Chapter 11: A New Client

The brunette in front of me at the Analog had her hair pulled up in a Saturday-morning-and-I-don’t-care knot on top of her head. I saw her often. You get to recognize people in a neighborhood like this. Usually, her hair fell straight below her shoulders and was brushed so silkily shiny you could almost see through it. This morning, as she leaned on the counter chatting with our friendly barista, she was wearing a short jeans jacket that left several inches of grey t-shirt exposed, cutting enticingly across her butt over black skin-tight jeans. Her white socks were pulled up over the legs above her Converse high tops, nearly to her calves. I was noticing everything female and feminine this morning, as if my own senses had just been awakened to the opposite sex. But even when she turned away from the counter and looked at me with a smile almost as big as the bag slung over one shoulder, my mind was on Andi.

The barista, Lonnie, had already started pulling my regular double short Americano and kept up a running conversation asking me how my weekend was going and how the new job was working out. Seems that everyone knows a little about everyone in this town—especially Lonnie. His sandy hair and two-day beard were as much a part of the atmosphere here as the fact that he pulled the best shots on Capitol Hill. I’d just answered with a quick, “Fine,” when I felt two delicate hands cover my eyes and a voice whisper “Guess who.”

My heart skipped a couple beats and instead of answering I reached up and slid the hands down to my lips and kissed the fingertips. “Morning,” I said softly as I turned toward her.

If my heart had skipped beats before, it stopped cold now.

“So that’s how it is?”

“Cali! I ... I’m sorry. I thought...” Damn!

“I know. You thought I was Mom. Must have been a pretty good date last night.” I was still spluttering. The last thing I wanted was for anyone here to think I was involved with a seventeen-year-old. How could I have not realized it wasn’t Andi?

“Here’s your coffee, Dag,” Lonnie said.

“Did you want anything?” I asked Cali. My voice cracked and I realized the question could be interpreted in different ways.

“Tall mocha, please.” Lonnie turned and made the drink while I slid money across the counter. There were a few stools at a bar under the corner windows and a church pew cobbled together into a corner seat opposite. On the rough wooden table, a selection of fringe comic books were scattered among the remains of today’s newspaper. Cali picked up her drink and I waved off the change Lonnie offered me. We stepped outside and sat at one of the sidewalk tables, taking advantage of the fourth sunny April day in a row. Sunny April. Now, that was an oxymoron.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked.

“Still asleep with a smile on her face that covers the entire pillow. I just had to make sure the feeling was mutual.”

“That was really wicked of you.”

“Surprising you this morning?”

“That, and setting up that little date last night. You don’t look like a girl with cramps.”

“Oh, they come and go. And it worked, didn’t it? You really are dating now, right?” She was a little anxious, but all I could do was grin.

“I certainly hope so.”

“Good!” We sat sipping our coffees for a minute. I have a hard time concentrating on anything else when I’m drinking my first cup of coffee in the morning. Years ago, when I got out of the Navy, I adopted the Seattle fascination with lattes. But somewhere along the line I realized that I didn’t really like milk that much. It didn’t make sense to force myself to drink milk by flavoring it with coffee when what I really liked was the coffee. That first cup in the morning—the hotter, the stronger, the blacker, the better. Cali’s big sigh cut through my momentary reverie.

“I need a fake ID.”

“Excuse me?”

This girl could knock me for a loop with a word. How the heck did her mother manage?

“Do you know how to get a fake ID? I’d hire you to get me one.”

“Cali, that’s illegal. Besides which there are reasons for the laws against underage drinking. Your body isn’t equipped to handle alcohol at your age and especially at your size.” I realized I had adopted the tone of a lecturing parent and I cringed in spite of myself.

“Oh, really! If I wanted to get drunk I’d have said, ‘I need a bottle of booze,’ or something. What do you think I am? I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs. I don’t do a lot of other stuff, either, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Ok, sorry,” I said. This was my girlfriend’s daughter and I really needed to think about keeping lines of communication open. Hmm ... Girlfriend. I liked the sound of that and just hoped it was true. It could be a long-term thing. “Why do you think you need a fake ID?”

“Because all the good music venues are twenty-one and older. I can’t get in to see any of the bands I want to see. It’s just so unfair.” Music? She wanted a fake ID so she could go to concerts? Man, I really had to catch up with the times. But right now, I had to sympathize while still steering her clear of the notion of doing something illegal and stupid.

My coursework with Lars included a lot of information on covert operations. That was his Navy Intelligence background and he required it of his staff. Twenty years ago he’d taught me how to create a second skin as he called it. Yes, I had a driver’s license, credit cards, social security number, and even a passport locked in a safe deposit box at the bank that had my picture but a different identity. It took years of planning and maintenance to establish a good cover, and secrecy above all else. Lars had suggested that he would be assigning the same task for his undercover operations class in the fall. Not even he knew I had maintained my cover identity all these years.

Today, I knew, college kids were ordering passable IDs on-line from an ‘entertainment’ company in China. They wouldn’t stand up to careful government scrutiny, but most bouncers couldn’t tell the difference and even the police had stumbled over finding the telltale marks.

“I see the problem,” I said calmly. “Do any of your friends have these or is this your own solution?” She looked at me a little warily.

“Maybe.”

I’ve got to learn to ask one question at a time. I just waited.

“It just seemed like an easy way to get in to see the groups I want to see. All the cutting edge music gets played in bars after ten. Even when there’s an all-age venue, they usually cut it off before the good stuff comes on. And Mel said—well, she sort of suggested it would work because...”

Andi had told me a few days ago to just be quiet and listen and I’d learn a lot. The wild child of ultra-strict parents, who got permission to go to the movies last night because it was a PG film and she’d be with Andi, Cali, and me but then went to an R movie when she ditched us, used whatever means she needed to stretch her wings. I assumed that meant she had already acquired a fake ID.

“Oh, poo! It was a stupid idea and I told Mel that to start with. Here. I won’t be needing these.” She pushed a computer printout of tickets across the table to me. I listen to a lot of music when I’m alone in my room. This was one of my favorite groups, playing at an over-twenty-one venue next Friday. “I’m sure you could find someone to go with you,” she smirked.

I’d been had again! She couldn’t keep the smile off her face; her eyes were so bright you could hear the laughter. This whole ID thing was just ... Well, maybe there was some truth to it, but that wasn’t the point.

I became just as devious.

“Wow. Thanks, Cali. I’ll pay you for them. There’s this lady at the office who kinda dropped some hints—”

Cali’s expression collapsed on her face and she reached to snatch back the tickets, but I held the paper back out of reach. I grinned at her.

“You!” she snarled before breaking down in a fit of giggling. After she settled down, she looked me in the eye and I could tell she was a little worried. “You won’t hurt her, will you?”

I knew the question was coming from the heart of a girl who loved her mother more than anything in the world and was truly trying to make her happy.

“Cali, whether we are dating or not, I would never intentionally do anything to hurt her. Or you.” Her expression relaxed. “But wait a minute,” I said. “These tickets are for Friday. Doesn’t your show open Friday night?”

“Mmm. Yeah, so I guess I couldn’t have used them anyway, huh.”

“But don’t you want your mom at opening night?”

“Well, it’s gonna be a big flop and I’d rather you guys came Saturday instead of Friday. I couldn’t think of any other way to kind of tell Mom and you not to come to opening.” She shook her head and smiled as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

I glanced at my cell phone for the time and stood up.

“I need to get to work so I’m back in time for the barbecue this evening.” She looked at me skeptically.

“You’re going to work looking like that? Didn’t you just buy new clothes?”

“I’m just going up to my office on 15th. I’m not going into EFC.”

“Okay. That’s good, I’ll walk up there with you.”

“Maybe we should get a cup of coffee to take to your mom.”

“Maybe we should just let her sleep. It looked like she was having really nice dreams.” I chuckled and nodded my head, dropped my coffee cup in the compost bin, and turned up the street.

“Why are you headed up the hill?”

“Well, for one, I’m going to rehearsal. It’s wet tech today and I have to be a living body under the lights. It takes me about an hour to get to the theater by bus, but it’s a little quicker if I catch the one on 15th. And for another thing, I’m not done talking to you yet.” She had her shoulder bag slung over her back and held onto it with one hand while she continued to slurp her drink rather noisily through a straw. I was carrying only my laptop, so I offered to carry her bag. “Aren’t you a schoolboy! Thank you Dag.” I wasn’t sure I liked that, but when I picked up her bag, I regretted the offer.