Ring Game (40 page)

Axel shook Sam’s hand and said, “Hope you didn’t eat before you came!”

Sam tipped his head back, gave Axel a bleary look of semirecognition, and said, “You better take that back, mister.” He raised a fist. “That’s my woman you’re talkin’ ’bout!”

Axel looked at Debrowski, who rolled her eyes and tightened her grip on Sam’s arm.

“Sam’s having a good time,” she said, “Aren’t ya, big guy?”

“Firs’ date in twenny years!”

“He’s snookered,” Axel said, his voice filled with wonder.

“I’m not snoogered.” Sam pulled a pint bottle of Jim Beam from his suitcoat pocket. He tugged his other arm from Debrowski’s grip and uncapped the bottle. “I’m shit-faced,” he said proudly, taking a hit of whisky.

“Jeez, Sam, they aren’t even married yet.”

Debrowski reclaimed her date’s arm. “What do you say we find a place to sit, big guy?” She winked at Axel and pulled Sam toward the back of the hall.

A bright light flashed in Axel’s eyes.

“Hello there, sir! Are you the father of the bride?”

“Uh …” Axel did not know what to say. The light was blinding him.

“We are here with the father of the bride, waiting for the bride and groom to appear. Spirits are running high here at American Legion Post 684.” The camera swung toward the retreating Sam O’Gara, then back to Axel. “I understand that the groom is a man of some importance in the community. A water distributor?”

Axel held up a hand, blocking the bright light. “Listen, do you mind turning that thing off?”

“Just doing my job, sir. Do you have anything to say to the
Hard Camera
viewers?”

“Uh … I’m on TV?”

“That’s right.”

“Uh …Just having a good time here. You see this buffet? We got a lot of food here!”

Axel felt a breeze, heard the rustle of taffeta and Sophie’s flinty voice in his ear.

“Where
are
they?”

“Who?”

“Carmen and Hyatt! Where are they? They were supposed to be here five minutes ago!”

“We seem to have a situation here, folks,” said the cameraman. “The mother of the bride senses disaster. Could this be the beginning of something greater? Something newsworthy?”

Sophie snapped her head toward the cameraman, her mascaraed eyelashes trembling like spastic caterpillars. Taffeta swishing, blindingly blue in the glaring light, she advanced on him. “Who the
hell
are
you
?” she demanded, making a swipe at the camera.

The man pulled the camera up out of her reach and backed up a few steps.

“Turn that light off before I bust it over your goddamn head, you little twerp.”

The light went out.

Sophie returned her attention to Axel. “That Joe Crow was supposed to pick them up. What if he didn’t pick them up? All these people here. What am I going to do?”

Axel clasped her shoulders. “Take it easy, Soph. They probably ran into traffic. They’ll be here.”

Sophie shook herself loose. “If that girl doesn’t show up soon I swear I’m gonna kill her. I need a cigarette.” She scanned the room, head swiveling like a high-speed radar dish. Axel wasn’t sure whether she was looking for the wedding couple or a plume of cigarette smoke. His question was answered when Sophie zeroed in on Sam O’Gara and Laura Debrowski, who were sitting in the back sending up twin smoke signals. She headed directly for them, cutting through the crowd like a blue taffeta bullet.

Axel looked around, disoriented by Sophie’s sudden departure. He spotted the flash of oversize spectacles and the ashen form of Frank Knox, his attorney, standing uncomfortably in the far corner. Axel grinned and started toward him. Frank Knox rarely appeared in public these days. For the most part, he hid out in his cluttered home, avoiding bacteria. Axel felt honored that Frank was exposing himself to this room full of germs and evil vapors. He had almost reached Knox’s corner when a babble of excited voices caught his attention. Axel veered toward the noise. Near the doors, several people clustered around something on the floor. He heard someone say, “Should we call 911? Should somebody be calling 911?” Had someone fainted? Axel pushed into the gathering, curious and alarmed.

The Reverend Buck was standing just inside the doors, shaking hands and waiting for the lucky couple when a man staggered into the hall, blood running down his neck, his shirt collar wet and red. The Reverend’s first thought was that the guy had been in a fight. He stepped in front of the man and caught him, tried to turn him around, get him out of there before he created a disruption, but the instant his hands touched the man’s shoulders, the man collapsed into his arms.

“Are you all right?” Buck asked, even though it was obvious that the man was all wrong.

“They’re gone …” The man spoke slowly, as if drugged. “They got took.” His eyes closed and he slumped to the side. Buck heard others gathering behind him, excited mutters of “Oh my god,” and “Who is he?”

Buck knelt beside the man, keeping him upright. He thought he remembered something about people with head wounds—you were supposed to keep them awake. “What happened to you?” he asked.

The man groaned.

Buck heard a woman calling 911 on her cell phone.

Someone said, “Oh my god—is that Joe Crow?”

The injured man roused himself at the mention of his name. “A man … took them both … Hyatt and Carmen … in the limousine.”

“Who?” Buck asked. “The bride and groom?”

“All gone,” Joe Crow muttered. He sagged to the floor.

Flowrean Peeche gazed in admiration and amazement at the titanium-wrapped Amazon in the mirrored walls of the elevator. Over the past few years she had spent a substantial portion of her earnings on such apparel. Most of her purchases were never worn in public. Workout sweats and her waitress uniform pretty much took care of her day-today fashion needs. This wedding thing, this was her chance to do it right, and she had. That Bigg, she’d be hurting him big time. Make him see what she could do with herself. He liked to look? Well, he could look, but he could never, ever touch. Serve him right. Flo touched her belly, felt the texture of the fabric, softer and warmer than it looked.

She wondered, not sure which way she wanted it to go, whether Bigg would keep his promise not to touch her. If he tried, by god, she’d show him why she was lifting all that daily iron. The elevator doors opened. She stepped out into the lobby and saw, through the glass entryway, Bigg’s long white Lincoln limousine parked at the curb, the back door standing open. From that sector of her mind where the ancient memories reside, she heard a little girl shrieking, “Cinderella! Cinderella!”

Drawn by the open door, Flo floated across the foyer and out to the circular driveway. The inside of the limo fluttered with kaleidoscopic colors. The smell hit her. Flowers. The back of the limo contained a huge bouquet of flowers. Flowers for Flowrean. White and pink roses, a huge spray of chrysanthemums, even a bird-of-paradise.

She climbed inside, pulled the door closed, and settled into the L-shaped white leather seat. The limousine immediately began to roll. Flo looked around the plush carriage, noticing the television set, the bottle of champagne cooling in an ice bucket, the privacy panel separating her from the driver’s compartment. They were on the freeway heading south before she noticed the pair of lime green pumps perched neatly on top of the wet bar.

The Seven Steps of the Amaranth present a formidable flight. Only a few of us have the key to the elevator.

—“Amaranthine Reflections” by Dr. Rupert Chandra

“
WOULD YOU TRY TO
drive smoother, love?” Rupe said, keeping his teeth clamped together. “I’m in agony here.”

He had been warned against opening his mouth. “Avoid talking for a few days,” the doctor had told him, “and try not to eat anything that requires a lot of chewing.” That wasn’t so bad, but they hadn’t told him that every time the Range Rover hit a little bump an intense bolt of pain would arc from his right ear over the top of his head to his left temple. Rupe had never experienced electroshock therapy, but he imagined that this is how it would feel.

Polly said, “I’m not feeling all that good myself, you know.”

“At least you can see what’s coming.” That was the worst part. With the bandages over his eyes, the jerks and bumps and curves in the road all took him by surprise. He never knew when the next painful explosion would occur.

“I told you we should’ve stayed overnight in Rochester.”

“No.” Rupe swallowed. His throat hurt, too. “I wish to be at Stonecrop. I feel horrid.”

“Dr. Bell said you’d be uncomfortable. We should’ve filled that prescription.”

“I don’t need drugs.”

“Then quit complaining.”

Rupe tried to relax his shoulders. The discomfort encompassed his entire body. His thighs were throbbing unpleasantly, and his chest hurt. He felt as though his torso was being squeezed by steel bands. Maybe some pain management techniques would help. He began by regulating his breathing, slow and deep. He emptied his mind, visualizing a featureless gray plain. He imagined himself traveling its surface, seeking out inflamed knots of synapses, surrounding each pulsing node, expunging it with a soft mental squeeze. A simple variation on his cell regeneration techniques, and highly effective. He began to feel whole as the nodes of pain disappeared, one by one. He saw the fibers of his mind relaxing and detangling. His spine seemed to loosen, translating the vibration of the tires on the road into a shimmering caress.

The pain management program was working. Maybe they could offer a seminar on it. People with chronic pain might benefit from this new branch of Amaranthine technology. Maybe if they didn’t hurt so bad they’d want to live longer. He expanded his visualization exercise, imagining his face as it would appear after the surgery healed. His eyelids tightened and youthful-looking from the blepharoplasty procedure, his chin ever-so-subtly larger and firmer from the implant. Rupe had always hated his weak chin. He could hardly wait to see the results.

Of course, he already knew what he’d look like. He’d seen his face magically transformed on Dr. Bell’s computer screen—as amazing to behold as the actual Amaranthine cell regeneration techniques, only much, much faster.

Just then the truck hit a crack in the pavement. A shock wave snaked up his spine; the base of his skull bloomed with agony. Rupe gasped and slumped forward, holding his head in his hands. “I’m going to be ill,” he groaned.

He heard Polly’s exasperated sputter. “You puke in my Range Rover, I’ll hit every pothole from here to Stonecrop.”

Rupe swallowed and attempted to reboot his pain suppression program, but all he could think about was the next bump in the road. “Just get me there,” he said.

The guardrail posts pounded by faster than her heartbeats, the limo going much too fast to jump, but Flo almost went for it. She still remembered paying seventy-nine dollars for those green pumps, and she remembered where she’d lost them. Flo went into trapped animal mode, everything packed tense, ready to explode at the slightest hint of an escape opportunity. She looked out the window, down at the blurred concrete surface of the freeway. If she threw open the door and jumped with all her pent-up strength she might make it over the guardrail onto the grassy median.

The more evolved portion of her brain managed to rein in the flight impulse. She saw herself skidding across the road surface, the techno-Amazon instantly becoming a tattered bloody mess. She whispered, “Just be here for a minute, girl. Just think.”

A mechanical ringing sound, like a cross between a doorbell and a pager, startled her. On the second ring, she saw that it was coming from a telephone handset above the wet bar. After six rings, she picked it up and put it to her ear.

“Don’t be mad.” The voice was deep and masculine. It did not belong to Arling Biggie.

Flo said nothing.

“You okay?” the voice inquired.

Flo said, “Are you the driver?”

“Yeah. I’m the driver.”

“Pull over the car, please.”

She heard a cavernous chuckle. “You okay, I guess. You like the flowers?”

Flo replaced the receiver, opened the door, and kicked the vase of flowers out onto the freeway. The vase shattered. She looked back, saw cars swerving to avoid the sudden floral hazard. The phone began to ring again. This time she let it ring for five minutes before answering.

“I guess you don’t like flowers.”

“You better let me out, whoever you are, or I’m coming right through the back of your seat. Rip your fucking spine out.”

“I let you out, Mizz Peeche, I might never get to know you.”

“You better hope you don’t get to know me. Who the hell are you?”

“Folks call me Chuckles, on account of I like to laugh sometime. We met at the Amaranthine Church, remember? I brought you your shoes back. You see ’em?”

“I see them.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Pull over and let me out, then you can talk all you want.” She heard the deep chuckle again. Amazing that it could come through so thin a wire. “Why should I talk to you?”

“Mizz Peeche, we are movin’ south on I-35 at sixty miles per hour. No stop signs. I just keep the needle steady, no reason to slow down ’cep to fuel up, and there’s enough gas in this stretch to roll us clear to Kansas City. What else you gonna do with yourself? You got nobody else to talk to.”

Flo hung up the phone. A few seconds later it rang again. Flo picked up the champagne bottle, wrapped the bar towel around its neck and swung it as hard as she could against the privacy panel, right where she figured his head would be. The bottle exploded with a satisfying liquid boom. The limo swerved slightly, but the panel held and the phone continued to ring. Flo ripped the television set from the entertainment console and hurled it at the panel. The picture tube shattered, filling the compartment with some nasty dust. Flo rolled down two windows and let the wind clear the air. The ringing persisted.

After a few face-saving minutes, she picked up the phone again.

“Why are we going to Kansas City?”

“We’re not. We just riding. Just makin’ conversation. How you doin’?”