Sex Drive (18 page)

“Add to that the fact that Kalti’s helpers are supernatural beings and he has to keep their existence a secret—and, well, the poor guy’s typical workday isn’t a walk in the park.”

More chuckles.

Damien picked up
Wild Fire
. “Let me give you a taste of Kalti’s world.”

The audience settled back in their seats, relaxed but attentive.

He opened the book close to the beginning and began to read.

“We got another media release.” The words, spoken over the phone by Zachary Tennant at the
Sydney Morning Herald,
hit Kalti like a roundhouse punch to the gut. He sucked in air, felt a rush of nausea
.

Hell, no, not another. That meant the fire at Dawson Fertilizer hadn’t been a one-off, a vendetta, or insurance fraud or accident. Six people had died in that blaze, including the accountant’s baby girl
.

“You sure it’s the same guy,” he asked, hoping against hope
.

“Looks the same to me. Same format—a press release, printed, generic—reporting the fire. No location, just a blank with ‘details to be provided later.’” Tennant paused. “It gives a time, Detective Brown.” His tone told Kalti it was going to be bad
.

“Tell me.”

“One o’clock tomorrow morning.”

He cursed. It was ten at night now. Sheer luck Tennant had found him at work. Except, most of the team had been working overtime on the Dawson case. The fact of that little girl dying—a dad losing both his wife and his only child—hadn’t let them sleep
.

“Fax it over,” he said. “I’ll send someone to pick up the original.”

“I’m saving space for it in tomorrow’s paper.” Tennant’s voice was soft, full of regret. “Give me a different story to run, would you? A story about how the fire was prevented, the arsonist in jail.”

“We’ll do our best.” But as he hung up, Kalti knew the odds were against them.

“Listen up!” he yelled, letting his anger out. “The
Herald
got another media release about a fire.”

Curses spat into the hot, dry room, a room that stank of overwork and frustration. So far, every lead they’d pursued on the Dawson case had resulted in a dead end.

“John, grab the fax that’s coming in,” Kalti said, “and everyone gather round.” He was the senior of the officers in the room, so he took charge
.

When the team had gathered around his desk, he studied the fax. “Looks like the same deal as Dawson. Media release says the fire’s timed for one o’clock, so we’ve only got three hours. You guys, get to work on your computers, figure out where he might target. Pass on leads to the officers on patrol, get them to do drive-bys.” Kalti planned on hitting the street himself, to see if his totem sea eagle would appear and guide him
.

“Figure the same MO as Dawson?” Al Chan asked
.

“That’s all we can do,” Kalti said. “Which means we’re looking for someplace big—lots of property to destroy, a spectacular blaze, maybe chemicals or fuel to ignite. A place that’s mostly shut down at night. But not entirely,” he added grimly. “It wasn’t an accident there were people at the Dawson plant that night. He knew there’d be staff working late, because they always did at the end of the month. This bastard wants to take lives.”

D
amien glanced up and saw his audience had grown. Everyone, including Theresa, looked focused, absorbed.

The power of the written word.
His
written words. Savoring the moment, he bent his head to the book and read on, letting the audience feel Kalti’s frustration when his superior officer barged in, took charge, and refused to let Kalti leave the building.

The tension in the room was as much a presence as the hum of the air conditioner, the bitter odor of stale coffee. Along with the others, Kalti tried to work, but his gaze kept going to the clock on the wall. Watching the hands tick toward one o’clock. Powerless
.

Shit. Enough. Chained to a computer here, his efforts were futile. On the street, his totem might come to him
.

He surged to his feet and headed for the door. “I’ve got the flu. Gotta go home
.”

“Damn it, Brown, you get back here!”

He slammed the door to block out his chief’s command
.
There’d be hell to pay tomorrow, but tonight a sick bastard was targeting innocent people and Kalti had to try to stop him
.

No time to wait for the slow old elevator, he pounded down two flights of stairs and threw open the door. For a moment he froze, scenting the air, waiting for guidance
.

Yes! A sea eagle swooped down with a fierce, scolding cry, its extended claws barely missing the top of his head
.

Kalti raced for his unmarked police car while the eagle swooped again, impatiently. “I’m coming,” he yelled as he flung himself into the vehicle
.

But in the pit of his stomach he had a sour, sick feeling that told him he was too late.

Damien stopped reading, closed the book, and reached behind himself to put it on the table. The audience—about three dozen people now, including Theresa—watched him intently.

A middle-aged woman in the first row leaned forward and demanded, “Well, what happens? Does he get there in time?”

He grinned. “Ah, that’d be telling. You’ll have to read the book if you want to find out. For now, do you have any questions you want to ask?

“Are you Kalti?” an earnest young woman in Goth makeup and clothing, with tattoos up both arms, asked. “Like, do you have Dreamtime spirits helping you?”

He got this question with some regularity. From people who believed, or wanted to believe, that the spirit world really existed. “If I did, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to get published.”

Laughter greeted his words. Then he went on. “No, I don’t have Dreamtime spirits helping me, or not that I’m aware of. As to whether Kalti is me, no, he’s a fictional creation.”

Three or four hands were waving in the air, and he pointed to a man who asked him about police procedure, and how accurate his books were.

“I have a good friend who’s a cop and he tells me what really happens. I bend the truth occasionally, to make for a better story.”

“Don’t readers get upset,” the man asked, “if you’re not completely accurate?”

“Sometimes.” Damien grinned. “And I remind them this is fiction. You know what, Kalti Brown doesn’t actually exist, so why should it be so surprising if I make up some other details?”

He got some more laughter. Then he pointed to a middle-aged woman with curly brown hair.

“I’ve read your first two books,” she said, “and Kalti’s dated some women, but things never get serious. When’s he going to have a real romance?”

“Same time as all of us.” He paused, seeing her frown in puzzlement. “When he meets the right woman.” Which just might be in the book he’d started, when he went back and reworked it. Kalti’s new partner was his opposite in many ways, and the two of them struck sparks, but that could make for challenge, fun, great sex. He glanced toward Theresa, saw her smiling as if she was enjoying herself.

He was one lucky bugger that so many people had shown up and seemed interested in his work. Maybe it was juvenile to want to impress his girl, but hell, that’s how he felt.

He noted that Marietta, who’d been sitting in the back row, had risen and was helping her staff stack copies of his books on a table.

For the next question, he chose an attractive young Hawaiian woman. He’d seen her walk past when he’d started to speak, then she’d stopped and taken a seat.

“I just got my B.A. and I’ll be going to graduate school in sociology,” she said in a soft voice. “I’ve been thinking about a thesis topic, and I was interested when I heard you say about your hero being Aboriginal Australian, and about discrimination and having to work extra hard to prove himself.”

“Yes?” Where was she heading with this?

“It would be interesting to compare the experience of Aboriginal Australians with that of Native Hawaiians.”

He remembered what the prof had said about the queen with the mellifluous name, and how her people had lost their independence. “Yeah, I think that would be a great topic.”

“Do you have any suggestions of where I might start? Like, a few similarities?”

“Uh, I’m afraid I’m not up on Hawaiian history.” So much for impressing his girl. He glanced toward Theresa, who was leaning forward, eyes gleaming, mouth open as if words were longing to escape. “But I know someone who could give you a better answer.” He beckoned to Theresa. “Come on up, Prof.”

Her eyes widened. “I, uh…”

“Help me out?”

She rose, looking both eager and uncertain. He watched proudly as she walked toward him, his sexy lover in that tantalizing black dress. When she reached the front, he caught her hand, tugged her closer, then let go. “Folks, this is Dr. Theresa Fallon from the University of Sydney. She specializes in indigenous studies.”

A few people clapped and Theresa flushed. He thought it was cute that this woman, who lectured at a university and made presentations at conferences, felt nervous about speaking to his small audience. “Go on,” he urged. “Can you give this young woman some ideas?”

“First, yes, I think it’s an excellent thesis topic. As for similarities—well, in general terms, colonization of new lands has tended to have similar results in most instances.” She stood stiffly, hands clasped in front of her. “Appropriation of resources and especially land, introduction of diseases to which the native population has no resistance, violence, depredation and segregation of indigenous people in a system of reserves. All of course based upon and precipitated by the colonial presumption of innate superiority.”

She’d loosened up, her posture more relaxed, her voice confident. Hitting her stride. Unfortunately, interesting as this information was, she was presenting it the wrong way for this forum. People were shifting restlessly.

He touched her arm, stopping her, then whispered in her ear, “It’s not a university class. Could you make it a little more folksy?”

Her shoulders rose, tightened again, then she took a deep breath and let it out. “Sorry, I’ve been lecturing. You can take the professor out of the lecture hall, but it’s hard to take the lecture hall out of the professor.”

People were smiling; she was winning them back.

“Let me give this another try,” she said. “In Australia and in Hawaii, the mentality of the colonizers was that they had discovered new lands. Lands inhabited by creatures that in some ways resembled humans, but were subhuman. Being subhuman, they had no rights. No rights to land or to physical safety.”

And now she’d captured her audience.

She stared out at them, expression fierce. “Imagine that tomorrow, some race from outer space invades our world and decides we’re all subhuman. Tomorrow, you have no rights. Your houses, your land, will be taken from you. You might be killed. If you’re a woman, you might only be raped. Multiple times. Your children will be taken away, to be brainwashed into no longer believing anything you taught them. And quite possibly to be abused.”

Damien had stepped back, giving her the stage. Damn, she was something. Pretty and classy and sexy, but smart, impassioned, and effective as well.

“But I’m talking generically. These things have happened to almost every native population of every land that’s been colonized. You asked specifically about Hawaii and Australia. To give one example, let’s use apologies. In Australia, the Stolen Generations is a term used to refer to the children who were forcibly removed from their families starting in 1869 and continuing for more than a century. After great debate, the government issued an apology, but it took them until 2008—yes, 2008—to do so.”

Damien winced, embarrassed at his country’s poor record.

“Now to Hawaii,” Theresa went on. “It took the U.S. government one hundred years to apologize for overthrowing the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to acknowledge that the Native Hawaiians never legally relinquished their sovereignty over their lands. In Australia, the doctrine of
terra nullius
held that the lands of Australia were vacant when the colonizers arrived. Vacant!”

The young Hawaiian who’d asked the question was nodding, lips parted, looking excited, and the rest of the audience seemed to be engaged, too. Damien could have listened to Theresa for another hour himself, but all the same, he tried to never spend too long on any one question, so others would have their chance.

He touched Theresa’s arm again. “Fascinating as this is, some others had their hands up.”

“Of course.” She gave the girl a warm smile. “If you want, come see me after and I’ll give you my e-mail. I can tell you some places to start.”

“Cool! Thanks so much.”

Damien wanted to put his arm around Theresa, whose face glowed with satisfaction, but instead he just smiled and said, “Thanks, Dr. Fallon.”

“My pleasure.”

As she returned to her seat, Damien pointed to a man who was waving his hand.

“Where do you get the ideas for your books? Do you worry you’ll ever run out of ideas?”

He’d heard this one many times before, gave his usual answer, and moved on to the next question. Marietta held up two fingers to signal it was almost time to wind up. “We have time for one last question.”

“When’s the next book coming out?”

“
Gale Force
will be out in six months. You can always check my Web site to see what’s going on. Or sign up for my electronic newsletter.”

Marietta stepped up to the front. “This store has an electronic newsletter, too. Register for it, and we’ll be sure to let you know when Damien’s next book hits the shelves. Maybe we can even persuade him to come back and talk to us again.” She dimpled up at him as the audience clapped enthusiastically. A salesperson clicked a small digital camera.

Then Marietta went on. “We’ve set up a table over there with
Wild Fire
and Damien’s previous titles. He also has trailers for his books, and my staff tell me there are some dazzling special effects. So, let me close off by thanking Damien Black for being here.”

After another round of applause, people got up and headed away. Most of them, fortunately, toward the book table. The Hawaiian student made a beeline for Theresa.

Damien put some Kalti Brown pens on the table as giveaways, along with his newsletter sign-up book. Then he took a long drink of water and a couple deep breaths. Thanks to Marietta, the tour had started out on a high.

He hoped Theresa hadn’t been bored. Whenever he’d glanced at her, which was often, she’d seemed attentive. Now, though, she’d disappeared. Perhaps she and the student had gone for coffee.

A line was forming in front of him, headed by the woman who’d asked about Kalti’s love life. “Want it autographed to you?”

She nodded. “Jean.”

He wrote,
To Jean, who believes even a loner like Kalti deserves romance
, and signed his name.

She read the inscription and chuckled. “Thanks.”

When she stepped aside to write in the sign-up book, a young woman took her place. “It’s for my boyfriend Will’s birthday. He’s a big fan.” She giggled. “So’m I, but this way I get credit for giving him a present, and I also get to read the book.”

“Hope you both enjoy it.” He handed her the signed book and a couple pens.

The line moved along, and by the time the last person had left, he figured he must have autographed at least thirty copies of
Wild Fire
—some people even buying multiples—and a dozen each of his earlier books. This was much better than he’d hoped for.

When he put down his pen, Marietta bustled up. “Would you mind signing stock before you leave?”

“Love to.” Books with “autographed copy” stickers tended to sell better. “Have you seen Theresa?” He hoped she hadn’t got fed up and gone back to the hotel.

“She said she was going to wander around the store, then you could find her in the coffee shop. I’m glad you brought her. She was great. So informative and passionate.”

“Yeah, she sure was.”

The young staffers dumped another two or three dozen books on the table, and he began to sign again. After, he stretched his hand, put away his pen, and stood up.

From his bag he took a box of Kalti Brown pens and a bag of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, and handed them to Marietta. “A small thanks to you and your staff. I know the nuts are kind of like bringing coals to Newcastle, but they’re one of Australia’s specialties.”

“What a treat. We’ll enjoy them. Oh, and I’ll e-mail a couple of images to your admin assistant to put up on your Web site.”

“Ta.” He shook her hand, asked for some restaurant recommendations, then headed off to visit the men’s room and hunt down Theresa.

Sure enough, she was in the coffee shop, a half-f glass of something that looked like iced tea on the table beside her, head buried in a book. He wondered if she’d bought a book on Hawaiian history or sociology, or another wedding planning book. Whatever it was, it had sure captured her attention.

She didn’t look up as he approached. “Hey, Theresa, ready for some dinner?” He rested his hand on her shoulder, feeling the warm, bare flesh on either side of the strap of her sundress.

She jumped. “Oh! I didn’t realize you were there.”