A Life Not My Own Ch. 01

"Wonderful person?" Echo gripes to me. "Your grandmother is a wonderful person, not your date."

"What did you want me to say?" I retort. "You look hot naked on my bed with your hands cuffed behind your back"?

"I ... Grrr ... I see your point. We don't really know each other," Echo sighs. "For instance, are you some kind of freaking genius?"

"The term 'genius' gets tossed around too often," I shrug. "I am good with math, statistics, and have a talent for remembering things, and those combined skills make me, and the Pierces, a great deal of money. So what is the deal with you?"

"There is something seriously wrong with us that we haven't discussed any of this before now," Echo mutters.

"Okay. I make my living predicting the fluctuations in currency and real estate values, things like Central Bank Promissory notes and how a given commercial and residential neighborhood will trend," I bore her, except I don't.

"So you get global criminal data?" she stares intently.

"Sure." I see where she is going because she's a cop. "I get reports from 84 countries plus Interpol."

"Can you access bank records?" Echo nearly salivates.

"Not individual accounts, but I can track and predict the movement of funds on a national and international basis," I start to worry.

"Do you get any drug data?" she inquires eagerly.

"Of course. High incidences of drug crimes degrade an area's value but result in a corresponding economic activity at 'clearing' points -- places were money is laundered. We are also walking on some dangerous terrain as this is privileged information," I caution her.

"Fine," Echo seems a bit frustrated. "I work for the Organized Crime Taskforce, which means we act as a clearinghouse for information between the various departments of the LAPD, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, and state and federal agencies on matters dealing with crimes that perpetuate beyond the metropolitan area." I know what she wants me to do, though she hasn't formulated the request yet.

"Would you like me to look at some property and banking records for you?" I offer.

"Dominic, I want you to know this is not why I've been interested in you," Echo backpedals. "I looked you up, I knew you worked at a financial firm, but I had no idea what you did, only that you didn't have a criminal record."

"In retrospect, I should have looked into your college records as well," Echo grins. "You looked like yet another over-privileged playboy so I made an assumption -- and we know how assumptions work out."

"What? Huh? Did you say something?" I tease. "I was scoping out your assumptions."

Echo gives me a wicked grin as she leans in.

"Don't make me handcuff you then shoot you in the classic LAPD style," she whispers.

"I don't know; that might be fun. Where would you shoot me?" I banter.

"In the nuts," she responds quietly.

"I've never been a boy scout but I seriously want to emulate one right now," I gulp.

"You can be yourself," she assures me. "The real you is polite enough."

"That's nice of you to say, 'Gloomy'," I chide her. Echo surreptitiously put her hand on my bicep, then squeezed it painfully, like she'd inflicted this on a person a time or two.

"I don't like that name," she smiles sweetly. "You haven't earned the right to use it, and you won't use it again unless I tell you that you can." I don't back down easily.

"Whatever you say," I grind my teeth. "Next time I meet Lydia, I'll call you Sexy Bunny instead."

Echo opens her mouth to make another threat but she catches herself.

"Dom!" my boss Brad Pierce calls out. I don't recognize the beautiful Chinese woman of mixed heritage on his arm (I'm thinking Malaysian/Chinese). "Come on, I want you to Michael Harrow of the Harrow Group. He is that big account that we've been hunting and you're our man with the eye for figures."

"Echo -- Brad Pierce, my boss. Brad, she's --" I manage to get out.

"She's happy to meet you," Echo interrupts. She offers Brad her hand and he shakes it.

"My companion is Aya Yen," Brad introduces his companion.

"Malay Capital Investments," I grin.

"Do we know each other?" she asks in an overtly polite fashion.

"Your name comes up all the time on real estate reports," I remind her. She blinks in surprise.

"I don't do real estate transactions," Aya tries to correct me.

"No, but you do a great deal of loan approvals," I point out. Aya stares at me and Echo tightens her grip on my arm.

"That's my boy," Brad laughs. "Dom remembers everything -- and I mean everything -- he ever reads unless it is a business appointment; those he somehow manages to forget." Aya gives an incredibly correct laugh, as do I.

"Ah, and here I was hoping this handsome young man was paying particular attention to me," she smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Pity."

Brad leads the way to a tall, blonde, well-muscled man in his mid-forties. He has the look of a man constantly challenging the natural world with the same aggression he tackles the business world. I hear about guys like Michael Harrow; he is one of those hyper Type A personalities who not only has to win, he has to make you lose. He doesn't just kill you; he kills your hopes, dreams, and ambitions before your eyes...then he kills you; figuratively or so I thought.

My boss wants this guy's portfolio too -- oh, joy. Well, I didn't imagine I'd been going over every aspect of Harrow's life for the past two weeks for nothing. Brad likes putting me on special projects but it would be nice if he would lighten my normal workload when he did it. It means I actually have to work, damn it.

Michael turns and regards us in a rather unsettling fashion. The ice-cold blonde on his arm looks like she would only be happy killing clowns for a living but is introduced as his daughter.

"Hello, Brad," Michael greets us with thin patience. "Is this your Wunderkin you've been bragging about?"

"Yes," Brad smiles. "This is Aya Yen, my gracious date for tonight. The lady on Dom's arm is Echo, and this fine young man is Dominic Umstead."

"Fine," Michael sounds bored, "dazzle me, Mr. Umstead."

"What do you want to know?" I ask.

"That's very original," Michael sneers. I have the feeling this interview is about over.

"Very well: you aren't Michael Harrow, that woman isn't your daughter, and you have eighteen Total Sum Profit businesses controlled by holding companies under your control, but hidden behind a half-dozen banks that you have influence with," I answer.

"What do you mean, I'm not Michael Harrow?" Michael slaps me upside the head in a way that is normally mistaken for a paternal gesture but was applied with enough force to make my ear ring. "Really, Brad, what kind of moron are you hiring these days?" To his credit, Brad doesn't throw me to the wolves.

Echo starts coming around, as does winter-chic with Michael.

"Ouch," I cringe, "that hurt. As for you not being Michael Harrow, your income projections were all wrong. The Michael Harrow who lived thirteen years ago didn't have the initiative, resources, or connections to get where you are today."

His look is not a good one but since I've never seen homicidal before, I don't know how much trouble I'm in.

"Oh, and if you touch me again, I'm putting you into the floor, Mr. Harrow, just so there are no miscommunications," I add with a grin.

"Let's see about that, Dom," Michael challenges me as he prepares to do just that.

"She's got a gun," the ice-chick comments softly so only our immediate gathering can hear.

"I was planning to drive Dominic up to the Hollywood sign after the party and shoot Jack Daniel's bottles off his head," Echo glares at the woman, "but now you've ruined the surprise."

"Seriously?" I look Echo's way.

"What do you carry?" the blonde persists.

"A gun -- it's made of metal and has bullets in it; that's all you need to know," Echo ripostes. I am not sure what happens next; I'm pretty sure Michael tries to smack me upside the head again.

They say I threw him down the marble stairs but I was going on all-out instinct. I'm not sure because a second later, I went sprawling. I look up to see ice-chick clutching her throat as if she can't breathe. That is because I just missed Echo punching her trachea. She is looking at Echo who promptly smashes her in the temple with her purse, sending ice babe into la-la land. I am now reminded that I work for the best guy in the business.

"Sorry, Mike," Brad calls down the stairs, "but the kid warned you." He comes back over to me and helps me up as Aya and Echo hover close by.

"No worries," Brad pats me on the back. "I'd heard he was difficult to deal with but that was nuts. By the way, your new girlfriend beat the hell out of his bodyguard. I'm glad to see you moved on after Stephanie. She's was high maintenance. Trust me, I know the type," he adds with a wink.

"Interesting moves," Aya observes. "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm current unemployed but I grew up in a rough neighborhood," Echo smiles. I'm lucky my jaw doesn't drop off. Isn't this the moment a cop should show her badge and tells everyone things are okay?

"My girlfriend Stephanie and I broke up earlier this week and there was a mutual friend who hooked us up," I help fabricate the falsehood. "It turns out we'd actually met a few times before too so it wasn't even like we were strangers."

"Well, you are lucky she agreed to be your date tonight because I'm not sure what that woman would have done to you," Brad chuckles as he leads me away. He soon spins us off so that he can do damage control.

"That was unexpected," Echo muses once we've grabbed some champagne.

"What is your interest?" I counter.

"I may tell you later if we get out of this alive -- trouble." Echo points me in the right direction. Michael Harrow and his somewhat battered but clearly furious companion are coming my way.

"Let me handle this," Echo whispers to me.

"That would kind of defeat you lying to him and my boss about what you do for a living," I remind her.

"We need to talk...outside," Harrow insists.

"I can give you ten reasons why that is not going to happen, first being that I'm not sure how much plastic surgery my insurance covers." I try to make light of the situation.

"I'm not...too angry, Mr. Umstead. I actually want you to consider a job offer," Michael grins like a lion on the prowl.

"Oh...wow...thank you very much, sir. That was unexpected," I answer carefully, "but I like working with Brad Pierce. He's always looked out for me and I owe him my loyalty. Hell, he's like a father to me...actually, more than a father since my dad was a drunk who ended up wrapping himself around a tractor-trailer one night when I was a six."

"You haven't heard the offer," Michael uses his size in an intimidating manner.

"Mr. Harrow, if you offer me more than I'm worth, I would get suspicious, and if you offer me less than what I'm worth, I wouldn't be interested," I state. "Cost analysis is what I do. If you want my services, please give Pierce and Pierce the contract."

"You are really starting to piss me off," Michael growls, but I am getting the feeling this is some sort of contest he wants to play out because he knows he's destined to win and he wants to savor that moment.

"That's not what I had planned," I back up, "but then, your happiness has never been a real concern for me. You are not a friend and you don't wear the right kind of lingerie to make me question my morals."

He glares and he glares, and then he laughs long and loud. He makes as if to slap my upper arm but holds back at the last second.

"I like men who don't fold up at the first sign of violence, Dominic," he stares fiercely at me. "That wasn't in your profile. It indicated you were self-absorbed and rudderless."

"That could be the fault of your data, or maybe your data interpreter," I relate. "Personality profiling is more of a sideline for me, not my main area of expertise." He laughs again but it was merely a distraction.

"You still don't think I'm Michael Harrow," he asks casually.

"Four things: movies, flowers, prophylactics, and porn," I explain. "For a guy who is now knocking it back with four or five smoking hot babes a month, your dating profile for the first twenty-three years of your life was abysmal."

"You are joking," he seems really amused. "You think I'm an imposter because of the women I see?"

"Michael Harrow was a dating nobody; all credit cards associated with him show it," I continue. "He was virtually invisible until thirteen years ago when he/you were the beneficiary of multiple unsecured loans, and the rest is history."

"And this theory is based on dating history. I hope you understand how insane that sounds?" Michael shakes his head.

"It would sound a lot more nuts if you were not standing in front of me with a job offer," I point out.

"You are getting the job offer because you have stones, Dominic," he gives a sinister grin. "The last thing I want right now is some pointless slander, though."

"That won't be a problem; my analysis is the property of the client and the Pierces," I inform him. "I'm not in the news services or with any PR firm. I make people money and I like to think I'm good at it."

"What is with the personality profile, then?" he questions me.

"I'm hardly earning my paycheck if I put your finances together with someone who is irrational, idiotic, or corrupt," I detail. "It is part of the service."

"I could make you a very rich and successful man," Michael prods.

"I'll be rich no matter what," I brag, "and I have all the success I want right here," I wrap an arm around Echo's waist.

"I'll see you later, Dominic," Michael snorts. He turns and heads out.

"You are fast," the icicle finally speaks.

"Thank you," I nod to the woman.

"Fine," growls Echo. Maybe the woman was talking to me and maybe she was talking to Echo. She walks away to catch up with Michael so I may never know. I want to ask Echo something important but...

"Well, that was an epic disaster," Stephanie comments from behind me. I turn and there she is with Carl Dunn, an associate at the same law firm and probably the guy she was cheating on me with.

"Are you referring to our relationship or your decision to come here with a man more than six inches shorter than you?" I force a smile. Carl, who is five-four in lifts, bristles at the jibe.

"Your lack of ambition always disappointed me," Stephanie shoots back.

"Dom, this is the skank you tossed me out of your place for? This is the woman you were so faithful to?" Echo joins in.

"You really had a bimbo at your place that night?" Stephanie sounds surprised.

"Yeah," I mock her, "one of us was actually faithful in our relationship, Steph."

"Give it a rest," Carl growls. "You were never there for Stephanie."

"I'm not a bimbo but I did stop by his place that night and I did want to fool around with him," Echo glares at Steph.

"How about this not being the place for this conversation, Steph?" I intervene.

"Are you tired of making a fool of yourself?" she counter-mocks me.

"Careful, Steph; I still have that video of you with that thing up your ass and me coming home to help you get it out," I taunt her.

"What? You bastard," Stephanie hisses. "You told me you deleted that thing."

"Oh," I grin, "that was comedy gold. I simply couldn't get rid of it."

"Don't you dare show that to anyone," she whispers harshly.

"That's the difference between you and I; I would never betray a confidence," I remind her.

"Dominic," Rachel Pierce came gliding over, "the dancing is about to begin and I have a few things I want to talk to you about." I give Echo a hopeless look right before I was swept away by my other boss. I recall Katya warning me about staying close to my date or I'll be snagged by the cougars roaming the crowd. Damn it, she lied to me. Cougars are predatory felines while dates are a fruit from the Middle East; cougars aren't afraid of dates.