by Mike Ashley
“Hold on, Trace, I’ll take care of this.”
Jay Dee raised the remote to point at the clerk, who remained unflustered at the seemingly innocent, though odd threat.
Tracey grabbed his arm. “No!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake . . . All right, look – take this money, pay the man and sign us in. I’ll put Mister Boots in the car for the night.” His back to the clerk, Jay Dee winked broadly at Tracey, as if he knew what he was going to do.
Outside, Jay Dee, carrying the tom, stopped by a parked car. Visible in the back seat was a suitcase. Jay Dee paused, everything now clear.
“Box, save what this cat looks like, then smudge it.”
The remote said, “Done.” Then Jay Dee peeled off the image of the suitcase, which materialized like a wraith outside the car.
“Superimposition of a larger mass-pattern atop a smaller one causes an energy deficit which must be made up from some source,” warned the remote. “I have been handling this automatically, but thought I should mention it.”
“So you mentioned it. Now just turn this cat into some baggage.”
The lights in the parking lot seemed to dim momentarily. Without further delay, the spatio-temporal digital suchness of the suitcase was layered onto the featureless lump of cat.
Jay Dee carried the suitcase back in.
“All set?” he asked.
Tracey held one key, Catalina another.
“Great, let’s go.”
The clerk warned, “Now don’t try sneaking that cat in, ’cause I’ll know it–”
At that moment, the suitcase meowed.
“So, you got it inside there. I thought so. Open it up.”
Jay Dee set the suitcase down, flipped the latches, and sprang the lid.
The inside of the suitcase was lined deeply with fur, top and bottom, side to side; a clawed paw occupied each corner. Mister Boots, apparently none the worse for being turned into a living rug, looked up imploringly from his somewhat flattened skull.
“Meow?”
The clerk’s eye bulged out rather like Mister Boots’s. He held up his hands as if to ward off an apparition. “Shut it, shut it!”
Jay Dee compiled. “Can we go now?”
The clerk nodded violently. He made to reach for a bottle in the desk drawer, then apparently reconsidered.
The cinderblock units were strung out in a line, each sharing two walls with its neighbours.
Tracey and Jay Dee accompanied Catalina inside her room. The ex-waitress seemed to have crashed from her high. “Ain’t it funny – I feel kinda sad now. Scared a little, too. What if Larry and his buddies come after us? I don’t think I could take looking at somebody without a face all by myself, never mind three somebodies. Couldn’t I – couldn’t I share your room?”
“No way, Catalina. Look, we’ll leave the connecting door open. And you can keep Mister Boots for company, since he seems to like you so much.”
“I don’t want no furry suitcase in here.”
“No, we’ll put him back together like his old self.” Jay Dee quickly restored Mister Boots to his saved appearance. The cat rubbed itself happily against their legs, until Catalina reached down to pick it up.
The remote spoke. “Although your strategy worked, it would have made more sense simply to store the animal in a cube, shrink the cube, then open it inside the room.”
“You can put living things inside one of them packages and roll ’em up eleven ways from Sunday without hurting ’em?”
“Yes.”
Jay Dee nodded sagely, as if storing the information away for future use. “Well, goodnight, Cat. See you in the morning.”
In their own room. Jay Dee and Tracey stripped and climbed bone-tired into bed.
Jay Dee awoke. Although it seemed he had been asleep for only five minutes, weak sunlight filtered in around the mis-hung curtains.
Catalina stood, naked and shadowy in the door.
“It’s morning,” she said.
Jay Dee hissed. “Jesus, Cat, go away–”
“Oh, let the poor girl in.”
“Trace?”
“Shut up and slide over.”
“I really do appreciate this, guys. Guy, I mean.”
Catalina giggled. “And girl.”
Mister Boots joined them later, when things had quieted down.
Around noon, when Catalina was in the shower, Jay Dee said, “I don’t know how many more nights like that I can take.”
“Oh, don’t pretend with me. You loved it.”
“No, I ain’t kidding. You’re plenty of woman for me, Trace. Tossing Catalina into the pot is like adding fudge on top of butterscotch. It’s just too much sweetness. And Lord, that girl would wear a mule out! No, we got to fix her up with someone fast.”
Tracey came to sit in Jay Dee’s lap. “I’m glad to hear you feel like that, Jay Dee. I don’t mind comforting the poor thing for a while, but I’d hate to think you wanted to make it permanent.”
Jay Dee leered. “Well, maybe we don’t have to exactly rush to find her a man.”
“Jerk!”
At their car, Tracey made to enter by the passenger’s side, out of long habit, till Jay Dee stopped her. He conducted her to the driver’s door and, with mock elegance, opened it for her.
“Why, thank you, sir.”
Seated next to Tracey, Jay Dee looked over his shoulder for Catalina. Missing.
She stood outside the car, waiting patiently.
Jay Dee sighed, got out and opened her door for her.
“Why, thank you kindly, Mister McGhee.”
They had a late breakfast at a truckstop diner named SHECKLEY’S MIRACLE CAFE and discussed their plans.
“Basically, Trace, I see us getting as far away from this crummy state as we can, out to where no one knows nothing about us, and settling down to a life of leisure. A nice big house, some land, maybe even some animals. Nothing too fancy. Swimming pool, maybe. And Cat – we’ll set you up in a similar place, and you can send for your kids.”
Tracey clinked her coffee cup down. “Sounds good to me.”
“Me too,” chimed in Catalina. “You can just fetch me a little old shat-toe from France or someplace and plunk it down next to a private beach.”
“Oh, man, Catalina, get real! Wouldn’t you stick out then like a tick on a bald dog’s butt? You don’t think your neighbors – not to mention the cops, the feds and anyone else you’d care to name – wouldn’t get a little suspicious when they woke up and saw a house sprung up overnight like a toadstool? No, the safest thing to take is money, and just buy what we want, like any other person who never earned their cash.”
“Oh, right. I see.”
“So are we agreed that’s what we’re gonna do? Great. But there’s one little personal matter I wanna attend to first.”
Tracey looked dubious. “What?”
“Never you mind. You’ll see soon enough. Now let’s get going.”
Out in the parking lot, while Tracey was unlocking the Lincoln, Jay Dee watched the traffic stream past. Toyotas, Fords, Hondas, Saabs, a Cadillac driven by a moose with its antlers sawed off, three faceless men in the backseat–
“Just saw Larry,” said Jay Dee, once they were in the car and on the road. “He seemed to be heading for the city.”
Tracey pulled into the breakdown lane and stopped. “Let’s turn around, Jay Dee.”
“Fraid not. That’s where our chore is. Don’t worry, nothing’s gonna happen. City’s a big place.”
“I don’t feel good about this, Jay Dee, but I know better than to argue with you when you got your mind made up . . .”
“You hear that, Cat?”
“Yes, master.” The plump woman made a mock bow. “Salami and baloney.”
“Hunh.”
In the city, Jay Dee directed, “Pick up Fourth at Main and head east.”
“The meat-packing district, right? Jay Dee, I never claimed to be a genius, but a person would have to be senile, bl
ind, deaf and have her head up her ass not to be able to figure out your pitiful schemes. You’re going after Gene, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. I reckon we still owe him a little something for all the grief he put you through.”
“Give it up, Jay Dee! I learned to. Gene don’t mean nothing to me no more, good nor bad. I put all that pain behind me when I met you.”
“You are a saint, Trace, and I love you for it. However, it is more in accord with my personal nature to be a little less forgiving. Not only does it require less willpower, but it can be downright satisfying to the soul.”
“All right. But if you get your head handed to you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Jay Dee patted the remote in his pocket. “I think this little equalizer here will prevent such a sad occurrence.”
Catalina, quiet till now, said, “I agree with Jay Dee. It’s not good to bottle up your feelings. Sometimes it’s like trying to put a cork in a volcano.”
Jay Dee snorted. “Good comparison in your case, Cat.”
“Hey, let’s keep this conversation above the belt.”
A district of brick warehouses assembled itself around them. Most still retained their old industrial tenants; a few buildings, however, had been vacated and retrofitted for new occupants. On the ground level of one such a sign was hung.
GENE SMITH’S WORLD-CLASS GYM
NAUTILUS, STAIRMASTER, SPARRING
SHOWERS AVAILABLE AT EXTRA COST
They parked in front and got out, leaving Mister Boots meowing aggrievedly in the car. Jay Dee clutched the remote so tight his knuckles were white as cream cheese.
“If you’re scared, Jay Dee, it’s not too late to leave.”
Jay Dee stiffened right up. “C’mon, we’re going in.”
The gym was a large open space with equipment scattered around the floor, a boxing ring in the middle. Many of the machines were in use. In the ring, two men were sparring.
“One of them Gene?” whispered Cat.
“No,” answered Tracey. “That’s him punching the bag.”
Gene Smith wore only a pair of spandex shorts and some unlaced sneakers. He sported short black curls and an NFL-style moustache. His body looked like that of a gorilla which someone had tried to shave with only partial success. The sound of his bare fists pummelling the bag sounded like a hail of hams striking the roof of a circus tent.
“Oo-whee, he’s a hunk!”
“He’s a pig-ignorant macho shit,” countered Jay Dee. “It just ain’t apparent if you let your hormones do your thinking, like Tracey done.”
“I beg your pardon.”
Gene spotted the visitors. He ceased his flurry of blows and came over to them, massaging one taped hand in the other.
“Well, if it ain’t Mrs Smith. Oh, I forgot. It always hadda be ‘Thorne-Smith,’ didn’t it? I never could knock that crap out of your head.”
“Nor never will.”
Gene smiled. “I had a feeling you’d be showing up here, after I read about you this morning.”
“Read about me?”
“Why, sure, didn’t you hear yet? The police got a few questions to ask you, about how the First National roof ended up on top of that dump you were living in.”
“Oh, Jesus . . .”
“Well, I guess you can hide out with me. Though we’ll have to get a few house rules straight first. Hell, I’ll even put your buddies up too. Who are they anyhow? Your little brother and his old lady, maybe?”
“Old lady? I ain’t nobody’s old lady, kiddo.”
“And I’m Tracey’s man, you asshole. The man you never was.”
Gene smiled cruelly. “Is that so? Well, looks like we’re gonna need one less place setting than it first appeared.”
Cracking his knuckles, Gene advanced on Jay Dee, towering over him like a falling building.
“Hold on a minute – I ain’t quite resolved what to do with you yet . . .”
“That’s okay, baby. I know what to do with you.”
“Shit, this is moving too fast – Box, get me a cube!”
A small silver cube appeared in midair behind Gene, who now had one massive fist cocked level with Jay Dee’s nose.
“Bigger, bigger!”
The cube expanded to man-size.
“Open it!”
The cube’s vertical face swung out. Jay Dee lowered his head and ran forward, ramming Gene in the midriff. Taken by surprise, the big man lurched a couple of steps backward. His calves caught on the sill of the cube and he toppled backwards into its capacious interior.
“Close it up! Quick!”
The cube snapped shut and shrank along eleven dimensions.
From outside the gym came the sound of several car doors slamming. Catalina went to the window to look. When she turned around, her face was drained of blood.
“It’s Larry and the smudge-faces. And there’s some other guys – with guns.”
“You told Larry all about Gene, I take it,” said Jay Dee calmly to Tracey.
“A girl’s gotta get some things off her chest, even if the person listening is a jerk.”
“Well, can’t change the past. We’ll just have to deal with ’em. Let’s go out, where we can move.”
They opened the door and filed out, hands raised high.
As Jay Dee had seen from a distance, Larry had sawn off his cumbersome antlers. Otherwise, his long and hairy moose’s visage was unaltered, attesting to the permanency of the Master Remote’s changes.
The moose opened his mouth; sometime during the past night Larry had mastered – to a degree – his new vocal apparatus.
“Gib muh back muh faaaace,” he brayed. A long thread of slobber drooled from his jaw with the effort.
“Larry, I’m plumb sorry, but I can’t. The most I could do – if I wanted to – is to give you and your buddies somebody else’s face. But I can’t restore your own familiar ugly puss. But listen, why do you want to change? Before, you were just another mean and undistinguished son of a bitch. Now you’re unique.”
Larry raised a gun and began to squeeze the trigger. One of the new syndicate goons batted his arm down. The bullet ricocheted off the pavement.
“Listen, wiseguy – I don’t know how you done this to Livermore or my bosses, but you better put them right. Or there’ll be big trouble for you and these dumb broads.”
“This is the second time today I’ve been called an insulting name,” complained Catalina. “I don’t like it.”
“Me neither,” said Tracey. “Jay Dee – whatcha gonna do about it?”
Jay Dee lowered one arm to his side and with his free hand scratched his head. “Well, I guess I’ll have to come down on these jerks like a ton of bricks. Box, the cars!”
An enormous shower of bricks fell from nowhere, completely crushing and burying all the syndicate cars, including Larry’s prized Cadillac.
For a moment the only sound was the clink of a few tumbling bricks. Then, almost but not quite simultaneously, Jay Dee and the head goon yelled.
“Wall!”
“Shoot!”
A twelve-foot cinderblock barrier topped with razor-wire and including a portion of guard-tower intervened between Jay Dee and the women and the toughs. It ran across the whole street, from building to building. Futile gunfire echoed behind it.
“I borrowed part of the local incarceration facility, as I judged these men were lawbreakers. I hope it is suitable . . .”
Jay Dee laughed. “Sure should be an interesting scene at the old exercise yard! Let’s go.”
In the car the remote said, “I feel I am coming to understand your commands much better. A growing empathy now exists between us.”
“I love you too. Okay, Trace, pick up the interstate. We got what we came for. The garbage is in the can. We just gotta figure out the best way to dispose of it.”
They were on the outskirts of town when the sirens began to wail. Just as they were pulling onto the entrance ramp to the expressway, a bev
y of police cruisers screeched through an intersection and, spotting the Lincoln, converged like pouncing panthers.
“Flower to the spirit,” said Tracey enigmatically, before stomping on the accelerator and rocking Catalina, Jay Dee and Mister Boots back into their seats. The big car leaped up the ramp, narrowly missing a tiny Honda bearing a pack of Cub Scouts and Den Mother as it merged into the freeway traffic.
The cops were soon behind them.
Stiff-armed, Captain Tracey whipped the land-cruiser through the crowded sea-lanes as her passengers turned green. Cars swerved onto the road’s shoulder and collided with Jersey barriers. Still the sirens pursued them, all her manoeuvres failing to shake the squad of cop-cars.
“Time for tougher tactics,” said Jay Dee. “Box, can you make those ribbons like elastics?”
“Would you care to specify the Poisson ratio or the strain/stress dyadics?”
“No, man, I wouldn’t! Just string a big tough elastic band across the road to stop the cops.”
“Done.”
Tracey cautiously slowed. Jay Dee looked back.
A wide golden ribbon bisected the highway, anchored to the median barrier and the roadside fence. As Jay Dee watched, its rubbery surface bulged in the shape of four car noses. Instead of braking, the stubborn drivers continued to race their engines. The belt strained forward, bowing out from its anchor-points.
Realizing they were getting nowhere, the cops lifted their feet from the accelerators.
Released, the band snapped the cars backward. There was the sound of tires shredding and exploding, and the crunch of metal and glass.
“Oo-whee!” wailed Jay Dee. “Just like the slingshot I had when I was a kid!”
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” said Tracey, removing one hand from the wheel and flexing her fingers. “But I do wish you’d learn to drive, Jay Dee, just so we could share moments like this.”
“You know I flunked the road test five times, Trace. I just ain’t got the right skills somehow. But if I was perfect, you couldn’t live with me.”
“You may not believe this, Jay Dee, but I find it hard to live with you sometimes anyhow.”
Catalina spoke. “‘Flower to the spirit?’”
Tracey smiled. “Pedal to the metal.”