Programmed for Peril

delivered whopping electric shocks and tossed off showy showers of sparks to discourage the acquisitive. He had hand-inked the small sticker that adhered by the driver’s side door handle: “Protected by Merciless Security.” More than once he had driven off leaving a stunned potential thief lying by the curb.
    Kings and chords twisted like vines in his mind. He reached his destination and pulled over to the curb. He left the engine running. In the van’s minilab he flipped switches, pressed panel studs. Three devices of his own design glowed to life. He threw a toggle activating the antenna motor. From the roof the silvery spike vertically extended itself. He lifted a hand-held scope and a keypad from their cradles and carried them with him to the driver’s seat. He put the van into gear and began to follow the route he had worked out on the map in his water-tank tower office. He would drive the blocks bounding PC-Pros.
    Lois had been gleeful when she called to report that Trish “was bungling back all that she had stolen.” She had cataloged his love’s accusations in great detail, thanks to his coaxing for specifics. Foster had gotten into the act; all was a snarl. At the heart of it pulsed his dear one’s clear panic. He imagined her high cheeks faintly rouged with anxiety. He saw her hesitant index finger touched to the edge of her mouth, where barely pouted lips joined in dimpled curve. There he, who had never had a woman, began his imaginary fleshy forays. That first stone of reverent attention spread his desire’s ripples over the creamy pond of her body. Who couldn’t judge from the slender columns of wrists, ankles, and neck the porelessness of intimate flesh masked by jumpsuit cloth? Even he, whose desires ran largely to the wonders deriving from the flow of current and the seductiveness of solitude, could not always elevate his thoughts to that high place worthy of her sanctity.
    He clutched the wheel with long fingers. He knew his face carried a smudge of blush, his groin unfamiliar pressure. Foolish biological crankings, because he was merely her most devout worshiper, content and secure though standing only at near distance to her. He would serve her as any loyal sailor had the first Queen Elizabeth, make any sacrifice. But approach her that way? Never!
    He had pondered Lois’s last information, added to it previous bits and pieces concerning his beloved’s situation. What he had first considered to be semiprofessional vandalism he judged was something worse. His foray today should serve to clarify both the extent and the determination behind her harassment.
    Gordon’s sax intruded on his attention. Like a volatile drug the sound rose in his mind to blur all but brain basics and driving habits. He forgot where he was, his duty to Trish. His attention wobbled after elusive chord progressions. In time he returned to this dimension, finding himself parked by a fire hydrant, engine idling. In the pantheon of masters, let Dexter’s name be engraved large! More than an hour had passed.
    He resumed his foray. He placed the scope in its mount, where he could see it at any time. He made two circuits of PC-Pros. The scope winked busily as his equipment monitored frequencies. At a certain point in each circuit he was cued to pull over and start the tape recorder mounted with the other equipment. Interesting and revealing... oh, Trish my wish, I serve you well!
    He was certain his adored one would refuse to see him, so he pulled his van up outside PC-Pros and parked close by her Acura. There he waited, not idly, for he never wasted a moment. He busied himself with a consulting project, a hard nut that men who called themselves computer experts had been unable to crack. He had mulled and meditated over the problem for several days. At this moment its solution chose to rush into his brain with the energy of a 747 takeoff- He jotted the key illuminations. The rest of the time required by the project would be less fun: drawing schematics to show the less imaginative his inspired solution. Six figures he charged. His not really needing the money made payment all the more important. They paid with pleasure. …Dexter Gordon told him more about man and life than a score of philosophers. Oh, saint, take it to B-flat!
    She! There! Her jumpsuit gleamed whiter than detergent-commercial sheets in the late June sunlight. Leggy stride rushed her toward her car. He scrambled out of the van, awkward as usual, like