Ted Bell - Hawke

“Chill a minute, brother,” Stoke said.

“Oh, I am, I am chilling. I can assure you that much,” Hawke said, his teeth literally chattering.

“Hell happened to your arm?” Stoke asked, noticing the bandage.

“I cut myself shaving,” Hawke said, and Stokely just looked at him. Man said some crazy shit sometimes. Funny, but crazy.

“Good old Foggy Bottom, coming up,” Stoke said, stepping on the gas.

“Well,” Hawke said, settling back in his seat now that a blast of hot air was coming up from under the dashboard. “You look chipper, Stoke. Fine fettle, I must say.”

“Hell does that mean, ‘fine fettle’?”

“It means you look fit, Stoke, that’s all. In good form. Are the decorators all out of the new house?”

“Yeah, they out. None too soon for me, I’m telling you something. I ain’t had lots of experience with no decorators, but what I just had is plenty. Kinda shit we talk about at lunch? You ever heard of cerulean blue, boss? Me, either. But it’s serious blue. Nothing candy-ass like robin’s egg blue, you understand. Cerulean blue is darker, more like cobalt when it’s done. Anyway, that’s your bedroom.”

“Cerulean.”

“That’s it, boss. But this is one prime piece of real estate you got now. Man, wait till you see it. I still haven’t figured out all the security shit.”

“That’s reassuring. You being chief of security and all that.”

“No, man, I got most of it down. But this is some major high-tech shit you got goin’ on now. Hell, we got so many TV monitors ’round that house, our monitors has monitors! Know how they call the house The Oaks?”

“That’s been its name for two hundred years.”

“Well, my thought is we oughta change it. We oughta call it The Monitors. Got a hell of a lot more monitors than we got oaks.”

“It’s a thought.”

“So. Whassup? We chillin’ ’round here tonight or you flyin’ back to the Bahamas or wherever?”

“Spending tonight here,” Hawke said. “First night in the new house. I hope Pelham has seen to the flowers. Vicky will probably be—joining me there tonight.”

“Vicky? You still messin’ with that chick? Man, you are something else.”

“In what sense?” Hawke asked as Stoke turned into the underground garage. At the security booth, the guard leaned into the car, saw Hawke holding up his pass, and, smiling, waved them in.

“In the sense that you don’t ever understand nothing about women.” Stoke pulled the Hummer into a space and shut it down. “For instance, you got a perfectly good woman upstairs waiting for you, totally in love with your ass. Now, you chasing around with Vicky.”

“So?”

“I don’t know. What’s going on with Conch?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, well, maybe you still working in there, too, is all I’m saying.”

“I’d never do that, Stoke,” Hawke said, reaching for the door handle. “It wouldn’t be chivalrous.”

“Chivalrous? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Wouldn’t be chivalrous.”

“Are you coming in?”

“No, I ain’t coming in that building. That place spooks me. All them chivalrous white people running around wearing them little polka-dot bow ties and shit. Place is spooky.”

“Matter of fact, I’m meeting a couple of spooks. That’s why I’m here,” Hawke said, smiling at Stokely. “I’ll be about an hour, if you want to go get yourself something to eat.”

Stoke watched Hawke walk away.

Spooks?

Is that what the man said? Wasn’t very damn chivalrous, now, was it?

Spooks, here I come.

Hawke was still grinning at Stoke’s obvious misinterpretation of the word when the elevator arrived. He showed his badge to the stoic marine twins at the metal detector, and passed through into the elevator.

Reaching the top floor, the very kingdom of spookdom, Hawke returned the salutes of two more marines standing duty by the double doors to the secretary’s outer office. Both wore odd expressions, he thought, until he looked down at his own wardrobe.

Marines, apparently, were unaccustomed to visitors wearing flip-flops.

“Ah. Yes. Just flew up from the Bahamas,” he said as one of the marines pulled the door open. “Called the secretary from the plane. Wanted me to come directly from the airport. No time to change, you see.”

Entering the outer office, now feeling self-conscious about his appearance, he thought he saw a familiar face behind the reception desk.

“Sarah?” he said hopefully. Sarah? Sally? “It’s Alex Hawke. Remember me?”

A pretty, heavyset woman in her mid-forties looked up into his face. “Good Lord,” she said. “I mean, why, Lord Hawke! Well. What a surprise! I certainly don’t have you down in my book this early! Wonderful to see you, your lordship!”

Hawke started to say something, then bit his lip. He’d always found his title a little embarrassing and off-putting. He allowed no one to use his title except his butler, Pelham, who threatened to quit if he could not use his employer’s proper title. Still, this was hardly a time to press the issue.

“And you as well, Sarah,” Hawke said. “Now, look at you. You’ve changed your hair. It’s most becoming, I must say.”

“And look at you,” Sarah said, fighting the pink flush she knew was rising up her throat. “You look—”

“Dreadful,” Hawke said. “I know. Sorry. I just flew in, actually. Your boss insisted I come here straightaway so I had no time to, you know, tidy up.”

“They must be expecting you, Lord Hawke,” Sarah said. “Please go right in.”

The double mahogany doors swung open and Hawke strode into the secretary of state’s office.

“Hello, good looking! Bienvenidos!” the secretary said, moving toward him with her slender arms outstretched. She was tall and elegantly dressed. Something from Paris, Hawke guessed. Her glorious hair fell in a blue-black curtain to her shoulders.

Consuelo de los Reyes, only in office a few months, was already the most photographed secretary of state in history. You were just as likely to see her on the cover of W or Vanity Fair as on the cover of Time. Alex embraced his old friend and inhaled the familiar perfume.

“The new secretary, herself. You look absolutely gorgeous, Conch,” Alex said.

“And you look absolutely ridiculous, Hawke.”

Despite the wardrobe, she still found him impossibly attractive. Six-three and right around 180 pounds. The wavy black hair, going the slightest bit gray at the temples. The bushy black eyebrows over those intense blue eyes. The imperiously straight nose above the firm lips, the constant hint of mischief in the grin lurking around the mouth. In that cursory appraisal, she instantly remembered why she’d fallen so hard.

“Reporting as ordered, sir.” Hawke grinned, executing a snappy salute. “Straightaway from the airport. Your assistant said you told her to, quote, ‘get his ass over here.’ ”

“Yeah, well, pardon my effing French. I haven’t got all that bureaucratic protocol crap down yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Suggestion. Don’t ever get it down.”

Conch smiled. “Bingo. So you flew up here in that get-up?”

“The marines outside considered it quite a fashion statement. Not the foggiest what that statement is, nonetheless a statement.”

“Let’s see,” she said, rubbing her chin and eyeing him carefully. “I would call it Haute Margaritaville, as a matter of fact. Cute. Wildly inappropriate, but cute.”

The secretary was a huge fan of the American singer Jimmy Buffett. She’d gotten Alex hooked on him to the point where he now played Buffett CDs aboard his yacht and in his planes constantly. His current favorite, he noticed, was now playing softly in her office. “Beach House on the Moon.”