Chapter 12

It was like if Clark Kent told Lois Lane that he was really Superman. ‘You mean you can fly? And bullets would bounce off you?’ and a million other things.

I was going to explain that I could read minds and send thoughts. I was NOT going to explain that I could implant thoughts or control other people’s mind or bodies. I wondered how they were going to take it.

So, when I sent ’Hi, guys. I want to explain something to you,’ I waited to see what their reactions were.

Bear said “Huh? What?” and a few other words that expressed his confusion.

Rock said nothing, but he thought, ’All right. What’s she doing now?’

I sent ’I can mentally talk to people I’m physically close to and read their thoughts. And I can do it to some others, when I absolutely have to. Like those intruders the other day. And sometimes I can see what they see and hear what they hear.’ And then I stopped the mental talk to let them process the information.

Bear thought ’Are you doing this all the time, or is it like an ‘on’ and ‘off’ thing?’

Rock thought ’Even while we’re fucking? Holy shit!’

’It’s only when I’ve zoned out. So, while we’re fucking, I’m a little bit too ... um ... distracted, shall we say?’ I sent. ’I really have to concentrate to do it.’

Rock thought ’That’s good. I have some really nasty thoughts about her while I’m watching porn.’

Remember, for boys or men, it’s work, sex, sex, sports, sex, sex. Rock was stuck in between work and sex.

Bear thought ’Is this like a conference phone call? Can I talk to Rock? Hello, Rock? Are you there? I think I can hear you. You’re talking about fucking, right?’

Rock thought ’Yeah, Bear. I can hear you. Sorry about the fucking talk. Just the first thing that popped through my head.’

I answered: ’I don’t really know. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to actually talk to you guys. Maybe ... This has been going on really strong since the attack. And I’m telling you this because we’re going to travel to D.C. soon. We’re going to try and find the SOB who sent the attackers ... By the way, nobody else knows about this, including Linc or Tex.’

Bear said aloud, “Right. And nobody will ever know.” He looked at Rock.

Rock shook his head ‘no.’ “Nobody.”

Bear continued, “So we’re going on a road trip? Who else is going?”

“Big Tex,” I said. “Linc insisted.”

“What are we doing?” Bear asked.

“We’re going to go to a law firm, in the D.C. Suburbs. We’re going to search for a guy we only know as Leonard Shoemaker. I have a description,” I replied.

Bear was the only one talking. “When do we leave?”

“Sunday A.M. I gotta get Willow working on hotel reservations.”

...

Sunday at 15:00, more or less, we landed at Washington National Airport, just across the Potomac from the city. We got a rental and drove to a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland. Juano Cortez, ‘Cap’, and Rob Yar, his co-pilot, stayed at the Airport Hotel. The four passengers, Rock, Bear, Tex, and me, had three rooms at the Bethesda hotel. We got in, got some dinner at the so-so restaurant nearby and crashed. It just didn’t measure up to Grandma Nanta’s cooking.

At breakfast the next morning, I told the guys the plan I’d worked out. Goldberg Eisenstat Partners was located in a high rise just two blocks from Bradley Boulevard, Rte. 191. Bear was going into the building and he was going to look for Shoemaker. For Big Tex’s benefit I said that Bear had the description. Privately, I sent to Bear that I would see what he could see and that I’d pick out Shoemaker when he came in.

I’d be sitting in the lobby, reading the Wall Street Journal. I’d have the blonde wig from my dominatrix disguise. The three of us – me, Bear, and Shoemaker – would ride up in the elevator, and I’d try to make him NOT get off his intended floor and ride back down to the lobby again. If I couldn’t control him, we’d just back off and go back to the hotel.

I knew that selling Tex was going to be the hardest part of the scheme, ‘cause he didn’t know about the mental talk. I wanted to keep knowledge of my ability to as few people as possible. Shioban still pissed me off after me revealing too much to her. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. So, I planted a series of thoughts in Tex’s brain that would pander to his macho, ultimate protector mindset. He’d be the backup and stay in the lobby; no evil doer would try anything in the lobby of his own office; Tex would stay downstairs to intercept any bad-guy-backups that might be called. Tex was NOT thinking about anything but the job.

We toddled down to the 600 Bradley Place building by 8:30 and set up our watch places. I checked the building directory. Goldberg Eisenstat Partners, LLC, was on the 7^th floor. Beneath the main listing was a list of the partners. Third on the list was Laurence Stone III. My money was on that name. Same initials and I guessed that ‘Leonard Shoemaker’ wouldn’t want to drift far from his initials. Probably, I continued to guess, he wouldn’t want to have his ‘LS’ cuff links mess up his oh-so-carefully designed camouflage. Why didn’t he just wear a flannel shirt to the meeting with his thugs? Oh heavens! Have a rough flannel shirt touch his tender skin? Never!

As we pulled into the guest parking, I noticed a Denny’s restaurant across the street. Perfect!

I settled into a seat in the building’s lobby and had time to read the WSJ from front to back. I noticed that Intel’s stock was up sharply on a rumor that they had a ‘revolutionary chip’ in the works.

Red, does this mean that we’re going to be able to get back into Intel stock? The long-term prospects from the k-chip were going to be miles better than any blip in the price.

[We’re going to get in after the official announcement. I’m still cautious about the SEC’s watchdogs. We’ll do all right with our patent royalties, and that’s all in the public accounts. Nothing to prevent us from selling the other chip manufacturers ‘short’, however. And of course, in the hidden off-shore accounts, we’ve taken a very aggressive position. In fact, we own about 30% to 40% of the common stock in Intel.]

How can we own 30% to 40% of anything? Wouldn’t it be either 30% OR 40%? Don’t you know?

[At the moment we own 38.6% of Intel. But we’ll sell off a large chunk next Thursday, before a counter-rumor appears in the UK press, that the original rumor is fake. We’ll be down to 25% at that point.]

I assume the counter-rumor is untraceable. Isn’t that illegal?

[Of course it’s illegal in the US. And in the UK for that matter. But the counter-rumor will be traced to a Chinese chip maker. It will be denied the following week, but it will create a mini-dive in the price. We’ll make about ten million dollars in a week. All from placing an unsubstantiated fax in the incoming pile of faxes in the Hong Kong Times. If I had fingernails, I’d be polishing them on my suede jacket.]

Glad you’re on my side, Red. By the way, why doesn’t this crummy newspaper have any comics anywhere?

[Well, they DO cover the activities of the US Congress.]

Through Bear’s eyes, I saw Shoemaker come in. Natty in his bespoke three-piece charcoal pin-stripe, he carried a fat document satchel. At least he took work home for the weekend. So he wasn’t a slacker.

I folded the paper and tucked it under one arm. The leather miniskirt attracted his attention for a second, just as I’d hoped. I got on the same elevator with Shoemaker and Bear and two other execs (I presumed). Junior functionaries wouldn’t be showing up at 9:20.

Our man pushed the button for seven. One of the other execs got off at three. The other had pushed the button for nine. I stood in front of the elevator buttons and started to work on Mr. S. He was thinking about his day. I began by slipping some thoughts about my legs, encased as they were in patterned thigh highs. Men were so easy. His gaze went to my feet and up to the top of my stockings, which ended an inch or so below my mini. Work, sex, sex, blowjob from his secretary, sex, sex, he was thinking.

So Mr. S. had vices. That could be useful. I shifted my weight a little and the resulting hip thrust showed him just a little more of my cream-colored left thigh, and my ass. I didn’t even have to plant the thought. I adjusted his thought pattern to sex with ME, and how he could blow off his morning appointment. Sex, me, sex in his office. He was thinking about how to accidentally introduce himself to me.

He wasn’t particularly attractive, and he was older than Linc. At least two or three decades older than me. Oh well. I wasn’t actually going to fuck him. Fuck WITH him, yes.

I dropped my WSJ on the elevator floor at about the fifth floor. Oops! I bent at the knees (don’t want to be TOO obvious) and backed into him as I gathered my newspaper. I turned my head and smiled up at him. It was too easy to insinuate another thought. My head was just at the height of his charcoal gray crotch. A quick thought of him grabbing my head in a deserted elevator and rubbing his pecker against my lips. Now it was sex, SEX, me in his company’s nearby condo, evil sex thoughts.