Courier (25 page)

After he was done, he looked at it thoughtfully. "You know, I'm going to have to let Cosmopolitan Couriers know I've quit at some point. They'll probably make me give this back." He sighed and picked up his duffel. "Too bad. I've just begun to feel comfortable with the handling."

Eve shot him a look of disbelief. "You've spent hundreds of hours on that bike and you're just beginning to get comfortable?"

"Hey, it's like a marriage. Doesn't happen overnight."

Eve started toward the front of the office building. "Do yourself a favor, Trooper. Don't ever use that analogy with your wife – if you're ever lucky enough to have one. You or the motorcycle will be toast. Probably both."

As they walked down the driveway, Rick said innocently, "It's interesting; did you know that you have to steer a bike in the opposite direction from where you really want it to go?"

Eve looked to see if he was kidding. "That's not true."

"Actually, it is." He held his hands out as if they were on the handlebars. "It's all about centrifugal force and gyroscopes. Once you get going, the motorcycle just wants to stay upright and go straight ahead."

He pushed the left hand forward and the right hand back. "If you want to turn left, you actually push your left hand forward like you're turning to the right. The bike resists the change, leans to the left, and goes left. You push one way, and it goes the other."

"If you say ‘just like a woman', I swear I'll kill you where you stand."

"Never crossed my mind." He put on his most innocent look. "However, the movement of a really responsive motorcycle carving turns on a winding road is a sensual pleasure."

Eve threw a hand up over her shoulder in a dismissive gesture.

He spotted her smile as she turned.

The streets were empty under the yellowish streetlights when they reached the front door. It was an older building, four stories of red brick at the bottom and a top floor of yellowish brick above a strip of concrete molding decorated with someone's idea of heraldic shields.

Eve didn't even check to see if the front door was locked. Instead, she began tapping the bricks, beginning at the edge of the doorframe. She didn't seem inclined to explain what she was doing, so Rick just held both their bags and watched.

When she had counted nine bricks to the right of the door, and five up from the sidewalk, she kept her finger on it as she bent down and picked out a long rusted nail from where it was lodged in a crack between building and sidewalk. Using the point of the nail, she pried out a large chunk of mortar from the top of the brick. Scraping the nail in the hole where the mortar had been, she extracted a key. She then replaced the chunk of mortar, pounding it back into place with her palm.

"The owners aren't all that concerned with material things," she said as she unlocked and opened the front door, "so they have a tendency to forget a lot of stuff. Getting paid, meeting deadlines, checking spelling, and house keys."

Inside was a dark, gloomy hall with walls layered in years of brown paint and the floors covered with battered linoleum that might have had a pattern on it at some point in the distant past. There were several doors on the first floor, but Eve headed up the wooden stairs.

"Who are these guys?" Rick asked as he followed.

"Well, the sign in the window pretty much says it all. They're printers who believe in The Revolution." Rick could hear the capital letters in her voice.

At the top of the fifth flight of stairs, Eve again used the key to open a door plastered from top to bottom with peeling posters, bumper stickers, and multicolored signs, some calling for marches against the war, others calling for marches to support women's rights, and at least one calling for a march in protest of another march.

Eve swept her arm across the colorful slogans. "Where do you think all those flyers and posters and big banners come from? The Protest Fairy?"

Inside, the lights were off and there was a smell of lubricating oil, various sharp chemicals, and library paste. In the dim glow from the dirty windows, Rick could see a bulky mass of machinery he assumed was the printer in the center of the room and, surrounding it, stacks of paper, boxes of ink, and a large pile of wooden strips he guessed were for holding up signs. Covering every inch of horizontal surface was a tide of printed paper – it looked like at least one copy of everything that had been printed here for the past decade.

He picked one up and angled it to the light. "Wow, the Beatles are going to play the Washington Coliseum on February 11th." He looked closer. "Oh, well, we're about eight years late."

"This place is a museum of countercultural history." Eve fingered a couple of large wall posters. "Here's the Mobilization to Stop the War from 1969, and this is the time they tried to levitate the Pentagon."

"How did that work out?"

"The Pentagon floated and the war ended. Where have you been?" She picked her way toward a large cabinet behind the printer, motioning Rick to follow. "I was here a lot during the Trail of Broken Treaties and again when the Movement occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Someone had to get our side of the story out."

The cabinet was on rollers and she pushed it aside to reveal a set of stairs heading up. Rick looked up into the darkness. "Odd place to put stairs."

"Yeah, this building has been rebuilt so many times, I think they've lost track of exactly what's in here." Eve motioned for Rick to go up the stairs first and then pulled the cabinet back into place. A dim light bulb came on at the top of the stairs.

"From what I can see, the hallway was supposed to run all the way through, but at some point, they walled it off. I think Donna told me it was for a law firm, and all law firms want an interior stair."

Rick had done deliveries in any number of law firms. "Lawyers do love their stairs. I think it's because they make anyone who comes to see them walk as far as possible – humble them before the meeting."

There was a very sturdy-looking steel door at the top of the stairs. Eve unlocked it, reached in, and flipped on the lights. Then she went in, held the door open, and welcomed him in with a bow and a flourish.

The entire top floor was a single room – a totally open space except for some massive support beams and an enclosure that Rick assumed was the bathroom. Thick coats of paint covered the windows, but hanging lights illuminated hardwood floors and brick walls. A compact kitchen and counter occupied one corner, folding panels blocked off two sleeping areas on either end, and in the center of the space was an enormous U-shaped couch facing a fireplace. Wood was stacked neatly on a tiled hearth.

Rick took it all in. "Where the hell did this come from?"

"I said Donna and Shakib were revolutionaries against the rich. I didn't say they lived like the poor. As far as protest printing goes, they're the only game in town, and since they'll do work on credit and protest movements are always broke…" She shrugged. "Eventually, we all have to get our work done here."

Eve dropped her bag on the floor and headed to the kitchen area. "They decided they wanted a place where no one could find them. You might have noticed that the door behind you is made of steel. Close it, will you?"

Rick closed the surprisingly heavy door. When he turned the lock, he could hear bolts dropping into the floor. "You know, if I wasn't feeling so happy about the security up here, I'd say they were a bit paranoid."

Eve was rattling utensils in the kitchen area. "I'm having tea. Do you want anything?"

"Tea-sipping revolutionaries?" Rick dropped the bags, walked over, and sat at the counter. "That seems wrong somehow. However, I'm not a revolutionary, and I'd love some tea. Where are… Donna and what's-his-name?"

"Shakib. They've gone back to Lebanon for Christmas with his parents. He's a Maronite Christian, and they've combined revolution with personal profit for centuries. They even have another house – a dump right off the 14th Street riot corridor where they get their mail and pay their taxes." She set out cups and checked the refrigerator. "I don't trust this milk, so I hope you don't want any."

"No, I'm fine. How did you find out about this place?"

"On November 5th, two of the young men holding the Bureau of Indian Affairs got beat up by cops, and everyone put on war paint and got ready to die. I was up here when I heard about it, and Donna didn't want me to go back through the police lines, so she persuaded me to crash here." Eve laughed. "War paint – it was lipstick, for God's sake."

"I've heard it's hard to buy good war paint in DC these days."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Make yourself useful and build a fire." There were old posters stacked in a box next to the fireplace. Rick crumpled a few and stuffed them under the grate, laid the logs over that, and lit the fire with his Zippo. They sat side by side on the couch and watched the logs burn for a long time, not talking much but relaxing in each other's company.

Finally, she stood up and said, "Let's go, Trooper."

"Separate beds?"

"Are you kidding?" She headed toward one of the sleeping areas. "And listen to you refight the war all night? No way."

He stood. "I can deal with it."

She spun around and put her hands on her hips. "I know you can deal with it. You're strong and tough and a very good man." Her eyes were suddenly filled with angry tears. "But I've spent two days at your side, damned near getting killed, and I want to go to sleep in your arms, and if you don't understand that, then you're not the man I think you are."

He grinned. "Wow, I'll bet you couldn't say that again if you tried."

She spun toward the bed. "Oh, the hell with you. Fight your damn war alone."

He followed her into the sleeping area and put his arms around her, burying his face in her neck and inhaling the warm scent of her hair. Then, without turning her around, he gently began to unbutton her shirt.

 

Instead of the hard plastic of the radio, soft lips were on his mouth, stifling his cries. He wrenched his body from side to side, but strong arms held him tight and smooth legs wrapped around his waist. He calmed and began to wake, but the warm body on top of him kept on holding him, rocking in a steady beat.

Relief turned to something else. Something better, deeper, and stronger.

His hands slid down her back into the hollow at the base of her spine. Her arms and legs continued to hold him as she slid down and took him inside her.

Her body was a wonder, a marvel of new sensations. He couldn't stop running his hands along her sides, up her back, and over her breasts. He felt her long, unbraided hair falling across his body like running water.

The rocking turned to racing, and then a clenching of his entire body was met by an equal fierceness in hers. He fell asleep with her on top of him, her head against his chest.

For a couple of hours, he didn't dream at all.

Then he was in the jungle again.

CHAPTER 29

 

He was fully dressed in his usual gray suit, leaning over with his forearms on his knees to keep the jacket from creasing against the straight-backed chair that, besides the narrow bed, was the only furniture in his YMCA room. The cold late afternoon sun coming in the open window brought the sound of church bells: long, jangling sequences that always seemed about to resolve into a tune, but never did. He concentrated on them, let them fill the spaces in his mind until it was almost like silence.

Save for the clangor of the bells, it was quiet outside, the usual sounds of traffic, work, and business missing. It was Christmas, and, from experience, he knew that in Washington, that meant empty streets and locked buildings. He was alone, but not lonely. He felt safe in the silence.

Thoughts and plans slowly circulated through his mind. The courier. It was too bad he was a vet; it gave him an edge – too many survival skills. He needed to get a handle on him and find some way to get rid of that damn bike. Slow him down. Bring him into a kill zone – lock it down and take him out.

Was the girl the handle? Who was she?

Idly, he wondered if the biker was a faggot like his buddy. He had come back for him – it could be love. Too bad Tung had screwed that up. That should have been the point at which everything was wiped clean. Well, Tung wasn't that badly hurt, and both twins were out trying hard to make it right. Cruising the streets in that stupid sports car and hoping to catch the guy by sheer luck.

Abruptly, he stood and stepped to the window. His room was high enough that he could see over the row houses all the way to the cathedral on the hill. He could even make out the scaffolding that still covered one side.

The bells had stopped, and he looked for a time at the city. Then he carefully closed the window, latched it firmly, and left.

He walked through the lobby, noting the young men preening and the older men watching. Outside the main door, he straightened his jacket and looked up and down the street. One light was on in the ornate stone wedding cake that was the Old Executive Office Building – someone holding down the holiday duty shift.