I smiled. “That’s the point. Some of them aren’t all bad. Some of them don’t like what they do, what they are.”
“And that makes them all right?”
“It does if they help us win the war. Sylvie?”
“What?”
“You need to take off that negligée now…” I could feel The Count taking over again, despite my best intentions, but now it was obvious that it wasn’t lust that drove him, but sympathy. For Sylvie.
She became conscious of herself. “I’m, sorry, does it bother you?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, headed for her closet. “I’ll change.”
“Don’t change. Just take of the negligee.”
She froze in mid-step. “W-Why?”
“You know why. You’re ovulating. Right now.”
She backed up a step as I pulled off my shirt. “H-How do you know?”
“I know.”
The back of her legs hit the bed and she almost toppled back. “Know how?”
I stepped out of my jeans. “Does it matter?”
I could see the fear in her eyes. “Yes!”
I threw aside my boxers and came before her. “I can smell it.”
A shudder ran the length of her like a rippling wave. “Ed—“
“Don’t be afraid.” I reached for her shoulders but she pulled away.
“He…bit you. W-What if…the baby--?”
“The baby, if there is one, will be human.”
“You can’t know that!”
I had to admit it didn’t sound terribly logical. “I can sense it.”
That didn’t sound terribly logical either.
I took hold of her shoulders again. She was white with fear.
I bent to kiss her and her eyes went wide as saucers as she shrank away. “Ed! Oh my God! Ed! Your teeth!”
“Don’t worry about that.” I ripped the black nightie from her in one swipe. Panties too.
“No! Please!”
I crushed my lips to hers.
I could feel her calcified mind trying to flee even as her nipples grew taut against my chest.
“I didn’t!—Ed, I don’t want it to be like this!”
I threw her back on the bed. “I’ve got a feeling you will.”
I fell across her. She started to scream but it turned into gasp of surprise when I slid home.
“Oh, my God! You’re huge!”
Me? That’s not what Kimberly Monahan said in high school.
“Don’t hurt me, Ed!”
“I won’t.”
“I mean, don’t bite me! Promise me you won’t bite me!”
“Okay.”
“NO!”
I thought I was hurting her but I wasn’t...
“Oh, Christ!”
“Sylvie, are you all right?”
I started to withdraw but her arms when around me. “No! I’m not through!”
“No?”
She pulled me tighter. “Stay! Like that! Yes…Ed?”
“Yes?”
“You can hurt me now.”
“What?”
She pulled my head down hard against her cheek, breath whistling in my ear. “It’s all right, you can hurt me now, it’s okay!”
I lay gasping on her breast. “Give me a moment…”
“No! Now! Do it now, I want it right now! And, Ed--?” She turned her face away, exposing her slim throat. “You can bite me now! On the neck! Please?”
* * *
Afterwards I padded to the bathroom and stood before the toilet for a while. A long while.
Then I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink.
I could see The Count’s unmistakable twinkle fading out of my eyes.
I came back into the bedroom to find Sylvie still on her back, chest and cheeks flushed pink even in her sleep, lips parted in a perfect rosebud smile.
I dented the mattress carefully not to wake her but she turned to me, still smiling, the second my head hit the pillow.
“Wow,” she said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“What was your name again?”
“Very funny.”
I kissed her nose.
Lay smiling contentment for a while, watching the ceiling with her. “Were you scared?”
She cuddled closer. “At first. A little. I got over it.” She turned to me on the pillow. “You?”
I tried to get a bead on it. “Not at first. A little, now...”
“Now? Seriously?”
I rubbed absently at my arm. It felt corded with new muscle. “I never wanted a woman that much before.”
“And it scared you?”
“Wanting you that way did.”
“What way?”
It was hard to articulate. “So…what’s the word…hungrily? Atavistically?”
“You’re turning me on again, Ed.”
I smiled wanly. Then frowned.
“What--? Ed, wasn’t it nice for you?”
“Oh, it was nice. You’re a wonderful lover.”
She made a little nasal sound. “You did all the work, sweetie. Believe me.”
“Did I?”
“I was too…out of it. I was totally out of control.”
I rolled my eyes back to the ceiling. “That’s what scares me…”
“That you made me lose touch with reality? Honey, that’s a compliment.”
“That I felt out of control.”
She giggled like an adolescent. “Honey, I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. When it’s good, anyway.”
“I frightened you, you said so.”
“A little. I liked it.”
“I did too. Then. Now…”
She pushed up on one elbow concerned. “Was it about the fangs thing? I’m not really even sure I saw anything.”
I sighed, shrugged. “Well, if you did, they’re gone now. I checked in the bathroom mirror.”
“You checked in the bathroom mirror? Oh, God, I did scare you! Oh, Ed, I’m so sorry.” She reached up, felt along her neck. She grabbed a hand mirror off the nightstand on her side, checked more closely.
I watched her expectantly. “What are you looking for, puncture marks?”
She tossed the mirror back, leaned her neck toward me. “I believe, doctor, those are what is commonly referred to in the medical community as hickeys.”
I reached for her hand and started to pull away, then she grabbed mine, squeezing tight. “Thank you, Ed. That was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. And I mean it.” She kissed me softly.
Maybe you should thank The Count, I thought, but I didn’t want to scare her so I just held her for a time, knowing that Clancy was waiting for me…
TWENTY-ONE
Leaving Sylvie at the door made me almost as sick at heart as what what lay ahead of me that night.
I kissed her, held her, looked deep into her eyes…both of us wondering if it was for the last time.
“Give the twins a peck for me when they wake up.”
“I will. Give Mitzi a peck for me.”
I hung around at the door a moment. “Sylvie, listen…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t call you unless I’m…you know, pregnant.”
“I was going to say, if you don’t hear from me, it’s only because I’m—“
She cut me off by cupping my mouth. “No. You’ll be fine, Ed. Someone will be there to help you, I’m certain of it.”
I worked up a weak smile. “Sure.”
“You’ll be fine, Ed,” she repeated with badly concealed desperation, “I’m going to pray for you.”
I looked at her, surprised. “I didn’t know you were even affiliated.”
“I’m not.” She cast her eyes skyward. “He’ll be so shocked to hear from me, He’s sure to listen.”
I hugged her one more time and left.
The air-conditioning in the elevator was on the fritz that night. It was a long, sweaty ride.
Like a slow descent into hel
l…
* * *
The cab let me off at O’Hara Field at sunset.
I knew it was pointless but, on arrival, I checked the Departures monitors for any flights to Iraq. There were none posted.
I stopped by an American Airlines desk and asked a matronly, bored-looking steward if the airport kept manifests for private planes. “Yes,” the woman behind the desk told me, “they’re private.”
I asked her the way to the private hangers and she informed me I’d need a pass. I told her I was meeting someone and she asked for a name. I told her it was a surprise. She stared at me a long, smug moment, finally nodded at the doors without looking up again and suggested I take the yellow shuttle marked PF. I thanked her for the wealth of information, stepped out of the terminal back into smog-hidden stars and glanced at my watch.
The yellow shuttle ran every ten minutes.
Tonight it ran every twenty-three. I timed it.
At the north-east apron of the furthermost runways the shuttle wheezed to a pneumatic stop and I was deposited before six large hangers and fourteen smallish ones in an area ringed by a high hurricane fence. I could have climbed the fence but there was a guard posted every hundred feet or so.
I stopped by the first guard closest to the row of the larger hangers, the ones wide enough to house something the size of the Big Bunny.
The guard came out of his little hut and confronted me with a wrinkled uniform and close-to-retirement eyes. He asked to see my pass.
I told him I was meeting someone.
He asked me for a name.
I told him that was confidential.
He asked me my name.
I told him I was an undercover cop.
He said he’d have to see some I.D.
I told him fine, but there was little point since it was all assumed.
He looked me up and down. He said no one had called him about a cop.
I told him no one was supposed to.
He gave me the fish eye and asked sarcastically if he was just supposed to stand there and take my word for it.
I told him he could stand there or go sit in his hut or come with me and spend the night downtown, it was his call.
He took out his phone to call his supervisor.
I told him to put that away or I’d arrest him for aiding and abetting a terrorist.
He put the phone away. He thought about it awhile. Then he asked me which hanger?
I replied that was confidential. Said all I really knew was a big DC9 painted black. I was gamboling on that last part—praying Mansur was a frustrated Hefner fan.
The guard’s eyes lit up.
Did I mean the Iraqi? he asked.
I told him he wasn’t supposed to know that, where’d he get that information?
He shrugged innocently and said all the guards knew. He looked a little scared.
I told him to keep his big mouth shut and open the goddamn gate. Now.
He opened the gate.
I told him he never saw me and walked past him.
It was beginning to feel too easy.
I had the feeling I could have asked that Neanderthal to point out which hanger for me, but I decided against it. I strolled officiously across the tarmac to the row of large hangers and went about to the back of the nearest one. It took me another ten minutes of sneaking along behind the backside of the buildings and peering through darkened windows before I found the Big Bunny. But it wasn’t from peering through windows. It was from Sylvie turning out to be right; someone was waiting to help me. Sitting there quietly there in the shadows behind the third large hanger.
“What took you so long?” Mitzi yawned.
* * *
I stood peering through the long, rectangular back window of the caliph’s private hanger, hands cupped around my eyes to kill ground light glare, gazing with not a little envy at the sweeping tail and original St. Louis McDonnell engines, all repainted black livery again like Hefner’s original jet, thank God, or I wouldn’t have gotten past even that idiot guard.
“They left off the bunny logo,” I said.
“Copyright infringement,” Mitzi said at my feet. “Even Iraqi terrorists fear the terrible power of the Playboy Empire.”
“You think Mansur’s a terrorist for real?”
“I think he’s supplied them with weapons--same thing.”
“I don’t know…we’ve supplied them weapons, albeit inadvertently.”
“Inadvertently, Eddie?”
I sighed. “Let’s don’t get into a political argument out here in the wind and jet vapors. I assume you’ve sniffed around the perimeter. How do we get in?”
Mitzi stretched, bowing low, rump high, dragged in her back legs, shook herself and nodded toward the far end of the hanger. “Back door.”
“Can’t be that easy.”
“Everything’s easy till it gets hard.”
I turned and walked the tarmac apron with her. It was nice having her trot along beside me again. Comforting, knowing my newfound strength.
“Getting into the plane,” she was saying, “and getting Clancy off again—that will be the hard part. Given any thought to that?”
“Thought of little else for the past several hours.”
“And--?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m working on it.”
Mitzi snorted derision as I knew she would. “By the way,” she noted, “any particular reason you smell like a vampire? Anything you’d like to tell me?”
“It’s a long story, when we’ve got more time. How’d you slip away from Mansur?”
“The caliph did that himself, actually. Decided he didn’t like me pink after all—“
“—I thought you looked darker.”
“—had one of his bodyguards take me out to the back alley, hose me down and scrub me with a big bar of Lava. Ever used Lava?”
“No.”
“Don’t. He was not gentle. But I knew he’d have to remove the collar sooner or later to get at all the pink underneath, so I played scared and wimpy until the right moment then I bit him in the balls and headed due east.”
“How’d you know to come to O’Hara Field?”
“Listening to the fat man gas all night with his henchmen about his big plans. How he was going to rule the world as soon as he got rid of that idiot Ivan Kolcheck. How’d you get past the front gate outside?”
“Again, surprisingly easy. Private hangers and all, I’d think they’d at least have a guard dog running the inside fence.”
“Oh, they had a guard dog.”
I looked down at her. “Oh.”
We came to the hanger’s back door. I turned the knob, found it locked.
“It’s locked.”
“Well, I guess that plan’s ruined. Let’s go home.”
“Come on.”
“The key’s up on top there. Hidden on the lintel.”
I stood on my toes, fished around, brought it down. “How the hell do you do that?”
“It’s what noses are for, Edward. Mansur’s greasy reek is all over both the key and the knob. I don’t get it. They have faster internet speed than we do but no tubs over there?”
“Mostly sand, I understand.” I twisted the key and let us in.
The poodle could see a lot better than I could in the darkly shadowed interior. The wide front windows glowed softly but didn’t emit much light.
“Wow,” Mitzi said, casing the plane. “Impressive! So this is the legendary Hare Force One, huh?”
“Or a damn good copy.”
“Pretty cool, Eddie. You should get one, really. Couple of bimbos on each arm, pipe up your ass, be a good look for you.”
“Top of my list. Soon as I get Clancy back.”
Mitzi trotted around the tail section enthusiastically. “Can’t wait to get aboard--experience the olfactory splendor of the caliph’s sweaty flab, the still-lingering bouquet of Hefner’s spermatozoa.”
“Sounds like heaven.” I tripped over something in the
dark, squinting blindly around me. “I suppose turning on any interior lights--”
“—would be one of your worst ideas, yes. And I wouldn’t waste time banging away at the forward doors,” she said as we came abreast the port entry.
“No? You see something?”
“It’s what I don’t see. The jamb is perfectly flush with the fuselage, hardly a seam. And no outer latch or lock in sight.”
“Terrorist Homeland Security. So how do they get into the thing?”
“Remote, I imagine, on the caliph’s keychain.”
“Great. I guess this is when it starts getting hard then.”
“Yeah,” Mitzi tossed her head, “but I’m not worried. You have this great plan you’re working on…”
“For a moment there, Mitz, I was beginning to miss you.”
We strode under the port wing, admiring the graceful retro lines, the endless sweep of the fuselage. I kept peering at it through slit eyes, trying to penetrate the dark.
“Something about that fuselage…”
“Yeah, it’s long.”
“Not just that. Look at the center section particularly. See anything strange about the ogive?”
“What’s an ogive?”
I shook my head. “Never mind.” Turned to appraise the aft section again. “Hefner supposedly had a private entrance in the tail,” I remarked.
“I assume you mean the plane, not the bunnies. Anyway, I’m sure it required a key or remote too. And then there’s the alarm system, of course.”
“Shit,” I sighed, “the damn thing’s impregnable.”
“A chief concern of Hefner’s, no doubt.”
“You know you could stop cracking wise a moment and actually help a little.”
I stood there impotently in the dark hanger, which seemed to be growing larger around me even as I shrank. An invisible weight began dragging at me.
“Don’t get moribund, Eddie. Our troops got into Iraq and Pakistan without being asked, I’m sure we can conquer a measly airplane.”
“How?”
“I’m working on it.”
We came around the nose and looked up at the pilot’s cabin, the dark smile of windows.
I heaved another sigh, turned and headed for the west wall through pools of gloom.
“Eddie? Where you headed? Plane’s back here.”
“Those tables against the wall. Look like mechanic’s benches. Maybe we can find a tool.”
“Like a hammer and saw, a crowbar? Forget it. You’d only mar the finish on this piece of genuine Americana!”
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