Turn or Burn (5 page)

A group of protesters were walking along the sidewalk toward the Convention 
Center, their signs held high. One man, with a full beard and a long white robe, eyed me.  
He walked with a slight limp. Could have been Moses. Once he saw that he had my 
attention, he held his sign out in front of him, making sure I read it. In red block print, it read:
Turn or Burn. God Only Has So Much Patience.
The man pointed a long, bony finger at me. I stuck my hand out the window and gave him a thumbs-up.

Seeing plenty more protesters on the way, we finally reached the Pan Pacific Hotel in South Lake Union. SLU, they call it. SLUT, if you’re referring to the uppity trolley that runs up Westlake Avenue shuffling around the employees of Amazon and whatever other high-tech, super geek havens that were popping up around there. The soldiers of the corporate world—laptop in one hand, red eye coffee in the other—off to make the shareholders happy. We pulled into the circle and moved the family into the lobby quickly, without drawing attention. The top floors of the hotel were apartments, not hotel rooms, so we already had keys and didn’t have to check in.

We cleared the apartment and then led the family in. They weren’t going to leave for the rest of the day, so we had some time to catch up and plan. Ted left Dervitz to guard the door, and the three of us went to check in to our rooms on a lower floor. We agreed to meet in the downstairs restaurant in an hour.

“It sure is good to have you on board, Tofu. I knew you’d cave.”

“What the hell is the doctor thinking?” I asked, not taking his bait. “This doesn’t feel good. He’d be smarter to leave it alone. Why even consider putting his family at risk?”

Ted adjusted in his seat. “I’ve had this conversation with him several times. He believes in this stuff.”

“Enough to die for it?”

“Apparently.”

The waiter brought over some pizzas, and we dove in. Ted had ordered a cheese one for me. I’ve gotten a hard time about being a vegetarian my whole military life. Hence my call sign:
Tofu
. But Ted had long ago given up trying to change me, and he didn’t even attempt to make fun of me any longer.

“Hey,” Ted said, “even if someone is stupid enough to try something, we’ll get them. We always do.”

“I hope that doesn’t change. If it was my call, I wouldn’t agree to this. I’d protect him, but I’d get him out of town. I wouldn’t let him go tomorrow. I certainly wouldn’t let him speak. It’s not like security in there is that tight.”

“It’s tighter than you think, especially since the protests picked up. An army of cops will be there. This is invitation-only. Hard searches as you walk in. I think we’re okay. Besides, part of the contract was escorting him tomorrow. If I had said no, he would have found someone else. If anyone’s qualified to do it, we are. Hell, Dervitz has walked a couple presidents into situations like this. It’s all about planning.”

“How about his partner? This Dr. Kramer. Someone guarding her?”

“No. I offered to put together a team for her and she declined. She hasn’t received any threats, so she isn’t that worried about it. I actually rode up to her place in Green Lake to make the proposal, and she shot me down pretty quickly and headed out the door for her nightly jog around the lake.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Sounds like she’s being hard-headed.”

“I’d say so, but it’s not my business anymore.”

“Where’s Francesca?”

“There you go, Tofu,” Ted said. “I had a feeling you’d like her.”

“Hardly. A fiery Italian woman is the last thing I need in my life. She reminds me too much of my mother. How the hell did you end up with an Italian cousin?”

“My dad’s brother flew in the Navy and was based in Rome for most of his career. Met an Italian bird. Had a daughter.”

“Gotcha. Well, she’s a damn handful. You should have warned me.”

“You sure it’s not you that’s the handful?”

“I’m—”

“Heads up,” he interrupted. “She’s walking in the door.” I didn’t bother turning.

She finished chewing, then said, “You’re a waste of space,
bambino
. No one thinks you’re funny.”

“I’m just establishing our relationship from the beginning. I don’t want you thinking I’m like every guy with a shoulder holster.”

“You’ve got some anger deep down, huh? I should take you outside and knock you around a little bit.”

I shook my head. “Knock
me
around a little bit? Funny.”

Ted laughed. “You’d be surprised. You wouldn’t be the first.”

“I’m all good,” I said, looking at her. “I’d hate to embarrass you.”

“You wouldn’t come close.”

“Damn, you’re something. Mama must have told you every day growing up how pretty you were. Am I right? Her special little princess. You’re such a cliché.”

“
Sei un coglione
!” She took her glass of water and flung it at me. I jumped back in my chair and leapt up, trying to stay somewhat dry. She threw the glass at my chest, but I caught it. Then she looked at Ted. “I don’t know why you brought this guy in.”

With that, she walked out the door. I glanced over at the waiter, who was clearly enjoying the show. “That funny, big guy? Can I get some towels…please?” I sat back down. Ted was drying himself off. “Did I say something wrong?” I asked. “This is
exactly
why I hate working with women.”

“You’re real good with them,” Ted said. “Real smooth. No wonder you haven’t gotten laid since you were fifteen.”

“Right. Funny how these warrior girls are all good with killing people, but then you pick on them a little and they girl up on you.”

“Just let it go, Harp. Take a breather.”

He was right, but I wasn’t going to tell him so. I wish I was better at giving people the benefit of the doubt, but I’m really not. I dislike you until you change my mind.

And I guess this is the part where I try to analyze what clearly is a deep-seeded issue with women. I was a momma’s boy growing up, believe it or not. She and I were really close, and losing her certainly broke me for a long time. So was it my mother dying an early death, leaving me and Pops to fend for ourselves? I know you can’t blame someone for getting cancer, but the subconscious doesn’t always work with common sense. I don’t know what else it could have been. Never really had my heart broken. Hell, I hadn’t given a woman a fighting chance to get into my life since high school, and we all know that doesn’t really count. At least I recognized that I had some sort of issue. Isn’t that the first step? Oh, to be normal again.

“Why don’t you take a couple slices up to Dervitz?” Ted said. “He’s probably a bit bored and hungry. Go bug him for a while. I’m already tired of looking at you.”

I stood and patted Ted on the back. “Don’t worry, Ted. She’ll be okay by tomorrow.”

“She better be.”

“Don’t forget…you talked me into this. I told you I wasn’t ready.”

He shook his head. “You’re better than this.”

I walked out the door and took a breath, looking around. The Pan Pacific Hotel was part of a three building development. The other two were high-end condominiums. At the bottom of all three were stores and a couple restaurants. A Starbucks (shocker). Scraps Dog Bakery. Be Luminous Yoga, and that’s Baptiste style, not Bikram. A salon. A chiropractor. A boutique where you can buy twenty-thousand-dollar coffee tables made of a fossilized tree trunk. Everything you need to be a yuppie. And there were yuppies everywhere. All walking around with their little recyclable grocery bags filled with beeswax candles and Omega-3 and twenty-dollars-a-pound organic blueberries from the Whole Foods just down the steps. All dabbling with becoming vegetarian or vegan. So trendy. Made me want to start eating meat again.

Back in the hotel, I stepped out of the elevator on the fifteenth floor. Will Dervitz wore his jet-black hair combed to the right, and he had a dimpled chin and a pointy nose. If he sharpened it some, he wouldn’t need a knife to protect himself. “You getting bored up here?” I asked him.

He was sitting in a chair by the door. “You get bored doing this, people die.”

“No doubt.” The guy was not a comedian. I handed him the pizza. “Why don’t you take a break? I’ll take over.”

“That’s all right. Daly is coming up shortly.”

“I got it. I’ll wait for her. You haven’t even gotten a chance to check in yet.”

He took off, and I sat in the lobby section of the top floor. Twiddled my thumbs for a while. Though I don’t like to admit when I’m wrong, I will do my best to make up for it. That’s why I wanted to wait on her. A couple elevator dings got me excited, but it wasn’t her. Yes,
excited
is the word. For some reason, I was starting to like her. I felt like not being mean to her anymore.

Fifteen minutes later, she came out of the elevator. She almost went right back in once she saw me. I raised my hand and did a half wave. “C’mon…” I said, standing up. “Can’t we all just get along?”

“I thought Dervitz was up here,” she said.

“I sent him back. Wanted a chance to talk to you. Pull up a chair. I’ll entertain you for a while. Not much going on up here anyway.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Her accent grew stronger with her temper. “I’ll work with you, but we’re not friends. You’re a jerk.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it. Probably sounds more complimentary in Italian.”

She sat and I sat down in a red chair opposite her. “I’m not a jerk. I come off that way, maybe, but I’m not. You have to give me a chance. No, I take that back. Give me a few chances. I’m not a jerk…I just don’t make the best first impressions.”

“Truer words have never been spoken. I have news for you. I don’t need any more friends. You’re good right where you are. Let’s just take care of this family and do our job.”

“Suits me.” I didn’t say anything else. We sat in silence for a moment, and then I started humming an old Irish number, filling the void.

“You’re dismissed,” she said.

I stopped humming but didn’t move.

She pointed me toward the elevator. “Please go.”

“All right, then.” I rode back down to my room, wishing I had treated her differently from the outset.

I spent most of the night hating myself, wondering why I didn’t always treat people the way they should be treated, wondering why I was such a prick, why I was so bad with other humans. I wanted to fix it, but as I had learned, change doesn’t come easily.

I went her way. She wore very little other than some beads of sweat and some tight black material covering up the goodies. “Good morning, Ms. Daly. They let you off duty?”

“Hi,” she said flatly, pushing up another set.

I reached over and grabbed two dumbbells. “Want to arm wrestle? I feel like we have some things we have to get past. We could settle it right here.”

“Can we do this later? I’m really not in the mood for you. Another few days and we’ll never have to see each other again.”

“I guess that means no arm wrestle.” I went over to the other bench and began to do some bicep curls. I looked up at the news and saw they were talking about the Singularity Summit. I turned on the sound and we listened to a Channel 7 newscaster telling people to steer clear of downtown, that estimates of people expected for the protests were in the thousands. Then they showed this woman preacher named Wendy Harrill jabbering about how evil these Singularists were, how they were trying to play God. I’d seen her on the tube a couple times over the years but had never given her words much of a chance. Harrill had been getting her fair share of fame over the past few days, though. That was for sure.

I turned to Francesca. “I don’t think today is a good idea. I really don’t. It’s risks like this that lead to problems.”

She didn’t say anything. Finished her reps and stood from the bench. She grabbed some heavier weights and started on some squats.

I stood and watched her. “That’s where you get those thighs. I was wondering.” I smiled.

She put down the weights. “You want to get off my back, Knox? Let me get a workout in without having to listen to you. Please.”

Francesca threw her leg up against the wall and started stretching. I did
not
notice the perfect form of her thighs all the way down to her muscular calves. And I didn’t notice how hard she worked on her body. Know what I mean?

She switched legs. Threw the other one up against the wall. Again, I did not notice how agile her body seemed. I did not wonder what fun we could have together.

“Let’s just start over,” I said. “You had a chip on your shoulder coming into this thing, and I think if you’ll just take a deep breath and think about it, you’ll know everything is okay. You are not a target here.”

“A target? You really are something, aren’t you? What you don’t realize is, I don’t care.”

“Oh, I think you do. But let’s not let that get in the way of us.”

That did it. Put her over the edge. “You’re an asshole.” And she left me there on the bench. She hopped onto the treadmill and pushed some buttons. In seconds, she was jogging her way to nowhere.

I’d had enough myself. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?
She’s a lady! Treat her like one, Harper.
I went back to the locker room, stripped down to a towel, and went into the dry sauna for a while. Then I threw on a robe and headed out of the men’s room.

Nearly ran into her in the hall. “Excuse me,” I said.

She blew out a breath of air like she was extinguishing a burning car and kept moving toward the women’s locker room. I bid her adieu and returned to my room. It was getting light outside. Beyond the fog and the clouds, somewhere out there above the sky of the Pacific Northwest, the sun was doing a little tiny something to tell us it was daytime.