At The Edge

20

One beer led to another. Then a couple of boilermakers. The whiskey burn felt good. Filling the hole inside with liquid comfort seemed an acceptable idea until the pub started to move. Certain that Maria wasn't looking at this thing correctly, Dan decided to pay her a visit.

When he rose to walk, he realized that sitting down had made the earth flat. Standing, he didn't feel right, either. He knew he'd had too much alcohol. He needed to make a trip to Maria's room to sober up.

The stairs weren't too bad because there was a stout railing on both sides and no traffic. When he reached the lobby, he knew he had to concentrate. For a moment he sat in an overstuffed chair and considered his predicament. No way would the clerk give him Maria's room number. Although he knew it earlier in the day when he came to pick her up, he was now having a tough time. It was 328 or 338 or perhaps 318. Probably he could remember if he saw the door and its placement in the hallway.

Making his way to the elevator, he entered with some young guy. Something about his jacket seemed familiar, but he didn't look him in the face until he was standing at the back wall.

"You're drunk, asshole," the man said.

Then he knew who it was.

"Well, if it isn't the boyfriend."

"She's too good for you. Why don't you go find some tight-ass Republican?"

" 'Cause I found a tight-ass Democrat."

"You prick." Ross shoved him against the wall. Anger flashed through Dan, and he shoved back, throwing Ross against the wall. Ross reacted instantly, slugging him in the gut. It hurt and it made him angrier still. Putting his hand in Ross's face, he shoved him back.

"She ain't interested, and you can't face it." It was the wrong thing to say. Ross began swinging wildly and hit Dan in the face. But even drunk, Dan outmatched him. Although the punches were lethargic, one of them connected on the point of Ross's nose. He crumpled, and that was the end of the fight. Both men had blood down the front of their shirts.

When the door opened at the third floor, Ross remained leaning on the wall of the elevator. When it closed, Dan was in the hall and Ross was on his way back down.

Maria's eyes took in Dan, his bloodied shirt. He had found her door on the first try.

"What happened?"

"Did you know your biologist was going to be here?"

"You got in a fight."

"I didn't start it."

"Did you hurt him? Where did he go?" she asked.

"Back down in the elevator."

She pulled Dan inside and closed the door gently. "I can't begin to tell you how little I think of you."

"You're still mad?"

"I'm calling Pepacita to come for you."

"She's not home. Nate's at Lynette's."

"You're disgusting." She pushed him toward the bathroom. He began to fall, and she caught him. "I hate you," she said.

Corey stood in the light drizzle outside the Palmer Inn. With its white stucco sides crisscrossed by dark brown moldings and steep pitched roof, it was a combination of Tudor and Bavarian design and one of the most ornate and imposing structures in Palmer. She liked the feeling of the rain, liked the coastal sleet and fog of Palmer; she would never complain about the lack of sun.

Never far from her consciousness these days stood a shadow. The German loomed over everything she did, every decision she made. He was even in her dreams. In her fantasies she pleased him one minute, then vanquished him in the next. But the thought of pleasing him was like an anesthetic. It quieted her fear of the Japanese man who had bested her in the equipment room.

She knew that Maria Fischer stayed at the Palmer every time she was in town. Upon arriving, Maria would go from parking area to the open breezeway and on to the back door of the inn. She could be shot in the breezeway proper; or maybe a little sooner, as she crossed the parking lot, just after exiting her car. The more Corey thought about it, the better she liked the idea of lying in wait here at the inn; she could count on Maria approaching and leaving her car repeatedly; she would wait for just the right opportunity to strike. Problem was, she was here to kill Dan Young.

The German had just advised that Dan Young had spent the night with Maria Fischer and his car was in the area. Because she had worked so hard on Kim Lee's bomb, that was the method of choice. The only difficulty was that it was rigged on a timer, meant for a situation where she could see him coming. She had fixed that. First she had to find the car, then worry about the detonation.

Starting on foot, she walked away from the back of the inn, the rain pelting her face now, trickling under her wind-breaker, down her neck to the skin of her chest in chilly little ant trails. Traveling in a 180-degree arc behind the inn at a distance of a block, she carefully searched for the silver-gray Mercedes or the blue Chevy pickup that he normally drove. Evidently, the man was a little nervous about being tagged for an all-nighter with Maria Fischer. Otherwise, he could have put it in the parking lot.

She had gone only a block when she found it. A twelve-year-old Mercedes with sheepskin on the seats. How many of those could there be? Fortunately, it was a bit outdated; otherwise, she would have had alarm problems.

The bomb would go under the driver beneath the car. The wires would go one to the solenoid and one to ground. Determined to be careful, she had tested the detonation device on an actual solenoid for that make, model, and year Mercedes.

To do the job, she pulled up behind the Mercedes, but she had not considered that it was a Saturday morning. There were kids playing baseball in the street right in front of the car. It would be dangerous enough without the kids; with them, impossible. She would wait. Whether this morning or later, sometime this weekend she needed to blow Dan Young away.

Dan's headache loomed like a mountain. The pain started between his eyes and radiated to his temples. Trying to open his eyes, he rolled over, winking open one eye and expecting to see his grandmother's mahogany highboy. Instead, he saw a long room with a second double bed. Searching through his memory, he recalled the drinks in the bar. He moaned audibly, then found the inevitable red-letter digital clock on the nightstand: 9:00 a.m.

Looking around with both eyes now open, he saw the sign beside him on the bed, two words scrawled in red lipstick: get out!!!

Of all the times not to have been wearing underwear. For some reason there hadn't been any clean, so he had just pulled on his pants. It wasn't embarrassment at nudity that galled him, it was simply being caught without underwear-there was something second-class about not wearing shorts.

Perhaps because of his embarrassment the two words scrawled in lipstick took on extra force.' 'Fine, just give me my clothes," he muttered.

They were nowhere to be found. Casting aside the blanket, he remembered the research he was going to do on local mines, the further work on Corey Schneider, the memo from the professor he had to study, and all the other things that would come to mind when he returned to his den and bulletin board with a cup of coffee.

In the closet he found his clothes, hand-washed and half-dried. Given that he came in the middle of the night, that must have taken some doing. He pulled on his pants and T-shirt, socks, and shoes. He would go home to his den, regroup, and try to find her.

Dan walked across the street. There was nobody about but a lone dog pawing at a garbage can. Palmer seemed particularly desolate this morning. Other than the Mercedes, there was only a single car parked on the street, a van. He looked at his wrist. He'd left his watch in the hotel room. That was what was wrong.

He wondered if Maria had propped him up under the shower. Vaguely he remembered her robe getting wet. Fundamentally, he was humiliated but really didn't want to go there in his mind. Normally, he controlled his drinking to the extent that he never became falling-down drunk. Last night he was nearly that, and it unnerved him. On the way back to the room, he decided he had taken his last drink. The decision made him feel better. In three minutes he was back at the car. He put his cell phone in the carriage, looked in the rearview mirror, and saw Maria's Cherokee pull up behind him.

In the hope of salvaging the situation, he climbed out of the Mercedes and walked back. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the van pull away.

"Hi," he said. He knew that despite himself he had a grim frown on his face. "I've had my last drink. I mean, I decided that would be best."

"I believe you," she said without hesitation. "But if you want anything to do with me, don't ever, ever forget you said that."

"Nothing like a clear understanding," he said.

"Someone else in your office could work on the Highlands. You don't have to do it personally. That's a choice."

"Plunging right in, are we? This is my area. I don't want to give it away."

"There isn't anything else you want more?"

"Well, like what?"

"I still can't accept our little rapprochement if you're fighting to cut the Highlands."

"What if I said I would like to be friends. Kind of a personal thing."

"I'd say prove it."

"Well, shit."

She started the Cherokee, threw it in gear, and backed up. Evidently, his expression had spoken as loudly as his words.