I’m taking you off Mark’s show and giving you to Charles Tenniel, the man taking over for Waldo Hancock. Meet him tomorrow, Tuesday, five o’clock, my office.


Bill


Weird Waldo had the 10:00 to 2:00 a.m. spot, the dead zone of radio. She’d just been demoted rom producing the radio equivalent of “Oprah” to the radio equivalent of of an info-mercial.

And her roommate Joe, who was supposed to meet her, wasn’t there to comfort her. The hell with it. She was going home.

She turned around to go back into the street, but outside the door was Mark, greeting people who greeted him back as if he were a celebrity. Which, of course, he was.

And he was going to come into the bar and find her alone after her big talk about a date because Joe was late again. Not that Joe would have been very impressive as a date, but he would have been more impressive than no date at all.

So she went into the bar to find a date, and there were all those suits and the thug. She couldn’t face another suit, and it least the thug looked like a change of pace, so she went over to the thug and said, “Hi!” as vivaciously as she could. She wasn’t vivacious by nature, so she sounded as if she’d been lucking helium, but he turned and looked at her anyway,

Allie didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Maybe some Fantasy guy who was even better-looking than Mark, which, in all fairness to Mark, would be impossible, but this guy wasn’t even in the running. He had the kind of face that the big, good-natured kids in the back of high-school English classes always have, slightly dopey and comfortable.

He looked nice. That was about it, but after Mark, it was pretty good.

Allie plopped her bag down on the bar. “So! You meeting someone?” she asked, still on helium, and looked over her shoulder to check on the Mark situation. All she had to do was keep the thug in conversation until Mark walked in, saw she was with him and left.

Mark didn’t like competition.

“So, are you?” Allie smiled like a telemarketer. “Meeting someone?” She sat down beside him, praying Mark wouldn’t come in.

And he said, “No. What are you doing?”


* * *

Charlie Tenniel had been contemplating his future when she picked him up. His immediate future looked complicated and possibly dangerous, so his best plan was to lay low, not make waves, do the job and get out. Investigating the source of an incriminating anonymous letter to a radio station in Tuttle, Ohio, couldn’t be that hard. The station wasn’t that big. Hell, the town wasn’t that big. His biggest problem was going to be pretending to be a disc jockey, and how hard could that be? If his brother had done it stoned, he could certainly do it straight. And he’d made it clear to everybody concerned that he was only around for six weeks, tops. He had things to do, he’d told them, places he had to be in November.

He hadn’t decided yet exactly what place he had to be in November, but he was positive it was somewhere uncomplicated and remote. Especially remote from his father who had taken to asking weird favors lately. like “Check into this radio station for my old friend Bill…” This was what came of going home for his father’s birthday. From now on, he’d just send a card. And as soon as he was done, he was out of here and someplace else. Someplace where he could do something simple for a while, like raise pigs. No, too complicated. He’d raise carrots. You didn’t have to feed carrots.

He stopped thinking when she squeaked, “Hi!”

Charlie blinked at her, mildly surprised. She didn’t look like the vivacious pick-up-a-guy-in-a-bar type. Her sharp brown eyes gleamed behind huge, round, horn-rimmed glasses, and her glossy gold-brown hair swung in a tangled Dutch-boy bob. There was nothing wrong with her nose or mouth, either; good standard-issue all-American-woman features. She just seemed sort of scrubbed to be trolling for guys. The long flowered skirt and oversize vest weren’t right for a pickup, either. She looked like a nice, clean kid. Well, she was no kid. Early thirties easy.

She raised her eyebrows so high they disappeared under her bangs and batted her eyelashes. “So! You meeting someone?” She looked over her shoulder and flopped her bag down on the bar. It looked as if it was made from very old blue flowered carpet. Charlie had never seen anything quite like it so he poked his finger into it. It was fuzzy.

“Are you?” She smiled at him again, a sort of strained, too-many-teeth, trying-too-hard smile. “Meeting someone?” She sat on the stool beside him

“No.” Charlie looked at her with interest. “What are you doing?”

“Picking you up?”

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think so. What are you really doing?”

The artificial smile morphed into a genuine scowl, and her jerky voice dropped an octave. “I don’t believe this. Can’t you even pretend on the hope you’ll get lucky?”

“I never pretend. I’m the natural, open type.” Charlie considered moving away from her and then rejected the idea. If he left her, he’d never find out what she was up to. And besides, when she’d scowled at him, her voice had gone husky. She had a great low voice. He smiled down at her, trying to make her talk again. “Why don’t you just give me the drift, and then we can take it from there.”

She lowered her head a little and stared at him over the rims of her glasses. “Look, the drift will take too long, and besides, it makes me look pathetic. All I ask is that you pretend to be having a drink with me.” He must have looked skeptical because she added, “I swear that’s it.”

Right. Charlie had been wandering through the world long enough to know that wouldn’t be it, that there would be complications. There were always complications, which was why Charlie had spent his thirty-four years learning to be light on his feet and fast out the door.

On the other hand, she wasn’t part of his current problem, so there weren’t likely to be long-term complications. He had a free evening before he had to go poking around in other people’s business, so he might as well poke around in hers for a while. At the very least, he’d get to listen to her talk. He shrugged. “Hell, it’s worth one drink just to find out what happens next.” He motioned to the bartender.

“I’m quite sure he won’t come over here.” She looked back over her shoulder again.

The bartender came and Charlie said, “The lady would like…” He turned back to her.

“The lady would like to pay for her own amaretto and cream, Max.” She took a couple of bills out of her carpet bag and handed them to the bartender as she looked over her shoulder again.

“You got it, Allie,” the bartender said and moved away.

“Amaretto and cream?” Charlie frowned. “That’s disgusting.”

“At least the cream part is good for me.” She turned back to him. “Well, it should be skim milk, but bars never have skim milk.”

“That’s true.” Charlie drew back a little. “You know, you have the weirdest pickup line in North America.”

“Pickup line?” She swiveled on the stool and faced him. Her eyes sparked at him and her cheeks glowed rosy with outrage. Outrage looked very good on her. “This isn’t a pickup line. The pickup line was before, the one that didn’t work.” She swiveled again to keep lookout. “Oh, great.” She swiveled to face him again. “There he is. Okay, here’s the deal. We’re together. Try to look like you haven’t just insulted me.”

“I didn’t insult you. I made an observation.”

“Well, stop.” She looked back over her shoulder again. “Oh, no.” She closed her eyes. Charlie saw her lips moving and leaned closer to hear her, but she wasn’t talking to him. “He’s going to go by. I’m sure he’s going to go by. I’m sure…”

A male-model type stopped on the other side of her. “Allie! There you are. I-”

She jerked as if she’d been shot. “Mark! What a surprise. To see you. Again. So soon.” She looked at Charlie and said, very softly, “Oh, hell.”

Then she stuck her chin out and turned to smile at Mark.

She was doing pretty good, Charlie thought. Good smile. Pretty lame answer, but the smile and the chin would probably make up for it. He looked at the guy. Tall, dark and handsome, if you liked really pretty men. Very expensive suit. Toothpaste grin. And the jerk was smiling that grin at her as if he knew she was in agony. Charlie shook his head at the situation and finished his drink. Good thing he wasn’t involved in this one. It was a mess.

“Let me buy you a drink, Al. It’s the least I can do.” Mark the jerk motioned for the bartender.

Max wandered back and put Allie’s amaretto in front of her.

“No, no.” Allie’s mouth went lipless with stress. “I have one. Thanks, Max.”

“Amaretto and cream.” Mark laughed. “Good old Allie.” He sat down beside her at the bar and patted her on the back.

“Grrrrr.” It was a very faint low growl, locked behind her teeth, almost indiscernible in the babble of the bar, but Charlie heard it because she’d turned to him as she made it. “I’m sorry about this,” Allie whispered to him.

Charlie leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Try not to look like a wounded basset hound.”

Allie flashed Mark a brilliant smile over her shoulder.

“I didn’t realize the two of you were together.” Mark paused for an introduction.

Allie kept on smiling like a half-wit, so Charlie took pity on her and extended his hand past her nose. “Charlie Tenniel.”

Allie started, but Mark took his hand with enthusiasm, gripping it in a he-man clasp. Charlie let his hand go limp. Mark smirked.

What an idiot, Charlie thought.