Strange Robby (24 page)

Both partners watched as the man got out of the taxi, and both ducked down lower when they saw him looking around.

When he was sure he was in the clear, Freddy Brown paid the cabby and headed for his building.

Tommy and Spider got carefully out of the car and started walking down the sidewalk in the man's direction.

Freddy's head spun quickly around to look at them. He didn't wait even a second; he took off running.

"Shit!" Spider screamed and took off after him.

Tommy was right behind her, remembering to turn on his comlink and to scream, "Stop! Police!" It was procedure, and it was stupid because no crook ever stopped just because you told them to.

"Fuck you, man!" Freddy sped up and turned down an alley; they followed. He hit the fence and was over—no problem. Spider hit the fence first, but Tommy cleared it before she did.

When they reached the other side of the fence Freddy was already gone. They looked around, but there was nothing. A horn blared.

"Let's go!" Spider screamed and took off towards the street. They rounded the corner just in time to see Freddy run through yet another lane of traffic. Tires squealed as the drivers hit their brakes. Freddy rolled over the hood of one still-moving car and was across the street. Spider and Tommy dodged traffic holding their comlinks up and yelling "Police!" as if that had ever stopped any officer from being hit by a car.

They got across the street just in time to see the son of a bitch run into a four story walk up. They started chasing him up the stairs.

Spider stumbled. Tommy stopped momentarily to see if she was OK. Spider nodded.

"I'm too old for this shit," she panted out.

Tommy nodded and they started back up again.

"You little fucker, when I catch you I'm gonna rip you a new asshole!" Spider screamed.

He ran all the way up and onto the roof, and then the little fucker barricaded the door. Spider and Tommy broke through it just in time to see Freddy jump from one roof to the other. They took off running. At the edge they both stopped, looked at each other, and then looked down. Then they looked at each other again and shook their heads no.

Freddy laughed and flipped them the finger.

"You dumb little fucker," Spider panted out. "We just need to talk to you."

He took off running across the building and was soon out of sight.

"Lost . . . suspect . . . witness," Tommy panted into his comlink. He reached down and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

Spider grabbed her side and collapsed on the roof.

"I'm . . . fucking . . . gonna . . . die. Wish I couldah . . . just shot . . . the stupid . . . bastard," she panted out.

"That . . . would have . . . sort of . . . made it hard . . . to question him." Tommy flopped on the roof beside his partner.

"What?" Tommy asked. He rubbed his eyes and stared at Spider's image on the vid-phone through a sleep-covered haze. He turned to look at his wall clock and started shaking his head. "Never mind. At six o'clock on Sunday morning I don't care what it is. I want to sleep."

"Come on, Tommy," Spider begged. "Look at us! We're turning into old, flabby, married people."

Tommy sighed, threw up his hands and walked into the living room where he flopped down on the couch. She could come in or not; he didn't give a shit. Crazy damned white woman, 6:00 on Sunday morning. He'd kick her ass if that wasn't what she was asking him to do.

Spider walked in but didn't sit down. She was wearing a sweat suit that was so drenched, she'd obviously already been jogging in it. "Come on, man! It'll be fun!"

"Nothing's fun at 6:00 on a Sunday morning." He seemed to realize what she had said before. "And, for the record, we
are
old, flabby married people."

"I don't think we can afford to be."

"Then go play with yourself!"

"I got a woman for that now."

"You know what I mean."

"Come on, don't you want to be in shape?"

"I'm in perfect shape for an old, flabby, married guy. I work out almost every day, that's more than most guys my age."

"For how long? A half hour a day, an hour on weekends? Wouldn't you like to be back in the kind of shape you were in when you were king of Ju-whatsit?" she asked.

"To tell the truth, no," Tommy said bluntly. "What I would like is to still be asleep. To wake up at 11:00, have a Twinkie for breakfast, then sit and watch the fucking tube until my brain is dead, and . . . "

"Ah, come on, Tommy. It'll be fun."

"What it will be is insanity," Tommy said. "Why, Spider? In all the years we've worked together you've never had any interest in learning Jujitsu. Why now?"

Spider sat down; she wasn't bouncing around now. "Tommy, when I was in the service I had martial arts training. Nothing close to what you've had, but I had it. I was in perfect physical shape. I felt like I could handle anything they threw at me, and I damn near died more than once. I don't feel like that right now. I need to be able to walk the razor's edge again, and I only know one person who can teach me that."

Tommy nodded. "This has something to do with losing that punk the other night, doesn't it? That guy was half our age, and he makes his living on those streets."

Spider nodded. "That's part of it, but not all by a long shot . . . The body they found in the river in Forcehaven."

"Yeah?" Tommy said.

"It was Harry Sullivan, the FBI guy I talked to." She whispered in case Laura was up and might hear them. "He had been tortured before he was killed. I think it might have been because he gave me something he shouldn't have."

Tommy took in a deep breath and let it out. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what he gave you."

She shook her head no.

He stood up and started for his room to change. In the doorway he stopped and turned to look at her. "Will you do what I tell you without questioning everything I say?"

Spider nodded.

"You will have to train every single day."

She nodded again.

"I mean it, Spider, if we start this, you're going to have to go all the way with it, or you might as well not bother."

"Tommy, you're acting like I've never been in training before, and I have," Spider said.

"This will be like nothing you've ever done before."

"Good, I'd hate to be bored."

 
"That which has been, it is that which shall be:
and that which has been done is that which shall
be done: and there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9

 

Two months passed with no sign of the Fry Guy or the SWTF for that matter. Spider had relaxed a little, but she hadn't stopped training.

"I thought the crap would stop after the election," Carrie told Laura. "You know, that things would get back to normal. But for about three weeks afterwards the press were still on me like flies on shit . . . "

"Don't you love all the wonderful metaphors you learn living with a cop?" Laura laughed.

Carrie nodded. "Thursday in court I almost told the jury to look at the 'fucking' facts in the 'fucking' case and find the 'fucking scum-bag' guilty. It never ceases to amaze me how many uses Spider can find for the word 'fuck.' Sometimes I think 'fuck' is the only word she knows. Except of course for the ever-popular 'scumbag.' Anyway, I had about decided that I had made a big mistake running at all, and was trying to think of ways—without having a heart attack—that I could just let Chalmers take over for me. But then Congressman Hampton got caught with a transvestite, and suddenly I was old news."

"Thank God for scandal," Laura said with a laugh.

There was a loud thump against the living room wall, and one of the pictures rattled fell off and landed on the couch. Carrie was glad she had decided not to sit there. Before either one of them had a chance to run into the garage, Tommy poked his head in the door.

"No one hurt." He panted to catch his breath. "No hole . . . in wall."

"Aren't you playing a little rough?" Carrie asked. Since they had started this martial arts training kick there was barely a week went by that Spider didn't have at least one new bruise. "I don't want to have to take her home in a bag."

"What are you worried about?" Tommy asked, rubbing at his head. "I'm the one who hit the wall." He shut the door and ran back into the garage.

"As if that somehow makes it alright," Laura said, shaking her head. "Tommy says she learns very fast, and she has apparently showed him a couple of moves he didn't know. Just last week he was telling me how wonderfully she was doing, as he held an ice pack over his eye where she had blacked it."

"I'm sorry," Carrie said, shrugging helplessly. "I don't know why she got it in her head to do this, but I know that it's turned your schedule upside down, and I'm sorry."

Laura shook her head. "I'm not. Carrie, Tommy loves Jujitsu. Hell, it's the one thing in this world that he will admit that he's good at, but he had all but stopped practicing. I'm glad he has someone to train and spar with. I have never seen him so self-confidant or motivated. I just wish he'd loosen up a little bit. Have more fun with it instead of being so intense all the time." Laura got up and put the picture back just in time for someone to slam into the wall and knock it off again. She threw up her hands and sat back down as Tommy's head popped in the door.

"No one hurt. Wall not broken," he gasped, and disappeared again.

Laura smiled broadly. "Since he's fighting again he's about three times as horny as he was before."

"And that's almost never a bad thing," Carrie said with a grin.

"Focus, Spider," Tommy ordered.

"OK." Spider took a deep breath. Just how long had she been standing on her fucking hands? Felt like an hour. All the blood in her body was in her hands and brain; her feet were going to sleep. Sweat was running down her cheeks and into her eyes.

"Focus!" Tommy ordered.

"I am!" Spider spat back.

"No you're not. Your mind is all over the place. You're thinking about how much your arms hurt, and how much your back hurts, and how the sweat is stinging your eyes. You're thinking about how long you've been on your hands, and how much longer I'm going to make you do it. Don't think about anything but standing on your hands."

Spider thought he was ridiculous.
Standing on my hands, that is what I'm thinking about. Hell! That's all I am thinking about. Standing on my hands. My hands are on the floor, my feet are in the air, my head is hanging free. My back is straight. I breathe in and I breathe out—nothing else matters except that I am standing on my hands.

"Spider you can come down now," Tommy said. "As you come down, tuck into a ball, roll across the floor, and then jump onto your feet."

She did it with little or no trouble. She looked at him and smiled.

He smiled back. "You have learned much, Grasshopper. Just don't get too goddamned cocky."

They walked into the house together, Tommy on his hands.

"Show off," Spider said as she plopped on the couch next to Carrie. "I'm dead, I don't know how you can do that."

"I don't know how either of you can do any of it," Carrie said. "Show Laura your muscle, Baby," Carrie said grabbing Spider's arm.

"No," Spider laughed as her face turned red.

"Come on, Baby," Carrie taunted. "You showed me."

"Come on, Carrie." Spider tried half heartily to pull away.

Tommy laughed as he grabbed two beers out of the fridge. He grabbed one by the neck, threw it up and spun it till he was holding onto the body of the bottle, and then he hurled it bottom first at Spider without announcing that he was doing so. Carrie and Laura both screamed, but Spider caught it with her free hand without so much as a fumble. "I can't believe you're embarrassed about anything," Tommy said.

"I can't believe you're throwing full beer bottles through our living room at her head. Don't do it again," Laura warned.

"I am so impressed by the amount of testosterone in this room," Carrie said jokingly. "Come on, Baby, show Laura your muscle."

Spider laughed. "Only if it will make you leave me alone."

Spider made a muscle, and Laura clapped her hands in appreciation.

"Fucking impressive, huh?"

Tommy promptly started putting on a whole show, flexing everything that he could flex in front of company and singing "I'm too sexy." Then he started swinging his shirt around his head.

They were all laughing at him, he was the center of attention, and for the first time that he could remember he felt comfortable with it.