Charlie was building an audience. Yes, Allie thought and forgave him completely, but she kept her mouth shut so as not to distract him. She had no idea why Charlie had agreed to two hours of college broadcasting, but she wasn’t about to question her luck or, God forbid, point out to Charlie how well he was doing. Then Charlie called back good-naturedly to a heckler, and the crowd laughed, and Allie heard it as the sound of rising ratings.


* * *

After two hours in the early-October afternoon sun, Charlie was ready to pack it in. He’d listened for any clue about crime or drugs in all the comments the kids had made as they’d drifted past, and he’d started animated conversations with everyone who came up to him, trying to leave openings for any clue they’d like to drop. After two hours, he’d found out exactly nothing. He had a bunch of drunk freshman fraternity guys hassling him off and on, and while they were easy to deflect, it wasn’t his choice of the way to spend a great autumn afternoon. He’d also deflected more than enough young women who’d asked him what he was doing that night. “Sleeping with my producer” didn’t seem to be a good answer, especially since, after last night, Allie might still be feeling hostile. Then he looked out over the crowd and grinned. Nope. He’d been a public-relations dream all afternoon. Given Allie’s lust for success, there was a good chance she’d jump him in the van from gratitude. The thought led him to other thoughts of Allie in the windowless van with the doors closed and locked. He hadn’t seen Allie naked for almost thirty-six hours. That was bad for him. Usually he wasn’t this obsessive about sex, but Allie was different. It was easy to be obsessive about Allie. In fact, it was a pleasure to be obsessive about Allie. And the van had a bench seat in back, not wide but padded enough for Stewart to sleep on. Maybe he could get rid of Stewart…

“Quite a crowd,” Mark said behind him and he sat up in surprise.

“What?” Charlie squinted at him in the sun. “Oh. Yeah. They’re a great crowd. You up now?”

“Yes. Lisa’s taking over from Allie.” Mark surveyed the situation and frowned at him. “There are a lot of people here.”

Charlie stood up. “Well, that was the idea. It’s all yours.” He clapped Mark on the shoulder. “Have a great time.”

Mark ignored him and took over the mike as the last song ended. “Hello, UR,” he said into the mike. “This is Mark King, live from the University of Riverbend.”

People started to drift away, and for a moment, Charlie felt sorry for Mark. Then he remembered who Mark was and his pity evaporated. This was the jerk who’d dumped Allie. This was the jerk who had probably sabotaged his show the night before. Even more important, this was the jerk who sooner or later was going to try to get Allie back to save his show. Annoyed, Charlie went down the steps to look for her, stopping twice along the way to tell groups of female students who’d asked that he was busy that night. Then he headed for the van, and someone hooted at him.

The bunch of drunk freshmen were back, hanging around the end of the platform. “Still givin it away free?” one of them said.

Charlie stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Giving what away free? Bumper stickers?”

They all laughed and somebody said, “Bumper stickers. Yeah, right.” Then one of them raised his fingers to his mouth and made a sucking sound. “You’ll never get rich giving it away, man,” one of them said.

“Forget it,” the tallest one said. “He’s stupid.”

“Wait a minute.” Charlie went toward them, but they faded into the crowd, laughing over their shoulders at him.

Giving it away free. The kid had mimed smoking, but giving pot away made no sense at all. Not even for Grady, their resident pot head. Charlie leaned against the van and thought about it. If he was looking for crime, he had to find a profit, “That only made sense. So maybe somebody was giving away free samples, trying to hook paying buyers later? That ruled out Grady completely, since he thought capitalism was a crime.

Unless he was faking it. Unless under all Grady’s New Age babble beat a heart just like Charlie’s dad’s.

It was possible, but not probable. Grady’s good nature was legendary. Someone would have noticed if he’d been leading double life. Tuttle wasn’t that big.

“Hey, we’re through.” Allie came up and leaned on the van next to him. “We are completely through until Monday night, that’s more than forty-eight hours free. Can you believe it?”

“No.” Her face was turned up to his, and he grinned at her and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with his finger. “What do you want to do for forty-eight hours?”

Allie grinned back at him. “Watch videos. Eat Chinese, feed Sam. Make love.”

“Let’s take those in reverse order.” Charlie bent his head close to hers and watched her blush and smile. “It was very cold in that bed last night, and you’re very cute today. Is the van empty or is Stewart still sleeping in there?”

“I don’t make love in vans,” Allie said primly.

“Of course not,” Charlie said. “So is it empty or not?”

It was empty.

“That’s a very narrow bench,” Allie pointed out as Charlie sat down and pulled her onto his lap.

“I have a great sense of balance.” He slid his hand under her T-shirt to cup her breast and listened to her soft gasp with great deal of heated pleasure. “You don’t really want to wait until we get home, do you? Think of the traffic.”

He kissed her neck and she murmured, “Traffic would be bad,” and then he tipped her gently down onto the seat as she wrapped herself around him. “Remind me to do these college things more often,” he said as he unzipped her jeans. “I love doing remotes.”


* * *

As far as Allie was concerned, the weekend just got better after that. They rented videos Saturday night and stayed home with Joe and his date, critiquing the mistakes in The African Queen and Casablanca.

“Bad ending,” Allie said when Ingrid Bergman left on the plane.

“A woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do,” Charlie told her.

“I think she’s right,” Joe’s date, David, said. “I wouldn’t have left Humphrey Bogart.”

“You’re a guy,” Charlie said. “Women sacrifice. It’s their job in life.”

He complained loudly when Allie threw popcorn at him, and then attacked her that night when they went to bed, tickling her until she giggled helplessly and then making love to her until she lost her mind. The next day they had a picnic in the park, and that night Charlie dragged Allie off to see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newest exploding-head picture.

Allie had never been happier in her life. “You are one good time,” she told Charlie.

Charlie grinned at her. “Let’s take some Chinese food home to Joe and David.”

But Joe was alone when they got home.


* * *

“Chinese,” Charlie called out when they came through the door and then stopped. Joe was standing in the middle of the living room, and he didn’t look happy. “What’s wrong?” Allie said.

“David and I were spending a nice quiet evening at home,” Joe said, “when somebody knocked on the door.”

Charlie put the take-out bag down on the coffee table. “What happened?”

Allie sank down on the sofa across from Joe. “Where’s David.”

“He went home. Things got weird.” Joe looked at Charlie. “Did you annoy anyone lately?”

“Just about everybody.” Charlie sat down on the arm of the couch. “I’m not going to like this story, am I?”

Joe shook his head. “When I opened the door, this blonde was standing there, and she shrieked, ‘Charlie!’ and flung her arms around me.”

At least nobody had tried to gun Joe down. There were worse things than being hugged by a blonde. Charlie grinned at Allie. “Happens to me all the time.”

“Then she dropped her coat,” Joe said. “She was naked.”

Charlie stopped grinning. “That doesn’t happen nearly as often.”

“Then she grabbed me again and somebody took a picture. With a flash.”

“That never happens to me.” Charlie frowned at him. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know,” Joe said. “But it’s not good.”

Charlie glanced at Allie. She was glaring at him. “What?” he asked her.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Allie said.

“Something blond? No.” Charlie looked at her with disgust. The last thing he needed was Allie getting jealous while he tried to figure out this newest wrinkle. “Come on, I spend every waking moment with you. Every sleeping moment, too, for that matter. When would I be dating blondes?”

“Well, something’s going on with you,” Allie said, getting up. “And I don’t like it.” She went in her room and shut the door.

Charlie looked at Joe. “Is this my fault?”

“I don’t think so.” Joe said. “But if it is, knock it off. “you’re screwing up my social life.”


* * *

The picture of Joe and the hooker was on the front page of Monday’s Tuttle Tribune.

“I can’t believe they printed that,” Allie said as she stared at it over breakfast, trying to figure the public-relations angles. “Local DJ Patronizes Call Girl? How much of the paper does the mayor own?”

“God, I look like hell,” Joe said over her shoulder. “In fact, I almost look like Charlie.”

“Very funny.” Charlie came into the kitchen and took the paper away from them to read the caption. “This is weird. They’re setting themselves up for a lawsuit here. Somebody with clout must have got this in. Who have we annoyed that has clout?”