Chapter 11: Show And Tell

The suite of rooms they were led to was magnificent. The muted hues of the raised wallpaper blended with the antiqued yellows of the wall paneling. Soft ocher in the heavy drapes acted as a complement to the light browns woven into the carpeting. It was a room for visiting dignitaries and heads of state.

"Holy smoke." was Dana's humbled exclamation. "This is nice."

Dana was led to her room and Jim was led to his. The intern looked into his dark, brooding eyes and asked hopefully, "Is there anything else you need, anything?"

Jim recognized the animal hunger that was behind the young woman's not too subtle offer of sex and shook his head. "I find Dana more than adequate."

His pointed answer was a strong enough rebuke that the intern rushed from the room, her flushed cheeks blazed with heated embarrassment. Jim shook his head wearily and wandered back out into the common waiting room. He sat in one of the leather club chairs that looked slightly out of place.

He picked up the phone sitting handily on a table next to his chair. A friendly woman's voice answered immediately, "May I help you?"

"I'm hungry. Can you tell me how to get something to eat?"

"Oh yes, Mister Featherstone. Do you know what you would like or should I have a menu brought to your suite?" The voice sounded as if its owner would be thrilled to drop everything and come herself if necessary to ensure Jim's complete satisfaction.

"I'd like a steak sandwich and a coke, please."

"What sort of steak sandwich would you care for?" the pleasant voice asked.

"The kind you eat." he answered, surprised at the question.

"Well, would you care for a Chicago Broil, a New York cut, a T-bone?" The voice sounded as if it were straining to be pleasant.

"Look, I'm hungry and when I ask for a steak sandwich, people ask me do I want it rare or well done or in between somewhere. Please make it rare." He hung up before the voice could start in playing twenty questions again.

As Dana came out of her room, the phone began to ring. Jim stared at it, unwilling to pick it up. Dana answered it saying, "Yes?"

"The chef wishes to know if the steak sandwich should be open or closed? He does need to know, of course."

Dana smiled and said, "Cancel the order and send up two T-bone steaks with everything. Make one rare and one medium. A brandied pudding for desert and two individual scoops of ice cream, preferably either made in house or Frusen Gladge if you must serve a commercial product. Is there anything else?"

"Er, no ma'am." Dana hung up without another word.

"Thank you. That woman was driving me crazy. All I wanted was a snack and she kept making a big deal out of it." Jim shook his head, "Why do they keep making simple things so complicated?"

"Because they are bureaucrats, first, last and always." She smiled at her beloved, "Sweetheart, you are too simple for their complicated bureaucratic minds to cope with. They thrive on complicated confusion and all you want to do is eat. If you wish to order a meal, complicate it by ordering something simple and then complicate things so they feel they have accomplished something. Then you will make them happy."

But all I want is a snack. I'm hungry."

"Then order a steak dinner, eat what you wish and throw the rest away." She bent over and kissed his firm mouth. "You're my steak dinner."

He reached up and hugged her. "I'm so lucky you found me."

The soft glow of the light in the room somehow created a halo around his head. His hair stood out in places and the tight curls gave him the gamin look of a homeless angel. Dana started to cry.

"What, what's wrong." he exclaimed, "Don't cry, please don't cry. What's the matter?" Alarmed, he grabbed her and raised himself out of the chair.

Still sobbing, she told him, "Jimmy, I'm crying because I'm so in love. I never knew how empty my life was until I met you. Oh God. I'm so happy I want to explode."

"I don't get it." He nuzzled the top of her head. "I like your smell," he added. They stood together and gathered strength and love from each other's closeness. The knock on the door caused them to separate.

"Come." Dana called. The door opened immediately and two young men carried in two large covered silver trays. A third pushed a serving table into place already set for two. Chairs were placed at the serving table. Dana was seated and Jim followed. The contents were placed on the table and with a "Bon appetite." they all left.

"Jim looked at the variety and shook his head. "All I wanted was a snack."

"So eat a snack and leave the rest," Dana told him, digging in.

"But that's wasteful."

"Welcome to Sacramento." she told him, taking another bite.

They ate and channel surfed on the big television in the room. They laughed as they listened to the various commentators speculate as to why the search for the two fugitives was called off. "For some strange reason the nationwide hunt for Dana Featherstone and James Wright has been cancelled by the FBI.

When asked to comment, the press was told, 'No comment.' Normally this means that either no one has a clue or there's a big cover up. Because of the decidedly furtiveness of Washington power players, I for one believe that someone is hiding something. I wonder could there be other tapes and discs that have not been played for the public yet?"

The commentator, an older man in his late fifties continued, "If anyone out there in Listener Land knows anything substantive, this station is offering up to a ten thousand dollar reward for information about the whereabouts of our most famous pair of fugitive lovers since Bonnie and Clyde."

They laughed and listened a while longer and went to bed. Jim looked toward Dana's bedroom longingly. "Good night." she told him in a firm, albeit reluctant voice. He shrugged and entered his own room and undressed. He lay down on top of the covers and was instantly asleep. Restless, he twisted and turned the whole night through, then finally dropped off into a deep sleep around four in the morning.

A woman's shape appeared in his doorway. She drew in a deep, shocked gasp as she saw the sleeping figure sprawled akimbo on the bed. Lying on his back, his arms outstretched as if welcoming a lover, he was bathed in the soft glow of the two lamps he hadn't turned off when he laid across the bed. His golden tightly curled hair reflected the light in a way that created a soft halo about his head. The bedding was twisted and swirled is such a way that suggested wings at his back.

"Good lord. He's a beautiful angel," she whispered to herself as she took in his well-endowed masculinity. "Very obviously male." she giggled to herself.

She took picture after picture, walking around the large bed, trying for a "best shot." She finally decided they were all best shots. She switched to her camera with the fifty-millimeter lens and made certain the flash was ready. With the flash pointed toward the ceiling to create a bounce light, she took two fast shots, One of him flat on his back and another of him sitting up in bed staring wildly around. Quickly she turned and fled the room as Jim yelled, "Hey."

He slipped out of bed and into the uniform pants he had worn the previous day and rushed out of his room and all the way out into the hall. He saw the backside of a woman getting on the elevator. He turned around and reentered the suite.

"What's happening?" Dana asked as she stuck her head out of her room.

"Some woman was taking naked pictures of me in my sleep. The flash going off woke me up." He looked at her in a puzzled way and asked plaintively, "Why would anyone do that?"

"Sweetheart, we are news. Whether we like it or not, we are news. But I want to know how someone got in here and took pictures in the first place." She picked up one of the phones in the sitting room of the suite and growled, "I want someone from security up here immediately."

"And you are?" the operator answered snootily.

"The short and dumpy broad that is going to shove that headset down your throat if you don't get security up here right now." Dana finished the operator's sentence for her and slammed the phone back down in the cradle hard enough to crack it.

"Sweetheart, why are you so upset? The woman just took a couple of pictures." Jim was puzzled by her agitation.

"What if that had been one of the ones that want to kill us?" she asked.

"Oh," was all he could say as the realization of their situation dawned on him. "Oh boy. I thought once we were here it was over, that we'd be safe."

"Yeah, and ride off in the sunset as the credits roll on the screen. Sorry, Babe, but this is real life and the villains just keep on comin' on." She sighed and gave him a kiss on the lips. He watched her go back in her room and shut the door behind her.

Jim sat in one of the comfortable easy chairs and leaned back. He started to doze off when the hall door opened and a grim looking man came in. "Where's the so-called intruder?" he asked. Standing three inches over six feet and weighing a little under three hundred pounds he was accustomed to his size intimidating people. Usually it worked.

"Hey fat boy," Dana called as she came out of her room, "If Jimmy said there was an intruder, there was one. But since he didn't, how did a chowder head like you know someone had been here?"

"Look, I don't have to explain myself to someone like you." He drew himself up to his full height and glared down at her.

"I want Will James, now." Dana barked into the phone. "I don't care if he's on the moon, I want him on the telephone forthwith." She hung up and scowled up at the big man.

"Hey, just what do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "I'm in charge here and I don't need Will James sticking his nose in my business." He started toward Dana and scowled down at her.

"Beat it, Bub, we don't want you here. Just crawl back under whichever rock you crawled out from under and leave us human beings alone."

"Why you..." He started to raise his fist and suddenly crumpled as Jim hit him from behind with a heavy lamp base. As he hit the floor, completely unconscious, Jim strained to lift the cumbersome table lamp again. His face was contorted with rage.

"Stop." Dana commanded, "Don't do it, you'll kill him."

"I don't care. He's not going to lay a hand on you."

With ease, the small woman took the lamp away before he dropped it on himself and set it back on the table by the chair Jim had been sitting in. She kissed him and laid her face against his chest. She heard his wildly beating heart. "You better sit down, Jimmy. When the adrenaline wears off, you're going to be weak as a kitten." She gently pushed on his chest and he stepped backward and fell heavily into the chair.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Dana, you're right, I do feel weak. But I was not going to let him hit you." He looked up into her eyes and she saw the raw devotion he felt for her. It scared her. Never had she ever seen any emotion directed at her but hatred and fear when she worked her magic in a courtroom.

The phone sounded and she picked it up. "Will James here, what's up?"

"We had an intruder here who photographed Jimmy in the nude for starters," she answered him.

"Well, if that's starters, what's finishers?" he asked.

"Jimmy brained some big loudmouth who threatened me with one of those heavy table lamps in here." She proceeded to describe the man.

"Haw." Will interrupted her. "This I got to see. I'll be right up. Right now I am trying to get someone from security down here to run the switchboard. The person who was on duty is on her way to jail." Security caught a reporter who decided she wanted to live to report another day.

"Hmmm. Curiouser and curiouser," Dana muttered.

"Dana?" Jim said plaintively, "I'm hungry."

Affectionately she rolled her eyes, grinned and picked up the phone, "Two New York steaks, eggs over easy and a big pot of coffee, please," she said as a familiar voice answered.

"Well, at least you said please." Will James answered her. "I'm stuck down here until the replacement gets here. What about the loudmouth?"

"Well, he hasn't moved so much as a twitch since Jimmy brained him. Maybe you had better call for the paramedics."

"I would but all I've been able to figure out is how to answer this thing. The incoming calls just keep piling up. I'll walk down to the kitchen when someone relieves me here." He disconnected.

They sat for an hour and stared at the still form on the floor. Finally, Will James came hurrying into the room, followed by two paramedics. "Oh hell." one complained when they saw the size of their patient.

"What is it with these guys?" Dana groused, "Haven't they ever had to do any work before?"

"Lady, if you think he's so light, you want to take an end" The attendant who spoke to her had folded the gurney down in order to roll their patient onto it.

They positioned the gurney and started to roll him onto it. Dana stepped up, squatted and grabbed a handful of the man's belt and jerked him up and over. He jackknifed slightly, but the heavy torso was on the gurney. "Get the rest of him on your little meat cart and you two take that end and I'll take this end. We lift and you'll have him on wheels and you can get him out of here."

"Lady, what if he has a back injury?" The other paramedic reproved her sternly.

"In the first place Jimmy hit him in the head. In the second place, I really do not give a tinker's damn whether he has any other injuries or not. Just get him out of here." She squatted, grabbed the heavy end and yelled at them, "Lift."

A minute later the chastened pair were out the door with their load. "What if he does have other injuries?" Will James was amused at her antics and impressed with the dynamic strength in her short body. Never had he ever seen her kind of strength.

"I'll sue him," she answered.

"And win, I'll bet."

There was a discreet knock on the door and a young waitress entered with a platter of food. She placed it on an end table, waited until Dana inspected it and silently left. Jimmy grabbed a light chair from its place along the wall and dug in. "I'm really hungry." he exclaimed. "Aren't you going to eat yours?" He drank his orange juice and started in on the steak and eggs.