Buzz Cut

by James W. Hall

  "I waited for you," he said quietly. Coming across the room to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. "I waited."

  Monica was silent. Butler snuck a hand onto her thigh. She looked down at it.

  "And you?"

  "I'm here," she said, "aren't I?"

  "But you waited for me, didn't you?"

  "Waited."

  "You said you would. Remember? You wrote it down. I still have the letter. It's in my bag. 'I will wait for you always, forever, till the end of time.' "

  Monica swallowed. She needed a beer. Something stronger. Two or three. A fleeting memory of her nights at Sugarloaf, the fish sandwiches, the mindless routine.

  "Did you, Monica? Did you wait like you said?" A rising strain in his voice. Butler stood, stepped away from her. Monica looking up at him.

  "You mean sex? Am I virgin? Is that what you're asking?"

  "I waited for you," Butler said. "I gave you my pledge, and I kept it."

  "I'm tired, Butler. I need to sleep."

  "Did you? Yes or no."

  Staring at him, Monica tried to hold her face in a neutral mask. She managed it for a while, but then she felt it slip, a tic in her lips that must have revealed it all. She saw it register in Butler Jack's eyes, saw the sparkle crumple, a shadowy fog rise.

  "It was him, wasn't it? That cop."

  "Cop?"

  "You know who I mean. David Cruz."

  She stood up, felt the air burn her throat. "What the hell do you know about David?"

  "It was him, wasn't it? That bastard spoiled you. He took it from you. Your innocence."

  "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but I've had enough of this shit. Is that clear? You and I, we don't have a relationship. We were kids. We were fantasizing. Playing a game. That's all that was. If you thought it was more . . . well, I'm sorry for you. But anything I said then, any promises I might have made, they were childish babble. Do you understand me? We were twelve years old. Children. You'd have to be crazy to hold on to something like that. Believe it meant anything."

  "Is that what you think? I'm insane? A psychopath?"

  "Look, I came along with you. I'm here. But I'm not some virginal twelve-year-old. Is that clear?"

  "You said you'd wait. You wrote the words."

  "Well, I didn't wait, goddamn it. I didn't wait."

  Monica suffered his fierce glare as long as she could, then gave him a firm good-night and walked to the bathroom. Shut the door and locked it. Five minutes, ten, she stood before the mirror. Hearing nothing out in the cabin.

  Staring at herself, the goddamn eyes, the perfect fucking nose, the flawless skin. That face that had inspired Butler Jack, pushed him over some impossible edge. That face, that fucking face. Look on her and die. Look on her and grow stupid, infantile. Medusa. A Gorgon, snakes for hair.

  When she opened the door, Butler was gone. She stepped into the cabin, went directly to her purse. Grabbed it up. To hell with this. She would get off this ship right now, get far away and regroup. Hide. Start over. She'd been crazy to go along with him. Crazy to get involved.

  But she'd been so disoriented. Irma Slater evaporated, a vacuum left behind. And the photographs, those starving kids, his campaign against Morton Sampson had stirred her, given her a wicked thrill. The idea of hurting her father. Striking back. A little justice for her mother's sake. But that seemed like temporary insanity now. Sheer craziness.

  She searched the room for anything she might take along, one of her new outfits. But there was nothing she wanted. She hurried to the door, wrenched the handle. Yanked. Yanked again. But he'd done something to the lock. The door was frozen.

  ***

  David Cruz was doing push-ups. It was how he handled stress. Lately he'd been doing a lot of them, up over a hundred at a time. Dipping to his chest each time, head tilted up, marine style. Naked, of course, that was the best way. Felt sexy, his member flopping against the rug each time. Like fucking, only more pure, nothing but that piston grind, up and down, up and down, so later, during sex, when he couldn't count, when he couldn't do anything but feel the feel, he could go for an hour, up and down, a pile driver, one of them called him, a derrick, said another. Up and down.

  He was proud of his body. Proud that everything was still as firm as a teenager. Firmer than most. Look around him, he could find guys his age, lots of them with the sagging bellies and flabby muscles of old men. Not David Cruz. Something drove him. The sexiness factor was one thing of course but there was something else. Something he didn't like to consider. But it was true. The class factor. He had a blue-collar body. Coal miner, day laborer. Those guys weren't hard by choice. It was their job, their grind.

  Even though David Cruz had escaped that world, riding high as head of security for a major corporation, making over a hundred thousand a year, he was still a blue-collar guy. A day laborer by his codes. Did the push-ups so he wouldn't lose touch, wouldn't turn away from his roots. Seventy-five, eighty, ninety, a hundred pushups. Going over a hundred, seeing how high he could reach, feeling the joy of it tonight, the compulsion to break higher, the stress of his job, this goddamn thief who was targeting one of his ships, making David look bad, forcing Morton to bring in an outsider, David feeling threatened, feeling the pressure in his gut, the knotting. A hundred and twenty, up and up, breaking every record he'd ever set. Going to break two hundred tonight. He had enough stress lately for that. Enough stress to break a thousand. Smacking his chest to the rug, feeling his member swing, feeling it firm up slightly.

  Sometimes push-ups were better than sex. Cleaner, neater, took him higher most of the time. Better than sex with everyone but her. The one whose name he would not say. The one he'd failed, the one he couldn't protect. Sex with her had been something different. Something interplanetary. Long and complicated. Beautiful and hard and sweaty. Athletic and soft. Everything. The one he couldn't name taking everything he had to offer, showing him things she knew, then the two of them stumbling into new territory, discovering a few things neither of them had suspected. Weird. Sex with her was better than push-ups, better than going over two hundred. Better than a hundred thousand dollars a year. Better than his leased Lexus, better than any single thing or group of things he'd ever known, imagined, dreamed of, hoped for.

  He had lost count, in the two hundreds somewhere, moving up and down, a pile driver, a maniac, a madman, an incredible machine locked in the On position. When someone hammered on his door.

  ***

  Butler Jack was plummeting in a crashing plane. Strapped in, no escape. The pressure immense, skull-cracking pressure. The scream of air, the shriek of blood trying to move through his shrunken veins, a terrible darkness rising up all round him like chemical smoke, the eerie sway of the world, gravity sucking him down, the earth's core magnetized, G-force tripled as Butler Jack sliced through the air, down and down.

  He had finally summoned the nerve to ask her the question. To verify that she was indeed still his soulmate. The uranium. So sure of the answer, so certain.

  But she hadn't waited. She'd broken her promise, the words on paper, her handwriting. "Forever, till the end of time." Those were her words. On paper. And Butler Jack had glowed when he read them, glowed ever after. The glow of her inside him lighting his way. Moving him through the shadowy world. For years. Through the hard years. Always her smile, the sprinkle of golden hairs on her arm, the heat of her body drawing him forward. Giving him the power, the wattage. Always her. Now as he walked down the narrow hallway, the glow was sputtering, shadows rising all around him, closing in on all sides. And the pressure, the incredible plummeting pressure.

  This man. This man had waylaid her. Laid himself in her way. Laid between her legs. This man, this fucking man who Butler Jack knew, the security chief, Morton Sampson's top cop. Laid in her way. Took her, spoiled her, dirtied her with his own greedy needs.

  He knew this man, David Cruz. Knew him on sight from his years on board the M.S. Comet. Knew he was inferior. A man of the
body. A man who walked and sat and talked with such physical certainty. Butler Jack had known people like him all his life. They were common. The physical ones. The ones who trained their bodies to do what their minds could not. The ones who lifted and carried and packed and loaded. The ones who feasted on gravity, defying it, growing strong to deny its hold on them. He hated these people and these people hated him. Hated him on sight. They recognized Butler Jack. He was strong but he did not earn it. Did not lift weights or do the machines, any of it. He was strong because his father and mother were strong. He was strong because he could think strong. Because he could outmaneuver, outfox, outcerebrate.

  David Cruz had stained her. Soiled her. He had befouled her. Forced her to break her hallowed vow to Butler Jack, forced her to lie, to betray her own words. But what irony it was. What wonderful dark twisted fortune that David Cruz should turn out to be his mortal adversary. How perfect it was that this man who was one of those being paid to track down Butler Jack would find him now. Would find him at his door.

  ***

  Cruz never used the security peephole. It was a matter of pride, a belief that he could handle whatever gremlin or monster stood on the other side. He had his training, his years on the street. A black belt in alley warfare. Box or wrestle, gouge or pull hair, whatever it required. David Cruz was a man of simple pride. His hand-to-hand skills were good enough, he could take on anyone, be fairly sure he'd have a better than even chance of winning. There were always those men out there, faster, trained in some evil art from the Orient, they might be able to get the better of him. But there weren't many of those. And even with them, David Cruz would be willing to take the gamble. Good skills versus evil art. He'd always wager on the good.

  When the knock came, he grabbed a pair of boxer shorts, stepped into them as he moved to the door and drew it open.

  The blond man who stood before him in white slacks and flowered shirt had his left hand upraised. In it he held a black-handled dagger by the tip of the blade like a crucifix, holding it lightly as if he meant to flick it into David's chest.

  Cruz took a half step back. A strategic retreat. Fighting room. Dodging distance.

  The man stepped into the room. His face slack. Mouth dead. Only in his eyes was there any suggestion of what the fireworks inside his head might look like. One summer in Spain David Cruz had watched the Pamplona bulls. Watched them bleeding from the picadors, their heavy neck muscles slashed, their eyes taking on the glazed ferocity he saw before him now. Knowing they were doomed, only a matter of moments before they were gone, but with some final savage need to sink their horns in flesh, take a few lives with them. Dangerous beasts.

  David kept his eyes hovering on the man's chest. An opponent's eyes could trick you, the legs as well. A feint, a crafty head fake could put you off balance, enough of an opening to sink the blade. But if you watched their chests, kept your eyes locked there, the knife in your peripheral vision, you could decode their real movement, anticipate the strike.

  "You bastard. You filthy fucking bastard."

  David didn't reply. He circled clockwise, watching the chest. The knife still held upright like a priest moving down the aisle at mass.

  "Innocence," the man said, his voice roughened with rage. "You wouldn't know, you ignorant asshole, but it's Middle English, from Old French, and before that Latin. From the verb nocere, which means to harm. With the prefix in meaning not. Not to harm. To keep innocent. White and virginal. But you harmed her, David Cruz, you lay with her. You destroyed the innocence."

  "Lay with who?"

  "You know who. Monica. Monica is who."

  They tracked around the tight oblong between Cruz's bed and his dresser. David's hands up and open, ready to fend off, to wrestle, punch, whatever lay open to him.

  "Monica Sampson?"

  "You know damn well who I mean."

  "You're the one who kidnapped her? You're him?"

  David wanted badly to look at his face, wanted to shift his eyes from the man's chest, but he disciplined himself, checked the impulse. Heart fired up now, more at the mention of her name than at the knife.

  "What did you do with her? Where is she?"

  "What did I do with her?" The blond man cackled. "You're the one who did her. It was you, David Cruz. You, you worthless wretched bastard."

  David thought he saw the knife move. A whir of silver light. He dodged to his right. But when he looked again the blond man was still there, the knife in his hand, same position. Smiling now. The upper hand. David spooked, not sure what he'd seen. Not sure where to look now. The after-image of the silver light still burning in his eyes. But it was nowhere.

  It wasn't his method to go on the attack. He was a counterpuncher by nature. But her name coming from this man's lips, the silver light, brought him up to the balls of his feet. He felt himself leaning forward, off-balance, a surge of anger richening the mixture in his lungs.

  David broke the circle, stepped back, held his ground. Stared into the man's eyes briefly. Saw the same bleak and depraved look as before. Moved his eyes back to the chest, saw the knife holding steady as the man raised his right hand, extended it out to his side as far as he could reach, as if he meant to give David a roundhouse slap. And the silver light came again, off to the right, out of his peripheral vision. David hesitated briefly, then swung his head, squinted at it. An inch of current, its crackling buzz. Not understanding what the hell he was looking at.

  And in that instant he felt the first swipe of the blade, the warm wetness on his bare chest. Felt the second slash across his cheek and neck, a numbing trail, and the third clipping his wrist as David cranked up an arm to defend. A fourth slash down his ribs, the man ducking under his arms somehow, quicker than he looked.

  He chopped at the blond man's neck but the blow glanced off his collarbone. He lashed out two quick fists, neither of which connected, as the man bent and bobbed, eluded the next blow and the one after that. David felt the weakness growing in his legs. The slick of blood on his chest and arms. A shallow trench opened from his throat to his bellybutton. He knew that without looking. Knew he was dead unless he ended this quickly, could hold his wound closed, get to the infirmary.

  Not sure where to look anymore. The knife jiggling in the man's left hand, the buzz of current in his right. David backing away, feeling the bed behind him. The blond man closing in.

  It was a story he'd heard somewhere. A street cop's advice to every homeowner. You find a burglar in your house. You've got a gun in your hand, you don't know if the burglar's armed or not. What do you do? You ask the burglar a question. Any question, how is your mother doing? The premise being that people always freeze when asked a question but rarely do when told to freeze. How is your mother doing? The burglar freezes, and you shoot the motherfucker. Keep on shooting till you're empty.

  Only difference, David Cruz had no pistol.

  "How is your mother doing?" he said, a croak in his voice.

  The blond man stiffened, held. And David Cruz ducked and lunged, smashed his shoulder into the man's solar plexus, heard him retch. Clenched an arm around the man's waist, drove him backward, slamming him against the wall. Legs pumping, hands reaching up and finding a grip on both the man's wrists. Spread-eagled his arms, pinning him to the wall.

  The man wriggled but wasn't strong enough to break this hold. And David Cruz drove a knee into the man's crotch. Drove another one and another one. The man screaming but unable to move. Another knee and another. The blood from David's wounds slathered everywhere, making his grip slippery. Giving the guy wiggle room with his right hand, the electrified one.

  David kneed him again and again. The screams. The man weeping now. Face twisted.

  The man wrenched that right wrist, strained it. The ugly crackling of the current again. And David Cruz felt the cold touch of voltage against his arm. His body tossed sideways. Falling to the floor. On his back. Legs spread. He was immobilized but dimly awake. Knowing what was coming. Knowing it from somewhere a
great distance away, a promontory, a place like the one David Cruz had climbed at boy scout camp many many years ago. North Carolina. Seven mountain ranges. Count them. See thirty miles away. That's where he was at the end, lying on the floor of his cabin, but at the same time returning briefly to North Carolina, becoming again that boy, a boy looking out at David Cruz on the floor of his cabin on the M.S. Eclipse. The young David Cruz learning to be good, learning to be true and honest and fair, but even then, even as a boy he had known somehow that violence was coming for him, coming from a long inevitable distance away, somehow always known, as he knew now, watching through the dim mist as a man kicked at the crotch of his adult body, kicked at it and kicked at it. David Cruz, the boy, seemed to be watching all of this as it unfolded, watching from some safe distance away. Seeing the bad man kneel above David's adult body and begin to work on his flesh with a sharp blade.

  CHAPTER 16

  Thorn stood beside the body, a pale light angling in from the hallway. He reached out and touched a fingertip to Sugar's forehead. Clammy.

  "Sugar."

  Fighting off the tremble in his hand, Thorn peeled back the silver blanket to feel for a pulse. And jerked his hand away.

  Sugar's bare flesh was coated with some kind of slime that gave off an aroma as sickly as overcooked broccoli. Thorn stepped back from the chrome massage table. A clot was forming in his throat.

  He leaned forward, dabbed a finger against Sugar's nearly hairless chest, scooped up a glop of slime. Turning to the wedge of light from the hallway, he held up his finger. The stuff was green, strands of it dangling like shredded spinach.

  "Seaweed," croaked the voice behind him.

  Thorn staggered into a table, knocked over a bottle of oil, which crashed on the floor and broke. When he swung back to the massage table, Sugarman was up on one elbow, tucking the silver blanket back around his body. Face puffy and strained.