He looked up and saw Kent with his guitar case. “You lookin’ for Jennifer?” he asked, still smiling.
Kent nodded.
“In the back, down the hall, door on the right.”
“Thanks.”
Kent moved down the hall. He opened the door and stepped into a small practice room with thick egg-carton soundproofing on the walls and ceiling. The sound of the electric guitar went silent as he closed the door behind him.
A woman sat on a stool with one foot propped on a little metal stand, and she would be Jennifer Hart. He had found her through the local classical guitar society. She was at least fifty, and even though that was a decade younger than he was, she was the closest teacher he could find locally anywhere near his own age. Somehow, the idea of it being somebody younger than some of the boots he owned just didn’t seem right. Certainly not some kid with lip hair dyed green and enough hardware in his face to build a waffle iron.
The woman was trim, dressed in tennis shoes, jeans, and a button-up long-sleeved white shirt. Her hair was to her shoulders, brown, with a fair amount of gray in it. She had a lot of smile lines on her face. A classical guitar rested on her left leg.
“Mr. Kent?”
“Yes.” He was in civilian clothes and he hadn’t mentioned that he was in the military, much less a general.
She put the guitar onto a stand, stood, and stuck out her hand.
She was short, maybe five-two or -three. “Hi. I’m Jennifer Hart.”
“Pleased to meet you.” He transferred his guitar case to his left hand and shook hands with her. She had a strong grip.
There was a second stool and she pointed at it. “Have a seat.”
He set his case down and then perched on the stool.
“That’s an expensive case,” she said. “Is the guitar handmade?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please, call me Jen. Could I see it?”
He popped the six latches open and opened the lid, lifted the guitar free, and offered it to her.
She took it. “What a beautiful instrument! What kind of wood is that?”
“Port Orford cedar on top, Oregon myrtlewood on the sides and back. Made by a man named Les Stansell, out in the Pacific Northwest.”
“May I?” She put it on her leg, preparing to play.
“Sure.”
She did a little run on the fretboard, adjusted the tuning a hair, then played some kind of Spanish-y thing, short but impressive.
“Good tones. Nice basses and trebles, clean mid-range, great resonance. Sounds more like spruce than red cedar, though.” She handed it back to him. “The top hasn’t opened up yet. You haven’t had it very long, have you?”
“No, ma’am—Jen.”
She smiled. He liked the way her face crinkled.
She picked up her own instrument. It had the same color top, but the sides and back were much darker than his guitar, all brown and patterned. “This is also a cedar top, different than yours, but I’ve had it a while. See if you can hear the difference.”
She played the same piece. It was warmer this time, darker, not as bright. Both sounded great, but there was a definite difference. The bass notes seemed deeper, fuller, and the high tones somehow richer.
Done, she said, “My instrument was made by Jason Pickard, it’s got claro walnut sides and back—makes it a little mellower.”
“What did you mean about the top opening up?”
“Well, that usually applies more to spruce than cedar, but basically, up to a point, classical guitars sound better with age. A brand-new one that sounds pretty good will, after a few years of playing it, usually sound better.”
“Ah.”>
“How far along are you in your studies?”
He smiled. “What I know about playing it you could carve on the head of pin with a battle-ax.”
A slight frown flitted across her face. “You’re joking.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t even know how to tune it.”
He had a pretty good idea of what bothered her. This guitar he had was expensive. Why would a man who didn’t know how to play the thing put out big bucks for it until he was able to do it justice?
“The guitar was . . . a gift.”
Now she frowned. “Somebody gave you a handmade guitar that runs what?—eight, ten thousand dollars?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She raised an eyebrow. “They must really like you.”
“Not so you’d notice in this case, I don’t think.”
She just stared, not speaking.
“It’s a weird story.”
“I’m not on the clock, Mr. Kent.”
“Abe,” he said.
She didn’t even blink. “All right. Abe.”
She waited.
He thought about it for a moment. He didn’t know this woman, he had no reason to sit here and spill his guts to her, but something about her manner invited intimacy. She seemed genuinely interested.
He took a deep breath. Who would it hurt? “The man who gave it to me was moments away from dying when he did so. The reason he was dying was because I had just shot him.”
If that bothered her, it didn’t show. “I thought you looked like police or military. Go on.”
He wanted to grin again. He remembered a story he’d heard, about an ex-GI who had been involved in a shooting at his home. Guy had been jumped by some local bikers, so he’d pulled a piece and fired three rounds, killing one of them. Friends called later to talk to the shooter, and the comments ranged on one end from folks saying how awful it must have been to have to shoot and kill a fellow human being, to old soldiering buddies who said, “What kind of grouping did you get?” Jennifer Hart’s comment sounded more like the latter than the former.
“I work for a government agency. The man—who was shooting at me when I shot him—was a hired killer. He was also a very good classical guitarist.”
“And you feel that you need to learn how to play it? I don’t see the reason.”
He didn’t blame her. He didn’t see the reason, either, exactly. And what could he tell her? Would she understand that Natadze was a good enemy? Smart, tough, adept.
He shrugged. “It seems like the right thing to do.”
She nodded, as if understanding exactly what moved him, though it may have simply been acceptance. For the moment, anyway. “Okay. Let’s get started, then. Can you read music?”
He smiled again. “Not a note.”
“TAB?”
“That a soft drink?”
She laughed. He enjoyed being able to make her do that. “Not exactly,” she said. “It’s a kind of notation for stringed instruments—guitars, lutes, like that. We’ll get into theory as we go. Let’s do the basic stuff first. There are six strings on your guitar, numbered usually from the thinnest and highest to the thickest and lowest. When you hold the guitar on your leg—I’ll show the basic position—the lowest bass string will be up. Going down from that toward the floor, the strings are usually tuned to E, A, D, G, B, and E, in that order. Here’s a way to remember them: Elvis Ate Dynamite, Good-Bye, Elvis. . . .”
Kent grinned again. He could remember that. Hell, he could remember Elvis Himself. Saw him once, in Las Vegas . . .
Louisiana Jay’s Dig
Whispering Dunes, Egypt
Jay stood at the top of the tallest sand dune, looking at the huge archaeology dig below. Hundreds of natives wearing flowing white robes toiled in the hot sun, carefully unmasking the ruins of the temple beneath the sand. Some used shovels, some used small hand trowels, and others used whisk brooms made of papyrus to brush away dust on the stones.
Right out of an old adventure movie. Or maybe one about mummies and tomb raiders . . .
Like most of his VR scenarios, it wasn’t really a temple but a metaphor for something else—in this case a huge comparison database.