by Kim Oh
Oh. I decided to clam up on the issue. I wasn’t going to tell her that I was the VIP, or sort of, that’d taken her balcony suite. Or actually Lynndie, using her daddy’s money on my behalf. The pokey room in back was the one that I’d been planning on sticking me and Donnie in while we were down here, to keep him out of trouble. I had a mental picture of him leaning so far over the balcony rail to watch what was going on, that he wound up toppling out of the wheelchair and taking a swan dive into the pool below. Not that any of the party animals down there would’ve noticed. Then again, for my kid brother it might’ve been a dream come true.
“Yeah,” I said, “that sucks. I hate it when stuff like that happens. So that’s why you called Donnie. Because you got his cell phone number when you were bumping foreheads on the plane – didn’t you?”
“No, she didn’t.” Donnie to the defense. “She emailed me.” He pointed to his laptop sitting on the table, next to the intimidatingly large fruit basket. “And she had my address because she was going to send me a PDF of the catalogue from her school.”
“I’m sure.” I swung my gaze around from him to Mavis. “Look. I understand the problem you’re having. Really, I do. And it was very gentlemanly of my brother to offer the use of our balcony here, so you could get all the video you need for your research project. That’s cool. But I’ve got problems, too –”
“I know.”
I breezed past that. “I’m not here on vacation, either. I’ve got a job to do –”
“I know,” said Mavis again. “Believe me, I know all about it. What it is you do and all –”
I could feel my eyes widening hard as a dreadful suspicion flash-formed in my gut. I whirled on Donnie: “What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her anything!”
“He didn’t, Kim – honest. I knew already. I mean, not everything, but there was a bunch of it I’d figured out. Soon as I saw you on the plane.”
“What the . . .” I felt dizzy, as though I’d been hit in the head again. “What’re you talking about?”
You have to remember, that somebody in my line of work goes to a lot of trouble to keep other people from knowing. To have some twerpy underage college kid say that she’s got your number – or even part of it – that’s just about the last thing you want to hear.
For two reasons. One, if this Mavis kid had figured it out, then somebody else might have. Somebody a lot tougher and meaner than her, and with more of an agenda – in which case I was in serious trouble. Or reason two – if she were the only one who knew, then she was in trouble. It’s not the kind of thing I can risk letting get spread around. So far, all the people I’ve iced have either been trying to kill me, or they were just the kind of creeps on which there was a general consensus, that if they stopped breathing it’d pretty much be an improvement to the world. I was a little reluctant to lower my personal bar to include snoopy college kids.
“It’s simple.” Mavis’s words came filtering in through my own bleak thoughts. “It’s all that stuff that happened on the freeway.”
“The freeway?”
“You know. Back in Los Angeles. All that business with those men with the guns, and the hostages, and that plane blowing up –”
“Yeah,” said Donnie. “It was intense!”
“You haven’t forgotten about all that, have you? It was only a few months ago.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten about it.” The scar on my left leg hadn’t faded yet, from all the crawling around underneath the trapped cars and just generally getting the crap kicked out of me – plus my buddy Elton getting beat up even worse – it hadn’t been necessary to see him again in the hospital, just before coming down here, to be reminded about all that. “I just don’t know,” I said, “how you know about it.”
That was the thing, see. Just like Mavis had said, that whole freeway mess hadn’t happened that long ago – so the network producers who’d snaffled up the rights were still in the pre-production stage on the movie that eventually got made. But even if it had been made and gone out on the air, so she would’ve had a chance to see it, there wouldn’t have been anything about me in it. There was a bunch of stuff about the incident that a posse of government agencies didn’t want the public to know about. I’d had a debriefing – that’s what they called it – with a couple of heavy national security guys with steely little slits for eyes, in which they’d informed me in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t want to be disappeared, it’d be best if I just kept my lip zipped about whatever I’d seen and found out about what went down that day. To which I’d agreed, not wanting to find myself in Guantanamo – shooting for being the only girl on the prison soccer team, with a grim bunch of guys from Afghanistan, wearing beards bigger than me and with unprogressive ideas about women.
“The media lab,” said Mavis. “At the university.”
“What about it?”
“That’s where I saw you. I mean, video of you. While I was learning how to run all the equipment for the research project. One of the broadcast journalism majors, on the tech side – real nice guy named Jeremy; he taught me a lot of stuff – he came back from an intern gig at one of the news stations in L.A. And he had a whole big portable hard drive, the kind film companies use for transporting production files from one studio to another, all loaded up with raw footage that had been taped during that whole freeway thing.”
“He snuck it out?”
“Well . . . yeah.” Mavis shrugged. “Kinda. He said they wouldn’t miss it. Probably a backup copy, or outtakes, or something like that.”
“What’d he want it for? Was he going to sell it?”
“Naw –” She smiled and waved me off. “You know how those tech guys are. Especially the ones who are really into video. They’re collectors. They just like having something other people don’t have. Doesn’t matter if it’s any good or not. Jeremy and his buddies really got off on going up to one of lab’s editing booths, getting loaded, and watching this stuff for hours. I never saw the attraction to it. But that’s when I saw you – on the video, I mean. I went up there ’cause I had some questions about using a windsock filter on a shotgun microphone, and they had it going on about six monitors at once. And there you were.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.” Mavis gave an emphatic nod. “Whoever it was at the news station that shot the original video, he must’ve had some wild telephoto lens going on. Because he caught you doing all kinds of scary things. With guns and stuff.”
“Boy,” said Donnie. “I’d sure like to see that.”
“I’ll talk to Jeremy, see if he’ll run off a copy for you.”
“No, you will not talk to Jeremy about making a copy.” I was already thinking that once I got done here in Meridién, I’d have to go out to Mavis’s university and get that portable hard drive out of her friend’s hands. And I wasn’t going to do it by paying him for it, either. “So when you saw me on the plane, you sort of put it all together – about me, that is.”
“Sure.” Another nod. “Plus, I saw you with that other girl, when we all got off the plane. And she looked really rich. You know how rich people have a kind of – I don’t know – kind of an aura or something about them? Something they just sort of radiate?”
“Yeah, I do. I’ve run into enough of them.”
“Oh, it’s an established phenomenon. There’ve been all kinds of research papers about it – in peer-reviewed journals and everything. But anyway, I kind of put two and two together, when I saw both of you leaving the airport in the same taxi. Somebody rich like that – it just makes sense that they’d have a bodyguard around them. Somebody who could take care of business, if anything bad happened.”
I’d underestimated this Mavis kid – I realized that now. Pretty damn observant. If she wasn’t going to be a researcher, she would’ve made a good police detective.
“And so you figured if you came here and set up your video equipment on our balcony, you could also get chummy with my br
other and have him confirm all this neat stuff. Right?”
“Hey – I didn’t tell her anything!” Donnie swiveled his wheelchair around toward me. “I mean, anything that she hadn’t already figured out.”
“Exactly.” I sighed, feeling even more beat-up from talking to these two. “Look, here’s the deal. You’re right about me being here to take care of things, if something bad happens. That’s my job. But something bad has happened, and I do have to take care of it –”
“I kinda figured that out, too.” Mavis pointed to the side of my head. “From the blood and all. Who hit you?”
“I don’t know.” I poked at the matted hair above my ear. It seemed to have stopped bleeding, so we were making at least that much progress. “But what I do know is that I don’t need you here right now. I got a lot to do, and I’d rather not have you watching me do it. Understand?”
“But why not? I won’t get in your way.”
“Sweetheart, you’re already in my way.” I couldn’t believe that with the person I was supposed to be protecting having disappeared, I’d just spent this much time talking with some underage anthropology student who’d wandered into the scene. “You know that video you watched? From the freeway in L.A.? That’s how tense things can get when they go wrong. It’s probably not going to happen this time, but if it does, you don’t want to be here. Or anywhere around me.”
“Well . . . maybe you’re right.” She looked a little crestfallen. “Okay –”
“Wait a minute.” Donnie spoke up. “That’s stupid. If there’s something bad going on, then she’s already in trouble, too. Just by being here. If whoever clobbered you is still around, they’re probably watching.” He looked over at Mavis. “So they’ll figure you’re hooked up with us somehow.”
“Okay, hold on.” I waved my hands for silence. “For one thing, they’re very likely not around here watching. They got what they wanted, and they’re long gone – which is the problem, and which isn’t getting any better by us standing around here talking about it. I’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah, but just in case.” Donnie’s voice got more insistent. “Just in case somebody is still here. Maybe they want to keep an eye on what you do next. So they can be ready for it.”
I shook my head. “That wouldn’t even be a problem for them, whoever they are, if they’d just killed me instead of knocking me out.”
“But then there would’ve been a dead body here in the hotel – yours. And the hotel manager would’ve gone to the police here. But if they left you alive, they must’ve figured you wouldn’t do that. You’d try to handle it on your own.”
I had to admit he had a point there. Which bugged me, of course.
“You always told me, Kimmie . . .” My brother leveled a heavy gaze at me. “When things start getting ugly, just hunker down and don’t go wandering off.” He indicated Mavis with a tilt of his head. “She’s safer here with us.”
Another good point. I hate when that happens.
“All right.” I gave up. “Have it your way.” I looked over at the girl. “We’ll get one of the hotel porters to bring the rest of your stuff here. But then that’s it. You get in my way and I promise, I’m throwing you over the balcony rail. Got it?”
Mavis slowly nodded. Behind her glasses, her eyes went big. I could tell that she just had realized something.
This was all suddenly a lot heavier than she’d been expecting.
FIVE
I had a short to-do list. So short I didn’t have to write it down, but could keep it in my head. There were only three things on it.
Number one was Call Heathman.
Number two was Get gun.
The third would have to wait until I got those crossed off.
Actually, I called somebody else first. Sitting on one of the beds with the door closed, I picked up the hotel phone and got hold of the front desk clerk. That was one of the great things about still being considered a VIP. Money talks.
“Por favor –” I hadn’t picked up a lot of Spanish while I’d been in L.A., but I had that much at least. “I have a special request from Señorita Heathman.”
“Ah, yes. Your friend.” He was all rapid-fire obsequiousness. Which is what you expect from hotel staff talking to one of the VIPs staying there. “Her suite is to her satisfaction? She is enjoying herself?”
“Oh, the suite’s fine. Very nice. And, uh . . . yeah, Miss Heathman’s enjoying herself. A lot. Which is why I’m talking to you. She’s got some, um, friends with her in the suite. Who she just met. They’re having a little party.”
“Yes, of course.” I could imagine him smiling and giving a little nod. “So many guests come here this time of year, to enjoy themselves.”
“I bet. So here’s the deal. Miss Heathman would like to have a little . . . extra privacy right now.”
“Of course. I understand completely.”
“So there’s no need for any housekeeping,” I told him. “You can tell the maids not to bother for a while.”
“I will let them know. It is not a problem.”
“Great. I’ll give you a call if Miss Heathman needs anything. Or when things, uh, cool down a bit. Okay?”
“But of course.” Probably another little nod. “And if there is anything Señorita Heathman requires to be delivered, such as beverages or other refreshments – you need but ask.”
“Umm – I think she’s going to be a little, uh, busy for that. But I’ll let you know. Gracias.”
“De nada.”
I hung up the phone beside the bed. That took care of the hotel people, at least for the moment. The last thing I needed right now was one of the maids letting herself in with an armful of fresh towels and spotting that something funky had gone down in the suite up on the top floor. I hadn’t given the place that close an examination – there might be other suspicious indications around it. Not enough to help me figure out a way of getting Señorita Heathman out of trouble, but enough to tell the hotel manager about and get the local policia out here. And actually, come to think of it, there was something hinky I’d left behind in Lynndie’s suite – a nice big bloodstain, with some of my hair still stuck in it, on the picture window I’d laid my head against. Plus a wet, pink towel in one of the bathrooms, and any other red drops that I’d left on the carpet while I’d been wandering around in a fog. Crap – I supposed I should go back in there and do some cleaning up, just to make the whole place look a little less obvious. At least the suite was up here at the top of the hotel, so the blood on the window wasn’t likely to be spotted by any of the boozy pool crowd, if they could’ve been bothered to pull their attention from the sunburnt skin splashing all around them.
It’d have to wait ’til later. I didn’t want to delay calling Heathman any longer – on the principle that if you put off doing something you really don’t want to do, it’s just that much harder when you finally suck it up and actually do it. Or you don’t do it at all, which is even worse.
And I really didn’t want to call up the guy I was supposed to be working for, and tell him that I’d screwed up and managed to lose his daughter. There aren’t a lot of good things that can come out of a phone call like that. Heathman might flip out – for which I wouldn’t blame him – and make all kinds of ugly shouting noises about how I’d damn well better get her back. Or worse, he’d go all cold and angry, sheer contempt coming through the phone line, and he’d fire my ass. And that he’d be sending down a crew of real professionals, who’d sort out the mess I’d made.
Which would be what I really didn’t want to hear. Since it’d mean that I wouldn’t be getting paid. Probably have to pay out of my own pocket to get me and Donnie back to L.A. And then what? Instead of having a nice fat paycheck to tide us over until the next job came along, we’d be close to broke. Which is never a good place to be.
Plus, Heathman had a lot of connections, with people like him, who’d be precisely the sort I’d be most likely to get another gig from. Rich and not too burdened
with stuff like scruples and ethics that’d interfere with getting done whatever it was they wanted. Because that was how they’d gotten so rich. My kind of people, at least when it came to making a living. Unless, that is, Heathman put out the word with his friends and business associates that I was a screw-up. Couldn’t even keep his daughter from getting her butt kidnaped during spring break.
Every other super-rich college kid in the US could go down to Meridién and get blitzed out of her mind, party down, and wind up with nothing worse than embarrassing photos that needed to be scraped off her Facebook page – but his little darling had to get stuck with a useless babysitter like me. Even if all it took to get her back was paying some ransom out of the petty cash box he kept in his desk, something Heathman wouldn’t even blink at, my reputation as a bodyguard would be shot. Also not a good place.
I dug my cell phone out of my jacket pocket. I already had Heathman’s number programmed into it. Once I had the speed dial screen up, all it’d take would be one push of my thumb for me to be talking to him –
