David Dun - At The Edge

"Plunging right in, are we? This is my area. I don't want to give it away."

"There isn't anything else you want more?"

"Well, like what?"

"I still can't accept our little rapprochement if you're fighting to cut the Highlands."

"What if I said I would like to be friends. Kind of a personal thing."

"I'd say prove it."

"Well, shit."

She started the Cherokee, threw it in gear, and backed up. Evidently, his expression had spoken as loudly as his words.

Dan slouched into his chair and stirred the papers on his desk. He couldn't stop thinking about Maria. While he drank his coffee and waited for some brilliant plan for reconciliation to reveal itself, he thought about the Highlands and all his projects for the day.

He felt tired in his mind. When Tess was alive, it used to be that late on Saturday morning after his trip to the office he would get recharged by an intense physical workout. Get the blood flowing, the arteries expanded, and turn his body into a physical machine that glowed warm and healthy. Now he was starting to feel weak in every respect. His exercise routine was turning into a few halfhearted push-ups and a little jog. The alcohol had done that. He knew he could work smarter, do more, think clearer, if he went back to his old habits. Before he started in on the afternoon's sleuthing, he would work out. Like the old days.

A little less angry after an hour of trying to parse through the mysteries of the Highlands, he tried chasing down Maria. First he called the local Environmental Center, where the woman's voice turned cold when he identified himself over the telephone. They hadn't seen Maria Fischer all day. He tried Maria's room at the Palmer Inn three times about ten minutes apart and got no answer. Just when he was about to go out the door, he called one more time.

"Hello," she said crisply, surprising him.

"I'd like to talk. We have things to talk about."

"So talk." Her voice sounded worse than distant, harsher than cold.

"Maybe we could meet for a cup of coffee."

David Dun

At The Edge

"Oh yeah, and then dinner, then coffee at your house. Lose the line, lose the gimmicks. What do you want?"

"I want the friendship back."

"Good luck." There was a click and she was gone. What a hard edge that woman had on her. At least she didn't deny that there was a "friendship" of sorts. He decided to view that as a start.

It took twelve minutes to drive home from his office, one minute longer than usual. Pepacita looked positively shocked when he began rummaging through the boxes in his closet for his gym shorts and jockstrap. After more than two years, some of the elastic stretch was gone. The shorts would fit but barely. Disgusting. He had thickened a little around the middle.

"Wanna go?" he asked Nate, who had been standing by watching with a somewhat doubtful eye.

"I think this is gonna be like Mrs. Ogletree singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' Dad."

"And what is that like?"

"She wheezes and we all wish she'd stop."

"Well, thank you, son. Didn't know I was that bad off."

"Well, you aren't fat like Mrs. Mullins."

"Another vote of confidence."

"You used to be really buff."

He stood straight and pulled his stomach tight. "I'm not that bad. You could shoot baskets while I work out."

"There's a bunch of tall guys that'll just grab the ball."

"Life is full of tall guys."

"I don't have to play with 'em."

Finally he had his old white socks, shoes, and sweat clothes free of the boxes. Realizing he hadn't called his mother for a week, he picked up the phone and found her in the house reading. By the time he finished a somewhat halting explanation of Maria Fischer, twenty minutes had passed. On his way to the gym, he spent another fifteen minutes on the cell phone talking with his sister, Katie, trying to avoid her somewhat pointed questions about Maria. He refused to allow any hint of desperation in his tone.

Feeling slightly exhilarated at the prospect of a workout, he pulled into the parking lot of the health club with building confidence. Then he saw the clientele going and coming. Out of eight people in the lot, one had a beer belly and most didn't look all that athletic. Still, there was that one hard-body guy. By the time he got the car lined up for the narrow parking space, everybody was in the building or gone- save one couple. They were leaving and looked beat, especially her, but the way she leaned on her guy had a warmth to it and he remembered what he missed.

Corey watched Dan pull into the health-club parking lot. Frustration at not being able to get to the Mercedes and blow his ass to hell had turned to fury. On her seat under a newspaper was her silenced Colt. As she watched Dan Young walking out of the back of the lot, she gripped the gun and fingered the trigger. Shoot the bastard. For a second her knee shook, her mind perched on a razor blade of indecision.

People had faded away into the club. There was only a couple in the lot. If they drove off, she could just blow him away. She could actually do it and be done in thirty seconds. She released the brake, rolling forward. Then she stopped abruptly. Am I losing it? We didn't plan this. She and the German had discussed a bomb at length. He had given her the concept.

She snapped around, expecting to see the Japanese bastard. God, he had unnerved her. Something had happened to her. No shrimp shit of a man like that could make a plaything out of her. Those placid eyes. She strained to remember every tiny detail, to understand why her kick hadn't broken ribs. The next time her gun would be ready. The little shit couldn't move faster than a bullet.

She put her head on the wheel and took a deep breath. There were no Orientals. He hadn't followed her. To reassure herself, she carefully looked over the cars, behind her, to both sides. She needed to get a grip and follow the plan. Glancing in the backseat, she saw the box with the bomb. It was simple. You wired it to the solenoid and it blew up when you started the car. She knew exactly what she had to do. Slowly she rolled forward right past the Nazi Dan Young.

"I'm going to blow you straight to hell," she said aloud.

Dan still had plenty of meat on him, but after 2 1/2 years it had begun to undergo a slight metamorphosis. He was living with the beginnings of transformation from muscle man to slack man, and the consequent globules of adipose tissue that formed on the abdomen wall. And the loss of his wind. After over two years of marginal exercise, the first thing to go was cardiovascular stamina. Now he knew that a two-mile jog would have him puffing as if it were a five-mile run of three years ago. When Tess was alive, he did five back-to-back seven-minute miles.

In the entrance the place had a trendy juice bar complete with a hard-body female blonde to inspire effort and pour drinks. Beyond that were overstuffed couches in front of large-windowed racquetball courts. You didn't play in these unless you were good, or you just didn't give a damn.

He'd need to get a towel, he reasoned, and probably look for a locker, although he wasn't clear on how that worked. They'd moved into this newer facility and absolutely everything had changed since the last time he worked out.

The blonde was serving some vegetable-juice blend to three guys, obviously regular patrons, with Baywatch bodies. "Excuse me. I'd like to work out," he said to the blonde.

"Well, you've come to the right place."

"Good."

"You look in pretty good shape," she said, giving him a genuine smile. "Here's your towel; here's your lock." As she was talking, Maria Fischer came around the corner, apparently headed for the carrot juice. She wore a simple but elegant black, gray, and white suit, complete with leggings and really good court shoes.