Contact

I should have known that Stroeker would turn up in a bar. Shit! I suppose I should have felt glad that I'd finally managed to track him down, but this was a disaster. I wanted to place him under surveillance, not make contact with him. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to him, or give him any reason at all to pay attention to me. Still, there was nothing for it now but to play along and try to get rid of him without arousing his suspicion. I looked up with what I hoped was a smile on my face and answered his question. "Killing time until the uma puka taho, or however it's pronounced. What about you? Are you one of the Congress attendees?"

"No, Ma'am. Not Lenny Stroeker. I'm just here on vacation. Bartender, gimme a bourbon and whatever the pretty lady is drinking." He sat down and leaned uncomfortably close. "So what's your name, pretty lady?"

I tried to think how a normal woman would react, one who didn't know what a monster he was. He was an admittedly handsome man of average height and medium build, with blond hair and pale blue eyes. With those looks, and his slight accent, women probably fell for him all the time. I knew they did, in fact. Still, he was a little too close, and I couldn't help moving back just a little bit as I replied, "My name is Jillian. This is sort of a vacation for me, too. What made you pick this spot? You sound like you're from the U.S., and most Americans go to Hawaii or the Caribbean for a tropical getaway. I'd never heard of this place before they announced that the Congress would be meeting here."

"I like to pick out of the way places. Like to see new things and meet new people. Like you. So you're one of these...uh...scientists?"

I laughed lightly, beginning to get into the role. "Oh, no, I'm more of a curious fan than anything else. But so far, it's been pretty boring. Too many dry lectures, not enough inexplicable phenomena. I'm hoping the dinner tonight will be more interesting."

Stroeker leaned in the distance I had moved back. "I'll bet it will be. Want some company?"

I held my ground this time, but kept a careful eye on him, in case he tried something more...like kissing me. "I think it's just for Congress attendees. Sorry. Maybe some other time?"

"I wasn't talking about the luau," he said, putting his hand on my thigh. "I was talking about you and me."

My skin crawled, but I managed to continue smiling as I politely moved his hand back off of my thigh. "Sorry, I don't tend to get that involved with people I've just met. Call me old-fashioned." Cover or no, there was no way I was letting him touch me.

"Uh-huh," he said, eyeing a pair of young women in bikinis who were passing by. "Well, darlin' if you get bored just sitting alone, you let ol' Lenny know. You and me, we could have ourselves a fine ol' time."

Not a chance, but I smiled and nodded anyway.

He got up, smiled down at me one more time, and then wandered away in the direction of the bikinis. I breathed a sigh of relief after I was sure that he had moved on, and looked over at the bartender, who was studiously minding his own business. "Why do I feel the urge to take a bath now?"

He leaned over the bar. "It's none of my business, Miss, but I'd stay away from that one. He's mean and he hits on everything in a skirt. Not the type to be alone with."

I knew that already, but I nodded anyway. "Thanks for the warning. He was definitely giving me the creeps. Although he didn't seem all that mean to me. Just pushy." I was fishing, of course, and the bartender didn't disappoint me.

"Hunh. Let me tell you, he almost got into a fistfight here last night. And," he looked around to see that he wasn't being overheard, "rumor is that he already hurt one lady real bad. She went with him one night and checked out the next morning with bruises on her arms and face."

The appalled look I gave him was completely genuine, although I wasn't surprised by what he'd said. "That's awful! He should be locked up! I'll bet that story about him being on vacation here isn't true either, then."

The bartender shrugged. "It's just a rumor, as far as I know, and she's gone back to the States by now, so it'd be hard for the police to arrest him. Anyway, he's doing something more than vacationing. He's got a whole bungalow out on the beach he uses to keep some freight or something. It was delivered to him by boat last week. Not my business, though."

Now that was interesting indeed, and worth following up on. I shook my head and gave the bartender a grateful smile. "Definitely no one I want to be mixed up with. Thanks again for the warning. God only knows what might have happened if I'd gone with him."

"Anytime. Whenever you're done there," he said, changing the subject and indicating my drink, "you should try one of my double-secret, extra-ugly Kiwi Hangovers." He smiled.

I grinned and knocked back the rest of my drink. "You're on!"

Now, I don't normally drink while I'm on the job, but this wasn't exactly a normal case, and interacting with Stroeker like that had left me feeling in need of something strong. Besides, I've always had a high tolerance for alcohol, so I figured his drink wasn't likely to do much of anything to me. His Kiwi Hangover lived up to his boasting, however. While it didn't come close to getting me drunk, it did leave me feeling very warm and fuzzy, which is more than one drink of anything had ever been able to do to me. It had rum in it, of that I was sure, but I couldn't really pick out any other flavors, and he prepared the whole thing in secret.

"Told you," he said, laughing at my reaction.

I couldn't help giggling. "Wow. Where on earth did you learn how to make that?"

"That," he said proudly, "is the first part of the double-secret."

"And the second part is what you put into it, right?"

"Nope. That's the extra-ugly part. The second part of the secret is where you'll wind up in the morning. Nobody knows!"

That just made me giggle again. "Just as long as it isn't with Mr. Creepy."

I whiled away a rather pleasant hour speaking with the bartender, whose name turned out to be Brian, and who haled from Wellington, New Zealand. He didn't really know that much about Tonga, but he liked his job, and I had to admit he was good at it. If it hadn't been for the Congress dinner that evening, I easily could have talked to him for hours. But since I'd told Stroeker I was going to the dinner, I had to at least show up for a little while, on the off-chance that he was there and noticed I was missing. Unlikely, to be sure, but on such small mistakes are covers broken.

Jillian's Page | Jillian's Journals

Last modified on May 19, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.