“You were even closer to your demise than you think, pretty lady,” he said. “I very nearly came cruising in to your rescue, but then saw Pastor Mike and Mojo comin' in and figured that between the four of you, those thuglets were about to be undone.”
“You still didn't answer my question,” Lonnie stated. “What were you doing watching us?”
“I wasn't. I was waiting for someone else.”
“Who?” Mike demanded.
Kharzai ignored the question. “Where were you and Mojo, Mike? I saw you guys get out on the highway, but didn't see where you went. Shipyard, maybe?”
Mike was silent. Kharzai rounded a corner and pulled the taxi into the circular drive that stopped atthe lobby doors in front of the hotel.
“Like the Cash-Cab guy says, end of the line, folks. But in this case, I ain't got dough for you — you gotta pay me, and that'll be eight dollars and forty-two cents.”
“So you're not going to tell us what you were doing in the train yard,” Lonnie said.
“Only if you tell me what you were doing there first. I don't do nothin' for free, not even for a pretty little China doll like you.”
“I'm Korean.”
“Ooh. A Kimchi-Mama. Spicy!”
“We were tracking a terror suspect,” Mike said, handing him a ten-dollar bill.
“Oh,” said Kharzai. “In that case, I can tell you what I was doing there, then. Do you want your change?”
“No,” Mike said, “keep it.”
“So tell us why you were there,” Hilde said.
“Yeah.” Kharzai stretched his leg, straightening his body and raising his butt off the seat so he could put the money in his front pocket. “Waiting for someone to call a cab.”
They waited to hear more. He just smiled at them as he sat back down.
“Do you need a ride anywhere else?” He glanced back and forth between them. “If not, I've got more fares to catch. Gotta make a legitimate living, you know.”
He emphasized the finality of the conversation by clicking the electric locks and pressing the automatic opener for the side doors. Then his bearded face spread into his trademark wide-eyed toothy grin and he nodded his head toward the doors. The women got out of the van and walked up to the sidewalk. Mike stayed in the seat, a hard stare attempting to bore into Kharzai's will, but to no avail. Realizing he was not going to get an answer, he shook his head in frustration, opened the door and stepped out, then flipped it shut with an angry whump. He stepped to the sidewalk where the women waited. The electric hum of the power window buzzed behind him.
“Hey, preacher man!”
Mike turned.
“Have a good night,” Kharzai said, then pressed the button for the window to rise. Its hum stopped short and went back down again, and he added, “Beware the dudes who smell like vinegar and stale bread. Bad juju.” He started the window up again, put the van in gear, and started forward only to bounce to a shuddering stop and bring the window back down again. He smiled brightly, winked at Lonnie and Hilde, and wiggled his fingers in a childish wave. “G'nite, pretty ladies.”
He pulled away from the hotel entrance, the automatic side doors pulling themselves shut as he turned onto Fourth Avenue.
Chapter 11
Steam floated out of the bathroom like a Finnish sauna, greeting Marcus as he stepped into the hotel room. He glanced through the open door. Lonnie smiled back at him from behind the glass of the shower stall. White mist hung in the air around her naked body. The door slid open with the smooth sound of the Teflon rollers against the metal track, and she stepped out, grabbing a thick terry cloth towel from the chrome bar on the wall. Water dripped from the tips of her hair as she lifted the towel and wrapped it like a turban around her head.
With the stream of water stopped, she took a second towel and patted her body mostly dry, then wrapped the towel around her waist and stepped in front of the vanity mirror and picked up her lotion. The plastic bottle made a splattering sound as she squirted a dollop of the creamy cocoa-butter mixture onto her hand. She massaged it on to her swollen breasts and distended belly, hoping to keep the stretch marks to a minimum. As her hand moved gently across the taut skin around her belly button, the baby responded by pressing one of its limbs from within the chamber of her womb. A smile slid across Marcus’s weary face as he stared, mesmerized by the image of mother and child communicating with each other, two individual persons in one body. Her golden skin shimmered in the bright lights of the vanity as beads of moisture rose through the lotion and settled on the surface like tiny diamonds that swelled in size until they let go and slid into the absorbant cotton towel.
Lonnie glanced at his reflection in the mirror. “Are you just going to stare?”
“Yeah,” Marcus replied with a licentious grin, “unless I can touch, too.”
“I can't reach my back,” she said with a tiny pout.
“Then here I come — Lotion Man to the rescue.”
She let out a playful laugh as he drew near and she passed the bottle of lotion to him. He squirted more of the white cream onto his hand and rubbed it in between his palms until it was as warm as his own body heat. Then he put his palms onto her skin and spread the lotion with long, deep strokes across her lower back, where the muscles were visibly most tense, pressing with his thumbs in an outward motion. He curved the tips of his fingers, hardening them into stiff rakes that he slid down the length of her spine, pressing deep into the tight muscles. She leaned onto the counter, her hands holding her body upright, fingers grasping the cool marble surface. Lonnie let out a sigh, her eyes sliding shut, face relaxing into an expression that bordered on ecstasy.
“You are a good husband,” she said, her voice low and breathy. “I'll keep you.”
“Were you considering otherwise?”
“A lady has to keep her options open, you know,” she replied, “but so far, you've accumulated enough points to last for at least a decade.”
“You're keeping score, eh?”
“It's hard to keep score with you. There haven't been enough bad points to even make the list yet.”
“Sounds like I'm safe then.”
“Safe?” She pondered the word. “Securely married, yes, but as long as you're with me, you're in deep danger.”
She turned around and pulled him close, pressing her lips to his in a passionate kiss, then slapped his rear end hard enough that he let out a yelp.
She laughed out loud. “You sure are wimpy for a Marine.”
“You don't hit like a girl,” he said back.
“Well, you can't have it all — a hot wife and she's a pushover, too? Huh-uh, bub, this bod's gotta be worth a little work for ya.”
Lonnie walked from the bathroom to the closet where her suitcase lay open on a folding metal rack. She sauntered with an exaggerated swaying of her hips for a couple of steps, then straightened her body with one hand under her belly and the other on her lower back.
“Ooh, sexy walk ain't happening,” she said, sucking in a short breath.
She bent over the suitcase, grunting from the exertion, and pulled out a pair of panties, then took a step back and leaned against the wall, twisting her leg at the hip in order to raise her foot high enough to be able to get it through the leg hole. Once her underpants were on, she stood back up to catch her breath before pulling on a pair of thin fleece pajama pants. Marcus watched her slide on a long, loose-fitting cotton T-shirt and found himself unexpectedly aroused at the sight of his fully dressed, and fully pregnant, wife.