Leverage

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  I hope the hotel the expo is being held in has a coffee shop in it. A nice, hot, properly made latte sounds divine right now. I can already taste the creamy, delicious liquid.

  The hotel is on the corner up ahead; all the glass panels rising straight up reflect the morning sun into the street in a piercing give-you-a-headache kind of way.

  “Entering now,” I say to Puo before I step into the hotel.

  Both Puo and Winn give their affirmatives.

  I step through revolving glass doors with digital designs in them, morphing as the doors rotate into general advertisements (since my CitID is malfunctioning). The hotel lobby has a healthy amount of people wearing nametags on lanyards, hanging around, sitting on the couches and standing making small talk—there’s definitely some kind of expo/conference going on here.

  “Score!” I say when I see what I was looking for.

  “What?” Puo asks.

  “They have a coffee shop,” I answer. The line is out the door and wraps around the lobby for the morning rush as the expo starts.

  “Negatory,” Puo says. “The line is too long for the delay. Plus no purchases for anyone to track—and no stealing!” Puo heads me off.

  “I’m sticking my tongue out at you,” I say quietly.

  “And I consider myself duly chastised,” Puo says. “Now, proceed up to the mezzanine level. Falcon’s already procured you a badge.”

  “Roger, that,” I say. “Falcon, look for my arrival in say ... oh, three minutes.”

  Winn gives the affirmative, while Puo whines, “Queeen Beee ....”

  “It’s okay Chameleon,” I say, “it’ll only take a few minutes to reappropriate a tasty hot beverage.”

  “Queen Bee—” he tries again, more serious this time.

  “You really think you’re going to talk me out of it?” I ask. “Why not just help, and it’ll go faster?” Puo’s hooked into the hotel cameras keeping an eye on things for us. “I’m thinking switch, or wrong order.”

  Puo’s silent on the other end, and then grumps, “Fine. But wrong order won’t work—there are only two employees and they switch off.”

  No wonder the line is so long. The wrong order bit depends on the employees being so swamped they can’t remember who ordered what after five minutes have passed. If they’re switching off, it slows service but allows them to see a customer through from taking an order to delivering a drink—harder to fool.

  “Switch it is,” I say, which should be relatively effortless in this type of milling about setting.

  “There’s a hallway to the right of the coffee shop,” Puo says. “Halfway down there’s a tray with a bunch of empty glasses and cups. And this is a stupid idea.”

  “Thank you kindly,” I say, but don’t tip my winter hat, which I keep on to hide the comm-link in my ear.

  I swing by and pick up one of the empty to-go coffee cups from the shop. “You got one for me?” I ask Puo.

  Puo says resignedly, “Yeah, under the escalator is a standing area. There’s a woman in a white sweater and black skirt. She’s with a group of men, they all just walked out of the coffee shop and are chatting with each other. Her drink is sitting behind her, haven’t seen her take a sip.”

  Perfect. Hope she’s ordered something good.

  I swing by and make the switch, hiding it with my body from the group—not that I think it matters; she’s too busy trying to be one of the guys to notice, complete with making a catty, crude comment about someone named “Beth.”

  I take off the black plastic coffee top and toss it in the trash as I turn the corner to ride the escalator. Mmmm ... still hot, and looks foamy.

  Puo says, “Falcon, Queen Bee is en route.”

  “Roger, that,” Falcon says. “I’m on a blue padded bench in front of Esperanza C. When I see Queen Bee, I’ll stand and make the drop.”

  I take a sip of my newly required beverage. “Ew! Damn it!” Soy milk. Probably some organic kind made by monks in the mountains with individually named soybeans. It has a nutty, oily taste that coats the tongue.

  “What?” Falcon asks alarmed.

  “Nothing,” Puo answers for me. “Free isn’t to Queen Bee’s taste.”

  I look for the nearest camera to flip him off but can’t easily identify one. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn Puo did it on purpose.

  Once on the mezzanine level, there’s a buzz of people in the vendor space straight ahead and a good number of people at the check-in counter. I blend easily into the crowd of people walking to and fro, many of them with their own coffee drinks in hand, white badges on lanyards around their necks.

  I navigate easily to find Esperanza C, and there’s Winn hunched over on the blue padded bench, pretending to look through the Expo program they hand out at registration. Most of his cuts and bruises are hidden under makeup, but it’s clear even at a distance that he was recently in a fight of some kind—I hope that doesn’t work against us, make him more memorable than he should be.

  When I’m about fifteen feet away, he stands up and walks away without acknowledging me.

  That man does have a nice ass—

  Damn it! I plop down on the blue padded bench in frustration. I sip my soy latte, trying to focus on the espresso taste through the nutty distraction—it’s still warm, and it’s still coffee. I pick up the Expo program Winn left behind and flip through it; my badge is tucked into the center.

  I feel like I’m all over the place emotionally with Winn. I have such an anger toward him. But I can’t help thinking what it would’ve been like if he hadn’t left. How we had such a good thing going. And then he fucked it all up.

  Well hello, rage. It simmers just below the surface, waiting to get out. It’s one reason I was avoiding Winn last night. Once it starts to get out, I have this overwhelming desire to leap forward and start pummeling him.

  I peek in the direction Winn went. No Winn. Then I realize I was trying to catch another peek of his ass.

  “Hey-ya, Queen Bee,” Puo says. “How we doin’?”

  “Enjoying a good sit,” I say.

  “Glad you could find some time to do that,” Puo says. “Falcon’s patrolling the area. The mark is in the nest. Whenever you’re ready.”

  I stop myself from taking a ritualistic sip of the latte, which is already half empty. “Understood,” I say distractedly.

  Puo’s silent on the other end. I can imagine him quirking an eyebrow because his needling didn’t elicit a stronger response from me.

  That’s part of the problem with Winn. That nice ass. And I haven’t ... we haven’t .... Is that the problem here? Is this why I’m all over the place?

  “Annyyy time,” Puo says.

  Grrr. Freaking Puo. I stand up, taking the Expo program with me, and head toward the vendor space. Halfway there I take out the badge and glance at it as I slip it on: Candace Neal, Surveillance Limited.

  Candace Neal. Ew, I hope she doesn’t go by Candy. Horrible name for a woman—a male projected fantasy condensed down into one name. I slip the name Candace into my primary spot as the name I’ll respond to and introduce myself as.

  The vendor space is a buzz of activity as the Expo gets underway. The booths are constructed throughout the space like a well-laid-out city with parallel and perpendicular streets. About half the booths are still being set up while the other half are already manned.

  Bright, cheery, well-dressed people (almost all women) are at the front of the booths, smiling in business skirts and heels, trying to draw people in. Their male counterparts are deeper in the booths; less than half appear as cheery.

  “Falcon,” Puo says, “Queen Bee is buzzing in the area. Proceed to the north side of the aisle.”

  “Uh, north?” Winn asks.

  “Opposite the side you’re on,” Puo says.

  “Thanks,” Winn says.

  “And—?” I start to ask.

  “Stay on the side you’re on, Queen Bee,” Puo says. “The Phillips & Jones booth is three ais
les to your left and three-quarters of the way down. It’ll be on Queen Bee’s right, Falcon’s left. Haughty woman is running point out front.”

  I get into position at the end of the aisle Puo indicated. “Ready,” I whisper.

  Winn whispers his readiness.

  “Okay,” Puo says. “Here we go.”

  I walk down the aisle on the far side from the Phillips & Jones booth. I smile at the women out front of the booths as I look in but don’t engage. My latte is held in front of me; the top is already off.

  I spot Winn loitering at the end of the aisle looking at a booth in the distance, waiting for me to get farther before beginning his own excursion. This is all about timing.

  There’s Rose. We were able to dig up a photo of her last night, though not without some effort. Puo found a high school graduation photo from her fancy private high school here in Vancouver. She had curly, floofy blond hair and acne then. Fifteen years later her hair is now amber and straight, but her eyes are still the same pale blue, and her wide cheekbones that give her face a round appearance can’t be changed as easily.

  Rose stands in front of their booth; her face looks more imperious than friendly, although it looks like she’s at least trying.

  I avoid eye contact and focus on the booths opposite her.

  Once I’m halfway down the aisle, Winn starts his walk toward Rose with his hands in his pockets—he should be cupping the tracker.

  The aisle has a decent number of people for first thing in the morning. An older gentleman in a dark suit, wearing thick-framed brown glasses, with rosy cheeks and a potbelly, is hurrying down the aisle toward me. He keeps casting his gaze ahead, not entirely watching where he’s going.

  I shift my trajectory slightly to bring myself near him and slow my pace to let Winn get into position.

  When Hurrying Older Guy is three steps away, and Winn’s in position, I look behind me and “accidentally” step into the man’s path.

  I give a yell of surprise as he barrels over me, his girth giving him momentum, and I fall down, spilling my latte on both us.

  “Ow! Damn it!” the man stumbles and swears at me.

  There’s another commotion as Winn bumps into Rose from watching us, although not as hard.

  I pick myself up and apologize profusely to the man.

  The man isn’t having it. His face turns even redder. “Watch where you’re going, eh!”

  I catch Winn apologizing to Rose behind the man’s back. Winn’s smiling, turning on his charm. Ugh.

  Hurrying Older Guy looks down at himself, and slaps his hands over his suit trying to wipe off the soy latte. “Great! Just great! First I’m late, and now this!” The man doesn’t even ask if I’m okay or look in my direction again, but storms past me, swearing more as he goes.

  Rose is smiling back at Winn. She tucks her hair behind her ear and starts playing with the necklace between her breasts. Ugh! Apparently, Winn’s going to be memorable to her for an entirely different reason than the fact that he looks like he was recently beat up.

  I hurry past them to get out of there, although I’m tempted to throw what’s left of my drink on them as I pass.

  I turn the corner and glance back; Winn’s still freaking talking to her! “Anytime, Chameleon,” I say.

  “Patching it through now,” Puo says. Time to let the Mounties finally get hold of Rose.

  I’m riding the elevator back down to the ground floor when Winn says quietly over the comm-link. “I’m loose and vacating the area successfully. She took the call and looks pissed.”

  Good—but I have to fight myself from snarking at Winn, Did you two exchange numbers? Set up a date?

  There’s that rage again. It’s not simmering under the surface anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I GET BACK to the house before Winn does, tromp up to Puo’s room and push through the bedroom door to flop down on Puo’s bed. “This room stinks,” I say to the ceiling.

  I hear Puo swivel in his seat to face toward me. “You’re welcome to let your olfactory-sensitive self out.”

  I raise my hand and pinch my nose shut with my thumb and forefinger—pinky finger straight up in the air.

  “What’s going on with you?” Puo asks.

  “Is the tracker working?” I ask.

  Puo’s chair creaks as it swivels again. “Yeah. I killed the power to the chip as she arrived at the Mounties’ building. Near as I can tell, she’s checking in.”

  I can’t get the image of Winn’s smile at Rose, and Rose smiling back, out of my head. Ugh! I push my palms into my eye sockets and rub at them—feels good.

  “May I hazard a guess—?” Puo asks.

  “I’m pregnant,” I say deadpan with my hands still over my eyes looking upward from the bed.

  “Bullshit,” Puo says. “You have your period.”

  “It’s yours,” I say doggedly, not moving. And my period is practically over—at least it was short.

  There’s some shuffling and then a box of tissues smacks me in the chest and rolls away. “Ow!” I say. “Is that anyway to treat the mother of your child?” I sit up.

  “Shut up,” Puo says at the fatuous statements. “What’s really going on? And not funny by the way.”

  Puo’s reaction makes me grin. “It was a little funny,” I say.

  Puo just continues to stare at me like he’s trying to figure out a piece of code. “You haven’t talked to Winn yet have you?”

  “Ugh!” I throw my hands up in the air. “Why does everything have to be about sex with you?”

  “Who said anything about sex?” Puo says.

  And I blush. Damn it.

  Puo raises one hand over his openly grinning mouth and points at me with his other hand. “Ohhh! You blushed!” Then Puo switches to a high-school-girl voice, “You likkkkke him don’t you? Youuu like him, like him. I knew it. You totally love him, and want to touch him, and want to be near him, like all the time—”

  “Shut up!” I snap, blushing more. “I don’t like him. It’s just a toddler reflex. I don’t want him, but neither do I want anyone else to have him at the moment.”

  “Now that,” Puo says, “I would believe. The toddler part of it. Pretty consistent with your psychology.”

  I grab the nearby box of tissues and throw them back at him. They miss, sailing behind his head to thump against the dresser.

  Puo stares at me as if that action underscored his point.

  “You’re the one that threw it first,” I say. Then to stop his stupid staring I ask, “What’s going on with Rose?”

  Puo swivels back to his computer screens and flips Rose’s chip back on. “Looks like she’s stopped deeper in the Mounties building. Data is coming through.”

  Nice. Now we’ve identified where the high-security room is physically located, filling in some of the blanks of the unlabeled building map we had dug up. And in the next hour or so we should have not only the new codes she’ll re-key in, but also the backdoor codes she uses to access the system.

  I exhale heavily and stretch my back, glancing at the clock. “Where’s Winn?”

  * * *

  Winn, ever the McGuffin, got back late. It’s now a half hour before noon, and we’re all sitting around the kitchen pulling at various food items spread out on the glass countertops, having lunch.

  Winn said he stopped at the store on the way back for groceries, but something about his verbal and nonverbal delivery of that statement is pricking my bullshit-a-meter.

  “Store must’ve been busy,” I say, “to take so long.”

  Winn starts to shrug when Puo cuts in, “Out with it Winn. We both know you’re not telling the whole truth.”

  Well, jeez, Puo. Way to rob a cat of the mouse to play with.

  Puo catches the look I’m giving him and says, “We don’t have time for games. You need to leave in forty minutes.” He looks back at Winn. “So out with it.”

  Winn’s mask from a moment before softens. He pulls at some red grapes s
itting in a bowl and says, “I stopped by Dr. Yates/my practice—”

  “What?” Puo asks at the same time I swear, “Again!”

  “I have a patient—”

  “So what?” I say. “Nix knows who you are. They probably have someone posted outside. We told you not go back without telling us! Ugh,” I say disgustingly. “You are a McGuffin.”

  Puo barks a laugh at me and then says seriously to Winn, “But she’s right. What were you thinking?”

  Winn’s white, freshly shaven face turns red. He says, his voice restrained, “I was not followed. And Nix knows we’re trying to help her—”

  “In secret,” I explain. “If the Cleaners are watching her, and she doesn’t act, then they’ll know something’s up. So she still has to act. It’s the same way the Mounties need to make a show of investigating Nix, even though they’re in bed together. All sides may be looking for us. We need to stay hidden. We can’t go skipping through a meadow singing ‘O When the Saints Come Marching In.’”

  Winn’s face deepens into a darker shade of red.

  Puo looks at me in a sidebar and silently asks, “O When the Saints Come Marching In?”

  “We don’t have time, remember?” I say to Puo. I don’t know why that popped into my mind. Does everything have to be explained or mean something?

  Both Puo and I turn back to Winn and await his explanation, which is slow in coming. Finally Winn says slowly and deliberately, “She’s HIV positive, her CD4 count is hovering above 200, and she’s coming down with pneumonia. Kind of a big deal.”

  Oh. My anger at his recklessness evaporates. Hard to be pissed at his stupidity when it’s so well intentioned.

  “Still stupid,” I say.

  Winn nods. “Yeah, yeah it was. But I passed her off to another doctor—all of Dr. Yates’ patients actually. I told her I was shutting down the practice.”

  I raise my eyebrow at that. I haven’t made a decision yet either way whether to accept him back into the fold. The only thing that’s clear is that I’m still really pissed with him.

  Winn explains, “No matter what happens I have to pick up and go. As you say, Nix knows who I am. How long before she’s coming to me to fix up her goons, threatening to expose me? I’ll be right back where I was with Paranoid Pete.”