Hostiles

by Ethan Johnson

  Diane searched for a way to switch off the alarm, but nothing worked. She tossed the comm unit onto her sofa and hurried to her bedroom. She quickly selected the champagne gown and put it on. She selected a pair of heels that seemed like a close match and jammed them on her feet. Her arches stretched and her ankles sent shock waves of pain up her calves, but she fought through the pain and trotted to the living room to show Lady Diamond she was ready.

  Lady Diamond sipped her wine and shook her head slowly afterward. “Fix your underwear. And what sort of makeup job is that? Stop wasting my time. Finish.” She dispatched Diane with a wave.

  Diane rolled her eyes and returned to her bedroom. Coordinating underwear with outfits hadn’t been a primary concern since… well, ever, she mused. She found tan panties and a matching bra in her dresser. She swapped them out for her dingy whites, then slipped the gown back on. Next, she rushed to the bathroom and nearly fell into her bathtub at the sight of a fully stocked vanity. Rows of nail polish stood on a tiered organizer. Brushes of various lengths and sizes poked out of black storage cups. Diane opened a mirrored box to find cleansing pads. She swiped a pad over her cheeks, then her forehead, then her jawline.

  Her pale skin was an odd sight after the expert makeover she had received from Miss Coco. Diane did her best to apply the techniques she had learned during her recent crash course and desperately tried to ignore the blaring alarm in the living room. Once her eyeliner was to her liking, Diane selected a shade of lipstick that seemed to go well with her ensemble and applied it carefully to her dry lips. She checked her makeup and couldn’t believe the face in her mirror belonged to her.

  Diane hurried to the monitor and threw her arms out to either side. “Better?”

  Lady Diamond gestured for Diane to twirl around. She sat primly and took in Diane’s transformation, then nodded her approval. The comm unit fell silent. “Acceptable. Come and join me for lunch.”

  Diane patted her stomach. She realized she hadn’t eaten in hours. She looked at the screen hopefully. “Are you sending a car over?”

  Lady Diamond smirked. “No need, Miss Pembrook. A short elevator ride should be sufficient.”

  Diane tipped her head. “Elevator? Where to?”

  Lady Diamond raised an engraved wooden coaster. Diane saw the famous brand of the Tracy’s Mark Steakhouse. She nodded and reached for her comm unit. “On my way.”

  “I’ll be here,” Lady Diamond said, and sipped her wine.

  Diane was halfway to the elevator when she realized she was making a horrible mistake. She looked down at the bare comm unit in her left hand. She began to smack her forehead in disgust but stopped short, in fear of ruining her makeup. She groaned and hurried back to her apartment. She quickly found a matching clutch and stuffed the comm unit into it. Moments later, she was on the elevator, heading for the second floor.

  Diane stood around the corner from the frosted glass doors of the Tracy’s Mark Steakhouse. She took deep, controlled breaths and remembered her training. Despite being kept waiting, Lady Diamond would expect her to perform as instructed, Diane reminded herself. First and foremost, she was not to barge into the restaurant and look for her mentor. She tried to remember the details of where Lady Diamond had been sitting. She fished her comm unit out of her clutch and pressed a red button on the right side, then put it away. She exhaled sharply, then proceeded to the entrance.

  A woman wearing a conservative white blouse and blue skirt smiled and pulled the door open for Diane as she approached. “Welcome to the Tracy’s Mark, miss. Please consult the hostess for reservations.”

  Diane smiled and shook her head. “No, thank you. I’m here to see an old friend.” She concentrated on each step as she negotiated her pumps over the restaurant’s plush carpeting. She raised her chin and scanned the room. She steered away from the lounge, then proceeded to the main dining room. It was nearly empty in the early afternoon, but Diane knew Lady Diamond wouldn’t be caught dead out there at any time of day. She spotted a brass placard that read PRIVATE DINING and followed the arrow.

  Diane found Lady Diamond in a cozy room furnished with overstuffed leather furnishings and dark wood surfaces. Lady Diamond stood and greeted Diane as she entered. “Ah, Miss Pembrook. Did you have any difficulty finding me?”

  Diane smiled and shook her head. “None at all.”

  “Good girl,” Lady Diamond said, and sat down. “Sit. I’ve already ordered us something to nibble on.”

  “Thank you,” Diane said. “That sounds simply divine.” Alexa’s twang crept into her voice.

  “So,” Lady Diamond said after taking a careful bite of an Alaskan prawn, “about this fever dream of yours. While Brent Moorcroft is a man worthy of using, I highly doubt he took you to jail, or anywhere else. Steve Halloran is currently contracted to another feature, and has no bandwidth to reprise old roles, whether from Fortune and Destiny or anything else.” She stopped short of taking another bite. “Not to mention his wife. I can’t imagine she’d be okay with him going out and picking up stray girls.”

  Diane sipped her wine and winced at the mark her lipstick left on the glass. “No, it’s true. I was at this crazy club, then he bought me drinks, then next thing I knew, I was drunk off my ass.”

  “Charming. Which club? Don’t you dare say it was Shooter’s Bar.”

  “What? No. Chet Franklin drinks there. This was a place called the, uh, Bar None, I guess. I’d never heard of it before.”

  “There isn’t enough room in Texas to store everything you haven’t heard of, dear,” Lady Diamond said. “But, the Bar None, hmm? That seems a bit beyond your reach.”

  “Seventy-five bucks a drink is a lot, no doubt. But like you said, I had to learn to use men to get things. Brent Moorcroft bought me a drink. That seemed like a good start.”

  “True. Did you call him Brent Moorcroft, or is that for my benefit?”

  “Well, I mean, he was right there, and I figured you set this up like you did with Alexa. I can’t believe I met two people from Cape May in three days. Lyssa is going to freak out, if she ever finds out.” Diane frowned at this and sipped her wine.

  “Miss Pembrook, I don’t care if the President of the United States was there. You must learn the art of subtlety. The absolute worst thing you can do in any transaction is to negotiate from a position of weakness.”

  “But he bought me a drink. I couldn’t have been that terrible.”

  “Or he was that desperate. We discussed how to attract quality individuals, Miss Pembrook.” Lady Diamond took another bite of prawn. “Anyway, we can revisit that later. Continue with your report. He bought you a drink? What then?”

  Diane nodded glumly. “Nothing much. I got drunk, then he took me to jail.”

  “Okay, let’s back up. Why were you at the Bar None? Did you know somebody there? Was it a special occasion, or—”

  Diane shook her head. “I had just finished an assignment. I thought I was going home, then I got taken to that place instead. When Brent Moorcroft showed up, I figured this was something you set up, and I felt safe, I guess. I tried to drink social-like and get him drunk so I could leave him passed out at the club, but that backfired on me big time.”

  “What kind of assignment?”

  “Oh, nothing. Work stuff.” Diane sipped her wine and looked away.

  “An assassination,” Lady Diamond said simply.

  Diane nearly spat out her wine. She dabbed her lips with a cocktail napkin. “Do what?”

  “It’s okay, Miss Pembrook. It’s safe to talk here. Private rooms at the Tracy’s Mark have enhanced security for… sensitive conversations.” She gave Diane a sly wink. “They know their clientele.”

  Diane breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, yes. I terminated a hostile. I’m not supposed to talk about it with anyone.”

  “Nobody except the man in the mask, is that right?”

  Diane spat her wine that time. She swore and sopped up the mess on the tabletop. “How did you—”


  Lady Diamond raised a shushing finger. “We all must serve our masters.”

  “Yeah… I guess so. Yes. Anyway, after the… hmmhmm, I was taken to the Bar None.”

  “Fascinating. I take it this was not the norm?”

  “No. I usually—” Diane looked around nervously, then decided it was safe to speak freely. “I usually get the job done, then an SUV takes me home. Then it’s off to work the next day. The end.”

  “That doesn’t seem to leave much free time. What are you doing for self-care?”

  Diane felt her ears redden. “I uh, well… I mean, Lyssa’s been laid up in the hospital and now she hates my guts. I’m usually too tired to do any, uh… self—”

  Lady Diamond snort-laughed. “Oh, my. No, Miss Pembrook. I meant, how are you tending to your own well-being? Do you read? Do you go out to clubs with friends? Perhaps take in a new exhibit at a museum?”

  “No. If I have time, I check out the InTelNet, but other than that, it’s work, work, sleep, and your lessons these days.”

  “Oh, Miss Pembrook. That simply isn’t going to do. I order you to make time for you. Do something fun, or unusual, or entertaining. You can’t fill your days with work and sleep. Your brain is a marvelous machine. Feed it.”

  “Well, since Fortune and Destiny got canceled, I haven’t had much interest in watching other shows.”

  “I’m not talking about watching shows, Miss Pembrook. Get out more. Explore.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Diane took a bite of Chilean braised beef and felt her eyes roll up in the back of her head at the decadent taste of the smoky meat. “Oh, God, this food is delicious. How haven’t I been down here yet?” She looked across the table at Lady Diamond and gave her a sheepish grin. “Oh, right. Sorry, my mind went blank there.”

  “It happens to the best of us. Now, about being taken to jail. Why there? That doesn’t seem like, mmm, Brent’s usual M.O. on the club scene.”

  “Well, I managed to get really drunk. I can’t believe it took not even two drinks. I tried to be so careful, Lady Diamond, honest, I did. But next thing I knew, my head was on Brent Moorcroft’s lap in the back of a cab and he took me to Panther.”

  “I see. Interesting. Were there many officers on duty at the time?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I woke up in a jail cell, so I don’t know much about that. I got some guff about Brent bringing me into the station, so at least one person saw him.”

  Lady Diamond smiled and drained her wine glass. “Then the evening sounds to me like a smashing success.”

  Diane blinked at her. “How do you reckon?”

  “Miss Pembrook, connect the dots: You assassinated a key target, you went out and got expensive drinks bought for you by a hunky actor who, I, for one, would not kick out of bed, you denied him sex by getting too drunk to be worth the hassle, you compelled him to take you somewhere safe with plenty of witnesses, and you walked away clean. I’d call that a victory. Well done.”

  Diane leaned forward conspiratorially. “But Hathaway knows I killed the number two. He’s going to have the ACTF up my butt any minute now.”

  “Witnesses, Miss Pembrook,” Lady Diamond replied in a low voice. “Brent Moorcroft didn’t just get you drunk. He gave you the greatest gift of all: an alibi.”

  “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Diane leaned back in her seat and pondered this new angle.

  “And that’s all the time I have for today. Thank you for a lovely afternoon. It was a nice break from the office.” Lady Diamond rose from her seat. Diane followed suit and accepted a peck on each cheek from her mentor. Lady Diamond smiled and left the room. The door clicked softly behind her.

  Diane waited a moment before picking up her clutch. She produced her comm unit and pressed the red button on the side once more. After tapping the screen to access the voice recorder playback application, she smiled as Lady Diamond’s voice emanated from the tiny speaker. “He gave you the greatest gift of all: an alibi.” Diane stopped the playback and grinned. Suck on that, she thought darkly. Don’t ever tell me Lady Diamond isn’t real again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Diane spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on her sofa and catching up on the latest reports on the InTelNet. She learned all about the riots in Hackensack, the riots in Piscataway, and the imposition of martial law in East Hanover. Newark was either rebuilding after Arbor Day and better than ever, or one bomb away from complete meltdown, depending on the segment and the news reader. Diane thought about Lady Diamond’s question about self-care. On the one hand, she believed staying informed was important, especially as a patrol officer. On the other, well, what could she do about whatever was going on in East Hanover? She had her own problems to deal with.

  Diane switched to the main menu. A pop-up message asked if she had clicked away from the InTelNet by mistake. Diane selected NO on the message and reviewed her options. She wished Fortune and Destiny was still on. That made her life so much easier, in her view. She would tune in to get her daily Alexa Charlevoix fix, then tolerate the other characters until the final cliffhanger. She missed watching it with Lyssa. She missed having Lyssa’s back pressed against her, and wrapping her arms around Lyssa’s waist, holding her close. Diane’s apartment seemed dull and lifeless without her.

  Diane sighed and clicked away from the Romance Network. She and Lyssa were on the rocks. She couldn’t get excited about watching other people fall in love and live happily ever after while her own love life was shot to hell. She selected the Style Network and frowned at it. She had never taken much interest in stylish dressing. While her intent was to relax before work in the morning, she thought there wasn’t any harm in checking that selection out. It wasn’t work, after all. Lady Diamond had ordered her to practice walking in heels. Watching programs about clothes and makeup could be useful.

  Before long, Diane found herself leaning forward intently and studying the screen. She paused the stream and observed how the models wore their gowns, or how they put their ensembles together. A few minutes later, she was fishing things out of her closet and aping their moves as they strutted confidently down the runway.

  A blonde model with a similar height and build to herself stepped blankly forward in white. Diane found the model to be too pale and nondescript for her tastes. The model’s makeup was sparsely applied. Diane shook her head at this and critiqued what she didn’t like about her appearance. She wondered how her own makeup was holding up and took a side trip to her bathroom mirror. She applied some touch-ups as needed, but overall, she was pleased with her improved and dramatic facial features. Her hair was a different story. Compared to the flashy models that grabbed her attention as they strutted with powerful strides toward the camera, her hair was… dull. Uninspired. Boring, even. She returned to the living room and adjusted her focus to hair care.

  Twenty minutes later, she was booked for an appointment at the Salon on Five. Thirty minutes later, she was getting the shampooing of a lifetime from a pretty young woman named Destini. Diane leaned back in her chair and suppressed a low groan as Destini’s fingertips pressed into her scalp. If this was self-care, she thought, she wanted more. Lots more.

  Her stylist was named Morgyn. She looked at Diane with a heavy-lidded expression and nodded blankly at Diane’s ideas about how she wanted her hair to look. After hearing Diane’s request for a bobbed cascading blowout, Morgyn popped her chewing gum and simply said, “No.”

  Morgyn spun Diane’s chair around and made her face the mirror. She picked at Diane’s hair and huffed. “You don’t have hair down to your waist, for starters,” she continued. “And just to be real, you’re not Latina. Or Khrystina Hillman. But I think I get where you’re coming from. You’re sick of drab. It seems like you’re ready to take things to the next level.” She gave Diane’s hair a look of withering disapproval. “Or three.”

  Diane nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, please.”

  “You okay with color? That costs extra. And you’re
looking at two more hours in the chair. Your call.”

  Diane stared at her reflection intently, ready to be transformed into the object of desire Lady Diamond was training her to become. Attract powerful men, she said, then use them. Take from them whatever you desire. She thought of Lyssa, then of Alexa. Diane nodded once. “Do it.”

  Diane underwent hours of meticulous snipping and styling at the hands of Morgyn. She learned that Morgyn used to do hair for Emerald Plaza Productions before winding up at the salon. She rattled off the names of the famous actresses and socialites she had tended to. Diane didn’t know any of their names and figured this was a conversation Lyssa would be more comfortable with. To be sociable, she asked if a person Morgyn had name-dropped had worked with Kent Brantley.

  “Naw, my sister dated his brother once. She was trying to get Kent in her pants but he was off shooting in Germany, or whatever. She said Colt wasn’t bad, for second-best.”

  “Huh,” Diane said. “I never knew he had a brother. That had to be weird, dating a guy who grew up with a famous movie star.”

  “Naw, he was a dick. My sister says all he did was bitch about how Kent was a hack, and how he was taking acting lessons. He said he was going to blow his doors off and live in a huge mansion. Thalia said he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.” She gave Diane a wry smile. “Especially when she caught him boning some other chick who bought into his bullcrap. He said they were doing a scene together.”

  Diane rolled her eyes. “Un-fricking-believable.”

  “Right? Thalia acted out a scene of her own: it was called, ‘Ditch the loser boyfriend’. She rebounded okay. Now she’s shacked up with some investor dude. He’s all into real estate. He keeps saying to snap up everything west of Newark. She wanted me to go in on some condos with them, but I was like, ‘Since when do I have that kind of money?’ And she was all like, ‘Get in on this action, and you’ll cash up big time.’ And I was all like, thinking about it, but I passed. Good thing, too.”