The Last Bender, Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 

          In a series of identical rooms I was handed back my clothes, keys and wallet, but not the guns. I signed blurry forms and endured the removal of the U and thunderbolt from my hand. It left behind a faint white scar. “A souvenir of your stay in Tudor Caravan,” the technician said. As we approached the last door I felt nothing at all. I had been dry cleaned and pressed. I shook myself out and put myself back on but I didn’t fit right yet. I viewed the world of Urizen through a film of psychic lint balls. Light bulbs showered spores. Humans left soft pink trails of spent energy as they passed.

          The guard opened the last door. The room swallowed us into its hot, peopled gob. Color gushed into forms: the deep resonant brown and red of varnished wood; worn tan and beige of linoleum squares with wandering surges of white and black spots; the frogspawn texture of incandescent light, each egg touched with rose and pale blue; butter colored walls, a patina of condensed tobacco grease speckled with fly shit; the perfectly still, indigo uniforms prone on the floor, fingers interlocked behind the heads. Helen Stark was in charge. She held a shotgun over one and then the other. Two city cops in combat fatigues covered the doors.

          “Jack,” she said. “You’ve been discharged. Let’s go.”

          That cued the man on the inner door to step away. We walked backwards onto the sidewalk. The sun was low and all the shop fronts were lit up. People jogged by. Around the corner, on the main street, traffic was slow. They pushed me into the back of a black MetroPolice van and drove.

          “You look like a rolled anchovy,” she said.

          “I feel more like a meat ball. How long was I in for?”

          “A day. Linda got word yesterday from the desk sarge and started tryin’ to spring you. Urizen kept handin’ us the yo yo so Linda sent me down to negotiate. They played legal, said they had to have a robe’s writ, and we turned ’em friendly.”

          “One day?” I asked. “My god, I thought it was months.”

          “It’s those fucking drugs they use. Paralytic Implants.”

          “I feel like giving them a peristaltic implant with my fucking boot. Thanks for springing me. Where’s my car?”

          “The local color towed it. They’re askin’ ten to get it out.”

          “No deal. Let’s make a better one.”

          “O.K.,” she said and then, into the intercom, “Monty, find the car pound.” Helen was so pissed off she wouldn’t even look at me. I couldn’t figure it out. Then I remembered about the bloodbath. And how if Braque had put so much together, I had to watch my ass around her. No matter what, I had to get rid of her, and right away, before talking to David Watts. We pulled into some driveway. The MetroCops opened the door and handed me a 45. The four of us entered the tiny plywood office fronting the lot. A monstrous, medieval mutt burst into outraged barking and threw itself around behind the counter. Eventually an unshaved man rumbled in, maroon T shirt riding up his belly, his skin tattooed blue and green. He told the dog to sheddep and gave it a halfhearted kick. It backed off and watched from the corner. He looked at our guns like they bored him.

          “You get a preblem?” he asked, pushing out his cheek with his tongue.

          “We’ve come for my car,” I said.

          “You geut peppers? You geut kesh?”

          “Nope,” I said.

          “Den no keh,” he said, turning around. I fired a shot in the ceiling. He stopped and faced us. “Try det again and you get your keh back in a borx. Now gete yir gangsteh asses etta here or I feed yi to my dugs.”

          “Hey buddy,” Helen said. “The guy asked for his keh. Now go get it or we’ll eat your precious fucking dugs.”

          “Leddy, who deh fuckeh you?”

          She pointed the double barrels at his nose and said, “The last face you’ll eveh see.”

          “Des oin’t de city, kep. Des eh Tudeh Cara Venom.”

          “And this is the last time I ask polite. Give him back his car.”

          “Yeah, jest like det, I’m gonneh give it beck, best wishes from de keh pund. Right.”

          Helen smiled and relaxed her arms, lowering the gun. He eased down too, confidant he’d called her bluff. Helen waited for that one second when the flex of his eyes released and he uncurled his fingers, to swing the shotgun butt into the side of his head. The man hit the ground squirting blood all over the walls. The dog seized up and went nuts.

          “Shut up, Fido,” she said. “C’mon, let’s get the car.” The dog was trying to jump over the counter, but he was too muscle bound. He snarled and dripped spit, clawing at the Formica top.

          One of the cops said, “Shoot that fucking thing.”   

          “I ain’t shootin’ no dog,” Helen said. “I’d rather shoot a man. We’ll drive through the fence and take it that way.”

          Once we had my car out on the street Helen and I stood by talking while her back up blew a joint in the van. The sun was almost set and the sky was a high purple touched with verdigris. It soaked the parking lot in its grey and yellow light.

          “So, you’re going back to the city now?” I asked.

          “I dunno. What are you doing?”

          “Oh, you know. Just a little business. For work. My case.”

          “Well, they play to win here. You could use a hard throwing closer.”

          “I’m good for nine,” I said, with a touch of hurt pride to make it look good.

          “Last time out you got rocked.”

          “It’s personal.”

          “Now that I sprung you Jack, we’re good friends. And good friends always share their business.”

          “It’s an interview. A sister of someone who worked at the lab. Wanda Watts.”

          She nodded her head. “You must be hungry. Tell me about it over a burger.”

          The Boar’s Tooth Pub had a large plastic sign out front. It was made to look like chiseled wood, and depicted a cartoonish boar impaled on its own teeth. It swung morosely in the evening breeze. Candle lit couples consumed items blurred by the texturized amber windows. Since the only other place was a Mighty Morfin’ Donut, and I hadn’t eaten since lunch with Dr. Perry, this was a logical choice. I parked my tangerine dings between a plaid sedan of foreign make and a full sized Piet Vandler with the classic pattern of red, yellow and blue squares. Every time I tapped one of the bumpers the alarms went off. By the time I was done a small crowd of balloon toting tots and their latex polychrome guardians had formed. We pushed through them and entered the joint.

          Helen lit up in the vestibule, French inhaled and ducked a little to get in through the door. I brushed against her on the way to the table.

          It smelled like char broil and fryolator fat. Intense waitresses in scanty colonial-style uniforms and white bonnets rushed to and fro with trays of fried food and drinks, blowing stray hair locks from their eyes. They paused at various stations on the floor to eat an onion ring, sip a lemon cola or take a drag off a cigarette before hoofing it to the food lights, where the nuked vittles congealed.

          Everything was made of dark plastic wood, even the chairs. The recessed lights were a gelatinous orange. Except for the kitchen and its populace (whose sweating whiskered mugs flashed into view in a narrow band of white light between the heat lamps and metal counter), everything was colored by this infernal flicker between red and yellow and brown. The townsfolk who had earlier appeared as beach balls now cropped up as pumpkins.

          The waitress asked if we would like our complimentary basket of fried squids. She brought us water and bread sticks filled with cheese. I read over the menu. It was a Watts owned restaurant. I guess he had all the Tudor Caravan contracts. The menu promised that every burger was 100% beefâ„¢. Yeah, the registered trademark bugged me, but I was so hungry I didn’t care if it was Soylent Green. We ordered baconâ„¢ cheeseâ„¢ burgersâ„¢. Helen got hers with mushrooms.

          Despite all the harebrained bustle, no doubt induced by a muscular management team, service was incredibly slow. By the time the waitress had made her way through the throng of idiots she had forgotten about our request for a clean fork and more water. In fact, she looked distinctly pregnant.

          “Nah,” Helen said through a gush of smoke. “She’s just fat.”

          “I dunno. None of the others are.”

          She looked around. “Waal I dunno, maybe you’re right. But I think fat. Ya work in a joint like this and first thing your ankles swell and your gut sticks out a mile. It’s the eat and run, eat and run. After a while, all you got a taste for is starch. Those big salads you see the thin guys dump a quart of ranch on–they make you wanna hurl. So you suck down French fries and mayo on the side. Plus the stress of havin’ some asshole yank yer chain every five minutes, when he’s not taking a shit on your tits.”

          “They do that?”

          “Not at first. But most restaurant owners will get around to asking, if you’re there long enough. We all gotta eat.”

          The waitress came with more water and drinks and the squids. She breathed hard, trying to get the stuff off the tray without knocking into us with her belly. Sweat rolled down her cheek. “You see?” I said after she waddled off at top speed.

          “It’s true it didn’t shake none. So tell me, how’d you end up on ice in god country?”

          “Well, it was like this. I stop to ask directions and next thing I know, I’m in lock up. We couldn’t speak or look at anything. And everything was so clean, except for the bucket of piss; and quiet, except for the farts and grunts and coughs.”

          “That was toy town’s drunk tank. Who you in there with, Davey and Goliath?”

          “I don’t drink.”

          “Neither do they. But you were there. You aren’t curious why?” She chewed an O-Ring of squid.

          “The drunk tank,” I muttered. “I wasn’t drunk.”

          She gnawed away at the same piece and asked, “Who’s this Wonder Watts?”

          “Wanda Watts. She’s mixed up in that mess at Monozone.”

          “I’d say someone here doesn’t like you.” She spit the wad of food into her napkin and made a face. “Blech. Fried erasers.”

          “Yeah, I admired your bravery.”

          “I wonder why.”

          “What’s that supposed to mean?”

          “Why a two bit pussy like you would admire bravery.”

I stared at her. She leaned forward. “Who’s Wanda Watts?”

          “If I tell you, will you go home?”

          She laughed. “Jack, it’s not time to deal. I’m not on the job. I want to know who Wanda Watts is.”

          “She’s the sister of David Watts. Their father is a very big wig. He owns, among other things, this restaurant. He also owns that jail I was in, or at least I think so. David worked for St. Claude. He wasn’t kidnapped with the rest of them. He was out sick when it happened.”

          “But you never got to talk to them.”

          “That’s right. I never got that far.”

          The waitress arrived with our food. Helen dumped catsup and mayo and mustard on hers and took a big bite. I soaked off some of the bacon grease with a napkin. I was so hungry all I could do was eat and lick my fingers, pausing only to drink the lemon crush soda.

          “I ordered mine with mushrooms,” she said. “There’s no mushrooms.”

          “This place stinks,” I gasped between bites.

          “This whole fucking country stinks. It makes me wish I was back in prison. In the joint, I knew my friends. Out here, I can’t even trust my partner. Everything is worse than I remember it.”

          I salted my food and nodded.

          She continued: “There was another one you know. Another bloody room. The papers are calling it the bloodbath murders. People are starting to fray. Now where’s that waitress? I want my damn mushrooms.” She lit up a cigarette with a little gold lighter. On the lighter was a hologram of an elf that smiled and frowned. Then she tossed down the bottom inch of ginger ale, ice and all.

          I craned about. Way across the room, frying under the lights, stood our waitress, hand on hip, torpedo belly pushing out her blouse. All the hurry had undone her bonnet; it was crooked and the ties swung against her chin. She didn’t wear black stockings like the other waitresses. She looked like her head was about to hit the counter. Two plates of food appeared and she grabbed and stacked them up her arm with one move, hooking the cruet set with her pinky. Then she headed our way.

          “Can ya catch her eye Jack?”

          “I’ll try.” I played air castanets and slammed my eyebrows up and down. She nodded her head.

          “You know what was in the blood Jack?” I didn’t respond. “Fungus extract. It comes from a grape. It makes you trip, and hard too. Much harder than acid. But the funny thing is it only grows in France. And the French, they don’t let it out of the country, ’cause it makes this wine that sells for all kinds of money. You need a scientific research license to import it. And only two companies have applied for the license in the past few years. The first was a Horizon Corporation in Pine Point. Denied because they thought it was a front for Island vineyards. The other was Monozone. Granted.”

          “Helen,” I said, “she’s–“

          Helen looked at the waitress and said, “Look hun, I’m sorry, but I ordered mushrooms.”

          “You did?” she asked in a distraught whine, flipping frantically through her checks. “Where are you?” she mumbled, “twenty-seven, twenty seven…oh…here!” Then she dropped the checks and tried to bend over to get them, which didn’t work either, so she squatted.

          “Let me,” I said.

          “No no, please, it’s all right. If you get up I’ll be fired.” She put the checks together and stood wearily. “I didn’t write it down. I’m really really sorry. Do you want another burger?”

          “Naah. Just a side.”

          “O.K. You wanna side.” She stopped speaking and went blank. She took a sharp breath and looked surprised. She shut her mouth and swallowed hard. A tear welled up in her eye.

          As Helen and I asked if she were all right there came this soft spattering sound. I thought I’d knocked over a glass but it was the fluid streaming out of her skirt, down her leg and onto the floor. She trembled all over and wiped the tears from her eyes with increasing panic, breathlessly saying “I’m sorry I’m sorry,” over and over again.

          Helen stood. “Don’t worry about it hun.” She put her hands on her shoulders. “Sit down.”

          “Ohmygod I’m sorry. I can’t. I just can’t. I’ll be right back with your mushrooms–” and she ran off, wet legs and all.