Shop Talk (26 page)

Sheltered by the video store awning, Marvin stared across the street and into Bo’s Electronics. He half-expected to see Driskell flitting about in the shadows, hard at work on appliances that numbed American society into a state of total malleability. In a sense Driskell and Bo would be responsible for what happened to themselves. And soon.

The evening was balmy, though it was growing late. Marvin sauntered down the street and came back, his attention never wavering from the television shop. Driskell and Lucille were gone. Bo and Iris were in the apartment. Marvin’s teeth clicked loudly as he bit down on the irony of the situation at hand.

Perfect. He’d get what he wanted from Bo, finish him off, contact the feds, and make his demand for money. Lucille he’d deal with over a more lengthy span of time. The Hares did not have to be alive for his extortion to be effective. It was not who they were in life, but what they were in history. With the money he obtained from his blackmail scheme, he and his associates would be able to complete their research and carry on the great work of a superior society too long suppressed. A half a century had been wasted, but now the target was in focus, and the work far more necessary than it had ever been in the past. The world was being over-run by inferior specimens. It was time to take control, to halt the degradation of the human race.

Marvin slipped stealthily across the street and shoved the electronic keyer into the lock. He was inside.

“Bo, did you hear the front bell?” Iris called out from the apartment in back.

Marvin ducked behind a wall of televisions. “Yeah, I’ll check.”

The apartment door opened. A golden rectangle of light stretched across the cement floor with Bo’s shadow in the center of it. Bo walked forward, right into the barrel of Marvin’s German luger.

“Have a seat, Bo,” Marvin said as he stepped out of the shadows. “And call your wife up here. Unless you’d rather change your marital status to widower.”

Bo took in the shadowy form of the lean old man, the steady hand on the gun, the glint of evil in his eyes, and he called out, “Baby, there’s a crazy man up here with a gun.”

Marvin nodded his approval. “Tell her to have a seat. This can be quick and easy, or very, very painful and long.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got until midnight. After that, I want to find that nasty Peter Hare and that sister of yours and put an end to the possibility that another Hare might ever reproduce.”

Lucille crouched in the high Johnson grass that lined the ditch beside the ornate iron fence. She was somewhere in the godforsaken wilderness of north Harrison County. The sun had set half an hour before, and darkness was complete. Driskell had gone inside the gate to scope out the terrain. He had left her to gather the members of WOMB as they arrived.

In the darkness she stumbled over a clump of dirt and realized she’d knocked the top off a huge mountain of fireants. Backing away, she heard the approach of a large truck coming down the narrow farm-to-market road.

Lucille stood up to signal. When the lights turned suddenly on her, she was blinded for a moment. It was the smell of burning diesel that alerted her to the danger. The smell was one of childhood mixed with fear and sweat, panic and the burn of lungs desperate for oxygen after running and running and running. Somewhere in the potent mixture was the whisper of the corn husks and the see-saw laughter of her uncle. Peter had come for her.

With every ounce of strength, she ran. The open road was stupid. He’d squash her like a fat toad if she stayed where the footing was easy. As if her body had decided the direction long before her brain could make a choice, she ran down the ditch and straight toward the gate. Scrabbling, tugging, and kicking with both back feet, she managed to wiggle through just before the big truck barreled onto the drive.

The headlights illuminated the narrow dirt driveway and Lucille rolled to her feet already running. She was down the path a good fifty yards when she heard the tortured skre-etch of the iron gate as the big cement truck blasted it to bits. Peter slowed inside the gate, laughing aloud as he searched left and right as far as the headlights would illumine.

“Lucille!” Peter called. “Lucille, I’ve got a present for you.”

Lucille kept running. Somewhere to her right came the angry snort of a very large creature, and too late, she remembered the buffalo. The big animal began to run parallel to her with only the pines separating them. She could feel the weight of the animal as the soft, moist soil quaked. Behind her the gears of the truck protested as Peter Hare came after her.

Out of the darkness a slender form sprang straight at her. A forearm locked around her throat as black silk swept over her head. Lucille yielded totally to the power of Driskell LaMont as he swept her off the path just before the glaring lights of the cement truck struck the spot where she’d stood. Together they cowered in the pine needles as Peter drove the cement truck past them, still laughing as he searched for his niece.

“Stay quiet,” Driskell warned Lucille. “There are soldiers all over the woods, not to mention cows.”

Safely pressed against Driskell, Lucille felt no need to talk. Except to ask one question. “What kind of soldiers?”

“I don’t know. They’re in uniform and they’re making beer. Case after case of beer.” Driskell was still amazed at the sight he’d discovered deep in the woods. “There’s a large factory, and two old men in white doctor’s smocks are supervising. Big machines are bottling the beer, and the soldiers are casing it and loading it onto trucks. It’s some operation.”

“I thought it was a beefalo ranch.” Lucille distinctly recalled the photo and Andromeda’s comments about crossbreeds.

Driskell signaled her to silence, and in the stillness of the piney night, they heard the sounds of crisp military commands coming from the direction of the factory. “Peter’s made it to the beer.”

Lucille recognized her uncle’s voice raised in anger, but there was another voice. A harsh order was barked in some foreign language. Automatic gunfire sounded a short blast, and then there was silence. “Maybe they shot him.” The idea was pleasant.

“Listen!” Another noise caught Driskell’s interest, this one from the gate area. Someone was coming down the drive. Gravel scrunched closer and closer.

Driskell gently pulled Lucille deeper into the shadows. “If you want to leave here alive, don’t so much as breathe,” he whispered.

Lucille was intently aware of the feel of Driskell against her back. Though she’d never faced such danger, she’d never felt happier. He was behind her, solid as a pine sapling. His arms held her protectively, but there was something more. Something wonderful. She had no intention of uttering a sound that would interrupt this intense moment between them.

“Scatter!” The order came from a female and there was the sound of several people clumping into the brush.

Lucille recognized Mona instantly. “Here we are,” she called. They had come. The members of WOMB had really come.

“Lucille?”

Lucille stepped onto the path. Before her eyes the trees began to shift as bodies stepped from behind them. Coco was easy to recognize, as was Mona. And Andromeda. And some man who held Coco’s arm as if she was his prisoner. Lucille felt the sting of tears. WOMB was there in force.

Driskell emerged from the trees, his pale face the most visible of all in the soft moonlight that filtered onto the gravel road.

“Is Marvin here?” Mona asked. “I’ve got a little surprise for him. Robert is free. He’s safe with Dallas.”

“Congratulations,” Driskell said as he stepped forward to pat her shoulder. “If you ever get tired of writing, there may be a job for you in the government.”

“I’m considering a position or two. Now, where is Marvin?”

“I haven’t seen him, but he may be in the beer factory. They’ve got quite an operation going back there in the pines.”

“Then let’s get him.” Mona started forward, drawing her wire clippers from her bosom. “He has some questions to answer, and I know a little game that will make him inclined to talk.”

The sound of light footsteps on the gravel made them all stop. “Wait. Wait. Wait.” Jazz was running down the drive toward them, a sheaf of papers flapping against her side. In the dark she didn’t see Andromeda and collided against her with such force that her bee-hive finally tumbled in a big curl of surrender. Holding out the pages, she completely ignored the betrayal of her hair-do. “I found medical records at the VA on some of the soldiers stationed on Horn Island. Every single one of them was sterile.”

From deep in the woods an explosion and a ball of flame lit the night sky. The writers turned to look at it, unaware that something in the woods crept closer to them. A snort behind Jazz made them all freeze.

“It’s the buffalo,” Andromeda said, taking off her sunglasses and tucking them into her pocket. “No one move.”

The snort came again, along with the sound of heavy hooves. “It’s the entire herd. We’re going to die,” Jazz said. “We’re going to die, and I haven’t been to confession in three years.” She turned to Driskell. “In that black cloak you look something like a priest. Would you hear my sins?”

“Tell Lucille,” Mona snapped. “She can use it in
Forbidden Words.
She’s got everything else under the sun in there.”

“Do something, Mona,” Lucille countered. “It’s only an overgrown cow and you were a rodeo queen.”

While the challenge hung in the damp night air, the buffalo moved with blinding speed. A small pine tree snapped before the power of the attack, and Lucille found herself twenty feet away from the massive head of the angry bull. Snorting and pawing, he scored the earth as he took aim.

“Yip! Yip! Yip!” Mona leaped out from behind a cluster of wild huckleberries. She bounded, deer-like, jumping astride. The beast gave a loud grunt of surprise as she tightened her legs around his sides and dug into his ribs with her heels. “Let’s go, big boy,” she cried. Hanging onto the thick mat of hair, Mona lifted one hand in the air and kicked with all her might. “The Mississippi Rodeo Queen rides again,” Mona yelled.

“Ride ‘em, cowboy!” Lucille managed.

“I’ll try to take them out through the gate and set them free,” Mona called. She was using heels, thighs, hands, and teeth to steer the enraged buffalo toward the open gate.

Peter Hare held the cigarette lighter up to the spigot of the giant can of roach spray he’d bought especially for his niece-in-law. “I’ll torch you alive until your eyes melt,” he threatened. Behind him the cement truck was a smoldering heap. He’d barely gotten out of it before the soldiers incinerated it.

Looking left and right, he counted the two old men in white lab coats and about thirty young men with close-cropped hair and lean jaws. They all wore fatigues and boots and carried expensive weapons that sprayed bullets as if they were match sticks. Peter was greatly outnumbered. He’d planned on dealing with Bo, Lucille, Iris, Driskell and that gang of perverted women, not a paramilitary organization run by two old dudes who bore a strange resemblance to Boris Karloff.

“Give it up, Hare.” One of the older men finally spoke. His tones were guttural, his accent German.

“I came out here to get my niece. All I want is Lucille Hare.”

The old man smiled and waved the soldiers to lower their guns. “Then we have a common goal,” the old man said. “Perhaps we can work out a deal, yes?”

Peter nodded. He slowly lowered the Zippo and the roach spray. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

“I am Dr. Custer.” The old man extended his hand. “And this is my associate, Dr. Saxon. We are both very interested in the Hares. Perhaps you have made the acquaintance of another of our contemporaries, Marvin Lovelace?”

“The name ain’t familiar.” Peter kept his eye on the soldiers. The two men were old, but there was a certain alertness about them that belied their age. Their blue eyes were quick, shrewd. It would take only a motion of a hand to have him drilled as full of holes as a pair of his worn socks.

“Mr. Lovelace has been interested in your niece and nephew for several months.” Dr. Custer smiled as if the corners of his mouth were being pulled by springs. “He served with your brother, Happy Hare, in the military during the … war.”

“Hell, Happy never did nothin’ but sit over on that spit of sand off the Mississippi coast and pretend he was off in Europe killing Germans.” He saw the flash in Custer’s eyes. “No offense there to your heritage.”

“None taken.” Custer’s voice was smooth, almost hypnotizing. “Where are Bo and Lucille? Perhaps Marvin is with them now?”

“I don’t …” Peter swallowed the last of his thought. How could he be certain that once he told this old dude what he wanted to know the old fart wouldn’t kill him outright? The soldier-boys were drilling holes in him with their pale eyes. He could taste their desire to pull the trigger. “Bo and Lucille have gone into hiding. Someone tried to blow Lucille to pieces.” He saw the tension pass over Custer’s face and knew that this man was somehow involved. “I got no fondness for my niece,” Peter added, shrugging one massive shoulder. “Or that Jersey-boy she’s taken up with.”

“Mr. LaMont.” Custer glanced at his associate. “A most unusual specimen. We’d like very much to talk with him if you should happen to know where he is.”

“He’s with Lucille.” Peter had begun to enjoy this encounter. He had all the aces, and they had nothing. They didn’t have a clue that Lucille and Driskell were right on the property. He took a deep breath, swelling his chest. Behind the soldiers, bottles of what looked like beer were passing down the line, being capped, boxed, crated, and stored into the back of large trucks that bore the logo, ‘Alpine Lager. Have a beer and make the world a better place.’ “Is this here a new brewery?”

“Would you like a cold beer, Mr. Hare?” Custer’s smile was angelic.

“Now my whistle is sorta dry. I think a little brewsky would make it easier for me to talk.”

Custer signaled one of the men who went behind the machine and returned with a bottle dripping with ice and condensation. The solder flipped off the top with his thumbnail and handed it to Peter.