Hot Shot (8 page)

At six o'clock she slipped out of the apartment and made her way down the littered hallway to the pay phone that hung near the front door. Digging a coin from the pocket of her jeans, she pushed it into the slot and, after a few moment's hesitation, dialed.

Susannah would still be in bed, and the housekeeper shouldn't be in until eight. Unless her father was out of town, he would pick up the phone himself.

"Yes?" He answered brusquely, as if he were speaking into his office intercom.

She tangled the dirty, stretched-out telephone cord through her fingers. "Daddy, it's Paige."

There was a moment's silence. "It's six o'clock, Paige. I'm just getting dressed. What do you want?"

"Look, I'm sorry I couldn't make it to your birthday party. I—something came up."

"I wasn't aware that you'd been invited."

Her mouth twisted bitterly. She should have known that Saint Susannah was responsible for the invitation. "Yeah, well, I was."

"I see."

She turned to face the grimy wall. Her words came quickly, fiercely. "Listen, I just thought you might like to know that a man from Azday Records came to hear us play last night, and he wants to talk to us about a contract."

She squeezed her eyes shut, barely breathing as she waited for his response. She wanted to frame the words for him so he would say what she needed to hear—words of enthusiasm, of praise.

"I see," he repeated.

Leaning her forehead against the wall, she gripped the receiver so tightly that her knuckles turned pale. "It's no big deal or anything. Azday is an important company. They listen to a lot of bands, and it might fall through."

Joel sighed. "I don't know why you've called to tell me this, Paige. You surely don't expect my blessing. When are you going to start acting like an adult?"

She winced and set her jaw. "Hey, Joel, I'm having fun. Life's too short for all that shit."

Silent tears began to slide down her cheeks.

His reply was stiff with disapproval. "I have to dress, Paige. When you're willing to start acting responsibly like your sister, I'll be more than willing to talk to you."

A harsh click traveled over the line as he ended the conversation.

Paige stood perfectly still, holding the receiver to her ear. Her wet cheek lay pressed against the wall where her tears smeared the carelessly scrawled obscenities and abandoned phone numbers of a decade. "Don't go," she whispered. "I never meant to cause you so much trouble. I just wanted you to notice me, to be proud of me. Please, Daddy. Just once be proud of me."

A door slammed and a kid in his early twenties came out into the hallway on his way to work. She banged the receiver down and straightened so quickly that her spine might have been shot through with an injection of liquid steel. Lifting her chin, she swept past him, her hips swaying in an easy, carefree manner.

A long, low wolf whistle sounded from behind her.

She tossed her hair. "Fuck you, shithead."

Susannah pulled the silver Mercedes sedan her father had given her for her birthday into the parking lot at the Palace of Fine Arts. The rotunda rose like a Baroque wedding cake over the other buildings in San Francisco's Marina District. A light drizzle had begun falling when she'd reached the city. Her hand trembled as she turned off the windshield wipers and the ignition. There was still time to go back, she told herself. She nervously touched her neatly coiled hair, then she slipped the keys into her small leather shoulder bag.

As she got out of the car, she felt as if a stranger had taken over her body—a restless, rebellious stranger. Why was she doing something so out of character? Guilt gnawed at her. She was getting ready to commit exactly the sort of irresponsible act she criticized her sister for.

She walked across the parking lot toward the main building, thinking about the Palace's history so she wouldn't have to think about her own behavior. The Palace of Fine Arts had been constructed in 1913 as part of the Pan-Pacific Exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. It had been restored from near ruin in the late 1950s and now held the Exploritorium, a hands-on science museum that was a favorite of the city's children. Joel had served on the Board of Directors until recently, when she had taken his place.

Bypassing the Exploritorium, she walked along the path that took her to the rotunda, which was set next to a small lagoon. The rotunda, open to the elements, had massive columns and a dome that was circumscribed by a classical frieze. It was raining harder now and the building was damp, chilly, and deserted.

As she stared through the columns out toward the dreary, rain-pocked lagoon, she crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. Although she had on wool slacks and a cable-knit sweater, she wished she had chosen a warmer blazer. Nervously, she fingered her engagement ring. With the exception of a thin gold watch, it was her only piece of jewelry. "Less is more," her grandmother used to say. "Remember, Susannah. Less is always more." Sometimes, though, Susannah thought that less was less.

Misery settled over her. She shouldn't be here. She was uneasy and guilt-ridden. She wanted to believe that she had come today only because she was curious about what Sam Gamble carried in his leather case, but she didn't think that was true.

"I was right about you."

Startled, she spun around and saw him walking into the rotunda. Drops of rainwater beaded on his jacket and something silver glimmered through his dark hair. With a jolt she realized that he was wearing an earring. Her stomach knotted. What kind of woman slipped away from her father and her fiancé to meet a man who wore an earring?

He set the leather sample case next to a sawhorse and some wooden crates being used for repair work. She could smell the rain in his hair as he came close. Her eyes fastened on a few dark strands that were sticking to his cheek, then moved to his silver earring, which was shaped like one of the primitive heads on Easter Island. It swayed back and forth like a hypnotist's watch as he spoke. "I usually expect too much from people, and then I'm disappointed."

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her blazer and prepared to keep silent, as she frequently did when she was uneasy. Ironically, these silences had earned her the reputation of being totally self-possessed. And then—as if she had fallen under the spell of that hypnotically swaying earring—she heard herself saying exactly what she was thinking. "Sometimes I don't think I expect enough from people."

For her, it was an uncharacteristically bold piece of self-revelation, but he merely shrugged. "I'm not surprised." His eyes moved over her face with an intensity that further unnerved her. And then his lips curved into a cocky grin. "You want to take a ride on my Harley later?"

She looked at him for a moment and, amazingly, felt herself beginning to smile. His question was so unexpected, so wonderfully startling. No one had ever asked her such a thing.

"I'm not exactly the motorcycle type."

"So what? Have you ever ridden one?"

For a moment she actually considered the idea. Then she realized how ridiculous it was.

Motorcycles were dirty and unsafe. She shook her head.

"It's great," he said. "Incredible. Straddling the bike. Feeling all that power between your thighs—the vibration, the surge of the engine." His voice dropped and once again his eyes caressed her face. "It's almost as good as sex."

She was a world champion at hiding her feelings, and not by a flicker of an eyelash did she betray the effect his words had on her. All too clearly, she saw what a mistake she had made by coming to meet him. Something about him fed those inappropriate erotic fantasies that plagued her. "I was under the impression that you asked me to come here today to discuss business, Mr. Gamble."

"I thought redheads were supposed to have hot tempers. You don't look like you ever get mad."

She felt strangely defensive. "Of course I do."

"Have you ever gotten royally pissed off?"

"I get angry like everyone else."

"Have you ever thrown anything?"

"No."

"Hit anybody?"

"Of course not."

A mischievous smile tilted the corner of his mouth. "Have you ever called anybody an asshole?"

She started to make a properly stuffy response, only to feel that treacherous smile once again tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I've been much too well brought up for that sort of thing."

He lifted his arm and, without warning, gently scraped the backs of his knuckles over her cheek. "You're really something, Suzie. You know that?"

Her smile faded. His hand felt slightly rough, as if the skin were chapped. Cal's hands were so smooth that she sometimes didn't realize he'd touched her. She eased her head away from him. "My name is Susannah. No one ever calls me Suzie."

"Good."

Discomfited, she slid her fingers along the leather shoulder strap of her purse. "Perhaps you should tell me why you wanted to meet me here today?"

He laughed and lowered his arm. "Other than a couple of English professors I had in college, you're the only person I know who can use a word like 'perhaps' and not sound like a phony."

"You went to college?" Somehow, it didn't fit his wild biker's image.

"For a couple of years, and then I got bored."

"I can't imagine anyone getting bored with college."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty restless." Without asking permission, he clasped her arm and led her over to one of the wooden crates the workers had left. "Sit down here. I want to show you something." She sat and crossed her hands in her lap as he lifted his case to the spot beside her.

"I like challenges, Suzie. Adventure. Maybe you'll understand who I am when you see this."

She found herself holding her breath as he pressed the latches. What secrets did this biker medicine-show man carry with him? Her imagination conjured up a panoply of ridiculously romantic images—yellowed treasure maps, precious jewels bearing ancient curses, sacred scrolls from the caves by the Dead Sea.

With a dramatic flourish, he flipped open the lid.

For a moment he was silent. When he finally spoke, his voice held the whispered awe of someone in church. "Did you ever see anything so beautiful in your life?"

She stared down into the contents of the case and was overwhelmed with disappointment.

"The design is so elegant, so damned efficient, it makes you want to cry. This is it, Suzie.

You're looking at the vanguard of a whole new way of life."

All she saw was an uninteresting collection of electronic parts mounted on a circuit board.

"It's a computer, Suzie. A computer small enough and cheap enough to change the world."

Her feeling of letdown was almost palpable. This was what she got for sneaking around like a cat burglar. It must be the pressure of the wedding that had made her act so irresponsibly. She twisted her engagement ring so the diamond was straight and slipped back into her polite, cool shell. "I really don't know why you're showing me this." She began to rise, only to have a hard hand settle on her shoulder and push her firmly back down. It startled her so much she made a small exclamation.

"I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is too small to be a computer."

She wasn't thinking any such thing, but perhaps it was better to pretend she was than to let him suspect how jumbled her real thoughts were. "FBT has been a pioneer in computers since the 1950s," she said evenly. "I've been around them most of my life, and they're much larger than this."

"Exactly. Even the so-called 'mini' computers are nearly as big as a refrigerator. But this is still a computer, Suzie. The heart and guts of one. A
micro
computer. And Yank's improving it every day."

"Yank?"

"He's an electronic genius—a born hacker. We met when we were kids, and we've been friends ever since. He can design the sweetest pieces of integrated circuitry you've ever seen. It's a point of pride with him to come up with a design that uses one less chip than anybody else's. With an established company behind this computer, it could be on the market before the end of the year."

By "an established company," he meant FBT, she thought. How could she have lost sight of the fact that he wanted to use her to get to her father?

He had made her feel foolish, so she was deliberately unkind. It wasn't like her, but then, neither was slipping away from home to meet a street-smart biker. She gestured dismissively toward the unimpressive batch of electronic parts that obviously meant so much to him. "I can't imagine anybody wanting to buy something like this."

"You're kidding, aren't you?"

"I never kid."

She saw his impatience and once again found herself staring at him, almost mesmerized as she watched him try unsuccessfully to contain his emotions. Unlike her, he didn't seem to conceal anything. What would it feel like to be so free?

"You don't get it, do you?" he said.

"Get what?"

"Think about it, Suzie. Most of the computers in this country are million-dollar machines locked up in concrete rooms where only guys in three-piece suits can get to them—guys with ID cards and plastic badges with photos on them. Companies like FBT and IBM

make these computers for big business, for government, for universities, for the military.

They're made by fat cats to serve fat cats. Computers are knowledge, Suzie. They're power. And right now the government and big business have all that power locked up for themselves."

She tilted her head toward the collection of electronic circuits. "This is going to change that?"

"Not right away. But eventually, yes, especially with a company like FBT marketing it.

The board needs expanding. Everything has to be self-contained. We need a terminal, a video monitor. It needs more memory. But Yank is coming up with new hacks all the time. The guy's a genius."

"You don't seem to have much respect for FBT. Why are you offering them your design?"

"I don't have enough money to manufacture it myself. Yank and I could make a few of these and sell them to our friends, but that's not good enough. Don't you see? A giant like FBT can make it happen. With FBT behind Yank's design, the world will have a computer that's small enough and—even more important—one that's
cheap
enough so that people can buy it for their homes. A person's computer. A home computer.