The big one on the front row would be delightful, those long legs and slender hips stripped bare by lobotol and lust. Or — there, the lank towhead on the end, with the bulge at the crotch of his syntho-suedes, the honest farmboy face gleaming with perspiration, the slender delicate nose straight and clean under his blue ingenue eyes.
They were all so photogenic Eve could not — suddenly did not want to — choose. Let kismet choose, she thought, and surprise me. She would go light on the barbecue, heavy on the man. In an hour she would be with S & R's top dog, the glum Salter, who managed to seem a harried bookkeeper while he kept secrets that could topple an administration.
Should she ask Salter specifically for one of his war dogs, a rover? Anytime an interviewer singled rovers out, Salter's pale eyes fairly jumped in their sockets. She would make her eyes huge, innocuous, and propose a brief private interview with a rover for FBN. Salter could hardly refuse under the circumstances — the whole evening was a media event.
The interview would be in Eve's suite at the De Vargas, naturally. She entertained no illusions about the impression her flesh made; she would ask Salter to choose someone, ah, typical of the S & R rover and to send him alone to her hotel in the city.
Eve giggled at the sweet tickle between her thighs, pushed the magnifier away, wrinkled her button nose at the scent of barbecue. Yes, she'd feed delicately on that.
It would be another matter when they sent the meat to her raw.
CHAPTER 11
Boren Mills stood in the reception room amid the hubbub of young voices, the clink of glasses, the exhalations of food and fruit juices, loathing the unstructuredness of it all. The banquet and the award citations, he admitted, had been well-staged and orderly. It was all this chaotic socializing afterward that gave him offense. Idly he sipped his execrable carrot cocktail and, over the rim of his glass, studied the throng for the layers of order he knew were woven through the gathering.
He spotted one of the heroes of the moment, resplendent in dress blacks, his citation ribbon a white satin slash against his breast. Mills murmured something appropriate, shook the youth's hand, touched glasses and moved on.
The President, as usual, stood stockaded within a crowd that was one-third celebrity-seekers and two-thirds Secret Service. Of course it was easy to spot Young's men among the uniformed S & R members, their dark blue suits almost festive against the yellow-accented black of the Search & Rescue people.
Mills began to smile. Order was on hand, you merely needed to know how to spot it. The foci were Young, surrounded by his praetorians; the regulars with the virginal white ribbons, accepting kudos from envious peers; and Salter, talking earnestly to a pair in dress blacks who were twice as old as most regulars — hence had to be S & R supervision.
He'd seen Eve, flirtatious and charming as a vampire whale, gently badgering Lon Salter over the salad course, but he hadn't seen her since the awards ceremony. Who knew what the self-indulgent slut was up to? She was as hard to figure as a Chinese speedfreak. Well, it probably had nothing to do with Mills's own troubles. He sidled to the refreshment table for a change of poisons— celery juice, for God's sake!
Young's Mormons would kill him with nutrition — and moved toward Salter as if by Brownian motion.
Salter was saying to the craggy one, " — And she knows what rovers do, for better or worse; but all the same I'll feel better if you choose a rover who doesn't like to ham it up. Don't give the assignment to Ethridge, for example."
"Ethridge isn't a ham," said the smaller one. "Grandstander, maybe; ham, no."
"But you get the idea. The more laconic, the better — ah, Mr. Mills; salud," Salter finished, raising his glass with a manful attempt at good cheer.
"Health it is," Mills agreed, eyeing his own glass as though undecided whether good health were worth such sacrifice. The men laughed, taking their cue from Salter.
"Boren Mills, let me introduce two of my right arms; Seth Howell," he indicated the long-legged topheavy man with unruly brows, "and Jose Marti Cross," he went on, nodding at a man of Mills's own slight build.
"Marty, Seth: Mr. Mills of IEE."
Mills had intended more polite conversation, but found this Mutt and Jeff team intriguing. Both were training supervisors — chiefly, Salter explained, of the rovers. To Mills it was obvious that the President hadn't told Salter just how much Mills knew about the S & R operations. Obvious: but true? In some ways, Salter was an opposite number to Mills; they both performed crucial operations for the Lyin' of Zion. They even did favors for each other — but at Young's direction.
Mills turned his attention to the supervisors. Most men preened for Mills, hoping to be remembered.
These two seemed to care so little, they might have been members of some other species; Howell a middle-aging grizzly, Cross a graying weasel. To tempt them, Mills tossed out a small bait: "I'm always looking for good security men."
Howell, his wispy tenor suggesting an old larynx injury, his hard eyes amused: "Folks're always mistaking us for the fallen-arch brigade," he said easily.
Mills missed the connection for one beat, equated fallen arches with flat feet, and smiled. Seth Howell might look and sound like a brawler, thought Mills, but like a gosh-and-grits politician he could sandbag you. Or maybe break you like twigs in those huge paws.
Cross, his faint sibilants and high cheekbones tagging him as part Amerind: "Our kids are more like anthro field men — and women, Mr. Mills. Remember those hobo jungle fires two years back? Our rovers saved S & R lots of grief by a little field work."
Mills nodded. He knew rovers would have cover stories and wondered how much scrutiny they could stand. "Tell me about it."
"Army-issue canned heat," Howell husked. "Poor buggers thought it was gel alcohol and tried to process it to drink. But GI stuff makes good incendiary bombs these days." His eyes refocused on someone just behind Mills. "Yes, Quantrill?"
"When you have a minute," said a very young man with a faint southern accent.
Mills turned, smiled, and held that smile while a vague memory of violent death thudded at his diaphragm.
He'd seen this youth somewhere before in dangerous circumstances, but couldn't place him.
Ted Quantrill's green gaze flickered in recognition, then returned to Howell's {ace. "Reporting for extra duty," he said, using their term for disciplinary action.
Cross grinned, big wide-spaced teeth shining in his small dark face. "Let me guess, Quantrilclass="underline" you spiked your fruit juice."
Quantrill did not smile, but his tone was sadly whimsical. "Talking in ranks during inspection," he said.
"I'd sooner believe it of the Sphinx," Howell joked, then pursed his mouth in thought. "Marty, seems to me that Quantrill has just volunteered for Salter's little tete-a-tete."
"If he's all through talking," Cross said with a grunting laugh.
Mills felt the conversation sifting around him, knew he was not supposed to understand it — and besides, the sturdy Quantrill made him uneasy. "If you gentlemen will excuse me," Mills said, lifted his glass again, and moved off to mull it over.
From a distance, Mills studied the muscular young rover. Somewhere he had met Quantrill face to face.