They almost kissed last night. He relived the moment as he ran. It came as they sat on the love seat, when their eyes had locked. It was just after she said that she didn’t think he was an angry man, that she’d known those kinds of guys in the service, and they weren’t fun. The implication had been so clear: You, Ruhi, are fun.
If she’d looked at him a second longer, or shifted a half inch closer, he would have kissed her. He’d wanted to so much.
Ruhi didn’t care that she worked for a conservative congressman who, given half a chance, would ensure that every last lump of coal in the world was burned. She was appealing. Immensely so, and not just those fine blond locks and shapely legs, or her bright blue eyes. Candace was strong, unabashedly so.
Maybe it was a reaction to his own patriarchal culture, but the very fact that she could take a dangerous situation in hand with such brio impressed him. He found that alluring at a level he’d never before known. He’d always felt sorry for subservient women. His mother was his father’s slave. He felt terrible for her. The lack of a wonderfully invigorating give-and-take in a relationship was a complete turnoff for Ruhi.
But Candace was honest, maybe the most honest woman he’d ever met. He wanted to see her. And he also welcomed the prospect of having her armed and by his side. She said she’d come back to his apartment after work because the mob was looking for him, too. She meant the thugs who’d tried to break down her door. He groaned, knowing that she could not have known that in less than twenty-four hours the mob would metastasize to include much of the nation.
If he’d been able to reach her, he would have suggested they meet at a friend’s home. But the only number he had for her was the congressman’s office, and that line had remained busy all day. How had he failed to get her cell number? Well, there had been a ton of distractions this morning, culminating in that deeply offensive broadcast by the man who threatened to shut down the grid again at any second.
He kept his pace up. His feet burned inside his leather shoes. Sweat soaked his slacks and shirt. He felt the underarms of his blazer dampen, his collar chafe. He slowed to loosen his tie, and then wished he hadn’t. A woman yelled, “That’s him. That’s the guy who did this.”
What the…
She pointed boldly, indignantly, at him from less than fifteen feet away.
He sprinted down the block, trailed by heavy footsteps. It couldn’t be her, could it? He looked back. Nope, not her. A guy was chasing him. Big as a Redskins linebacker, which gave Ruhi more ease than pause: Linebackers weren’t built to run distances, and this guy looked winded after a block.
But Ruhi felt like a criminal as he dashed through the sidewalk throngs. He turned the corner of his street and raced the last few hundred feet as if his life depended on it, which he thought might well be the case because, incredibly, his hulking stalker was not that far behind him.
Ruhi scrambled up the steps, where he and Candace had stood side by side just yesterday. The door to his building was open on the strength of a small stool. That was a real blessing because his pursuer was now only about five townhouses away.
Ruhi kicked the stool inside and slammed the door behind him, checking the lock.
He was breathing hard.
His landlord, Jackson Halpen, stood a few feet away with his arms across his chest. They looked huge as hams. Ruhi had never noticed how muscular Jackson was. And his landlord looked pissed. Sounded it, too, snarling when he spoke.
“Hey, Ruhi, what’s the big fucking rush?”
Ruhi caught his breath quickly. He had great recovery times. He also had his eyes on the front door and his apartment key in hand.
“I’m not the most popular guy on the block.” Trying to make light of his infamy.
“Yeah? You think so? You’re not even the most popular guy in this lobby. I saw the way you kicked my little stool. Did you destroy the furniture in that apartment upstairs, too? And the door? I mean, when you weren’t busy attacking the whole country with your computer, you slimebag.”
“Are you serious?” was all Ruhi could manage in those first few seconds, because he was listening for his stalker.
“And now you kicked my stool like it was nothing. Look at it.”
Halpen picked it up and — to Ruhi’s way of thinking — held it like a club to point out a crack in the seat that could have been there for the past ten years.
“Did I say you could kick my stuff around?” Halpen shouted. “I sure as shit did not. I might have company coming over to help me clean up this mess. I might want the door open for all kinds of reasons.”
“Look,” Ruhi pleaded, “a guy’s been after me all the way here.”
“No kidding?” Halpen said with the worst smile, the kind that promised a whole series of unpleasantries. “You’re mistaking me for someone who cares, Ruhi Mancur from Saudi Arabia.”
Halpen said Ruhi’s last name like it were an epithet, then unfolded his arms and examined his hands, as if he were taking inventory of his knuckles.
“I had nothing to do with tearing up that furniture or door,” Ruhi said rapidly. “There was a mob trying to break down her door. They shot at her lock. She shot back. She had to. Then they came back last night and tore the place up. We were barricaded inside my apartment.”
As Ruhi talked, he hurried down the hallway. Halpen watched him.
“Just the two of you. Nice young blond girl and you.”
Ruhi swore silently, remembering that Halpen was named after the city of his birth: Jackson, Mississippi. He could hardly believe that people would play the race card now. But of course they would. The same racist sentiment had driven someone in the intelligence community to leak the background information on him.
Bam-bam-bam.
“You want to answer that?” Halpen asked with another wicked smile. “I’m sure it’s for you. One of your many fans.”
Ruhi pulled out his key, acutely aware that Halpen was walking to the lobby door, and that right outside was the man who’d raced after him for several blocks.
“I’m opening it,” Halpen yelled. “Hang on. He’s right here.”
Ruhi was so nervous, so shaken, that he had difficulty slipping the key into the lock.
He threaded it as Halpen worked the one on the front door.
I’m toast, he thought when he saw Halpen’s hand moving on the lock. But it took his landlord three attempts to free it because the mechanism proved as nettlesome as it had yesterday afternoon when Ruhi had tried to open it for Candace and himself.
While Halpen swore loudly at the lock, Ruhi opened his door — finally — and darted into his apartment. But unlike last night, he didn’t have Candace by his side with her semiautomatic.
Thankfully, the bureau was still near the door. It had two bullet holes in the second drawer, right about the height of Ruhi’s heart.
He shoved the dresser into place just as the pounding resumed, this time on his door.
He ducked and yelled, “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you, sand nigger.”
“He really wants to talk to you, Ruhi,” Halpen yelled. “Give him a chance to say his piece. Open the door and hear him out,” he added, with no attempt to hide his amusement.
“You got a master key I could use?” the intruder asked Halpen.
“I do, and you’d be welcome to it, except I don’t have it with me.”