“You recognize him?” Spike said.
“I can’t see him well enough.”
“Want me to go ask him about himself?” Spike said.
“God, you’re aggressive,” Sunny said. “‘Excuse me, sir, are you by any chance stalking someone?’ ”
“Just a thought,” Spike said.
Sunny put the car in drive and headed toward Park Square. She turned left behind the Four Seasons hotel and left on Arlington and circled briefly through the South End and back onto Charles. The man was gone. Sunny continued on Charles slowly, but he wasn’t in sight. Sunny went once again around the block. Again, nothing.
“Want a drink?” Sunny said.
“What about Rosie?” Spike said.
“We’ll go to the Four Seasons,” Sunny said. “Guys on the door will look out for her.”
1 1 2
H I G H P R O F I L E
They sat at the bar downstairs. Sunny ordered a cosmopolitan. Spike had bourbon.
“So what do you think of Jenn?” Sunny said.
“I think I’m the perfect bodyguard for her.”
“A tough fairy,” Sunny said.
“I can protect her, and she can’t seduce me.”
“You think she would?”
“It’s what she knows how to do,” Spike said. “I don’t know if she’d want sex or not, but she’d use it to get what she wanted. If I was straight, I’d follow her around like a beagle.”
“She has a lot of juice.”
“And she generates a lot of heat,” Spike said.
“Spike, I didn’t think you noticed things like that.”
“I notice,” Spike said. “I just don’t care.”
“Jesse said she wouldn’t like you because she couldn’t use her sex on you.”
“Jesse’s right,” Spike said. “I think she’ll accept me. I’m big and strong, and she’s scared. But I know women like Jenn. She’s not homophobic. My sex life is fine with her. But they only know how to relate to men in a sexual context, and when that’s not available, as it’s not with me, it makes them ill at ease.”
“Some women like that.”
“Yes, many. They are comfortable with a guy who’s got no interest in seeing them naked. Jenn isn’t one of them. She counts on men wanting to see her naked.”
“You think she’s promiscuous?”
1 1 3
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
Spike sipped some bourbon.
