Their father, who’d been in the front yard trimming the azalea bushes, had heard Richie screaming and moved between him and Howard.
“What’s going on here?” his father had said.
And Howard, eyes and mind blurred with killing rage, had yelled some thing supremely stupid: “Get out of my way!” and then swung his own toy gun at his father’s legs to move him aside.
The next thing he remembered, he was lying on the ground, looking up into the warm summer afternoon, wondering how he had gotten there. The old man had cuffed him upside the head and straightened him out instantly.
Howard, who had never raised a hand to Tyrone, now knew how his father must have felt. He offered a silent apology to the old man. Sorry, Pop.
And Tyrone, who up until lately had been a model son, looked down at the floor and said, “Sorry, Pop,” echoing Howard’s thoughts.
Adolescent angst. Think back, John.
Remember how it was that nobody understood how you felt, nobody could possibly know how you felt.
“All right, forget it. I’ll get Nanna, you go ahead to the mall. She’ll understand.” He saw the boy take it in, think about it.
Loyalty to his grandmother warred with his infatuation for his girlfriend.
This time, loyalty won.
“No, I’ll go with you to the airport. If I don’t, Nanna will blame you.” He grinned.
Howard returned the grin. There Tyrone was.
Back, for at least a moment.
Nadine, with the instincts of a wife and mother sensing trouble, drifted into the doorway.
“Hey, you two. Everything okay back here?” Howard turned to look at his wife, still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, more so after fifteen years of marriage.
“Everything is just fine,” he said.
At least for now, it was. But Tyrone was only thirteen. They had six more years of this to look forward to.
Lord, Lord.
Tuesday, December 21/, 8:15 p.m.
Washington, D.c.
Naked, Platt lay on his stomach on the bed in the little hotel on C Street, not far from the Library of Congress. A woman, who was also naked, straddled the small of his back, leaning into her hands, pushing and digging into the muscles of his aeck and shoulders, the traps and delts. Her thighs and crotch felt warm against his skin.
, She actually gave a pretty good massage, which was unusual for out call girls. Most of “em just gave a few half-assed Swipes with their fingertips, maybe a little scratchy-scratch with their nails, but this girl was putting some thing into it. He’d give her a good tip for that. She was tall, a little thin, no tits, but a great ass. And her hands were a lot stronger than you’d guess by lookin” at her.
“Damn, honey, you hard as a rock,” she said, pressing hard with her thumbs into the trigger points just under the scapulas. it hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.
“You ain’t seen the half of it, baby,” he said.
“Wait till I roll over.” She laughed.
“Yeah, I noticed you pretty big, for a white boy.” She wasn’t talking about his muscles.
“What line of work you in, Mr. Platt?” “I’m an expediter,” he said.
“For a big importst export business.
I travel a lot. Get to travel all over the world, make things happen.” “That a fact? I always wanted to go overseas.
Never been out of the country. I always wanted to go to Japan.” Her hands felt damn good on his neck as she kneaded the tight muscles there.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“You don’t want to go back to Africa? See your homeland?” “Sheeit, what I want to do that for? There’s plenty of black folks in this country.” He laughed. He liked her.
“Maybe next time I get to Japan, I’ll bring you back a souvenir.” “I’d like that. A nice red silk kimono.” Platt rolled over. She lifted a little, then settled back down over his legs when he got turned. He grinned at her.
“One red silk kee-moan-oh, no problem.” “My, would you look at that?” she said. She flashed even, white teeth, bright against her chocolate skin.
“What do we have here?” She reached down. He slid his hands around under her butt and lifted her slightly. Hel-looo, baby!” Tuesday, December 21/, 8:15 P.m.
Washington, D.c.
In his office, Hughes finished a synopsis of what he wanted White to say at his meeting with the vice president tomorrow before White went back to Ohio for the holidays.
There was a knock at the door. Speak of the devil.
“Bob?” “I thought I’d find you still here,” White said.
He sauntered into the office and put a small package onto the desk.
“Christmas present. You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?” Hughes smiled.
“Now how could I think that. Bob? I wrote the reminder in your day log myself.” Both men laughed.
Hughes reached into the drawer, pulled out a Christmas- wrapped box, and handed it to White. It was hard to buy stuff for a millionaire who bought himself whatever he fancied, but Hughes always worked to find some thing unusual. And he knew White loved being surprised.
“Can I open it?” Just like a kid.
“Sure.” Eagerly, the senator ripped off the green and red foil and pulled the lid from the box. He removed what looked like a small leather candy dish mounted on a wooden stand from the box. Inside the leathery cup was a game info ball, an iridescent, silvery orb the size of a marble, made to be slipped into a SonySega Play Station, a device that White had owned since the first ones had come out. He looked at Hughes and raised one eyebrow.
“That’s the beta-test full-VR version of DinoWarz II,” Hughes said.
“Won’t be generally available for a few more months.” “Really? Wow, thanks, Tom! How’d you get it?” “I have a few contacts in the right places.” White rolled the ball in his fingers, and Hughes could see he was itching to run home and play the game. The senator looked at the container.
“This a candy dish? Looks unusual.” “It’s a plastic-coated bull scrotum,” Hughes said.
“What? You’re kidding.” “Nope. I can think of a few people you might want to offer peppermints to from it.” White laughed and shook his head.
“Well, I’ll be taking the family jet home in the morning You need a ride anywhere?” “Nope. I’m hanging around here, finally be able to get some work done with you out of the way.” They laughed again.
“Guess I better open my present now,” Hughes said.
He did so. Inside was a carved ivory figurine, seven or eight inches long, a woman stretched out, lying on her side, propped on one elbow.
Hughes knew what it was. It was a Chinese a medical doll. Once upon a time in China, women of breeding never let any man but their husbands see them unclad, sometimes not even their husbands. When they needed to see the doctor, they took the doll with them. When the doctor asked where the pain was, they showed him on the figurine, and he made his diagnosis based on that and symptoms, without ever seeing or touching his patient’s body.
Knowing White, Hughes figured this statuette was probably worth a fortune. The wort was exquisite.
Hughes made appropriate noises.
“It’s beautiful. Bob.
Thank you.” “Well, it isn’t a bull scrotum, but it’s the best I could do.
It belonged to some emperor’s wife or concubine, I forget which.
Bertha’s got the documentation on it. She’ll give it to you after we get back from the holidays.” “I appreciate it, I truly do. Working with you has been so beneficial to me, I can’t begin to tell you how much.” That was surely the truth.
“I couldn’t have ever gotten the job without you, Tom.
Merry Christmas.” “Merry Christmas,” Hughes said. And with any luck at all, the New Year will be my best ever– though it might be your worst, when the shit hits the fan.
hapter 10 Wednesday, December 22nd, 8:25 a.m.
Quantico, Virginia Alex Michaels wanted to keep the staff meeting short so they could get back to their desks.
With Christmas only a few days away, not much work was getting done as everybody geared up to go off for the holidays. The office didn’t shut down, of course, there was always a skeleton staff, but anybody not stuck with that duty who wanted to take off early could do so.
He looked around the conference room, at his primary players: Toni, Jay, Howard, and Joanna Winthrop. They were all senior enough, except for Joanna, and she was working out of Howard’s command, so they didn’t have to stick around here for Christmas.
“Okay, that pretty much covers the basics. You all know this poster business is critical, so take your flat screens and if you get any bright ideas, log them in for the rest of us.” He already knew their plans, and no matter where they were, they’d keep grinding away at this thing.