Black Rust (21 page)

Goose nodded but didn’t interrupt.

“How fast the Regulators kill the degenerates, how accurate they are when they shoot,” said Workman, “that’s what my IT boy called the kill rate.  The higher the number the better, for the Regulator anyways.”

“That skinny Regulator did most of the shootin’,” said Goose.  “How does he compare?”

“Ain’t nobody close to that skinny one,” answered Workman.  “That boy’s a killer.  My IT guy can’t find anything about his past, thinks he might be an assassin out of Mexico, maybe some kind of spy or something.”

Goose’s voice squeaked up an octave before he could catch it.  “What’s he want with us, comin’ back here to the farm?”

“Can’t say.”  Workman shook his head.  “But one thing I do want, is you to get seven or eight of your trustees—your best shots—and put them on guard around me until we find his body in the river.”

“You think he’s here to kill you?” Goose asked.  “Why?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out,” said Workman.  “I’m out of ideas on this one.  I’m just not taking chances.”

“The last thing we’ve got to take care of,” said Workman.

“Yessir.  What’s that?”

“Dr. Galloway.”

“I got no problem with it,” said Goose, seeing a chance to redeem himself in Workman’s eyes.  “I’ll do it myself.”

“It can’t be you,” said Workman.  “Not now.  There’ll be state scrutiny of this mess with that bastard Doggett onsite.  He knows what opportunity looks like.  He’ll call in the Texas Rangers to investigate, and they won’t leave until he squeezes enough money out of me to buy himself another mansion in Dallas with a new whore to keep the bed warm.”  Workman’s anger came to a quick head and he pounded a fist on the desk.  After snorting a few times, his voice returned to sinister calm.  “I need to make sure Galloway’s….” Workman took a moment to firm his resolve, “…death doesn’t have anybody’s fingerprints on it.”

Goose was disappointed, he wanted very badly to take Sienna Galloway out in the woods, find an abandoned house to keep her in, and put her to good use.  The thought of those defiant blue eyes turning to tears, getting his hands on those perky tits, squeezing that ass was just too much.  Goose could smell her sweaty fear.  He could taste her on his lips.  He could—

“Goose!  Goose!” Workman snapped his fingers to get Goose’s attention.  “Stay with me.  Sometimes you drift off.  You make me worry.”

“Sorry, Boss Man.  Just tired.  You know.”

“You’ve got a criminal mind, Goose.  Have you got any ideas on how to solve our Galloway problem?”

Goose sprawled in the chair, scratched his neck, and put on a show of dredging his imagination but he already had an idea.  He just didn’t want to make it look easy.  “This morning, when I was getting them signatures you asked for…” Goose paused, fishing for some gratitude along the way.

Workman nodded slightly and said, “Good job with that.”

“I took that big Bully Boy, Toby.  Told her I was gonna let him do things if she didn’t sign.” 

Workman nodded as if he hadn’t heard this story.

“Thing is,” said Goose, “I think if I left Toby in that cottage alone with her, I think he’d take care of her all on his own.  He ain’t right in the head, not by a long shot.  I think he might tear her up.”

Workman grimaced. 

“He’s sweet on her in ‘is way, if ya know what I mean,” said Goose, “but I think we won’t find nuthin’ but pieces when he’s done.”

“I didn’t realize he was that bad.”

Goose showed Workman the Taser he kept on his belt.  “I got to urge ‘im a lot, to keep ‘im in line, you know.”  Goose patted the pistol in its holster.  “I figure he won’t be ‘round more than another month or two anyway before the Brisbane eats what’s left of his brain.  I’ll have to put ‘im down.”

Workman understood and moved back to the question at hand.  “What if she gets away?”

“All I got to do is get ‘em in the same room, same house, don’t matter,” said Goose.  “Toby’s awful fast for a big boy and ever’ bit as strong as he looks.  She won’t be goin’ nowhere.”

Workman gave it some thought.  “Get it done, as soon as you can.”

“I’ll git Toby over there right away.”

After she’d loosed the degenerates, the satisfaction she’d felt from her rebellion had lasted about fifteen minutes.  Now she felt disheartened over the futility of it as she sat in a chair staring at the door on the far end of the occupational therapy room.  Through that door sat her desk in the office she shared with her staff.

Despite the apparent unassailability of her employment status, she didn’t want to go back there.  She didn’t want to have to face what was probably waiting for her—a summons from Keith Workman, an email or a message on her phone.

In whatever form that message came, it would formalize the escalation in the war between them. 

She’d be required to go to his office for a meeting.  He’d yell and stomp like a gorilla defending its territory, all the while making sure she knew just what a physically powerful man he was.  He’d make sure she understood how close he teetered on the verge of losing control.

The threat of violence would be perfectly clear but completely unprovable. 

The worst of it was that she didn’t know if the tantrums were an act.  If not, then she knew a day would come when he’d cross a line in his mind, and he’d harm somebody, likely her.

Do I want to risk my life for this job?

She knew she was sacrificing her health already.  She wasn’t sleeping well at night.  She hated getting out of bed to face her days.  When she looked at herself in the mirror in the morning, she saw a woman who was aging past her years.

Her eyes wandered over the brightly colored walls painted in murals of simple, happy people working the fields, tending farm animals, hauling the harvest.  It was Soviet-era propaganda art with degenerates in the place of proletarians. 

In her hands, she fidgeted with a simple puzzle toy, one of hundreds in the room used for assessing and training degenerates with rudimentary skills.

When was the right time to admit defeat and quit?

Maybe in releasing the doomed degenerates, she’d already decided, but hadn’t admitted it to herself. 

She looked again at the door on the back wall of the occupational therapy room.  Her computer waited for her back there.

Maybe her best path forward was to go to her desk and put together the exposé she’d been fantasizing about for months.  She could write a compelling piece—complete with supporting documents, pictures, and video she’d surreptitiously collected—that would show everyone the truth about the abuses in the corporate farm system, Blue Bean in particular.

From where Goose stood under the tree facing Toby, he was able to see the training compound nearly a half-mile away.  The gate was still open, and from what he’d been told by Workman—whose IT guy had triangulated the position of her cell phone—Sienna Galloway was in there, probably sitting at her desk.  Goose had one of his trustees sneak around the training compound to confirm.  Except for a few d-gens too stupid to leave the compound, not a single trustee or employee was anywhere near.

It was like she was begging for it.

Hell, maybe she knew Workman’s revenge was coming and she’d given up.

It was possible.

Goose had seen women break before, seen them stop fighting, seen the last speck of hope drain from their eyes.  You could do most anything to a woman once she ran out of hope. 

But that moment when the hope faded…Goose savored it.

He sighed.  Big, stupid Toby was going to have all the fun with Galloway.  He’d be there the moment the hope blipped away from those bitchy blue eyes, and he was too stupid to appreciate it.  The worst part—Goose would only get to see the mess afterward. 

“Ya see them buildin’s over there?” Goose pointed at the training compound.

Toby looked in that direction, drool dribbling down his chin.

“Close yer mouth,” Goose ordered.

Toby turned back to Goose and did as told. 

“You see that open gate?” Goose pointed again.

Toby looked.

“Nod if you understand.”

Toby nodded.

“See that buildin’ right there by the gate, the white one?”

Toby nodded.

“You know how to open a door?” Goose wasn’t sure.  A door handle, sure, you pull or push and the door opens.  With a knob, it needs to be turned, and
then
pulled or pushed.  Connecting an action that seems to produce no result with the action you want takes a small degree of abstract thought.  Most d-gens couldn’t make the leap.  But Toby was a few grades up from your standard dumbass degenerate.

Toby didn’t give Goose any indication he understood.

Goose reached up and slapped Toby on the cheek.  “Listen boy!  A door.”  Goose pantomimed turning a knob and opening a door.  “You understand?  Can you open one?”

Toby looked at Goose for a few long moments with nothing but confusion on his face until a sudden spark flickered somewhere behind his eyes.  He nodded.

“Good, good.”  Goose laughed.  He pointed again.  “There’s a door on that white building inside the fence.  You walk down there and go through it.  You understand?”

Toby nodded.

“You go inside and go to the back of the room.  There’s another door back there.  You gittin’ what I’m sayin’?”

No response.

“You understand what I’m tellin’ you, boy?”

Toby nodded, and when his head pitched forward a gob of drool spilled over his lip and ran down his chin.

“You think you’re droolin’ now, boy?  Looky here.  You remember that pretty lady you and me saw this mornin’ in her towel, all that nekkid skin hangin’ out?”

Toby nodded enthusiastically.

“I knew you wasn’t too dumb to forget that.  Prolly the nakedest woman you seen that didn’t stink like a hobo’s ass.”  Goose grinned again as he thought about all that smooth skin. 

Toby was still nodding.

“She’s in there.  She’s waitin’ fer you.”  Goose reached out and grabbed Toby’s crotch.  “You take this here little pecker, and you stick it in her.  You hear me?”

Toby made some garbled noises that didn’t mean anything in an educated sense, but Goose understood.

“Now if she tells you no, don’t you listen.  If she tries to stop you, you go right ahead anyways.  She ain’t got no sense.  She’s crazy.  You just do whatever you want.  Now git.”  Goose slapped Toby on the shoulder.  “Run on down there and do it.”

Toby took off at a jog.

Goose watched for a bit, making sure Toby was heading to the right place.

Satisfied, Goose turned and hurried toward the administration building.  If any question ever came up as to how Sienna Galloway had come to be raped and murdered by Toby, Goose needed to be sure he was free and clear with an alibi. 

Goose swung the lobby’s glass door open and displayed his snaggled teeth in a lascivious grin at Irene.  “Anybody call you ‘bout that big dumb Bully Boy wanderin’ ‘round?”

“What’s that you’re talking about, Goose?” Irene sat up straight in her chair and scooted away from her computer monitor.

“With everything else goin’ on,” said Goose as he reached the reception counter, “seems that boy wandered off too.  Been tryin’ to get him put back in his cage.”  Goose stopped and corrected himself.  “I mean, room.”

Irene shuddered and looked through the glass walls on the front of the lobby.  “That boy scares me.”

Goose shrugged.  “That’s what they supposed to do.  Scare regular folks, I guess.  He was an Army d-gen, you knew that, right?”

“I knew.”  Irene glanced at her computer.  “Saw the requisition before it got sent out.”

Goose made a show of looking around.  “Some of the boys said he come this way.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him.”

Goose looked back out through the glass.  “Hell, prolly went on back to his bed anyway.  I’ll prolly find him there later.”  He looked down at the phone on Irene’s desk.  “You mind?”

Irene shook her head and scooted the phone closer to Goose. 

Goose picked up the receiver, “Dial the Boss Man for me, honey, please?”

Irene did so.

The phone rang once before a familiar voice came on the line.  “Workman.”

“Boss Man,” Goose glanced at Irene and gave her a wink to make sure her attention stayed on him.  “I’m down here waitin’ just like you asked.”

“Good,” said Workman.  “Is that thing we talked about taken care of?”

“In the works.”

“Good.  You stay in the lobby with Irene.  Sit in one of the chairs and wait.  Tell her I’m delayed.  How long do you think this might take?”

“Not long, I should think,” said Goose.  “How long you wanna give it?”

“I’d feel comfortable with a couple of hours.”

Goose had too much to do to waste two hours sitting in the lobby working on his alibi.  “Oh yeah, somethin’ you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“We picked up one of them Regulators.”

Workman’s tone changed instantly, from baseline annoyed to something near happy.  “That’s good news.”

“A couple of the boys got him up north of the property, wanderin’ in the woods like he was lost.”

“Off the property?” Workman asked, slipping back to annoyed again.

“Don’t nobody know that, ‘specially him.”

“Did he say what they were doing coming back here today?” asked Workman.

“Didn’t say nothin’ about any of that, far as I know.  You want me to have the boys ask him some questions?”

“No,” Workman answered quickly.  “Nothing like that.  Not yet.  I’ll tell you what.  Have your boys bring him over.  Make sure he’s not armed, and then you bring him on up here.  We’ll have a talk and get some answers.”

“Yessir.”