Astride a Pink Horse (24 page)

Sweating, Rikia struggled to get his words out. “Listen to my paper tomorrow and you’ll have your answer.”

“I’ll be there.” Ambrose Weir said, grinning. “And we can
expect as usual that your senior postdoc, Patricia Recard, will be giving the paper?”

“Yes,” Rikia said, struggling to control his temper.

“Why, yes, of course,” Ambrose said, loudly, directing his response toward his table of friends. “I’ll say this for you, Rikia. You seem to always pick grad students who are as talented as they are pretty. We’ll be interviewing Dr. Recard for a faculty position at Cal Tech during this meeting, by the way. She’s top drawer.” He winked and added, “And you can bet that if she’s lucky enough to join our group, we’ll set her straight on equivalence relations and math logic.”

“Do that for me,” said Rikia, barely able to enunciate through what was now clenched-jaw anger.

“Hope you find your soda,” Ambrose Weir said, pivoting to return to his colleagues.

Rikia glanced briefly over his shoulder and back at the table full of insipid-looking Americans as he left. They were busy talking and laughing again. No doubt they’d soon again be whispering about him. He recalled something that he’d once read:
It’s paranoia to think that someone’s after you when they’re not; it’s simply common sense, however, to guard against such a possibility; and it’s pure logic to remove the risk in whatever manner necessary when called for
. Smiling to himself as he reflected on the premise, Rikia left the room in search of a nerve-calming soda.

Bernadette’s suite on the seventh floor of Denver’s JW Marriott Hotel overlooked a cobblestone street filled with quaint shops, and save for the slightly annoying swishing sound of the suite’s air conditioning, the tastefully appointed space was otherwise quiet and relaxing. A set of turquoise earrings and a silk scarf that she’d bought at the nearby Cherry Creek mall sat on the chair next to her. After returning from shopping a few minutes earlier, she’d changed into an oversized T-shirt and a pair of old running shorts with the barely recognizable washed-out letters “UCLA” stenciled just above the hem of the right leg, and she was barefoot, as was her custom.

She’d brought along a half-dozen books to read, only to realize when she’d strolled through a bookstore in the mall that the books she’d packed were entirely too much of the same: military histories, mysteries, and biographies, the whole lot. Deciding that she needed more variety in her reading, and perhaps in her life, she’d bought a couple of romances in the bookstore before scooping up famed UCLA basketball coach John Wooden’s gem,
Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court
. Surprisingly, even though she’d been an elite UCLA athlete, she’d never read the book nor met Wooden. However, she knew enough about the quiet, introspective man they called “the Wizard of
Westwood,” who’d brought UCLA ten NCAA basketball championships, to be open to absorbing some of his wisdom.

She’d just picked the book up, relaxed back in her chair, and started reading the blurbs on the back cover when a call from Cozy Coseia interrupted her. “What’s up, Major?” he asked casually, sounding as if he were right there in the suite.

For a moment she thought about lying to him and saying she was busy or tied up at the base. Instead, she blurted out, “I’m in Denver.”

Cozy’s response was surprised silence.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Why didn’t you tell me you were headed this way?”

The way Cozy asked the question, sounding as if he had some reason to be hurt, surprised her. “I didn’t know I was coming until this afternoon. Colonel DeWitt pulled me off the Tango-11 investigation, so I decided to head this way and lick my wounds.”

“Did he pull you off because of Freddy and me?”

“Yes, and no. He thinks I’ve been a little too friendly with the press, but he had other reasons.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Actions always have consequences, and mine have put me here in Denver on leave.”

“How long are you here for?”

“A couple of days.”

“Two days of being something other than an air force major?

That’ll be different.”

“I know how to play at being a civilian, Cozy.”

“Hey, no offense intended, and I believe you. So what’s on your agenda for the evening, Ms. Cameron?”

“I thought I’d do some reading.”

“Pretty confining. How about I take you to dinner instead?”

“I don’t think it would be—”

“Appropriate? You’re on leave, Bernadette, remember?”

“Hard to forget.” After a long, thoughtful pause, she said, “Okay. Dinner it is. But no shoptalk. Nothing about Tango-11, Colonel DeWitt, or Thurmond Giles?”

“Promise. Where are you staying?”

“At the JW Marriott in Cherry Creek.”

“Why don’t I pick you up around seven thirty? How’s Asian food sound?”

“Great. As long as I can get something that’s deep fried and loaded with calories. Might as well break a few rules while I’m on leave. I’ll see you in forty-five minutes,” Bernadette said, glancing at her watch.

“Good.”

“And no Tango-11 talk, remember?”

“Got it memorized.” The smile on Cozy’s face broadened into a Cheshire cat grin as he hung up, rose from his chair, and headed for his bedroom closet, hoping to find something freshly laundered to wear.

Little Ollie’s restaurant, which billed itself as a “purveyor of New Asian cuisine,” was packed with a Friday-night mix of yuppies, Gen Xers, Me-Mes, wannabe hipsters, aging boomers, and businessmen. Nearly everyone in the tantalizingly fragrant, sweet-and-sour-smelling place looked happy to have made it through the week, especially the tired-looking man with graying hair and a
stick-on
Hello, I’m Ralph
name tag peeling from his lapel who sat alone at the table across from Cozy and Bernadette, drinking from a tumbler filled with something amber-colored and potent-looking.

As Cozy enjoyed a generous swallow of beer, Bernadette toyed with the glass of cabernet she’d barely touched, wondering whether she looked as Friday-night worn out as the rest of the customers. Dressed casually from head to toe in black, Cozy didn’t look tired or at all like the stereotypical rumpled newspaperman. With his unruly mop of wind-tossed-looking, curly black hair and nut-brown skin, he reminded her instead of a somewhat overdressed surfer.

Watching her finally take a second sip of wine, Cozy said, “Thought for a minute you’d made a bad choice.”

“No. The wine’s perfect. I’ve just been people-watching and thinking about the future.”

“Gotta do them both from time to time.”

“Guess my time’s now, to look toward the future, I mean. You, on the other hand, seem to be set. Good job, best friend for a boss, and you get to nose around in a world that never lacks for a story.”

Cozy found himself staring at Bernadette and thinking about a favorite Freddy Dames mantra: that beautiful, successful women always have a fatal flaw. A flaw that, according to Freddy, was somehow always rooted in insecurity. Although Bernadette had more of a wholesome, outdoorsy, athletic look than the silicone-breasted, fatally flawed, Hollywood-starlet types Freddy preferred, she was successful and striking enough to have Cozy all of a sudden wondering.

“I’m enjoying what I do,” Cozy said, looking up as their waitress
set a steaming bowl of rice and his order of puffy, deep-fried shrimp down in front of him.

“Hot,” the waitress warned, wagging an index finger and placing two sets of chopsticks on the table before setting an overflowing plate of General Tso’s chicken in front of Bernadette. “Anything else?” she asked politely.

Eyeing the food-cluttered tabletop, Cozy said, “No.”

“Looks fantastic,” said Bernadette.

“Just like the lady sitting across from me,” Cozy said, raising his beer mug and tipping it at Bernadette. When she didn’t respond, he lowered the mug, looking embarrassed.

Recognizing his embarrassment, Bernadette reached for her chopsticks, smiled, and said, “Well, thank you, Cozy. I needed the lift.”

The waitress had cleared their table and Bernadette had finished a second glass of wine by the time their now comfortable dinner conversation turned to the issue of Cozy’s injured leg.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Bernadette said, toying with the stem of her wineglass and looking far more embarrassed by the question she’d just asked than Cozy had looked when he’d toasted her earlier. “I just wondered about your motorcycle accident. Sometimes my inquisitiveness bubbles up when it shouldn’t.” She suddenly felt convinced that she’d offended the man she’d just told more about herself over two glasses of wine than she’d told any man in years. “Guess we’ve reached the obligatory bumpy spot in the evening’s road.”

“Not really,” Cozy said, staring into his empty beer mug. “In fact, as fate would have it, the whole issue with my leg started
out with a road. Almost twelve years ago now, out in eastern Colorado.” He glanced toward the ceiling and stared at it, looking as though he needed to be tethered to something above him before he could continue. “Back then Freddy and I were on top of the world. We’d both been picked in the first round of the major league baseball draft a few months earlier, and we were due to report to our respective Double-A clubs the next week. I’d been riding Freddy for days about him being Mr. Golden Boy, as always, heading off to play for a Yankees farm team, and he’d responded in kind, saying it was only my dumb Dominican luck that had landed me a spot with the hometown Colorado Rockies Double-A affiliate in Tulsa.

“The day I got hurt, we’d driven out to Julesburg, Colorado, to look at six hundred acres of farmland Freddy was thinking about buying so we’d have a place to go pheasant and quail hunting in the fall after baseball season was over. Freddy had decided to bring along his newest toy, a 1999 Ducati motorcycle.”

“Not that bike in the Gulfstream?”

“No. The bike in the plane’s much smaller and a whole lot slower. The Ducati’s ancient history. Anyway, Freddy insisted on towing along the Ducati, announcing on the way to Julesburg that he planned to find somewhere that he could top-end the thing. The bike was a rocket, touted by the manufacturer to top out at a hundred and sixty-one,” Cozy said, his voice trailing off. He paused, then went on.

“We’d gotten a late start out of Denver, so we didn’t get to Julesburg until about two. The real estate agent who had the property listed met us in town, then drove us out to the farm. We
checked the place out for over an hour, looking for bird cover and water habitat and getting a general feel for the lay of the land.

“By the time we finished walking the property, it was close to five. We drove back into Julesburg, grabbed something to eat, and then took off to look for a stretch of I-76 frontage road the real estate broker had assured Freddy would be the perfect place to test the Ducati without having to worry about cops.

“We spent a good half hour trying to find the road, and by the time we did it was almost dusk. By then the South Platte River, which ran just east of the frontage road, was misting up, and a temperature inversion fog had begun to blanket not just the road but the woods around it and the interstate.”

Sensing what was coming, Bernadette grimaced.

“We parked on the road’s shoulder, which was pretty much pure sand, and Freddy unloaded the bike and fired it up. When I warned him to be careful because of the fog, he shouted, ‘Careful’s for condoms, Elgin!’ hopped on the Ducati, and took off.

“He made three half-mile runs down that frontage road, each one a little faster than his last. He came back from the third run yelling, ‘Topped her out!’ stepped off the bike, and said, ‘Your turn.’

“To this day, I don’t know why I got on that motorcycle. But I did. I wasn’t as skilled a rider as Freddy, but I could ride pretty well, and since the two of us had always thrived on competition, I told myself,
What the hell, I’ll top-end the thing, too
. I couldn’t see more than fifteen yards ahead of me when I jumped on the Ducati and took off.”

Bernadette all but gasped.

“I was doing just over ninety when the Ducati’s front tire nicked
the shoulder. I barely went off the pavement, really, but the tire sank in the sand, the bike catapulted forward, and I went sailing.”

Looking as if the crash were somehow recurring right then, Cozy said, “If there’d just been a little wider strip of sand to that shoulder, no more sand than you’d find in a playground sandbox, I probably would have ended up landing in it and suffered nothing more than a bunch of bad bruises and a couple of broken ribs. But there wasn’t, and I landed on a collection of boulders.”

Bernadette nodded sympathetically.

“Freddy was there screaming, ‘No, no, no!’ in what seemed like nothing flat, and although I’ve always claimed that I never lost consciousness, he still says that when paramedics pulled my leg from where it was locked between two boulders, my eyes rolled back in my head and I went out like a light.

“I don’t remember the ambulance ride back to Sterling, the Flight for Life helicopter ride to Denver, anything about the six-hour surgery, or even waking up afterward. All I remember is postop in the recovery room, Freddy standing beside me crying and blaming himself, and my grandmother standing at the foot of the bed crossing herself and praying. And, of course, I remember the fog,” Cozy said, more to himself than to Bernadette, before placing both hands palms up on the table as though the gesture might provide him absolution for a transgression.