but not now. It looked like extortion was the name of the game these days.
The professional smiled. There’s an angle here I can exploit. Mr. Michaels, you’re giving me a lot of material. A germ of an idea began to grow. It would be messy, but it would be very dramatic if it worked. It would be one of his best efforts. He leaned his head against the rail of the polar bear habitat, one person among many, but his was the only head not turned toward the marine mammal.
He watched the woman get up and leave his target. It looked like a touching moment and he wished he could tell what was being said. He would look into lip reading classes after this contract. She headed in the direction of the exit and he followed. He could afford to
leave Michaels alone, for now. He had what he needed on him for the moment. He wanted to find out more about this woman. She could be useful.
In the parking lot, the woman got into a black Chevy Cobalt coupe and the professional followed in his Taurus.
He shadowed her progress north across town to
the Radisson Hotel. She went in and he kept a reasonable distance behind. At the entrance, a doorman
greeted her and he checked out her ass after she passed him. The professional was greeted similarly, but without having his ass checked. The woman walked up to
the young female desk clerk.
The professional picked up a free local newspaper off a stand and made sure he got close enough to hear the conversation.
“Hello, how can I help you?” the desk clerk asked.
“Any messages for room three-oh-seven?” she asked.
The desk clerk checked and told her there weren’t any. The woman headed over to the elevator.
The professional went up to the other clerk on duty, a bored looking man in his thirties. “Excuse me, could I use your restrooms?”
“Yes, sir. No problem, just turn left at the restaurant and they’re on your left.” The desk clerk leaned over the counter and pointed to his right, in the opposite direction of the elevators.
“Thanks,” the professional said and smiled.
“Not at all, sir.”
The professional went off in search of the restrooms as directed. He locked himself into a stall and sat on the toilet for a respectable time before flushing and leaving the restroom.
He returned to the reception desk. The male desk
clerk the professional had spoken to earlier was occupied with a customer. He approached the young female
desk clerk who had dealt with Josh Michaels’s secret woman.
She smiled at him.
“Excuse me, you have a lady in room three-oh-seven, an Asian woman, early thirties. Now I’m sure I know her from a company we used to work at and I wanted to check to see if it was her.” The professional managed to look benign, hopeless and charming all at the same time.
She checked her computer records. “Room three-oh
seven is a Miss Belinda Wong.”
“It is her,” he beamed.
The desk clerk beamed back, happy for him and for her. It was probably the first interesting thing to happen all day.
“Do you have a card with a phone number I could
call her back on?”
The desk clerk nodded. She gave him a matchbook
and pointed to the number on the back. “Just change the last three numbers with her room number and
you’ll get straight through.”
“Thanks very much,” he fawned.
“But don’t wait too long, she checks out tomorrow.”
“Does she now?” A crooked smile trickled across his face. “Thank you very much indeed for your help.”
The professional walked away from the reception
back to the parking lot. He would be waiting here tomorrow to see where she went.
The professional didn’t get far before the desk clerk called out to him. He stopped and turned around.
“Good luck sir,” she said in a hoarse whisper and grinned.
The professional grinned back and gave her a
thumbs-up.
The doorman showed the professional out of the hotel. Hello, Miss Belinda Wong, who are you and what do you want? The professional thought.
CHAPTER NINE
“Daddy, Daddy, I heard another car pull up,” Abby said, bouncing on the spot excitedly.
“Well, isn’t it your job to greet them?” Josh asked.
Abby agreed it was by nodding vigorously. She
bounded off down the alley next to the Michaels’s home to meet the visitors to the party. Wiener scampered behind her, acting as her second in command. As
she got to the front of the house, she found people getting out of a Toyota Camry parked curbside.
“Uncle Bo-bo and Aunt Nancy!” Abby called. Her
ribboned, pigtailed hair bounced as she ran, as did Wiener’s, whose ears were tied with similar ribbons.
She crashed into Bob Deuce and hugged him.
“Hi, Abby, you look pretty,” Bob said, picking
Abby up.
“Hello, Abby. Yes, you do look very grown-up,”
Nancy Deuce said, smiling.
“Thank you,” Abby said, grinning.
Bob nodded at the dog. “What’s up with Wiener’s
ears?”
“I wanted to put his ears in pigtails like mine,” she replied.
“Oh, very nice,” Nancy said.
“Who’s this?” Abby asked.
“This is a colleague of mine, James Mitchell. I
thought I’d bring him. Hope that’s okay?”
“Yeah, that’s okay,” Abby said. “Hello, Mr.
Mitchell.”
“Call me James,” Mitchell said.
Bob put Abby down at her request. She led the invited guests to her father in the backyard.
Josh was stocking an ice-filled bucket with beers on the lawn next to a trestle table. It was one of two tablecloth-covered tables smothered with snacks and drinks. At the rear of the yard Kate manned the barbecue and waved to her friends. Other early arrivals sat at a picnic table with drinks. The CD player, relocated to the rear porch, sent music across the backyard.
“Hey, buddy, happy birthday,” Bob called across
the yard.
“Happy thirty-eighth, Josh,” Nancy added.
Josh looked up from the ice bucket and smiled at his approaching friends with a stranger in tow.
“I’m glad you made it.” Josh checked his watch. “A fashionable thirty minutes late, I see.”
The birthday invitations were for seven, but Josh didn’t expect most people until eight. Bob’s arrival swelled the numbers into double figures.
“Josh, I hope you don’t mind me bringing someone.
This is a colleague of mine, James Mitchell. He’s in the area for a few days with nothing to do and you know
