word slid the window closed a moment before the door opened.
The intruder smiled coldly, suspended forty stories above the ground. The rain had stopped. He breathed deeply, watching the subdued lights of a closed amusement park as they dwindled even further.
He chortled melodramatically. 'The Pink Panther is gone missing again, ' he whispered, and it took all of his considerable self-control to keep from laughing with unabashed, urchin glee.
What a lovely evening.
Acacia Garcia was surrounded by admirers as she rode up in the Hyatt's elevators.
'Captain Cipher predicts we'll kick serious butt, milady.'
'Tammi may have a different opinion, Cipher,' she said. She was exhausted, and boggled that this strange little man would rather talk than crawl away somewhere and slip into a coma.
She couldn't bring herself to snap at him: his eyes were worshipful, as guileless as a puppy's. She placed her hand on his, and he almost swooned. 'Listen. We make a good team?' She mustered enough strength to make intense eye contact. 'I need rest.'
He tried to peek around her shoulder, peering into the room beyond. 'He's in there, isn't he?'
Fatigue vanished momentarily. She stood hipshot, head canted to the side, smiling mischievously. 'And just who are we talking about?'
'Oh, milady it's not a secret really, everybody knows you and Bishop are an item. When's he coming out?'
'Man of mystery.' She changed the subject. 'Corby, we'll be on public display tomorrow. I want you clean. That means soap and water and maybe a wire brush.' She slid the door shut without waiting for a reply.
She sighed relief and collapsed with her back against the panel.
The room was entirely dark.
If she stood motionless and opened her senses, Acacia imagined that she could hear the slightly husky sound of his exhalations. She imagined that she could smell his sweat. And that thought triggered a wave of heat that drove away all fatigue.
For the thousandth time, she warred with her own instincts. Just turn around. Walk back out the door. It's not too late.
But then he'll never touch you again.
Lightly, she moved into the room, into the darkness.
In the dark a computer screen flickered pale green, like the face of a ghost. Its fluctuating luminescence flowed with numbers and letters and symbols.
Nigel Bishop was at work. She watched as his fingers manipulated the stylus and tapped at the keyboard, as he whispered into the throat monitor.
He was swathed in shadow, his wiry body sheathed in a leotard that was darker still: Occasionally the light reflected on his torso. He was whipcord slim, chest and back more knotted and corded, more sinewy and powerful, than any she had ever known except one.
And Bishop was wirier, denser than Alex Griffin. Quicker. Maybe not stronger. The thought of Bishop atop her, or she astride him, the pressure of his hands, the taste of his mouth, his faintly sweet and musky scent filling her senses…
She felt dizzy, and hollow, and confused. Did Acacia love Nigel? Or was Panthesilea in lust with the Bishop?
Sometimes she hated that hot-blooded bitch.
His hands were a blur, switching from longhand to typing as the mood struck him. The computer synthesised writing and shorthand typing and whispered cues seamlessly together. Without turning, he said, 'You were superb, darling. Your variation on the Horshact maneuver was nonpareil. Excellent trial for your team. You pulled them together, and sacrificed them at just the right moments.''
He paused for effect, or perhaps lost in a parallel train of thought. She could never be sure which. 'Did you know that you are just a teensy bit ruthless? '
'I wonder who I learned that from?' She came close enough to peer over his shoulder.
On the screen was data on each of the five teams entered in the California Voodoo Game. Bishop already knew his team, of course, and Acacia's team. But the other three were supposed to be mysteries, their identities and personae concealed until the last possible moment.
One face after another flicked onto the screen. Bishop tapped out notes.
'Did I keep them long enough?'
'Just,' he said, bending back to work. A network of lines and curves appeared, fluctuated, and expanded from the screen into three-dimensional abstracts.
'What is that?'
'Preliminary chart,' he said. 'I now know the full IFGS records of every team.' He grinned up at her, his smile brilliant in his night-dark face. His watch beeped. 'Ah. Appointment time.'
'Appointment?' she asked. Sudden sharp disappointment made her feel hot, flushed, and embarrassed.
And damn the bastard, he knew it. He grinned up at her again and shut down his computer. 'Business before pleasure, sweetheart. The lady can't wait.'
The lady can't wait. And I can? 'Lady?'
'Tsk. Jealousy? From you?' He spun to his feet, swirling her into his arms with the same motion. 'You, more than anyone, should know my aversion to ladies.'
'Bastard,' she whispered. He laughed, and with two fingertips brushed her eyes closed.
'Shhh,' he said. He backed her into the bed and folded her down onto it. The sheets rustled against her neck as she sank down into them.
'Just quiet,' he said. She shivered, knowing what was to come.
She felt the slight, liquid pressure of his lips and tongue as they drifted over her, touching her at the nape of her neck, behind her ears, brushing her eyelashes. His teeth nipped at her earlobes. Reflexively, her body began to arch, but his thumbs ran along the edge of her hips, pressing, calming them back down, as his mouth nipped and played along the long, warm column of bare throat.
His fingers twined in hers, pressed her hands into the bed as he caressed her for what seemed an hour, but could only have been a few minutes.
When her breath was explosive, her entire body shuddering and molten, she felt his weight leave the bed, and heard him say: 'I'll be back.' His voice was neutral. 'Be ready for me.'
The door sighed shut behind him. Acacia waited ten seconds, feeling the tension build inside her until she thought she would explode. Then she screamed in the soundproof room, shrieked until her throat ached, and hurled her shoe against the back of the closed door.
The rain-swept town of Yucca Valley, just south of Dream Park, was a warren of exploitation, a boomtown of auxiliary entertainments and service facilities designed to catch the trickleover from the world's largest tourist trap.
An astonishing variety of pleasures, ethereal or mundane, legal or illegal, could be found there. There was a thriving redlight district, as well as a Buddhist temple, a Methodist church, a Catholic mission, and a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Alcohol was available all over. Cocaine, marijuana, and tobacco could be had in every alley and parking lot along the central strip. Nigel Bishop breathed it in, revering in the sights and sounds and smells of human degradation.
They were pawns, every one of them. Even more amazingly, they liked being pawns. All the easier to use.
A hot-eyed pair of hustlers watched him as he pulled his car into the lot across from the Mate 'N' Switch Adult Emporium. He paid the toll and nosed his car up to an idle charging post. It clicked as the couplings mated and the trickle of current began.
The charging light blinked, splashing the bottom half of his face with green. Despite the darkness, he wore sunglasses of a tint similar to his visor.
He checked his watch. One fifty-five. In five minutes it would happen. He stepped out of the car, sniffing the air. It smelled humid but clean.
His watch beeped. His eyes scanned the Mate 'N' Switch. Just another fantasy sex trap, like any of a hundred
