What was amazing about many of these awful artworks was the bid-lists under them, with ten or twelve names and escalating offers.
Rachel did notice this and remarked on it: “Somebody would pay two thousand dollars in real money for that?”
Jay laughed. Apparently, it was true: Beauty was in the eye of the beholder. If he’d had time, Jay would have checked out the faces that matched the names of the bidders on some of the more hideous pictures. . . .
But not now. Now, he had spotted his quarry—at least he thought so. A tall man with red makeup, but dressed in neo-cowboy clothes—kind of a futuristic version—and with a big, low-slung holstered gun strapped to his hip. The gun had a multicolored ribbon tied around it and the holster—a “peace bond,” Jay had been told. The convention runners frowned on the idea of fans waving guns, knives, or swords around—and the hotel staff really didn’t like it. What better setup for a robbery? A bunch of armed people wearing disguises? You could just walk up to the front desk, point a gun at the clerk, and rob the place, and nobody’d have a clue who you were. Jay could imagine the interview with the local police:
“Yes, sir, it was a Wookiee, all right. Yeah, he just harned and growled and said, ‘Give me the credits or die, Earthman!’ What was I gonna do? How would that look in the paper, if I got shot and killed by Chewbacca?”
“That’s him, I think,” he told Rachel.
“He’s wearing a gun in here?”
Jay explain the convention policy about such things. “Yeah, if you wear a costume featuring a weapon, you have to keep it holstered or sheathed, or whatever, and the ribbon is attached to do that.”
“Like that will keep it safe?”
Jay shrugged. “If you get spotted in the halls or elevators twirling your blaster or carving the air with your enchanted sword, Security will kick your ass out, and good luck catching a cab dressed like the Crab Man from Mars. . . .”
She nodded, but didn’t smile.
Right now, convention security and social mores weren’t Jay’s worry. The Red Rider was just ahead, and he needed to stay with him until he found out where he was staying and under what name.
“Stay loose,” he said. “Let’s see where he goes.”
They were doing fine. The guy was heading for the door, when all of a sudden the scenario crashed, a full whiteout.
What the hell—?
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C.
They came out of VR, and Lewis said, “What happened?”
“Damned if I know. Software glitch, maybe.”
“You want to go back in?”
Jay shook his head. “No. I have a meeting with my boss at HQ this afternoon, I need to get back.” He started to strip off his gear. His neck was tight. He did a head-roll to loosen it, rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Too much chair time.”
“Here.” She stood, walked over behind him. “I know just the thing. Lean forward a little.”
Jay blinked, but did what she said.
She stood behind his chair and dug her thumbs into the base of his skull, started kneading. It felt great.
“Wow,” he said, “that’s good.”
“Had a friend once who was a masseuse. She showed me how to work the trigger points.” She put her left hand on his forehead and supported the weight of his head while she continued to work the back of his neck, using her thumb and fingertips.
Oh, man, that felt good. . . . If she moved her left hand, his head was gonna fall right off. . . .
“Better?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Okay, turn a little to your right and lean back.”
He did—and found his head pillowed against her firm breasts. She must be in a squat behind him. She began to rub his forehead with both hands, pressing his head into her bosom harder.
He couldn’t help himself. He moaned.
“Like that, huh?”
Of a moment, Jay knew that if he were to turn his head around and put his face into her boobs, she wouldn’t mind in the least. That she would join him in the chair, and that the massage would turn into something else entirely. . . .
Jesus!
He leaned away. “Much as I’d like to spend the rest of the day doing this, I really do have to get back to HQ.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “We can finish another time.” She smiled.
No question about it. She was letting him know she was available.
How did he feel about that?
Thrilled. Scared. Excited.
And guilty . . .
27
Washington, D.C.
Kent toweled himself off as he stepped from the shower. He was about done when he heard the music coming from the bedroom. He smiled, wrapped the towel around his waist, and headed that way.
Sitting naked on the edge of her bed, Jen played a guitar he hadn’t seen before. She had some kind of leather-strap thing with suction cups on it stuck to the side of the instrument, propped on her bare left leg.
Nude with guitar. A beautiful sight.
She was playing Nelson Riddle’s theme for the television show Route 66.
The original music had been a full orchestral thing and a single guitar couldn’t address it that way, of course, but what she played was lovely. It brought back a lot of old memories. He remembered the show from when he’d been a little boy—it was about two young men, Tod and Buz, who knocked around the country in a red Corvette convertible, having adventures along the old Route 66. Today, much of that road was Interstate highway, but back in the late fifties and early sixties, when the show ran, it was mostly two-lane, undivided, untamed.
Kent leaned against the wall and listened as Jen played. It might not have been composed for a classical guitar, but it sounded great the way she did it.
When she was finished, she smiled at him.
“Wonderful. But you can’t possibly remember the old television series,” he said, “because I barely do and I’m ten years older than you.”
She shook her head. “Before my time, except in reruns on the Nostalgia Channel. I saw an episode once—it was silly, but I did like the music, so I transcribed it for this.”
“I watched the show when I was a boy, eight or nine, I think. Martin Milner, George Maharis, driving their ’Vette through the little towns, looking for a place where they could belong. The world was a simpler place, back then.”
“Better, you think?”
“Not necessarily, especially if you were black or a woman or had polio. Or if your father or uncle or brother was on the ground in Korea. But in some small ways, yeah. I can recall going on a couple of trips with my folks when I was little, along the old Route 66. Main Street, U.S.A., it went right through the heartland, mostly between Chicago and L.A. I remember gas stations and truck stops and ratty motels where my father would stop. Made the run in an old woody station wagon once. I drank Coke out of little bottles. I remember the hot sun beating down in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico. Eating bologna sandwiches with mustard on white bread my mother made. Most of the route was upgraded years ago, a lot of it is I-40 now, I think. Now, the only place you see that kind of stuff is in museums. . . .”
He allowed the memory to fade. He looked at her. “New guitar?”
“No, an old one. From Romania, called a Troubador. Spruce top, maple sides and back. I got it off the Internet a few years back for a knock-around. It was cheap, I didn’t have to worry about it if it got damaged or swiped. Put new tuners on it, and it turned out to have a really good sound for the couple hundred bucks I paid for it.”