The man seemed to be waiting for Eric to approach his table, meet on his home ground. When Eric planted himself and D.B. against the wall across the room, he broke away from his companions and sauntered across the room, approaching Eric as if it were a chance meeting.
“So you’re the Sundance Kid?” the man grinned. His smile was flawless. In fact, Eric noticed that everything about him was flawless. He was handsome, with dark wavy hair dipping casually across his forehead. Though a few inches shorter than Eric, he more than made up for it in the breadth of his body. He probably outweighed Eric by fifteen pounds, though there wasn’t an inch of fat anywhere. He offered his hand to Eric. “You don’t look much like a hired gun.”
Eric shook it, felt the power lurking beneath each thick finger. Though the handshake was cordial, Eric had the feeling the man wanted to crush his hand right there, grind the bones into white powder.
People around them stopped to watch.
“I’m Nestor Tulane,” the man smiled. “Yes, the same as Riva Tulane. Only we’re not married anymore. Haven’t been for seven years, though I was still her agent and business manager during that time. Why don’t you join us over at my table?”
“Thanks,” Eric said, allowing Tulane to guide him through the crowd. D.B. followed, though she was busy frowning at the singer who was now warbling a peculiar version of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” The guitarist was having trouble following her key changes.
When they reached the table, Nestor Tulane gestured with his head and the two women who’d been sitting on either side of him scooted down the picnic bench. Five of the room’s eight men sat at Tulane’s table, the other six were women. A dozen or so teenage boys hung around the fringes of the table, each with a woman nearby. The women were usually five to fifteen years older than the boys.
“Welcome to Rick’s,” Nestor said, his smile threatening to expose every tooth in his head. “I came here for the waters, but I was misinformed.”
Eric nodded. “Casablanca.”
“Right! See,” Nestor said to those gathered around his table. “I knew we’d be friends right away.”
Eric heard D.B. snort behind him.
“Have a drink. Your girl too.” Nestor poured a reddish liquid from a Tupperware pitcher into a plastic coffee cup. Many of the people in the room were drinking the same liquid.
Eric picked the cup up and sniffed it.
“It won’t kill you,” Nestor laughed, “but when you wake up tomorrow, you may wish it had.”
“Pruno?” Eric said.
Nestor looked impressed. “Very good. Same stuff they make in prison. Couple of our guys didn’t want to stay with Thor and his merry band of murderers, so they joined us. Brought a little slammer technology with them.” He raised his own cup into a toast and drank. He smacked his lips. “Just add some yeast to oranges or tomatoes and let it ferment a couple days. Then it’s partytime.”
D.B. started to sip from her cup but when she saw Eric put his cup down untouched, she did the same.
“I understand you were the victim of a monumental fuck-up.” When Nestor spoke, he stared straight at Eric, but he seemed to always be addressing everyone within twenty feet.
“Mistaken identity,” Eric shrugged.
“Fuck-up by any other name.” Those around him laughed.
“Maybe. But they’re the ones who risked their lives. And they did bring back some antibiotics.”
A man in the crowd behind Eric said “amen.” A couple of women nodded agreement.
“Not good enough. They brought back enough antibiotics for maybe twenty people. What about the rest of us.”
Eric smiled. “I have the feeling that you’d somehow be one of those twenty people to receive it.”
Nestor grinned. “I knew we’d be friends.”
There was nervous laughter around the table.
“Let’s cut through the shit, okay, Ravensmith?”
“Cut away,” Eric said.
Nestor poured himself more pruno. “I know they want to hire you to go back and get that doctor from Asgard. What else do they want?”
“Cable television.”
Nestor chuckled. “I don’t suppose they told you the reason for this flurry of civic activity did they? The real motive?”
Eric pointed at the singer. “Does she do requests?”
“Sure.” Nestor’s smile hardened. “What’d you have in mind? Silence, like your little girlfriend there?”
Eric felt D.B. stiffen angrily next to him, but he merely smiled and said, “I’m a quiet man.”
“I thought we were cutting through the bullshit, Ravensmith.”
“I haven’t heard anything but bullshit from you so far.”
Nestor glared at Eric, his fists clenched around the plastic cup of pruno. The others at the table were staring at Eric too. One of the women Nestor had been fondling earlier gave him a sneer. She wore a tight scoop-necked T-shirt. The tattooed wing of a dragon peeked above the neckline of the shirt, spreading over one breast. The snarling head of the dragon stared from the top of the other breast.
“You wanna talk serious, come on.” Nestor stood up and pushed through the crowd of followers. Eric and D.B. followed. He led them up the rickety stairway to a loft where the men’s beds were lined up like an army barracks. One skinny man in his fifties was sleeping. Nestor kicked the cot. “Beat it, Miller.”
The man opened his eyes, looked at the three of them standing there, muttered to himself as he swept the blanket aside and stood up. He was naked, his body lumpy and pale, malnutrition sores dotting his back. He tugged on a pair of chinos and stumbled off without a word or a look back.
“So you think those three bitches want to hire you because they’re spirited public servants out to protect us poor slobs marooned here on Devil’s Island?”
“Something like that.”
Nestor snorted. “What they want is to keep their jobs.”
“Their jobs?”
“Oh yeah. You didn’t know? The three of them are our great white leaders, except for Maggie Shreeve, who ain’t so white. But that’s all right, she’s not much of a leader either. Maggie’s husband had been one of the muckety-mucks back when we were across the bay, before Thor took over. So naturally she had some clout over here. We had this election the same week we arrived here to pick some leaders. Naturally she was a sentimental favorite. Lynda Meyer? Tough old broad. Was on the city council, so she had experience.” He winked lewdly. “Not to mention weight.”
“What about your wife?” Eric said. “How’d she make the inner sanctum?”
Nestor Tulane’s face went rigid with anger. He flopped down on one of the bunks, webbed his fingers behind his head, and leaned back. “You kidding? Famous actress among a bunch of women. They’ve followed her whole fucking life story in the National Enquirer for ten years. Since I became her agent. Christ, I knocked my head against the wall making her a household name. It was my brains that got her where she is, but the dumbass broads out here voted her in. How’s that for justice?” Nestor shook his head. “I made that cunt a star, now she thinks she’s some Joan of Arc or something, takes this whole political thing seriously, like she was smart enough to do it right.” He looked at D.B. and grinned at Eric. “You got the right idea, Ravensmith. Get one that can’t talk and isn’t altogether up here.” He tapped his head. “Then you use them for what they were meant for and train them to clean up afterward.” He laughed loudly. “Just joking, of course.”
“I take it you want to take over as leader.”
“Best man for the job. These women are okay, I mean that. They do their best. But they don’t understand how things work now. It’s not like before the quakes. It’s a man’s world out there, like it or not, and it takes a man to negotiate.”
“Negotiate?”
“That’s right. How long you think we can stay out here gardening and feeding those fucking chickens before Thor comes hammering down on us? His fleet is already built. Ma
ybe we can stop him once, maybe twice. But not forever, not if he wants us. Am I right? You’re the expert.”
Eric nodded. “You’re right.”
“So my plan is to negotiate a peace with Thor. A co-existence in which we return to the city, live side-by-side. Detente.”
“And that’s your platform?” Eric smiled.
Nestor seemed angry at Eric’s reaction. “Don’t knock it, man. A lot of people out here agree with me. They don’t want to live the rest of their lives out on this cold, damp rock like Al Capone. They’re willing to take their chances with Thor.”
“I take it there’s a new election coming up?”
“Two weeks. Then we either give a vote of confidence to the three ugly witches, or we vote someone else in.”
“Someone like you.”
He shrugged and smiled. “It’s a dirty job.”
Eric started for the stairs.
“Hey, wait a second, Ravensmith.” Nestor got up from the bed. “I want to make you a deal. You don’t work for them and I’ll make it worth your while. That means you don’t go after the doctor and you don’t help them with defending this place.”
Eric said, “What do I get?”
“What do you want? Food, weapons, your pick of women to take with you. You could travel in style, man. Your own personal harem.”
“Is that what you’ll offer Thor?”
Nestor smirked. “Whatever it takes. I figure he should be happy with a dozen or so women of his choice.”
“That’s generous.”
“If we have to sacrifice a few so the rest of us can live, it wouldn’t be the first time in history. I thought you were supposed to know something about history.”
“Let’s get back to my deal. I get my choice, huh?”
“Any three ladies you want. Plus food and weapons. Hell, you pick Lynda, Maggie, and Riva, I’ll throw in some extra rations and an Uzi we’ve got.” He walked over to Eric and put his hand on his shoulder. “Man to man, though, they aren’t worth much. I fucked all three of them since we’ve been out here, kinda like an act of mercy. Like I said, I fucked them so I know them.”
Eric brushed Nestor’s hand from his shoulder. “If you think sleeping with a woman means you know her, you’ve been in the wrong beds.”
Nestor frowned. “Listen, Ravensmith, I don’t need any lessons about women from you.” He pointed at D.B. “I see the kind of kinky shit you’re into. All I want to know from you is if you want to make a deal.”
Eric considered for a minute. “I’m not interested in taking any of your women along. But the Uzi, three clips of ammo, a pistol, a backpack full of food, and a boat. That might interest me.”
“You got it,” Nestor smiled.
Eric started down the steps. “I’ll think about it.”
They were barely outside the front door when D.B. grabbed Eric’s arm. “You aren’t serious about making a deal with that asshole, are you?”
“Depends.”
“Depends? On what?”
“On whether I think he can deliver.”
“Jesus, Eric. That guy’s ready to sell these people out to Thor and his men. They’re not the San Quentin Tabernacle Choir, you know?”
Eric shrugged. “I’ve got to get back to Asgard. Dodd knows where my son is. What goes on out here doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Me, me, me, me. Don’t you ever get tired of saying that word? What about all these people here?”
“That’s rich coming from you. You won’t even talk to them, now you want me to risk my life for them. And the life of my son.”
“Okay, maybe I was wrong about the people out here. I waited, I listened, now I know better.”
“You do, huh? You know what’s good and what’s evil now?”
“In this case, yes.” She stood directly in front of him now, blocking his movement. Her hands were clenched defiantly.
There was a rustle in the bushes and Eric quickly brushed D.B. aside and went into a fighting stance. His weapons had been taken during the kidnapping, but he was not defenseless. Besides, he’d noticed that no one carried weapons here, only the guards on duty.
“So she talks after all,” Maggie Shreeve said, stepping out of the brush.
“Yeah, I talk,” D.B. said, “even when no one’s listening.” She gave Eric a snide look, but Maggie looked embarrassed as if she thought D.B. was referring to her.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping. It was my turn on guard duty.” She tapped the gun she wore across her chest. “Besides, I didn’t hear anything specific, just your voices.”
Eric decided that was probably true. But the part about her being on guard duty wasn’t. She’d been waiting for them to come out of the power house. Now she’d want to know what happened inside. Especially with Nestor Tulane.
“Quite a party going on in there,” Maggie said.
“Not bad,” Eric said. “Drinking, dancing, singing—”
“If you want to call that singing,” D.B. said.
“How was the pruno?”
“Pretty bad.”
“We thought about stopping them from making it, but we figured it didn’t work in Prohibition, it especially wouldn’t work here.”
“You were right.”
She nodded, stalled a few seconds. “Meet many people?”
“I like to make new friends.”
Maggie nodded. She seemed uncertain how to proceed with D.B. there. “Have you thought about our offer?”
“Let’s see. The one where I sneak back into Asgard and kidnap the doctor or the one where I help you set up your defenses against an assault?”
“Both.”
“If I refuse?”
“Nothing. You’ll just have to wait here until we make our next trip to the mainland.”
“Which is?”
“Two weeks.”
“After the election.”
Maggie looked startled, then sighed. “You talked to Nestor.”
Eric nodded.
“No doubt he made you an offer.”
“A generous one.”
D.B. snorted, said to Maggie, “You don’t know how generous.”
“I can imagine. I know him.”
“Funny,” Eric said, “he said the same about you.”
Maggie looked down, embarrassed. “It’s a small island.”
“None of my business. I’m just looking for a way off from here.”
She looked up at him, her eyes bright. “So are the rest of us.”
“Then good luck,” Eric said and started to walk on.
“Wait,” Maggie said. Her skin blended so evenly with the night that Eric could follow her movement toward him only by the glint of her holster. “We’ve got to talk.”
“We have been.”
Maggie hesitated.
“She means alone, dummy,” D.B. said. “The two of you in a cozy room, a chilled bottle of pruno ...”
“I just want to talk,” Maggie protested.
“Right. I just want to fly.”
“Come on,” Eric said to Maggie, “we’ll leave the golden voice here to audition for that crowd back there.”
“Don’t think I won’t,” D.B. said. “I’ll sing my heart out. They’ll be so impressed they’ll want to vote me in as leader of this joint.”
Eric and Maggie walked off toward the warden’s house.
D.B. shouted after them, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
“This isn’t the warden’s house.”
“Guards’ quarters,” Maggie explained. “At least used to be.”
“What’s it used for now?”
“Privacy.”
A young woman with a small .22 rifle leaned next to a tree where she could watch the entrance of each of the four small buildings. When she saw Eric and Maggie approach, she shouldered her rifle and pointed it at them.
“It’s all right, Sally. It’s Maggie.”
Sally was about 20, with a ponytail. She wore black hightop sneakers and
shorts. She examined Eric with an appraising eye, then nodded at Maggie. “Okay, Mags. Number three is unoccupied.”
Maggie waved at Sally then led Eric to the third building. It was dark inside, the chilled wind skidding off the cold waters of the bay swirled around inside the room.
“There’s a candle somewhere,” she said, shining her flashlight around the room. Finally she found it, lighting the wick with the box of matches next to it. The room glowed in the dull light. The only furniture was an old four-poster bed in the corner. It was the first bed Eric had seen in a long time that had sheets. A blue comforter with ruffled edges covered the bed.
“This the guest room?” Eric asked.
“It’s your room, yes.”
“Nice.” He kicked off his shoes and sat on the floor, his back to the wall. Despite having no other furniture than the bed, the room was immaculate. None of the dirt, dust and grime that he’d noticed in the other buildings he’d been in that day. “You wanted to talk?”
Maggie nodded, sitting crosslegged in front of Eric.
“About Nestor?”
“Yes. Knowing him, he probably told you about us.”
“He told me about the election.”
She looked up, stared into Eric’s reddish-brown eyes. She seemed relieved. “Yes, that’s what I meant. The election.”
Eric peeled off his socks. He stuck a finger through a hole in one of the heels.
“Then you know how important your help is. If Nestor wins the election, he’ll sell us out to Thor.”
“He makes it sound like there’s a lot of people here who agree with him.”
“There are. Maybe even a majority. But they don’t understand the real cost. Nestor can be quite charming sometimes,” she said, looking away. “He can be very persuasive. Most the men and teenage boys aren’t happy about having women running the show anyway. And even a lot of women don’t like it. They’d feel safer if it were a man, especially a bullshit artist like Nestor. And then there are those who agree with him that we’d be better off making a deal with Thor, giving him some of us if he’d let the rest of us go.”
Jason Frost - Warlord 04 - Prisonland Page 10