Jezebel's Ladder (14 page)

“He could’ve been me. That’s reason
enough. Have you tracked down the person who gave away our post-hypnotic keys?”

Crusader shook his head. “Unfortunately,
Cornflake lost her badge three times the first week.”

“People kept tricking her into
bending over and the badge would fall off her shorts. I had to get her a lab
coat like mine to wear. It holds the badge better and covers her (ahem) assets,”
Jez explained. “It would take her a couple days to decide to get another
because all the guys opened doors for her. I know my roommate isn’t the
brightest, but I don’t think she'd set me up; she cries over dresses and told
me how to get past the dogs.”

“You’re avoiding,” Crusader noted.

With a sigh, she resumed her
detailed account of the torture. When Jez got to the description of how
Maverick planned to rape her, he interjected, “I heard enough from the
recording.”

Claudette was white-lipped and had
been writing the word “bastard” on her notepad repeatedly.

“Sorry,” the interviewee apologized
when she saw the effect her descriptions were having. She sped up the
narrative. “I stalled all I could, but if Benny hadn’t arrived when he did, I
might have told them everything.”

“Checkmate. You told Dirt Bag the
new combination in your e-mail and he never suspected,” he said with
admiration.

“I had to,” she explained. Then she
detailed the combat, Benny’s disastrous bragging and her disabling of the
offender.

“You reformatted his brain?” he
confirmed.

“Just like you did to mine. You see
how dangerous that page is to the wrong person. He’s effectively a vegetable
now, and I’ve ruined my future as a judge.”

“Tell me more about the judge
thing. I didn’t understand the recording there.”

She explained about their plans for
three-judge tribunals to make important legal decisions. Then she described
people with the page who operated as “transparency officers,” especially
accountants and lawyers, who operated as the conscience of the organization.
Then Jez stopped. “Wait a minute; I didn’t turn the recording device off. How
much did you get?”

“Until the chopper made it
impossible to hear,” he said.

She blushed. “I cursed like a
sailor every time he smashed my boobs. They still hurt like hell and every time
he took too big a step or zigzagged, they’d smack into his back.”

When Crusader gave her a blank
look, Claudette explained, “They’re as sensitive as your balls are, and
Maverick likes to twist them till they’re black and blue.” That made the
detective wince.

“I hope you didn’t let anyone else
listen to it,” Jez whispered.

Crusader seemed surprised. “They’re
priceless training materials for our students. Against impossible odds, you
pulled the rabbit out of the hat, lady. Anyone listening to those would want to
shake your hand. When you’re in upper management, and you will be, no one
coming up will be able to say a word against you.”

Jez looked at the floor and said
nothing. Claudette intervened. “Are you finished with my friend yet? She has a
lot of recovering to do.”

“Okay, we can cut some of the
personal relationship talk in the ambulance, but the rest is gold.”

Both women furrowed brows at him,
so he clarified. “When Buddy told her how he felt about her.”

“I was unconscious for that.”

He made an O with his mouth. “So I
guess you’ll want to hear that part.”

“
I
would,” the starlet
admitted.

“No. Give the device to Benny and
let him know you respected
his
privacy,” Jez said quietly.

As Crusader stood up to leave,
Claudette said, “Hey, jerk, I’ll tell you something you missed if you agree to
leave my girl alone for a week. That includes my ex.”

“Tell me, and I’ll decide,” he said
in flat, cop tones.

“You probably played that recording
for a dozen guys and a few more secretaries for transcription. Did you bother to
change the password afterward?”

Crusader blanched and ran for the
waiting room where he could get a clear signal.

Jez grinned weakly. “Claudette, I’m
definitely
going to enjoy being your friend, too.”

On more than one occasion that week, Jez woke up screaming.
Claudette was always there to hold her like she was a little girl, shush in her
ear, and make the image of the evil man go away. “He’ll never hurt anyone else
ever again.”

Security didn’t pester her, as
promised, but Daniel called her the second day. Since the starlet was
volunteering in the children’s ward, Jez was grateful for the companionship.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I hurt everywhere and I can’t walk
to the bathroom on my own yet. I look like an old lady when I move.”

“I play
Die, Zombie, Die
,
but you lived it. You were awesome! Perfect score. I watched the whole way.”

She grinned. He chatted with her
about a dozen inconsequential things. His computer programming class had opened
up a new world of possibilities. He was making some applications for his
desktop to help his searching and tracking efforts. Half the time, his
monologues ended up mentioning something endearing about Nena.

“Did you have something you’re
avoiding saying?”

“Damn, this is hard enough to ask,
but over the phone makes it even harder.”

Her smile bloomed even wider. “Tell
her how you feel and start by kissing. Stop at the neck for now. That will
build the tension to incredible levels. Let her show you how she likes things.
Enjoy every minute of it. When she moans and puts your hand somewhere else, you’ll
know what to do.”

The teenage boy was silent for a
long time. After a gulp, he said uneasily, “Wow. Not what I was going to ask.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no. Uh, I’m definitely going
to give that other thing a try. I meant to get your help with Dirt Bag. With
you and Benny out of the way, he’s trying to run everything.”

“Is Benny okay?” she asked.

“Fine, but the Percocet makes him
fall asleep a lot. He’ll be better in a few days when the swelling goes down.
His hand was all purple and squeezing through the holes in the cast. DB sent
him home and gave Tan orders to keep him there. The big guy keeps pushing me to
dive at the same rates as when I was with you. But we only have half the staff,
and nobody knows what they’re doing. I finally snuck away to phone you.”

Jez breathed out. “Give the phone
to your guard.” When he did so a few minutes later, she started belting out
orders. “Butterfly here. If I hear Oobie has slipped your watch again, you will
become Crusader’s new demonstration dummy for defense class. Make sure there
are at least two guards on him at all times. He doesn’t take a leak without
you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Go get Paul from the LA office.
Use my auth codes. He’s weak, but serviceable for detecting actives. You guys
use him sometimes for door duty. He’ll make a decent pre-filter to eliminate
the obvious negatives. Oobie makes fourteen dives a night, no more.”

“But Dirt Bag…”

“Am I stuttering?”

“No, ma’am.”

“If I have to kick your ass myself
with these casts on, it’s going to hurt both of us.”

“Yes, sir.”

She almost giggled at the slip. “He’ll
be a target, too. Don’t spend more than twenty minutes in any place. Assume
that the person beside you has the Fossils on speed dial. Not even a long lunch
on the outside, no matter how much Oobie whines. If something smells rotten,
you move him to safety and form a wall of people around his scrawny ass.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If he is not there to greet me
when I get home…” She paused, unable to think of a convincing threat of
violence that she could actually carry out.

“Understood, sir.” He passed the
phone back to Oobie.

“Handled,” she said. They chatted
pleasantly for another fifteen minutes before hanging up.

Word spread fast in LA. Weiss
called her two hours later. “Hey,” she said, conversationally. “You did a great
job saving my team. So what’s up, Doc?”

“This Red Giant project is a total
skunk works, a colossal hack, held together with bailing wire and spit.”

“Pretend I don’t speak Engineer.”

“These guys burned millions of
dollars and worked around the clock to get a prototype to show Dirt Bag, and
nothing else. Nothing is reusable or reproducible. It’s all a house of cards,
smoke and mirrors. The guy with the page can’t even explain how the star finder
works. Most of his work was with the interface to the remote display. There’s
no way we can combine it with another page until we can document how this
works.”

She sighed. “Start with hiring a
couple of cute, hero-worshiping math students who know that Coffee programming
language.”

“Java.”

“Whatever. Think people, not tech,
for a minute. Have them document the procedures and theory of operation. Hire
Kyle Anderson. Compartmentalize. Don’t tell him what the project does, just
tell him you need to optimize and productize the software. He’ll tell you what
it does and what the structural problems are in a couple days.”

“Architectural,” Dr. Weiss
corrected.

“Do you want help, or do you want
to be right?”

“Sorry. Uncle Buddy is
incommunicado. How do I manage all this budgetary crap?”

“I’ll be taking over the project as
soon as I can walk again. I’ll get you your requisition forms by five today.”

“Will Dirt Bag sign off on this?”

“Please. I know the secretary who
has the real power. I cut out the middle man. Dirt Bag only cares about results;
he’ll forgive almost anything if he sees results in a couple months. I’ll
publish a memo to take the heat if anything goes wrong. Anything else?”

The doctor was mollified, even a
little impressed. “That’ll suffice. Thank you.”

“You protect my boys, and I’ll have
your back. I may not be an MBA, but I can carry water with the best of them. I
know who does the real work.”

“You really should be resting,” he
admonished.

“I’m going stir crazy already.
Besides, these guys just need a little pep talk to get moving in the right
direction.”

“I've heard about your pep talks.
The agents have already changed your nickname to Iron Butterfly.”

That made Jez laugh. “It’s better
than Old Frankenstein Boots.”

One call led to another. The
secretary was concerned about the backup in paperwork since Benny disappeared.
This gave her an excuse to phone his home number.

Tan picked up. “Miss Jezebel. I
hope you are feeling well.”

“Jez. You know me, Tan, I just
sleep till I’m better and it’s back to work. You did a good job showing our boy
some kick-boxing moves. Do you take other students?”

“I have a dojo, but I do not charge
for friends, Miss Jez. If you are here some morning at six, I would be happy to
show you as well.”

She blushed. “There’s probably only
one way that would happen. As happy as that would make me, it’s not likely to
take place any time in the next six weeks. I was actually hoping you would give
our guards pointers. We’d pay you for your time.”

“I am flattered by your offer, but
I am busy keeping Mister Ben in bed. Once he is safe, I can meet with your
trainer and discuss my philosophies.”

“Excellent,” Jez said. Shifting to
a meeker tone, she said, “Would Benny be able to talk to me?”

“He fell asleep watching movies. I
won’t let him watch news. Even E! gets him worked up. When he wakes, he will be
glad to call you back. You need milk and broccoli. Also recommend oyster shells
for your bones.”

“You’re sweet. Who is handling
Sleeping Beauty’s charity while he's away?”

Tan paused. “Mr. Ben is the driving
personality.”

“You work directly under him. This
would be an excellent opportunity to show your leadership skills. You know who
to stall and how Benny likes things handled.”

“Yes… but I do not feel
comfortable…”

“How many people take care of his
estate that you handle for him? Who filters his mail? Who signs for packages
when he isn’t there, probably most of the time?”

“Point,” Tan said, as if scoring a
martial arts tournament.

“So we can count on you? I’ll try
to keep the Project running, but he’d be heartbroken if the charity fell apart
because some tax form wasn’t filed on time or some donor got offended.”

“We?” Tan pressed.

“I think it is the Chinese that say
when a guy carries you out of a torture chamber through a gauntlet of killers,
he’s responsible for you for life.”

The kick boxer said, “I see. He did
not share these details.”

“Ask him after he takes his drugs,”
she joked. “He’ll tell you everything. I can get you clearance.”

“He is not taking the pain medicine
anymore. He fears it will become a substitute for alcohol. Neither would I take
advantage.”

“Points for you, Tan. I’ll talk to
him about the medicine. Keep doing what you’re doing. We appreciate you more
than you know. You may mention to Benny that he’s bearing the same injuries you
did. If he looks at this as karma, maybe he could let himself off the hook just
a little.”

“Miss Jez, I look forward to having
you as a student some morning.”

By then, the starlet had returned.
Claudette asked her personal coordinator to deliver a new laptop with fingerprint
protection. By seven that evening, Jez had downloaded the electronic copy of
the James Earl Jones audio Bible and was listening to the story of Ruth while
she paged through résumés of people already working for Fortune.

Claudette smiled, listening in from
the next bed as she read through fan and business mail. “I recommend Song of
Solomon and Exodus next, a balance of smut and history. Although Joshua is
probably more your style: spies and butt-kicking.”

When the hospital phone rang, Jez
paused the audio book and answered with an abrupt, “Butterfly. Did you get the
cost projections on that office space I asked for?”

“You made fun of me for working
this late,” Benny said in sexy, low tones that sent a thrill through her.

“Hi,” she said, reverting to the
sixteen-year-old version of herself again. Claudette giggled at the change,
knowing exactly who was on the other side.

She talked for half an hour without
saying anything significant other than convincing him to take his pain
medication in order to sleep. When he mentioned something tangentially
work-related, she asked, “Do you have a second-in-command for Project duties?”

“For Eye Corps, it would be Oobie,
but for the LA search activities, no.”

“Pick someone. Pick two. Call them
tonight. Your people are running in circles without a leader. I have an envoy I’m
not using. Tom’s already cleared. You should probably entrust Oobie with a few
administrative tasks as well.”

The change of gears threw him for a
moment. “Okay.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s
your ‘I’m telling you what you want to hear’ okay. I need you to delegate or I
will.”

Claudette hid her face with a
magazine. Covering the phone, Jez said, “What?”

The starlet said, “You’re
emasculating the poor man.”

“Oh.” Into the phone, she said, “I’m
sorry, Ben. You’re just too important to too many people. I’ve got Tan picking
up the slack for the charity, but you’re as bad about micromanaging as Dirt
Bag. It’s one reason he trusts you.”

“Ouch,” he said.

“Risking your life like you did
could have hurt a lot of people. Don’t do it again,” she said.

“Say what you mean, hon’,”
Claudette whispered.

“Hey, this is my boyfriend call,”
Jez snapped. “Get your own.”

“Boyfriend?” Benny and Claudette
said at the same time.

“What, I have to change your status
on Facebook and have you approve it? We’re both adults here. I’m calling you
every night, talking about sappy stuff for way too long just because I don’t
want to say goodbye. What else do you call that?”

He stammered for a moment before
admitting. “Boyfriend. I haven’t been called that in thirty years.”

“Get used to it.”

“This is a forceful new side. Have
you read another page?” he joked.

“Not yet. I'm psyching myself up
for Red Giant, but won’t unless I have to. I want to give the team six months
to get results on their own.”

“Driving innovation like Patton did
tanks.”

“You’re mad I’m taking the Red
Giant Project? I heard you lobbied to have me taken out of the field. What did
you expect?”

Claudette scooped the phone out of
her hand. “Hi, darlin’. My roomie is just trying to live up to her new Iron
Butterfly image. Yes, the title Field Marshal is hard to pull off in a hospital
gown, but she manages it. They put on jackboots instead of casts. Some boys
like that. Uh-huh. I’d be happy to arrange that. I’ll use the company jet. Good
job, Benny, she’s a keeper. Goodbye.”

“Hey, I wasn’t done with that!” Jez
objected when she hung up.

“Trust me; I’ve given you too much
rope already. You just had your first fight.”

“Who won?”

“He’ll let you have the Red Giant
project if you come back to LA where he can keep an eye on you. Having you
exposed like this is bad for his digestion.”

When Jez started to object,
Claudette stopped her with, “Read between the lines, hon’. He loves you and
wants to see you, even if you’re busting his balls.”

“Oh. When you put it like that, my
neck has been getting awfully cramped from all this long-distance phone work.
Going to LA would be a big improvement.”

“That’s my girl. We call it
work-life balance in the trade. I told him I’d fly you there on my jet.”

“You? I couldn’t… I mean, thank
you,” Jez said, adjusting.

“Fast learner.”

“Are we flying out tonight or first
thing tomorrow?”

Claudette laughed. “My ex has been
a very bad influence on you. Neither. The doctors have to okay this, and more
importantly, my hairdresser has to pay us a visit with her team.”