A Changed Man Read Free

only knows what she’s seeing.
    “Listen,” says Nolan. “I’m not pretending I understand anything about you or your organization, but I’ll bet most of the people you deal with are pretty much like yourself.” Jesus, don’t let her think he means Jews.
    “We reach out to all kinds of people. I’m sorry, Mr. Nolan. There’s something I’m not—”
    “ Reach out? All kinds? Can I ask how many white supremacists you guys have reached out to?” He runs one hand over his bald head. Does he have to draw her a map? He’d rehearsed saying “white supremacist.”
    “Not. So. Far,” says Bonnie. “I see.” And she does. So this is where they would have started if he’d showed his tattoos up front. It’s just that they have gotten there by a smoother road. Even so, Nolan can watch revulsion and fear warring with something she believes, or wants to believe: the filthiest skinhead slimeball is some mother’s son.
    Only now does she notice the duffel bag. She’s not the world’s most observant person. Maybe it’s the glasses. But once she sees it, she can’t stop staring. Or looking paler and more afraid. Nolan draws the line at going through the books-and-dirty-laundry routine again.
    “World Brotherhood Watch. May I help you?” The sound of the other shoe dropping has roused the receptionist from her trance. “To whom may I direct your call?”
    Bonnie’s face takes on the strangest look, as if she’s trying to place Nolan, almost as if she thinks she might have met him before. As if she knows him from somewhere. She does a guppy thing with her mouth several times before she says, “Why don’t we go to my office? Would you like to leave your bag at the desk?”
    “No, thanks, it’s light.” Obvious lie number two. But there’s no way he’s going to leave it and let Kung Fu Girl help herself to his drugs and ARM’s fifteen hundred bucks.
    “Actually,” says Bonnie, “it would be a good idea if you left it out here.”
    The chick can get tough if she needs to! Nolan’s not going to fight her on this. Anyhow, it’s an ultimatum: Lose the duffel or forget the invite back to the inner sanctum. It’s a test Nolan has to pass, a test of faith. If he’s going to put his life in these people’s hands, he might as well trust them not to root around in his stash. Nolan walks around behind the desk and shoves the bag in an empty corner.
    “Guard it with your life,” he says, grinning into the steely center of the receptionist’s glare.
    Bonnie punches a code into the wall, and Nolan follows her through a door, past cubicles and offices full of busy worker bees. Nolan glances at Bonnie’s ass, mostly because it’s there, modestly announcing itself under her unsexy business skirt. Something about it breaks his heart. She’s got a nice ass, and she doesn’t know it, and now it’s almost too late. The ass has got another couple years. The husband’s already stopped caring. It’s funny, how a woman always knows when you’re looking. Even Bonnie stops and turns.
    “Listen, I have a better idea. Let’s take you to meet Dr. Maslow.”
    Nolan hopes this change of plans doesn’t mean she knows he was checking her out, and now she’s scared to be alone with the punk storm-trooper rapist. Or maybe Bonnie finally gets what Nolan can do for Brotherhood Watch. The alien’s made itself understood. Take me to your leader.
    Bonnie knocks on a half-open door.
    “Come in!” cries a voice. You’d think that, with his history, Maslow would ask who’s knocking. Nolan watches Bonnie’s posture change as she pushes open the door. Hesitant, girlish, slightly stooped—she’s shrinking in front of his eyes. Is it terror? Awe? Respect? Sex? You’ve got to consider sex first.
    Outside the windows, the silvery jaws of the city yawn and snap shut, gobbling Nolan and spitting him out, spiraling toward the horizon. The view leaves him slightly motion-sick, and the inrush of sunlight starts him sweating again,