“Wow, that sounded like it hurt,” the chipper voice continued.
I scooted out from beneath the desk struggling to keep my skirt from hiking up around my waist and losing a shoe in the process. I finally emerged with one hand clutching a shoe, the other clutching my skirt to meet the amused gaze of a very short man with a head of red-gold curls that resembled those of a Botticelli angel. He was grinning at me, and it was clear from the expression in his dancing blue eyes that he was loving the situation.
“It did,” I said. “Hi, I’m Linnet Ellery. Who are you?”
“Merlin Ambinder. The man with no office.”
As usual my internal editor was asleep on the job. “Merlin? Really?” I asked before I could control myself
His cupid’s-bow lips quirked in a rueful smile. “Yes, I am a man with a really silly name. Blame my parents. They were hippies long after it was time for any sensible people to be hippies.”
I stood up and indicated the tiny space with my outstretched arms. “And as for no office, we have all this.” We shared a laugh, and he set down a stack of files on the second desk, then fell into his chair.
“How long is this likely to continue?”
I took my chair and we faced each other across our kissing desks. “If we’re lucky—a month. I don’t think we’re going to be lucky. And meanwhile I get to live in a hotel room.”
“You should rent an Oakwood. Well, rent an apartment at the Oakwood. Corporate housing—studio, one, two, and three bedrooms. No lease and everything is included. Even maid service if you want to add that in.”
“It’s got to be cheaper than the Beverly Hills Hotel.” I fired up my laptop and started a Google search.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“I could get a one-bedroom. Actually cook some meals.” Chrome loaded the Google search page. There were a number of Oakwoods in the greater LA area. I swung the computer around so Ambinder could see the screen. “Which would be the best choice?”
“Well, the one in Santa Monica near the beach would be great, but they hike the rates because you’re on the water. The one down on Washington is a pit. I’d go with the Barham Oakwood. Easy access to the Valley or the Basin. Close to Universal and the City Walk, Warner Bros., and Griffith Park.”
“How do you know so much about Oakwoods?” I asked.
“My folks got a divorce when I was eight. My dad moved into an Oakwood.”
“Oh, great, it’s a divorcee’s paradise.”
Merlin shrugged. “Look at the upside. You can get a lot of dates.”
I ignored that and asked, “So why isn’t the firm using them? Lot cheaper than a hotel.”
“It’s usually the partners who commute between offices, and while getting a pizza or takeout Chinese delivered to an Oakwood is no big deal, I think delivering a host would be tricky. The better hotels are set up for that. And you know vampires. They like to be catered to.”
“Is that ever the truth. So, what’s your specialty?”
“I’m the research monkey. I would be totally petrified to go into court, but I love digging through minutia.”
“Glad somebody does.” I cupped my chin in my hands, elbows resting on the desk. “Hollywood has a lot to answer for with their portrayal of lawyers. I thought this profession was going to be exciting,” I said.
“You’re in Hollywood now.”
“And it’s still not exciting.” I laid my hand on my stack of folders. “I get to read and summarize a statistical analysis of casting patterns over the past ten years for my boss.”
“We also serve who only burn our eyes out,” Merlin said, mangling the Milton quote to suit our situation.
Having bonded, we settled in to work. Merlin was a good office companion. We started off wearing headphones so our music didn’t bug the other, but it turned out we had similar tastes so we just let his IPod and Pandora play for us. We took turns on the coffee run to refill our cups. He even made sure the sandwich lady didn’t overlook us in our cave.
A few hours later I had a gross overview of the piles of statistical analysis. I knew David would want my initial impression, so I wrote up a short report. While statistics is the discipline where you lie with numbers, it was still pretty clear that the human actors were getting screwed. I hit Print on my computer and stood up, ready to head out to the network center to pull my report off the printer.
Merlin’s ruddy eyebrows climbed up into his bangs. “You can’t just email him your report?”
“Are you kidding? He’s a vampire. He wants the feel of paper.”
“Wow, Mr. Pizer isn’t that way.”
“Then he must be a very young vampire,” I said and left.
As I walked to the network center I thought about the calcification that eventually overtook all vampires. They claimed it was a good thing, but I wondered if it hid an underlying concern. The world was moving so fast today, and it was important to keep up. They would never admit that, however; they presented their hidebound habits as a way to revere and honor the past, which was why you found them most often in the law or curating at museums—in fact, the newest head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was a vampire. Once they’d gone public they tried to broaden their involvement in the world. There had been a few efforts to have them teach history, but these hadn’t worked out so well. The bustle of a campus and the manic desperation of undergraduates—But I just have to pass this class, Professor!—did not suit a vampire’s personality.
But did that bode ill for the future of the country, and maybe even the planet, when you had people with such hidebound and conservative outlooks assuming open positions of power? Not that the Powers hadn’t pulled the strings of politicians, kings, and potentates long before they went public, but their interest had been in staying protected and hidden. Now that they were giving interviews on Fox and CNN, would that increased visibility have an impact on society’s attitudes? Make humans more cautious and conservative? Some problems required nimbleness and risk taking to solve, and neither of those were a vampire’s strong suit.
I pulled my summation out of the printer and headed into David’s office. It was very sleek and modern, with a wallpaper that looked like beige silk and abstract art on the walls. David was making notes on a yellow legal pad. I took note of the pen he was using. It was a ballpoint. Both Shade and Meredith used fountain pens. Guess it was too hard to get quills these days. The errant little thought gave me a quick chuckle.
David looked up. “What?”
“Nothing.” I laid the report on his desk. “And the human actors are definitely getting the short end of this particular stick.”
“But should they be offered redress?” David asked.
“Affirmative action has a long and…”
“Checkered career?” David asked. “It was necessary to ease the injustice of Jim Crow, but can it, should it, be applied in this situation?”
“And if we rule that way, are we suggesting that all humans are a protected class,” I said.
He indicated a chair, a modern affair that looked more like art than furniture, with about the same comfort level. I sat and we contemplated each other in silence for a few minutes.
“It’s early days. We haven’t heard enough to make any kind of judgment, much less suggest a remedy,” I said.
“Agreed.”
“Look, David, can we talk to the New York office and see about my renting an apartment? I gotta be honest, I hate living in hotels, even one as nice as the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“I don’t want to leave the hotel,” he said, his expression mulish.
“And I’m not suggesting you should. I want to leave the hotel. Look, I get why you would want to stay. Room service and all that. Then you’re not having to drive all over town looking for restaurants that have hosts and cater to vampires.” I paused, Merlin’s comment about takeout had raised an interesting question. “Is there takeout for vampires?”