by Scott Blade
They got out and headed toward the elevators. In the booming echo of the underground chamber, Li’s shoes clopped and drummed on the pavement. She wore short heels, something that Cameron was again certain was enforced in some field manual somewhere about Secret Service uniforms like in the Army. Cameron hadn’t been in the Army, not yet. He had no plans to join, but he’d had plenty of military lifestyle lessons and experience. Far more than most people. Far more than even some military families, but then again, he hadn’t known another kid who’d only had one parent, and that parent was a Marine. Cameron had no basis for comparison.
Li walked him to the elevator on the eastern side of the underground parking complex. She hit the only button—the up button—and she stood by him, waiting. He could hear her breathing in the silence, and even her breathing seemed judgmental. Which was a vibe from her that even his outsider demeanor could pick up on.
The elevator came, and they stepped into this steel contraption—chrome everything, but shrouded in a light that was dimmer than that of the underground parking garage. The back of the cabin had a mirror that spanned half of the wall’s length. The elevator’s style reminded him of the inside of an oven with no working light.
Cameron stood a short distance away from Li, and she pressed the ground floor button. The doors closed, and Cameron took it upon himself to break the ice or at least try to figure out why she was acting so standoffish toward him.
He said, “So you work for Agent Cord?”
She turned a shade of red that could only be described as violent. She turned to him—didn’t move her feet, just twisted at the waist—and stared up at him with furious dark eyes.
She said, “I’m not his assistant or anything.”
She looked pissed.
He said, “I wasn’t saying that. I meant, does he outrank you? Is he your CO? Is he your superior? Do you take your orders from him? And that’s all.”
Li snorted slightly. The breath flowed forcefully out of her nose, making her nostrils flare and appear much larger than they were.
“Look, I’m sorry for whatever, but I don’t know a thing about you. I don’t really know anything about Cord, either. And I don’t know why the hell I’m here. Other than some ambiguous claim that some guy knew my dead uncle and has information for me. But now I’m here, and you’ve been rude to me since we met. Tell me how that makes any sense? What’s with the cold treatment?”
Li sighed, and the elevator doors opened in unison. Like it was a cue.
They walked out of the elevator and stepped out into a short hallway, also dimly lit, and Cameron wondered, What’s the deal with this hotel? Why is everything so dark? Are they trying to they want to scare away guests?
The carpet had this modern, artsy black design with white trim. The walls were painted white with more chrome trim and mirrors.
More chrome?
The whole thing had to be hideous in broad daylight, but there wasn’t any natural light, so the dim lighting made it look all right. That must’ve been the reason behind all the dim lighting. It covered up how ugly the place was.
As ugly as it probably was in the light, it still looked like a faraway palace in the sands of the Middle East. And Cameron bet that somewhere in the world there was a gaudy prince with this same horrible taste who had a replica of this hotel as a home.
Li said nothing during the walk down the hall, and then she stopped at the corner.
She turned to Cameron and tried to smile. She said, “I’m sorry I acted like a bitch. I’m not usually like that.”
Cameron nodded and shrugged.
“It’s just that I was ordered to come and pick you up like this morning. I had to wait in the airport the whole day, and it’s just that it ruined my plans.”
Cameron stayed quiet.
She said, “They were important plans. Life-changing, actually. I was supposed to take my S-S-E-E today.”
“S-S-E-E?”
“Yeah, the exam to become a special agent for field duty.”
“S-S-E-E? Never heard of it. But then, I’m not that familiar with the Secret Service and its policies on becoming a field agent.”
Li said, “And you wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s not really a well-known test. Only guys who are interested in the service talk about it. The contents are secret. It’s the Secret Service—everything’s a secret, you know? It’s an official exam that everyone takes if they want to be a special agent. If I do well, I get a better chance of being picked for the best assignments. Top tier sort of thing.”
And then he understood and felt absolutely horrible. “And yours was today?”
Li said, “Yeah.”
“And instead, you were pulled from it and have to be here? With me?”
She nodded.
Guilt was an understatement. Now he felt like a real bastard.
He said, “I’m so so sorry. I don’t need you to hang out with me. Can you still make it?”
“Cameron, it’s almost evening. It’s too late. The test has already come and gone. Even if it was still going on, the agents taking it are locked in. No cell phones. No going out for bathroom breaks. And no entering late. You leave. You’re out.”
“Can you retake it?”
She nodded and said nothing.
“When’s the next time you can take it?”
She looked down at the floor, stared at Cameron’s shoes. They didn’t match his outfit, not that it mattered to him, but it should’ve because these particular shoes didn’t match because they were bright blue, a pair of New Balances. And with his green shirt and brown pants, the bright blue athletic shoes looked ridiculous to any normal person with any kind of taste, and judging by Li’s attire, she had plenty of taste. She made even her required uniform look stylish.
She gazed back up at Cameron, a slight tear in the corner of her eye, which made Cameron feel as about as awful as he ever had, except when someone had died because of him. This was like a close second.
She said, “I can’t register for the next exam until next year. It’s booked until then. It takes forever to get approved to take it.”
“Wow. I’m so so sorry,” he repeated.
He said nothing else because he didn’t know what else to say. He had inadvertently ruined this girl’s plans without having a choice in the matter. Not his fault. Not entirely. But one thing led to another, and everything was someone’s fault somehow. Even all the way down to the molecular level. Everything had a cause, and Cameron was the cause of her professional downfall. At least for a time.
Li didn’t cry, but the single tear that formed told Cameron how important it had been to her to take that test. He pictured her taking classes and staying up late at night to study for it. Maybe she had studied for months. Maybe years.
Li said, “So I’m sorry for being mean to you. Come on—let’s check you in, and I’ll buy you a drink. If you aren’t too tired from the flight?”
Cameron felt some jetlag. The flights across the nation hadn’t been that bad or too long—not like flying across the ocean, he imagined, but it had been his first time flying. Jetlag was a new feeling for him, and he didn’t much care for it. But one thing he wasn’t about to do was turn down a drink from a beautiful woman, especially one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Agent Li belonged up there on billboards. That was Cameron’s unwavering, immovable opinion on the subject.
Not to mention the fact that, in a way, he had just ruined her life.
He said, “A drink sounds great.”
They turned, and Li said, “There’s got to be a bar in here somewhere.”
“Actually, can we get out of here?”
“But this is where your room is. Don’t you want to check in?”
“This place isn’t really my style. I’m more old school.”
“It’s already paid for. Sean paid for it. And you probably won’t find anything else tonight. Not in the city. The city is hosting a small emergency summit of African leaders in two days beca
use of the thing.”
“What thing?”
“You know. The thing.”
Cameron shrugged.
Li said, “You don’t know what happened in Ganbola?”
Cameron shook his head and said, “Let’s get out of this hotel. You can fill me in about whatever happened over that drink—out on the street.”
“So no checking in first?”
“No reason to check in right this second. You offered to buy me a drink. I’m more interested in that right now.”
She nodded.
“Tell you what,” Cameron said. “I’ll do you one better. Let me buy you dinner? I’m starving.”
Li shrugged and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think that you might be hungry.”
Cameron stayed quiet and stared at her.
“No big deal,” he said. “Let’s get something to eat now.”
She hesitated and looked at his clothes. It was like a reflex, not intentional—at least, Cameron didn’t think it was. She said nothing.
He said, “What? You don’t want to be seen with me? Is it my clothes?”
She nodded.
Cameron said, “Ouch!”
“I don’t mean it like I don’t want to be seen with you.”
“Just my clothes?” He paused a beat and said, “I could lose them. Right here if you want.”
He started to pretend like he was taking them off.
Li cracked a hint of a smile but not quite the real thing, and then she said, “That’s not what I meant, either!”
Cameron said, “I know. Just kidding. So what? You want me to get new clothes?”
Li said, “Can we, please? No place is going to let you in wearing that anyway.”
“What places? Where are we going? I can’t afford a five-star restaurant.”
“You couldn’t get into a five-star restaurant here. So don’t worry about that!”
“What’s that supposed to mean? My clothes are that bad?”
Li smiled wide, and for the first time since they’d met, she not only smiled, she lit up the dim corridors of The Fifth. Her smile was all teeth. All white. All straight.
Cameron actually felt a little nervous now and embarrassed. Because of his clothes, he felt that perhaps he should have put more thought into style rather than convenience and affordability. After all, one thing that’s not convenient is being turned down by a woman before you even start to show interest.
Li said, “Let’s just get you some new clothes. They don’t need to be fancy, just better. They can be casual. Do you have any money?”
Cameron nodded.
“Good. Then let’s go buy something new for you to wear, and then we’ll grab that drink. Don’t worry—there are plenty of places I think you’ll like. But even those places wouldn’t let you in wearing this crap.”
She grabbed his shirt and pinched it. Her fingers brushed his abdomen. It was barely a touch, really, and lasted only a brief second, but Cameron noticed it. He definitely noticed it. He smiled. She gave him a big smile in return. At least he had gotten a reaction from her, and that wasn’t such a bad thing in Cameron’s opinion.
Thoughts were involuntary. A man couldn’t be judged by what ran through his head, only by the actions he took. That was something Cameron believed. The brain couldn’t be controlled, and it wasn’t always predictable. Neurons fired randomly, and electrons and tissue scattered about just as randomly. The human mind would think things that couldn’t be helped and couldn’t be stopped.
Cameron’s mind thought about two things. Both involved women, and neither involved clothing. He thought about Karen, and then he thought about Li. It was like he had left one bedroom and walked straight into another. Two beautiful women on different sides of the spectrum and on different sides of the country.
Everything in life was relative.
One thing happened, and it led to another thing happening.
Chapter 16
THE NEXT THING THAT HAPPENED was that Cameron and Li were back in the unmarked Secret Service’s black Ford Taurus, and they were driving out of the underground parking and onto the street which Cameron noted was not called Fifth Avenue or Fifth Street. So the hotel wasn’t named for one of those two things. Instead, the street was called George Street, which got Cameron wondering if it was named after a famous George. George Washington? George Washington-Carver? George Bush? George W. Bush? George Patton? Or about a hundred other dead guys named George.
He had no idea, and the question slipped away from him as Li turned a couple more streets and then looped past another and took a left on Louisiana Avenue, which reminded Cameron of home. Then she turned near the Library of Congress, and Cameron stared out of the window like a tourist, which he was. He watched the buildings and the cars and the people.
Li asked, “You ever been to DC before?”
Cameron said, “I haven't.”
“You gotta see it! There’s a lot of history here.”
Cameron stayed quiet and kept staring out of the tinted window.
“How about tomorrow afternoon?” Li asked.
“What?”
“Tomorrow. Afternoon. I’ll take you around. Show you some of the touristy stuff. Want to do that?”
Cameron said, “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s cool. I want to.”
“Sure.”
Cameron smiled. He was going to buy clothes with her and take her to dinner, and now she was going to give him a tour of DC.
Not bad, he thought.
They drove on, and Cameron noticed that the sunlight had faded away in the west, dying across the beautiful, historical DC landscape.
Li drove the car around another corner and said, “I know the perfect place for you to get some new duds.”
Cameron said, “Why does that scare me?”
Li said, “Come on! I doubt anything scares you.”
She was partially right, or so Cameron thought at the time.
They came to a stop on a side street, and she parallel parked the car between two compact foreign cars that Cameron was glad not to be in.
“This is it.”
“The alley?”
Li smiled and said, “Come on. Get out of the car. Let’s go.”
They got out of the car, and she led him around the corner and back to the street.
The store that Li had picked was what Cameron would think of as overpriced, but in actuality, it was one of the best places to buy clothes at decent prices anywhere near this area of town.
She took him in. Cameron didn’t want to let shopping suck up his entire night with Li. He’d much rather spend the rest of his time talking to her and getting to know her. So he picked something out about as fast as he ever had in his life. He ended up getting a pair of black cargo pants, wondering why they were any better than the brown ones he already wore. But Li had told him they were stylish, and in Cameron’s experience, it was always better to listen to a women’s advice because, in reality, it wasn’t advice at all. It was engraved on stone tablets. Gospel.
He also purchased a long-sleeved green cotton shirt with some sort of tiny white emblem, which Cameron assumed was the logo for the brand. The emblem faded into the top left shoulder in a way that made it seem off-center and without any kind of arrangement that made sense.
Li asked, “You really like the color green, don’t you?”
“What’s wrong with green?”
“Nothing. It’s just very…um…Army.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Do you want to be in the Army?”
“Don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought.”
Cameron shrugged and decided it was the shirt for him, and Li approved it. Then she followed him over to a fitting room area with razor thin curtains that barely reached to his knees. She stood out in the corridor by a full-length mirror while a young sales associate stood outside Cameron’s curtain, either afraid Cameron would steal something or wanting to wait on Cameron h
and and foot for the commission.
Cameron put the clothes on and stepped out barefoot for Li’s approval.
“Hey, not bad. It’s not the old stuck-up DC, but it’s the new more modern DC. You’ll fit in okay.”
Cameron stayed quiet. He had no opinion of the whole process. He only knew that at this point he was hungry. He could feel his stomach rumbling and twisting in knots of hunger. This made him think of Karen again and about his time with her twenty-four hours ago because she had fed him home-cooked meals.
He could really go for one of those. Then he decided maybe he was thinking too much about Karen and should focus more on the current situation. Live in the present had been his motto, and right then, the present looked promising.
Li said, “Here. Put these on.”
She handed him a pair of black dress loafers with brown trim. The label read DeBeers. He started to look at the price tag, and she grabbed his hand.
“Don’t look at the price. These will look good on you. They’re worth it. Trust me.”
And Cameron did trust her. So he didn’t look at the price. Instead, he asked, “How do you know my shoe size?”
“I guessed. Try them on.”
He went back into the dressing room, left the curtain open, sat down, and tried them on. Perfect fit. He smiled. She had sized him up good. Li was all right. Better than all right. She was turning out to be something else and rather quickly. Cameron liked genuine people, and Li was pretty genuine.
He walked back out of the fitting room in his new clothes.
“Where are your other clothes?”
“I left them.”
“Better get them or they’ll think you don’t want them anymore. They’ll throw those old things out. They won’t even mistake them for a part of their own inventory. No way. You’ll never get them back. Never see them again. They’ll end up in a landfill where they belong.”
Cameron smiled and said, “Don’t want them back.”
“What? You’re just going to ditch them?”
“You got it. These are my clothes now. Especially if the price is going to be what I think. In which case, they’d better last.”