David Hauser had been sent out to the Regional Payment Center in Chicago to see why their computer was losing money -- or really misplacing it, since there was no indication that it was going outside the government. The records in Washington said what was really there, so it wasn't too serious, but it was still annoying that things didn't add up right. Annoying enough that the Treasury Department was very willing to fly someone out to look into it.
He left D.C. in the middle of the September day and got to the hotel in Chicago at four in the afternoon local time -- too late to really start on the problem that day, too early for any sort of nightlife. (Federal policy is to get people in with lots of time to rest and adjust to time-shifts, but one hour of difference Daniel could take in his stride any day.)
Daniel was sitting in a chair in the hotel lobby half-reading a local newspaper when he thought that the woman who was standing by the front door and looking out looked sort of familiar. He didn't really know anybody in Chicago, so he had decided that she just looked like somebody he knew when she turned and recognized him.
It was Suzanne Freeman, whom he had worked with five or six years ago, in his first government job, just outside the cafeteria in the GAO Building. They were a few desks apart then, tracking deposits through banks. He went from there to go into computer trouble-shooting, and she got transferred into specialized auditing.
She came and sat in a chair right by him. She told him that she was in town to check up on the Customs office at O'Hare Airport. They put her in town late last night and she had spent today, Wednesday, figuring out what she wanted to look at. She was supposed to be here two more days and go back over the weekend.
Daniel had been given a more flexible schedule, at least partly. If he couldn't solve the problem here by Friday afternoon, he was supposed to finish it at his desk in Washington through printouts or by calling up files through a modem.
While he hadn't seen much of Suzanne for years, they had passed each other in the halls and once in a while talked on the phone at work about problems that went from her to him. They knew a lot of the same people, and Daniel remembered her as being very nice.
Both of them were very glad to have someone familiar around to talk to in a strange city. They talked for a couple of hours, then went out together to find a place cheap enough to have the federal per-diem allowance pay for it. A Chinese noodle place fit perfectly.
Over dinner, Daniel learned that Suzanne had never been in the city before, so he offered his services as guide to the local sights. (Ten days experience in two trips through.) This kept them going until 10:30 at night.
When he walked her back to her room, Suzanne gave him a quick goodnight kiss, which he really hadn't expected. A few minutes later, as he was getting ready for bed, he decided to follow up on it, though, and he called her room to set up a meeting for breakfast together.
The next morning, he returned the kiss. They separated after breakfast and worked on their respective problems all day. There was a message from her on the hotel switchboard when he got back, asking about meeting in the lobby at six for dinner.
That night's conversation was largely about what they had been working on that day, but once they returned to the hotel and she invited him to sit in her room and talk, the talk became more personal.
It only came back to him later that she asked him as the door closed how he was getting along with Janice. Janice was the last girlfriend she knew about, and was two or three back, he explained to her; he was sort of dating two women now, neither seriously. She sort of smiled with raised eyebrows and said that she was not involved with a man either.
It was probably close to ten when she said to him that it seemed stupid to talk across a couple of feet of distance, with her on the bed and him in a chair. They were adults, she was sure that she could trust him, so why didn't he join her and sit on the bed.
It was kind of a mutual decision that she lean on the arm that Daniel put around her, with his back against the headboard. This situation, sitting in bed with a young woman who looked better every minute, started influencing his mind. And hers. Pretty soon she stopped in the middle of a sentence and turned up her face and he kissed it.
That led to another kiss, and in a little while her breath got faster and she was trying to avoid looking at the front of his pants. Suzanne said to him, or maybe to herself: "It's not as if we are strangers. But on the other hand, it's not as if we see each other a lot. But that cuts both ways, doesn't it?"
