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He leaned forward, the laughing blue eyes deadly serious. “You think this a joke? Not at all. Your career’s been shot into a black hole unless you cooperate. You know the presentation for Heidelman? I’ll bring the video.”
“I could go to Heidelman and just report you for sexual harassment.”
He looked intrigued. “Are you going to? A tough character-defining choice. Which is more important to you? Justice or your academic image? That’s how you know what you’re really made of. Which path are you going to take?”
Mickey looked up, close enough where she could see the true ugliness of his nature. “What has happened to you? You used to be nice, now you’re just a bastard. Have you ever seen what a positron beam can do to human flesh? I’d say that’s one directional splatter we’ve yet to map. What do you say, John? Want to go down in history?”
He took a sip of cola, looking completely unfazed by threats of evaporation. “Does that mean we’re on for tonight? I’ve got to work late in the lab this evening, but for you? I’ll wait up.”
Wait up? He’d have to wait for hell to freeze, for time travel to be possible and for the discovery of Higgs Boson. “I have a hot date with my boyfriend,” she said.
“You don’t have a boyfriend, Mickey. Remember?”
She raised an eyebrow. Very Queen Elizabeth. “Maybe I do.”
“Yeah, right. Look, I’ll let you have your fun. Tonight you’re off the hook. And I’ll be nice and leave you the weekend free, but come Monday…” His voice trailed off, and he flicked a finger under her chin.
At his touch, she flinched, saddened that she’d actually had a pleasant carnal-knowledge experience with this creep. “You’re watching too many bad movies, Monihan.”
He walked over to his computer and clicked on his mouse a few times. Instantly the air was filled with moans and heavy breathing.
She slapped her hand down on her desk, welcoming the pain. “Shut it off.”
“Monday night?”
When the seventh quark was discovered, and not a moment before. Mickey shot him a dire look. “Whatever.”
IT WAS DARK OUT; the apartment complex was in a seedy part of the South Side. Thankfully, security lights were nonexistent. Mickey brought out her flashlight as they made their way to the side of the building.
“Ready?” she asked, whispering behind her.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” was Beth’s sole vote of confidence.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Yeah, you do. Hire Dominic.”
“He’s too expensive. And besides that, he’s dangerous.”
“Well, yes. But expensive means that he’s good, and you live for danger.”
Mickey shone her flashlight in Beth’s face to see if she was serious. Not a trace of a smile. Sometimes Beth scared her.
“I can do this,” Mickey answered, just as she found the old fire escape. Bingo.
“And why do you think that?”
Mickey pulled at the ladder, and the whole world resounded with the painful creak. “I researched breaking and entering on the Internet.”
Behind her, she heard the sound of Beth rolling her eyeballs.
Now wasn’t the time for naysayers, though. She searched through her bag until she found the can of WD-40. There’s always another use. Little did the advertisers realize, it could also be used for B and E. One spritz and the ladder was as quiet as the lab on Sunday.
“Okay, Shifty, what do we do next?” asked Beth.
Mickey climbed onto the fire escape and got to the second floor. Quickly Beth scampered up behind her. Then Mickey shone her light on the wooden window frame. It looked just like the diagram on the Net. “We can lift up on this and slide it off its tracks.”
“I’ll take this side,” said Beth, positioning herself at one end.
Mickey put down the flashlight and grabbed the other side. “One, two, three. Lift.”
They heaved.
Nothing.
Mickey took a long breath. “Okay, we’re just not putting enough into this.”
“Excuse me. I was. I put everything into that lift. Aren’t you supposed to know how to do this? Can we just teleport it, or something?”
“Transport. And that only works in Star Trek.”
“I’m losing faith in you, Mickey. I didn’t think this was going to work, but I told myself, ‘No, if anybody can hypothesize her way out of this, it’s you.’ I was wrong.” Beth, when tired, got mouthy.
Mickey, who had no patience for tired, mouthy women, shot her a warning look. “Shh. One more time.”
They got in place again.
“One, two, three. Lift.”
Somewhere in the dark they heard a noise.
“What was that?” Mickey asked, her heart pounding wildly.
Beth looked down below. “A cat.”
“One more time.”
“Maybe we could just break it?”
Mickey cased the joint, considering the idea. Everything was too quiet. “Nah. Somebody might hear us.”
“Can we try the front door? Maybe it’s unlocked.”
“You have no imagination.”
“Logic, Mick. It’s called logic.”
Beth had a point. Mickey abandoned her short life of crime. “Okay.”
They climbed back down and entered the building’s lobby. John’s apartment was on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs. Mickey handed the flashlight to Beth and tried the doorknob.
Locked.
Beth stared at Mickey’s hand, her mouth open. “You’re wearing gloves?”
“I didn’t want to leave any prints.”
“And what about me?”
Mickey had researched that, too. “Your prints aren’t on file. No worries.”
“What? You’ve been arrested before?”
“No. Anybody that handles plutonium gets printed and filed in the national database. Procedure.”
Beth got a little wide-eyed. “You really work with plutonium?”
“Nah. Just a little prison humor.”
Beth wasn’t amused. “Can we go now?”
A long beam of headlights lit up the window off the stairwell.
“Somebody’s coming,” Mickey said, and then took off up the stairs to the third floor. “Up here. If it’s John, he won’t see us.”
Beth followed right behind, a streak in black spandex and sweater. Very stylish. Silently they waited for the door to open below.
The door eased open and an old man creaked his way into the foyer. Mickey began to breathe again. “False alarm.”
“Look, this isn’t working. You need to hire Dominic.”
Oh, hell.
Mickey leaned against the rickety stair rail and faced the whole truth. Sadly, her life as she knew it was pretty much screwed unless she got that tape back, and Dominic Corlucci, mob guy extraordinaire, seemed the best answer.
Somewhere upstairs, a stereo cranked up. Loud, discordant and really, really bad music.
Mickey sighed. “Oh, all right.”
“Want to get a beer?”
“Soft drink for me,” she answered. She was still paying for the aftereffects of her last binge.
“I’ll buy.”
Mickey stuffed her gloves in her pocket and studied her own attire. Black sweatshirt and matching knit pants. Passable, but barely. “You think we should change?”
Beth shook her head. “Nah. Black is very in.”
3
ON SATURDAY MORNING, Mickey donned the long blond wig. She pulled the boots from her closet and searched for something remotely sleazy.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In disgust, she slapped her hand against the hard wooden frame and immediately regretted it. Swift, Coleman, very swift. She was going to have to do something about her wardrobe if she wanted to continue her disguise in front of Dominic Corlucci—which she did. Her alter ego was going to need some more clothes. She should talk to Cassandra about that. If there was one woman who knew sleaze—a tasteful sort of sleaze—it was Cassandra.
Dejected, she leaned against the closet frame. There was only one reason for this loss of steely self-control. Sex.
And one way to fix it. Never again was she going to have sex.
If Queen Victoria could do it, so could Mickey. Some little particle of double circled inside her, due mainly to the nighttime sightings of Dominic Corlucci in her dreams. Dreams that were starting to impact her sleeping abilities. But what harm was there in a little idle fantasizing? Mickey had always had a healthy fantasy life. And fantasies were allowed under the steely selfcontrol regime. It kept the lonely Saturday nights interesting.
She shoved off the doubts and started strategizing her dress code, the pragmatic Mickey returning. If Dominic ever knew the real Mickey Coleman, he wouldn’t give her the time of day, much less an interesting Saturday night, so fantasies were all she had.
Another hour later and she was at Beth’s Starbucks in full regalia—creatively inspired by a Victoria’s Secret catalog and utilizing underwear in a manner for which it was not intended. The black camisole turned heads, which she hoped was a good thing.
She ordered a latte and then settled herself at his table. Prepared for all eventualities, she pulled out the latest issue of Scientific American—discreetly tucked inside a Playgirl—and sat back to read.
Half an hour later, he showed. When he walked through the door, she experienced that extreme tickling inside her that seemed so odd. Again. What was it about him? Was it the long, lean body that moved so gracefully? Was it the hooded eyes that seemed as deep and dark as the blackest night sky? Whatever it was, it was powerful and scared the smegaroo right out of her. Mickey didn’t like men to have power over her. She was arrogant enough to think she could make her way to the top on her own merits. Everything would have been fine except for John Monihan. Except for Dominic Corlucci. Maybe she was just doomed to be stupid with men.
Oh, enough already. She took one last confidence-building sip of her coffee and then stood, electing to operate from a position of dominance. “You’re late.”
His eyes flickered with amusement. “If I had known you were so…anxious, I’d have come sooner.” He glanced over at the Playgirl and raised an eyebrow. “A little light reading?”
“For the articles only,” she said, and then winced when she noticed the front page, Seven Sensational Positions to Achieve the Ultimate O. She shrugged a shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “We have a deal?”
He crossed his powerful arms over his chest, his T-shirt clinging to muscles that made her mouth salivate in a purely Pavlovian response. “Yeah, but there’s one little thing I need.”
At this point, Mickey would have promised him anything. “What?”
“I need an escort. Somebody to fill in for a while.”
Anything except that. “Let me think about it for a minute. No.”
Then he shrugged a shoulder, nothing nonchalant about it at all. “The deal’s off.”
A lesser woman would have stamped her foot. Mickey merely adjusted her glasses. “You’re willing to walk away from two-thousand dollars because I won’t decorate your arm?”
Evenly he met her eyes. “Yeah.”
She pulled herself up to her full five feet eleven inches and stared down her nose. He was taller than her by half a head, but the effect was still good. “What kind of wise guy are you?”
And she had him. His eyes flickered, not a big move, but she caught it. His gaze slid over her, a look she was learning to recognize, guaranteed to drop her stomach three megaohms. Then he slowly shook his head, regret marking his expression. “All right. We do it your way.”
She didn’t feel like woman triumphant, only woman stupid, but determinedly she carried on. “It’s a business transaction, Mr. Corlucci. I’ll pay a quarter of your fee up front, a quarter after the first visit to Monihan’s apartment and the remainder upon delivery of the tape.”
“Very professional,” he said with a smile.
“It’s a job. Nothing more,” she answered.
