
“Do you think it’ll be like this when the children hit puberty?”
“Jeez, I hope not.” I replied fervently.
We stopped in
I got up to go take a leak, leaving Lilly to pay the check. I was washing my hands when the phone in my pocket started chirping.
“Blacktower.”
“Eric sir. I have the information you requested.”
“I’m listening.”
Eric rattled off a string of names, dates, and other assorted information. Nine minutes worth. Once he stopped talking I blinked slowly, nodded and allowed myself a brief smile.
“Thank you Eric. One last thing. I want all trace of those files removed from the database. Every last one. Tell Mr. Quinlan I’d like him to see to it personally.”
“Right away sir. When should we expect you back?”
“Three or four days, max.”
“Enjoy your sabbatical Doctor.”
“Good night Eric.”
I had just disconnected when two men, a young man and his elderly father from the look of them, entered the washroom. The pair of them gave me an odd look, more for the device in my hand than anything else.
“Can’t go anywhere without the office checking up on you.” I said by way of greeting, caught the door before it shut all the way and stepped out, leaving them to their business.
I leaned against the wall that separated the men’s room from the ladies’, a pay phone with a sheet of paper and the handwritten words ‘Out of Order’ taped to it at my elbow. My little phone chirped again.
“Blacktower.”
“Number Five here Doctor.”
“Report.”
Twelve minutes of information followed. Not at all surprising when you remember that the FBI is a federal police force. What I found more surprising was how closely the FBI’s info matched up with what the CIA had, in some cases, word for word.
“Well done Number Five. Hold those files. I’ll pick them up personally.”
“Yes sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Not right now. Good night Mr. Battaglia.”
I put the phone back in my pocket, pushed away from the wall and returned to where Lilly was waiting.
I slid into the booth next to her, leaned over and gave her a quick kiss.
“You sure took your time.” she chided me.
“What’s the rush?” I asked with a smile. “You got a hot date?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” she said and smiled back at me. The marrow in my bones liquefied and I shivered from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair.
I put my arm around her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her again. “You have the most amazing smile.” I said when we broke for air.
There was some kind of commotion going on around us; dishes falling, tables crashing to the floor, men and women moaning and groaning, yelling and pleading.
I looked up and around and saw people in pairs and clusters pawing at one another, ripping at their clothes…
Lilly started laughing. “You’d better stop this before it gets too far along.” she told me.
She was right. Some of those people had no business being nude in public.
I got up, scooped Lilly into my arms and waded thru the lusty mass of half naked bodies that littered the floor. I set her down at the front door, drew out the passion and lust from each individual and then we beat a hasty retreat.
I got behind the wheel and as soon as Lilly was buckled up, tore out of the parking lot and returned to Highway 101.
Not a full minute passed before Lilly started laughing again. She was amused, happy and pleased.
Twenty minutes later she was sound asleep and I was getting annoyed.
Megan hadn’t called back.
Had I overplayed my hand? Had I relied too heavily on the NSA director’s sense of obligation?
How quickly could they get one of their teams into play? Did they already have people out here?
The phone chirped.
“Blacktower.”
“Doctor, its Megan.”
“You’re late.” I said coldly.
There was a five second pause. “I just got out of a meeting with the Director and his department heads. They aren’t happy.”
“Do I get the information or not?” I asked flatly.
Another long pause. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve been ordered, by the Director himself, to withhold any further assistance. In fact, I was told not to contact you for any reason and that if you contacted me, to notify the tracking unit immediately. I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ve become persona non grata around here.”
I took a deep breath. “Why did you call back then?”
“You know why.”
“I’m sorry Megan. I truly am.” And I meant it. For a couple of reasons, the least of which was the loss of a valuable data resource.
She disconnected.
The thoughts running thru my mind became tightly focused and seemed, even to me, a little cold and callous.
With one hand on the wheel, my eyes on the ever darkening road ahead, I punched one last sequence of letters and numbers into the phone’s keypad.
“Is that you Ike?” the light tenor on the other end asked.
“You really should rethink your decision Marcus.”
“You’ve overstepped yourself this time, Doctor. Lucifer is none of your concern.”
“Remember who you’re talking to Mr. Director. I decide what concerns me, not you. Damnit Marcus, you owe me.”
“Back off Ike, just back off. I’ve got the support of Justice and the National Security Council on this one. You don’t have a legal leg to stand on.”
“Marcus, I’m going to be as clear and straightforward with you as I know how, so if you don’t understand any of what I’m about to say, you be sure and speak up. Lucifer is mine. If your people, if anybody’s people, get between me and him I will personally kill each and every goddamn one. Do you understand me Marcus? And then I’ll come for you.”
I heard a piercing electronic squeal and the phone shut down. I grinned half-heartedly. It was a well designed little device. Even the NSA couldn’t trace it.
I made one last call using Lilly’s cell phone.
“White Dragon Security, may I help you?” the faintly accented male voice inquired.
“My name is Ike Blacktower.
I’d like to make an appointment to speak with your CEO. Say tomorrow morning,
It must have been my night for long pauses, because I got another one.
“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Ike Blacktower.”
And another…
“