Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  A small pulse began to throb in her throat as he slowly rose from the chair. She knew she should call for help, but she had grown so very tired of talking to overweight countesses and gouty vice-presidents. Would it be so terrible-not to mention dangerous-to wait just a few more minutes and see what the outspoken stranger who had invaded her father's library had in mind?

  "Saying you can't do anything is bullshit," he repeated.

  "I'm asking you to leave."

  "You're what-his wife, his daughter? You can do anything you want." He snapped his fingers in the air in front of her eyes. "Just like that, you can arrange for me to see him."

  She raised her head ever so slightly, so that she was looking down the length of her nose at him in the deliberately hostile fashion her father employed so effectively. "I'm his daughter Susannah, and he's entertaining tonight." Why had she told him her name? Whatever had possessed her?

  "Okay. Tomorrow, then. I'll meet him tomorrow."

  "I'm afraid that won't be possible."

  "Christ." He looked at her with disgust and shook his head. "When I first saw you-those first few seconds-I had this feeling about you."

  He fell silent.

  It was as if he'd tapped out the initial seven notes of Beethoven's Fifth, but left off the eighth. She waited. The white organdy ruffle rose and fell over her breasts. She was frightened so badly that her palms had begun to perspire. Frightened, but excited, too, and that frightened her even more. She knew all too well that disaster could appear from nowhere-on the sunniest of June days, from behind the merry mask of a clown. Still, she couldn't seem to force herself to break away from him and go for help. Perhaps it was the aftereffect of her meeting with Paige, perhaps it was simply a reaction to spending too many evenings with people who were so much older than herself.

  "What kind of feeling?" The words seemed to have left her mouth of their own volition-she who never spoke impulsively.

  He walked around to the front of the desk, those dark, amber-flecked eyes never moving from hers. When he spoke, his voice was low and intense, barely more than a whisper. "A feeling like maybe you'd understand."

  She heard the sounds of the string quartet playing another world away. Her mouth felt dry. "Understand what?"

  Now his eyes did roam over her, suggestively, unapologetically, as if he alone could see the red-hot wanton who was hidden beneath her composed exterior. An erotic image flickered unbidden through her mind of his hand reaching out and lowering the bodice of her dress. The image lasted only a second, but the effect was almost unbearable-flooding her body first with heat and then with self-disgust.

  He grinned-as if he had read her mind-and his brash young lips parted. She became aware of a tapping sound and followed the noise with her eyes. He was bumping the toe of one of his motorcycle boots against an old leather sample case that was leaning against the side of her father's desk.

  "Do you know what I've got in here?" he asked, still tapping his toe. His voice was intense; his eyes blazed like an Apache warrior about to take a scalp. Unable to draw her gaze away from him, she shook her head.

  "I've got the key to a new society in here."

  "I-I don't understand." The stammer was back. She hadn't stammered since those first few years after her kidnapping. It was as if her unconscious were sending her danger signals.

  Unexpectedly, his face shattered into a grin that was charming, boyish, and completely disarming. He whipped the sample case from the floor and laid it on the highly polished surface of Joel's desk, paying no heed at all to the neat stacks of papers he sent flying. He patted the case with the flat of his hand. "I've got the invention of the wheel in here. The discovery of fire. The first steam engine. The cotton gin. I've got the genius of Edison and the Wright Brothers, Einstein and Galileo. I've got the entire fucking future of the world in here."

  His casual obscenity barely registered as he mysteriously telegraphed his fervor to her.

  "This is the last frontier," he said quietly. "We've built condos in Alaska and McDonald's in Africa. China sells Pepsi. Blue-haired old ladies book weekend trips to Antarctica. There's only one frontier left, and I've got it."

  She tried to keep her expression cool and guarded-revealing nothing of what she was thinking-but for the first time in as long as she could remember, she couldn't quite pull it off.

  He came closer until they stood nearly eye to eye. She felt the vitality of his breath on her cheek and wanted to trap it in her own lungs for just a few moments to see what all that energy would feel like.

  "The frontiers of the mind," he whispered. "There's nothing else left. And that's what I've got in this case."

  For a moment she didn't move, and then his words gradually penetrated the cool, logical part of her brain. At that moment she finally realized he was making a fool of her, and she felt both cheated and angry. "You're a salesman," she said, overwhelmed with the irrational notion that a bright, shining star had been snatched from her fingers. He was only a salesman. All this time she had stood here and let herself be conned by the Electrolux man.

  He laughed. It had a youthful sound to it, rich and full, much different from the subdued masculine chuckles she had grown accustomed to. "I guess you could say that. I'm selling a dream, an adventure, a whole new way of life."

  "My father doesn't need any more life insurance." The sarcastic bite to her words felt good. She was hardly ever sarcastic. Her father didn't approve.

  He rested his hips against the front edge of the desk, crossed his ankles and smiled at her. "Are you married?"

  The question took her by surprise. "No, I-I'm engaged. That's really none of your business, is it?" There was no reason for her to be stammering. She had been handling difficult social situations for as long as she could remember, and her awkwardness unsettled her. She hid her discomfort behind cool hostility. "Let me give you some advice, Mister…"

  "Gamble. Sam Gamble."

  A perfect name for a con artist, she thought. "It will be nearly impossible for you to get to my father. He keeps himself well insulated. There are, however, other people at FBT-"

  "I've already seen them. They're turkeys. Real three-piece suit deadheads. That's why I decided to crash your party tonight. I have to talk to your old man in person."

  "He's entertaining guests."

  "How about setting up an appointment for me on Monday, then? Would you do that?"

  "Of course not. He'd be quite angry-"

  "You know, you're really starting to piss me off." His mouth tightened with irritation and his hand flattened on the leather sample case. "I don't know whether I'm going to show you this or not, even if that's the only way I can get to your old man. I'm just not comfortable with who you are."

  His brashness dumfounded her. "You're not comfortable with who I am?"

  "I mean, it's bad enough that I have to come to a reactionary company like FBT with my hat in my hands."

  Heresy was being uttered in Joel Faulconer's library. It should have made her furious, but instead it gave her a strange thrill of excitement. She beat the emotion away and paid penance for her disloyalty. "FBT is one of the most progressive and influential corporations in the world," she said, sounding nearly as pompous as her father.

  "If it's so progressive, how come I can't get anybody in the whole, deadhead organization to talk to me?"

  "Mr. Gamble, your obvious lack of credentials might explain the difficulty." Along with your leather jacket, she thought. And your motorcycle boots and long hair. And those jeans that show off far too much.

  "Credentials are crap." He picked up his sample case and, looking edgy and restless, ran his hand through his hair. "Listen, I've got to sleep on this. You're sending me mixed signals, and I'm still not sure about you. I'll tell you what. If I decide you're okay, I'll meet you in the rotunda at the Palace of Fine Arts tomorrow around noon. If I don't show, you'll know I changed my mind." And he began to walk toward the library door.

  She stared in astonishment a
t the back of his leather jacket. "I'm not going to meet you anywhere."

  He stopped walking and slowly turned to her, one corner of his mouth lifting in an engaging grin. "Sure you are, Suzie. You wouldn't miss it for the world. And you know why? Because underneath that pretty upper-class poker face of yours, you think I'm sexy as hell. And guess what? I think you are, too."

  She stood without moving as the door closed behind him. The skin on her scalp felt as if it were burning. The mounds of her breasts were hot. No one had ever called her sexy. No one-not even Cal, her lover.

  And then she was filled with self-disgust for having been taken in-even for a moment-by macho swagger. Did Sam Gamble actually imagine she would meet him tomorrow? A feeling of satisfaction shot through her as she pictured him arriving at the Palace of Fine Arts only to discover that he had been stood up.

  With her posture so erect she might have been wearing a whalebone corset from another century, she returned to her guests. For the rest of the evening, she determinedly ignored the faint echo of a long ago chant ringing in her head.

  All my balloons for free. Come and follow me.

  When Sam Gamble got home, he saw that the lights in the garage were still on. That wasn't unusual. Sometimes the lights didn't go off until five or six in the morning. He set the sample case on the kitchen table. It was an old table-gray Formica with curved chrome legs. There was a sad-looking spider plant hanging in the window. An empty can of Pringles sat on the counter next to an ugly ceramic cookie jar. He lifted the jar's lid and tossed in the small electronic device that he had used to trigger those fancy iron gates at Falcon Hill. She had been so shaken up, she hadn't even asked him how he'd gotten past them.

  Walking over to the refrigerator, he opened the door and propped one hand on the top as he bent down to look inside.

  "Shit. The spaghetti's gone." He pulled out a can of Coke instead and opened it. After he took a swig, he picked up the sample case and walked outside to the garage.

  A man was standing at a lighted workbench with his back to the door. He didn't turn as Sam came in.

  "I just met the most incredible woman I've ever met in my life." Sam sprawled down on a dirty floral couch. "You should have seen her. She looks like that actress I was telling you about who did that play on PBS a couple of weeks ago-Mary Streep or somebody-except she's prettier. And cool. Christ, is she cool. Snooty on the surface. High-class. But there was something about her eyes… I don't know. She pulled this bitch routine, so I knew it wouldn't do any good to show it to her right then. But I wanted to. Damn, I really wanted to blow her mind."

  Breathing in the pleasant smell of hot solder, Sam lay back on the couch and propped the can of Coke on his chest. "I never saw anybody move like she does. She's still, you know what I mean? A still person, even when she's in motion. You can't imagine her ever raising her voice, even though I could tell I was really pissing her off."

  He sipped his Coke for a while and then got up and wandered over to the workbench. "I have to talk to her old man-show him what we've got-but every time I try to get to him, somebody stands in my way. I think if I could catch her interest-get her on my side-she might arrange a meeting. I hate the idea of selling out to FBT, but we don't seem to have any other choice. I don't know. She might not show up. I'll have to think about it."

  He watched the other man's hands-the precision of his touch, the sureness of his movements-and shook his head in admiration. "You're a genius, you know that, Yank. An honest-to-shit genius."

  And then he threw his arm around the man's shoulders and gave him a wet kiss on the cheek.

  The man named Yank jerked around indignantly, splashing a trail of hot solder on the surface of the workbench. "What the heck's wrong with you?" He hunched his shoulder to his cheek, wiping off the kiss. "Why the heck did you do that?"

  "Because I love you," Sam said with a grin. "Because you're a goddamned genius."

  "Well, heck, you don't have to kiss me." Again, he wiped at his cheek with his shoulder. Finally, calming, he looked around the garage, studying it as if he'd been gone for a very long time. "When did you get back? I didn't hear you come in."

  Sam's grin broadened. "I just got here, Yank. Just this second."

  Chapter 4

  Conti Dove, born Constantine Dovido, was dumb, sweet, and sexy as hell: A few months earlier a girl had told him that he looked like John Travolta, and he had been talking to Paige about it ever since. Conti had dark hair and a Jersey accent, but as far as Paige could see, the resemblance ended there.

  Paige almost loved Conti. He treated her well and he wasn't astute enough to see what a fake she was.

  "Does that feel good, doll?" he asked, using his fingers on her like he used them on the strings of his Gibson.

  "Uhm, yes. Oh, yes." She moaned and writhed, putting on a top-notch, first-class, all-star performance so Conti would never suspect that his hot little mama could barely stand to have him touch her.

  Nothing was specifically wrong with Conti's lovemaking. He pushed all the right buttons and didn't fall asleep the minute he was done. It was just that Paige found sex to be a drag. She did it, of course, because everybody did, and she liked being held. But most of the time she didn't enjoy it very much. Sometimes she really hated it.

  When she was sixteen, she had been raped by a college boy she had met at a rock concert in Golden Gate Park. She had never told anybody about it. Either people would feel sorry for her or they'd say she had it coming.

  While she waited for Conti's lovemaking to be over, she clutched his bare arms, cupping the biceps he had developed so spectacularly by working out with the weights they kept in the corner of their bedroom. The bedroom was as clean as she could make it because she hated dirt, but it was painfully ugly. It had a cracked ceiling, mismatched furniture, and a double mattress on the floor. Paige wouldn't sleep on the mattress unless Conti was beside her, because she was always afraid a mouse would run over her head and get tangled in her hair.

  "Tell me how good it feels," he crooned in her ear. "Tell me it's good."

  "It's good, Conti. It's good."

  "Doll… doll… God, I love you. I love you so much." He pushed himself inside her and began pumping away to the rhythm of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" that kept playing over and over in her head.

  It was the song that the Doves did best. Paige sang backup, Jason was on bass, Benny at the drums. Mike played the keyboard while Conti sang lead, banging his Gibson and thrusting his hips to the rhythm.

  I can't… get no… satis… faction

  Conti dug his fingers into her buttocks, tilting them higher to receive him, plunging deeper. She let her mind slip away from what was happening, to a beautiful, pure place-a country garden with hollyhocks and larkspur and an old iron pump in the center. She imagined the sound of birds and the scent of honeysuckle. She saw herself lying back on a homemade quilt under a shady old tree. And at her side a plump, rosy-cheeked baby kicked happily and batted the air with its fists. Her baby. The baby she had lost when she'd had her abortion.

  I can't… get no…

  I can't… get no…

  Conti let out a low, strangled moan and buried his mouth in her neck. As he shuddered, he seemed so vulnerable to her that she felt a foolish need to protect him. She stroked his back, giving him a sad kind of comfort. How many men had shuddered over her like this? More than a dozen. A lot more. Her friend Roxie said a girl wasn't really promiscuous until she'd hit triple digits, but Paige had felt promiscuous ever since she'd been raped.

  When Conti had calmed, he drew back and gazed down at her. "I love you so much, doll."

  Tears glistened in his eyes, and to her surprise she felt her own eyes fill. "I love you, too," she replied, even though she knew she didn't. But it seemed unspeakably cruel to say anything else.

  Their bedroom romp had made them late, and they had to hurry. All five members of the Doves waited tables at a club called Taffy Too, named after the original owner's dog, who presumab
ly had been Taffy One. They received no salary and only half their tips, but the Doves put up with it because the owner let them play a one-hour set at eleven o'clock each evening.

  Taffy's was a third-rate club located in the heart of one of San Francisco's less picturesque neighborhoods, but occasionally some big shots slumming it would end up sitting at a front table. Conti thought the Doves might get discovered that way. In Paige's more depressed moments she thought that perhaps Conti was the only member of the Doves talented enough to perform any place better than Taffy Too's, but generally she repressed such thoughts. She might not be the world's best singer, but somehow she was going to make a success of herself and rub it in her father's face.

  They had almost reached the alley that led to the back entrance of Taffy's when Conti lifted his arm and yelled out, "Yo, Ben, my man!"

  Paige winced at the loudness of Conti's voice. Benny Smith, their drummer, approached. He was small and thin, with a short Afro and light brown skin.

  "Hey, Conti. What's happenin'?"

  Conti slid his hand up under her hair and wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck like a high school jock with his cheerleader girlfriend. "Nothin' much. You hear anything more about that dude from Dee-troit Mike was telling us about?"

  "Dude's disappeared," Benny replied. "But I hear some dudes from Azday Records showed up at Bonzo's last night."

  "No kidding? Maybe they'll come over to Taffy's."

  Paige didn't think that was too likely. Unlike Taffy's, Bonzo's was a semirespectable club that booked better acts. She listened as Benny and Conti continued to trade rumors, acting as if each day held a golden key that would open the door to their success. She no longer remembered what that sort of optimism felt like.

  They had a thinner crowd at Taffy's that night than normal, so the latecomers who arrived in the middle of the Doves' third Stones number were even more noticeable. Paige, wearing a cheap blue sateen jumpsuit with flashy metal studs, was beating her tambourine against her thigh when the two men took their place at the front table. One of the men was in his early fifties, the other younger. They both looked prosperous. Their suits bore the unmistakable sheen of silk and she caught the glint of expensive watches at their wrists.