Aurora Wolf

Deja-who?

Rory Steves

“Who are you?” my wife screamed, “What are you doing in my bed?” She paused long enough to look under the sheets, and discovered we were both nude.

     “Rape!” she added to her screams, whose sheer volume had roused both of the kids, who promptly joined in the screaming.

     Sherlock’s confused barking added to the fray, I motioned him to silence.

     The boy hurriedly dialed 911, whose operator, hearing the screams, dispatched no fewer than four cars full of New York’s finest.

     The beautiful, dark skinned Asiatic woman, and both children, had no inclination to follow my advice and calm down, but continued to pump out decibel after decibel of screaming accusations.

     Sherlock, ever obedient, stood to my side, silent. The golden labrador / husky mix seemed as confused as I was.

     The little girl was only too happy to open the front door, allowing the horde of police to storm into the house. Cuffs were snapped on my wrists so quickly I would have testified, under oath, that I was born with them.

     “I woke up, and that man, that horrible man,” her volume, under coaxing from the officers had dropped below the pain threshold, but promised more was available if needed, “was in my bed, naked, it is obvious that he had forced himself on me during the night.”

     Forced? She had been insatiable all night.

     The two children told how they had heard their mother screaming, who couldn’t at that volume, and raced to her bedroom to find a stranger there, in bed, with their mom.

     “And he was naked,” the boy made certain the officers could sense his disgust.

     What a way to start the day.

     “Alright bub,” the officer in charge, Demondlin his name tag read, “What’s your story? You get lost?”

     His fellow officers thought he was funny.

     I shrugged.

     “I’m her husband,” I said simply, “my wife’s name is Che-ahn, my son,” I pointed with my chin at the kid who could forget about getting a raise in his allowance anytime soon, “Jeremy, is twelve, my daughter,” who looked at me in horror, “Samantha, is eight.”

     “Eight and a half,” Samantha said in defiance.

     When did we have kids?

     “The dog is Sherlock,” I added, just trying to be helpful.

     “He is not my husband!” my beautiful wife protested, “my husband died in the war three years ago. I hate dogs!”

     She produced a photograph, showing a guy in uniform, hugging my wife and kids. No dog.

     Had my wife gone nuts? Had she been cheating on me with Mr. Uniform?

     “He don’t look a bit like you,” Demondlin observed, “well?”

     “My wallet is in my pants,” I nodded my head to indicate direction; the cuffs vetoed using my hands to point, “besides my ID, there’s a picture of my wife and I. The address should match, and my keys should match both the front door, my office,” I nodded again, “and my Z-car out front.”

     When did we have kids? You’d think I would remember something like that.

     “1924 Bedford Place,” he read our address from my license, “picture matches, and so does the snapshot of the two of you.”

     “Impossible,” my wife declared, she looked at our wedding picture in the officers hand with a mixture of shock and horror.

     “Where did you get this?” she demanded, “and how do you know my children’s names? Have you been stalking us? Are you one of those perverts that likes little kids?”

     “Since I woke up in your bed,” I always called it ‘your bed’ during an argument, “that would rule that out I think.”

     “Che-ahn,” I pleaded, “what’s going on? This isn’t funny.”

     “You are not my husband,” she insisted, screaming; “get out of my house!”

     “It’s my house,” I argued, “I bought it three years before we met.”

     “My husband and I,” her retort was pure fury, “saved for years to make the down payment, this is my house.”

     “Can I get dressed?” I asked an officer, “I’d like to shower.”

     “Both of you should get dressed,” Demondlin said, and then looked at me, “I doubt the lady wants you to shower here, grab some clean clothes, you can shower at the station.”

     “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

     “Not yet,” he said, nodding to one of his fellows to unlock my cuffs.

     “Thanks,” I said, quickly putting yesterday’s clothes back on, then I walked to our closet, and opened it.

     One clean change of clothes, including socks and undies, hung waiting.

     “Where did those come from?” my wife asked, did I mention how beautiful my wife is? Or how much we love each other?

     When did we have kids?

     “You gave them to me last Christmas,” I said, biting my lip, “Jeremy gave me the tie, the socks are from Samantha.”

     “Who are you?” My wife’s tone was less hostile, more quizzical.

     “I’m the guy,” I said, more depressed than I thought possible, “that promised to love you for the rest of my life. I always have,” I looked straight into her deep brown eyes, “and I always will.”

     I grabbed my briefcase, and walked out, before she could see the tears.

     What a hell of a morning.

     “Your name,” Demondlin asked from the front seat of the patrol car, I was in the back, of course, “Roger DeCannes, you the guy that writes those books?”

     “I’ve written a few,” I admitted, “hey, thanks for having one of your guys bring my car, and my dog.” I had spent months restoring the Z-car; the straight six engine could produce a respectable amount of torque.

     “Hell, she’d probably throw rocks at the dog and car both,” he observed, “that’s just more paperwork, domestic quarrels are a real pain.”

     Half a dozen blocks east, two north, and we were at the local precinct. Its proximity explained the cops’ response time, and was a factor in why we had bought the house.

     We? I had bought the house three years before we had ever met.

     Che-ahn had been so happy to have the police nearby, she worried about the kids. I was just happy that we had found the financing for it; the down payment was a bitch.

     “I need a drink,” I said aloud. My head was trying to decide between pounding and spinning, pounding was winning, but spinning refused to surrender.

     “Gotcha covered,” Demondlin whispered, “after you sign my book! I’ve got one of the original copies of ‘Recon Landing’ in my desk; bet I’ve read it a dozen times, man can you write!”

      We seem to have become friends.

     I didn’t bother telling him that I had never written a book entitled ‘Recon Landing’, or that my books, the ‘Fairy Circle’ series, were children’s books that guided the reader on voyages of self discovery.

     Popular with children, teachers, and parents, I doubted Demondlin had ever read one.

     Freshly showered, I joined Demondlin at his desk.

     Seated at his desk, he opened a drawer, and with seeming reverence extracted his copy of Recon Landing. He looked at the photograph of the author, glanced at me, smiled, and passed me the book, and a pen.

     “I’d be honored,” he said.

     I smiled, accepted the book and pen, and lifted my hand as if drinking; he got the point, and produced a half full bottle of black label, and two glasses.

     I casually turned the book over; my picture stared back at me.

     I could swear it winked.

     My day was not improving.

     Turning the book back over, I opened the cover and wrote,

     “To one of the finest of New York’s finest, my thanks,” I signed it with a suitable flourish.

     I have no idea what the book’s about.

     Demondlin read what I wrote, and looked like he was going to cry, he took a quick slug from his drink instead.

     I joined him.

     Then he, of course, introduced me to everybody, and I mean everybody, in his department, he even introduced me to the two ‘perps’ in the holding cell.

     One of them shook my hand.

     Back at his desk we shared a final toast, clinking glasses.

     I wondered if there was enough whiskey in the world to unravel my tangled little corner of it.

     Before I decided to find out, my briefcase rang.

     I opened it, and extracted the cell phone, pressing the green button.

     “Roger!” the voice of Chuck Never, ‘Never say never’, boomed from the earpiece, “can you spell triple?”

     “Only if it’s a drink,” I answered, shaking Demondlin’s hand, and walking out to my vintage pickup, and Sherlock, who at least seemed happy to see me.

     Chuck Never was the best literary agent in the business, and had ‘Never’ failed to elicit top dollar advances from publishers for each of my books, up unto his death last year.

     I had given the eulogy.

     Getting seriously drunk was starting to sound like a wonderful idea.

     “What do you mean, triple,” I asked, ignoring the fact that my dead friend was on the phone with me.

     “Triple the money, baby!” his dead voice boasted, “I’ve got not one, not two, but three checks here for you! The publishers are already getting advance orders for ‘Recon – Square one’. It’s going to be number one before it even reaches the stores!”

     “Good job, Chuck,” I forced myself to sound happy, “can you mail them to me?”

     “What, you too lazy to climb a few stairs?”

     “What?” I asked; Chuck, when he was alive, had offices in Manhattan, not the Bronx. Did he move into new digs when he died?

     “Look up you nut,” he told me, “I’m right across the street from you.”

     Of course he was. I could remember helping him get settled in, in Manhattan.

     I looked up to the two story building, and he waved to me from the huge plate glass window I had always admired.

     Sherlock barked a friendly hello, and wagged his tail.

     “Bring that old mutt with you,” he offered.

     We climbed the stairs to his Manhattan office.

     I looked at Sherlock, “weren’t we in the Bronx?”

     He seemed unconcerned.

     “Come on in,” he called from his inner office, the one with the plate glass window that gave him a beautiful view of Manhattan, and the Statue of Liberty.

     When your office is forty stories above street level, you usually had a nice view.

     We had only climbed one flight of stairs.

     Sherlock, skipping the pleasantries, ran to the window, scaring the pigeons outside into instant flight. His responsibilities finished, he lay down, and enjoyed the view.

     “Sooner or later,” Charlie told me, “you gotta have them going for it on the Statue.”

     “Maybe,” I said, trying to figure how that related to Recon-Square One.

     “‘Amber waves of Blond’,” he said, “will be out next week, and it’s already sold out on a pre-order basis! Just like ‘Panther Princess’ did!”

     He passed me an envelope containing the three checks, and a couple of advance copies of ‘Amber waves of Blond’, whose cover featured a voluptuous blond laying back against several lions.

     There seemed to be a second line of books I had written, unknown to me. I flipped one of the books over, my picture smiled back at me, its grin mischievous.

     ‘The hottest writer of erotic harlequin romance novels in literary history,’ it said below my name, adding ‘the father of the sexual revolution’.

     I put the books in my coat pocket.

     “I’ve been thinking,” I said, “of writing a series of children’s books.”

     He was still laughing as the elevator delivered us to the first floor.

     The day refused to get any better.

     The first check had my address in the Bronx where my beloved wife and darling children lived. I parked the pickup in front of our bank, and deposited the check to our joint account, taking a bit of cash for me.

     Yes I know, she had just accused me of being a rapist, and worse, but I still loved her, and wanted to help support her, and our children.

     Hey, every marriage has the occasional glitch.

     The clock behind the teller showed it was 12:30, and my stomach was growling.

     “Any place to eat around here?” I asked.

     “Two doors on your right,” she said, quietly adding “pervert” as she turned away.

     I ignored the slur, wondering which books she meant.

     Sherlock walked along next to me, as if reminding me that we had both skipped breakfast, his look was hopeful.

     ‘Liberty Burgers’ the sign said over the doors, with ‘you’ve tried the rest, now feast on the best,’ printed on the door.

     Printing on the window advised ‘micro-brewery on premises.’

     Sherlock licked his lips.

     I poked my head in the door, and asked the curly headed guy behind the counter, the name Ski was embroidered above his shirt pocket, “Anyplace I can leave my dog?”

     “Guard dogs are welcome,” he smiled, “so long as they’re decent tippers!”

     His customers laughed, most had dogs by their tables, we entered, and I claimed a vacant stool at the counter.

     “What can I get you?” Ski asked, menus didn’t seem to be available.

     “We missed breakfast,” I said, “so, how about your best burger, well done, fries and a beer for me,” I looked at Sherlock, “and four burgers, rare, fries, and two beers for my friend.”

     The only thing Sherlock loved more than meat, was meat and beer.

     Hey, at least he wouldn’t end up with dog breath.

     “Coming up,” Ski said, buying two beers for my dog seemed perfectly natural to him.

     “When did you start allowing dogs?” I asked.

     “Since September eleventh,” he answered.

     “Since September eleventh, twelth, thirteenth, fourteenth,” another patron added.

     “And November fourth, and December third,” yet another diner chimed in, adding “they say Los Angeles still glows in the dark.”

     “They say it will cool down,” Ski commented, “in about ten thousand years.”

     The chuckles were grim.

     Halfway through the best burger I had ever eaten, I had my little notebook out, and was scribbling in it; I always did character studies when opportunities arose.

     “Curly hair, with a ready smile, and hands proven capable of turning mere hamburger into a gourmet feast, Ski was a welcome addition to the Recon team,” Ski was reading my notes as I wrote, “hey, that’s me! You write those Recon books?”

     “So I’m told,” I said, “is Ski a nickname?”

     “Yeah,” he said, “my last name is Wosenawski, can you even imagine how many fights I got into in school with a name like that?” he grinned, “I don’t get in so many fights going by ‘Ski’.”

     I added this to my notes.

     “Are you putting me into your book?” he seemed both amazed, and proud.

     “Yeah,” I told him, “I killed off that guy everybody hated, so in you go!”

     It seemed likely there would be an unpopular character in what I assumed was a military/action series.

     “I tried to reserve a copy of Recon-Square One,” Ski told me, “but they’re sold out, now I gotta wait three months for the next run.”

     He seemed depressed at the thought.

     I checked my coat pocket, and pulled out one of my advance copies of Recon – Square One, and opened the cover, signing it with my usual flourish.

     I handed it to him.

     “You gotta be kidding me!” he was as happy as a twelve year old with a subscription to Playboy, “Thanks!”

     I paid the bill, and told him to keep the change.

     Sherlock belched, loudly, as we exited.

     After driving a few blocks we came to a small park, and Sherlock indicated a walk would be an exceptional idea.

     Beer does that to him.

     Finished, he saw a squirrel that was in need of being chased, and did so with enthusiasm.

     As the squirrel bounded up an oak tree, my cell phone rang.

     “Forgot to tell you,” Charlie Nevers, my dead agent said, “but Kalb is gunning for you, so keep your head down.”

     “Thanks,” I said, wondering who Kalb was, and why he was gunning for me, “but he’s a lousy shot.”

     “Can’t write worth a damn either,” Nevers agreed, ending the call.

     I was about to whistle for Sherlock, when I noticed he was teaching a lovely poodle the joys of womanhood.

     I sighed, found a bench, and sat down.

     Finished with the poodle, he promised his unending love and devotion to a German sheppard, a golden retriever, and two hounds.

     Red meat does that to him.

     “Does he ever slow down?” an elderly gentleman asked from the next bench.

     “Only when he runs out of available females,” I admitted.

     Finished with his manly duties, Sherlock trotted over, and we walked to the pickup, and drove west.

     My second check showed an address in a town in Pennsylvania, my road atlas informed me it was in western Pennsylvania, and boasted a population of three hundred and seventy-one people.

     I wondered if my wife would be home.

     Picking up the audio book version of Recon – Square One, ‘read by the author’, from the seat, and no, I don’t remember how I got it either, I put the first tape into the cassette deck, curious to see if I wrote a good action-adventure book.

     My voice issued forth from the speakers, a bit deeper, and huskier than my normal voice.

     The words, which I will not repeat here, were definitely action oriented, man-woman type of action, I listened for a couple of embarrassing minutes, then ejected the tape, placing it back into the case.

     ‘Amber waves of Blond’ was, without a doubt, an erotic harlequin romance. The back cover boasted that ‘no women has yet been able to read more than one or two chapters of DeCannes work without immediately raping her husband, boyfriend, or any other readily available male.”

     Maybe I should have given a copy to Che-Ahn.

     At the next light, I rolled down my window, and gave the book to a lady in a jogging outfit, who was listening to a walkman.

     Her boyfriend waved, and called, “thanks!”

     ‘Father of the sexual revolution’, that’s me.

     Two blocks later the rear window shattered, the bullet continued through the front window, giving it the usual spider-web of cracks.

     He must have been practicing.

     I skidded the pickup into a hard turn, driving a couple hundred feet down a cluttered alley. I had only spotted two shooters, and thought it best not to bother the police with my problems.

     Setting the brake, I jumped out, pulling my pistol out from under my arm with practiced ease, aimed and fired before my ground level assailant could finish aiming for a second shot.

     The two bullets made an absolute mess of his skull.

     I’m fairly certain I’ve never fired a pistol before, ever.

     A rifle bullet smashed into the trash can four feet to my left, idiot couldn’t hit the ground if he fell on it.

     I spotted him leaning over the parapet of a three story building, and took quick aim, but not at him, instinctively I aimed at the brickwork he was leaning against, and fired.

     The brickwork exploded, and down he came to an unfortunate, and final, meeting with the pavement.

     His ridiculous flattop haircut made the ID easy; only Kalb wore his hair like that.

     “Plagiarism is an ugly word,” I told his corpse, and shot him again, the bullets seemed normal this time, so, figuring the third time’s the charm, I fired again.

     The explosion made certain nothing connected the north half to the south half.

     Sitting again in my pickup, I looked with some curiosity at my pistol. It had two barrels side by side, with the two hammers linked together.

     ‘.25 caliber dual magnum semi-auto’ it read on the side, the manufacturer was identified as ‘Deadeye custom defense.’

     Curious, I ejected the magazine, finding dual, but staggered, rows of bullets. Half of them had hard steel points, nice, the rest looked like regular bullets, except they were red. The last two bullets at the bottom of the magazine were green.

     I always carried two extra magazines, but thought a reload would be prudent. So I opened the glove box and removed the two boxes of shells.

     As I suspected, the sharp steel ones were labeled as ‘armor piercing’, while the red ones carried the description ‘stabilized nitro’.

     Very nice.

     Ever since the politicians, in an effort to appease the terrorists, had banned all but .22 and .25 caliber pistols for civilian use, gunsmiths had become creative.

     So now the terrorists weren’t satisfied with merely blowing up planes over population centers, but had branched out into shootouts on the city streets of America.

     The politicians who had voted for the gun ban stood little chance of re-election.

     Gunsmiths were busy, and popular.

     After relieving Kalb of his curiously heavy wallet, Sherlock and I decided not to stick around.

     Least he could do was pay for the new windows.

     A few blocks away we found an auto-glass shop, and pulled in.

     “1973 Cadillac Sedan Deville,” the owner said in admiration, “body’s in beautiful shape, what’s under the hood?”

     “I took out the wimpy 454 cu. engine,” I bragged, enjoying how his eyebrow raised up at ‘wimpy’, “and dropped in a 500 cu engine from an ambulance, six-pack replaced the four barrel carb, and I’ve got a four speed racing automatic.”

     “Of course,” I admitted, “getting on the freeway is like flushing the toilet.”

     We shared a laugh, while Sherlock kept tilting his head on way, then the other, looking at the Cadillac, as if wondering what had happened to our pickup.

     The guy told me they had a complete set of windows, “made out of the new impact absorbing glass.”

     “Need a bazooka to bust them.”

     Sounded perfect to me.

     While they worked, Sherlock and I munched on hotdogs from a vendor down the block.

     Later, speeding along the PA Turnpike, we only had to stop twice so Sherlock could mark his territory.

     We exited at the appropriate exit, and followed a scenic country road for maybe half an hour, and turned right onto our street.

     It was a quaint farmhouse, with a well tended yard, the address on the mailbox said 1924 Bedford Place.

     Home sweet home.

     The door on my Caddie had hardly clicked shut, than the front door burst open, revealing a beautiful, long legged blond.

     Yes, the one on the cover of Amber Waves.

     She wasn’t hindered by the mere fact that she wore only a terrycloth robe as she raced to the car, throwing her arms around me, and enveloping me with a kiss that made certain my tonsils were in fine shape.

     We managed to find our way indoors barely in time to close the door before her robe fell from her body.

     The intellectual portions of my brain clicked into neutral, three years of marriage and Anne’s body still did that to me. I managed to remain sentient long enough to give her the advance copy of Amber Waves of Blond.

     “You did put me on the cover!” she squealed in delight while pushing me into the bedroom, and onto our waterbed.

     “Let’s make some waves!”

     Some may well have qualified as tsunamis.

     I wondered, briefly, if sleeping with my wife was cheating on my wife?

     If you see Freud, ask him for me.

     A brief respite for dinner, including two steaks for Sherlock, gave us a chance to talk.

     “Do you remember when we met?” I asked, curious, but keeping my voice playful.

     “At the book signing for Leopard Princess?” Anne giggled, “We were lucky there was a motel across the street, even if the tenants in the rooms around us kept complaining about the noise!”

     “The manager,” I said, laughing at the memory, “even charged us extra for drywall damage caused by the headboard!”

     “Let’s test our headboard,” she said, rising, and taking my hand.

     “Again, so soon?” I asked.

     “You were gone for two days,” she pouted, “I’m lonely.”

     The headboard survived, barely.

     I slept, deeply.

     “Ouch!” I yelped, as twin lines of fire fell across my naked buttocks, followed rapidly by more pain across my bare back.

     I jumped out of bed, but not the one I had fallen asleep in.

     “Make me breakfast, you sniveling little worm” a female, but not feminine, voice demanded, “Hurry up, I’m hungry.”

     The voice, and the twin whips, belonged not to Anne, but to a hulking, six and a half foot tall woman, whose leather-encased four hundred-plus pounds were not arraigned in any pleasant fashion.

     I ducked as the whips snapped at me, managing to grab my pants as I raced out of the bedroom, slamming the door shut, and bracing it with a chair I found in the living room. I paused long enough to look at the book on the counter, and shivered.

     ‘Crawl, worm, crawl’, was not a book I wanted to admit to writing, even if my name on the cover said otherwise.

     I refuse to describe the cover.

     My jacket was resting on the counter as well, I grabbed it on my way out the door, Sherlock raced me to the Caddie.

     We stopped, briefly at a nearby drive thru and picked up breakfast, for the two of us.

     The pimple faced, smart-alek kid at the drive thru window, whose name tag identified him as Kalb, sassed me at the window.

     “You need a pickup,” he sneered, “if you’re buying breakfast for your woman! Or do you want us to fill the trunk?”

     “Flat top haircuts,” I countered, “went out of style forty years ago, you live in a cave or something? Besides, your love life will leave you blind.”

     His coworkers laughed, and taunted him.

     As I drove away, with Sherlock munching on his ham, bacon, two kinds of sausage, and a dozen eggs, I picked up my cell phone, and speed dialed my house.

     “Where’s my breakfast?” the four hundred pound dominatrix demanded.

     “At the drive thru,” I lied, “I’ve gotta run, I’ve got that book signing to get to.”

     “I’m hungry,” she repeated, “Why should I have to pick up my food?”

     “I’ll be gone for at least a couple days,” I said, “and I thought you might like to know that Kalb, at the drive thru…”

     “The punk with the flat top? What about him?”

     “He told me,” I lied, “that not only does he have the hots for you, but if you were his woman, he’d do ‘the donkey’ with you every night. He was very rude; maybe he needs a little training in respect.”

     No, I have no idea what ‘the donkey’ means, I was making it up as I drove.

     “That little twerp!” she yelled, “I’ll yank him right thru the window! I’ll teach him some manners, the donkey, indeed.”

     Kalb had it coming.

     Two hours later, I spotted a large truck stop; one of the big name places, and pulled in. Our journey to the third address, in Arizona, could wait while I got a shower, and bought some clothes.

     The whips had left welts, which stung. I hoped a shower would help.

     First though, I bought three large cans of dog food, a gallon of water, and two disposable bowls, and gave Sherlock his lunch.

     All three cans took Sherlock maybe thirty seconds.

     Back inside the truck stop, I selected two pairs of jeans, two pullover shirts, one white, and the other yellow, with stylized birds over the pockets, socks, undies, hankies, and a pair of tennis shoes, all for merely double what a regular store would charge.

     But you can’t park a truck at the local men’s clothing store, hence the price.

     The shower was nine dollars; an extra towel made it ten.

     It was Kalb’s money, what did I care?

     The hot water and soap did nothing to relieve the welts, but I let the water beat on my shoulders anyway to maybe help the stress.

     Drying off, I was surprised that the towel caused no discomfort to my back or backsides, looking in the mirror I saw why.

     No welts.

     The yellow shirt, I realized the bird was the thunderbird from Indian legend, didn’t look too bad on me.

     The jeans, being new, were stiff.

     “Don’t you ever feed that dog?” a trucker asked as I walked out to my Caddie.

     “You watched me give him lunch,” I answered, “how much did he bum off of you?”

     “Half a sandwich,” he admitted, “he’s been a real Romeo out here, let me tell you.”

     “He sees it as his duty to female dogs everywhere,” I told him, backing the Caddie out.

     Sherlock enjoyed the burger I had bought him as we jumped back on the freeway.

     He got half of mine too.

     That evening approaching Columbus, we watched for motels that allowed dogs, Sherlock needed his rest, and my phone rang.

     As I suspected, it was my dead agent calling.

     “Two things, Roger,” he boomed, “the broad for the Statue outta be Oriental, don’t you think?”

     “I’ll think about it,” I told him, trying to stop my imagination from painting word pictures to describe such a scene.

     “Maybe you could call it ‘Liberty’s flaming torch’,” he added.

     “Have to be in the observation area,” I said, the idea blossoming in my mind despite my best efforts, “we’d have to use ropes to be up on the torch itself.”

     “Ropes!” Charlie shouted, “Roger, you are a friggin genius!”

     “And the second item?” I asked, trying to stem the flow of lewd imagery.

     I’m a married man, okay?

     “Oh, yeah,” he said, “Kalb just called; he recommended you update your will.”

     Guy just seems a gluten for punishment.

     “Sherlock says hello,” I told him, ending the call.

     Why does Kalb hate me, I wondered. After all, just because I’ve blown him in half, and arraigned for him to spend some quality time with a four hundred pound dominatrix, is that any reason for hurt feelings?

     Some guys just don’t have a sense of humor.

     ‘Pets welcome’, the sign at the ‘Rough and Tumble’ motel advertised, so we booked a room.

     The clerk recommended a pizza delivery service for dinner.

     Our order, four extra large ‘mega meat lovers pizzas’, and two six-packs of beer, was delivered by a sweet redhead with a serious case of freckles.

     “You write those books!” she squealed, inviting herself into my room, for the night.

     Writers, after all, do have an obligation to their fans.

     Besides, ‘Freckles; connect the dots’, seemed appropriate to follow ‘Amber waves of Blond’.

     I couldn’t remember writing the books, but the research was certainly proving to be pleasant.

     “Didn’t think I’d find out, did you!” Kalb screamed at me when he raised my head above water, prior to dunking my head back into the ornate, freestanding cast iron bathtub in my motel room.

     Allowing me the chance to draw breath was a mistake; he seemed to have forgotten I had once been a contender for a spot on the Olympic swim team. You learn to do a lot of work with a single breath.

     Ignoring the persistent thought that I don’t know how to swim, I hooked my right arm behind his knee, and rammed said knee into the beveled edge of the tub, causing him to loosen his grip as he yelped.

     I quickly rammed his knee twice more into the cast iron edge, his kneecap crunched nicely each time.

     He let go, too busy screaming to hold onto me, and I stood up, dripping.

     I shoved him into the tub, he sat there, holding his knee, and cursed me.

     I looked around, spotted the television set, and smiled.

     Using the knife from the silverware set the motel had provided, I removed the back cover from the TV, exposing the electronics, and the back end of the picture tube.

     The power cord wasn’t long enough, but on the shelf above the closet was an extension cord, which provided the additional length needed.

     I carried the TV into the bathroom, Kalb stopped cursing me long enough to ask, “What’s that for?”

     Not the brightest light in the billboard of life.

     I held the TV over the tub, with the exposed end pointing down at the water, and gave him a friendly smile.

     “The cathode ray tube,” I explained, “produces thirty thousand volts, it’s best if it doesn’t get wet, it might short out.”

     His arms shot out to help me hold it above the water, I let go, and leaving him to hold it aloft in his own terrified arms.

     “Be glad it’s only a nineteen inch TV,” I said, “think how heavy a twenty-five inch would be.”

     I toweled dry, and put on my new, white pullover shirt. I think the redhead took the yellow one; it did look good on her.

     Dressed, I bade Kalb goodbye.

     Sherlock added to the water level in the tub.

     “You can’t just leave me here!” Kalb whined, far too stupid too figure out all he had to do was move his arms to the side, and drop the TV onto the floor.

     “The cleaning lady should be by soon,” I told him as I put the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door handle.

     As we backed the Caddie out, and prepared to leave, we heard Kalb scream.

     Then all the lights at the motel shorted out.

     Just like chapter nine in Recon – Square Three.

     The ‘Fairy Circle’ books didn’t begin to cover situations like this.

     Square Three?

     “You didn’t forget,” Chuck Nevers, yeah, the dead guy, asked, “about your book signing in Columbus did you?”

     “Not a chance,” I assured him, grabbing the bag of clothes I had just bought for our journey to Arizona, “I’m in the mall now.”

     A member of Mall Security was walking Sherlock while I signed books.

     From the looks of the men, and a couple of scary women, this was a Recon signing.

     “Do you have,” one burly guy asked as I signed his book, “to have that gay guy interrogate the male prisoners? Gives me the creeps.”

     “Just keeping it real,” I told him, adding, “besides; you know Saddam liked it.”

     He slapped my shoulder, and was still chuckling as he walked away.

     I was beginning to have concerns about how graphic these books were.

     I needn’t have worried.

     “Sign this, worm!” a heavyset woman demanded, throwing a copy of ‘Crawl, worm, crawl’ in front of me.

     I didn’t want to, but I doubted she cared, so I swallowed my shame, and signed.

     Her husband gave me the finger as they walked away.

     “I didn’t think,” a very feminine voice said, “this line would ever end, you forgot to sign this when you gave it to me, but hurry, it’s almost two o’clock!”

     A copy of ‘Panther Princess’ was placed in front of me, I looked up to see the same ebony goddess as was on the cover.

     I signed it quickly, Chee had an appetite.

     “Two o’clock?” I asked.

     “My man gets off work at five o’clock,” she said, the invitation obvious.

     While we walked out to my car I wondered, briefly, if other writers had such passionate fans.

     Sherlock looked at me, then at the ebony goddess, and jumped into the back seat of the Jag.

     “It’s four thirty!” the goddess yelped, “you’ve gotta get outta here, Kalb will be pissed!”

     Kalb? Him again?

     “I thought he got off work at five o’clock?” I asked, adding, “I need a shower.”

     I had company.

     At five o-three, she was franticly pushing me out the door of her apartment, as I started down the stairs I heard a car door close.

     “Quick,” I called back to her, “what’s your elderly neighbor’s name?”

     “Lucy,” she told me, “why?”

     As a scrawny, pencil necked geek entered the stairway, with a ridiculous flat-top haircut, and, no kidding, a pocket protector full of pens, I called back upstairs.

     “See you next week, Lucy,” I called, “you insatiable kitten!”

     I smiled at Kalb as we passed each other, he looked towards Lucy’s apartment, and then he looked at me.

     I winked at him.

     He looked queasy.

     Rush hour out of Columbus was a bitch.

     What did she see in him?

     We made it to St Louis before we started hunting for a motel, and found a nice one west of town.

     The next morning I woke with an unexpected weight on my back that felt suspiciously like feet. I lifted one shoulder, and craned my head to look.

     “Stop moving!” the slender Asian lady demanded, “Do you want me to loose my balance and fall on top of you?”

     “You’re already on top of me,” I observed, “perhaps it’s my turn?”

     I couldn’t believe I was saying such a thing.

     “I only do massage,” she said, “not other.”

     She continued walking on my back, while thoughts of the Statue of Liberty danced in my head, unbidden.

     “I’m sorry,” I said, “I shouldn’t have said that, perhaps I could buy you dinner?”

     Wasn’t it morning?

     “Kalb decides,” she said, “if he say yes, then we have dinner, only dinner.”

     “Fair enough,” I said, so the creep with the beer belly and ridicules flat-top haircut was running a massage-prostitution business, great.

     “How much do you owe on your contract?” I asked. These creeps brought in new girls from the orient, then made them pay off their contract by, well, you figure it out.

     “Eighteen thousand five hundred dollars,” she told me, trying not to cry. She knew what the future held.

     “Let me get dressed,” I told her, “then we’ll have a little chat with Kalb.”

     The wallet I had taken from Kalb’s corpse had a little over twenty thousand still in it.

     It seemed appropriate.

     “I understand,” Kalb said, “you want to buy the broad dinner.”

     Charming as ever.

     “Perhaps,” I answered, not liking how two of his goons stood behind me.

     “What I had in mind,” I said, pulling out the wallet, and feeling the friendly weight of my pistol, yes, that one, “was buying out her contract for twenty thousand dollars.”

     Her eyes lit up with hope.

     I tossed him the wallet.

     “I gotta better idea,” Kalb said, “I’ll keep your money, and the broad, throw Romeo out,” he told the two goons.

     They were just a little too slow. My first shot hit Kalb in the guts, as he dropped I spun and shot each of the goons in the guts as well, the hollow-point bullets tearing fatal wounds.

     It’s supposed to hurt a lot, which is why I had changed the load order.

     I wanted them to suffer, America means freedom for all of us, or it means nothing at all, and what they were doing here had to end. My editor at the paper had wanted a front page expose’; the headlines would be in blood.

     Newspaper?

     I took my little beauty by the hand, paused, and picked the wallet up, again. Then we ran outside and stood in the rain, looking at each other.

     Beautiful didn’t begin to describe her.

     “What’s your name?” I asked.

     “Che-Ahn,” she told me.

     “Welcome to America, Che-Ahn,” I told her just prior to kissing her.

     “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the preacher said, “you may kiss the bride.”

     Che-Ahn’s kiss held all the love in the world, our friends all applauded.

     Later, Charlie Nevers, my editor at the paper, shook my hand.

     “I sent you out to get a story,” he said, “and you find a wife!”

     The story had earned my first Pulitzer, a nice plaque from the police, and a wedding ring.

     “Any idea what the holdup is?” I asked the trucker, as we both looked down the freeway about six hundred yards to where traffic was stopped. I had a book signing in Amarillo, and I really didn’t want to be late.

     “According to what I heard on the C.B.,” he said, “there’re a couple of Kalbinite terrorists on the overpass. They’ve got the police pinned down.”

     The police officers were pressed up tight to the back of their patrol car; they were too close to get a decent shot at the want-to-be martyrs.

     “There’ll be three,” I told him as I headed to the trunk of my car, “these lunatics always work in threes.”

     I opened the trunk, and picked up my ‘Deadeye custom defense’ rifle, in 7.62 NATO-extended; the longer cartridge held just a bit more powder, and a heavier bullet. I ejected the magazine, and replaced it with one containing the red bullets.

     Yes, those red bullets, I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

     “Bullpup design, huh?” the trucker asked.

     “Yeah,” I answered, “the design allows for a longer barrel without changing the overall length.”

     “Sweet,” he commented.

     He helped me climb up on top of the flatbed trailer he was pulling. I used the top of his cab as a rest, and took a quick look through my scope.

     Only two Kalbinites were visible, but I figured the third would show up when things got interesting.

     I placed the crosshairs on the first martyr’s nose, slowly exhaled, and gently squeezed the trigger, just like my Marine sniper instructor had taught me. Quickly moving to Martyr number two, I repeated the action, getting the second bullet enroute before the first had reached its target.

     Both men’s anatomy ended, abruptly, at their shoulders.

     And as I had guessed, the third nutcase showed his ugly face just in time for my third shot.

     Three outs; end of inning.

     When was I in the Marines?

     “Mister; that’s the best shooting I’ve ever seen,” the guy said, “ten balloons with ten shots! Pick your prize.”

     “Which one, sweetheart?” I asked Samantha, my overly adorable, and possibly spoiled, daughter.

     “The red one,” she pointed to the bright red tiger she had just had to have, so I’d spent the two bucks, and won it for her.

     Isn’t that why you bring your kids to carnivals?

     “What are you going to name him?” I asked as I hoisted her eight year old self up to sit on my shoulders.

     “Jeremy,” she said. I suspected she had the name picked out before the first balloon popped.

     “Sounds like the perfect name,” I agreed, “for a bright red tiger.”

     “Such a ferocious beast,” my wife, China, exclaimed, having snuck up on us, “is he tame enough to pet?”

     “If you’re careful,” Samantha advised.

     I smiled at China, wishing she had worn a bra under her jet black tank top; her figure, even after nine years of marriage, still made it hard for me to concentrate or speak intelligently.

     Her outfit, black denim shorts and the tank top, highlighted her spider web tattoos, which, yes, did cover nearly all of her body.

     My SpiderBabe.

     And yes, she had posed for the cover of ‘Web of lust’.

     As we went in search of funnel cake, part of the red tiger’s diet everywhere, I remembered meeting my SpiderBabe in a bar, ‘Saphio-Paradiso’, which I had correctly guessed was a lesbian bar.

     Hey, the only other choice was a bar called ‘Saddle-sore’, which sounded a bit gay, and I wasn’t that thirsty.

     So I walked up to the bar in Saphio-Paradiso, and found I was one of only two men in the place, the other guy had a pendulous beer belly, and the most stupid looking flat top haircut I’ve ever seen.

     And he was harassing an absolute babe with spider web tattoos.

     As I was walking up the drunken sod made an attempt to grope the woman, her well placed kick between his legs, followed by my fist shoving his liver up into his chest had ended his interest in such behavior.

     A man never touches a woman without permission.

     Kalb had neglected to ask.

     I led him outside, and we walked a few doors to the left, and into ‘Saddle-sore’.

     I told the barkeep what had happened, and voiced my concern that Kalb was too intoxicated to drive himself home.

     The barkeep smiled, and assured me he could arrange transportation.

     “Where’s the flattop?” the tattooed beauty asked as I walked in.

     “At Saddle-sore’,” I told her, “can I buy you a beer?”

     She laughed, when the bartender raised an eyebrow she told her where Kalb was, and a brief discussion followed concerning the next few hours of Kalb’s day.

     “Two beers Hell,” she told the bartender, I found out later it was a nickname for Helena.

     “Name’s China,” she said, indicating the stool next to her, “you do realize you’re in a lesbian bar, so don’t get your hopes up.”

     “I can finally relax,” I had told her, adding, “I’m a lesbian too, but I’m trapped in a man’s body.”

     “Good try,” she laughed, then, “you had dinner yet? Nobody does steak like Hell.”

     “Starved,” I said, “can I get a couple for my dog?”

     China led me to a table where we talked, ate some incredible steak, talked, had cherry cobbler for dessert, talked, drank a couple beers and talked.

     We got married two weeks later.

     And yes, the huge hammock she’s resting in on the cover of ‘Web of Lust’ is the very one we had woven ourselves in our bedroom.

     Directions for how to weave one are found in chapter 19.

     The slap across my face was unexpected, and I was wide awake in an instant, my yelp as I looked below me caused Kalb to laugh.

     “Oh, is the poor little boy afraid of heights?” Kalb laughed again.

     My knees were bent around the guardrail of a bridge, with Kalb’s fist bunched up in my shirt being the only thing preventing me from falling a couple hundred feet straight down.

     There’s a lot of ways to die, but going splat isn’t high on my preferred list.

     “It’s not the height,” I lied, “but your breath, it’s even worse than your stupid haircut.”

     “My dad wore his hair in a flattop,” Kalb growled, “so do I.”

     “Is the potbelly inherited too,” I asked, “or just your taste in bad hairstyle?”

     “I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said in preparation to releasing me on a one way encounter with gravity, “for so long.”

     Talk about holding a grudge.

     Just as he released me, he screamed in pain, and tightened his fist.

     He must have forgotten the loyalty of dogs; Sherlock had sunk his teeth into Kalb’s generous posterior.

     I got a grip on Kalb’s arm with one hand, his necktie with the other and pulled myself back onto the bridge. The way Kalb’s face was turning purple I may have overly tightened his tie, oops.

     Once I was firmly on the bridge, Sherlock released his grip, and I followed through with a very satisfying round house kick which landed precisely where Sherlock had bit him.

     Kalb, busy adjusting his tie, overbalanced, and plummeted off the bridge, even with his arms pin wheeling like mad he failed to learn to fly before making the acquaintance of the rocks below.

     I was really getting tired of this guy, whoever he was.

     I mean, you’d think he’d take the hint.

     At least he had parked my Stingray nearby, Sherlock and I jumped in, and drove on to the address on the third check.

     Which I really hoped was home.

     1924 Bedford place was just outside of Sedona, Arizona, home of some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet.

     The modest bungalow was nestled in a stand of pine and mountain juniper, Sherlock wagged his tail as we walked up to the door.

     I wondered who would be home.

     I reached for the doorknob, and a hand landed on my shoulder, I started.

     “Honey,” my wife said, her hand on my shoulder, “time for dinner.”

     “Okay,” I answered, shutting down the computer, and scooting my chair back, causing Sherlock, our grey and white tabby to jump out of my lap, and stalk away, indigence in every step.

     “That cat got fur all over you,” my wife said, “change clothes before dinner, wear the new pullover shirt I got you, the yellow one in the closet.”

     “Sure, babe,” I said, removing my now furry shirt as I walked to the closet, changing my slacks as well.

     As I admired the stylized thunderbird over the shirt pocket, one thought kept running through my mind.

     Wasn’t Sherlock my dog?