Power Play (8 page)

“That’s politics, huh?”

“Yes, it is.” She leaned closer. “I think you’ve done something wonderful, Jake.”

“Not me,” he said, feeling flustered by the nearness of her. Her perfume was enticing, very feminine. “It’s guys like Rogers and Younger…”

“You,” she said, with a hand on his thigh.

Jake pulled her to him and kissed her. Her lips opened slightly and suddenly he was wrapping himself around her and he didn’t give a damn if his bedroom looked like Hiroshima after the bomb.

SEX AND LOVE

Amy’s naked body lay curled against Jake, both of them sweaty and sticky-wet beneath the tangled bedsheet. She nestled in his arms, murmuring in his ear.

Half drowsing, Jake blinked his eyes and asked, “What’d you say?”

“I have to go,” Amy said, in a whisper.

For a moment he didn’t understand. Then, “Leave?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you stay?”

Amy pushed herself up on one elbow. Nodding toward the digital clock on the night table, she said, “It’s past two. I have a big meeting at nine o’clock.”

“So go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll set the alarm.”

“No. I can’t.” She pulled free of Jake and sat up. “I’ve got to get back to my place.”

“You can use my shower,” he said.

“Thanks, but I’ll shower when I get home.” She slipped out of the bed and started searching in the dark for her clothes.

Jake flicked on the bedside lamp.

“Thanks,” she said as she pulled on her panties.

He rolled out of bed and reached for his own clothes.

“You don’t have to get up.”

He grunted. “You’re not going down to the parking lot by yourself.”

She smiled at him. “You’re very protective.”

He said nothing, just watched glumly as she fastened her bra and pulled up the straps. She’s really stunning, Jake thought. Trim as a racing yacht.

Once they were both dressed Jake led her down the concrete stairs to the building’s back door. It was chilly outside, and the sky had clouded over. He couldn’t see a single star.

Amy unlocked her BMW with a beep of the remote key, then turned and kissed Jake lightly on the lips.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “It was lovely.”

“Thank
you
,” he said. And he watched her get into the car, gun the engine, and pull out of the parking lot.

Jake wearily climbed back to his apartment, fumbled with the key, then headed back to his thoroughly roiled bed. Lucky man, he told himself. As he undressed again he thought about Amy’s smooth, lithe body. Sitting on the bed, he realized that this was the first sex he’d had since Louise had died. He expected a pang of remorse, but instead he merely said to himself, Well, at least you haven’t forgotten how to do it.

But once he fell asleep he dreamed of Louise. He didn’t realize he was dreaming. He was sitting in the living room of their home, watching football on television. Louise sat on the big, comfortable sofa beside him, her feet tucked up beneath her, just as intent on the game as he was. A commercial break came on, and she got up and headed for the kitchen.

“Beer?” she asked, over her shoulder.

“Sure,” he said.

From the kitchen, Louise called, “Jake, can you come here a minute?”

He got up and went to the kitchen.

But it wasn’t the kitchen. It was the morgue where her battered body was laid out on a metal table and the police had taken him there to identify her body and it was her, Louise, her skull bashed in, her face caked with blood, her deep brown eyes open and staring sightlessly.

“They’ll have to perform an autopsy,” the policewoman was saying. “It’s mandatory in accident cases.”

Jake stepped to the edge of the table and reached out to close Louise’s eyes. The policewoman clasped his wrist.

“Sorry, sir. You’re not allowed to touch the body.”

“But she’s my wife.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

And Jake’s eyes snapped open. He was soaked with cold sweat. He sat up in the bed, his head hanging, and wished he could cry. He wanted to cry, wanted to let the tears burst out and wash away his grief. But the tears would not come. He was alone, without even tears to ease his agony.

PROFESSOR SINCLAIR’S OFFICE

“No,” said Professor Arlan Sinclair.

Jake blinked with surprise. “No?”

They were sitting around the circular table that took up one corner of Professor Sinclair’s spacious office. A corner office, with big windows that looked out on the distant blue-hazed mountains. Amy Wexler sat on Jake’s left, Bob Rogers on his right. Tim Younger sat next to Rogers and Glynis Colwyn sat between Younger and the professor.

It was two days after Amy had gone to bed with Jake. Two days in which their only contact had been a couple of very proper telephone conversations to set up this meeting with the head of the university’s MHD program. Two days in which Jake’s head spun with the memory of her blithely unrestrained acrobatics in bed. Despite his misery of guilt, his insides quivered at the thought of her, and now she was sitting primly beside him, as if nothing at all had happened, wearing a no-nonsense navy blue business suit.

Sinclair looked as fierce as a flowing-maned lion standing guard over his cubs.

“As I told you before, I will not have the MHD program turned into a political football,” he said, with a slight toss of his head. The gesture reminded Jake of films he had seen of President Roosevelt. Had Sinclair deliberately copied FDR’s imperious body language?

“I don’t think you understand,” Amy began.

“I understand perfectly well,” Sinclair said, almost truculently. “You want to use our work to get votes for Frank Tomlinson. You have no interest in MHD research itself.”

“If Mr. Tomlinson gets elected to the Senate he will push for federal funding for your program. That could mean millions of dollars, Professor Sinclair. Tens of millions.”

Sinclair’s fleshy face darkened. “And it would turn a well-organized, carefully paced research program into a government boondoggle. I won’t have it.”

Younger spoke up. “Prof, we could use the Washington money to fund the long-duration tests.”

“We can do long-duration tests on the Mark I, here on campus.”

“At low power levels,” said Younger.

“That’s perfectly all right. The plasma physics is the same.”

“But the engineering isn’t,” Younger insisted. “The electrode erosion isn’t. The channel integrity isn’t.”

Rogers jumped in. “Professor, the utility companies won’t be impressed by low-power runs. They’ll want to see five thousand hours at fifty megawatts, at least.”

Sinclair glared at him. For a long moment the big airy office fell coldly silent. Jake could hear the faint whisper of the air conditioner’s fan.

At last Sinclair said, “Government funding will bring government regulations. Washington red tape. News reporters hounding us. Is that what you want?”

Rogers began to shake his head, but Glynis said, “What is it that
you
want, Professor? Do you see the MHD program as a perpetual research operation, or do you want to see MHD making an impact on the real world? Do you want to produce electrical power, or research papers for the academic journals?”

Sinclair’s eyes flared. Younger looked surprised. Rogers bit his lip.

Amy said, “Professor, I’d like you to meet Mr. Tomlinson and discuss this directly with him. Perhaps he can convince you that he’s sincere about wanting to help you to make a success of MHD.”

“This is what we need!” Younger blurted out.

Jake spoke up. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think that creating thousands of jobs is an important thing to do. This is more than politics and more even than research. It’s helping people to find employment, to feed their kids, to raise their families.”

“Coal miners,” Sinclair rumbled.

“And the technicians who run the mining machines,” Jake countered. “And the accountants and bookkeepers and secretaries who work in the mining company’s offices. And the truck drivers.”

“Butchers and bakers,” Glynis added, with a grin.

“And supermarket workers,” Amy put in.

Sinclair appeared unmoved. “Do you know how many people are killed each year in coal mine disasters?”

“Not as many as the number employed by the mining companies,” Jake shot back.

“Won’t you at least meet with Tomlinson?” Glynis pleaded.

“Talk it over with him,” said Younger. “It won’t hurt to talk to him.”

Sinclair looked unmoved.

Then Amy said softly, “I would take it as a personal favor to me if you would meet Mr. Tomlinson and discuss the situation, Professor.”

Jake turned toward her. The tone of her voice was almost like a little girl’s. She had lowered her eyes demurely.

Sinclair squirmed in his chair for a moment, then replied, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the man.”

Rogers broke into a big grin. Younger nodded as if they had just accomplished an important milestone. Jake saw Glynis turn her attention from Sinclair to Amy and back again.

“Good!” said Amy, suddenly bright and smiling. “Thank you, Professor Sinclair.”

Smiling back at her, Sinclair said, “It’s nothing.”

But Jake thought it was something indeed.

TOMLINSON RESIDENCE

“I’ll set up the meeting,” Amy said, once they had left Sinclair’s office and were walking down the hallway toward the building’s exit and the parking lot out in the summer sun.

Rogers walked along with Amy and Jake while Younger and Glynis Colwyn headed in the other direction, she toward her office, he for his car and the drive up to Lignite.

“How much does Tomlinson understand about MHD?” Rogers asked.

“Not a thing, yet,” Amy replied. “Jake’s going to brief him.”

“I am?” Jake said. “Wouldn’t it be better if Bob did? After all, he knows a lot more about this than I do.”

Amy shook her head. “No disrespect, Dr. Rogers, but I think you know too much about MHD. Franklin would be overwhelmed if you tried to tell him all the technical details.”

Rogers looked hurt. “I can give him a stripped-down explanation.”

“Let Jake do it,” Amy insisted. Turning toward Jake, she spelled it out. “Go easy on the technical details, Jake. Emphasize that MHD could revitalize the state’s coal industry. That’s the important point. Franklin will be more interested in votes than kilowatts.”

“And the fact that MHD will allow us to reduce our imports of foreign oil,” Rogers added.

“Yes, that too,” Amy agreed.

“See?” Rogers smirked. “I can be political, too.”

The parking lot was baking in the noontime sun. Rogers said good-bye and walked back toward the electrical engineering building and more tests on the little rig.

“How soon can you brief Franklin?” Amy asked Jake.

“I’ve got to teach my planetary astronomy class at two,” Jake said. “I’m free after that.”

“Cocktails at the Tomlinson residence, then,” she said, all business.

“And dinner afterward?”

She smiled at him. “We’ll see.”

Then she slipped into her silver BMW and revved the engine to life. Not even a peck on the cheek, Jake said to himself ruefully.

It was slightly after five
P.M.
by the time Jake got to the Tomlinson residence. It really is a mansion, he realized as he rolled up the paved driveway; an honest-to-god mother-loving mansion. He parked his Mustang on the circular driveway and by the time he’d walked to the front door the white-haired butler already had it open, waiting for him.

“Mr. Tomlinson is expecting you, Dr. Ross. He’s at the pool.”

“Um … is my car okay there?” Jake asked.

“Perfectly all right, sir,” said the butler, in a ghostly whisper.

Jake glanced back at the gray convertible; it looked shabby and out of place. So do I, I guess, he thought. Jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt. Campus informal. He felt decidedly scruffy as he followed the butler through the mansion.

Tomlinson was in orange bathing trunks, stretched out on a recliner by the pool, a tall glass of something that looked cool on the little table by his side. Amy sat on the edge of the recliner next to him, bent toward him in earnest conversation. She had shed the business suit for a golden yellow bikini. Her hair was glistening wet, pulled back off her face. At least she’s thrown a robe over the bikini, Jake saw, although the short terry-cloth robe hung open as she talked animatedly.

He started to frown, but then he thought, What the hell, I’ve seen more of her than that. Then he wondered if Tomlinson had too, and his frown returned.

“Jake!” Tomlinson called as he approached them. “Want to take a dip? There are spare suits in the cabana.”

It was hot out in the glaring sun, but Jake shook his head. “No thanks. I’m okay as is.”

Without straightening up, Tomlinson reached out and picked up the phone on the table next to his recliner. “Charles, a piña colada for Dr. Ross, please.”

Jake sat uneasily beside Amy on the edge of the recliner. She smelled of chlorine and cool self-assurance.

Tomlinson gave Jake one of his dazzling smiles. “Amy tells me you’re going to win the election for me.”

Jake felt his cheeks redden. “I don’t know about that, Mr. Tom—”

“Frank. Remember? I call you Jake and you call me Frank.”

Bobbing his head, “Okay … Frank.”

“So tell me about it. Oh, wait, here comes Charles with your drink.”

Jake accepted the tall frosted glass from the butler, took a sip, then put it down on the table between the recliners by the telephone.

“It’s MHD power generation,” he began.

“So Amy told me. And MHD stands for magneto something or other?”

“Magnetohydrodynamics.”

Tomlinson reached for his drink without taking his eyes off Jake.

“Think of a rocket engine,” Jake said.

“Like the space shuttle?”

Nodding, “Right. Think of those hot exhaust gases going down a tube, a channel. There’s a powerful magnet wrapped around the channel. As the gases go through, they generate enormous amounts of electrical power: megawatts per cubic meter. More.”

“Okay.”

“MHD generators are more than twice as efficient as the generators the electric utility companies use today. MHD can cut consumers’ electric bills in half, maybe more.”