Jeff Lindsay - Dexter's Final Cut

Jackie sat on a stationary bicycle, pedaling vigorously, and already a light sheen of sweat covered her face. That is, on a lesser human being it would have been sweat; on her it was glow . She wore a skintight leotard that did nothing to make her ugly, and there were earbuds plugged into the sides of her head, and as she looked up and saw me she pried one of them out. “Good morning,” she called out, a little too loudly. “I’ll just be about half an hour-you want to order some breakfast?”

Of course I did; the finely tuned machine that is Dexter requires frequent fuel. But I managed to conceal my unseemly eagerness, and simply gave her a nod and a cheery, “Okay!”

“Great!” she called back. “Wheat toast, grapefruit juice, and some Greek yogurt, please.” And she put her head back down, plugged the earbud back into her ear, and pedaled faster.

I left her on her bicycle trip to nowhere and went to call room service. I tried very hard to admire Jackie for her spartan breakfast order, but it didn’t work. To me, the whole point of eating is lost if you don’t actually eat something, and it seemed to me that toast and grapefruit juice didn’t quite qualify. It was really no more than an upscale version of bread and water, and was not nearly enough to sustain life as I had come to know it.

But at least I felt no compulsion to follow her lead, and I did not. I ordered a ham-and-cheese omelet, rye toast with jam, orange juice, and a fruit bowl. And, of course, the largest pot of dark Miami coffee they could muster in their high-priced kitchen.

Breakfast arrived a mere ten minutes later, and I had the garçon set it up on the balcony. I let him out, put the chain back on the door, and went back outside. The sun had clawed its way aggressively up the horizon, but its heat was not yet as brutal as it would soon be, and there was a light breeze coming off the Bay, so the balcony seemed like an ideal setting. I sat and sipped coffee while I waited for Jackie, looking out over the water and thinking that there was a great deal to be said for my new career as a bodyguard. True, it was potentially dangerous, and the hours were rather long. But on the plus side, I was living like a millionaire without paying higher taxes, and I got to hang out with a Real Live Hollywood Star and eat haute cuisine. Of course, Rita’s food was far from being swill, but it had to be said that she was not truly a five-star gourmet chef, and not a famous and beautiful celebrity, either, and comparing her to Jackie was really no contest. It was an unkind thought, but since no one else could hear it, I didn’t bother to pretend I hadn’t thought it.

Instead, I thought about it some more. It was really nothing but a pleasant mental game, a goofy and nearly human fantasy, but it passed the time. I tried to imagine swapping my drab little existence for the life of a Celebrity Bodyguard. I pictured Me as part of an Entourage, the hawk-eyed presence at Jackie’s shoulder, ever vigilant on the Red Carpets of the world. Dexter the Human Shield, Living It Large in Hollywood, Cannes, and all the great cities of the world. Breakfast on the balcony in Maui and Singapore and Bali. It would not be hard to get used to living like that, and if I had to give up scrabbling for a mortgage on a new house, and do without all the shrieks and squeals and door-slamming that went with family life, what had I really lost except shattered eardrums and frequent headaches? Of course, there was Lily Anne, the living extension of all that is Me, my DNA shipment into the future. And I had, after all, promised to lead Cody and Astor into a safe, well-planned Dark Future. My path was already laid out, and I was completely satisfied with it. Really I was. I did not need to enhance it with private jets and crème brûlée every night and a golden-haired goddess leading me through an existence of pure, diamond-studded pleasure. No matter how much I liked it.

The glass door slid open, interrupting my pleasant daydream, and Jackie stepped out into the sunlight. “Good morning,” she said, and sat beside me. Her hair was damp, and she smelled of shampoo and the same very faint perfume I had noticed yesterday.

“Good morning,” I said. “Coffee?”

“Oh, God, yes,” she said, and she pushed a cup toward me. I poured it full, and watched as she stirred in artificial sweetener. She slurped it and said, “Aahhh,” just like a normal person, and set the cup down, glancing up at me and smiling. “I hope I didn’t wake you up?” she said.

“Oh, well,” I said uncertainly, since she had, after all, but it didn’t really seem politic to say so. “I mean, I have to be awake.…”

“Sorry,” she said, reaching for the coffee cup and slurping again. “I have to work out every morning, no matter where I am, or I get fat.”

“That’s hard to believe,” I said.

She reached over and patted my hand. “Bless you,” she said. “But it’s true. I miss one morning, and then missing two seems like no big deal, and then why not three, and before you know it I weigh a hundred fifty pounds and I’m out of work.” She shrugged. “Part of the job. I don’t mind.” She took another noisy sip of coffee and raised an eyebrow at me. “What about you?”

“Me?” I said, a little surprised. “What do you mean?”

Jackie gestured with the cup. “You obviously work out. I mean,” she said with a wicked smile, “I can see you have a pretty good appetite, but you look pretty fit.” She actually winked at me. “Just like a real bodyguard should.”

“Oh, well,” I said, still a bit uncomfortable. “I like to run. And, um, some tai chi …?”

She nodded. “Thought so,” she said. “The way you moved, when you made Kathy pee on the floor.” She smiled again and finished her coffee. “Which reminds me,” she said, setting down the empty cup and reaching for a piece of toast. “Kathy will be here in a few minutes, so you might want to take the chain off the door, and remember not to shoot her this time.”

“I’ll try to remember,” I said.

I had just barely finished my omelet when I heard a knock on the door. “That’s probably her,” Jackie said, and started to stand up.

“Let me get it,” I said, and Jackie paused halfway to her feet. She held the awkward position for a moment, blinking, and then said, “Oh, right,” and settled back down into her chair and slouched over her grapefruit juice.

I opened the door with the chain still on and looked out. Kathy stood in the hall with an armful of papers, her smartphone, and another Starbucks cup. She gave me a poisonous glare. “Let. Me. In,” she said through her teeth, and I could tell that my legendary charm had not yet melted through the awkwardness of our first encounter. But that would almost certainly come with time. So I closed the door and undid the chain anyway, and Kathy huffed past me and into Jackie’s bedroom before I could direct her to the balcony. A moment later she huffed back out, gave me an even more venomous look, and went out onto the balcony.

By the time I got back outside to where the remains of my breakfast were waiting, Kathy had taken my chair, pushed my plate onto the floor, and spread several sheaves of paper across the tabletop, and she was busily pointing to the different documents with a pen and babbling on at a rapid rate.

“… except the ancillary rights, which Myron says is the best we can do right now, so go ahead and sign it, here, here, and here- Oh. And then the Morocco thing? Which Valerie says is actually a very good deal, and publicity we couldn’t buy, so here’s the packet for that. And Reel Magic magazine wants a photo shoot; they’re on your call list for this morning.…”

It went on like that for several minutes, with Kathy shoving papers around, Jackie occasionally signing something as she chewed toast and sipped her juice and tried to look like she was paying attention. Once or twice she looked up at me and made a wry face, which Kathy didn’t see. I contented myself with lurking in the background and trying to seem vigilant, and eventually Kathy ran out of breath, gathered up the papers, and huffed out, favoring me with one last angry snarl as she went by.