by Unknown
* * *
The Mundy family found Joe Kimble in the lobby of their motel. It was a complete accident. They were coming in tired and discouraged; he was at loose ends and going out to see a movie.
Fred stared at Joe, who stopped in his tracks, frowning, his eyes on Fred’s swollen lip. Kate and Leslie didn’t notice and kept moving, and then Joe’s eyes shifted to Leslie.
“Oh man,” he muttered. He looked back at Fred, then over at Kate briefly, but his eyes came back to Leslie. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Dan wasn’t at the desk, then turned back.
“Kate, Leslie, I’d like you to meet Joe Kimble,” Fred said.
Both women stopped and stared.
“Shit,” Joe muttered. “I mean… shit.”
He recognized Leslie from the picture Fred had shown him, and like Ralph he was struck by the resemblance to Lisa Kimble—the woman he’d known all his life as “mom.” But at the same time, some part of his mind was working on the fact that the birth certificate he’d seen had said “male” and that this… person… was feminine. About his height but thin, like… Lisa. Ralph’s straight lank hair hung long from Leslie’s scalp.
Seeing his scrutiny, Leslie turned her head a little, dropped her gaze, closed her posture.
As for Kate, she was shorter than Joe, with a huge straw purse. She had on blue jeans and a loose blue sweatshirt with a fading print of a dolphin on the front. A little heavyset, with a deep suntan. Her kinky, frizzy hair was pulled into a puffy ponytail that reached halfway down her back. He felt a tiny pinprick of suspicion thinking she looked Italian, and then realized, no, she was actually black.
“Hi Joe. It’s a pleasure to meet you after all this time,” Kate said at last.
When he took her hand, he could feel it trembling a little. Her brown eyes bored deep into his, and he knew he’d seen eyes that color, every time he looked in a mirror.
“Uh…”
Leslie cleared her throat, but didn’t say anything.
The awkward pause stretched out.
“So, you had dinner?” Fred said at last. Joe shook his head.
“You, uh, want to have dinner with us?”
“Yeah, sure,” Joe said slowly, his mind still trying to take the three of them in.
“Okay,” Kate said.
“That’ll be nice,” Leslie said.
“So… since you’re, uh, local, how about recommending a place?”
Joe nodded.
“One with a bar okay?” he asked.
Everyone agreed enthusiastically.
* * *
The manager had been in his car long enough to start wondering if the Freak had ditched him, but not long enough for his suspicions to really be reasonable, when it showed up carrying an old fashioned doctor’s bag. He had to look twice, because the resemblance to Nicole Kidman was eroding. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the hair color was subtly different. He thought maybe her breasts were smaller, too. But the clothes were, of course, exactly the same. He opened the door.
“Take me to her.” When he heard the voice, he knew. The one thing the Freak could never change.
It was a long silent drive, and periodically he would sneak a glance over at his passenger. The first time, he saw that its face had become a little puffier—the cheekbones no longer stood out, and the mouth was less of a perfect bow. The Freak had pulled down the car’s sunshade and flipped open the makeup mirror on the back side.
At a stoplight, he glanced again. Now there were crow’s feet around its eyes, and smile lines. Its hands looked older, thinner, with the veins more prominent. The hair was definitely several shades darker.
The Freak turned its head and caught him looking. “Well, I don’t want to attract a lot of attention at the hospital, do I?” As it spoke, its eyes darkened into a dull brown.
The driver behind had to honk to get him moving.
At the hospital, two nondescript people emerged from his car—himself, a portly businessman in his fifties, and a shorter woman. If anyone had cared to guess, they would have put her age at forty or so, but no one cared.
“From here on, you refer to me as ‘doctor,’ got it? Is it past visiting hours?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Good.”
To his surprise, the Freak had an actual ID card to show the nurse. Apparently it was valid and the picture matched, because they were given permission to see his sister despite the time.
“Her name is Judith,” the manager said.
“So I see,” said the Freak, looking at Judith’s chart. It clucked its tongue.
“You weren’t kidding about her. Lean up against the door, okay?”
He obeyed.
The Freak walked to the head of the bed. “Judith?” it said in a quiet voice. “Judith, can you hear me?”
Judith muttered and rolled in her sleep, frowning. The manager bit his lip. The Freak reached out and gently brushed Judith’s hair back from her face. It looked at the patient, looked at the chart, looked at the machines. Finally, it opened its bag and, after rummaging around, produced a hypodermic and vial.
“What’s that?” the manager asked.
“A sedative. Very gentle, very safe. What I’m going to do will probably be quite painful to her, and I don’t want her to get the nurses in here.”
“Are you sure…?”
The Freak silenced him with a cool look. Then it injected the fluid into Judith’s IV.
“Please remain silent until I’m done,” The Freak told the manager. He nodded.
The Freak pulled the covers off the unconscious girl, and with practiced, professional hands pushed up the paper gown to reveal wasted, bony legs, pale and hairy.
The manager winced and looked away. His sister had been an athlete once, in college.
The Freak was silent, looking. It needed to put its mind into a special state, a state in which it was perfectly reasonable, perfectly obvious that it could do the impossible.
“Cells,” It thought.
“An individual cell is tiny. It has negligible weight or inertia. Countless cells drift off the surface of every body, every day, and they are never missed. The molecules and atoms within those cells are exchanged and replaced constantly. There is not one atom in my body that was there seven years ago. Cells are transitory. The spaces between molecules are the reality, and solidity is the illusion. It’s almost all emptiness, relieved here and there by little more than energy with a sense of place and a few simple preferences. Protons, neutrons and electrons. Despite their complicated tricks, that’s all we’re looking at, at the most essential level.”
The Freak put its hands on Judith’s right hip, and its hands sank into the flesh, through it. It was as if the patient’s skin offered no more resistance than the surface of a bowl of cream. It reached down, fingers swimming through the sartorius muscle and into the greater trochanter—the knob at the top of Judith’s leg bone.
“So far so good,” the Freak thought, as its probing fingers found no tumors. It combed its fingers down from towards the knees. They passed through the vastus muscles, scraping the interior of the femur, and partway down the Freak felt it.
The Freak glanced up at the patient, but she was still out. Good.
“Can you get me a paper towel please?”
The middle manager opened his eyes when he heard the Freak’s voice, and he gasped to see its right hand holding up a crimson glob, while its left was still stuck into his sister’s thigh.
He stared.
“Please?” The Freak’s voice was impatient, and the manager shook himself before going to the bathroom to comply.
“Just put it on the floor there.” When he obeyed, the Freak bent, wiped its hands on the towel, first one then the other, and then put them back into his sister. As he watched, it continued to pull downward through her right leg, pausing now and again to scoop out a handful of red muck.
“Back to the door, okay?”
He opened his mouth to
say “Oh, right,” then remembered he was supposed to be silent. He did as he was told.
When the Freak was done with the right leg, it went on to the left, leaving bloody fingerprints at its points of entry. That leg went faster, as it did not pause to pull its hands free and scrape them off.
“Good,” it said. “I think it was localized to that leg, but just to be sure I’m going to give her a once-over.”
As he watched, the Freak rolled his sister onto her stomach and reached through her spine and ribs, working up her body until it finished by raking through her arms. It left fingerprints, but no other mark.
“She’s clear.”
“I don’t believe it,” the manager said.
The Freak stood, picked up the bloody paper towel, and went into the bathroom. There was the sound of a toilet flushing, then the sink. It came out wiping its hands.
“Look, you saw it. I did my bit. Now tell me where I need to go to get the compass and the boy.”
The manager was still staring at his sister when the Freak reached over slowly and grabbed his chin. He jumped as if stung and turned to face it.
“Your sister will be fine. Really. I recommend you wash those bloodstains off her before the doctors check her next. I’d do it, but I figure your people already have a headstart on getting the compass, understand?”
He nodded.
“So…?”
He told it everything. As it gathered its things, he said “Hey… take it easy on my people, okay?”
“No promises,” the Freak replied. It didn’t even look back at him.
* * *
They were registered as “Carl and Jolene Spokes” at the Motel Six. According to the cover story, they were brother and sister.
When they got into the room, neither said much. Jolene flopped down on one bed and pulled her shoes off. Carl rummaged in a black gym bag and emerged with a black device. It looked like a primitive cell phone without enough buttons. When he turned it on, it made a whistling sound.
While he walked around the room waving the device at the molding and wainscoting, Jolene flicked the TV on with the remove control.
“What’s on?” Carl asked over his shoulder.
“Crap… crap… Jesus, how many of the channels are showing ‘M*A*S*H’ reruns?” Then she sat up. “All right, skating!”
Carl rolled his eyes. He took one last look at the black device and folded it closed. Then he took out a smaller, gray machine and stuck it to the window with a suction cup. Silently, almost imperceptibly, the window began to vibrate.
“Okay, we’re clean,” he said. “Unless, of course, we got Norman Bates next door listening through a hole in the wall. But we’re safe from high tech shit.”
“Hush,” Jolene said. “Oksana Grischuk is on.”
“Oh yeah, your favorite right?”
Jolene glared at him. “I hope that slutty little bitch breaks her spine,” she muttered.
“I prefer football myself. Damn shame the Rams left L.A.”
“Football’s all right, but there isn’t the artistry.” Jolene’s eyes shifted to him again, briefly. “I’m surprised more guys don’t like skating. After all, it’s a bunch of girls in great shape, wearing tiny costumes, and most of ‘em retire before they hit twenty-five. What’s not to like?”
Carl laughed a little. “Yeah, but football… where else can I watch a pack of millionaires pound on each other?” Jolene nodded, conceding the point.
Carl sat on the other bed. “At least we got two beds. If I hadn’t of been thinking, they would have registered us as man and wife.” He bit his lip, thinking he might have said something dumb and that Jolene would rag him for it. She just shrugged, never taking her eyes off the screen.
“I don’t see why we couldn’t have separate rooms,” he added.
“Company policy. Safety in numbers, don’t you know.” She gave a little smirk. “Shit, if some freaked out weirdo comes through the door at two AM, I won’t be sorry to have a corrupt cop between me and the door.”
He laughed a little. “Glad to know you care.”
As a commercial came on, she looked over at him.
“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow? Find the kid… whatsisname, Kimble?”
“Eventually. First order of business is the kid’s daddy. You saw what he did to Dobbs, right?”
“Uh huh. So do we recruit him, or ice him?”
“Extreme sanction.”
“Two in two days? Who does Abel think he is, Al Capone?”
“More like Quentin Tarantino. I think it’s a sound idea, actually. Daddy-o is one of those… shit, what was it… ‘entropo’-something.”
“Entropomancer?”
He raised his eyebrows. Jolene shrugged. “I looked over my notes while you were in the can at that truck stop. ‘Enchanters of primal chaos,’ it says. They’re the ones who get off on taking risks, right? Like, high stakes gamblers and Russian roulette and all that jazz?”
“Right, so if they do something stupid and you shoot ‘em, you may have just given them the mojo they need to kill you. You ever tangle with one?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, Cage an’ Bob got the smackdown from a pair of ‘em not long back.”
“Who’s ‘Cajun Bob’?” The skating was back on, and Jolene was distracted.
“No, ‘Cage and Bob.’ You know Cage, right? Huge guy, looks like a Hell’s Angel?”
“Oh right. Cheerful redneck, got the beard, not too bright?”
“I didn’t think he was all that cheerful, but yeah, that’s him. And Bob’s the other ex-cop, always looks like he’s waiting for an anvil to fall on his head?”
“Him I don’t know.” Jolene winced at a popped Triple Flip on the TV.
“Doesn’t matter, I guess. Point is, one of those chaos dukes messed both of them up pretty badly.” Carl got off the bed and opened a steel briefcase.
“Huh. What’s the plan, then?”
“Surprise and overwhelming force. Don’t give him a chance to take a chance.” In the briefcase was a pistol, a silencer, and two clips. Carl pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and with practiced, meticulous care began to clean and load the gun, making sure to leave no fingerprints.
“Surprise and overwhelming force. Check.”
* * *
“So… what do you guys all do?”
The Mundys plus Joe were in a restaurant called “John’s Tiki Room.” It had been “John’s Tiki Room” since it was opened in 1961, and it continued to be “John’s Tiki Room” even though John had died in 1989 after having his first-ever grand mal seizure while driving across state lines with a trunk full of cheap fireworks. His son Tom had run the Tiki Room for a while and had even talked about changing the sign, but he’d been a boozer and had eventually sold the place, sign and all, to a consortium of two local dentists and a doctor. They’d also talked about changing the sign, but also never had.
The history of John’s Tiki Room had been Joe’s contribution to the before-dinner small talk while they all waited to get their drink orders.
Before ordering an Amoretto Stone Sour, Leslie had talked about the long drive from Nevada and about how the land here was just as flat as she remembered from childhood.
Fred had gotten a shot of Maker’s Mark with a Miller High Life back, and had awkwardly told Joe that he and Kate were divorced and had been for several years.
Kate had gotten a martini and told Joe he looked a lot like her uncle Franklin, only without the glasses.
Joe had ordered a High Life and, when it arrived, had asked what they all did.
Fred was silent and looked at Kate, who looked back at him and said, “I do some waitressing in Vegas.”
“Bet you’re still playing poker, too,” Fred added.
She nodded. “Still haven’t hit the big time though.” She had a tight little smile.
“I do makeup for shows,” Leslie broke in, trying to defuse the tension between Kate and Fred. “It’s a pretty int
eresting job.”
“Oh yeah?” Joe said. “So, like, what shows? Like… uh… like Blue Man Group?”
“No one that big time, I’m afraid. Just a lot of showgirls. It’s like an assembly line, almost.”
“Huh. I’d have thought they did their own.”
“No, the management likes to keep it very uniform.”
“Well, I don’t know much about showgirls. Never even saw the movie,” Joe said with a shy grin.
“It’s not that kind of show,” Kate said.
Their drinks arrived and Fred knocked back his shot, wincing as the alcohol burned his fat lip.
“Kate, you used to know someone who worked ‘that kind of show,’ right? What was his name?”
Kate put her hand to her forehead with a wry grin. “Scotty,” she said. “Oh, there’s someone I haven’t thought about in… man, years.” She turned to Joe. “Scotty had a job most men only dream of. He worked backstage for one of those topless shows—not a really good one but one of the sleazy ones off the strip—and his job was basically ‘nipple rouger.’”
“No way!”
“That’s what he said, anyhow. Though he always had terribly shaky hands, so I think he was probably putting everyone on.”
“How about you, Joe? What is it you do for work?” Leslie asked, even though she knew and part of her was uncomfortable with the implied dishonesty.
“Oh, I work for my dad’s exterminator business.” Joe frowned, looked down at his beer glass. “That is… uh… for Ralph…”
“Look,” Kate said, “Ralph’s your dad. I mean, in just about every way that counts, he’s your old man. He raised you and fed you and I suppose, you know, taught you how to shave and all that… we’re not trying to horn in on his territory or anything. I want to be clear about that.”
“Well… I…”
“Does this mean I can call you ‘daddy’?” Leslie asked, giving Fred a calm look.
His mouth twitched, but not towards a smile. “No one’s stopping you,” he said.
Kate glared at him and said “Looks like we’re going to need another round before the group hug.”
“I could do with another beer, thanks,” Fred said, returning her glare.