Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Read online

  “No, I don’t think so. His eyes seem too gentle and sheepish. Almost like he’s waiting for her to make the first move.”

  “Wrong. He’s not fully awake yet. They both crawled out of bed together less than an hour ago, and he’s not as quick to sharpen as she is. He’s been to bed with her a few times, explaining his comfort level with her. The cozy leaning into to her, violating any sense of personal space, the easy laughter, the way he lets himself bump shoulders with her teasingly, knowing full well the shocks of sexual stimulation each contact will send rippling through her body. He’s just as confident in how she feels about him as he feels about himself.”

  “How could you possibly know they just crawled out of bed together?”

  “Her squinting and tensing every time his eyes go to her face. She’s used to wearing makeup and feels exposed and nonpresentable. They were in a hurry, and she didn’t have time. It’s subtle, considering her tomboy getup, but, if you look closely, you’ll see she’s wearing his underwear.”

  “Could be hers, part of the ensemble.”

  Drew explained, “Only, she’s been swaying back and forth in her hips as if to rub up against it, and by way of it, him, all this time. And the lip is riding above the pants as a subtle teasing reminder of recent pleasures. She also wants to reassure him she’s his entirely, down to labeling herself his property. She’s feminist at heart. See the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective flyer another passenger is clutching in her hands that just made her smile? But she gives away her power too easily owing to her low-confidence level. This is likely her first relationship.”

  “Wow. Maybe we should just wire you to me with an in-ear mike and a video camera tucked in the brim of my hat. That way, when I’m in the field—”.

  “You’ll get the hang of it. There’s one more thing, Robin, and it’s important.”

  Studying the pair of art enthusiasts, Robin scrunched his face, brain straining. After a while, he let out a breath. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  “They’re planning to steal the painting,” Drew said.

  “No way.”

  “You haven’t noticed the way his eyes have been darting to the security cameras, despite refusing to crane his neck to take them in better, the furious manner in which he’s been drawing diagrams to cover the layout of the place? Even from this distance you can tell from the movement of the pen those aren’t words he’s writing. It’s a blueprint he’s fleshing out with all the details pertinent to a thief.”

  “I’ll call it in,” Robin said. “Is that why you picked them, coming through the turnstile?”

  “In part, from how his eyes eagerly devoured and coveted the drawing, even before he pushed through the gate. He had to lower them to keep from telecasting his feelings to the world. And then there was his fumbling to get his backpack off, turning comically around on himself a few times, which was really just an excuse to check out the position of the security cameras without being obvious.”

  “He’s got a sweet disposition, almost too sweet for this world. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s stealing the painting to help fund the war against those who would make the world a meaner place less suitable for his kind. He’s just trying to bring about a better future in his own inimical style.”

  “Huh.” Drew had to admit, the psych-profile fit with everything else she’d picked up on the kid. Still she hadn’t seen his m.o. as clearly as Robin had. Perhaps it was beginner’s luck. As to the irony of someone with an artistic temperament stealing from another artist to fund his war on terror… well, it was the kind of thing youth was likely to overlook, caught up in fanatical zeal, or likely to rationalize, as the crass-commercialism of the artist being ripped off made him one of them.

  Drew canvassed the setting for another ripe opportunity.

  “And what’s his story?” Drew gestured at the unsavory street-person fishing out of the garbage cans hugging the roof-support posts. She could tell Robin was having trouble seeing past the explosion of feelings: revulsion, guilt, shame, fear, pity, remorse, condescension, and strangest of all, delight at his exotica. He took a deep breath and redoubled his efforts.

  “Generic crazy,” Robin said. “Off his meds. Schizophrenic, from the looks of him.”

  “Nope. He’s not seeing ghouls and goblins or hearing voices. That’s PTSD. He startles at the slightest noise or object to move in his peripheral vision. Sadly, there are characters and incidents in life that’ll do that to you.”

  She grimaced thinking of what Robin’s chosen profession could do to him, PTSD among the occupational hazards. Without a lifetime of building the scaffolding inside his mind to help him weather the stormy behaviors of the most mercenary minds, he had none of the infrastructure in place to support the lightning-fast reactions needed to steer clear of them.

  Robin worked to coordinate the vagabond’s crazed expressions and his jumpiness, which he evidently thought were meant to chase people away from him, with: the sounds of the turnstile as the latest person came through; the whoosh of the arriving train; a passenger setting down a suitcase a little too close to the seedy fellow. He smiled. “Yeah, I see it now.”

  “You probably want to find him some help before it’s too late.”

  “Absolutely,” Robin said, again sounding as if it were more of a concession to her than as something he would think to do on his own.

  On their way up the stairs to street level, Robin grabbed a copy of The Daily Californian. He’d taken to underlining passages to help him in their debates, hoping to hold his side of the conversation better, so Drew wouldn’t get bored and let her mind wander. She found the gesture endearing and refused to let on she was on to him.

  She imagined, observing his boyish innocence, they had found one another like day must find night. She held on to that thought, even as the report of a gun rang out from downstairs.

  Robin looked down to see it was PTSD man, firing wildly into the crowd. He reached for his gun and took a step forward, only to have Drew hold him back. Lucky she had, too, as the next shot landed where his chest would have been if she hadn’t grabbed his arm. Suddenly he was glad for the manly strength she possessed in that arm. “Stay out of it,” she said. “There’s an undercover cop already on the scene.”

  Robin refused to leave the scene without further confirmation. The next shot heard was from the undercover cop, tearing through the shooter’s chest. The cop showed his badge to the crowd to calm them.

  Drew thought, That was the second time in a row Robin’s face registered betrayal. Learning to read people better, that was a lifelong undertaking that could only benefit by her presence. Still, she reprised her concern at just how unprepared for life growing up in a comfortable middle-class household, where he pretty much got what he wanted, had made him. It dulled his senses and left him without any psychological defenses beyond naïveté. In his world, positive overtures followed from love, honesty, and openness, not hidden agendas. “I suppose this is why you chose to become a cop in the first place, as a cure for gullibility,” she said.

  “And as a chance to replace a culturally deprived childhood for a life in which I meet all kinds.” Robin’s eyes lingered on the scene below.

  “Talk about a rude awakening.”

  Robin gulped, returned his attention to her.

  He must have been born with an equally bad sense of timing, Drew thought, forced to work on his coming-of-age drama during Economic End Times. His lack of people skills was the last thing he needed walking into a room in which anyone in the crowd could be the next one to go postal.

  SIX

  Warren caught a glimpse of Sequoia’s tee shirt. “Freaking nature lovers!” He slammed the shot glass down on the bar. “They’re going to be the death of me.” He gestured to the bartender for a refill.

  “What’s that about nature lovers, pal?” Sequoia asked. His tee shirt read, “To Make Music—Bang the Oil Driller’s Head Slowly.”

  Oh, God. Here goes, Brimley thought. He had had the poor
sense to sit between them. His head was brimming with thoughts of his wife leaving him just that day, his six-year-old girl in an ICU ward, dying of cancer, and the fact that any day now he was going to be laid off. He didn’t have any more room in his head to entertain these two jokers. His face flashed red, he clamped down on his jaw.

  There was a time when people bothered to read the signs on his face, backed down, gave a man the respectable distance he needed to cope. Not anymore. Because, apparently, as these two yahoos were about to prove, it was all about occupying territory in his brain against his will, pushing their private agendas on him.

  “Yeah, what about them?” chimed in the guy wearing the tee shirt which said, “Nature’s Dying, So Are We.”

  “Christ, another one. I’m surrounded by them,” Warren said, spitting some of his whiskey.

  Brimley thought, for irony’s sake, of everyone at the bar, nature had molded Warren, with his hairy chest and arms and brutishly thick body, into the least human looking of the lot. One would think he’d have more empathy for animals.

  “It’s thanks to people like me,” Sequoia said, “that there’s still some life on this planet worth protecting.”

  Brimley hit the bartender with the pathetic “save me” eyes. Nothing. Whatever happened to sensitivity for other people’s feelings? Whatever happened to taking notice when someone was getting ready to explode in a not-very-socially-acceptable way?

  “Worth protecting, he says.” Warren wiped his mouth of liquor with the back of his sleeve. Perhaps he was planning on using it later as a bib. “Well, let me tell you a little story about protectionism. The San Joaquin Valley, the most fertile delta in all the world—we could feed the entire planet from this one region alone—has been all but shut down, decommissioned, thanks to this little snail.”

  He drained the shot glass and did his damnedest to drill a hole into the counter with it. “One measly little snail!” Unhappy with the pace of the bartender’s pouring, he grabbed the bottle, removing the barkeep from the equation. “Now, do you think that freaking snail is really worth starving millions of people over? Do you think it’s worth shutting down an entire regional economy?”

  “First off, asshole, it’s the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, not some anonymous snail,” Sequoia countered, making sure to wrap his words in the appropriate condescending tone. “Not that it matters, as all life is precious. But just not for you.”

  He used his long arms to reach across Brimley and pour Warren’s drink for him. Pissyness, not helpfulness, seemed the hallmark quality of the gesture. “What, lose your precious little job, did you? Weren’t the illegals going to take it from you, anyway?” He tapped the counter with the bottle. “Or the next big farm consolidation, replacing you and hundreds of others with a mechanized harvester? Maybe you need to work on cultivating some resiliency instead of hardening of the arteries with the next shot glass full of whiskey.”

  “Now, now, we’ll have none of that talk in here.” The bartender poured Warren another drink.

  “Why don’t you—”. Warren never got to finish the sentence.

  Brimley fired his Remington pistol into his face.

  He let off another shot into the chest of the very tall, overbearing Sequoia. “I’m having a very bad day. And I really wish people would cut me some slack. Just a little personal space is all I’m asking for.”

  The personal space around him widened appreciatively, as everyone in the bar took a step back.

  Brimley collapsed back onto his stool. Took a drink. A marathon runner darted across the room in his peripheral vision towards the door, figuring perhaps she had the speed to make it. Brimley shot her dead. “That was just plain insensitive. Does it look like I’m finished feeling sorry for myself? That’s the problem with the world today. Everyone gives a shit about causes, just not two shits about people.”

  He gestured around his face with his hand. “Can you see I’m hurting here? No, of course not. You can’t be bothered to be that in touch with anyone, you’re all so full of yourselves.”

  A blond woman with a hard-face, etched by years of boozing, pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Brimley’s chest. She was followed by another man sitting beside her, possibly her husband, who did the same.

  Brimley looked them over and said, “A couple survivalists, just what I need. What is it about Berkeley that attracts all kinds?”

  They got off a couple panicked shots from shaky hands, one just nicked his cheek.

  He shot them dead. His role as policeman had them all at an unfair disadvantage. Maybe if he’d bothered to set the badge on the bar as a clue. Maybe if he hadn’t gestured as if he were putting down the gun, only to shoot them both from the hip while their eyes were locked on to his. “I bet they had cannons and ammunition in their basement enough to last through the next two apocalypses. Just goes to show you, when it’s your time to go...”

  Most everyone else in the bar scattered like cockroaches to each of the two exits, forcing Brimley to reprise the report of his gun.

  The last two, a young couple, wedged themselves under the table and held up plastic serving trays as shields. He sent them on their merry way to oblivion along with the rest. There were fifteen shots in the clip, fourteen people in the bar. Maybe if Americans bothered more with math in school...

  “Well, the good news is,” Brimley said, “I’m so deaf from all the gunfire, I finally have the peace and quiet I’ve been looking for.”

  He climbed off his stool and sloshed his way to the exit like a ship in a storm.

  Temporarily hard of hearing though he was, he couldn’t help detecting the unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun loading a cartridge behind him. He turned and pointed his gun at the bartender.

  They stood there, sizing one another up. The bartender flinched first, glancing to a spot behind the bar. Brimley dispatched him. “It’s the total inability of some people to learn from experience that really bothers me. Takes away all sense of hope.”

  Curious as to what had fatally distracted the bartender, Brimley stuck his head behind the swank mahogany bar. An eleven year old boy was folded into one of the shelves.

  Brimley extended his arm, unfolded the human origami. He took out his cell phone and handed it to the kid. “The bartender your dad?” The boy nodded fitfully, his eyes only now tearing up, as if he appreciated being cued.

  Brimley offered him a piece of bubblegum. The kid grabbed it.

  Brimley glanced around the club, realizing that some of the victims he had thought dead were rousing. The lines of sight had been bad. Doubtful, even with his prior Navy SEALS training, if it was realistic to expect a kill with one shot from all those aberrant angles, though many certainly wouldn’t be living long. He turned back to the boy and said, “Call nine-one-one. You tell them I’m sorry about all this. Not really like me.”

  “Will they come and kill you now?”

  “That, or just deploy me where my mad-dog killing’ll better serve the state. Sure am sorry, kid. You look me up some time, I don’t mind playing father to you. Seems the least I can do. I’ll show you how to survive a world full of people like me. Maybe you can teach me to have a longer fuse.”

  Brimley realized he could use some penance to keep the haunting, persecuting payback voices out of his head. Karma was a bitch; best to quickly work out a deal to appease her.

  SEVEN

  Hotly studied the guard by the door, arms folded, standing motionless and sculpted, like an Egyptian demigod protecting a pharaoh’s tomb, all the more so, considering the ill-fitting manner in which his police uniform and gun contrasted with his cherubic face.

  His eyes were affixed to the one black man in the store, tracked him like a hawk, taking no notice of his white girlfriend. Racist bastard, Hotly thought. He hated himself as much as the guard for how his Waspish average-joe looks gave him a ticket to ride most anywhere; no one gave him a second glance. He was the one the guard should be worried about. He had zero patience for bigots.
r />   Hotly bent over the illuminated display case in the jeweler’s store on Ashby, just close enough to the Oakland border to offer reasonable prices. The owner, a distinguished Afrikaan octogenarian with a thick mane of silver hair, clutched the tray of jewels that had caught Hotly’s eye and placed them above the case. In a thick accent, he said, “You have an excellent eye, sir.”

  With the aid of an eyepiece, Hotly ascertained one more explanation for the discount prices. These were blood diamonds. This quality, for this price, they had to be. Some other part of the world, no one would have noticed or cared, and the owner could jack up the prices all he wanted. “I’m afraid I need proof these are not conflict diamonds,” Hotly said.

  The old man stuttered, evidently, not the accomplished dissembler. “Well, that’s hard, sir. Not every government in the world has agreed to participate in such a program, paper trails are inadequate—”.

  Hotly dismissively waved him off, indicating he would stand for none of the usual bullshit.

  “Maybe you’d like to consider emeralds. We have some of the most beautiful stones in the entire world,” Silver Hair said.

  Hotly exhaled forcefully. “Maybe you’d like to consider the suffering you’re causing by not insisting on the Kimberly process initiated by the Canadians to guarantee conflict free diamonds alone enter your store.”

  The guard’s hands migrated south to his gun. The black man strode over to Hotly, placed his hand on his shoulder supportively, in a calming gesture. Perhaps the tone of his voice had been a little venomous, Hotly thought.