F Paul Wilson - Sims 02 by The Portero Method (v5.0) Read Free Book Online Page A

reason, and it was as
good an excuse as any.
                 “Just okay?” Ellis said. “This is your favorite restaurant, right?”
                 He had a big day planned. After lunch
they’d head for Broadway where he had four precious front-row seats for Wordplay!
, the hot new musical comedy everyone said was a must-see. Then
dinner at Le Cirque, followed by a Knicks game in the SimGen skybox.
                 As Robbie shrugged, Julie chimed in.
“I can’t wait to see the play!”
                 She was thirteen and the light of
Ellis’s life. Judy had dressed her in a plaid wool skirt and a white blouse.
Julie’s pod backpack was suede, sporting the Dooney & Bourke logo. Robbie
was an intelligent kid, but Julie was brilliant. She had a wonderful future
ahead of her.
                 A memory surfaced…of the day SIRG had
threatened Julie to assure his silence, to keep him in line. And it had
worked…for a while…until he’d found another way to make things right. But God
help Julie and Robbie if SIRG ever found out.
                 He shoved the memory back into the
depths. Nothing was going to ruin today.
                 “You just want to see Joey Dozier,”
Robbie sneered.
                 “Who’s he?” Ellis said, fully aware
he was a teen heartthrob who’d moved from a hit TV sitcom to lead in a Broadway
play. “Never heard of him.”
                 Julie got a dreamy look in her eyes.
“He’s gorgeous ! ” she said, as if that explained it
all.
                 Ellis started to laugh but it died in
his throat as he saw the small crowd of sign-carrying protesters appear at the
Terrace Room windows. Their chant of “Free the sims! Free the sims!” began to echo through the glass.
                 The tuxedoed maitre d’ hurried to
Ellis’s side.
                 “I’m so sorry, Mr. Sinclair. I’ve
called the police. They will be here in a few minutes.”
                 Ellis looked around the table. Judy
was ignoring them, Julie was watching, fascinated, and
Robbie, the birthday boy, looked ready to crawl under the table.
                 “How did they know I’d be here?”
Ellis asked, furious. He’d booked the whole room just to avoid an incident,
even used a pseudonym.
                 “Someone must have recognized you.”
                 Pretty fast work, considering he left
all the public appearances to Mercer. Probably someone on the
Tavern staff. However it had happened, he wasn’t going to let them ruin
the day he had planned.
                 He pushed back his chair and rose.
“I’ll handle this.”
                 “Ellis, no!” Judy said, placing a hand on his arm.
                 “Mr. Sinclair, the police—”
                 “Could take a while
to get here. In the meantime I want to talk to these people.”
                 He crossed to a door leading out to
the lawn and stepped through. The shouting grew louder as the crowd—a
three-to-one ratio of women to men—recognized him. He stood impassively for a
moment or two, then raised his hands.
                 When they quieted enough for him to
be heard he said, “Please. I’m trying to have lunch with my family.”
                 Cries of “Aaaaaw!” and “Pity the poor
man!” rose, and one woman stepped forward to snarl, “Yeah! Eating lunch grown
and harvested by slave labor!”
                 Ellis stepped forward. He’d noticed
something interesting about a number of the protesters.
                 “If this is supposed to accomplish
something,” he told them, “I assure you it won’t. Perhaps a more sincere group
might make a point, but not a bunch of hypocrites.”
                 Ellis kept moving into the gasps of
“What!” and “You bastard!” and