Winter's Daughter (6 page)

"You sound as if you know what it’s like," Dillon said softly, touching her arm. The contact his hand made with her skin produced a tiny frisson, the smallest of shocks.

Her breath caught. "I do," she said.

"Well." Dillon cleared his throat and pulled his hand away from her, rubbing his fingers against his palm as if it itched. "I believe," he said, frowning, "that the, ah, current situation was prompted by a recent incident that was, through an unfortunate set of circumstances, brought to the mayor’s attention."

"An incident?" Tannis asked. Dillon nodded. He had that curious air of watchfulness again, almost of expectancy. Tannis was beginning to think it was just a quirk of his nature.

"Yeah," he went on, his tone one of dark amusement, "it seems there was an altercation downtown yesterday morning between two, uh, denizens of the streets. During said altercation, which was witnessed, in part, by two of Los Padres’s finest, a bag lady apparently struck a—" Dillon coughed "—a gentleman—"

"Ha!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing," Tannis said hastily, trying to look innocent. "Go on."

"Yes—Well." He gave her an intent look and went on in a carefully neutral voice. "Apparently the aforementioned bag lady struck said gentleman with her shopping cart in an anatomical region commonly referred to as ’below the belt.’"

"Well," Tannis mumbled, feeling a modicum of guilt, "I’m sure he had it coming to him."

Dillon growled. Before his lashes dropped to veil his eyes, Tannis caught an odd gleam in them. After a moment he cleared his throat and went on.

"In any case, said gentleman was left sitting in the gutter in an, uh, incapacitated state, where he attracted the attention of the aforementioned police officers, who mistook his condition for inebriation—I beg your pardon, did you say something?"

"No," replied Tannis, unsuccessfully smothering a spurt of mirth. "Please, go on."

After giving her a quelling glance, he continued somewhat sardonically. "Subsequently, as I said, the affair came to the attention of the mayor, who for some reason didn’t think that quarreling indigents were good for Los Padres’s public image. Might not appeal to snowbound easterners trying to decide where to spend their winter vacation dollars."

Tannis was gazing at him in disbelief. "So," she said slowly, "Gunner was right—it’s just a matter of image after all."

"Gunner?" Dillon said, looking perplexed. "Who’s Gunner?"

She sighed and turned back to the window. "He’s a friend of mine. You ought to talk to him sometime. He runs the newsstand down on Fifth and Cleveland. He runs it from a wheelchair because he lost his legs in Afghanistan. He got his name there too—Gunner. He was the trigger man on one of those helicopter gun ships. He lived on the streets for a while when he was out of a job and couldn’t afford the rent for the kind of place that would accommodate his wheelchair. Now he’s got a ground floor apartment way over on South Palm. He commutes—by wheelchair. He doesn’t mind that, though, because it helps him keep in shape. Gunner’s a wheelchair athlete—plays wheelchair basketball and runs wheelchair marathons. Things like that."

"Sounds like quite a guy."

Dillon’s voice was soft, slightly raspy, and very near.

She could feel him there, close behind her, and deep down inside her she felt the faint, tight tremblings of sexual awareness. She glanced nervously at him, then quickly back toward the window, afraid her response to him might somehow be visible.

"Do you remember that really cold winter we had, oh, maybe two or three years ago?" When he nodded, she reached out to spread her hand against the cool glass and leaned forward so she could see the street and the park below. "It got so cold that year that a couple of street people actually died of hypothermia, so the city decided to move them indoors. Which was fine, a really decent, humanitarian thing to do, right?" She turned to face Dillon, her eyes shining with emotion. "Yeah, right—and for most people it was. But the people in charge were so eager to get everybody off the streets, they forgot they were dealing with people, not animals. They just herded the masses indoors without taking into consideration the particular needs of each individual. They put Gunner in a third floor room in one of those downtown firetrap hotels—you know the ones? The elevators were broken. Do you know what that means to someone like Gunner? He couldn’t even make it to the rescue missions to get food."

She felt Dillon’s hands on her arms, just below the shoulders. "Hey," he said softly, "I’m sorry. But those things happen when you’re trying to deal with a lot of people in a complicated situation."

Tannis stood very still, looking away from him, fighting for control. His nearness was upsetting, but she didn’t want to move away from him. "Yes," she said huskily after a while, "but that’s the point. It is complicated, and they are people—not faceless entities called ’the homeless.’ Someone needs to know who they are, and what their individual needs are. I could tell you so many stories. There’s Binnie, who used to have her own home until her husband died and left her penniless. Her shopping cart is all she’s got, and it’s precious—"

"Tannis." His hands slipped down her arms, and his thumbs began stroking the soft skin at the inner bend of her elbows.

She shivered and pulled away from him, regretting her action a moment later when the warmth of his touch faded. "Nobody cares about those people!" she cried, more angry just then with herself and her runaway responses than with Dillon, or even the mayor. "What you’re doing now isn’t a solution, it’s just a salve for somebody’s pride!"

"Listen, I assure you, we are concerned about the people living out there.
I’m
concerned."

"Bull pucky!" Tannis shouted, flinging an arm out and whacking her hand against the windowpane with a force she felt to her shoulder. It hurt, but she was too proud to show it. "If you were really concerned, you’d be down there in the streets, where you could see what’s going on, instead of sitting up here in your cozy little office with your nice, pretty bird’s–eye view of the world! If you really care, why don’t you get out there yourself and see what it’s like?"

There was a long silence, during which Tannis abruptly remembered she was yelling at a city councilman. The fires of her anger died and became the cold, dismal sludge of embarrassment. She was opening her mouth to begin an apology, when she noticed the city councilman was smiling. True, it was a half smile, but a smile nonetheless.

"That sounds a lot like a challenge," he said softly.

So instead of apologizing for her outburst, Tannis brought her chin up, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "I guess it does."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" Her heart was beating hard and fast.

"Are you issuing me a challenge?" His gaze moved over her face and came to rest on her lips.

Her lips grew warm and began to tingle. Unable to help herself, she licked them. "Yes." she said huskily, "I guess I am."

His chuckle had a different timbre, one she felt in her body’s depths rather than heard. "I always enjoy a challenge." The dimplelike creases appeared briefly, then vanished. "Shall we?"

"Shall we what?" Tannis whispered, feeling confused.

"Shake on it."

She felt something touch her arm. Tearing her fascinated gaze from his face, she looked down and found his hand waiting. "Oh," she said on a breath, and placed hers into it, palm against palm. It was warm and dry and smooth—a nice enough hand. There was no reason why tiny electric shocks should originate from that contact and go racing up her arm, making her feel weak and nerveless.

"Challenge accepted," Dillon said. His expression was grave, but behind the veil of lashes Tannis caught a gleam that made her wonder whether he was responding to another, unspoken challenge.

Excitement stirred through her like a breeze through wind chimes, making all her senses sing. Holding back an unanticipated bubble of laughter, she moved her fingers within his grasp, rubbing them over the back of his hand. The contact altered subtly, becoming not so much a clasp as a holding.

"So," Dillon said softly, "where do we go from here?"

And this time, with instincts she hadn’t even realized she possessed, Tannis knew the question had a dual purpose.
Where do we go from here? What’s in store for us?

All at once excitement became panic. Something in her protested.
Too close! Too soon!
Pulling her hand from his, she began to speak rapidly, and with nervous gestures.

"Well, you have to get out there. Into the street, the sooner the better. I can go with you, introduce you to people." She paused, not sure whether she was being too pushy. "At least at first," she went on hurriedly. "I know the places where they hide—" A thought struck her. "Look, I can trust you, can’t I? You’re not using me to get to them? Because if you are—"

"You can trust me. My word of honor. Listen—" He glanced at the watch on his wrist. "It’s almost eleven. Why don’t you meet me across the street in the park at—shall we say, noon? That’ll give me time to take care of some things I need to do. We can have lunch and talk details. How’s that?" His eyes held hers, the light in them as lively as sunlight on water.

Tannis hesitated, chewing on her lower lip. Could she trust him? A moment ago she’d have bet her life on it. Now she wasn’t so sure. If only she could be certain he was sincere in his desire to know and understand the problems street people had to face every day.

An idea began to form in her mind, a way of testing Councilman James’s attitude and intentions. The more she thought about it, the better she liked it. The only thing she wondered was whether she’d have time to go home and change her clothes. There was plenty of time to get home on her scooter, but probably not enough to make it back to City Center Park on foot.
If I left the shopping cart behind and came on the scooter…

Yes! she thought, feeling a surge of excitement. It could work. If she met Councilman James as Win the bag lady, she would be able to test his attitudes and possibly even give him a graphic illustration of her point.
I’m going to do it!

"All right," she said equably, carefully masking her inner feelings. "Sounds great. Meet you in front of the statue of Padre Serra in an hour."

"I’m looking forward to it," Dillon said softly.

Tannis paused in the doorway to glance back at him. Her heart paused, too, and then went on in a new, bumpier rhythm. "So am I," she said. "See you."

After she’d gone, Dillon stayed where he was with one arm propped against the wall by the window, gazing thoughtfully down on the street below. It occurred to him he was waiting for something, and when he saw a tiny foreshortened figure wearing a yellow sweater and a shiny black helmet cross the street to the parking meters adjacent to the park, he knew what that something was.

Not even aware that he was grinning, he watched her straddle a yellow scooter, pause to fasten the helmet’s chin strap, then pull carefully out of a parking space. A moment later the scooter and its rider were arrowing down the street, disturbing the morning’s serenity like an angry bumblebee.

So that’s my bag lady.
Dillon’s laughter rang out loud in the room, bringing the receptionist to his door. Still chortling, he apologized and sent her away, shaking her head and wondering.

Some bag lady, he thought. Not quite what he’d expected.

Suspect: Female Caucasian; age. approximately thirty; height. five feet six—maybe seven; weight, a hundred twenty pounds, nicely arranged; hair, honey–brown, straight, worn long but with a layered cut—warm, windblown—like sun–ripened wheat; eyes, winter gray, ice–blue. Fire and ice.

Hold it! What the hell kind of police report is this anyway?

Okay, then. Distinguishing marks: Freckles. Irregular upper lip, small chip on shoulder.

Thoughtfully now, Dillon rubbed at his jaw. That was a problem. The woman was certainly sincere, and some of her sentiments weren’t all that different from his own, but she had a lot to learn about life on the streets. Shoot, her concept of the kind of people who lived out there sounded like something right out of "Cannery Row." She’d been lucky so far, but sooner or later she was going to find out this wasn’t Steinbeck country. The wolves were out there, and she was a lamb in sheep’s clothing. She was going to get hurt unless she developed better instincts for self–preservation.

Dillon looked at his watch and frowned. What that woman needed was a little taste of reality, and maybe, just maybe, he knew a way to give it to her. He’d give her a scare—just a little one. It was for her own good. And besides, he told himself with a certain visceral anticipation, he owed her one for that number she’d done on him yesterday.

Crossing with long strides to his desk, he reached for his phone and punched a button. When Sally answered, he asked for the chief of police.

After a surprisingly short wait he heard Logan’s voice.

"Buddy," Dillon said, "I need a favor."

"After yesterday, I don’t owe you any more favors."

"All right, then, put it on my tab. Listen, I’m going back on the street for a little while this afternoon. Under the circumstances, I don’t think it would be a good idea if the sort of misunderstanding that occurred yesterday were to repeat itself—if you get my meaning?"

"Dillon," Logan said with a sigh, "you’re nuts."

"Probably. So listen—put the word out, okay? I’ll be the one in the Dodger cap and the crummy brown jacket. You remember the wardrobe? Oh, and Logan? Tell the boys to cut me a little slack, okay?"

"Dillon, what the hell are you asking of me?"

"Trust me," Dillon said, and hung up. He just barely had time to get home and change.

As he started out of the office, he stopped and ran a hand over his jaw. What he felt gave him a moment’s pause, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Tannis hadn’t recognized him so far, he was sure of that; but he wasn’t at all sure how far he was going to get with this little game plan of his without a weekend’s growth of stubble hiding his face.