"Same pronunciation, but with a double n."
There, Nadia thought. I've told him. I hope I'm not going to regret it.
The last thing in the world she wanted to do was cause trouble for Dr. Monnet. In fact, the very reason she'd called this Repairman Jack was to try to protect him.
Relax, she told herself. Alicia had said she could trust this man. And Alicia Clayton's trust was not easily won.
But after the way she'd talked about him, Nadia had expected Jack to have a commanding presence, be six-two at least and built like a fullback. The man sipping coffee on the other side of her desk was a very average Joe—midthirties, good-looking but hardly dazzling, with brown hair, brown eyes, and an easy way, dressed like men she passed hundreds of time a day on the city streets.
I want the man I can trust with my life to be like Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger, she thought. Not a younger poor man's Kevin Costner.
But then she remembered Alicia's warning: Don't let Jack's mild Mr. Everyman act fool you; his bite is infinitely worse than his bark.
"I gather he's more than just a boss to you," Jack said.
The offenhandedness of the remark jolted Nadia. Is it that obvious?
She tried to make her shrug equally offhanded. "We go back a ways. He was one of my professors in medical school."
"The one who said, 'The future is steroids'?"
She nodded, glad to note that he'd been paying attention. "He inspired me to go into endocrinology. I owe him for that."
Jack stared at her, as if saying, Go on… I know there's more.
Oh, yes, there was. Lots. But Nadia was not about to confess to a stranger about the mad crush she'd had on Luc Monnet back in med school. His black curly hair, as dark as his glistening eyes, his fine features, his trim body, but most of all his manner. With his aristocratic bearing and his delicious, oh-so-faint French accent, he'd simply reeked of the Continent. Nadia had been so enthralled that she'd dreamed of seducing him, even worked out a way to go about it. She remembered the old fantasy…
She'd seen herself entering his office and locking the door behind her. She'd never kidded herself that she had fashion model looks, but she knew she was no bowwow either. And on more than one occasion she'd caught Dr. Monnet looking at her, so the thought that she could do it wasn't completely off-the-wall. She'd be wearing a tight short top and a miniskirt worn low to expose her navel. She'd ask him for a clarification on hormone levels and sexual response. She'd work her way around the desk till she was standing next to him, rubbing a hip against him as he reviewed molecular structures. If he didn't take that bait, then she'd simply take his hand and place it on her bare inner thigh. After that, temperatures would rise, clothes would be shed, and he'd take her right there on his desk, demonstrating along the way that he was an expert in the lovemaking art for which the French were famous.
And it had remained pure fantasy until one day near the end of the term…
Nadia shifted to banish the faint tingling in her pelvis. Doug Gleason was the man in her life now—now and forever.
"You owe him enough to play guardian angel?" Jack said.
"Curtis Sliwa I'm not. But what should I do when I think that the man who inspired me toward my life's work and gave me my first job is being coerced into doing something most likely illegal?"
"How do you know it's coercion?" Jack said.
"Come on. If a known thug is physically pushing him around, I've got to believe he's pushing him around in other ways as well."
Jack was nodding slowly. "Yeah. That would follow. So what would you like me to do about it?"
"A number of things." Nadia had worked out an algorithm for the Monnet situation, much like the ones the medical journals worked up for diagnosis and treatment of a given disorder. She pictured the boxes and decision points in her mind as she spoke. "First we have to determine the connection between Dr. Monnet and Milos Dragovic. If it's all perfectly legal—which I very much doubt—then we drop it right there. If it's not so legal, then we move on. And if Dr. Monnet is being coerced, I want it stopped."
Jack's eyes bored into her. "And if he's a willing participant in something illegal, with no coercion, then what?"
That was the final leg of Nadia's algorithm, a blank box she hadn't filled in. She hoped, prayed she wouldn't have to. She couldn't imagine Dr. Monnet willingly involved in anything illegal. He was already wealthy. He didn't need money.
But then she thought of the sleazy junk bond dealers in the eighties who'd ripped off hundreds of millions in a single year. But did they quit while they were ahead—way ahead? No. They wanted still more. The money itself had ceased to matter. It was the high from the risk that kept them pushing for more and more until finally they were caught.
Was Dr. Monnet's aloof demeanor merely a facade? Could a hunger for risk, a need for speed, a jones for adrenaline boil beneath that controlled surface?
This man sitting before her might come up with answers to questions she didn't want asked. But she had to do something. And she had to trust that an important person in her life did not have feet of clay.
She sighed. "I don't think you'll find that. But if you do, I'll make up my mind then."
"Fair enough," Jack said. "I'll need some addresses—his home, the company's corporate offices—phone numbers: yours, his, work, home, and so on."
Nadia pulled an envelope from her purse. "I've got them all right here. I've also written up what I know of his life, his training, his research, plus all I know about the company, GEM Pharma."
Jack smiled. "Efficient. I like that."
"There's just one problem," she said, feeling her stomach tighten. Alicia had told her about the Repairman Jack's usual fee. "Money."
"Yeah, well, I do charge for my services."
"Of course. I can't imagine you wouldn't; it's just that I'm only recently out of residency, and I just started this new job, and I was wondering…"
Jack hadn't moved, but she sensed that he'd somehow receded.
"If I'd cut my price?" He shook his head. "I don't haggle, especially when someone like Dragovic is involved. Sometimes I go on a contingency basis, but this isn't that sort of job."
Well, at least I tried, Nadia thought. "Ok, then, can I make time payments?"
He sat there staring at her for what felt to her like an eternity.
"Tell you what," he said finally. "Someone else contacted me about a matter involving Mr. Dragovic—just last week as a matter of fact. If I can find a way to work the two of them together, I may be able to give you a break on the fee."
"And if you can't?"
He shrugged. "I don't do time payments—a guy in my position has no legal means to go after a welsher. But since Alicia vouched for you, I'll make an exception."
Relief flooded her, "Then you'll do it?"
"I'll look into it; that's all I promise."
Nadia drew another envelope from her pocketbook and hesitated. Ten $100 bills crinkled within. A lot of money to hand to a man she'd met only moments ago. But despite his bland looks, she sensed a core of steely determination. All her instincts testified that he was the man.
"All right, then. Here's a thousand as—what? A retainer?"
He smiled as he took the envelope and tucked it away without looking inside. "Retainer, down payment, whatever you like."
"Don't I get a receipt?"
Another smile as he shook his head. "No receipts, no written reports, no evidence that we've ever met." He rose and extended his right hand across the desk. "It's all right here."
She took his hand.
"There's our contract," he said, still clasping her hand. "You trust me to do what I say I'll do, I trust you to compensate me for it."