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And had I said that out loud? Yes, I had And he had been checking outthere at the Coral Gables office So there Let the char old bastard chew on it

He stared at lass, and said, "Oh, it wouldn&039;t be eight hours a day Twelve, ive you ti that bikini"

"No" I settled back on the sand and closedme, could you do it fro my sun?"

He didn&039;t ht After a few dead moments, when I didn&039;t open my eyes or try to fill the silence, he said, "You&039;re still sixfor a Djinn I can make that happen in teeks Or I can make sure it never happens Your choice, sweetness"

I threw an arroaned in frustration Of course, it would come to this Blackmail Perfect

"Come on, Baldwin, you&039;re an ambitious little ladder-cliing rights Quit playing coy Here&039;s the address"

He dropped a business card on the bare skin ofaway, a bandy-legged white-haired s

An aging tough guy A hero of the kind they don&039;t make anymore

On the back of the business card was his hoanine, and in very small letters below it, Miracles Provided

I held the card in my hand for the next thirty minutes as I tried to empty my head and concentrate on sunshine, but the cold, pitiless blue of his eyes kept intruding By four o&039;clock I&039;d had enough, and trudged back toand beach umbrella Two hunks in Speedos-six-pack abs and all-tried to convincein one of their beach houses, but I had things to think about Big things

At six, I called Bad Bob&039;s, got his answering e that I&039;d be at his house at 7 am

See, I&039;d like to blay, but the fact of the e, white-haired, wrinkled, bad-te intensely alive behind his eyes that I&039;d never seen before Well, not since Lewis, anyway

Power calls to power-always has, alill

Twoon Bad Bob&039;s porch, which had a stunning view of the blue-green ocean It rippled like blown silk and flowed up on sand as white as snow He had a private beach It was a measure of who-and what-Bad Bob really was As was the house, a post dome with lines that reminded me of wind tunnels and race cars

"No bikini?" Bob asked oodas a soup bowl His striped bathrobe that h Hefner, and he had the -after drunk

I hesitated over choices of responses "Do I have to be polite?"

"Polite isn&039;t a word people often use to describe me," he answered "I don&039;t suppose I can expect it from you, either"

"Then no more cracks about the bikini, or I turn around and walk Seriously"

He shrugged, swung the door wide, and turned away I followed hi rooone up thirty feet in a curve, s overlooking the ocean all along one side Carpet so deep I wondered if he hired a lawn service to maintain it Leather couch, chairs, furniture that combined style and comfort All unmistakably masculine, but with a finer taste than I would have expected from somebody of Bad Bob&039;s reputation

"Nice," I said People expect that kind of thing when you first see their hoht to be," he said "I paid a fortune to some unspeakably horrible woh here Coffee?"

"Sure"

He led me into a vast kitchen that could have catered dinner for a hundred without breaking a sweat, poured me a cup, and handed it over I sipped and found it had the rich, unmistakable taste of Jamaican Blue Mountain, fifty dollars a pound Not the kind of thing I&039;d give away cups of toathat set used to all of thisfancy house, ocean view, fine ies I had no doubt his collection of whiskey was first-rate, too And he struck uy with a killer DVD collection

"So," I said Bad Bob leaned against a counter, sipping coffee, watchingoff the subject of the bikini, what exactly am I here to do?"

"You&039;re here to work asso I couldn&039;t do myself, but it would save time to have another pair of hands"

"Hands?"

"Metaphorically speaking You&039;ve worked with Djinn before?"

"Sure Well, not closely But I&039;ve been linked to theenerous cup; I wondered how open he&039;d be to the concept of refills I was going through thispretty quickly "I can handle it"

"I&039; you&039;re going to be absolutely essential to the success of this project It&039;s groundbreaking I think you&039;ll be truly iether, Joanne By the way, how&039;s the coffee?"

"Fabulous It&039;s-" My eyes blurred I blinked, felt the world slip sideways, and reached out to brace , suddenly "-it&039;s Jamaican Blue-"

I must have dropped the cup, but I didn&039;t hear it shatter on the cera loose, I re doithanother long drink fro down at me with those pitiless blue eyes

He s and far too friendly "We&039;re going to do great things together, you and I"

I woke up on the edge of panic, fighting nausea, with no idea where I was or what the hell had happened tocheh to remember Bad Bob, the tainted coffee, the collapse Jesus, what kind of a bastard ruins Ja on the leather couch, and my hands were tied behindto be painful if-when-I worked my way free I blinked shadows froet hair out ofin the leather arone, replaced by a pair of khaki pants and a loud Hawaiian print shirt He was holding a half-eht have been apple juice but probably had a lot le," he said "You&039;ll just dislocate a shoulder, and I&039;ue felt thick as a sausage, but I ed to fit it around words "Fuck you, you bastard Let o"

His bushy white eyebrows rose They curled up and out, and reminded me of a lynx The eyes were predatory, too

"Ah, ah, be nice," he said "My offer to you was absolutely valid We&039;re going to do soether"

"What in the hell do you think you&039;re doing? You think you can just abduct ht up with my mouth and told it to shut up, because he had abducted et aith it, too Nobody knew I&039;d come here I had no close friends, no confidants I hadn&039;t spoken to ht wonder where I&039;d gotten off to, but like most Wardens, I wasn&039;t a slave to the nine-to-five Could take weeks for anybody to begin to worry

"You&039;ll be fine," he said He took a long slug of his drink, lass table next to him There was no sound of anybody else in the house, just the usual everyday hu the shore ca important for you to take part in, and I want your word that you&039;re going to take this responsibility seriously You&039;re going to change the world"

I had a lot of a the world was a little outside the scope I tried the ropes again, felt sharp pain dig into s a little less directly I couldn&039;t go head-to-head with Bad Bob Biringaninefew people on the planet could But maybe I could take hien out of the et me swatted like a fly At the fastest rate I dared to work, I needed to buy at least ten h to put hi The alcohol would help that, slow his perceptions andoff

"I-I came here to work for you," I said "Really You didn&039;t have to drug me You could have just explained it to me"

"Sweetheart, I couldn&039;t really take the chance you wouldn&039;t agree I need you It&039;s more of a draft than a volunteer army" His eyes skipped away from me, toward the here the Atlantic rolled endlessly toward the Pacific "Stop fucking with the air in here or I&039;ll knock you out and do this while you&039;re unconscious It doesn&039;t really ht you&039;d like to be a witness"

I sed hard and let en drop "To what?"

"To your transformation I&039;ant little weatherworker to a world-class talent And in return, you&039;re going to save lass from a crystal-stoppered decanter on the sideboard, near so that looked like an authentic Chinese terra-cotta solider, like the ones found in the eh to walk across the room