Colin Harrison - Afterburn

Was he free, then? Yes, almost. Depended on how you figured it. There was the question of Melissa Williams and the question of the company. In Shanghai, after bribing Mr. Lo, he'd returned the unused cash to the hotel manager, then spent an hour on the phone to New York, trying to chat up the price of Teknetrix. The scaffolding materials and an army of laborers had reappeared at the factory's construction site the next morning as he was about to leave, Tom Anderson had reported, amazed admiration in his voice, and with Charlie's permission, he'd bring on more men. The construction boom in Shanghai had slowed considerably, and you could pick up welders and electricians willing to work by the day. Perhaps feeling the strange tea, Charlie had approved the extra expense and told Anderson there was a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus coming from him, Charlie, personally, if Anderson got the factory on-line on time. Marvin Noff remained unconvinced, but the company's price had lifted off its three-month low. Volume a bit heavier than average. Some good institutional contrarian buying. And Ming had called, pleased, he said, by the press release on the Q4. The company was not out of trouble, not yet anyway, but it was going in the right direction. Companies struggled, that was the truth. They struggled with competitors and the market and with themselves, and so far, Teknetrix had always come out of it, always survived the sudden altitude drop, the unsynched vibration, the low-fuel, one-chance landing.

As for Melissa Williams? Was she an aberration or a trend? A celebration of life or an early shovelful of dirt on his marriage? More R amp;D needed. He couldn't pull out of this particular dive just yet. Not close enough to disaster yet, Charlie-boy; when it gets close you'll pull out, in more ways than one, ha-ha, not so funny, and get yourself on home. Just one more time, he thought. I'll do a better job this time; I can tell. Like going from the T-37 trainer to the F-101 in 1963. You couldn't get it right the first time. You didn't understand the plane's speed, the way it moved. Second time, better. He'd had Karen reserve Suite 840 at the Pierre, the one Teknetrix used regularly. They were due to see each other that night. Ellie had wanted to have sex the night before, but he had begged off, said he was exhausted from the plane, in order to save his shot. Conserve ordnance. He'd be completely hard; he could just tell. His back felt so good that he had not minded, had not been existentially insulted, when, after Karen mentioned a message from the fertility clinic doctor, he'd returned the call and been told that his sperm sample was no good. "Motility average, sperm count insufficient," the doctor told him. "Which means not that you couldn't get someone pregnant, but that we need a better deposit if we are going to use technology to avoid a poor outcome."

But perhaps a poor outcome was good news, of a sort. Perhaps he had an easy chance to forget the whole hire-a-mom thing, no harm done. A little money and time wasted, nothing more. You could look at it that way. Or you could say you still wanted a child, Charlie-boy. Maybe more so, now that Ellie would be packed away in Vista del Muerte. The logistics might be easier. Maybe visit a child from time to time. Just stop by for an hour. Don't need to be involved, just pop in, say, Hi-gee, he's getting heavy. A warm bottle. Fingers and toes. Goodnight moon. And maybe this was where Melissa Williams came in. He'd thought about her, he'd thought about her all too much. In the baby way and in the other kind of way. She'd been so sweet, so generous. He could tell that for a young woman she had a lot of sexual experience, which presented itself as kindness and patience. Women always talked about men being considerate lovers, expecting that men didn't really care how the woman acted, so long as she opened her legs and didn't watch television at the same time, but that was not the case. Certain women put men at ease; they had the gift of sexual generosity, and this you could say about Melissa Williams. He'd had his doubts and anxieties just afterward, but the more he'd thought about her, sitting in the Peace Hotel on his last morning in Shanghai and watching the coal barges move along the muddy flat river outside, the more he'd remembered their night in the Pierre and wanted to repeat it. Clearly he could not get anyone pregnant easily, and clearly she was the kind of girl who didn't pick up diseases and viruses and all the other things running through the population. Towers had told him as much, with the report on her blood donation. So that minor anxiety, that flicker of doubt, had eased, too. She wanted to see him, he wanted to see her. Maybe they'd meet a few more times and he'd raise the question of a baby. Or maybe they would have a sad little talk that night and then go their separate ways forever. He'd apologize for whatever confusion or hurt he'd caused. He didn't know and he didn't mind not knowing. He'd simply leave about four, take the New Jersey Turnpike into the city, park the car, take a shower, call Ellie to say he'd arrived safely, then walk over to the Pierre at seven. There's a Miss Williams staying here, has she arrived? He really did want to see her again. Certainly all that Towers had told him suggested she was the right sort of young woman. Good background, good values.

"What're you thinking?" Ellie asked suddenly, her voice perky, eyes bright. "You've been quiet for five minutes."

"Values," Charlie said. "Good values."

"You think this place has it?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

She looked at him sweetly. "It is the right thing, Charlie."

"Again, absolutely."

"I wish you could stay a second night."

"I do, too."

"Couldn't Karen send down all the papers and stuff?"

"I need to meet with people, get some things started," Charlie said, watching the road ahead of him even though he was going eleven miles an hour. "Tomorrow is a long day, too."

"These new pills knock me out around nine."

"I'll call when I get in, and then in the morning," he told Ellie.

"That's fine. You're leaving around four?"

"I thought I might."

"There's just one more thing I want to show you," she said happily, "and I'm pretty sure you'll indulge me."

"What is it?"

"The bird feeder in the backyard. I'm surprised you didn't notice it. Up on a big pole near the spruce? Has room for thirty-six purple martins." She smiled at him. "Like a sweet little hotel for birds."

"Yes." He stretched out his arm and took her hand-palm and fingers and wedding ring. "This is all good. We're going to spend a lot of nice time here," he said.

"Oh, Charlie." Ellie beamed, blinking wetly in happiness, cheeks flushed, her eyes clear and large and in love with him all over again, father of her children, her old fly-boy.

He knocked softly at the door of Suite 840, his hair moist, fingernails trimmed, underwear fresh.

The door opened and there was Melissa, in a rather lovely black dress, looking up at him, looking young, and she took his hand and pulled him inside. "I've been waiting," she complained, smiling devilishly. "Just so you know."

"Hey, I came halfway around the world to see you."

She put her cheek against his chest, and seemed to sigh or catch her breath. He felt the warmth of her along his body, her hand in the small of his back, her head touching his chin. She patted the side of his jacket. "You have a phone in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

"You okay?" he asked, realizing she'd had a drink.

"I'm fine. I was just waiting, that's all."

She seemed preoccupied. Her eyes looked a little bloodshot, her face tired. But it was a twenty-seven-year-old face-how tired could it be? "Anything you want to talk about?" he asked gently.

She shook her head. "Not now."

"Okay." He held her the way he used to hold Julia when she was a girl and upset about something, his hand behind her neck.