Elliot frowned "What if we see a chance to get it without any rough stuff?"
"Do it anyway."
Kurt ground a fist into his palm. "Awright!"
"I don't know about this, Chief," Elliot said. "We could get pinched."
"Not if we do it right," Kurt said.
"I don't know," Elliot muttered. "I don't know."
Verran knew how twitchy Elliot got at the thought of winding up in a jail cell again.
"It'll be all right, Elliot," Verran said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I promise you."
Kurt grinned. "Don't worry, little buddy. I'll take care of you."
Verran swung on Kurt. This was almost like being a goddam football coach—push one, restrain the other. "No permanent damage, Kurt. Just enough to get the cops involved. And make sure they get involved—even if you have to call them yourselves."
Elliot's expression was baffled. "How come?"
"I've got my reasons."
FIFTEEN
"I hope I'm not making a mistake," Quinn said as she dropped her overnight bag into Griffin's trunk.
She watched as Tim settled her bag next to his own, then slammed the trunk top.
"What do you mean?" he said.
"I mean that we're traveling as friends and there isn't going to be any hanky panky."
He laughed. "'Hanky panky'?"
She felt her cheeks reddening. "One of my mother's expressions. But you know what I mean. I just don't want any... misunderstandings. Understand?"
He hung his head. "You mean we're not going to have the night of wild, Dionysian sexual abandon that will finally give meaning to my miserable life?" He sniffed.
"Open the trunk," she said. "I'm out of here."
He grinned. "Only kidding!"
"You'd better be, otherwise you're going to be one very disappointed medical student."
"Let's go."
As Quinn moved toward the passenger door, she heard a car behind her. A black Celica GT-S pulled into the neighboring spot on her side. With all the empty slots around, she wondered idly why it had to park so close to them. A big blond fellow got out and gave them a friendly nod. He looked vaguely familiar, then Quinn recognized him as someone she'd seen around the security desk in the Science Center. Why was he parking in the student lot? She noticed him looking past her, directly at Tim, almost staring. Then he slammed his door and strode up the incline toward the Administration building.
I wonder if he knows we're going away overnight? she thought. Probably. Everyone else seemed to. You couldn't keep too many secrets at a place as small as The Ingraham.
And everybody seemed to think they were indeed going to AC for the wild night Tim had kidded about before. Judy Trachtenberg had caught her in the hall just a few moments ago, winking and nudging, speaking in a very bad Cockney accent: "Gettin' away for a bit o' the ol' in an' out, are we?"
Quinn supposed it was a natural assumption. She and Tim were seen together a lot, and now here they were going off with overnight bags.
She settled into the front seat, belted herself in, and looked at Tim as he started the engine. She liked Tim, liked him a lot. She had a sense that his occasional sexist remarks and bluff attitude were a male thing, a front to hide the sensitivity perking below the surface. She was sure it was there; he'd let the facade slip a couple of times and she'd caught glimpses of it. Why did he feel he had to hide it?
Romance with Tim, a little sexual cuddling, or even sex...would that be so bad? There was an empty spot in her life, a void that she'd never managed to fill, a subtle, aching loneliness that she kept submerged in the torrent of activity that consumed her daily life. But in quiet moments, sometimes in those early morning hours when she'd awaken before her alarm clock, she'd feel the pang of that hollow spot.
She wasn't a virgin. That had ended in high school with Bobby Roca. She'd been sure he was the love of her life. They'd made lifelong promises to each other, and had wound up in his bedroom one Saturday night when his parents were away for the weekend. Her next period had been late and she'd been scared to death. She'd seen her whole future in medicine swirling down into a black hole and she was desperate for some support, some comfort, someone to lean on, just a little. Bobby had offered all the warmth and comfort of a snake. Worse, he actually blamed her. When her period finally arrived, a week late, she'd told Bobby to take a hike.
There'd been nobody since...nobody important, anyway. Not that there hadn't been opportunities, but she'd never let a relationship get off the ground. She wasn't sure why. Why did she take sex so seriously? So many of the girls at U. Conn had been so casual about it. They went out once or twice and sex just became part of the relationship. Male and female—what could be more natural? She knew it wasn't always so great for them, but neither was it the hardest thing in the world. Why wasn't it easy for her? Why did she attach so much importance to it?
Hadn't most of them been raised the way she'd been—the right man, the right time and place and circumstances?
Tim might be the right man, but this wasn't the right time in her life, and a freebie hotel room in Atlantic City after a night of watching Tim gamble would not be the right place and circumstances.
And overriding all of it was the weight of her concern for her career. She couldn't afford any sort of distraction now. This was not the right time in her life for a serious relationship—the only kind of relationship she knew how to have. Later. There would be plenty of time later. For now she had to remember to keep pulling back from Tim and keeping her eyes—and the rest of her—focused on the future.
No foreign entanglements.
But snuggling close to him tonight, his arms around her...a nice thought, a warm thought. But it would remain just that: a thought.
*
"You're sure you saw it?" Verran said.
He was standing with Elliot and Kurt on the rise overlooking the student parking lot.
Kurt nodded. "It was there, right where Elliot said it was—same coat, same place. I could've reached out and grabbed it."
"That you'll do later on. In AC. Follow them there. Watch them. Stay out of sight. Be patient. Wait for your chance and make it a good one. You got what you need?"
Kurt nodded. "Reversible jackets, gloves, ski masks, the works."
"Isn't there another way we can do this?" Elliot said.
He'd been quiet and edgy all day. Verran knew Elliot was picturing himself in a jail cell, but he didn't want to pussy out so he was hanging in there with Kurt.
"This is no big deal, Elliot. And it's perfect if it happens up in Jersey. That way The Ingraham isn't involved in any way. And should there be any question, you were both here with me all night. Now get going. You don't want to lose them."
Verran watched them get into their separate cars and roar off. By tomorrow morning he'd have the missing bug back and he could rest easy again.
*
"Mmmmmm," Tim said as they came off the Delaware Memorial Bridge and turned onto New Jersey Route 40. "The road to Atlantic City. I can smell the money already."
Quinn looked around at the surrounding darkness as the four-lane blacktop quickly narrowed to two.
"Pretty desolate."
"This is mostly farmland. If you think it's dark here, my dear, wait till we get into the Jersey Pine Barrens. A million acres of nothing. Then you'll see dark. AC is still almost sixty miles off, so now's as good a time as any to plan our strategy."
"Strategy?"
"Sure. We're both going to play."
"Oh, no. I don't know the first thing about gambling. And I can't afford—"
"You'll be playing with my money. Here's how it works. In the casinos, blackjack is dealt—"