That wasn’t the way I remembered leaving things and I was trying to collect my wits enough to respond when Alexandra, who also wore a pained expression, spoke up. “Um, Dr. Reynolds, what I had meant to suggest was that Lloyd perhaps could assist with a follow-on study to determine the source of the error in the original.”
“Well, of course!” Reynolds chuckled. “Of course he’ll assist you; that’s what collaboration is all about, right? I expect to hear details on your plan come Friday, now. Carry on!”
I hated morning people. I was really tempted to hate Alexandra, too; my own dissertation had just been sidetracked indefinitely and Reynolds effectively had put me in the role of an assistant to a researcher who was junior to me. However, it was hard to hate a girl as beautiful as Alexandra, and in all fairness, she didn’t seem much happier about it than I.
“Your place or mine?” I asked as we stood in the hallway.
“Uugh!” she cursed a moment later after the double entrendre sank in. Alexandra turned away without another word and stalked toward the stairs.
Dr. Reynolds could still see me from his chair, so I hastily scampered after Alexandra, catching up with her as she started upward. Apparently, she preferred her office to mine.
“Just be quiet!” she snarled, before I even opened my mouth. “Do you know how hard it is to be a woman? Nobody takes you seriously! I use ‘Alex’ for a pen name so I can get published.” She was stomping up the stairs rather noisily. “I’ve spent years trying to get men to treat me like somebody competent, and then this happens!”
Alexandra stopped abruptly and turned to face me. “You know what they’re going to say about this…”
She was two steps above me; I forced my eyes up to her face. “What?”
“Oh, Alexandra just got her math wrong; it’s so hard for her. Luckily she’ll have Lloyd to help keep her from getting into trouble now!” She twitched as if she’d been planning to throw up her hands and discovered one of them burdened by her briefcase. “Aaaaah!”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed in her face. “One of NASA’s chimpanzees probably can do better math than I can! Besides,” I continued, “how do you think I feel about this? I’m a doctoral candidate, for crying out loud; I should be conducting my own research, not assisting some… graduate study.”
Visibly clenching her teeth, she replied, “Well, I guess we can agree that neither of us wants to be doing this.”
Glumly nodding, I couldn’t resist adding, “And Dr. Reynolds could care less what we think, so we’re stuck doing it anyway.”
Alexandra sighed in agreement and resumed her climb.
That conversation pretty much foreshadowed the short remainder of the semester. I became a fixture in Alexandra’s office. Her officemate, Susan, silently procured an additional chair from somewhere, further cramping the already-tight space. After her initial stairwell explosion, Alexandra remained punctuously correct but distant. I dreaded those sessions, but the kibitzing Susan, who was rather more taken with my exalted status than was Alexandra, interjected enough humor to keep them bearable.
We wasted the rest of the month re-interviewing subjects, comparing results, and checking math, to no avail. Alexandra surveyed students I’d interviewed earlier in the semester, and, while there were some minor variations, got basically the same results I had. I repeated some of her interviews, with Alexandra watching me like a hawk, with the same lack of useful results. All of us got a lot better at statistics, but the numbers stubbornly insisted that “my” interviewees had noticeably different preferences than their peers, regardless of demographic. I left for Christmas wondering if pumping gas was such a bad living after all.
November 2010
I was nursing a drink downstairs in the lounge, watching the crowd, when the detective came in. The lounge provided space for the bar, and a small dance floor. It looked like a typical (and law-abiding) club offering adult entertainment, if you didn’t stop to wonder how much of the building it didn’t occupy. It catered to heavy drinkers, those too clueless or too timid to make it to the suites upstairs, and to our friends in the law enforcement community.
I’d been grinning over my beer at the dazed expressions on the frat boys coming down the stairs; by my watch, these would be Angel’s first party. The change in the eddy of the crowd by the door caught my attention. I don’t know what it was about the police types; no matter what they wore, they seemed to exude a buzz-kill aura that tipped off even those much less observant than myself.
What I should have done, and had done countless times before, was have the hostess bring the guy over, spot him a drink and a seat for the floor show, and leave him positively convinced that nothing illegal was happening here, even if the place was littered with Danny’s stupidly clever allusions to the contrary.
But, like I mentioned, I was in a bad place. What I did do was buzz the hostess on the comm, tell her to stall the cop for ten minutes, and bring him up to the red suite. Then I ghosted up the back stairs to find Angel. She was alone in the gold suite, which reeked of sex, but looking remarkably composed as she combed out her lustrous hair. Her panties were gone and her swollen slit was oozing cum, but with a little lipstick she’d be as presentable as she had been at the beginning of the night. What a slut; my cock gave an involuntary twitch at the thought.
“Hey, Boss,” she said, noticing me. “What’s up?”
“Change of plan,” I told her. “We have a visitor downstairs, probably a cop. How’d you like to drop by the red suite and pretend to be Danny for a while?”
“I can do that,” she answered, her face so intent that she reminded me of Angela and my conscience twinged again. “How do you want me to play him?”
“Find out why he’s here. Compromise him, if you can; just be sure he makes the first move.” The red suite was right next to my office and outfitted with video and audio pickups — perfect for catching people red-handed, and thus the name. I shrugged. “Go with your instincts.”
The little vixen grinned widely. “I love a challenge! How long do I have?”
“About five minutes now,” I replied, looking at my watch.
“I’ll be ready!” she rose and swept out of the room, moving quickly without looking like she was working at it.
I sauntered back to my office, riffed through a set of placards until I found one reading, “Staff Supervisor,” and another labeled, “Ms. Jones.” Stepping back outside, I popped the “Red Suite” sign off the magnetic mount on the door and positioned the two replacements in its place. I pushed open the door and took a quick look at the room, confirming it was presentable and could reasonably pass for an ostentatious, but not extravagant, office.
Angel brushed past me, making sure I felt the curve of a breast through our clothing. She’d put up her hair in a quick twist, traded in her slut shoes for more modest three-inch pumps, and exchanged the gloves for a corporate grey pinstripe skirt and blazer. I doubted she looked very modest beneath it, but that wasn’t the point. After a quick look in the wall mirror (which incidentally concealed the main camera) she wiped away the remains of her lipstick with a tissue and quickly but neatly retouched her lips with a more muted shade.
We traded thumbs-up, and I closed the door behind me before returning to my own office. Once there, I started the video and confirmed I had a good image; Angel was seated behind “her” desk typing at the PC there. I buzzed the host station with a go-ahead, and sat back to finish organizing my thoughts.
A knock sounded through the speaker a moment later. “Ms. Jones? There’s a Detective Snowden here to see you.” Angel nodded and beckoned.
With a grimace, I noticed she was surfing a pornography site. The face of the display wasn’t visible from the visitor chair in front of the desk, but I hoped we wouldn’t need that secondary view later.
An obviously disgruntled middle-aged man entered the picture and stared at Angel for a long moment before settling into the chair. I heard the door close behind him.
“You’re the manager of this place?” he asked in evident disbelief. Is this your idea of a joke? Where’s Sullivan?” That was Danny.
Angel arched one delicate eyebrow. “Yes, I’m the manager. No, I am not joking. Mr. Sullivan has better things to do with his time than fill out personnel reports and cater to unannounced visits from sexist troglodytes.” She considered, and added, “Not that it’s your business, but the girls prefer a manager who can sympathize with their viewpoint.”
“This makes it my business,” he snarled, slamming his badge on the desk. Yep, there was a lot of anger there. “And we both know ‘your girls’ spend far more time on their backs in these rooms than they do on that sham of a stage you have downstairs!”
“I beg to differ,” Angel responded calmly. “What we both know is that we provide changing rooms for the comfort and convenience of our featured entertainers, and that multiple previous investigations — official ones — have uncovered no evidence that would substantiate your wild, and frankly slanderous, accusations.”
What an earful. Maybe it was somehow bleeding over, but it sure sounded like Angel was making good use of Angela’s unorthodox MBA coursework.
“Perhaps you would care to explain this?” Snowden asked, suddenly ice cool, as he flicked a small trinket onto the desk with apparent indifference.
“A lapel pin, it appears,” she commented, not impressed. “Your point?”
It took me a moment longer to recognize it; the video quality was good but not great. I wanted to beat my head against my desk. Danny couldn’t resist being clever, especially when he thought he had me to bail him out. It looked like I was going to be doing some bailing tonight.
“A lapel pin I confiscated from my son,” the detective grated. Just great; I just shook my head. “You will please not insult my intelligence by pretending it is a coincidence that it is shaped like your ‘Home Run’ logo, or that by coincidence that same logo appears on the plaque at the head of the stairs, which by further striking coincidence bears my son’s name, among others.”
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