Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  "I don't have a few minutes. Sorry. Another time maybe."

  The following day he had his first piece of luck. One of the store managers agreed to watch Sam's demonstration and even marveled over the elegance of Yank's design. Then he shook his head. "It's a neat little machine, no doubt about it. But who'd buy it? People aren't interested in a little computer. What are they going to do with one?"

  The question drove Sam crazy. People figured out what to do with a computer-that was all. How could he explain something so rudimentary? "Hack around," he said. "Play some games."

  "Sorry. Not interested."

  On the fourth day the machine never made it out of the trunk of Yank's Duster because Sam couldn't find one store owner who would agree to see it. "Let me just show you what it can do," he pleaded. "Look, it'll only take a few minutes."

  "Listen, kid. I'm busy. I got customers."

  In an electronics store near Menlo Park, Sam finally lost his temper. He slapped his hand down on the countertop so hard he knocked a box of switches to the floor. "I've got a machine here that's going to change the future of the world, but you're telling me that you're too goddamn busy to spare a few lousy minutes to look at it!"

  The owner took a quick step backward. "Get out of here before I call the cops!"

  Sam drew back his boot and kicked a hole through the side of the counter. "I don't give a fuck! Call them! Let's see if you're smart enough to dial the fucking telephone!"

  Then he stalked out.

  Two weeks before Susannah's wedding, some of the FBT executive wives gave her a shower. It was nearly midnight when she got home. She swung the Mercedes around the east wing of the house toward the garage. The trunk was loaded with bridal lingerie and monogrammed towels. With the exception of a nymphet third wife, Susannah had been the youngest person there, yet they had all treated her as if she were their contemporary. Several of them had started talking about the movie stars they'd had crushes on when they were young-Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, Charles Boyer. They'd all looked at her strangely when she'd mentioned Paul McCartney.

  As she reached up to punch the garage door control that was attached to the visor, she found herself longing for the days when her fantasies had starred a chubby-cheeked Beatle instead of a long-haired biker. She jabbed the control again. The garage door refused to budge, and she remembered that it had stopped working the day before and been disconnected. Her head was aching, and she rubbed her temples. If only she were sleeping better, she wouldn't be so edgy. But instead of sleeping, she kept staring at the ceiling and replaying every encounter she'd had with Sam. She reconstructed from memory exactly what he'd said to her and what she'd said in return. But most of all, she remembered the way he had kissed her.

  Sagging back into the seat, she pressed her eyes shut and let that forbidden image wash over her. Once again she felt his brash young mouth settling over her own. Her bottom lip grew slack as she relived the moment his tongue had entered her mouth. She expanded the memory from what had happened to what had not, and imagined the feel of his naked chest against her bare breasts. Her breath made a soft rasping sound in the quiet interior of the car.

  With a great strength of will, she forced her eyes open and fumbled for the door handle. She had to quit doing this. She was becoming obsessed with him, and she had to pull herself together. As she got out of the car and walked toward the garage door, she promised herself that she would stop dwelling on what had happened. She would stop thinking about him at all.

  A rustling noise in the trees penetrated her thoughts. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, but the outside lights hadn't been left on and she couldn't see anything. Walking a little faster, she stepped into the path of the Mercedes headlights and reached for the garage door handle.

  "Enjoy your party?"

  She gasped, and spun around in time to see Sam coming out of the shadows, both thumbs tucked into the side pockets of his jeans. Blood coursed through her veins at the sight of him. She pressed her hand to her throat and took a deep breath. "What are you doing here? You scared me."

  "Good."

  "How did you get through the gates?"

  "Gadgets are a hobby of mine," he said sarcastically. "Or have you forgotten?"

  "Sam, I-I'm tired. I don't want any confrontations."

  He scowled at her. "How was your wedding shower? I've been reading about all the festivities in the papers. Why the hell haven't you put a stop to it?"

  "Put a stop to it?" It was as if he had suggested she grow another head. Didn't he understand that once something like this was set in motion, there was no turning back? She was trapped. No, not trapped. Of course she wasn't trapped. She wanted to marry Cal. Cal was perfect for her.

  "It's not right," he exclaimed. "You're locking the door on the two of us before we've had any chance at all. God, you're a chickenshit. If my own guts weren't aching so bad, I'd almost feel sorry for you."

  "There isn't any two of us," she said fiercely. "You asked me to help arrange a meeting with my father. I did. That's all."

  "You're a liar." He walked over to the Mercedes, then ducked his head inside and turned off the ignition. His hand lingered for a moment on the leather upholstery before he straightened to face her. She thought uneasily of her father. His bedroom was in the far wing of the house, but what if he heard them?

  "I'm going to start my own company, Suzie, and I want you with me."

  "What?"

  "Any day now I'll get the first order. It's starting. Everything's starting right now."

  "I'm glad for you, but-"

  "It's starting. Right now!" Each part of his face had gone rigid with intensity. "Stop being so scared. Build my dream with me. Forget about your wedding. We can change the world. You and me. We can do it together."

  "What are you talking about? I want you to leave. Don't you see? We're not anything alike. We don't understand each other." Even as she said it, she knew the words were a lie. He could read her mind. He saw inside her when no one else could.

  "Don't you think I'm good enough for you? Is that it?"

  "No! I'm not a snob. I'm just-"

  "I need you. I need you to help me get my company started."

  He speared her with his dark, exacting eyes. She wanted to weave her fingers through his hair, touch his silver tongue with her own. Desperately, she tried to make him understand. "I'm getting married. And I don't know anything about starting a company. Why would you want my help?"

  He could barely explain it to himself, let alone her. "I feel good when you're around. You remind me of what it's all about. Quality, elegance, classic design."

  "Is that all I am to you? A piece of design?"

  "That's only part of it. There's something between us-something strong and right. Get rid of that deadhead you're engaged to. If you loved him so much, you wouldn't have turned into a firecracker when I kissed you. There's a whole world out there. Don't you want a little bit of it?"

  "You don't know anything about my life."

  "I know that you want a hell of a lot more from it than you're getting."

  "I'm getting a lot," she retorted, determined to hurt him. "Like that Mercedes that you keep touching. And Falcon Hill. My father is giving us this house as a wedding gift."

  "Is the house going to make good love to you at night?"

  Stunned, she stared at him.

  "Is it, Suzie?" His voice dropped, grew low and husky. He walked closer to her, and she took an involuntary step back, only to bump into the garage door behind her. "Both of us know how much you want that, don't we? Will the house love you real good? Will it hold you at night and fill you up and make you moan?" Reaching out, he pushed his hand inside her jacket and rubbed the skin at her waist through the soft knit of her dress. "Will the house make you cry out real deep in your throat? Have you ever cried out like that for a man? Fast little pants? Whimpers?"

  "Stop. Please don't."

  "I could make you cry out like that for me."

  He push
ed his hips into hers and pressed her against the garage door. She saw the flicker of the silver earring through the strands of his hair and felt that he was hard. The dark eroticism she no longer seemed able to control swept through her like wildfire. "Don't," she whispered. "Don't do that."

  He leaned forward to brush his lips along her neck. She turned her head to the side, moaning softly. His hand moved upward over her rib cage and cupped her breast through the dress. He laughed softly and touched the nipple. "Can that house make you come?"

  It was too much. With a cry that came from the deepest part of her, she pushed away from him. "Don't do this to me! Leave me alone!" And then she fled into the house.

  She moved through the next few days in a daze. Her father and Cal seemed to attribute her distraction to bridal nerves, and both were exceptionally considerate. One morning as her father was leaving for an overnight business trip, he hugged her and said, "You know how much I appreciate all the ways you help me, don't you? I know I don't say it often enough, but I love you, sweetheart."

  Her eyes misted at the tenderness in his voice. She thought of her secret meetings with Sam, the way she had deceived him, and was overwhelmed with guilt. At that moment, she silently vowed to be the best daughter in the world.

  But the vow was easier made than kept. With only a week left until her wedding, Susannah lay in the darkness and watched the illuminated numbers on her digital clock flip to 2:18. She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep, Her chest felt heavy, as if a great weight were pressing down on her.

  Without warning, the phone on her bedside table jangled. She snatched it up and held it to her chest for a moment. Then she cradled it to her ear. "Hi," she whispered, grateful to have a partner in insomnia. "You couldn't sleep either?"

  But it wasn't Cal. It was Conti Dove-Conti, Paige's lover, calling to tell Susannah that Paige had been arrested several hours before at an all-night grocery store and he didn't have enough money to bail her out of jail. Susannah pressed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to imagine what else could go wrong. Then, being careful not to wake her father, she threw on the first clothes she could grab and left the house.

  Paige was being held at a downtown police station on the fringes of San Francisco's crime-infested Western Addition. Conti was waiting by the front door. Susannah had only met him once before, but she had no trouble recognizing him. Low-slung chinos, sleepy bedroom eyes with lids at half mast, wiry dark hair. He didn't look like a candidate for Mensa, but he was definitely sexy in an earthy sort of way.

  He slipped his hands from the pockets of a red Forty-Niners' windbreaker and walked toward her. "Uh, yeah-listen, I'm sorry I had to bother you. Paige'll probably kill me when she finds out, but I couldn't leave her in jail."

  "Of course you couldn't." Shouldering her purse, Susannah followed him into the station, where she posted Paige's bond, handling everything as efficiently as if she did this kind of thing all the time. She was courteous to the police officers and did what she could to keep the arrest from ending up in the newspapers. She made polite conversation with Conti, but all the time she wanted to cry from a combination of exhaustion and rage. Her sister had been arrested for shoplifting. Her beautiful sister, child of one of the wealthiest men in California, had been caught slipping two cans of cat food into her purse.

  "Why, Conti?" she asked, as they took their seats on a scratched wooden bench that lined one wall of a claustrophobically narrow hallway. "Why would Paige do something like this?"

  "I dunno."

  Normally, Susannah would have let it go at that, but something had happened to her in these past two months that had made her impatient with polite social evasions, so she pressed him. "If she needed money, I would have given it to her."

  He looked embarrassed. "She doesn't like to take money from you." Shifting his weight on the bench, he crossed his ankle over his knee and then uncrossed it. "I dunno. We thought we was going to get this contract with Azday Records. Paige was all excited. And then a couple of weeks ago, this guy, this Mo Geller, backed out. He heard another group play and he said they had a better sound. Paige took it pretty hard."

  Susannah asked several more questions, but Conti was uncommunicative. Finally, they lapsed into silence. Fifteen minutes passed. Conti got up and wandered over to a water cooler. Half an hour went by. Susannah had to go to the bathroom, but she was afraid to leave the hallway. Conti bummed a cigarette from an empty-faced teenager.

  "I'm not supposed to smoke, you know," he finally said. "My voice."

  "Yes. I understand."

  "They got her in this holding cell."

  "I know."

  "You don't think there would be, like, guys or anything in there with her? Givin' her trouble."

  "I don't think so. I'm sure they separate men and women." Why was she so sure? She had never been in a police station.

  "She stole cat food," he said suddenly. "She's in jail because she stole two cans of cat food."

  "Yes. That's what they said."

  He dropped his cigarette and ground it into the linoleum with the toe of a leather sneaker. When he lifted his head, he looked as baffled and unhappy as a child. "See, the thing of it is-we don't have a cat."

  At that moment, Paige came through the door. Her jeans were ripped at the knee. Her pretty blond hair hung in tangles around her face. She looked tired, young, and scared. Conti rushed toward her, but before he got there she spotted Susannah. Paige's shoulders stiffened. She lifted her head defiantly. "What's she doing here?"

  "I'm sorry, hon," Conti said. "I-I couldn't pay the bond."

  "You shouldn't have called her. I told you never to call her."

  As Susannah stood, she found herself remembering the chocolate-covered cherries she had tried to smuggle to Paige when she got in trouble as a child.

  "I don't need you here," Paige said belligerently. "Go back where you came from."

  The hostility in her sister's face made Susannah feel ill.

  Why did Paige hate her so much? What did everyone want from her? She tried so hard to please them all, but whatever she did never seemed to be enough. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her trench coat and squeezed hard, digging the nails into her palm so she wouldn't lose control. "Paige, come home with me tonight," she said calmly. "Let me put you to bed. We can talk in the morning."

  "I don't want to talk. I want to get laid. Come on, Conti. Let's get out of here."

  "Sure, honey. Sure." He looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her protectively to him. With her upper body turned into Conti's chest, she walked awkwardly.

  Susannah stepped forward. She meant to tell Paige that they had to talk, that they couldn't just forget something like this had happened. She would be logical, reasonable, choose her words carefully. But the soft words that came from her mouth weren't the ones she had planned at all.

  "Paige, I don't know if you remember, but I'm getting married on Saturday. It would mean a lot to me if you were there." At first Susannah didn't think Paige had heard. But then, just before Conti led her through the door, her sister gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  The electronics shop was located in Cupertino just off Stevens Creek Boulevard. Sam thought he knew every shop in the Valley, but Z.B. Electronics was new. As he pulled up outside, he spotted a group of three teenage boys approaching the shop. He immediately tagged them as "wireheads"-the name high school kids gave to the boys who spend all their time in the school electronics lab. When Sam was in high school, he had hung out with both the "wireheads" and "freaks," the kids who were caught up in the counterculture. The fact that he didn't stick to one group had confused everybody.

  Acting on impulse, Sam got out of the car and opened the trunk of the Duster. He called out to the boys, "Hey, help me carry this stuff inside, will you?"

  A pudgy, long-haired kid detached himself from the group and walked forward. "What do you have?"

  "A microcomputer," Sam replied casually, as if every-body in the Valley drove around wi
th a microcomputer in the trunk.

  "No shit! Hey, guys, he's got a micro in his trunk." The kid turned to Sam and his face was alive with excitement. "Did you build it?"

  Sam handed him one of the boxes of equipment and picked up the heavy television himself. Another boy slammed the trunk lid. "I helped a friend of mine design it. He's the best."

  As they walked toward the shop, the boys began peppering him with questions.

  "What kind of microprocessor did you use?"

  "A7319 from Cortron."

  "That's shit," one of them protested. "Why aren't you running it off an Intel 8008 like the Altair?"

  "The 8008 is old news. The 7319 is more powerful."

  "What do you think of the IMSAI 8080?" the pudgy kid asked, referring to a new microcomputer that was rapidly challenging the Altair's supremacy.

  "IMSAI's nothing more than a rip-off of the Altair," Sam said derisively. "Same old stuff. Have you ever taken one apart? Total shit. A bucket of noise."

  One of the boys rushed in front of Sam to open the door. "But if you're using another microprocessor, none of the Altair equipment will work with it."

  "Who cares? We've done everything better."

  As they walked inside Z.B. Electronics, an enormously obese man with yellow hair and pink watery eyes glanced up at them from behind the counter. Sam stopped in his tracks. As he looked past the man, his stomach did a flip-flop, and the television in his arms suddenly seemed as light as a box of microchips. No wonder the kids were attracted to this store. On two rows of shelving directly behind the man's head rested a dozen Altair microcomputers.

  Sam Gamble had hit pay dirt.

  "Chamber of Commerce weather," Joel kept saying the morning of the wedding. "It's Chamber of Commerce weather."

  Susannah forced herself to take a bite of dry toast while she stared through the dining room window at the sun-spangled June day and watched the gardeners tying the last of the white ribbon festoons in the trees.

  Her father glanced up from his newspaper, a man in complete command of his world. "Could I have more coffee, dear?"

  As she refilled his cup, she felt tired and worn, like an old lady with all the drama of life behind her.