[Steven Lyle Jordan]

2: In Local News

Pete and Reilly stayed on the balcony, while I opened the door for Gail. Gail instantly brightened up when she saw me, and she stepped forward. “Hi,” she said simply, and planted one on me… a good one, complete with spoon-licker, and a little noise to indicate how much she liked how I tasted.

Pete gave this up? Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, this was not what was on my mind as she was kissing me… it came afterward, when she pulled away from my mouth and said, “How’s my number one Schitz-brother?”

That’s when I thought it, and I had to work at it to shove it into the back of my mind, into the corner reserved for things I planned to address later, like working out and learning Hai Lai (long story).

“Great, babe,” I finally replied, hoping my internal monologue hadn’t been as long as it seemed. “Not working today?”

“I just came from a morning appointment nearby,” Gail said, walking into the apartment. She quickly spied Pete and Reilly on the balcony. “Hi, guys,” she called out casually.

“Hey, Gail,” Pete and Reilly replied simultaneously, making it sound like something you’d hear from a sitcom. Pete held up his Starbucks cup, and called out, “Want breakfast?”

“Thanks, I’m good,” Gail replied, pointedly ignoring the barbed sarcasm, and turned to me. “Doing anything today?”

I reflected on my investigations, of course, but as quickly decided not to speak of it. Gail, like Pete, did not seem to share my desire to get back to my old life, though I hesitate to say it was just because she liked sleeping with me that much… this girl could land any guy without trying. So, I rolled my eyes theatrically, and said, “Oh, well, I was thinking about visiting the zoo. I hear San Diego’s got a nice one.”

“It was great,” Gail admitted, “until Hammond let those stupid dinosaurs roam around and eat everything in sight.” She smiled at her own joke, which she had delivered expertly, and I grinned back. “Anyway, I may have something else, if you can squeeze into your busy schedule.”

“Like what?”

“Like a local company that could use someone of your special talents,” she replied. She paused for effect. “In IT.”

I had to smile… gad, she knew how to push my buttons. “Oh… that,” I replied appropriately. “When did you want to go? I’ll get into some working duds…”

“No need,” Gail said. “This is a very casual company.” She looked over my jeans and Hawaiian shirt. “Trust me, compared to most of them, you’re already overdressed.”

So, in no time flat, we were in Gail’s Eclipse, and skating down the highway in the general direction of Mexico. The only thing I’d added to my wardrobe had been a pair of socks and sneakers, even after Gail had suggested I could leave the socks behind. Still, I looked less like a Schitzeiss and more like a Schlemiel next to Gail, in her tailored business suit, stylishly tied-back hair and killer heels. I liked Gail’s car: It was sexy like her, and driving it seemed to bring out the best in her. One night she had taken me up into the mountains, and after carving around the dark curves in that car, she had brought me back to her place and… well, it’s a miracle I hadn’t dislocated something during the sex we had that night.

Soon we were nailing an off-ramp at twenty miles over the posted safe-speed, and swinging into a road that led into what was obviously an office park. Office parks look the same nationwide, and only come in two types: short buildings covering miles of land; and tall buildings covering miles of land. This was the short building kind, generally full of up-and-coming operations and sub-contractors, companies with only a few to a few dozen employees, often owned by some guy whose dad left him with some bucks after he passed on, which was sunk into the business as an investment or tax shelter. The west coast version of the Beltway Bandits we had back in Baltimore. Some of these companies might some day grow into mighty corporations… but right now, most of them were keeping their fingers crossed that they’d meet the next pay window intact.

“So, which one of these Border Bandits are we going to?” I asked, trying out a flip phrase that had just occurred to me.

“That one,” Gail said as she pulled into the parking lot. The name on the building said: “Coyote Chow.”

“I give up,” I said after a moment. “What the heck does that mean?”
“Go in,” Gail replied, “and find out.”

We opened the glass front door, and stepped into a small reception room with a few comfy chairs, a coffee table with a few science magazines on it, and a man behind a desk. At least, I was pretty sure it was a man, because from my vantage point I could only see a bald head hovering over an open drawer in the desk. Whoever it was had apparently not heard us enter, I was guessing because of the music playing on hidden speakers somewhere nearby (at least it wasn’t Abba). The presumed He continued to root around in the desk drawer for a few seconds, while we watched. Abruptly, the head popped up, and a hand swiftly popped up in front of it, holding up a tin of cinnamon flavored VerMints. “Aha!”

“Have you tried the Café Express flavor?” I asked innocently. “It kicks ass.”

When I spoke, the hand came down, and I was finally treated to the face underneath the bald head. Yes, it was a guy, average in looks, somewhere in his thirties, I’d guess. He looked at me politely, but clearly didn’t recognize me, so he looked to Gail, as he started to say, “I only like the cinnamon—” He stopped, when it was clear he recognized Gail. “Oh, hi, Gail! Here to see Lou?”

“That we are,” Gail smiled. “She here?”

“Sure, c’mon,” the guy said. He immediately stepped out from behind his desk… and I got a surprise, because he did it without standing up from his desk. In fact, I quickly realized he hadn’t been sitting down while he’d been behind the desk. He was approximately four feet tall, but with the bodily proportions of a six foot tall man, so there was no way to identify his lack of height without seeing all of him. I immediately flashed back to the first episode of Taxi, where you were introduced to Danny DeVito as he glared down at his drivers from inside a screened cage, then he bolted out to reprimand one of them… and only then did you realize he had been standing on a hidden platform, and was actually a very short guy. If you saw the scene, you know the double-take I did just now. At least I didn’t laugh, the way we all did at Danny.

The guy was, of course, watching me as I double-took on him. I suppose that was understandable, given his stature… I was sure he was sizing me up, to see if I had issues with short guys. I’d guess he decided I didn’t, because he put out his hand amiably. “I’m Barry.”

“Mike,” I said, taking his hand. “Nice to meet ya.”

He nodded, and waved for us to follow him. “Lou’s in the conference room.”

Barry led us through an office apparently created by the tech gods. Low lighting created a cool, relaxed space that would keep hardcore programmers from popping a gasket every time a variable misbehaved. Young-ish hardbodies of every nation sat behind high-tech desks of silvered aluminum struts and mesh. I swear, every one of them was beautiful… even the one chick with glasses wasn’t half-bad. On each desk was a set of three large LCD screens, all arranged edge-to-edge to form a continuous display oriented towards the user (if you could use such a pathetic word on these casting-call geeks). The computers were big, scary-looking uprights on the floors beside the desks, and each one of them had the trademark LED and neon accents of powergaming machines. These guys were either trying to take over WOW (and with this equipment, they’d have a good shot), or they were shoving some serious electrons around some serious, serious work. A few of them glanced our way as we passed, saying hello to Barry, or sizing up Gail or myself. Speaking just for myself, I felt like I was sizing up well with the ladies… isn’t that always the way, when you’ve already got a main squeeze that you wouldn’t want to give up for all the Ferraris in Italy?

We passed through this attention-sapping rubicon and approached some glass-walled spaces in the back. One of them was brightly lit up, and we could see two people inside, a guy and a girl. Like everyone else around here, they both looked good enough to fit in on the set of a prime-time TV show… especially the girl, who was, in an anthropological sense, Asian, and in my professional opinion, drop-dead gorgeous. Barry opened the door for us, whereupon the occupants looked up from what they were doing. The girl said, “Ah, you made it.”

Gail and I smiled, and as Gail didn’t seem to be about to introduce me, I stuck out my hand at the guy and said, “Lou? I’m Mike—”

Before I finished, the guy stuck out his left hand and grasped my arm at the wrist. Before I knew what was happening, he was pushing my hand aside. I wasn’t sure whether or not this was some new California handshake, and just as I was about to ask, I realized the guy had let go of my wrist. I looked down at my hand, and I noticed then that it was now pointing at the girl. I looked up at her, and she grinned at me.

The guy simply nodded at her and said, “Lou.”

And before I could respond, the girl had taken my hand. “Louisiana Chow.”