Jeff finds himself in Silicon Valley where he is asked to investigate claims by a gregarious Frenchman that his neural network electronic technology actually works. He meets up again with the enchanting Nancy, the FBI agent he had worked with in Atlanta where they fell in love while he was still married, and again in Washington DC Kathy puts romance back into Jeff’s life as he finds himself hounded by financially-desperate Europeans so determined to push their questionable technology―men so desperate that they will stop at nothing, even Jeff’s murder. The excitement will make the reader gasp, tragedy will make the reader cry, romance will make the reader sigh.
Chapter 18 of Silicon Gulch … Paula shows up at Jeff's hotel room!
Thursday 9:03 AM: Let’s Do This!
Ted called Mary, the woman he knew in college and they are going to have breakfast tomorrow! Paula shows up at Jeff's hotel room! Then Jeff works until three researching silicon neural networks. He sees Ted and Mary the next morning but it doesn't look good. Then Jeff comes up with a plan for the Friday meeting with Gerard and Mikl.
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- Chris Lamela
Author contact: chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST
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Thursday
9:03 AM: Let's Do This!
They stepped out into the cool May night, Ted walking up to them, "You
guys all done? Man you should have heard those two when they came out, I
thought they were going to punch each other out!"
"Really?" Nancy
"No, it was all in French!"
They laughed again Nancy
"Come on man, the car's over here," Ted led Jeff to his car.
"So how did it go?" Ted turned to Jeff, they both strapping in.
"If they were yelling at each other when they were leaving then the
answer is that it went far better than we could have hoped. Our goal was to get
these guys off balance. I have never had
so much fun screwing with people's minds." Jeff laughed out loud, "You
should have seen the looks on their faces when they saw me!" he laughed
even louder.
The dash clock said nearly ten thirty as they drove back to the hotel.
Jeff turned to look at the glaring lights of the new car lots going by.
"So Jeff, while you were in there I took your advice."
"My advice? What advice?"
"I called Mary."
Jeff turned to Ted, "You mean the woman you told me about?"
"Yeah. Well I called her mom first, she was really surly to me. She
said she'd take my number and give it to Mary. So I gave her the number then
like three minutes later Mary calls!"
"Wow! You're kidding me! So what did you guys talk about?"
"It turns out that she has never married."
"But you said it was, what, like twelve years ago. Never married?"
"That's what she said. She lives in Pleasanton ,
says it's only a half-hour from Santa
Clara
"So how do you feel about that?"
Ted glanced at Jeff nervously, "I don't know. She sounded
so…like…like we just talked last week. It felt good."
"What else did you guys talk about? Anything?"
"No, just planning for breakfast. We're going to meet at the Pepper
Mill at eight thirty."
Jeff reflected at all the changes swirling around in his life, trying to
imagine what it would be like to meet up with someone that he almost married
twelve years ago. "Wow, I can't imagine. Twelve years. That's a long time."
They drove silently until soon they pulled into the Merdian parking lot.
Wordlessly they got out, walked into the hotel entry.
"I need to reserve a conference room for tomorrow, give me a
minute." Jeff walked up to the counter, a minute later coming back to Ted.
Two minutes later they were shaking hands at Jeff's hotel room door.
"Ted, I really…I don't know…I guess I'm proud of you. You never
know, great things could come from this."
"I don't know, Jeff. I'm scared shitless. What if she's fat? What
if she doesn't like me? What if we have just changed too much?"
"I doubt she's fat, and I know she'll like you. There's no doubt
you have both changed. Changed too much is a matter of the heart. We have no
control over that. But if you two loved each other before, you will love each
other still."
"Thanks for that Jeff."
"Man, I am just paying you back for
the gems you gave me earlier about my wife." He paused. "You know I
haven't given it a moment of thought, but suddenly I am ready to let her go.
You did that." Jeff reached out his hand, they shook hands again. "Thank
you, Ted."
Ted nodded to the chair in the hallway facing Jeff's door, made brushing
motions with his hands, "Go on, go get some sleep. You've got a big day
ahead of you."
Jeff nodded stepping into the room, turning to close the door behind
him. He pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket turning away from the door.
"Hi," frightened Jeff's cell phone flew up into the air as he
bobbled it catching it mid-air, looking at the bed with Paula sitting there.
"Paula! How did you get in here?"
"It's easy when you tell the bellman that I'm your sister, he let
me right in, didn't even have to give him a tip!"
Standing there shaking his head Jeff remembered those same words from Jennifer
in Atlanta when she snuck into his room to seduce him in front of her hidden
video camera.
"But why are you here?" finding sense enough to walk to his
cell phone charger, plugging his phone in.
"They called me back to San
Diego
"They called you back because we are afraid that it's going to get
dangerous, actually it has already gotten dangerous, and I expect it is going
to get even more dangerous."
She stood stepping to him, arms around him, "Let's do a little
dangerous right now, what do you say?" Jeff finding himself swept up in
the moment with her lips on his in a fantastic deep kiss hands roaming bodies
caressing hair hands on asses clothes falling off bodies a few seconds later
she leading him to the bed laying with her sweet hairless bottom looking up to
him. He started to lay with her when suddenly he remembered Nancy
"Paula…I know you want me…that I want you…but well," she sat
up with a concerned face, "it's just that…well things are a little
complicated."
"You're married! You're
still with your wife!"
"No, I am straight with you about that, about her. It's just…"
he paused when he remembered throwing away all those condoms at Lin's house, right! "I don't have any condoms,
and well we were just a little too anxious the other morning when I thought
about it afterward, not playing safe."
Her smile widened as she lay back down, fingers beckoning to him, "Don't
worry, just come lay with me."
"But…"
"But nothing, we can always do seventy minus one."
He paused, seventy minus one?
Oh! Seventy minus one!
"Come lay down here, let me lead. It won't be sex will it?"
He smiled remembering Lin's and his definition of sex, "Yeah, you're
right, it won't be sex if we do seventy
minus one!"
"Come lay down," she pulled to one side of the bed allowing
him to lay in the center of the bed, "on your back."
He climbed onto the bed rolling onto his back, she straddled him taking
him into her mouth as he reached up pulling on her ass, her bare pussy meeting
his open mouth. As he made the first lick of her bare delight he could feel his
hardness sucked deep into her mouth Oh
god Paula that feels so good he pulled harder hands over ass his tongue
finding her pleasure button mouth cupped tongue flipping as she took him deeeeeep down her throat pulling in his
hardness until her lips touched the skin around it he pulling her harder
reaching fingers around pushing into her sliding fingers up as his tongue
swirled round and round she sliding his hardness out then in and out in and out
in and out of her mouth he feeling the twinge of orgasm approaching her deep
panting Oh Jeff keep doing that keep
doing that keep doing that her mouth again filled with his hardness again deep into her throat she pushing her
bottom down hard on his mouth he feeling his teeth grind softly into his lips
as his tongue swirled round and round and round then up and down up and down up
and down the luscious bare lips above his suddenly he feeling the rise of his
coming orgasm Oh Paula I'm going to…oh
Paula Paula Paula…she pushing her mouth hard down on him he feeling his
hips rising pushing hard into her mouth her tongue sliding up and down up and
down his hardened shaft coming out Yes,
cum in my mouth then pulling him back into her warm mouth down her throat
deep deep deep Oh Paula! he surged his
hips up to greet her throat as he felt the gush surge from him deep into her
throat Oh god Paula Paula Paula he
feeling her gulping gulping gulping the enormous rush from him.
She raised her hips he looked
down his body to her face leaning over looking at him, "Did you like that?"
"God yes!"
"I know I did it right if my throat is a little sore the next day."
He laughed at this conversation being held to this upside-down face with
her bare bottom straddling his face, "And I am pretty sure it will be sore
tomorrow!" They both giggled, "But now it's my turn!" as she sat
up pushing her bottom down to his face he instantly taking a long suck filling
the room with a loud slurping sound as she pressed herself to his waiting mouth
rocking her hips back and forth across his mouth his tongue raised as bristles
from her hairless bottom swept past his cheeks she rising Oh god Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff yes Jeff Jeff Jeff he pulling his
fingers from her arms reaching up her sides as her hips rocked back and forth
across his mouth Oh god Jeff keep
doing…keep doing…keeep…now now now…Jeff now! her voice squeaky feeling a
warm gush of liquid pouring across his face Jeff
oh god Jeff I'm cumming Jeff! he sliding his tongue as sweet sweet liquid
flowed around his face running down his cheeks onto his ears she finally
collapsing flopping down on his legs her sweet bottom at his chin.
He reached his tongue feeling the indentation of his teeth on the
insides of his lips sure he didn't taste blood happy that he had managed to
please her in this position.
Hearing her heavy breathing subside, she rolled over with a long sigh,
turning to lay next to him, her arm across his chest. She lay licking his
cheeks giggling, "I taste good," he nodding with a soft hum.
"My god Jeff, that was the best not-sex I have ever had." She
raised her head, "And you're sure I can't take you home?"
He laughed, "Well you are taking some of me home!"
"You're right, I am huh?"
they both laughed.
They lay for twenty minutes holding each other. She rolled to her side
looking at the clock. "Oh god," she grumped, "they have me on a
six-thirty flight, I should go."
"One more minute," she laughed turning to him again, her face
at his neck for a couple more minutes.
"Okay, time to go be a grown-up," she turned sitting up
sliding her feet to the floor. Jeff rolled over sitting next to her.
"Paula―" she put her fingers to his lips.
"Please don't say anything. We both know what happened here. Right?"
He nodded.
"And let's not spoil it with anything else. This was a one-shot
deal, right?" He nodded. "Our one-shot
deal." He nodded again. She stood, he reached to her pulling her around to
him taking her right nipple into his mouth as she gently put her hands around
his head, sliding his tongue across her chest to her left nipple sucking,
giving the tiniest nibble.
"Ooooh," she squeaked, "do that again and all bets will
be off!"
He laughed, she stepped away gathering up clothing from the floor slowly
dressing while watching the naked man before her.
Standing up he stepped to his luggage pulling out his PJ bottoms sliding
them on as she stepped to the bathroom, a second later coming out all primped.
Walking to her they kissed one last passionate kiss, "Jeff Jeff
Jeff. Mister Jeff. If your life wasn't so crazy I'd like to think…" her
voice trailing off.
"We said one-shot deal. Maybe we should leave it at that."
"You're right. Actually I said that. But you're right."
She pulled back from him turning to the door, he holding onto her hand.
She stepped away pulling her hand back. "I should go."
He nodded as she opened the door.
Ted jumped up from his chair in the hallway with a baffled face, "Whaaaaaa…"
"She was already in my room."
"Yes I was," leaning to kiss Jeff quickly on the lips, "and
now I'm not," turning walking down the hall without looking back.
Ted stood shaking his head watching her disappear around a corner, gone.
"Jesus Christ, Jeff. Nancy
Jeff shrugged, turned to the door, closing it behind him.
He sat on the bed, sighed, couldn't believe what just happened.
Shaking his head he stood reaching for his computer bag pulling out his
laptop, setting it on the desk, plugged it all up, turned it on. He tugged at
the big corner chair pulling it in front of the desk. The computer fired up, sitting
down he pushed a few screen icons hearing the modem doing its sheeeeer-click-beep-beep-sherrrrr
going silent as it connected to the Internet.
He sat down on the chair, with the stroke of a couple dozen keys he was
tied into the online library at MIT. The next three hours found him researching
everything he could about artificial neural networks, software emulations, silicon
neural networks. There were doctoral dissertations that he had to quickly scan,
hundreds of pages that loaded so slowly over the nineteen-point-six-KB link.
Soon he started seeing the same information from other sources coming up and he
knew he was done. All his research had taught him that when it got to be like
watching a record go round and round that on about the third pass of the same
kind of information, he was done. He reached for his folio opening it, making
notes about some of the things he had studied, scratching notes for an agenda
for the meeting tomorrow, shut down the computer, got up to stretch, went into
the bathroom.
Five minutes later Jeff was fast asleep.
Four quick knocks snapped Jeff awake. He sat up. Remembering last night,
held his fingers to his nose trying to find any hint of Paula from last night.
He was sure he could detect her aromas on his fingers.
Four quick knocks again.
"Okay, okay!" he walked to the door. Looking down he saw a
note, page folded into quarters with Jeff and a heart in blue ink like the last
one. Reaching down he picked it up, opening the door.
"Good morning, my name is Frederick
Jeff yawned, "Excuse me, I'm Jeff, nice to meet you. Let me get a
shower then we can go." Jeff walked to the bed seeing the clock said a
minute after eight, tossed the note onto the nightstand. He walked up to the
window pulling open the drapes smiling at the sunny morning outside.
Jeff pointed to the big corner chair, "Sit down, I'll just be a few
minutes," he rustled through his suitcase pulling out clothes, stepped to
the closet, pulled down two hangers of clothes turning into the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later he emerged, walked up to unplug his cell phone, reached
for his sport coat, confidently patting the bulge in the right outer pocket. Putting
it on, he slid the cell phone into his right inside pocket reaching for his
folio, reached for the note on his nightstand tucking it into his pocket now
filled with a stack of four notes.
Facing Frederick
"I'm supposed to take you to breakfast then up to the ops room in
the other hotel."
"Lead on!"
Five minutes later they pulled along side the Embassy Suites, got out, walked
to the Pepper Mill. They walked in, Jeff looked across the room seeing Ted
sitting at a table with a beautiful blond woman, her brightly-colored hair was
rare: it was natural. It was longer than her shoulders, a very fair complexion.
She was explaining something to Ted, her head lowered like she was trying to
look up into his eyes. Suddenly Ted's head fell forward into his hands, elbows
on the table.
This does not look good!
Jeff
insisted on a table that was away from Ted and this blonde woman. He couldn't
bear to watch what was obviously a heart-breaker for Ted. Jeff was definitely
not looking forward to hearing about this later. He had hoped for a happy
ending somehow, even after twelve years.
Oh well.
Twenty minutes later he and Frederick walked toward the restaurant's door.
Jeff glanced toward Ted's table, they were holding hands across the table, Ted
was speaking. Jeff couldn't hear any words over the din of the restaurant.
Five minutes later Jeff was seated in his same chair in the little
conference room sipping a cup of really good coffee. The room was quickly
filling, Tim the spy-guy walked in with a sprite step holding a small stack of
papers, a minute later Arnie and Nancy were seated on Jeff's left.
"Okay, everybody, a lot has happened. We need to get down to
business." Arnie looked to Tim, "So Tim, I hear that things really
lit up after our perps left the restaurant last night."
"Yes, Nancy
Tim went on to tell them that the first call was from Mikl to the cell
phones of the two dead hit-men leaving a message asking what went wrong, why
did Jeff show up at the restaurant last night.
Jeff laughed out loud looking to Nancy
"They had!" a voice came from the room, there was a loud round
of laughter.
Jeff shook his head smiling, "These guys were absolutely
speechless! It was obvious they
thought I was dead!"
"So anyway," Tim continued, "then he called the number
for Mondo Apocolopsa, but it was what, one in the morning in New Jersey France New Jersey
Jeff raised his hand, "Sixteen
million? They only need fifteen million to pay off the three of us." He
thought for a second, "Oooooooh, yes, the bottomless pit of spending. The
son-of-a-bitch is taking a million dollar skim!"
"Then this morning Mondo Apocolopsa
calls Mikl to say that he is in Chicago―hold on that was at six thirty-eight
saying that he wants to meet with Mikl to find out what happened to his
nephews. But Mikl didn't pick up so it was left as a message."
"Wow, here comes trouble
for someone!" Nancy
Arnie turned to Jeff, "Well, any advice from our friend Sherlock
Holmes?"
Jeff was sipping his coffee, suddenly looking up to Arnie, "Sorry?
Sherlock?"
Arnie watched Jeff nodding, "Yes, any advice?"
Jeff sat up, "Yes! Yes there is! Oh god, I almost forgot!" He
reached into his coat pocket pulling out the stack of four notes, the one from
Nancy, the other from Kathy , and the
two mystery notes with the little blue hearts he hadn't read. He rifled through
them flipping them over looking for his scribbling from the call with his
daughter. Nancy Nancy
Looking around to the anxious faces turned to him, back to Arnie, "These
guys know about Sherlock Holmes in Atlanta
Arnie glanced around at the uncertainty realizing that an intro would be
in order, "Everyone, you already heard my little intro of Jeff, right?"
Nods around the room. "Well what you don't know is that when we were in Atlanta
"What stories?" came from the room.
"That doesn't really matter, well actually I don't remember. But
that's not important. The point is that it was amazing what Jeff came up with
from the stories including the huge shootout in the bar at Magic Town
With a sweep of his hand the floor was Jeff's.
"Okay, first let me see if I can do this right. You remember
yesterday when I said that there is something here with this Mondo guy coming
out today? Well I wasn't sure about it until I remembered a Sherlock story. I
asked my daughter to look it up last night so I could remember the title hoping
that it would rattle my memory. And it did!"
He reached over holding the coffee cup to his lips draining the cup. "Can
I get some more?" someone stood up to pick up his cup going out the door.
He waited until the new cup was in his hand, anxious faces standing by. "Okay,
so we have two people who hired a hit-man to kill me with the idea that my CEO
would be more amenable to what, I don't know. He's not going to lie about
anything anymore than I will. At the same time they meet with me and Paula
Johnson to bribe us to fake endorsements for their crappy technology. I used to
think that they were trying to double down by placing bets on our accepting the
bribes and hiring the killers. But
now I believe that the bribes were a desperate, almost impulsive, attempt to
somehow get my confidence to get me off my guard. So now we have this Uncle
Mondo coming to find out what's happened to his boys. I am sure that Mikl will
give me up hoping that Uncle Mondo will finish the job. After all, one million
dollars is less than five million, if they can use my murder to scare Paula and
maybe Nancy then they have saved ten million minus the one they paid to kill
me. Everyone following this so far?"
Nods all around the room from attentive faces.
"So this Uncle Mondo is going to come looking for me. But is he
going to want to kill me? We don't know. I've read a few places that talk about
a really weird code of ethics amid hit-men. I once read a whole psychological
study on it."
Jeff took a long sip of coffee, "This is really good coffee!"
"Peets Coffee," a voice came.
"Peets, never had it, but this
is even better than Tully's! Anyway, so there was this story in Sherlock
Holmes, titled," he looked down at the writing in his hand, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.
Holmes introduces this Milverton character as a mild adversary, more of a
despicable character than adversary if I remember right. Anyway, Milverton was
trying to blackmail some countess with a love letter she had written to a lover
when she was much younger, she is about to get married to a prince or
something. She is afraid it will cause a scandal that will cost her the wedding.
This Milverton wanted some documents containing state secrets or something. Anyway,
when she balks he sends the letters anyway but she intercepts them even after
she promised to hold up her end. So Holmes figures this all out and agrees that
this despicable man's dishonesty should be left to his fate at the hand of this
countess. So he sets up a meeting and she murders the villain."
"Did Holmes give her to the police?" the question came.
"No, though he might not have, we never know because she sets the
house on fire and she dies in it or something. But that's not important for us.
The point is that we need to intercept this Uncle Mondo to convince him that Mikl
and Gerard set up the murders of his beloved nephews."
"You mean let him do our dirty work?"
"It's what we did in Atlanta
The room was absolutely silent.
"I guess there could be a bit of an ethics thing here…" Jeff's
voice trailed off.
Arnie shook his head looking around the room, "Are there any
objections to this? Are we obligated to protect foreign nationals that are
conspiring to rip off our government? If we arrest them you know it will cause
a big international flap. Let me tell you that even though we think we are
playing by all the rules, things have a funny way of really looking stinky once
the press gets hold of it. It could be a mess."
The room continued its silence.
"I'm going to make a command decision here," Nancy
Everyone sat absolutely still.
"Last chance."
Not a single movement.
"Good, let's do this!"
NOW READ THE NEXT EXCITING CHAPTER OF
SILICON GULCH!
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