"Last night was possibly the most embarra.s.sing night of my life. I don't know what came over me! I attacked you, for crying out loud!"

"Yeah. You were great."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't want to talk about the way you tore at your clothes until you were sprawled across my lap completely naked?"

"Exactly. That's exactly what I don't want to talk about."

Louisa bit down on her lower lip.

He pinned her to the seat and slid his hands under her shirt. "Lord, Lou, you're so hot."

"How do you know?"

He smiled like the cat that just swallowed the canary. "Men know these things."

A thrill ripped through her at his touch, and with it came panic. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

"Demonstrating. I have a visual aid, too, if you're interested."

"No!"

She knew exactly what visual aid the man was talking about. It was straining the seam of his jeans. Thank goodness they made jeans like iron these days, she thought. If it had been an inferior pair, his visual aid looked like it might burst right through.

"This is a respectable neighborhood," she told him. "People don't go around using visual aids in broad daylight here. It's illegal, I think."

She was finding it difficult to breathe, difficult to remember why she didn't want to see his visual aid. He kissed her deeply, not bothering to hide the extent of his need, and reality whirled away from her. There was only Pete and the enslaving sensations he produced in her body. There was l.u.s.t, red-hot and bawdy, and there was a sweet excitement, a premonition that she was about to fly off in a million new directions through uncharted s.p.a.ce.

A sharp rap on the driver's-side window broke into the kiss, and Louisa was dimly aware of Pete pulling away and swearing softly. It took a moment for her to realize Horowitz had arrived.

"I'm from Horowitz Security," the man said when Pete rolled down the window. "You the people that's locked outta the house? Nice to see you're putting your time to good use."

"Trying to keep warm," Pete said.

"Looks like it's working."

Five minutes later Pete and Louisa were alone in Louisa's apartment. Pete closed the front door and activated the system. "Now, where were we before Horowitz..."

Louisa narrowed her eyes and tapped her foot. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"Don't play dumb with me." She looked down the front of her shirt. "My bra is missing. Where is it?"

He pulled it out of his pocket.

"How did you do that? I have all the rest of my clothes on! How did it get into your pocket without my suspecting?"

"It's an innate talent."

"You're a despicable person," she said. "You're a real scuzzball."

His hands were tangled in her hair, and his lips were very close to hers. "You don't mean that." His lips brushed over her mouth; his voice hummed, softly resonant, against her ear. "I think you're beginning to like me."

"Maybe a little."

He kissed her lightly. Then he kissed her again with much more feeling. He'd do it right this time, he promised himself.

He swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. His hands inflamed as they undressed. When she was naked, he took his mouth to her, covering her with kisses that were achingly gentle and supremely intimate.

He was still fully clothed. He was afraid to love her any other way. He was determined not to rush, not to let his own pa.s.sion set the pace.

Never had she wanted a man like this. She was burning with a hunger she'd never even suspected existed. The previous night she'd felt all explosive energy and a need that was frantic and furious and frighteningly powerful. This was slow, relentless heat, inexorable, unescapable. She itched for release and was sure she could no longer bear the exquisite torture. But it continued, and, impossible as it seemed, the intensity increased.

He stood, peeled off his clothes, and pinned her hands to the bed. The sense of union was overwhelming, taking his breath away, causing him to pause for a moment.

She dragged her eyes open. He was beautiful. His expression was one of rapt attention and tender affection. She could spend a lifetime looking at his face, she thought. A lifetime of loving him and being loved. She would never tire of him, never grow bored, never stop wanting him.

She watched the control slip from him, saw his eyes darken as pa.s.sion gained the upper hand. And then she was gone, taking him with her, hurtling through time and s.p.a.ce, lost in that all-encompa.s.sing velvet blackness only perfectly matched lovers know.

They lay together for a long time afterward in companionable silence. It had been better than death by doughnut, she thought. And she was definitely happy she hadn't died of starvation. She suspected this was one of those moments in time, like daybreak, when the world held its breath, crossed its fingers, and made promises. She didn't care. It was lovely, all the same, and she allowed herself the luxury of feeling in love.

They crawled under the quilt and snuggled into each other. This time the loving was relaxed. This time they loved with smiles and whispered words. It was an affirmation of a loving friendship, filled with the joy of shared intimacies.

Overhead, the phone rang once. Louisa forced her eyes open. "Your phone rang."

"The recorder will take it."

"You still getting threatening phone calls?"

"The recorded messages stopped two days ago, but this morning I got an interesting call on my cell phone. Stu Maislin told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn't pleased to have me snooping around in his house. He indicated I might lose a part of my anatomy if I continued to hara.s.s him."

Louisa propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him. "I'm afraid to ask which part."

"Your favorite."

"b.u.mmer."

Louisa's phone rang in the kitchen.

"Probably your mother," Pete said.

Louisa rolled out of bed. "I'm going to tell her everything."

Pete grabbed for her ankle, but she was too fast.

A moment later she yelled out to him. "It's for you. It's some guy named Kurt. Says you gave him my number." She covered the mouthpiece and lowered her voice. "Who is this guy? He sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger's cousin from New Jersey."

Chapter 7.

Louisa pushed her tangled hair back from her face and wished she'd been more insistent about taking a shower after all their lovemaking. It was close to eight. The lights on the Duke Ellington Bridge lobbed by as the Porsche rolled over Rock Creek into Adams-Morgan. "Okay, tell me one more time about this Kurt person."

"I met him when I was working in South America, and we've stayed in touch."

"He's a friend?"

"Yeah. He's a friend," Pete said, "sort of."

"And you've hired him to tap Maislin's phone."

Pete slid a glance in her direction, waiting for the inevitable follow-up.

Louisa didn't disappoint him. "Isn't that illegal?"

"Pretty much."

"Just exactly what does 'pretty much' mean?"

He turned onto Columbia Road and the heart of the Hispanic community. "I think Kurt sort of operates on the fringe."

"Uh-huh."

He didn't know how to explain it to her...the way you just knew about someone. The way he knew about her. It had to do with trust and gut-level feeling.

"Kurt's too much of a patriot to be entirely outside of the law. Most likely, he's one of those maverick CIA types." He gave her a rea.s.suring smile. "Technically, Kurt might be considered to be police."

"We're gonna rot in jail."

Pete parked the Porsche in front of an Ethiopian restaurant. "We're not going to rot in jail. Kurt's the only one taking a risk, and believe me, this doesn't rate high on the risk scale for Kurt."

He put a proprietary arm around her shoulders. It was cold and most of the restaurant crowd had dispersed. The streets were eerie with artificial light and the kind of late-evening desertion you found in a commuter city.

"Here," he said, maneuvering her through the double gla.s.s doors of a yellow brick apartment building. There was a small vestibule with a second security door. Mailboxes and intercoms were built into one wall. Pete pressed the b.u.t.ton for number 315, no name.

The voice on the intercom was flat and unwelcoming. "Yeah?"

"It's Pete."

Nothing else was said. The security door buzzed open. It was a five-story building with one elevator at the far side of a small lobby. The lobby carpet needed more than cleaning. The walls were painted rent-control-green. Pete shouldered Louisa into the elevator, punched the b.u.t.ton to the third floor, and the elevator doors slid closed. The elevator smelled faintly of urine.

Louisa imagined this as being the odor of poverty. She imagined substandard apartments with broken plumbing and roach-infested kitchens where immigrant families crowded chockablock, struggling to hold their lives together. They worked as dishwashers and cabdrivers, and many didn't work at all. Some used drugs, some spent their welfare checks on alcohol, some sent their money home to relatives even more impoverished. They were individuals, she thought, each with their own set of dreams, their own set of skills, their own moments of despair. And they were united by a common odor that hung in the stairwells and corridors of government-controlled housing.

Pete also sniffed the air, but his observations didn't wax nearly so profound. Pete decided Kurt had recently used the elevator.

"Why does Kurt live in this apartment building?" Louisa asked. "Doesn't he have any money?"

"Guess he likes it here." And it was a place Kurt could become invisible. Not many questions were asked in a building like this.

The doors opened to an inst.i.tutional corridor. Apartment number 315 was to the right, halfway down. Pete knocked and waited patiently while dead bolts were slid free and locks were clicked open.

"About Kurt," he said to Louisa, "...be careful."

Louisa thought that was an odd thing to say about a friend. "Careful of what?"

"For starters, don't eat anything that isn't cooked to a crisp."

The door swung wide, and Louisa found herself staring down the barrel of a Smith & Wesson forty-five.

Kurt immediately lowered the gun and let it negligently hang at his side. "Sorry," he said at the expression on Louisa's face. "No sense taking chances."

Pete closed the door behind him and relocked it. "This is Louisa."

"I figured," Kurt said.

Louisa swallowed hard. The apartment consisted of living room, galley kitchen, bedroom, and bath. The furniture was utilitarian and clearly wasn't the main focus of Kurt's life. Newspapers littered the floor, clothing was strewn over chairs, crushed beer cans adorned every available surface, and fast-food wrappers gathered in corners like wax paper dust bunnies.

Crates of electronic equipment were stacked against walls, an elaborate computer setup hummed in harmony with the refrigerator, and mysterious black boxes were wired to the computer. Switches clicked on, recorders whirred, digital messages flashed on a control console. A red light blinked, indicating a connection had been made, and a woman's voice carried across the room, murmuring softly in Spanish.

"An emba.s.sy?" Pete asked.

Kurt clamped a hand to his crotch and yanked his privates up half an inch. "Phone s.e.x. It goes with my cable hookup."

Louisa sank her teeth into her lip to keep from whimpering.

The air was permeated with the aroma of stale cigarette smoke and gun oil. A heavy-duty cardboard carton caught Louisa's eye. It was half in and half out the open bedroom door. Its top had been ripped off. Even from this distance Louisa could see the carton was three-quarters filled with smaller boxes. The lettering on the side of the carton told her it had been packed for shipping with twenty-four boxes of twelve each, ribbed, tipped condoms.

Kurt bought bulk. Very thrifty, she told herself. No reason to panic. He was probably a very nice person. It was true, he looked like a serial killer and acted like a flaming pervert, but looks could be deceiving. And after all, he did practice safe s.e.x-lots of it.

Kurt ambled to the kitchen and came back with three beers and a large bag of pork rinds. He gave Louisa a beer and the bag and turned his attention to Pete.

"I picked up something you might find interesting." He took a CD from the top of his desk, slid it into a player, and punched Rewind and then Play. "Maislin made this call at five twenty-seven from his office, private number. It went out to a number in Kenton, Pennsylvania. The number is listed to a B. Dunowski."

Pete popped the top to his beer and chugged half a can while he listened to Maislin dial. The connection was made, the phone rang three times, and a man answered.

"h.e.l.lo." The voice was nasal-the sort of voice you'd expect from a man with a broken nose.

"You still have the stuff." It was more a statement than a question.

"Of course I've got the stuff."

"I've made arrangements," Maislin said. "We'll try it again, and this time pick out a healthy pig."