Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

  “I walk,” I said.

  “Oh.” She sounded surprised. “You live near here?”

  As if only crazy people lived near the university. Maybe she was right. Maybe only crazy people did. Crazy people and students.

  “Val!”

  Saved from answering by Pammy. She was hurrying across the gym. Jill was right behind her, a slight frown on her face.

  “I need to talk with you,” Pammy said.

  My heart started hammering. What had gone wrong?

  “Excuse me a minute,” I said to Joan and Marilyn. Then I walked to Pammy’s side.

  She had touched Jill’s arm. “This shouldn’t take long. Just do warm-ups if I’m not out in ten minutes.”

  “Sure,” Jill said, not sounding sure at all.

  Pammy put a hand on the small of my back, steering me toward the office. Her touch made my heart beat harder. The fact that her hand was on the small of my back, directing me, made me think of Vitel again.

  Bastard. He needed to leave my brain.

  “I have the phone numbers,” Pammy said, once we were far enough away from Jill that she couldn’t hear us. “I called Eagle. She should be here any minute.”

  “Okay,” I said, oddly glad to be included. Pammy didn’t have to bring me in for the initial phone call. She and Eagle could have handled it.

  Hell, Pammy could have handled it on her own and then told us about it. Lavassier used an answering service, after all. None of us expected him to be on the other end of the phone.

  Or maybe something had changed. Maybe Pammy found out that the service was hired for after-business hours.

  I didn’t dare ask her in the front area.

  We headed toward the back. I half expected her to tell me that I could back out of this now, that we all could.

  But she didn’t. We walked silently down the narrow hallway. Eagle was standing just outside the office door.

  She looked taller than she normally did. Her back was straight for the first time since I met her. Her eyes were clear.

  “Well,” she said, “it’s now or never.”

  And damned if she wasn’t right.

  49

  Eagle

  Eagle let Pammy unlock the office and walk through the door first. Pammy slid behind her desk. Surprisingly, the surface was clean, something Eagle wasn’t sure she had ever seen before.

  Val walked to the folding chair, the one Eagle had sat in when they concocted this plan, and Eagle took the chair nearest the door. Val and Pammy were dressed for class—Val in the Gym of One’s Own t-shirt that Pammy had given her, and Pammy in her usual light blue summer shirt and comfortable shorts. Both of them wore sneakers.

  So did Eagle, but she wore jeans and a sleeveless shirt that had felt good despite the day’s unusual wind.

  “I was right,” Pammy said as she opened her top drawer. “He has several phone numbers through the answering service. You can contact him from anywhere in the Bay Area without paying for long distance.”

  “Let me call him,” Eagle said.

  Val shook her head.

  “I’ll call him,” Pammy said.

  “I’m the one he’ll be seeing face to face,” Eagle said. “He should hear my voice first.”

  “Well, we haven’t decided if you’re the person to meet with him face to face,” Pammy said. “What if he recognizes you?”

  “He won’t.” Eagle was confident of that now, thanks to Brunsan. He had spoken directly to her, and hadn’t recognized her at all when she was dressed up.

  Pammy frowned. “Well, he’s not going to be some voice expert. He’s not going to know if any one of the three of us makes the first contact.”

  “No,” Eagle said. “I think we should be consistent—”

  “I think we need a story first,” Val said. “We talked about a story, but never confirmed it.”

  Pammy stopped just as she seemed about to interrupt Eagle. Eagle almost smiled.

  Val had easily deflected the building argument. She was good.

  “We need to figure out where we’re going to meet him,” Val said. “We never made a decision.”

  Eagle had thought about that ever since they decided to reserve a motel room in Berkeley. She didn’t want them to get one close to the university. That left the motels near the East Shore Freeway. She had even driven past the one she thought was the best.

  She didn’t leave Pammy or Val a choice. She said, “We’ll meet at the Golden Bear on San Pablo. There’s a restaurant right near the motel. Our fictitious woman would use that.”

  One of them—Pammy or Eagle (and of course, Eagle preferred it be herself)—would pose as the mother of a college student at Berkeley. She would pretend to be in town, traveling with her husband on business, and she would be consulting with Lavassier at the advice of a friend.

  “But she wouldn’t be staying there,” Pammy said. “If she had local knowledge and she had enough money to hire Lavassier, she would be staying at the Claremont.”

  Val frowned. She clearly had to trust them on this part.

  “The Claremont is too upscale for what we’re going to do,” Eagle said. “That’s why the Golden Bear. It’s classy enough for an out-of-towner to stay at, but not too upscale.”

  “What’s it like?” Val asked. “Can we rent a room and not bother other guests?”

  Eagle nodded. “We can ask for privacy. I’m pretty sure, at this time of year, we’ll get it.”

  “But,” Pammy started, “a woman from out of town—”

  “Would never meet a suspicious man near her hotel,” Val said. “She’d take a cab to meet him. We’re assuming she has a friend who tells her about Lavassier, so she knows how much his services will cost. She’ll also know that he doesn’t always bring the kids back in the best of shape, so she’ll know he’s dangerous. She would meet him elsewhere.”

  “If she really existed, she’d bring her husband,” Pammy said.

  Eagle had thought of that too. But a fake husband was unworkable.

  “Know anyone who would be willing to play the husband?” Val asked Pammy.

  “Not someone I’d trust with this,” Eagle said, answering for her. Not even close. They were taking too many risks already.

  “I’ll pay for the room,” Val said, “but we’ll use cash. And in this instance, one of you would have to actually rent it. Someone would remember me.”

  She was right about that. Eagle nodded.

  “So,” Eagle said to Pammy. “The restaurant at the Golden Bear. It needs to be getting dark enough that we can search his truck. So…eight?”

  “Sun doesn’t go down until about eight-thirty,” Val said.

  “Nine seems late,” Pammy said, “especially on a Friday.”

  “She could be on her way to meet someone,” Val said. “Maybe her husband and another couple at a bar or something?”

  “This seems awfully elaborate,” Pammy said.

  “If he asks,” Val said, “we need to be prepared for any question.”

  Eagle looked at her. Val’s hands were clasped together, and the muscles in her slender arms were taut. She was nervous.

  But she was right. Their cover story couldn’t be thin. It had to be deep enough that they weren’t making up lies on the spot.

  “That all sounds like a good start,” Eagle said. “We can come up with more in the next twenty-four hours. Let’s see if we can meet with him first.”

  Pammy took a deep breath. Her gaze met Val’s and then Eagle’s.

  “I’m calling,” Pammy said.

  Eagle suppressed a sigh. She wasn’t going to fight it.

  They had a name for the fictitious woman. It was Dorothy Knight, from Lawrence, Kansas. Her husband was a graduate of UC Berkeley and wanted their daughter to attend, over Dorothy’s objections. Which was why she was hiring Lavassier without her husband’s help.

  Pammy’s eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She took a deep breath, then grabbed a pen and tapped it on the page.


  “Okay,” she said. “Here goes.”

  She put the black receiver against her ear and used one of the pens to dial a number off the legal pad.

  The trill of the rings through the receiver were loud enough for Eagle to hear. Val rubbed her thumbs against each other. Eagle stopped looking at Val’s hands and watched Pammy instead.

  Pammy bit her lower lip. The phone rang three times, and Pammy opened her mouth, perhaps to call it off, when someone answered.

  Eagle could hear the voice, but not the words.

  Pammy smiled a fake smile—a phone smile, maybe—something that didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Hello,” she said, her voice trembling just a little. “I’m calling for a Justin…Lav…Lavas…Lavas..sir?...”

  Someone spoke on the other end.

  “Oh,” Pammy said, sounding a little embarrassed and relieved. She was good at this. “Lavass-ee-ay. I guess you can tell that I’ve never met him. I was given his name by a friend. May I speak to him, please? This is a matter of some delicacy.”

  Again, the voice on the other end spoke. Pammy didn’t look at either of them. She set the pen down and wrapped the cord around the fingers of her left hand.

  Val sat stiffly, not moving at all.

  Eagle leaned forward, wishing she could hear the other half of the conversation.

  “Um…I am only in town through the weekend,” Pammy said, “and I don’t have much free time to speak to Mr. Lavass-ee-ay. I was hoping to consult with him tomorrow?”

  Eagle was holding her breath. She made herself exhale.

  “All right, yes,” Pammy said. “I don’t want him to leave his name if my husband answers. But…gosh, that won’t work either. Um…could you get him to call in the next few hours? Otherwise, give me a time, and I’ll call him.”

  Eagle heard the voice this time, something about impossible, and sorry.

  “Oh, um…All right. I’ll try to stay close to the phone. My number here in Berkeley is…” Pammy rattled off the gym’s phone number. She swallowed visibly, then her gaze met Eagle’s.

  Eagle nodded, encouragingly, she hoped.

  Pammy took a deep breath, then said, “Thank you.”

  And hung up.

  Now, Val leaned forward. “Well?”

  “She says he sometimes calls in during the afternoon, but she has no other way to reach him,” Pammy said.

  “Damn,” Eagle said. “I was hoping she had a phone number for a direct contact.”

  “He drives around in his truck, doing God knows what,” Val said. “He probably doesn’t stay in one place long.”

  “You’d think he’d give them some way to contact him,” Eagle said.

  “Like what?” Pammy said, not really expecting an answer. “He clearly doesn’t, so we’ll have to stay by the phone. I already told Jill not to answer it. I’ll tell the others.”

  “I’ll take the first phone shift,” Eagle said. “You have a class to teach.”

  Pammy took a deep breath. “I thought maybe we’d just wait…”

  “It might be hours,” Eagle said. “Or he might never call. Just go on with your day. We’ll man the phones until we hear from him.”

  Pammy looked at Val. “You’re coming to class, right?”

  “Yeah,” Val said. “I don’t like waiting either.”

  “All right,” Pammy said. “When the phone rings, don’t identify the gym.”

  Eagle smiled. She knew that already. But Pammy was clearly nervous.

  “I’ll make sure I sound like a housewife in over her head,” Eagle said.

  Val let out half a guffaw.

  “What?” Eagle asked, pretending to be offended. “You don’t think I can do it.”

  “I do,” Val said. “It’s just, the image…”

  Pammy smiled too. This time, the smile was genuine. “Well, Mrs. Knight,” she said to Eagle. “Good luck.”

  “Eight o’clock, the Golden Bear Restaurant on San Pablo tomorrow,” Eagle said. “And that’s all he needs to know.”

  “If he sounds…I don’t know…too dangerous,” Pammy said, “back out.”

  Eagle nodded, glad she was the one answering the phone. She had a different definition of dangerous than Pammy did.

  “You can be sure of that,” Eagle said, then stood. She had to move so that Val could leave the room.

  Eagle stepped into the narrow hallway, surprised to realize she was more than a little nervous—and relieved at the same time.

  The plan was under way—and she wasn’t going to turn back, any time soon.

  50

  Pammy

  Pammy barely remembered teaching class. She spent most of her time glancing at the counter, willing the phone to ring.

  Or maybe she didn’t want it to ring. She wanted to answer it, not Eagle, even though she knew that Eagle should have been the one to do so. If Eagle met with him.

  If any of them were to meet with him.

  Val stood in her usual spot on the mat, but she too would occasionally glance over her shoulder toward the phone. She was getting a little more fluid on her exercises, but she wasn’t even competent yet. Her friend Joan was doing better, occasionally squealing with delight as she managed a full push-up in perfect form.

  Val was still fighting all of it, overthinking on some exercises, too weak to do others. Pammy worried about her, especially in the context of the thing they were planning, the thing she didn’t quite have a name for.

  She finished teaching, thanked everyone, and listened to the murmur of conversation start as the women helped each other, gathered the jump ropes, and moved off the mats.

  She walked around everyone, not wanting to talk. She wanted to head to her office and relieve Eagle from phone-guard duty.

  Jill caught her as she reached the counter. “They’re going to show the splashdown again over the lunch hour,” she said. “Did you want to see it?”

  Pammy wished she had never had a group of women together to watch the moon landing. Apparently, Jill thought Pammy was truly interested.

  She was glad the men hadn’t died…yet, anyway. No one knew what kind of space microbes and germs they had brought back with them. Now, they had to go into quarantine, and who knew what would become of them? They might actually die of something they picked up on the moon.

  She did her best not to snap at Jill about that. Jill was excited, and a bit confused about Pammy’s behavior this morning.

  “Thanks,” Pammy said. “I’m sure they’ll show it on the evening news.”

  “Pammy, it’s important,” Jill said, sounding surprised.

  “I know,” Pammy said, and she didn’t add that what she was doing was important too. Just in a different way. One that she wasn’t sure she believed in.

  Val had come up beside her. Her face was flushed, and sweat beaded on her forehead and temples. “I’ll clean up and maybe pick up some lunch…?”

  “Probably a good idea,” Pammy said.

  “May I ask what’s going on?” Jill said primly. Her mouth was narrow, as if she had swallowed something sour.

  “Um,” Pammy said, not sure how to respond. “It’s—”

  “Personal,” Val said. “Pammy is helping me with something personal.”

  “Oh.” Jill held up her hands and backed away. “Sorry. Usually I help with personal.”

  Val opened her mouth, clearly about to say something, and Pammy wasn’t sure what. She didn’t want a fight here.

  “I know you do,” Pammy said in her most soothing tone. “Val actually confided in Eagle, not me, and Eagle brought me in.”

  “You confided in Eagle?” Jill asked, then pressed her lips together, clearly shocked those words had come out of her mouth.

  Val’s entire face had gone flat. Pammy had seen her do that a few times before, but hadn’t understood it until now.

  Val was angry, but she didn’t show her anger. In fact, if someone had described her appearance, they would have said she was calm.

  “Yes,” Val
said, her tone as flat as her face. “I confided in Eagle. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  She headed toward the locker room, joining Joan and a couple of the other women. They smiled at Val and she smiled back, then disappeared inside.

  “I’m sorry,” Jill said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  You never do, Pammy thought, but didn’t say, because it would be rude. Instead, she shrugged.

  “People make unexpected friendships here,” Pammy said. “It’s something I’ve had to get used to.”

  Just like she had to get used to the people who decided to help out, and the different personalities that she encountered as she taught. She hadn’t really expected to manage people. She had expected to teach them, nothing more.

  The phone rang. She hurried toward the counter before she remembered not to pick it up. She couldn’t take the call out here.

  “You want me to get that?” Jill asked, even though Pammy had told her not to answer the phone.

  “No,” Pammy said. “I’ll get it in back.”

  The phone trilled again. Val came out of the locker room, her feet bare. She ran toward the office, and Pammy was right behind her.

  There were footsteps behind her. Pammy turned. Jill.

  “Thanks,” Pammy said. “We’ve got this.”

  Then she stopped, and realized that Jill might actually listen to the call out here.

  She came back, as the phone stopped mid-ring, and grabbed the phone off the counter. She didn’t pick up the receiver. She merely put the phone underneath the counter, on the floor.

  “I should have done that earlier,” Pammy said. “This way, we’re not tempted to use the phone out here.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re doing,” Jill said.

  “I know,” Pammy said. “You’re not supposed to.”

  Jill went pale. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right,” Pammy said, even though it wasn’t. She wanted to be in back. She didn’t want to miss this. “As Val said, this is private. You don’t want to know about it. Really, you don’t.”

  Jill bit her lower lip. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

  “I know,” Pammy said, in that placating tone. “But let’s respect Val’s wishes, shall we?”