AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 7

It took Courtney about five hours to settle down, but she still insisted upon answering all the calls herself.  The one she was waiting for came through at 7:30 that evening.

“This is Courtney.”

There was the shortest pause.  “I’m reliably informed that you’re a crazy bitch.”

Courtney recognized Reed’s voice.  She smiled widely, and then laughed delightedly.

“I’d like to see you.  This is Byron Reed, by the way.”

She was smiling, but she was silent.

“Come on,” Reed said.  “Talk to me.”

Still, she remained silent.

“If we’re playing a game, Courty, you have to tell me the rules.”

Silence.  Courtney’s smile had turned speculative.

“Talk to me now, over the phone, or talk to me later, in person.  It’s your choice.”

Courtney frowned.  She wondered if Vlad had given out her address; she rather thought not.  “How would you get my address?” she asked.  “My telephone number’s unlisted.”

“I don’t know.  I’ll get it.”

“How?”

“I’ll see you in person.”  It was a threat.

“Don’t hang up!”

This time Byron Reed chuckled.

“Round One to Byron Reed,” Courtney said, demurely.  “Round Two coming up.”

“I like your telephone voice.  It’s very sexy.  You give good phone.  I’d like to sample your voice, some time.  How about it?”

“Explain, please.”

“Record your voice.  Saying different things, different ways——maybe singing——then I’d put it on a keyboard and play it.”

“That makes about as much sense to me as MIDI.”

“Sorry.  Have you heard the new Sharon H. song that’s all over the airwaves right now?”

“Ex-boyfriend?”

“Right!  You know on the chorus when she sings, ‘You’re my ex- ex- ex- ex- . . . ex- ex-boyfriend?’”

“Yes.”

“That’s an example of a sampled sound.  It’s a pretty overworked example, everybody’s doing that trick these days.  When you sample a sound, you digitally record a sound.  That means you convert the audio wave into a number, then you store the number in computer memory or on tape.  Once the sound is a number, it can easily be manipulated in ways that’s very difficult or impossible to do with analog technology . . . Analog technology is the old normal format, like a cassette tape player.”

Courtney felt a spurt of delicious naughtiness.  “But why do you say that you want to sample my voice, when all you really want is to get between my legs?  And what was all that nonsense that Alex Lancôme was talking about?”

“Metaphysical Foreplay.”

Courtney chuckled, and gave Mom a NO WAY signal to DON’T YOU DARE LISTEN IN as she closed her bedroom door.

“Meet me somewhere tonight,” Reed said.  “I want to see you.”

“You want to touch me.”

“Well, you’ll let me look while I’m touching you, won’t you?  Come on.  Tell your boyfriend you’ve found the man of your dreams, and to take a hike.”

“Tell me about Tina Sherman.”

“Tell me about Vlad.  Mexican stand off.”

“Vlad and I broke up at Yosemite.”

The connection was quiet for about ten seconds.  “What do you want to know?” Reed asked.

“Everything that’s relevant to you and me.”

Another quiet period for close to ten seconds.  Reed said, “I’ve got a friend who’s a hacker.  He doesn’t do it much anymore; we’ve seduced him away from computer hacking, and into digital audio.  But he’s very well connected.  I was at a party once when one of his phone freak friends called himself, routing the call all the way around the world, just by using a little whistle that he whistled into the phone.  He could have done it for free, but as a joke, at the end he accessed the AT&T computer that keeps tabs on billings, and he billed the whole series of calls to LA’s Mayor——you know, Rolf Claude.”

Courtney laughed.

Reed said, “He had the guy’s credit card number, and he was mad at the Mayor for some reason.  Anyway, I’m going to turn your number over to this guy, and see if he can come up with an address.”

“The trouble is, Reed, that I have this one track mind: Tell me about Tina Sherman.”

“Know what you mean.  I’ve got one of those too.  But if this cat can’t break your phone number on his own, he’ll have to put it on a computer bulletin board, maybe a whole bunch of bulletin boards, for someone else to crack.”

“Tina Sherman, Reed.”

“Make no mistake: I WILL GET YOUR ADDRESS.  But my way is sloppy; pretty messy.  A lot of crazy weirdoes modem in to those boards.”

“T. I. N. A.”

“You’ll get crank calls, damn it!”

“S. H. . . .”

“And when your address is posted, a Nation full of hi-tech freako nuts . . .”

“E. R. M. A. . . .”

“. . . are going to know where you live!”

“. . . N.  Tina Sherman, Reed.”

“I can’t send flowers over the fucking phone, damn it!”

“Vlad asked me to marry him.”

“Lancôme was right: you are a crazy bitch.”

Instantly Courty snapped: “Which makes you a crazy bastard for wanting my address!”

“Oh, absolutely certifiable; I admit it.”

They both chuckled.

“Courty, all I know about you is that I want to know you better.  But I mean, I REALLY, REALLY want to know you better.”

“I’m hanging up NOW!”

Instantly Reed said: “Tina Sherman.  Right.  Got it.”

Courty chuckled.  “Hey, I won a round.”

“Yeah, I guess . . . There’s this song . . . I can’t remember it exactly, but it’s something like ‘what a drag it is to be tied together with the wrong girl when the right girl comes along.’  Well, I think that’s the scene.  Maybe.  Hell, who knows?  Maybe if we met for coffee, in ten minutes I’d decide that I must have been out of my nut in Yosemite.  Maybe the chemistry will be gone.  Tina . . .  Courty, hell, I don’t know how to talk about her.  I don’t know where to start.”  Long pause.  “I met Tina at dB Records.  She was young, impressionable, she had ga-ga eyes for me, what can I say?  She came to me at the right time.”

Silence.

“And?” Courtney asked.

“It’s over, but she doesn’t know that it’s over.  I don’t know how to kick her out of my life without hurting her.  I’ve been putting it off.  Meet me someplace, for Christ sake.”

“Your motel or mine?” Courty tested.

“What?”

“Rent a motel room, or a hotel room.  I’ll meet you there.  Or vice versa.”

“I think,” Reed said slowly, “that my intentions toward you are a little more serious than that.”

“I’m glad,” she said quietly.

“But I suppose,” he said brightly, “that I could meet you in a hotel room, and then drag you down to the nearest coffee shop . . .”

She giggled.

“Give me a break here, Courty.  I mean, I want to make love with you.  Like, you know it!  But, I want all of you, not just a little piece.”

“You have to copulate with my mind, first?”

“Maybe.  Why did you turn off Lancôme so fast?  Jeez, that guy was pissed when he called me.”

“Maybe I just wanted to talk to you without any intermediaries.”

“What?  Wait a minute; Lancôme is on the level, Courty.”

“He is?”

“Christ, yes!”

“I wasn’t really listening.  What does he want?”

“You weren’t listening?”

“I was listening to you, I wasn’t listening to him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You used him to get Vlad to give out my phone number.  Am I right?”

“Right,” Reed admitted.

“It’s like you said before; your methodology is sloppy and inefficient.  His function is to give the number to you.  Obviously, when he called me, he just hadn’t relayed it to you yet.  Am I correct?”

“Yes, but——”

“He has nothing to say to me.  All he can tell me is the method he used to dupe Vlad into giving out my phone number.  Why should I believe him?  He has no credibility.  He’s just someone you hired to get through to me.  You didn’t explain yourself to him.”

“I think,” Reed said, slowly, “that I’m even more inefficient than you think I am.  Are you interested in a career in modeling?”

“No way.  I’m doing just fine with my writing career, thank you.”

Reed chuckled.  “Well, I’m going to change your mind for you.”

“Reed, listen: I’ve tried modeling; I don’t know where you’re going with that line of thinking, but forget it.”

“Well, little lady, I’ll tell you where I’m going with that line of thinking.  Right between your eyes.  And right between your legs.  Last chance to give me your address.”

“No,” she said.

“Last chance to tell me to stay out of your life, to leave you alone.”

She considered.  Before she could decide, he said, “That’s good enough for me.”

Reed hung up.

COURTNEY, Chapter 8

Copyright 2005 Area 47