Elvendude (25 page)

Daryl glared at him, his blood boiling over.

Behind them a pair of headlights appeared. The new arrival distracted him momentarily as it pulled up beside the 'Vette. What he thought was the outline of a cop car turned out to be a black Superbeetle. It didn't sound like a regular Volkswagen, and he assumed it was modified.

"Just remember this," Mort said as he opened the passenger door on the bug. "We can wreck your precious car and kill your friends anytime we want. For real. This was just a sample of what we can do to you. Just so long as you keep smoking our product, we have you by the balls."

Daryl shook his head. "No, you don't." Then, softly, "I want out."

Laughter ripped through the air between them. "You want out. You want
out!
Surely you jest!"

"I'm not kidding. I want out."

"Well, tough shit, sonny!" Mort shouted. He got into the bug, which started to pull away. Daryl walked after it.

"You have no say in the matter," Mort said as the bug pulled away. "You're working for us now."

Daryl walked after the bug, then broke into a trot as it sped off.

"And remember this, human," Mort yelled. "If you fuck us, we'll kill you!"

Daryl watched the bug pull away, get onto the on ramp, and take off down Highway 75.

He considered chasing it down. In his car, this would be no problem, no matter what kind of nonstandard engine the bug had in it. But he knew such a move would be pointless, that everything the little demon had said was true.

"They have me," he said to the night, his eyes welling with tears. "They have me by the balls and they're not going to let go."

Adam and Marbann sat in the King's Geo, several yards away from Daryl and his Corvette. On their right was a desolate concrete graveyard, beneath ribbons of more concrete, forming the junctions of various highways. On their left was the historic district. It looked almost as if a time line had been drawn, dividing the two areas neatly with asphalt.

Adam had pulled the Geo across the rough gravel beyond the parking area, a strip of crumbling asphalt next to an old train station boarded up with plywood. About twenty cars were lined up on the strip, most belonging to the teenagers who came and went, purchasing Black Dream from Daryl at their leisure.

They were rather close to him now, and they saw without a doubt what the others were doing. If he had called out in a loud speaking voice, Daryl would have heard him.

But he would not have seen them. With little help from Marbann, Adam cast a concealment spell that rendered the little car and its occupants invisible. After the initial spell was in place, Adam tweaked it so that the Geo cast no shadow, left no tire tracks in the gravel. Marbann pointed out the obvious danger of this sort of concealment, that while the car was invisible it still existed on the human's plane, and if anything like a truck or a bus struck it at a high rate of speed, the results would be the same.

So they sat within a stone's throw of Daryl, watching him deal his drugs. The amount of currency his friend was accumulating amazed Adam; in the short time they had parked there, at least a thousand dollars changed hands.

"He's got to run out sometime, you know," Adam said. "Unless the car is filled to the ceiling with those damned little amber bottles."

The King tried to keep the mood light, but the more he watched, the grimmer his mood became. Daryl acted like a hunted animal, hawking his dark wares with an urgency that chilled Adam's blood.

No. Not a hunted animal. A hunted zombie. There is absolutely no emotion in his eyes.
Despite his best efforts, his heart filled with sadness.

Marbann seemed to understand. "Don't let it rule you," he said softly, touching Adam's right arm. "We can help him, if you want, when our own lives are not in such peril."

"We must," Adam said. "I feel responsible."

Marbann gave him a hard look. "For what? His addictions?"

"Well, in a way, I suppose," Adam said. He didn't really know what he felt responsible about. There was only a distant feeling that somehow Daryl's problem was his own.

"That is incredible arrogance, young King," Marbann said mildly, turning his attention back to Daryl, his car, his clients. "To think that you have so much power over his life. And you didn't even know you were an elf, much less an elven
mage.
"

Adam glared at Marbann and checked his anger.
What is he telling me, that I'm a fool?

Marbann continued his lecture. "Did you tell him to start drinking himself silly? To smoke cocaine until his lungs bled? I think not. These were all decisions he made on his own, and as much as you would like to view yourself as a god in his world, you had nothing to do with those decisions."

Adam fumed. "How do you know? You've only been here a few days. You don't know the humans like I do. Gods, until recently, I've been a human, for
years.
In this short time, how have you become an expert on the situation?"

Marbann yawned, deliberately, it seemed. "It is amazing how much is the same. How elven and human psychology can be so different, and at the same time eerily familiar. If you think about what I've said, I believe you will see some truth, if only a glimmer."

Adam returned his attention to Daryl, wanting to change the subject to anything else. He felt his control of the discussion slipping, and he didn't like that.

Easy, now. Is that the arrogance Marbann just got through warning me about? I think it might be.

As he considered Marbann's words, he began to understand them a little more and admitted part of what he'd said.
No, I didn't make him do what he's doing. If anything, I'm trying to make him stop.

And that's not working, either. . . . 

"Look sharp, young King," Marbann said. Adam snapped out of his musings long enough to see Daryl get into the Corvette and drive off in a cloud of dust. "It would appear he's run out of his supply."

Adam started up the Geo and followed Daryl, but his friend seemed to be in a big hurry. His little Geo, with its fuel-efficient but underpowered engine, sounding like a lawn mower when he floored it, simply did not keep up.

Riding in moving vehicles horrified Marbann, particularly when he drove faster than a running human or elf, so it didn't look like he would be much help with what he had in mind.

"Marbann, are you belted in?"

He was. Adam reached . . . 

Uncertain what the powers would do to his motor, he eased his way back into the power nodes, difficult to do with his eyes open, and siphoned some off. The weak stream went into his engine, transferred directly to the wheels and the rubber.

The car lurched forward on the highway traffic, quickly passing a two-trailer Freightliner, a Yugo, a Volkswagen Thing.

"Young
King
!" Marbann squawked. "Remember, we are not visible. If a craft decides to pull into us . . ."

"Oh, ah, yes," Adam replied. "I
knew
that," he added, though he hadn't remembered.

The speedometer lay dead and buried on the right side of the dial. All he knew was that he was going faster than ninety. Much faster.

The little Geo didn't handle those speeds very well, so he diverted some of the power into the steering, hoping he wasn't about to kill himself.

They caught up to the Corvette just as it was exiting at a ramp. Adam signaled out of habit, then remembered the car, the signal, and the passengers were still invisible; at least he hoped they were.

"Where are we, young King?" Marbann wanted to know. "I don't recognize this place."

Adam pulled into the parking lot after Daryl, found an isolated and empty section of pavement off to the side no one would likely park in, and turned the crazed little Geo off.

"Well, I'll be damned," Adam said, scratching his head. "He's going into an athletic club. What kind of drug dealing is going on in
there?
"

After unloading the
Jetsons
box of Dream in the parking lot of the West End District, Daryl congratulated himself on making it through most of the day without encountering Mort.
I must be doing something right,
he thought.
But there's still time for him to show up.

In anticipation of selling all of his stock, Daryl phoned Presto to let him know he would probably need some more at the end of the day. Presto replied with an offer which, at first, sounded too good to be true.

When he pulled into the parking lot of the New You Fitness Center, it was beginning to look like it
was
too good to be true.

"This sucks," he said, looking around. Not a fancy car in sight. Old beat up GM's and Japanese and Korean products, no Beamers, no Lexus, no Mercedes. Not even a
Cadillac,
for crissakes.

Presto must be nuts to think he can make any money selling Dream in
this
hole.

Resigned to at least checking it out, and with the evening's haunting memory of the car crash that never was, he forced himself to open the door and walk into the fitness center.

As predicted by the nearly vacant parking lot, the club wasn't all that busy. In the reception area was a counter island with a bored but good-looking lady sitting there, talking on the phone. In the background he heard the steady
clink, clink
of weights, the whirring of a few exercise bikes and StairMasters. The place smelled like sweat and chlorine.

This really sucks,
Daryl thought, and he turned to walk out of the place.

Before he got to the door, a deep voice boomed behind him.

"You must be our new employee," the man said. He was a big, blond, Nordic athletic type, who looked like he'd never touched a drug or a drink in his life.

"You must be mistaken," Daryl said, but suddenly felt compelled to stay.

The man smiled broadly, showing a perfect set of teeth.
Predator's teeth,
Daryl thought.

"Did Presto send you?" the man said.

Daryl looked away, unable now to look directly at him. "Yes," he said, finally.

"Well, then, that's excellent!" he said, stepping forward. "My name is Peter Pritchard. I'm the general manager of the New You Fitness Center. And you must be Daryl Bendis."

"Yeah," Daryl said laconically as Peter crushed his hand.

"Come this way. I have
so
many things to show you."

Daryl stifled a groan as Peter put a large beefy arm around him and led him to his office, closing the door behind them. Though he'd never been in a health club before, the degree of luxury he found was not what he expected. It resembled his father's own well-appointed workplace, the one downtown, not at home. The desk was a dark wood, probably mahogany; the interior design lavish, with lots of natural wood paneling and glass, giving the place an aura of wealth. As Daryl sat, the leather chair squeaked under him, and smelled new.

Peter leaned back and regarded Daryl through steepled fingers. "It seems to me this isn't what you had in mind," he said, with a hint of anger behind his voice. It was the same sort of ominous tone Mort had used with him, and it got his attention.

Daryl cleared his throat, which had constricted to uselessness. This man frightened him, and his body was letting him know it. "Tell me the deal," Daryl said, trying to sound brave. His voice's cracking on the last syllable spoiled the effect.

Peter chuckled, shrinking Daryl's ego even more. "Ah. The direct approach. I like that. Well, the 'deal' I assume you're talking about is the dealing of drugs."

Daryl nodded. "Uh-huh. Presto sent me. Presto told you what I was here for."

"Presto works for me," Peter said bluntly. "And you'd best not forget that. So whether you realize it or not, you've already been working for me for some time now. It just wasn't necessary to know who I was. Until now."

Daryl gulped.
Jeez. The Man. Why the hell didn't Presto tell me?

"It occurs to me," Peter said, leaning back in the enormous leather chair that looked more like a small couch, "that you haven't gotten rich selling ten-dollar bottles for Presto."

Daryl shook his head, but held his silence.

"That car of yours, which you have insisted on hanging on to, must cost a fortune to operate. We know your father bought it for you, in a blackout drunk, without benefit of insurance or tags."

"He bought the tags," Daryl said. "The insurance, well . . ."

"Is taken care of," Peter said, pulling a drawer open. He presented Daryl with a large manila envelope. "Consider it a down payment. If you're going to be selling quantity for us, it would not do for you to be arrested for driving without insurance."

Daryl cautiously opened the envelope and pulled out the forms. Two insurance verification forms fluttered out.

"All you have to do is sign," Peter said, handing him a fountain pen. "Then we get down to business."

Ten minutes later, Peter was showing Daryl the locker rooms. "There's not much going on this time of day," Peter said, glancing at his watch. "It's only three. Around five, when everyone else gets off work, the place will be full."

Daryl hated locker rooms, as they reminded him how alien the athletic world was to him. He'd never been comfortable in sports at school and dropped gym after the ninth grade. There had been a major row with Dad then, who expected him to be a football star before he was eighteen. Since then, the subject of his masculinity had occasionally come into question, particularly when he got into scrapes in school over drugs and alcohol.

"Look, we're not asking you to become a Mr. Universe. Since you're young, you still have a naturally defined build that half the people in here are working their asses off to achieve."

Daryl was beginning to see what Peter was getting at.
As long as he doesn't try to seduce me or some shit like that,
he thought, but that didn't seem to be a real possibility. Even though Peter was masculine and straight-acting, he knew from experience that was no proof of orientation. No, Daryl knew the vibes, and Peter was not sending them out.

"Presto's known you awhile now. He tells me you're a good con."