Smith's Monthly #23

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  The Smoke’s regular was a hamburger, almost rare, instead of a milkshake.

  The Smoke nodded and said, “Pull up a chair.”

  “So what’s the idea?” Stan asked.

  “I need one more piece of information. When these things run out of human food, do they attack each other?”

  He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Let me find out about both questions.”

  He vanished, and then a moment later he and Lady Luck herself appeared back. Lady Luck sat down in Stan’s chair and Stan quickly pulled over another chair.

  “So what are you thinking?” Laverne asked.

  I took a deep breath and stared at the most frightening god that existed, as far as I was concerned. “We need to bluff the Fuzzy-Wuzzy into going to another dimension, one where they have already eaten us all. Stan says we can form these gates to other dimensions.”

  “Easily,” she said. “We don’t as a general rule.”

  “Can the portals be made to be one way?” I asked. The idea was starting to form and I was getting excited.

  “They can be,” Laverne said, looking puzzled.

  “I asked Stan if these things ever got hungry enough to eat each other,” I said, “and he went to ask you.”

  Wolfgang Sucker appeared in all his bright blue glory, standing beside the booth next to Stan, his onion breath covering us all instantly as his head turned slowly from side-to-side.

  Madge jumped up and took a couple of steps back, the look of shock on her face very clear.

  “They must eat every fifty years or they will turn on each other,” Wolfgang said, his voice again like sandpaper on a hard surface. “It takes them almost a half year to form the portals.”

  “How long does it take us to form a portal?” I asked.

  “Instantly,” Laverne said.

  “One more question,” I said. “When they leave a dimension, do they leave anyone behind?”

  “Nothing but a stripped planet with nothing alive remaining,” Wolfgang said.

  I smiled. This idea just might work if there wasn’t something I didn’t know.

  “Can you form a portal to one hundred dimensions back along the line of the Fuzzy-Wuzzy conquests?”

  “We can go back thousands of dimensions, but all the worlds would still be dead,” the Searchlight said.

  I nodded. “Okay, here’s the idea. “Form a portal to one of the destroyed worlds a thousand worlds away, and put that portal directly over their portal and somehow seal the connection. You won’t be blocking it. They just won’t know they haven’t arrived here yet.”

  Stan and Laverne were nodding so I went on. “That way when they come through their portal, trying to get to us, they instead end up in a dead dimension without their knowing it. We bluff them.”

  “Actually,” Screamer asked, smiling, “why not divide them into a thousand different dead worlds over a thousand dimensions, so far back they will only be able to eat themselves?”

  Laverne stared at me for a moment, her dark eyes seeming to cut through me like I didn’t exist. Then she said softly, “That might work.”

  At the same instant she and Stan and the Searchlight vanished.

  Patty squeezed my hand and Screamer and The Smoke just smiled.

  “You guys are really something,” Madge said, shaking her head. “Milkshakes are on me.”

  I just hoped my idea worked and this wasn’t going to be my last milkshake ever.

  FIVE

  Forty-eight hours later, I stood with Stan, Patty, Screamer, The Smoke, and Wolfgang Sucker in a “you can’t see us” bubble around the portal forming in the driveway to the MGM Grand Hotel valet parking.

  Around us, Las Vegas went on with its normal, noisy life. The night air was warm, but thankfully not hot.

  I was the one holding the “can’t-see-us” bubble. Up until yesterday I didn’t know I had that power.

  Stan, with help from the Searchlight, and with energy support from all of us, had formed a dimensional portal that fit tightly over the Fuzzy-Wuzzy’s portal. Stan’s portal shifted the Fuzzy-Wuzzy almost a thousand dimensions back.

  From what I understood, the Fuzzy-Wuzzy could only move from one dimension to the next every half-year; so if this worked, it would take them hundreds and hundreds of years to get back. And since they would turn on each other to eat long before that, they might never make it back.

  And we were splitting the entire invasion force up into a thousand parts over thousands of dead dimensions.

  All over the planet right now, Searchlights and gods were forming dimensional portals over the Fuzzy-Wuzzy portals.

  It was our only plan of defense, and it had been my idea. I just hoped it worked. I hadn’t slept, worrying about it.

  If this plan didn’t work, we were all going to be the first appetizer for a very hungry horde of bugs.

  “Five, four, three,” Patty said, counting down.

  All of us poured energy to Stan as we had practiced, while the Searchlight held the connection between the two portals.

  Since I wasn’t a god, I couldn’t see the forming Fuzzy-Wuzzy portal until suddenly it formed directly under the one Stan had formed.

  A blur of black seemed to fill the opening of the portal. It went on and on and on.

  And then nothing.

  “I think they have all gone through,” Stan said, beads of sweat forming on his face.

  Suddenly the dimensional portal formed by the Fuzzy-Wuzzy closed and Stan slumped to the ground, breathing hard.

  “I hate those bugs,” he said, panting.

  For a moment the Searchlight stood there, then he said, with his rough voice loud enough to hear even against all the noise of a Las Vegas night:

  “It has worked.”

  Then he turned to all of us as Stan climbed back to his feet.

  Suddenly Wolfgang Sucker’s head stopped moving, and his blue eyes stared directly at us.

  “This great battle will be shown on the heads of a thousand of my brothers for centuries to come. It has been my honor to be a member of your team, Poker Boy.”

  With that he vanished.

  “Well, you all did it again,” Laverne said from directly behind me.

  We all spun to face Lady Luck.

  She was smiling, and when Lady Luck smiles on you, you know it.

  “Someday we might have to start paying all of you if this keeps up.”

  She laughed at her own joke, since superheroes don’t get paid.

  Then she winked at Stan. “Teach him how to jump through space, would you? I worry about him taking so many airplane flights.”

  Then she got serious. “Thank you. Every one of you. It was a perfect bluff, and a perfect idea. I just wish you all had been around in Atlantis’ time.”

  With that she vanished.

  Stan turned to me, smiling. “Well done, as usual.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was so stunned that my idea had worked, I just sort of felt nothing.

  “Milkshakes are on me,” Stan said. Then he smiled even larger, “If you can get us there, Poker Boy, without calling a cab.”

  And suddenly I knew how to jump through space, from one location to another. I don’t know how I knew, but I just did.

  “That’s a deal,” I said. I took Patty’s hand in mine and said to Stan, “Race you.”

  An instant later, I had my team sitting in our regular booth in The Diner as a fraction of a second later Stan appeared, still smiling.

  Wow, that felt good.

  Patty just squeezed my hand and smiled. Then she whispered in my ear, “Now we can see a lot more of each other.”

  I liked that idea. I liked it a lot.

  The sound of crashing glass made us all turn around as one.

  Madge was dancing on the counter in front of the kitchen. She seemed to be doing dance moves not thought of in years, and considering she always wore slacks three sizes too tight, it wasn’t a scene that any sane person could watch for very long.

/>   Stan started laughing and The Smoke just covered his eyes.

  After a moment, all of us started laughing.

  “Why not?” Screamer asked, and got up and started dancing as well, quickly joining Madge on the countertop.

  “Looks like milkshakes are going to be a minute,” I said between huge laughs of relief.

  “Thanks to all of you,” Stan said, “we have the time to wait.”

  When two couples decide to play the Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice pretend game, things can take a nasty turn for the worse.

  Especially when the wives want to change the movie.

  A very strange crime story with a movie twist.

  HUSBAND DUMMIES

  ONE

  “Why in the world does anyone live in this god-forsaken humidity?”

  My words drifted through the thick air with no wind to take it away. Two midwestern natives—used to this thick, water-filled air—sat next to me in the drainage culvert under the concrete bridge as above us trucks thundered over, swimming through the thick air down I-70. The two men ignored my question without even pretending not to hear it.

  Bob-from-Minnesota, my husband and a real jerk, just shook his head and stared at the ground, blood dripping down his arm. It had already soaked his white T-shirt, mixing with the sweat-stains growing under his arms. It looked like a lot, but it wasn’t that much blood loss. He had just dislocated his shoulder and had a few surface wounds. I figured it served him right for being such a screw-up. And the worst driver I had ever seen, especially for a getaway car driver.

  I wanted to just slap him, but instead I sat on the ground with my back against the rough concrete side of the culvert and just sweated. Humidity had to be one hundred percent in this tunnel. Why hadn’t I planned this robbery for October instead of August?

  Ted, Bob’s best friend, adjusted his Cub’s baseball cap and then pulled the shoelace from his right dress shoe free and flipped it away. He had twisted his ankle so badly in the getaway that his foot was too swollen to even stay in his shoes. His blue dress shirt was soaked with sweat, turning it even darker, and his usually perfectly combed brown hair was messed up and had a weed caught in it.

  He was going to live as well. None of us were injured enough to die.

  My two men, my two lovers, sat across the small space from me. Both looked a mess, more than any morning-after hangover look, and I had seen both of them like that. Hell, I had seen those two in just about every position possible and to be honest, I was sick of it. Jail time might actually be a relief.

  As bad as they looked, I had to admit, I wasn’t doing much better. The getaway from my perfectly planned bank robbery had turned sour, ending up in a car wreck because my stupid husband somehow forgot how to drive. I was so angry I could hardly think. I just hadn’t expected Bob to screw things up that way. It had sure changed my plans in a hurry.

  And Alice’s plans as well. She was Ted’s wife and my best friend. We had left her stuck in the car, shouting at us to get out and run before the cops got there. She wasn’t actually stuck, but the men didn’t know that. Alice was just flowing with the changes in my plan caused by my dear husband’s bad driving.

  Alice had a body men lusted after, wore clothes that were always in perfect style, and bought the best jewelry. I just hoped she was better at getting out of that van and getting away than Bob was at driving it.

  Now, because of his bad driving, the three of us were all injured. I figured I had a broken arm. I had tucked the arm inside my white blouse and downed four Advil from my now long-lost purse to hold back most of the pain. Sitting still, the pain just throbbed and I could ignore it.

  Amazing the things I could just ignore. I was a master at it.

  That didn’t much matter at this point. I couldn’t ignore the fact that, more than likely, the only place I was going was to jail, thanks to Bob’s awful driving. Sitting under the freeway in a drainage ditch in the middle of midwestern farmland didn’t offer us much chance of escape without a miracle and I didn’t expect that.

  I hoped for it for myself, but didn’t expect it.

  But one thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to make the miracle happen just sitting in this culvert. I had to get moving.

  “I’m going to go up and jump in front of a speeding truck,” Ted said. “Get this over with.”

  “Don’t,” Bob said. “We’ll be out in four years; three if we behave.”

  “Alice might be dead,” Ted said. “Shot by the police or something.”

  “She’s not dead,” Bob said, his voice firm. “Besides, Carol here can handle us both, can’t you, baby?”

  “Screw you,” I said. “Ted, Alice is just fine. And I’m going to be glad to go to jail just to get away from you two.”

  “So, brilliant master-planner,” Bob said, staring at me. “What do we do next?”

  I stared back, wondering what the hell I ever saw in the guy. Sure, he was good in bed, knew how to make me come more times than a doorbell being pushed by a bill collector. And he was damn good-looking. But he was also a real wimp and a really bad driver. How the hell had I ended up marrying a shitty-driving jerk with no courage?

  “We give up,” I said. “Go up and sit on the edge of the road until some lame-ass cop comes and arrests us. At least they’ll get us out of this heat.”

  I managed to move my broken arm enough to get a look at my watch. It was about time to hope for the miracle. Past time, actually. I needed to move.

  “And then what do we do?” Bob asked, being his usual annoying, snide self. Snideness and humidity just didn’t mix. Nothing mixed with heat and humidity as far as I was concerned.

  “Serve our sentences and get back together after we’re out,” I said, doing my best not to sneer at him.

  “Brilliant!” Bob said. “Wish I could think that well.”

  “Screw you,” I said.

  “Children,” Ted said, pushing himself up and balancing on his one good foot while leaning against the concrete wall of the culvert, “After this wonderful conversation, I think I’ll face that truck grille now. Someone want to help me up there?”

  “Sure,” Bob said, standing and moving to get under his best friend’s arm. “But don’t expect me to push you. I’m not doing time for murder as well.”

  “You know,” I said, “I’m beginning to hate both of you as much as this heat.”

  TWO

  I tried to push myself to my feet, but the sharp pain from my broken arm took my breath away and made me stop. I sat there, staring at the ground, trying to cram the pain down and into a place I could just ignore it. I needed to move, to keep going, and I couldn’t let some pain stop me.

  “You going to make it, babe?” Bob asked, actual concern in his wimp-ass voice.

  “Yeah.” I took a deep breath, gritted everything in my body that I could grit, and stood.

  Damn, that hurt.

  Damn my arm.

  Damn my stupid-ass husband.

  The heat seemed to get even worse, if that was possible. I was sweating so bad, I had a small river running down between my breasts and into my crotch.

  I used my good hand to brace my bad arm up tight under my breasts and keep it from moving as much as possible, then nodded to my husband. “Let’s go.”

  “Well, this was sure fun while it lasted,” Bob said, smiling at me.

  “It was,” Ted said.

  “Except it didn’t end like this in the movie,” I said. “Make sure you give the cops your real names.”

  “Yeah,” Bob said, smiling. “Less bad press if we don’t get known as the Bad-Sex Bandits.”

  “And we’re worried about press coverage now?” Ted asked, shaking his head. “I’m getting more and more serious about facing the grille of that speeding truck.”

  “Who said the sex was bad?” I asked.

  “All right,” Bob said. “The Good-Sex Bandits. You happy?”

  “Purring like a drowning kitten.” I took a step and let the pain wave was
h over me, braced my broken arm even tighter and kept going toward the opening of the ditch.

  Bob and Ted stumbled over the uneven dirt behind me, both men grunting from the pain of the movement. During the sex play between the four of us, I loved to listen to them grunt in unison as they pounded me or Alice. Now it sounded just sad, especially echoing between the sounds of the cars and trucks overhead.

  Damn I hoped Alice was all right. Imitating that old movie wasn’t such a bright idea in hindsight. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. We even took their names and it became such a fun game, such a major part of our lives, that I now thought of my husband Danny as Bob. If we had just left the fun with the sex and the names and the games, we’d have all been fine. But no, we had to come up with a foolproof plan to get rich, move to the Bahamas and live the good life forever as Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. None of us liked how the movie ended, so we figured we could change it.

  Well, this was sure ending much worse.

  Now, if a miracle didn’t happen, it would be years of jail ahead of me without Bob or Ted and especially Alice. Every movie had to end, I guess. I just wished it wouldn’t end like this.

  This ending sucked. Unless I got my miracle and Alice had done her part of the plan.

  I stopped and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. Who the hell lives in this kind of humidity? I wanted to go back to Southern California so bad I could taste it. Now that wasn’t going to happen for years, either, thanks to Bob’s shitty driving.

  I stopped and rested in the hot, glaring sunshine outside of the culvert, waiting for the two men to catch up. Bob had lost a lot of blood and Ted looked white from the pain. As I had figured, I doubted either of them could make it up the twenty-foot bank to the edge of the highway.

  “You two stay back in the shade,” I said. “I’ll climb up and get the police.”

  “You sure, Babe?” Bob asked.

  “As sure as I’m ever going to be,” I said.

  I turned my back on the two men I had slept with and slowly started to climb. The nightmare of just a simple movement was almost too much for me to keep going.