The Kingfish, as it turned out, was a totally democratic restaurant: no reservations, but we were seated quickly at a nice table along the wall. We ordered drinks and food, but mostly we were there to hold hands and talk about everything that was going on in our lives.
"This thing with Little Alex," I told Jamilla about midway through dinner, "it's the worst torture for me. Goes against who I am, everything I learned from Nana. I can't stand to leave him here."
Jamilla frowned and seemed angry. "Doesn't she treat him well?"
"Oh no, no, Christine is a good mother. It's the separation that kills me. I love that little boy, and I miss him so much every day I'm away from him. I miss the way he talks, walks, thinks, tells bad jokes, listens to mine. We're pals, Jam."
"And so," Jamilla said, holding my eyes with hers, "you escape into your work."
"And so"-I nodded-"I do. But that's a whole 'nother story. Hey, let's get out of here."
"What do you have in mind, Agent Cross?"
"Nothing illegal, Inspector Hughes."
"Hmmm. Really? Well, that's a shame."
Chapter 100
You've heard the saying get a room? Well, I already had one at the Fairmont Olympic on University across from Ranier Square, and I couldn't wait to get there. Neither of us could. Jamilla whistled under her breath as we walked into the impressive lobby. She stared up at the engraved ceiling, which must have been forty feet high. There was an actual hush inside the large, overdecorated room at a little past ten when we arrived.
"Italian Renaissance decor, big ol' antique chandeliers, five stars, five diamonds. I'm wonderfully impressed," Jam said, grinning. As always, her enthusiasm was exhilarating.
"Every once in a while you just have to build in a treat, you know."
"This is definitely a treat, Alex," Jamilla said, and gave me a quick kiss in the lobby. "I'm really happy you're here. And that I'm here, too. I like us a lot."
It kept getting better from there. Our room was on the tenth floor and it was everything it needed to be-bright, airy, plush, with a king-size bed. We even had a view of Elliott Bay with Bainbridge Island in the distance, and a ferry just leaving the waterfront in the foreground. The sights and scenes couldn't have been any better if I'd planned them out in elaborate detail, which maybe, just maybe, I had.
About that king-size bed at the Fairmont Olympic. It was covered with a gold-and-green-striped comforter-a duvet?-I'm always slightly confused about what distinguishes the two. We didn't bother to remove the comforter/duvet. We just fell onto it, laughing and talking, happy to be there together, realizing how much we'd missed each other.
"Let me make you a little more comfortable, Alex," Jam whispered as she pulled my shirt out of my pants. "How's that? Better?"
"And I'll do the same for you. Only fair," I said to her. "Tit for tat."
"Well, yes, I do like that tat of yours."
I began to unbutton Jamilla's blouse and she continued unbuttoning my shirt. Neither of us was in a hurry. We knew better than to rush any of this. The whole idea was to make it last, to pay attention to each detail, each button, the feel of the fabric, the tiny bumps of anticipation on Jamilla's skin, and on mine, the difficulty catching our breath, the tingle in our bodies, the electricity, sparks, whatever goodness came our way that night.
"You've been practicing," she whispered, and she was already a little short of breath. I liked that.
I laughed. "Uh-uh. Actually, I've been practicing the art of anticipation."
"Like this next button?" she asked.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"And the one after that?"
"I don't know how much more of this I can take, Jamilla. I'm not kidding."
"We'll have to see. We'll just have to see. I'm not kidding, either."
When Jamilla's blouse and my shirt were undone, we slowly pulled them off. Meanwhile, we kept kissing, tickling, scratching, nuzzling, ever so slowly. She was wearing perfume and I recognized it as Calèche Eau Delicate. She knew I liked the scent. Jamilla loved a light scratch all over her body so that's what I did next. First the shoulders and back, then her arms, her beautiful face, the long legs, her feet, then back up her legs again.
"You're getting warm… warmer," she sighed, and laughed very deep in her throat.
Then we slid back off the bed and stood together, swaying and touching. Finally I took off her bra and held her breasts in my hands. "Like I said, I don't know how much more of this I can take."
I didn't, either. I was hard, so hard that it hurt. I slid down and knelt on the Oriental rug. I kissed Jamilla down there. She was strong and confident, and maybe that's why I liked kneeling before her like this. In awe? Out of respect? Something like that.
Finally I pushed myself up again. "Okay?" I whispered.
"Okay. Whatever you say. I'm your slave. Your master? A little of each?"
I went inside Jamilla while we were still standing, dancing in place, but then we tilted down and dropped onto the bed. I was lost in the moment, lost in Jamilla Hughes, and that was exactly where I needed to be. She was making these tiny sighs and gasps that I loved.
"I missed being with you," I whispered. "I missed your smile, the sound of your voice, everything."
"Ditto," she said, and laughed. "But especially that tat of yours."
Moments later, five, maybe ten minutes, the phone on the nightstand began to ring.
For once, I did the right thing-I knocked the damn thing onto the floor, then covered it with a pillow. If it was the Wolf, he could call back in the morning.
Chapter 101
The next morning I headed back to the Idaho Rockies. Jamilla and I shared a cab out to the airport, then took separate planes going in different directions. "Big mistake. Dumb move," she told me before we parted. "You should just fly to San Francisco with me. You need some extended R and R." I already knew that.
But it wasn't going to be. Corky Hancock was the biggest lead we had, and the surveillance on him had been tightening. There was nowhere Hancock could go in the state of Idaho and not be watched, or at least listened to. There was surveillance on his house, the surrounding acreage, even the stand-alone barn. We had four mobile teams on him, with four more in the wings if needed. Since I'd left, aerial surveillance had been added to the mix.
In Idaho, I attended a meeting of more than two dozen agents assigned to the detail. The meeting was held in a small movie house in Sun Valley. The movie 21 Grams with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts was playing there in the evenings, but not during the day.
Senior Agent William Koch stood in front of us. Tall and gangly, impressive in his way, he wore a chambray shirt, jeans, scuffed black cowboy boots. He played the local guy to a T, but he was nobody's fool and he wanted us to know it. The same was true for his CIA counterpart, Bridget Rooney, a confident, dark-haired woman who was smarter than a whip.
"I'll make this pretty simple for everybody. Either Hancock knows we're here or he's just unbelievably careful by nature," said Koch. "He hasn't talked to anybody since we got here. He's been online-eBay for fishing rods, a couple of porn sites, a fantasy baseball league. He has a girlfriend named Coral Lee, who lives nearby in Ketchum. Asian American girl. Coral is definitely a good looker. Corky isn't. We figured he probably spends lots of money on her, and it turns out, he does. Slightly less than two hundred thousand so far this year. Trips, jewelry, one of those cute little Lexus convertibles the gals like."