Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Their lovemaking was wretchedly uncomfortable and she didn't have an orgasm, but she reveled in the ferocity of it. Afterward he took her to bed and made love to her all over again. That night she lay spent next to him, exhausted from an outpouring of so much emotion, and yet filled with triumph. She had gotten angry, and her world hadn't come to an end.

  Her mind churned with so much activity that she couldn't fall asleep. The light patterns shifted on the ceiling. She repositioned her pillow, but it didn't help. Taking care not to wake Sam, she slipped out of bed and headed toward the kitchen so she could get a drink of water. As she passed naked beneath Elvis's full-length portrait in the living room, she glanced uncomfortably at the singer's image. She should have put on a robe, but all her robes were back at Falcon Hill.

  The fluorescent stove light in the kitchen was on, emitting a blue-white glow. Her bare feet padded across the floor. She crossed to the cupboard and reached for a glass. At that exact moment she heard a thump.

  She spun around, all her senses alert, and watched in horror as the back door began to swing open.

  A dark form loomed on the threshold. It took her only a few seconds to recognize the tall, thin figure as Yank Yankowski's. What was he doing here? she thought wildly. It was nearly three in the morning and she was stark naked. What was she going to say?

  The chill night air he had brought with him raised goose bumps on her bare skin. Her nipples were puckered, the hair on her arms standing up. He still hadn't seen her. As he pushed the door shut, she glanced desperately around for a place to hide. She wanted to vanish into the walls, get swallowed up by the floor. If she tried to make a dash for the living room, he would see her.

  He crossed directly in front of her, passing not more than five feet away but still not looking at her. The edge of the kitchen counter dug into the small of her back as she tried to smear herself into a film as thin as the aluminum coating on a wafer of silicon. The rubber soles of his sneakers squeaked on the floor. He stopped in front of the refrigerator with his back toward her. Her hand snaked along the counter, frantically groping for something to cover her nakedness.

  At that moment the kitchen was flooded with light. In her imagination, it seemed as if thousands of watts of electricity had been let loose, but in reality Yank had only pulled open the refrigerator door and activated the small appliance bulb.

  She made an audible gasp and then froze, afraid he had heard her. But he didn't turn. He stood in front of the refrigerator staring inside. Seconds passed. Half a minute. The tips of her fingers bumped against a pot holder lying on the counter. She clutched it like a fig leaf in front of her, feeling more embarrassed, more ridiculous by the minute.

  Why didn't he move? For one wild moment she thought that maybe she was still asleep, that this was all a silly dream like the ones where she was presiding naked over a committee meeting.

  He kept one hand clamped to the refrigerator handle, the other hung at his side. What was wrong with him? Why didn't he move? He was dead, she thought frantically. He had died standing up.

  She inched to her right and stepped out of the direct path of the refrigerator light into the glow from the stove light. Maybe she could get to the back door and slip outside. She could hide behind the house until he left. But what if she got locked out?

  He turned so abruptly that she made a small, startled sound. It reverberated in the quiet of the kitchen. Finally, he was facing her.

  She froze like an animal caught in the beam of a car's headlights. His torso was silhouetted against the open refrigerator, and the stove light had silvered the lenses of his glasses so that she couldn't see his eyes clearly. But there was no doubt about the direction in which he was looking. Those glasses were pointed right at her.

  Her hand was clammy around the pot holder. She hunched her shoulders forward, trying to cover her breasts with her upper arms. Her upbringing had prepared her for every conceivable social situation, but she couldn't imagine what to say in this one.

  Yank continued to stare at her. She had to do something! Without taking her eyes from him, she began inching toward the living room door, the pot holder clutched over her pudendum so that she looked like Eve fleeing the Garden. As she passed in front of the stove, her body temporarily blocked the stove light and the reflection in his glasses disappeared. For the first time, she could see his eyes.

  They were completely blank.

  She was so surprised that she stopped moving and looked at him more closely. She had never seen eyes so vague, so unfocused. She took another step to the side. His head didn't move; his gaze remained firmly fixed on some mysterious point to her right. She couldn't believe it. What kind of man was he? Slowly she lowered the pot holder.

  She almost laughed. He didn't see her! Once again, Joseph "Yank" Yankowski was too enmeshed in some complex internal electronics problem to be aware of what was happening around him. He was so lost in thought that he didn't see a naked auburn-haired woman standing directly in front of him.

  She slipped from the kitchen and made a dash for the bathroom, where she locked the door and indulged in the first honest laughter she could remember in weeks.

  Meanwhile, in Angela Gamble's kitchen, Joseph "Yank" Yankowski remained just as Susannah had left him. The refrigerator door was still open and he hadn't moved from his position. Only his eyes were different. Beneath the lenses of his glasses, the lids were squeezed tight while inside his skull billions of interconnected nerve cells churned with activity. Thalamus, hypothalamus, the fissured moonscape of cerebrum and cerebellum-all the parts of Yank Yankowski's genius brain were at work, accurately reconstructing from memory each separate micron of Susannah Faulconer's pale naked flesh.

  Even though she hadn't slept well, Susannah awakened early the next morning refreshed and full of energy. The encounter with Yank had amused her, and the confrontation with Sam had given her courage. She decided that a woman who could stand her ground in an argument with Sam Gamble was capable of anything. Even while she slept, her mind had been working, and as she stepped into the shower, she once again heard the voice that had whispered to her in her dreams. Appearances. Appearances are everything.

  Sam came into the kitchen a little after eight o'clock. She had already dressed and she was standing at the sink drying the dishes from the night before. Normally, he teased her about her tidiness, but this morning he didn't seem to have the heart for it. She didn't need to ask why he was so quiet. They were due to pick up the printed circuit boards in an hour. But what good were circuit boards when they didn't have the money to buy the components that went on them?

  He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. Without bothering to fetch a glass, he tilted the container to his lips. She wiped off the counter with the dish towel and then hung it away neatly. Appearances, she told herself. Appearances were everything.

  He turned, really seeing her for the first time. "What are you all dressed up for?"

  She wore square-heeled leather pumps and a black and white checked suit that was several years old and had never been one of her favorites. Still, it was good quality, and it was the only professional-looking outfit Paige had included. Her hair was neatly coiled at her neck with the pins she had borrowed from the Pretty Please Salon. She stepped forward. Sam had said that Yank's machine could give her courage. It was time to find out if that was true. "We've tried it your way," she said. "Now I want to try it mine."

  Spectra Electronics Warehouse was exactly the sort of place most women hated. It was a vast electronics junkyard of a building with concrete floors and towering shelves filled with cardboard cartons reinforced by wire strapping. An open ceiling supported a network of pipes and jaundiced neon lights. Thick parts catalogues with dog-eared pages were mounted next to a long wooden counter plastered with Fly Navy bumper stickers. The place felt cold and smelled like metal, plastics, and old cigarettes. It was so different from the sorts of places Susannah normally patronized that she might actuall
y have liked it if she hadn't been paralyzed with fright.

  "Hey, Sam. Howzitgoin'?" The man behind the counter looked up from a pile of invoices.

  Sam swaggered forward. "Not too bad, Carl. How about you?"

  "All right. No complaints." Carl pulled a pen from an ink-stained plastic pocket protector and returned his attention to the invoices. Sam was obviously not regarded as a customer important enough to warrant any more of his time.

  Sam looked at her and shrugged, telling her without words that this had been her idea and she was the one who could see it through. The piece of toast she had eaten for breakfast clumped in her stomach.

  When Sam saw that she wasn't moving forward, he came to the proper conclusion that she had lost her nerve and gave her a look of disgust. She wanted to show him that he was wrong-that a socialite could teach a silver-tongued hustler a few things, that she was good for something more than planning cocktail parties. But her feet felt as if they were glued to the floor and she couldn't seem to unstick them. He wandered over to thumb through a parts catalogue, separating himself from her.

  Without quite knowing how it had happened, she found herself moving forward. Carl looked up. He seemed vaguely perplexed. Women in Chanel suits-even suits that were five years old-weren't frequent patrons of Spectra Electronics.

  She extended her arm for a handshake, then tightened her grip when she realized it wasn't firm enough. "Faulconer," she said, introducing herself with her last name for the first time in her life. "I'm Susannah Faulconer. Sam's business partner."

  Her hand was clammy. She withdrew it before he noticed and gave him a bright red business card with SysVal boldly printed in black. As she passed it over, she prayed that the ink was dry.

  SysVal stood for "Sam Yank and Susannah in the Valley," the name she and Sam had been arguing over all morning, right up to the time they stood at the counter of a print shop that guaranteed business cards in an hour. Sam had wanted to give the company an antiestablishment name like General Egocentric or Hewlett-Hacker, but she had stubbornly resisted. He had yelled at her right in front of the clerk at the print shop, but their confrontation the night before had stiffened her resolve not to let him have his way when she knew he was wrong. She still could barely believe that the name on the card was the one she had chosen.

  "Faulconer?" Carl said as he eyed the card, which had her name written in the bottom corner incongruously placed in front of Sam's and Yank's and-even more incongruously-with the bold title "President" printed after it. "You have anything to do with FBT?"

  "Joel Faulconer is my father," she said, "but I'm currently on sabbatical from FBT." That was vaguely true.

  She turned her head as if she were knowledgeably surveying her surroundings, when actually she was just trying to slow down her heartbeat. From Sam's briefing, she knew Carl was the person they had to deal with, but what did she know about someone who owned an electronics warehouse? The building was cool but she was perspiring. She would never be able to carry this off. She was a socialite, not a businesswoman.

  And then she saw the respect in his eyes generated by hearing her last name, and she found the courage to plunge ahead. "Sam tells me that you're the best dealer in the area. He's a severe judge, and I'm impressed."

  Carl was pleased by her praise. "We try," he said. "We've been here for ten years. In the Valley that's a long time." He began telling her in some detail about his business.

  "Interesting," she said as he wound to a close.

  He gestured toward a cloudy Pyrex pot sitting on a hot plate. "Can I get you a cup of coffee, Miss Faulconer?"

  He seemed to have forgotten Sam's existence, and for the moment that was fine. Off to the side, she could see Sam thumbing through the catalogues, but she knew that he was taking in every word of this exchange.

  "Thanks, but I'm afraid I don't have time. I have another appointment." She gave her wrist a brisk glance only to remember, too late, that she wasn't wearing a watch. All of her watches were in her dresser drawer at Falcon Hill-or on her sister's wrist. She surreptitiously tugged down the sleeve of her jacket before Carl could notice.

  "You're obviously competent at what you do. Reliability is important to me." Her knees were starting to feel weak, but she plunged on before she lost her nerve. "For some time I've been interested in helping develop small companies outside the FBT umbrella. I've been looking for ventures that excite me-new products, new concepts, fresh people. When Sam showed me the computer that he and his associate had designed, I knew I'd found exactly what I'd been looking for."

  "Sam's a good guy," Carl said, belatedly remembering who had brought her here. "He's got good instincts."

  "I think so, and I'm not easily impressed." She couldn't believe the man wasn't seeing right through her, but he continued to listen. "We're lining up suppliers now, which is why I'm here. We think this new computer marks the wave of the future. I've made the decision to commit myself and all my resources to SysVal." That was true anyway. Carl didn't have to know just how nonexistent those resources were.

  "I'll be happy to help you in any way I can."

  "Good. I want to make certain you'll give Sam everything he needs."

  "He's got it," Carl replied enthusiastically.

  "And time is important. We need reliable parts and we need them quickly."

  "I understand."

  She put out her hand and shook his, her grip much stronger this time. "I know you're busy, and I won't take up any more of your time. You have my business card." She hesitated at the exact moment when she wanted to appear most in control. Hoping she hadn't already betrayed herself, she said firmly, "Use that address for billing. Thirty days, normal terms."

  For the first time, Carl looked doubtful. She had expected this to happen, but now that it had, she couldn't remember what she had planned to do about it.

  "If we're dealing with a new company," he said, "we generally ask for payment in advance."

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam's head lift from the parts catalogue. This was it. Now the socialite had to turn into a hustler. Whatever had made her think she could pull this off? She raised her eyebrow, hoping she looked vaguely annoyed instead of sick to her stomach. "In advance? How odd. That's really going to drive my accountants wild."

  "Nothing personal, Miss Faulconer. It's normal procedure."

  "Of course. I understand. I should have realized this would be a problem. FBT is accustomed to working with much larger suppliers."

  Deliberately, she turned her back on him and walked over to Sam. "I know that you want to get your parts here, Sam, but I'm afraid it's not possible. You have to see that this is going to cause all sorts of difficulties for me."

  Sam looked properly annoyed. "The prices are better here at Spectra," he said. "You'll end up paying more somewhere else."

  She managed a stiff shrug. "Cost is relative. The larger suppliers can accommodate themselves better to our accounting system. From my perspective, this is a relatively small order-"

  "Now, Miss Faulconer-" Carl practically leaped around the counter. "I'm sure we can work something out."

  The blood had started to roar so loudly in her ears that she was surprised he couldn't hear it. She risked glancing at her wrist again. Two hairs past a freckle. She remembered that saying from her childhood. What time is it? Two hairs past a freckle. "I'm quite late already. I really don't-"

  "We'll take care of it," Carl insisted. "Don't worry. Thirty days will be fine."

  It took all her self-control not to break out in a huge smile. "Are you certain? I don't want to inconvenience you."

  "No inconvenience at all," Carl replied. "Now you go on to your appointment. Sam and I'll get started on your order."

  She could barely restrain herself from leaping into the air like a child. She wanted to jump and shout and scream with joy at how clever she had been, how brave, how absolutely unconventional! Instead, she smiled at Carl and began walking toward the door.

  As she step
ped outside, she promised herself that she would do whatever she must to pay him back. She might have hustled him, but she wouldn't cheat him.

  Chapter 11

  That evening Angela Gamble burst into the garage like the rhythm section of a street band-charm bracelets jangling, stiletto heels tapping, Gypsy coin earrings tintinnabulating.

  "Sammy Bammy! I'm back!" She stretched out her arms and dashed forward-a hot pink flash in a gauze jumpsuit cinched at the waist with a metallic fish-scale belt. Her shoulder-length cloud of black, sprayed hair barely moved.

  "Hi, Mom." His smile didn't quite reach his eyes as he half-heartedly returned her hug.

  She gave him a loud kiss on the chin and smacked his face with the flat of her hand. "That's for all the trouble you probably got into while I was away." Without stopping to catch her breath, she raced toward Yank, grabbed his rear end in both hands and squeezed hard. "Gotcha, hot cheeks. Miss me?"

  Yank turned and blinked. Susannah, who had been unpacking a box of parts when Sam's mother had burst in, watched in astonishment as a smile slowly spread over his face. "Hi, Angela."

  At the age of forty-two, Angela Gamble was slim and small. Only an inch over five feet tall, she was pretty despite her gaudiness, and fiercely engaged in a battle against encroaching middle age. She stretched up onto her tiptoes and planted a solid kiss on Yank's mouth. Then she slapped him across the face even harder than she had slapped her son. "That's for all the trouble you didn't get into while I was gone."

  Yank rubbed his cheek absent-mindedly, gave her another smile-this one a bit vague-and reached for his logic probe.

  She turned to Susannah. "Hi, honey. I'm Angela Gamble. You Sammy's new girlfriend?"

  Susannah stepped forward and introduced herself.

  Angela gazed at her curiously. "You look so familiar to me. Sammy, why does she look so familiar?"

  Sam, busy sorting capacitors, said offhandedly, "She looks like that actress we saw on PBS a couple of months ago."