Amy's Smile Ch. 07

"Well you have an awful lot of messages on it. Some guy named Clem. He's been calling all night."

Uh oh, that wasn't good. Clem wouldn't call unless he'd either finally gotten laid or there was something really wrong at work. Knowing Clem, I was betting on the second.

"Here's your phone if you want to call." Amy handed it over and then walked away.

She wasn't kidding. There were eighteen messages. Clem would never have called me like this if it wasn't an emergency and I didn't need a crystal ball to know that my immediate future was going to include a journey in a big silver bird. With a sigh, I dialed the office and then punched in Clem's extension.

"What?" he spit out the word. Yup, something was really wrong.

I took a deep breath and snarled back at him. "This better be life or death or you're dead meat." Hey, I said I knew it was important, that didn't mean I had to be gracious about it.

"Fuck Charlie, where the hell you been?" Clem didn't sound any happier to be talking to me than I was to him. "I've been trying to get you since yesterday."

"You know, you may not have a life," I hissed, "but I do. Or at least I'm trying to. And since when do I have to be available on the weekends?"

"Since the goddamn Medico Base IV decided to mutate into the program from hell. Not like I didn't tell them it was bound to happen," he whined, "but since nobody ever listens to me, it happened anyway. God, sometimes I hate always being right!"

"Yeah, well, we'll discuss your genius another time. Tell me what's wrong and then tell me why the fuck I should give a shit."

For the next ten minutes he did just that. Apparently the problem stemmed from a fairly new billing program we'd been installing in some small hospitals in rural areas. Surprisingly it had been a big hit and all of Clem's dire predictions had never materialized. In fact it was so successful that we'd ended up marketing the product about six months ago to other small hospitals and now had five of them up and running.

Or at least they had all been running. Clem was now telling me that one of them had been very busy over the last week. Apparently it had decided to commit virtual homicide on its entire patient base.

"I'm not shitting you. It's reporting everyone the hospital treated in the last two months as deceased! And that's not the worst of it. Remember that little add-on that Jeremiah thought would be so spiffy?"

"Oh fuck!" I knew what he was talking about. Our resident boy genius, Jeremiah Swartz, had tacked a little thing onto Medico that would automatically notify designated funeral homes and newspapers about any deaths.

"Yeah, fuck. Not such a big deal about the undertakers, but you put that shit in papers and the banks pick up on it. In fact that's how it started to come out. Yesterday morning somebody needed some weekend cash and when they went through the ATM they were denied. It was after bank hours, but apparently this guy golfs with the bank president. So he calls up his good buddy who goes and checks. An hour later, the guy is informed that he can't have his money cause he's dead."

"Jesus."

"The bank president gets a little curious, and apparently unlike most "suits", he knows his way around a 'puter. He starts to do a little checking and sees that there's been a big rise in the mortality rate of his little world. A very big rise. Not only his golfing buddy, but his next door neighbor, the principal at his son's high school and the guy who does his lawn."

"Wait a minute," my head was trying to take all this in, "wouldn't they have noticed all the extra obits?"

"You'd think that, but see - and this is where it gets good. It seems the town's paper has this new computer set up and when they get a death notice and put it in, the damn thing automatically forwards the info into a data bank with the three banks in town."

"Shit, remind me not to die in that town."

"No kidding. Anyway, Medico didn't go homicidal until Friday night and the paper got the info on Saturday. Apparently they don't print on the weekend and only keep a skeleton crew in case the world ends or something. So nobody checked the obit desk like they would on a weekday.

"Jesus!"

"You said that already."

"So do I need to come into the office now?"

"What you need to do is get your ass on a plane. I'll meet you at O'Hare with all the stuff we could dig up. Once you get there, get over to the hospital and call us. Maybe by then we'll have figured out what the fuck is going on, but I wouldn't bet the farm on that."

We talked for a minute more than hung up. I jumped into the shower and dressed fast. As for my plans with Amy, well, they weren't going to happen today. In fact it looked like any ideas I had to convince her that I was the better man were going to have to wait until I got back. I only hoped that in the meantime, Liam didn't suddenly grow a brain and realize what he was missing.

I came downstairs to the smell of waffles and hot maple syrup. Amy had a plate already made for me.

"Um," I said eloquently.

"I know," she was calm and if she was even a little disappointed it didn't show, "you have to go to work."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled and explained the problem as I shoveled in bits of golden waffles.

"It can't be helped, I know that. I called you a taxi, I don't think you'd be able to get your car de-iced yet."

"Great," I nodded, "when will it be..." My sentence was cut off by a horn blasting out front.

"Now would be my guess." Amy said dryly and then went and got my coat while I chugged down a half a cup of coffee and some juice.

We walked out to the cab together. Amy was right. The streets had been salted and things were melting fast, but my car still looked like an ice cube. Amy stood there while I gave my address to the cabby, a big burly black guy in his fifties who looked like he'd seen a lot of shit and always come out on top.

I turned to Amy to say goodbye. Things were awkward again.

"Bye Charlie," she said not meeting my eyes. "I'll see you after you get back, okay?"

"Um yeah, thanks for dinner and a..." I started to thank her for dinner and was trying to think how to do the same about the rest of the night when she suddenly catapulted herself into my arms. I did the first thing that came into my head. I kissed her.

"Okay peoples, you can finish that later." The cab driver said. "I gotsta make a living ya know?"

Amy pulled back and whispered so the big guy couldn't hear, "Thank you, Charlie, thank you for everything!" Her cheeks were as rosy as her robe and the ribbon she wore in her hair, and I didn't think it was from the cold. "I had a really nice time."

Nice? She had a nice time?

Jesus if it had gotten any nicer, I don't think I would have survived. I was still mulling that over when she turned and scampered back onto the porch. The cabbie cleared his throat and pointed at the meter, which was merrily counting away.

Slowly I got into the cab and swiveled my head to catch a final glimpse of Amy as we pulled away from the curb. She didn't go inside either. She stood and watched until we finally turned the corner and disappeared out of view. The cabby must have been taking all of this in through his rear view mirror. When I finally turned back he grinned at me in it.

"Nice girl you got there, son - sorta cute. Like them little pointy ears. Reminds me of a pixie or sumptin."

"She's not mine," I admitted. "My girl, I mean. We're friends."

"Yup, friends." He raised his eyebrows skeptically and snorted. "Charlie, it is Charlie right?" He waited until I nodded. "Anyway, if you and her'd gotten any friendlier back there I was gonna have to find me a bucket of water to break you kids apart."

"Really? You think so?" I sat a little forward.

He snorted again, "What part of the whole scene you not clear on? Where she jumped you or when she opened her mouth and sucked on your tongue like it was the best thing she ever tasted?"

I grinned happily. "She did do that, didn't she?"

James, the name I now read on his license, rolled his eyes. "So what's this 'friends' bullshit?"

I stopped smiling. "The thing is, well, Amy - that's her name - Amy, she's uh, well, see there's another guy."

"Riiight..."

"No really," I protested. "She's been crazy about this asshole for years."

"Uh huh," James pulled up in front of my house. "That'll be $4.80."

"Sure, but I need you to wait here okay? I'll only be a minute and then I need a ride to O'Hare."

He shrugged, "Your dime."'

My fifty was more like it, but there wasn't a hell of lot I could do about it. I ran into the house and charged upstairs. I didn't see any sign of Liam and that was probably a good thing. I was still itching to plant one right on that movie star jaw of his and I really didn't have time to do the job right.

Five minutes later I was back in James' cab. The minute I sat back in the seat, he started in again about Amy. "So, Charlie, what ya going to do?"

I pretended I didn't know what he was talking about, hoping it would discourage him. No such luck. "Well, I thought once I got to the airport I go check and see if my bosses actually got me a ticket and..."

"Nah, nah, Jesus!" He shook his head disgustedly. "About the pixie. What are you going to do about Amy?"

I sighed. "I have no idea."

"Christ,! Kids!" He shook his head in disgust. "You love her right?"

"Well..."

"Yeah," he sighed and rolled his eyes again. "You love her. Nobody looks as fuckin miserable as a guy in love."

I looked at James again and figured he must work out, a lot. Since it didn't seem like it would be wise to disagree - especially since he was right - I nodded.

"You wanna do sumptin about it?"

"Uh, yeah, I was thinking about it."

"Don't think, just do it." He half turned ignoring the guy flipping the bird for cutting him off. "Look, you wanna know what I think?"

No, was the short answer. But as I also didn't want my ass dumped out of the cab on the freeway, it didn't seem like that would be the smartest thing to say.

"Sure."

The rest of the ride was taken up with love tips from James. Any other time I might have thought he was funny, but the further away I got from Amy, the more I realized that I didn't have a chance. I mean, yeah, she obviously didn't have the best taste in the world when it came to men. Not when you figure Liam was her number one goal in life, but that didn't mean that she was stupid enough to think I was any better. The more I got to know her, the more I realized she deserved the best. Not a rating even my mother would bestow on me.

I zoned out, so caught up in my pity party, I barely paid attention to the pearls James was imparting. I didn't even notice we'd already gotten to the airport until we turned in at the entrance and James was just wrapping up.

"Yeah okay. So, alls ya gotta do is break the habit."

Since I'd basically blown him off for the last twenty minutes this final pronouncement meant fuck all to me. I tried to pretend he'd just imparted the wisdom of the ages, but he snorted and slapped the back of the seat with his hand.

"You ain't listened to a word I said, didya?"

"Well, I..."

"Christ, kid, you always a dumbass? I'm giving ya good advice here. Listen up. Amy don't love that clown..."

"Asshole," I corrected him. "Liam is an asshole."

"Yeah, right, whatever. Don't matter what ya call him, he ain't the one she spent last night with is he? And unless she's some slut..." He saw the look in my eyes and put up his hands and spoke quickly. "And she ain't, I know that. But that's gotta mean she likes you too." It was his turn to shrug. "She just don't know it yet."

"I wish I believed that."

"I'm telling you this thing with the asshole, it's just a habit," he pointed to a pack of cigarettes on the dashboard. "They can be hard to break."

We pulled up to the front of the terminal.

"Impossible," I agreed sadly as we both got out to get my bag from the trunk.

"Nah, not really. That pack of cigs? That's five years old. My wife asked me to quit cause she was worried about my coughing. Told me she wasn't sticking around just to end up a widow. She seems to want me around for as long as possible. We been married thirty years and she ain't tired of me yet." He grinned. "Thirty fuckin years."

"That's great."

"Yeah, well, the thing I'm trying to say here is that I didn't never think I was going to be able to stop sucking on the weeds, but when it came down to it, I realized I had something a lot better going for me. I ain't never regretted it neither."

He slammed down the trunk and took the bills I held out to him. "So what I say Charlie, is go for it. Tell the girl you love her for Christ's sake!"

I watched him walk back to the front of the cab and open the door. "Hey James, how come you still have the cigarettes? Keeping your options open?"

He laughed. "Hell no, but it's less corny to have them up there than a picture of Connie. Keeps the guys from giving me shit."

He waved and took off two seconds before a cop came over to order him away. I walked into the airport and immediately saw Clem standing there. Of course how could I miss him when he was waving his arms like the scarecrow in The Wizard of OZ.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" Was what he said when he got close enough to speak to me.

"Nothing." Everything.

"Good," he stepped back and glared at me. "Cause we got work to do."

We spent the next forty-five minutes going over the little bit the team at the office had managed to put together for me. I hoped they'd come up with something better by the time I got there or it was going to be a fucking long week.

The plane ride was the usual, long periods of boredom interspersed with short moments of stark terror. I hate flying and every mile I'm up there I figure I'm that much closer to running out of luck. Of course this time there was a golden side. If we crashed I wouldn't have to figure out what to do about Amy.

But we didn't, and a couple hours later I was at the hospital getting chewed a new one and praying that the folks there wouldn't see that I didn't have a goddamn clue how to take care of theirlittle problem. Then I spent the next seven hours trying to figure things out so I could get my ass back to Chicago and not have to spend another day here. Didn't work.

I finally got to my hotel room about 2AM. I set a wake up call for six and stood under the shower until my skin pruned and I figured I'd just about drained the hot water supply for the entire place. I crawled into bed and shut my eyes.

I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was the night before and where I'd been at about this time. While I'd been working I'd pretty much managed to keep my mind on the job, but the minute I'd gotten out of there I'd forgotten all about work and started to concentrate on what was really important.

I reached over to the pile of clothes on the floor and pulled up my shirt. It may have been my imagination, but I could still smell Amy on the collar where she'd rested her arms when she'd hugged me. I took a deep breath and slid my hand down to my rapidly filling cock.

Okay, so I'd probably had more sex in the last twenty-four hours than I'd had in the last three months. Apparently my dick had no limits when it came to one little brunette. His Highness sprang to life and with the help of Mr. Hand and his five friends, we did a little strolling down memory lane.

It wasn't as good as the real thing, but even the thought of Amy was more enticing to me than any of the porno that was on the motel's cable. After that I ended up changing beds, since I'd hadn't exactly planned ahead when I started to jerk off and lying in the wet spot was just plain stupid when there was another bed just waiting for me to crawl into.

I was so goddamn tired, but still I couldn't sleep.Tell the girl you love her. James words rang in my head. He was right. I knew he was right.

There was only one problem. Amy was safely tucked into her pretty bed in Chicago and I was here, under the orange and gold spread of a no-name motel in Roswell, New Mexico. Too far to drop by so I could tell her she was love of my life and I'd left her address in my frozen Suburu so I couldn't even send her flowers. Worst of all, in the rush to leave I'd forgotten to get her phone number. I didn't think speed dial two was going to help me this time.

Yeah, it was going to be a fucking long week.

*****

Author's note: To all of you who have written and encouraged me to not give up on this story, my heartfelt thanks. It really is because of you that I've continued to write. I'm working on Chapter Eight now and I promise you'll see it soon.

I also want to thank my editor, Morgan and also a special thanks to Scott, who's encouragement and ideas have helped shape this chapter.