by Mick Farren
"Motherfuckers."
Ralph slammed his fist into the control pac of the nearest cabinet. The red light didn't even blink. The red lights were the only warm color in the entire place. The Krupp DR.40 control pacs were just about indestructible. Ralph knew that he didn't have a dog's chance of ever getting on a feelie. You had to have a B+ or more even to hook in for a weekend. Ralph's credit card had an unmistakable D on it. The lifers, the ones he had to watch all day, were solid As. They were the fat bastards who had cashed in all their assets and retired to a world of total fantasy for the rest of their lives. The only chance that Ralph had to go that route was to win one of the big prizes on the TV quiz shows, and everyone knew the quiz shows were fixed.
Ralph felt a helpless, impotent anger welling up inside him. He felt like hurling the bottle across the vault. He restrained himself. There was still about three inches of Scotch in the bottle.
He climbed unsteadily to his feet and lurched down the row of cabinets. He had to make an effort to focus his eyes. A red light had gone out and the plastic cover on the case was misted over on the inside. It was coated with a kind of dirty, off-white condensation.
"Jesus Christ!"
Ralph tried to pull himself together. The booze made it difficult. "Sam?"
Sam didn't move. The fat figure was apparently asleep.
Ralph yelled louder. "Sam!"
Sam lifted his head. "Huh?"
"Get on your feet, will you? We've got a malfunction over here."
Sam's small eyes blinked rapidly. "A malfunction?"
Sam was obviously too tranquil to be able to take much in.
"Just get on your feet, will you?"
"Huh?"
"Christ, Sam! Just get up, you cretin."
While Sam struggled to get to his feet, Ralph opened the inspection cover on the control pac. He located the emergency release button and pressed it. The cabinet seals popped and the cover swung slowly open. Ralph almost gagged at the stench that emerged from inside. He grabbed the cover and slammed it shut.
"Sam! Will you get the hell over here?"
"I'm coming, Ralph, I'm coming."
The shock had cleared Ralph's head a little. He went to the nearest pillar with a phone point on it. He picked up the white wall phone and waited. After a minute or so, a bored voice came down the line.
"Yeah?"
"This is 5066, we've got a malfunction down here."
"Shit." The voice sounded annoyed. "Is the stiff dead?"
"It sure smelled dead."
"You cracked open the cabinet?"
"Right."
"Okay, wait a minute." There was a pause while the voice seemed to be talking to someone else. "Listen, 5066 is a lifer section, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, okay."
There was another pause. Finally the voice came back. "Okay, 5066, stay where you are and we'll get someone down there to deal with it."
The voice sounded bored again. Ralph hung up. Sam was staring glumly at the misted-over cover of the cabinet.
"We don't get many of these."
"For Christ's sake, don't touch anything. It stinks to high heaven under that cover.''
The two of them stood by the cabinet. Ralph hitched his thumbs in the back pockets of his overalls.
"Ain't nothing we can do but wait, I guess."
Sam grunted. "Ain't nothing else we ever do but wait."
Ralph sniffed. "That's a fact."
Sam absently scratched his armpit. "Sometimes I wonder what we're waiting for."
It was a good fifteen minutes before they saw the white golf cart coming almost silently down the avenue between the cabinets. It halted with a metallic click. Two men climbed out. They were uniformly clean shaven, healthy, fresh-faced, and scrubbed. They both had the same neat blond crewcuts. Their starched white intern suits contrasted sharply with Ralph's and Sam's stained tan overalls.
They got out of the cart with an air of assured efficiency.
"Okay, what we got here? A malfunctioning stiff, right?"
Ralph stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. "Right."
"Dead?"
"Seems that way."
The clean-cut young men moved toward the cabinet.
"We'll take care of this now."
One of them flipped open the cover of the control pac. Ralph walked in a small circle, hands still in his pockets.
"I wouldn't-"
He was stopped briskly. "It's okay. I told you we're taking care of things now."
"Suit yourself."
The other pressed the emergency release. Both the fresh-faced young men doubled up as the stench hit them. Ralph already had a rag pressed to his face. Sam didn't appear to notice.
Ralph walked over to the cabinet and banged down the lid. "I warned you."
The scrubbed young men gradually regained their composure.
"How the hell long has that stiff been dead?"
Ralph shrugged. "How the hell should I know?"
"You work in this section."
"So?"
"You should have seen the light had gone out."
"I sent for you, didn't I?"
"That was all of half an hour ago."
Ralph pulled his hands out of his pockets. "What exactly are you trying to say?"
"Jesus Christ, man, that stiff's been dead for a week. How come you didn't notice until half an hour ago?"
Ralph shrugged again.
"You haven't even walked down this row for a week."
"Sure I've walked down this row. I stash my goddamn-" Ralph realized he had gone too far. The clean-cut young men's eyebrows shot up. "Nothing."
One of the crewcut young men started in again. "We're going to report this whole thing, make no mistake about that."
The other one grabbed him by the arm. "Come on, Craig. We don't have time to argue about all this."
Ralph grinned. "He's right… Craig. How come your monitor system didn't pick up the fact that this stiff was dead?"
Craig scowled. "Okay, okay, we don't have time to argue about it."
"Let's get down to it."
The scrubbed young men took two gas masks out of a compartment in the golf cart. Craig waved in the direction of Ralph and Sam.
"You guys better get back out of the way."
"Yeah, sure."
Ralph wandered off. Sam followed him. The two crew-cut young men put on their gas masks and took a heavy-duty body bag out of another compartment in the golf cart. They went to work on the corpse. Their last move was to drag out an industrial aerosol and start spraying the whole area. Ralph and Sam came walking back as the scrubbed young men were removing their gas masks.
"You taken care of it, then?"
"Yeah. Everything's taken care of."
"I guess you'll be putting a new stiff in there soon?"
"Yeah, pretty soon."
Ralph pointed at the body bag. "You'll have to break the bad news to that one's next of kin, I expect."
The crewcut young men dumped the body bag in the back of the golf cart. They quickly climbed inside.
"Uh, yeah. That's right. We'll be breaking the bad news."
As they rolled away, Ralph went and picked up his bottle. He grinned after them. "Yeah. Damn right you will."
AS TRUMBLE WALKED UP TO THE GLASS doors, they slid open for him. Inside the carpet was thick, the lighting soft, and the air-conditioning comfortingly cool. The office was furnished in deep orange and rich browns. Gold gleamed in low-key satisfaction. Everything seemed designed to put Trumble at his ease. Whoever had planned it all had succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of combining the ambience of a bank with that of a massage parlor.
A receptionist approached him. She was wearing an orange dress, one of that summer's exotiques. It was long at the back but swept up in a long inverted V clear up to a pair of matching panties. The slit in the skirt was echoed by the deep V in the neckline that plunged between the girl's handsome breasts to end somewhere close to her
waist.
Her smile was as fashionable and as synthetic as her outfit. Her teeth were frighteningly perfect.
"Can I help you, sir?"
Trumble couldn't take his eyes off her perfect teeth. He could feel himself starting to sweat.
"Uh, yes."
The girl waited. She regarded him with an immaculate blend of coolness and expectant interest. Combined Media only employed the best.
Trumble pulled himself together. "I'd like to reserve some feelie time."
The girl was gently remonstrative. "We prefer to talk about it as Integrated Entertainment."
Trumble tried to smile. "That's quite a mouthful."
"IE for short."
"Okay then, I'd like to book some IE time."
The girl's smile went into full gear. "That's what we're here for, sir.'' She motioned to a neat row of desks that ran down the far side of the office. "If you go and talk to Wendy at desk twenty-nine, I'm sure she can take care of everything for you."
Trumble thanked her and plowed his way across the expanse of carpet. The girl at desk twenty-nine was dressed identically to the receptionist. The flawless smile came from the same mold, as did the equally flawless hair and figure. On the desk in front of her was a small sign that read "Hi-I'm Wendy."
"Hi, Wendy."
"Won't you take a seat, Mr…"
"Trumble."
"Hi, Mr. Trumble. Please take a seat."
Trumble lowered himself into the offered chair.
Wendy's smile continued to radiate helpfulness. "What can I do for you, Mr. Trumble?"
"I'd like to book some fe-uh, IE time, if I may."
The girl nodded approvingly. "I'm sure I can work out something for you. How long a hook-up were you thinking of?"
"Uh… I thought I'd have forty-eight hours, a weekend, you know."
"I'm sure it'll be a weekend you won't forget. When did you want to make the hook-up?"
"The weekend after next. That's what I was thinking of."
"One moment, Mr. Trumble."
Wendy turned to a discreetly positioned computer console and entered a series of figures. After a short pause, the answer flashed up on a tiny screen recessed in the desktop.
"I think that'll be okay. How did you intend to pay, Mr. Trumble?"
Trumble fumbled for his wallet. "By card, the usual way.''
"Could I see your card for a moment, please?"
Trumble pulled out his credit card and passed it across the desk. The girl's smile dimmed a couple of points. She turned the card over in her fingers. The impeccable fingernails clicked softly on the plastic. She looked at Trumble more in sorrow than in anger.
"I see your rating is C-, Mr. Trumble."
Trumble knew he was sweating. "Yes, that's right."
"Well, Mr. Trumble, you must realize that the kind of weekend you're talking about isn't exactly… inexpensive."
Trumble cut in hastily. "Yes, yes. I've looked at the prices. I know all about them." He hesitated. "I've been saving up, you see. This weekend means a lot to me. I've been saving for a long time."
Wendy turned up her smile. "I see. I'll have to check on that before I can make your reservation."
Trumble nodded swiftly. "Yes, yes, that's all right. I don't mind."
Wendy dropped the card into the console. After another short wait, something flashed up on the screen. Trumble couldn't read it upside down, but Wendy's smile became even more radiant.
"You have been saving, haven't you, Mr. Trumble?"
Trumble blushed. "I've been looking forward to this weekend for quite a while."
"All we have to do now is pick the particular experience you have in mind."
Trumble began to redden again. "I… er."
"Would you like to look through our listings of possible options, Mr. Trumble?"
Wendy offered him a thick spiral-bound booklet with a plastic cover. Trumble could feel sweat running down from his armpits. He turned over pages at random. His thumbs and fingers felt twice their normal thickness. He glanced up. Wendy was watching him with a knowing, conspiratorial smile.
"I think we already know the experience we want, don't we, Mr. Trumble?"
Trumble's tongue was threatening to choke him. "I…"
"Come now, Mr. Trumble, you don't have to be embarrassed. You won't shock me. I won't laugh at you."
"I don't…"
"I'm here to help you, Mr. Trumble."
Trumble knew it was now or never. If he didn't do it now, he would change his mind and blow his savings on some experience he didn't even want. It all came blurting out in a stammering rush.
"I-I want to be the Marquis de Sade."
Without a word or the slightest flicker of expression, Wendy started tapping out yet another set of figures. Trumble sat frozen, amazed that he had actually done it. Wendy punched up his reservation. A receipt and a slip with date and time on it were printed out of the machine. Wendy took a multicolored folder from the desk and stapled them into it. She handed it to Trumble with a cool, even look.
"I'm sure it will be a very rewarding weekend, Mr. Trumble."
WANDA-JEAN BECAME CONSCIOUS. THE first thing she realized was that it was a mistake. She had a pain in her head that stretched all the way down the back of her neck. Her mouth was full of evil-tasting, contaminated cotton waste, and she felt sick to her stomach.
It was yet another morning after a night on the circuit of boom-boom bars along 3d Street.
With almost independent life, her left hand crawled across the sheet toward the far side of the bed. There was nobody there. The bastard had gone. Her memories of getting home the night before were hazy. She could just about remember that he had short-cropped, dark hair and broad shoulders. She suspected that she had disliked him from the start.
She knew they had come back to her flat, fallen into bed, and had sex. After that she must have passed out. Some time between her passing out and the morning, he must have gotten up, dressed, and crept away. He probably had a wife or a girlfriend stashed away somewhere.
Wanda-Jean's right hand groped at the table beside the bed. She shook a cigarette out of a nearly empty pack. She rolled over on her side and stuck it in her mouth. She paused for nearly half a minute and then lit it.
Almost immediately she started to cough. Wanda-Jean wasn't quite able to handle doing two things at once. Coughing and keeping a grip on her stomach was more than she could manage. She made it to the bathroom just in time.
Afterward Wanda-Jean walked unsteadily into the kitchen area. Throwing up had helped her hangover, but the comedown from the three decks of Blind Tiger she had bought from that Korean hustler when she had been drunk had moved into its place. She found a nearly clean glass and filled it from the water cooler, but then a bad fit of the trembles hit her and she had to put the glass down quickly. She leaned on the cooler, half doubled over, praying that they would go away.
The trembles subsided after a couple of minutes, and Wanda-Jean tentatively straightened up. Generally she tried to avoid taking drugs first thing in the morning, but she was going to have to make an exception. Even if she called in sick, she would need something just to see her back to bed.
An unpleasant thought suddenly struck her. Maybe the bastard had stolen her drugs. Maybe he had even glommed her smartcard. Pain forgotten, she fled in panic to the bedroom. Her bag lay among the discarded clothes. She wrenched it open and tipped the contents onto the bed. To her relief, both her smartcard and her enamel pill box with the picture of a dragon on it were among the debris. With a sigh, she sat down on the bed. She opened the box. There was half a deck of Tiger still wrapped in its original tinfoil, two Serenax, an octagon, and a valium. Just seeing that she still had the pills made her feel better.
Wanda-Jean knew she had to put some clothes on. She certainly didn't feel like roaming around nude all day. Putting on clothes meant she had to make up her mind whether to go to work or not that day. The pills were making her feel a good deal better. Not b
etter enough, though, to smile brightly at dumb, pussy-mouthed customers all day. She decided to skip work.
She returned to the bedroom in search of a sweatshirt and a pair of pants. A close look at the discarded clothes from the night before stopped her dead.
"Motherfucker."
She grabbed the black satin dress off the floor and held it up. It was ripped all down its length.
"Dirty bastard."
Wanda-Jean's rage spilled over, and she hurled the dress into a corner. The dress had cost her an arm and a leg. She must have gone to work for three solid days to get that dress, and the bastard ripped it pulling it off her. She'd only worn it twice. It was strictly a boom-boom room number, with the skirt cut away up to her crotch and the deep V neck that showed off her tits. Her fury increased when she noticed that the matching satin briefs were also torn.
"I'd like to castrate that son of a bitch."
She sat down on the bed, hugged her anger to herself, and cursed silently and steadily.
The pills didn't let her stay mad for very long. After a while she stood up and looked at her body in the full-length bedroom mirror.
Wanda-Jean liked her body. According to the magazines and movies, she had a good body. She always showed a high score in the kind of Know Your Attraction Count questionnaires on the sex and beauty shows. To her eyes, her legs were too long and her shoulders too broad, but none of the men she knew had ever done anything but pay her compliments.
Although it was a little confusing, Wanda-Jean was satisfied with her body. She did, however, suspect that if it was really first class, she would have gotten further in the world. The only thing that worried her about it was that one day it would start to fail. It would wrinkle, the breasts would sag, and it would no longer have the effect on men that it had right now. Wanda-Jean liked having an effect on men.
She wasn't as happy about her face. She had always wanted one of those aloof, perfectly proportioned faces like May Marsh who played the nurse in "Penal Colony" on Channel 80. Compared with May Marsh, Wanda-Jean's nose was too long and her mouth too wide. Wanda-Jean spent a lot of time and money trying to hide these defects. In moments of depression she managed to convince herself they were her main stumbling blocks. If she got really low, words like cheap and common sprang to mind.