by Mark Eller
"Derrick--dear," she said in her most exasperatingly reasonable voice, "would you please tell me what is likely to happen that I am not perfectly capable of handling?"
With a quick twitch of his head, he spun abruptly on his heels to walk into the kitchen. Typical response. Derrick always retreated when he could not come up with a snidely superior remark. His refuge of choice was silence and glowers and meaningful stares that had no meaning. For the most part his childishness beat the alternative. Derrick was not a small man. He was large and often violent. Less than six months ago Perk had run across one of his old girlfriends, and the two of them sat down and had a long girl talk. The ex-girlfriend told Perk a tale of midnight beatings and constant infidelity. Yes, she admitted, Derrick had not been the only cheater, but to be fair her cheating had begun only after Derrick had proven himself to be inconstant. Unfortunately for her health, the order of events had not mattered to him. Being with an unfaithful partner was more than he could stand so he beat the woman, called her a whore, and then did his best to turn her into one.
That, at least, was a trick he would never try with Perk. Derrick might be a big and dangerous man, but Perk had no fear of him. She was far more dangerous than he could ever be. He was anger and spite and jealousy and depression, and he owned an overwhelming ego that insisted he was the best damn human being on the planet. He was muscle and speed and pure hell with edged weapons.
Perk was discipline and training. Neither of them doubted that if it came to a fight, she would win.
Pushing her way through the kitchen door, she found Derrick standing at the stove. Hamburger, beaten until it was nothing but thin grains of meat, sizzled in a pan. Barbecue sauce, spices and yellow cheese rested on the counter. Beside the cheese were bowls containing vegetables and rice and a drained can of fish. Looking at it all, Perk was extremely happy she had grabbed a bite before coming home.
"I want you to quit." Derrick gave the meat a quick stir before he tossed onion into the pan. "I think you really need to quit."
Perk snorted. "And how do you think we will pay the mortgage then, Mister This Job is Beneath Me. Driving a taxi might not be the best job in the world but it's the only one we have between the two of us."
Allspice, garlic, meat seasoning, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger went into the pan. Perk wanted to gag when the smell hit her.
With a quick flicker of his hand Derrick tossed the food and spices together, breathed in appreciatively, and frowned at her. "I don't want you to stop driving. I think you should stop all this training. Gives you more time to drive the cab and more time to pick up fares. Think of it, Perk. You will bring in extra money and spend less. Things won't be so tight for us then."
"They would not be so tight," Perk said emphatically, "if you actually held down one of your jobs for longer than a few days. Things would not be so tight if you did not pollute your body three times a week with your buddies at the strip clubs."
"This isn't about me."
"Oh, no? I suppose it isn't about you having to borrow money last week so you could treat the girls at the Treasure Chest to drinks they could have bought for half the price."
Dropping the spatula onto the counter, Derrick turned and glared. "I knew you were going to throw that at me."
"I ain't throwing nothing at you but the truth," Perk snapped back. "I could care less about your drinking and your whoring, but I do care about you spending my money on your women, and I care about your jealousy rearing up its ugly head every time you get a snoot full of hooch. I won't have it, Derrick. This isn't going to happen if you plan on staying here."
Giving her his patented glower, he turned back to the stove and emptied the can of fish into the pan. The barbecue sauce followed.
"This isn't over," he said. "Not by a long shot it isn't. We both know that more is going on between you two than just lessons."
Perk refused to answer him. Eyes watering, she escaped from the rank smell of the kitchen and made her way to the bathroom, leaving him to his suspicions and his spite. Once in the bathroom she stripped down and turned on the bath water, taking care not to get under the shower head. Warm water spat out of the faucet and cold water sprinkled out of the shower head until it, too, became warm. The gaskets in the shower knob needed changing again, something she had pointed out to him only six times in the last six months. Damn the man anyway. He was little more than a drone, a parasite living off her wages and complaining the entire time. He was a slug, a beast. He was…
Well--he was a damn good lover was what he was. Derrick did have that going for him. Occasionally, he could be thoughtful, and sometimes he even brought her flowers.
She was starting to wonder if that was enough. Somehow, it did not quite seem to be a winning formula for a lifetime partner.
Well la dee da. Who did she think she was lying to? No way was Derrick marriage material. Chances were, he would not be around in another year. The only real question was which of them would get tired of the other first. That was the only mystery in all her love affairs. In a few weeks or months she and Derrick would have one last fight; then he would be gone, and she would be alone again. Within a few weeks she would have yet one more lover to add to her growing list, one more live-in parasite who would use her for a week or a month or a year.
God, she was pathetic. She really needed to get a life. She needed to get involved with something different. Maybe there was someplace out there where she could find a few men who weren't all jerks.
Nah. Dreams like that were nothing but pure fantasy. They were just dirty smoke dispersing into filthy air.
Chapter 15
"Oomph." His shin banged into something. He stumbled to the side, tripped over something else, and smelled the heavy scent of a lemon based cleaner.
Okay, so they did not keep the room empty when he was not expected. The least they could have done was to leave a light on. Motel Six would have left the light on for him, and they did not even know who he was. Smiling ruefully to himself, Aaron wished he had brought a damn flashlight, and then he voiced a quiet curse as his arm slowly curled up into his chest and his fingers bowed in.
Face contorted in pain, Aaron rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Just this once," he whispered pleadingly. "Couldn't you have let me be normal just this one time? It really would have helped."
He received no answer, but then he really did not expect one.
Time to leave. Where the hell was the door? For that matter, where the hell was the wall?
He only fell over debris three more times before he found the door. It was locked. Fortunately, he was able to unlock it from the inside.
The corridor was dark too. In this case, however, nothing was piled on the floor waiting to trip him. He fumbled along on aching legs for several minutes before his groping hand found the unlocked doorknob to an inner office. Once inside, he found the light switch and flipped it on. The glow tubes flickered to life, relieving his light starved eyes. He looked around cautiously and saw that this was an inner office so there were no windows to let the light out. That was good. He would only have to worry about someone seeing stray light seeping under the door.
Searching around, he sought something on the desks or hanging on the walls that would tell him what office he had entered. His eyes found three desks with computer terminals, but that told him nothing. Desks and computers tended to pair off frequently around here. There! The wall near the furthest desk was covered with newspaper clippings. Moving closer, Aaron saw that every article was a story on the Eastland Vipers.
Which meant this had to be Don Avery's desk. Only he could be such an avid fan of a team that had not finished above two hundred for the last twenty years. The odds were so poor on the Vipers that bookies cried on those rare occasions when the team actually won a game.
If the desk belonged to Don then this room must be the procurement office. The procurement office was only three doors down from his arrival room. In other words, he had taken the long way around the co
rridor to get here.
Don's desk was locked, but the desk across from his was not. In the compartment above the desk Aaron found a phone directory. In the upper right hand drawer of the desk he found a .32 automatic tucked far to the back. He had a conversation with himself, and the two of him agreed that it would be a good idea if he took the gun, so he did.
The compound directory did not list Hill, but Gore was listed, and he was the only other person Aaron dared contact. He dialed the four number extension and prayed real hard.
Gore answered on the twelfth ring.
"This had better be damned good." Gore did not sound happy. Aaron did not blame him. The clock on the office wall read two- seventeen.
"Gore, this is Turner. I came back early, and I need a favor. I have four coins for you if you can help me."
"Turner? That you? You ain't supposed to be back for three more days. Hang tight for a minute." Aaron heard a click as Gore set down the receiver. Gore's voice came to him faintly. "Quit whining woman and go back to bed. I paid you enough to get woke up at night--Hey--Hello. You still there?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Aaron said. "I'm in the procurement office, and I want a ride out of here. You know how it is. The damn place I've been going to has bored me to death, and the brass never let me really do anything when I'm home. Well, I'm home early, and I'm looking for a little excitement."
"Now how the hell am I supposed to get you out of here?" Gore sounded incredulous. "The gates are shut at night. Nobody gets out. Shit, security's so tight that even during the day you have to have your head stuck halfway up the General's ass before you're allowed to leave. Two privates were shot last week just because they asked for permission to quit the militia, and a recruit was killed a couple days ago when he was found trying to climb a perimeter fence."
"Things never used to be so tight," Aaron said, incredulous.
Gore snorted. "Up until you started taking your little trips, wasn't hardly anybody who knew what was going on, either. Now, everybody knows, and the General's getting paranoid about turncoats and spies. So tell me Turner, how am I supposed to get you out of here without getting us both shot?
"How about the same way you got that whore in?" Aaron suggested while fighting back a grin. "Since women are never allowed in the complex I really have no choice but to think that you have a way to get the young lady out. That was a woman I heard, wasn't it? I mean, personally, I've hardly ever seen a woman inside the compound so I might be wrong about who it is you're sleeping with."
"Aw hell, " Gore said irritably. "You weren't supposed to hear her. Yeah, it's a woman. There's been more than a few of them through my bedroom this last year, though why a crip like you--"
He shut up. Perhaps, Aaron thought, because he was embarrassed by what he was about to say. The more likely reason was because he did not want to antagonize his supplier of gold coins.
"Every fence has a hole," Aaron said encouragingly. "You've been in the militia for a long time. Long enough to know how to work the system."
"Okay," Gore finally said after several moments of silence. "I can do it, but it's not going to happen for a while. Can you hold your wanker for about three hours, or is that asking too much?"
"I can wait."
"Good. Meet me at the back entrance at five-thirty. I'll be in a windowless brown van. And Turner, you better have the coins. Arranging this so we both get to keep breathing isn't going to be cheap. Got it?"
"Five thirty. Brown van. Back door. Have money," Aaron recited. "Instead of holding my wanker I'm going to take a snooze. Call this number before you leave." He gave Gore the extension number and made him repeat it back. After hanging up, he pushed his chair over to Don's desk. Sitting in the chair, he spun it so its back was to the desk and leaned back until his head rested on the Plexiglas covered surface. Grimacing, he carefully raised his twisted legs until he managed to slide them onto the other chair, and then he relaxed. An item caught his attention before he shut his eyes. One of the clippings taped to the wall had a recent date printed on it. Apparently, the Vipers had lost. Again.
* * *
Aaron grabbed the ringing phone with his good hand and jabbed at the flashing button until he finally managed to mash it down.
"Fifteen minutes."
"All right."
Hanging up the phone, he got up, turned off the office light, and exited out the door. As best he recalled, the stairs would be fifty feet to his right. Another thirty feet would find a corridor. Turn left and he would be at the back entrance. Simple.
Not so simple. He arrived at the back entrance with two minutes to spare. It was amazing how easily a person could get lost in the dark.
Headlights off, the van pulled up, stopped, and its back door swung open. Moving awkwardly, Aaron left the admin building and hobbled to the open van door. Once there, hands reached out, pulled him in, and Aaron found himself momentarily buried in arms and legs and torsos. Something hard jabbed into him. Pain lanced through his back, and he gasped aloud, but whatever had pushed against his wound was removed.
The van door slammed shut, and he was suddenly struck by montage of several different cheap perfumes that made his eyes water and his sinuses clog.
"Hey love, where you been all night?" Curious faces, shadowed hues of light and dark, half hidden in shadow, stared at him. Lots of curious faces. Female faces covered by red rouge and dark eyeliner, reshaped by surgery and pills. Why had he so seldom seen women in the compound? He must have been dead blind because there sure seemed to be a mass exodus going on.
"You the man what woke me up?" one woman asked. Aaron looked up into a vaguely Asian face and nodded yes.
"No talking," Gore yelled back. "Cover him up."
The Asian looking woman smiled sweetly at Aaron, slapped him, and hissed. "Don't wake me up again."
Someone else knocked him down, and the next thing he knew he was being smothered by a lot of female posteriors sitting on the blanket that now covered him. Several of those posteriors smelled of recent sex. The odor was unsettling.
"Don't you dare bite," one voice whispered.
"You can bite me," another voice breathed huskily. "I like men who bite."
The van slowed and then stopped. Aaron heard Gore roll down his side window.
"Pussy wagon. Morning run."
"Why are you driving? Today is Johnston's turn." The guard's voice sounded more tired than curious.
"Traded off," Gore said. "Johnston was beat, and I owed him a favor."
"Don't like it. Things are dicey enough, what with the General being so paranoid lately. Changing the routine only makes things more dangerous." A light shone into the van. "Well, I suppose everything looks fine. Give me my twenty." There was a pause. "Okay. I'm off in an hour. After that you're on your own because my replacement isn't part of this."
"Fine. I'll be back in time."
Two minutes passed before Aaron's captors relented and let him up. Meanwhile, someone had passed gas far too near his face. The stench was impressive.
"Get up here, Turner."
Aaron awkwardly climbed over several women. It hurt his pride, but he was forced to ask a couple of them for help because his limbs were spasming and aching. A woman crawled over the top of him and into the back, placing a knee deep in his stomach along the way. When he finally settled into the front bucket seat it was a relief to his twisted limbs but he had to lean forward because a button on the seat back pressed right into the stitches Doc Gunther had given him.
"Got my coins?" Gore demanded.
Aaron was prepared. He only had four coins in his pocket. The others were stuffed into his socks. After clumsily fumbling out the four golds, he handed them over.
Gore weighed them in his hand for several moments before finally turning his gaze to Aaron. "There's a bag under the seat with clothes in it. Soon as I drop you off you better put them on. I want you to meet me at the drop off point at eleven o'clock Thursday night. Any later and I won't be able to do a thing for you. Go
t it?"
"Yeah."
"Do you have any money?"
Aaron laughed. "Now where would I get money?"
Disgusted, Gore snorted. "What I thought. Here's two hundred. That should last you for a couple days. If it doesn't last, you'll have to go hungry because you ain't getting any more from me."
Taking the money, Aaron stuffed it into his pocket.
"Okay, I'm pulling into this service station. The van is low on juice and needs to have its batteries recharged. Out you go."
Aaron had the van door open before the last words were said. He jumped out before the van came to a complete stop. Big mistake. When he landed his right leg collapsed under him, and he fell, bruising his hip. Rising hastily, he rose, picked up his bag, and limped into the service station.
It was one of those places he had seen on holovision. In addition to offering recharging bays, it sold a few groceries and a lot of beer. At the moment the store was empty of customers except for two men who leafed through a motorcycle magazine and the clerk who read a magazine of her own.
"Can I use your restroom?" Aaron asked.
The counter girl did not look up from her magazine. After peering closely at the cover, Aaron made out that it was a celebrity gossip rag.
"Quadriplegic Deaf Mute Pregnant with Porn Actor's Child," the headline screamed out in bold black ink. "Girlfriend Walks Out and Wife Seeks Alimony," smaller print declared. A full color picture of two women screaming at a couple of cringing men appeared beneath the print.
Aaron could not help it. He had to know the rest. Leaning closer, he read more.
Delores Hernandez became mysteriously pregnant after her husband accidentally left a porn movie in the player. Since, after six years of marriage, Mister Hernandez had never had congress with Delores due to her immobile condition, the only conclusion she could draw was that she had been impregnated by the actors on the screen. Not knowing which male actor was actually responsible for her condition, Mrs. Hernandez instantly filed suit against both Frankie Wadsworth and Harvey Vile, as well as the producers of the film, claiming that her pregnancy was caused by an act of cinematic osmosis. Meanwhile LeBra BaBoom, girlfriend of Frankie Wadsworth, walked out of Frankie's life because Mrs. Hernandez's pregnancy proved that he had apparently been unfaithful to their living arrangement. The next day Harvey Vile's wife, Demur, moved into LeBra's new apartment and then filed suit against her husband for...