Free Move to Strike by Sydney Bauer Page B

advice to you would be to shut the hell up and listen to exactly what I need from you.’
    Slide
.
    â€˜I want you to leave me the fuck alone,’ he had said, while maintaining a fixed smile on his face. ‘But by the same token, if I ever need a favour, I want you to return it, no questions asked. And if you do not agree to these terms, Mr Chi, I shall call in my chips and get my producers to re-run the entire episode in full.’
    Chi had held his breath and Logan had known he had him.
    â€˜So, now that I assume we are in agreement,’ he said, placing his hand on Chi’s shoulder as if in consolation, ‘I want you to step back, you stupid Chinese prick, and then start the fuck crying – so I can explain away this incident to those nosey deputies approaching stage left. Are we on the same page, Mr Chi?’ Logan had asked then, as he took a slight step to the side.
    Chi had nodded.
    Turn
.
    It was that easy.
    Just as it had been with her.
    â€˜You’re lying,’ said the gorgeous red-haired woman with the striking blue eyes and the killer figure in the expensive navy blue suit. She had agreed that he could buy her a third drink, a vodka martini no less
.
    â€˜Lying?’ said a young Doctor Jeffrey Logan, still basking in the glow of the six-figure deal he and his partner had just signed with America’s number one TV network, and the early, record-breaking ratings of his first few shows
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    â€˜I asked you what your parents did and you told me your father was in accounting and your mother in the arts. But I could tell by your eyes that you were lying, and if there is one thing I cannot stand, Doctor Logan, it is a liar, TV show superstar or not.’
    There was something about her forthrightness that aroused him – no doubt the fact that it was screaming out to be curbed
.
    â€˜It wasn’t a lie,’ he said, lying freely about the lie not being a lie. ‘My father was a freelance financial advisor. And my mother reached the top of her field in artistic expressionism.’
    â€˜Artistic expressionism?’ she said. ‘Well, I would believe you, if I knew exactly what the hell that was.’
    He had noticed her the minute he had walked into the bar, correctly picking her as one of the lawyers attending another conference in the similarly sized meeting hall downstairs. Logan was in Miami to speak at the Annual American Psychological Association Symposium, and the high-cheekboned red head next to him was doing likewise at her own legal shindig below
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    â€˜Your profile says you were born in Nevada,’ she went on, picking up the conference brochure he had handed her minutes earlier and turning to the section where his biography and the accompanying B&W publicity shot was given full page pride of place
.
    This harping on his origins was both grating and stimulating at the very same time – the unique combination, which always made him stir
.
    â€˜That’s right,’ he said, accepting the martini and scotch on the rocks from the pristinely dressed barman before handing him a twenty and suggesting he ‘keep the change’
.
    â€˜Vegas,’ she said
.
    â€˜Excuse me?’
    â€˜Vegas, you were brought up in Las Vegas.’
    â€˜Well . . .’ he began, knowing his bio did not specify his actual city of origin. Logan had always been irritated by the fact that his parents had chosen to rear him in the City of Sin. It did not exactly scream ‘credibility’, at least not in his chosen line of work
.
    â€˜Honestly, Jeffrey,’ she said, referring to him by his first name for the first time, her Boston brogue making her sound like one of those outspoken Kennedy daughters – all breeding and class but with an edge of congenital bravado. ‘If anything, you should be proud of your home town. Vegas has guts – it’s full of colour and adventure and . . .’
    â€˜Debauchery,’ he