“No, I don’t.”
“Guests are not allowed beyond reception without a resident escort.”
Yolanda has stepped ahead of me to call the elevator. When it arrives, I step in, and Tiffany tries to follow. Taking the fob from my pocket, I wave it over the pad.
As the elevator doors close, Yolanda extends her hand. “This is an express elevator.”
Tiffany turns red. “You can’t—” The doors close, and we don’t hear the rest of her sentence.
“Thank you.”
Yolanda shrugs.
“Will you have to write an action report on that one?”
“I don’t have to, but I will. She’s a feisty one, and we’ll want each interaction with her documented. She’s probably going to be a problem for Mr. Walsh. Greg told me she confronted you previously.”
“I addressed it, but it looks like I only made it worse.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’ll mention today’s encounter to Landon when I see him. Do you know if he’s in the apartment this afternoon?”
Yolanda taps her ear. “Is Rabbit in the hole?”
Rabbit in the hole? What does that mean?
She nods. “He’s home.”
“Why Rabbit?”
She just smiles.
“What do you call me?”
“Cottontail.”
Then it hits me. Peter Landon Walsh is Peter Rabbit, and he has three sisters—Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. “Does that mean Claire is Flopsy or Mopsy?”
“Josephine.”
“The mother? I bet she loves that.” I grin from ear to ear.
When we arrive, I look around but don’t see Landon. I pull my laptop out and start it booting up as I wander around. He isn’t in his office either.
I sit at the kitchen table, pop in some Mozart brain music, and begin working from my notes to accomplish what I can.
Suddenly, Landon is in my face, waving. I pull my earbuds out and look at him.
“Have you heard anything I said?”
“Sorry. I’ve been working on this. The lag is driving me crazy.”
“There shouldn’t be any lag.”
I don’t know how to tell him I wouldn’t lie about a lag. Instead, I change the subject. “What time is it?”
“Almost six. I was asking if you wanted to grab some dinner.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Do you want to stay in or go out?”
I’m feeling behind, I don’t have time to eat, and nothing sounds good. “You know, don’t worry about me. I’ll get out of your hair and grab something on the way home. I’m still behind and need to work.”
“Wait, you have to eat. We can grab something, and plus, we’d rather you work from here on the secure network.”
I stand, trying to decide what to do. I would much prefer to put on yoga pants and a sweatshirt and code in my fuzzy slippers. But security is an issue.
“How about we order a pizza?” I ask.
Landon relaxes. “I’m open to any toppings. What sounds good?”
“Pepperoni and mushroom?”
“Sure. I’ll order right now. There’s a place in North Beach that will deliver.”
I nod and sit back down.
Landon orders our dinner and returns. “How are things going? You’re working on a lag?”
“I can show you. Can you pull up Univision on your television?”
“I think so. I’m not sure what channel it is.”
“Well, if you can find a Mandarin station, that would work, too.”
“I found it.”
He clicks to Univision, which is playing a telenovela—lots of expression, and they don’t always talk superfast. I set a microphone next to a speaker, and we sit down to listen. It takes a few minutes for the software to get going, and then a voice starts speaking through my computer. The lag is still about five seconds, but we’ve shortened it considerably. The translation software still struggles with what I’m guessing is abnormal sentence structure or unknown idioms. But I also wonder if it isn’t something else—something separate from the software and more about the network. Or maybe I’m just paranoid about all networks now.
After a few minutes of listening, I ask, “What do you think?”
He nods. “There’s still a delay, and it misses sections, so the translation doesn’t always make sense.”
I nod. He’s right—the delay is getting longer and not shorter—but he’s not seeing the big picture. “That’s what we’re working on. But there’s nothing on the market today with this short of a delay. We’re also working on idioms and slang. It’s more important to get the translation correct in closer to real-time.”
He sighs. “We need it soon, and with a much shorter delay. Otherwise it will be a bad Saturday Night Live skit where everyone is awkwardly waiting around.”
There’s no pleasing him. “I understand. I’m working on it. It would be great to be able to work from the office or even my home.”
“That’s not possible.”
I take a deep breath. This can’t be about me. What is his deal tonight? “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m frustrated. I thought this would be going smoother.”
“It seems like there’s something else going on. Did Jim’s team locate Mattis?”
“He moved out and destroyed his phone before he left.”
I sit down hard. “I need to run anti-spyware software on my computer.”
“You think he was some sort of spy? Mattis’ background check came back clean, and Jim’s team has run checks on everything.”
I stop and look at Landon, wondering why he isn’t considering this link. “Yes, absolutely, and without a doubt I think he was spying. And I’m not running spyware on your network. I want to be on my home network that I know is safe.”
“My network is safe.”
Our pizza arrives, so we table the discussion for a moment to make up our plates.
I take a big bite of pizza, and Landon watches me, his eyes hooded with desire. He was pissed at me two minutes ago and now he’s ready to pounce? Men and their libido…
I
