Tom nodded again. “Looks like we’re on the same side,” he said cautiously. Or you’re trying to scam me; but it fits better than a megacorp risking bad PR on penny-ante smuggling.
“When did you get into town?” he went on.
“Late yesterday,” she said. Then she smiled at him, the green eyes narrowing. “And by the way, no, I didn’t have any plans for dinner tonight. Which is what you were about to ask, right?”
“Right.” He felt his face flush even more, but laughed good-naturedly. “Mind-reader. Ahem. Adrienne, would you like to have dinner tonight?”
“I’d love to, Tom. Say about seven-thirty?”
“Right.”
Now was the awkward question of where. She was undoubtedly the sort who simply went where they liked and didn’t have to worry about prices. Wardens at his level made a decent middle-class income, but he did have to think about where he went and how often. Otherwise he could come up empty at the end of the month.
“How about something Oriental?” Adrienne said, looking around and tossing the empty water container into a trash basket. “I always… that is, I really like that.”
Tom nodded. Inwardly he was blinking in bemusement; coming from the Bay Area to Sacramento and going out to eat Chinese or Japanese or Thai was like… well, as his grandmother had been fond of saying, that was like taking herring to Bergen, only in reverse. Even now Sacramento was basically a glorified Valley cow-town.
Still, I’d cheerfully eat gray toadburgers at McDonald’s with you, Ms. Rolfe. “Let’s see… Does that include Indian?”
“East Indian, you mean? Love it.”
Hmm, he thought. Doesn’t everyone mean East Indian nowadays? You could get a serious rebuke at his job for not using “Native American” for what people used to call Indians, and what Tully privately referred to as “Premature Siberian-Americans.” Probably you don’t have to be as cautious when your family owns the business.
“How about the Maharani, then?” he said aloud.
Her smile went wider. “I bow to the superior experience of my native guide,” she said. “And now… back to Grayson’s.”
Tom found his second wind remarkably easily. He whistled in the shower, and felt even better when Adrienne was waiting to exchange addresses and phone numbers. She was staying at a B-and-B spot, Amber House; the sort of place that had about twelve rooms, each with a name, a private two-person-size Jacuzzi and an Italian marble bathroom. That was only eight blocks east of the capitol, within walking distance of downtown, and it explained what she’d been doing at a private health club—unlike similarly priced hotels, it wouldn’t include exercise facilities.
Down, boy, he thought. Just because you’ve met a beautiful woman who shares your hobbies, seems to think like you, and seems to be interested in you, doesn’t mean the millennium has arrived. For one thing, she’s seriously rich. That can create problems. For another, there’s something slightly funny about her. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there. Maybe RM&M is legitimate. On the other hand, maybe not, and she’s their Mata Hari.
That nagged him all the way back to his modest apartment. He could have afforded a house, but he thought of the one-bedroom as his contribution to slowing down the paving of California, and besides that, he was saving for a small place up in the Sierras. The comfortable bachelor shabbiness suddenly looked a little different as he walked in, although it had contented him since the divorce.
The “shabby” suddenly overwhelms the “comfortable,” he thought.
He phoned in the reservations, then flipped on the computer. He had indulged in a good optical cable-modem connection; it saved a lot of time. Whistling between his teeth, he leaned forward with his strong fingers moving over the keyboard and mousepad.
Yes, the Pacific Open Landscapes League was a legit operation, headquartered in Berkeley, which was no surprise—the People’s Republic was exactly the place for this sort of endeavor. Donors were listed, and included the usual assortment of individuals and companies who wanted to show concern, a desire to buy respectability, a lust for good PR, or all of the above. Amounts weren’t specified, but a Google search had turned up evidence that this was a seriously well-heeled outfit, with annual expenditures well up into seven figures, although they didn’t have a mass membership like the Sierra Club et al. And Adrienne Rolfe was right there on their Web site, under “Investigation and Appraisals Division.”
So she was a troubleshooter and fixer; awfully young for it, and he would have expected someone with a law degree. Hers was in history, with some wildlife-centered biology courses.
Aha! he thought; Charles Rolfe was there on the board of directors. Nepotism raising its—in this case—very attractive head. Nothing inherently wrong with that, of course. It looked as if the Rolfes had been spending a lot of money on a cause he thoroughly approved of, for generations.
Hmmm. Let’s see: small permanent staff, about twenty; headquarters in a converted Victorian; doesn’t go for headlines. Genteel as hell, all very well-bred. OK, looks good… let’s try cross-checking.
The founder of the league was still alive and on the board but retired; he must be pushing ninety by now; that would be the grandfather she mentioned.
Tom winced slightly. He’d be delighted if the evening ended in Ms. Rolfe’s bed, but…
But, dammit, I really like her. She seems… real. And if she’s that rich, it could be a serious, serious barrier to anything serious. I’m tired of one-month girlfriends and relationships that go nowhere. A man wasn’t meant to live alone.
He shook himself, noted the time and scrambled to dress. The first rule of a first date was simply to relax, enjoy yourself and not think too much about what might happen down the road—that was the surest way to start giving off “needy” vibrations, which women detected and shunned the way submarines did the sound of a destroyer’s propellers.
Time to go.
“You’re indecently cheerful today,” a voice said as Tom Christiansen hung up his jacket and flipped on the computer in his cubicle. “You get lucky, or what?”
Tom laughed. Roy Tully was a good sort, even if he had a fair bit of little-guy complex. He might feel a need to prove himself, but as far as Tom was concerned he already had. The short man in the high-waisted pants stood in the entrance of the cubicle, his tie a particularly vile yellow-and-green checked number, grinning and holding a Styrofoam cup of the usual execrable coffee in each hand.
The office was coming to its usual institutional-bland life, a structured world where status was marked by the size of your cubicle or—for the very successful—a corner office with a view and a real desk. Tom had never wanted one of those; the money was nice, but if you got to that level, you had to stay in the office most of the time. He sipped at the coffee, made a face at it and said, “No, actually, I didn’t get lucky. But I don’t give a damn. I did have a very nice evening with a very pleasant young woman I met at the gym.”
His mind went back to the parking lot of Maharani’s. Adrienne had been stunning in gym clothes; the effect in a short black dress gathered with a gold-link belt, a little simple makeup and a silver-and-turquoise pin holding one fall of her bronze-colored hair over the left ear had reduced him to stuttering idiocy for an instant. Luckily it had passed….