Tropical Convergence (33 page)

"Thanks."

"We have too much people scared out there." Jose went on, resting his silver silk covered elbows on the table. "Everybody was running like chickens. Now, they see we have a plan."

"Uh huh." Dar rested her elbow on the chair arm and propped her head up on it. "We have a plan."

Jose looked at her. "What is wrong with you?"

Dar's eyebrows hiked.

"You are acting like you do not care," Jose said. "These people, what you say to them, that matters how they do their job, Dar."

"I know," she agreed. "I do care. It's just been a damn long day, Jose and I'm tired. It may be exciting to them, but to me, it's a rehash of the same damn speech I've already given the board, given the international board, and given the lot of you down here."

The Sales VP snorted. "You have no attention. It is like my son. He looks at one thing, and then..." Jose snapped his fingers. "It is the old news, and something else he goes to find. You are like that." He pointed at Dar. "Always, you have been like that."

Dar tried to get mad at him, but didn't find it in herself. She ended up shrugging instead. "Yeah. And?"

Jose also shrugged. "Nothing." he said. "I will tell you something however, Dar. Being married is good for you. I say so. My wife, she says so too. She told me she thinks you are not so much a bitch since then."

"Thanks," Dar drawled. "Your being married hasn't made you less of an asshole. How'd she figure that?"

Jose took a breath to answer, a red line creeping up his neck as he lifted his hand to shake a finger at Dar. "What did you say? I am being here so nice to you, and what is this?" His voice rose in outrage, attracting attention from the crowd still chatting around them in the room.

Dar snickered at him. "Miss the old days, Jose?" she inquired, a wry twinkle in her eyes.

"Puta," he growled, slapping his hand on the table. "There is the bitch I remember."

"Oh yeah." Dar leaned forward. "It's in there. It just takes a lot more now to get it to show." She got up and twitched her sleekly tailored jacket straight. "Gentlemen." She gave the now watching salesmen a gracious nod. "Ladies," she added, to the two women directors standing nearby. "Jose," she tacked on just for fun, as she stepped around the table and headed for the door. "Have a good night.

"Wait, Dar!" One of the women directors hustled to catch up to her, the other woman close behind. "Can we steal a moment of your time?"

Dar actually growled at them. "You had three hours of my time."

The women eased out of the conference room with her. "Just a few quick things...while you're walking?"

"Talk fast." Dar headed for the elevator. "Stacy, I've said all I wanted to say for the night in there." She hit the door button and headed into the car almost without a pause as her shoulders just barely cleared the opening. "It's been a long ass day."

The two women followed her hastily inside. "It isn't about the presentation," Stacy Allman said. "We wanted to talk to you about the ship contract." She glanced at the other woman. "Rhonda and I happened to be in the same bar as some old friends of yours, and we got an unintentional earful."

Dar leaned against the wall as the car rose to the fourteenth floor. "Everybody got a damned earful," she said. "I got nothing but the entire time I was up there." She studied the other two women, who could have been twins in their conservative suits and stylish haircuts.

Stacy waited for the doors to open before she answered. "Dar, let us take you out for a drink," she said, as they entered the quiet, half darkened floor. "You need to hear this, and the mausoleum's really not the place, if you catch my drift."

She caught it. Dar headed for her office, holding her outer door open before following the two saleswomen inside. She wasn't especially close friends of either, but they were both relatively old timers and she'd had a somewhat common bond with the few women who had made the climb up the ladder with and around her.

Both were savvy. Stacy was from New York, and Rhonda was from Los Angeles. Even though both women were straight as boards, neither had ever shown the veiled aversion to Dar's lifestyle she'd detected in others in the company. "I don't know, people. Like I said, it's been a long damn day."

"Cmon, Dar." Stacy followed her into her inner office, pausing to look around as Dar continued to her desk and started to pack up her briefcase. "Huh. This place looks a little different."

Dar's head lifted, and she looked around her office in mild confusion, expecting to find the carpet had been replaced in her absence or a different color wall weave installed. But the large space seemed much as she left it, so she glanced at Stacy to see what she was talking about. "What?"

"Listen, Dar, we won't keep you all night." Stacy dropped the subject and took a seat in front of Dar's desk instead. "But I really think you need to hear what we heard. How about the lounge in the Hyatt...give me a half hour, huh?"

Dar considered the question while her peripheral vision tracked Rhonda examining the collection of photos on her wall credenza shelves. "All right," she decided. "Go on. I'll meet you there in ten minutes."

"Cool." Stacy got up. "Ten minutes, in the bar. Good deal, Dar. I think once we finish up, you'll agree it wasn't a waste of either your time or ours."

Dar continued to stuff papers into her briefcase as the two left, only stopping when the door closed. She rested her knuckles on her desk and leaned her weight on them. Finally she grunted and straightened up, slapping one of the speed dial buttons on her phone almost without looking.

The phone only rang once before it was answered. "Hey, sweetie."

Dar's lips twitched. "You know, it could have been someone other than me calling from here," she commented wryly.

"Not on our home number." Kerry replied, a smile evident in her voice. "They'd have called on the cell."

Our home number. The words sent a little tickle down Dar's back even after all this time. "You're right. Shows how long a day it's been." Dar reached up and rubbed her left temple. "I'm done with the sales crap."

"How'd it go?"

"All right, I guess," her partner replied. "But two of the directors caught me afterward. Apparently they've got some BS they overheard from our friends. Want to spill it to me offsite."

Silence. Dar could almost imagine the look of skeptical surprise on Kerry's face. "Yeah, seemed pretty stupid to me, but I've known the two of them for ten years. They're not idiots."

"Sounds pretty bizarre."

"Anyway, I told them I'd meet them over at the Hyatt," Dar said. "Shouldn't take long. I'm sure we already heard most of it last week from the jackasses' mouths." She was aware of a pensive quiet from the phone. "You interested in joining us?"

Kerry chuckled, after a moment's hesitation. "I think you know me too well."

Dar smiled. "Hey, me and two straight women. What a party. Of course I'd invite you." She finished packing up her case. "Especially if you're in those cute overalls you were wearing the other day...that'd shock all the Cubans at the Hyatt happy hour."

Kerry chuckled again, but this time the sound was entirely different. "Oh, the scandals you weave, Madame Roberts. No, you go meet your undercover friends and get the dirt. I'll be here hanging out doing the domestic thing."

Dar's eyebrows lifted. "Domestic thing?"

"Baking cookies."

"Cookies?" Dar's ears perked up. "You're making fresh cookies?"

"The Food Network is dangerous," Kerry asserted. "But if you time it right, you might get some hot from the oven," she teased. "So don't get too dirty."

"They'll be lucky if I sit down," Dar said. "See you in a little bit, Ker."

"Okay--hey, listen. Remember that story from the news last night?" Kerry said. "The car at the drug store?"

"Yeah?" Dar's hand hovered over the button.

"We were there when they were. I saw the guy they're looking for. He was a creep."

It was the last thing she'd expected to hear. "Really?"

"Yeah," Kerry said. "But I'll tell you all about it when you get home. Go scoot and find your snitches."

"Okay. Yeah," Dar replied. "Strange timing, I guess. Be home soon." She released the line and shouldered her briefcase, turning off the desk lamp as she headed for the door.

MIDDLE OF THE summer on a Monday made for a very slow night at the bar. Dar gave the greeter at the door a nod as she entered, sweeping her eyes around the sparsely occupied lounge until she spotted her two colleagues near one of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows.

Stacy waved at her. Dar headed in that direction, only to be intercepted by a hovering and obviously bored waiter. She stopped as the man looked inquiringly at her.

"Can I get you something, ma'am? We have chocolate martinis on special tonight."

Much as the thought of a chocolate anything was intriguing to her at the moment, Dar shook her head. "Jamaican coffee, please." She indicated the small group of chairs near the window. "I'll be over there."

"Right away, ma'am."

Dar continued on her way and took one of the seats opposite Stacy and Rhonda. They both had glasses in front of them, with enough half eaten fruit matter to indicate their alcoholic content. "All right. So what's up?"

"Gee, Dar...it's great to see you too." Stacy gave her a wry grin. "Been a while."

Dar crossed her arms. "Half hour, didn't you say?" she asked pointedly. "I didn't come here to be social." She accepted the steaming mug the waiter handed her, and took a cautious sip. The coffee was hot, and pungent with a touch of rum and Tia Maria.

"No, you never really were the social butterfly," Stacy acknowledged. "Though we had some pretty good times back in the old days, out on the road."

"Eh." Dar tilted her head slightly. "I still remember you ending up doing the tango with the chef at that Italian place in New Mexico," she admitted. "They ever stop teasing you about it?"

Rhonda snickered.

"No." Stacy laughed. "They haven't. Trust you to remember that one, too. I think that was the first night I ever saw you drink something other than milk," she added. "Though tough as that damn account was, we were all due it. What a hemorrhoid case that was."

Ah, yes. Dar smiled faintly, and nodded. "Yeah, it was," she agreed.

"Dar, is that the first place you banged heads with that Shari woman? I remember her from that account. You fired her there, didn't you?" Rhonda asked. "That's why she was so familiar when she came into that bar. I remember her pitching a fit in the building as security was throwing her out."

"Yeah." Stacy nodded. "I didn't see her when she came in, but Rho did, and then when she and whatserface..."

"Michelle Graver," Dar supplied evenly.

"Yeah, from Vista, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

Stacy slowly twirled her straw as she sucked on it. "They sat down, and it wasn't a minute until they were yelling at each other, and the first word I recognized was your name."

Dar grunted. "Yeah, well." She shrugged one shoulder. "Shari and I go a long way back," she said. "So it wasn't the first time we'd met. I had a decision to make and it could have gone either way, but she'd taken the piss out of me one time and I gave her the boot."

"I remember." Rhonda signaled the waiter, and indicated their near empty glasses. "Dar? You up for a second?"

Dar glanced at her cup, which was still half full. "I'm fine."

"So, anyway." Stacy retrieved a tortilla chip from the table and loaded it with salsa. "They didn't know us from Adam's housecat, naturally. They sat at the table behind us, and let me tell you, they lit into each other like nothing."

The waiter returned, putting down two fresh fruity looking drinks. "Anything else I can get you ladies? Some hors d'oeuvres, perhaps?" He picked up the basket of tortillas. "I'll get some fresh chips. Would you like to try one of our combo plates?"

"Sure." Rhonda shooed him away. "Thanks."

Dar slowly sipped her coffee, appreciating the slight burn as the alcohol hit her in the belly. For her, that night in New Mexico had been a great one. The sense of personal vindication had nearly made her giddy. She'd more than welcomed the chance to share a night out with her co-workers, though they'd never known just why their sullen, loner regional tech manager suddenly decided to be social.

She'd had fun. Gotten a little drunk, but not nearly as much as they had, and enjoyed the simple pleasure of sitting back and relaxing after a tough day of work. Even going back to her hotel room alone hadn't bothered her. She remembered spending time on the room's balcony looking out over the New Mexico desert, happy for a change.

Ah. Or she'd thought she'd been happy. Dar felt her cheeks move into a silent grin. Now she knew she'd only been satisfied because over the last couple of years she'd had a much closer acquaintance with happy. "So, they were fighting."

"Like weasels," Stacy agreed. "Graver was pissed off because of some plan of hers that'd gotten screwed up, and I swear, I thought she said she'd offered you a job."

"She did," Dar acknowledged. "Her damn company recruited Kerry and I, matter of fact."

Stacy gaped at her. "Really?"

"Had no clue who we were, but yeah," Dar chuckled. "We were in the show room night before it opened getting our gear set and they thought we were staff geeks."

Rhonda started laughing, covering her mouth hastily. "Oh, my god."

"Wasn't funny then, but I'm laughing now," Dar admitted. "And actually, Graver did offer both of us jobs later on, but I think we all knew that was just a piece of BS."

"That's what she said," Rhonda agreed. "Apparently it was all to keep you from getting involved with that cruise ship deal."

Dar's head cocked to one side. "Eh?"

Stacy nodded. "Yeah, exactly. That's what they were fighting about. Apparently the Shari woman screwed that up by telling someone something about Kerry...that she was after your job?"

Kerry wanted her...oh. "Ah." Dar took a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, actually, that did screw them up," she mused, in a surprised tone. "But why wouldn't Michelle want to get into a pissing match with us? Isn't their whole deal proving they can beat us at our own game?"