I made my way down the hill, took the streetcar back to my office and called the police. I told them only of the discovery and nothing about my knowing the woman or my implication in the case.
When I reached the little cottage Adora and I shared, I did my best to put on a happy face. But she was sharp and saw that something bad had happened that day. “Qué pasó, mi amor?” she asked in her always sympathetic voice.
“Oh, nothing much … just another senseless murder of a young woman who wouldn’t listen. They killed the eldest Royce daughter.”
Adora put her hand to her mouth. “Ay, Cable! Qué horrible! Why do you stay in such a terrible business, querido? One day soon…maybe it is you who will not come home to me…I would not live then, my love…”
I took my lady into my arms and I cried gently on her shoulder. She understood that even the toughest of us in this world have places that haven’t yet grown that impenetrable callous. She comforted me, fetched me a glass of gin, undressed me and took me into the shower with her. She caressed me, licked me, sucked me, and finally took me into our new double bed and made love to me. For a while it worked, I could push away the personal connection with the Royce family and realize I was my own person, a distinctly different being in a cosmos of twinkling little lights known as human hearts and souls. Or maybe some beings didn’t have souls. I don’t know. Or maybe we all pretended we had them and in the end, when the chips were down, we reverted to the savage brutality of survivalist, battering and punching our way to be the fittest. And in the end the strongest ape won. Take away love—and what was left?
Finally, with Adora holding me tightly I drifted off into a restless sleep, knowing full well that tomorrow I would have to face the Royce family again, and one by one, tell the story of the little piggy who had refused to build a stronger house and perished at the hands of the Big Bad Wolf.
Early the next morning I joined a sleepy Zephyr with Lexie in the freight car, smiling out of the glass aquarium at me. “What kind of a night did you spend?” I asked, checking out the straw pile she must have slept in. “Did you eat it or sleep in it?”
She laughed. “I like your sense of humor, Cable. No, I slept in it but had to go to the bathroom outside—without being seen—which is very awkward. And it wasn’t a very pleasant night without you—”
“—thank God,” I kidded her, looking around the boxcar. “If I’ve got it right, the train is supposed to pull out about 10:30 or so. We’ve got a little time, want to grab some breakfast somewhere?”
“No, Cable, I can’t leave Lexie. Can you get us something for the trip? I’ve got two sandwiches and a jug of water.”
I went off to find a café or diner. I did find a yardman poking his head in and out of boxcars. He saw me coming. “You’re on railroad property, buddy, whatta ya want?”
“I’m with the Royce box car—bodyguard.” I flashed him my private dick I.D. He checked it out. “Hell of an expense for a lousy little fish, don’t you think?”
“Oh, you know, pets for the rich…there’s no limit to what exotic animals they may come up with. Next time it could be a giraffe, then you’d really have a hell of a job poking a hole in one of your boxcar roofs,” I joked, ribbing the hapless, gruff man.
“Yeah, I suppose. We’ll be delayed. The streamliner coming in from the east is late about forty minutes.”
“Oh, thanks for telling me. Is there a diner or something around here where we can grab some breakfast to go?”
“Yeah, it’s called The Switchman and it’s two blocks down, go left on 11th. You’ll see it on your left. Make damn sure that tank of water is secure before we hook you to the train and pull out of the yard. Is it just you and the girl?”
“Yeah…” I said and thanked the man. I found the café, got some fried potatoes and eggs and started back to the boxcar when I noted a very shiny, black sedan parked about a hundred feet from the track. Those hackles went up on the back of my neck and I quickly dodged into an alleyway that led to the next block over. I crept along the front of the buildings until I was near the tracks again. Three goons were sizing up the boxcar with Zephyr and Lexie in it! I was out-sized and out-gunned. What could I do? Then I watched in amazement as a small switch engine came puffing up toward the still-detached boxcar. We were not scheduled to be hooked up to the main train for another hour or so. The small engine stopped and a brakeman hooked the couplers. The boxcar door was open about two feet or so and I saw Zephyr peak out only to be threatened by a gun pointing at her, obviously telling her to stay inside and keep out of the way. I had to think fast!
I ran back down toward the little café and found a phone booth. I fumbled in my pocket for the Royce’s number. I dialed and it rang at the other end. “Yes, hello…”
“Benedict, some of your ghosts just showed up at the rail yard. I think they’re kidnapping the boxcar with Lexie and Zephyr in it. Now, I don’t know how, but I’ve got to tail them and find out where they’re taking her. If it’s just to kill them, they could’ve done that already, right in the damn boxcar. But I don’t think that’s their plan. I’ve got a feeling you might know, Benedict—if so, you’d better come clean just about now—because I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time here.”
“Oh, Lord, Cable—I think I do know! Where are you? I’ll come meet you.”
“There’s a little café called The Switchman, 11th and Pacific. Oh, and there’s one more thing.” I steeled myself, because somehow I never got used to being the bearer of this kind of bad news. It wasn’t easy to tell a parent—even a neglectful parent—that one of their kids just got killed by murderous thugs, and they were the reason for it. “Uh…brace yourself, Benedict. They got to Eden. I found her body hanging upside down in the Bronson Caves yesterday.”
There was a long pause. I realized in that moment a new reality had to sink in to Benedict Royce. Maybe for the first time in his life, the man used to dining at the Ritz while dancing the two-step with aliens had to face up to the shit he’d created and now he could literally call his fortune blood money. “Eden…? Oh, no…no…not Eden…! I was just thinking of a way to make up to her—” he said, his voice trembling.
“—well, guess what, Royce—it’s a bit late for that! You should’ve told her that dark truth you’re still hiding up your sleeve, long ago and given her the choice—because either way, you lost her a long time ago.”
He ignored my comment. “That’s—that’s why the police were here, at our door last night. Mathilda’s upstairs. I don’t know how I’m ever going to tell her… When the police came, we didn’t answer…why didn’t you tell us about Eden last night?”
“I was pretty beaten down myself, Mister. You see, I happened to like Eden in my own peculiar kind of way. She suffered from the same malady her sister got cursed with—only she expressed it with a different kind of rebellion. Frankly, I was pissed because I knew you and your wife had written Eden off your ‘care list’ years ago and you judged her life style because of your own sexual hang-ups. Well, now, guess what? It’s too late for any of it, Benedict, and Eden won’t have a chance to heal the horror that filled her psyche and damaged a lovely young woman who might’ve had a chance in this world, for a piece of happiness. She wasn’t a bad person, Benedict, just warped by something you allowed to come slithering out of the bag a lotta years ago. Now it’s come home to haunt you—and unfortunately, your wife as well. So don’t push it if you’re not on my list of favorite persons today, Royce.”
Again there was that pause when you just knew someone at the other end of the line was falling apart and trying to think at the same time. “I’ll…I’ll see you in a few minutes…I’ll be in the green touring car with Henry driving.”
“Yeah, okay…” I hung up, disgusted at humanity, from all angles.
I rushed back and stood in the shadows watching the boxcar with the switch engine sitting there steaming like a dragon at rest, awaiting the next order someone would give. But who was calling the shots and what was
it they forgot or neglected to do before they killed the whole family off? A half hour went by. The yard boss came around to check on the gunmen who stood by, loitering. He admonished them and they shot him where he stood. They dragged his body under a train on a parallel track and returned, continuing to talk together as if nothing had happened. Amidst the seven or eight tracks and awaiting freight trains, it was unlikely anyone had seen the yardman get it. But I got it. I got the complete lack of conscience these demented creatures carried like a badge—but of cowardice—and an unforgivable aggression on a society that was still on its knees, fighting its way out of a deep economic depression. So far, 1930 wasn’t any better than the previous year and the economy kept sinking with soup lines and ever increasing joblessness. Oh yeah, there were always those who would profit from the travesty. Those whose lives hung out in that shadow-land Royce’s so-called ‘associates’ found so inviting—and profitable. For them, it was okay to fiddle while Rome burned, because they and their kind held the keys to the empire of greed, lust, power and money. And after all, that’s what made the world go ‘round, wasn’t it?
The Reach of the Transeo Terra
Benedict Royce picked me up in front of The Switchman Café and we drove around the block until we faced the boxcar Zephyr and Lexie were imprisoned in. “Now it’s truth time, Royce. Frankly, I’m tired of the bullshit you’ve been feeding everyone for the past umpteen years—your wife included. So tell me what happened way back there when the girls went haywire, so a lot more people don’t die, okay?”
Royce asked Henry to leave and we sat in the back seat alone, looking at the boxcar in the late morning sunlight, its Tuscan red paint standing out from the other dull colors Southern Pacific splashed on their rolling stock. “I was young and ambitious then, born into wealth, pre-possessed of exceptional I.Q. and I had a penchant for the unusual, particularly numbers and financial mathematics. I was recruited by an organization that promised me position and additional wealth—a kind of ground floor opportunity, you might say.”
“Who and what was the organization?”
“You already mentioned it. The Oculus Pyramis Mandatum was composed of the richest, most influential men in the world, I was told. Financiers, bankers, and Wall Street geniuses who made the Rockefellers seem like school children. They mandated fiscal policy in developed countries throughout the world and could make or break a nation if they really wished to do so. They had two other branches, I later discovered. One was a group called Oculus Metus Vires and they were the enforcers of policy, established by the order. Anyone breaking those codes was dealt with most harshly.”
“Yeah, like killing someone on a whim for disobedience, eh?” I said, a tad of bitter irony in my voice.
“The third branch was called the Oculus Transeo Terra. This was the scientific experimentation branch, so I was told. In truth, it was the spawning ground for bringing through alien beings into physical human form so that they could live among us undetected. Their goal was to keep the earth people unsettled, in a state of chaos and uncertainty, taking advantage of an earlier visitation by other beings who had turned down certain genes or coded segments of the human makeup, making them less than they really were. But they needed a marine-type of human being who could be submerged for a long period of time, swim swiftly—yet possess all the mental faculties of a human being—as a spy. So I was given a most unique opportunity to help them accomplish this by allowing my young daughters to participate—so they said.”
“Oh, I can’t wait for this one, Royce. You son of a bitch—you really did it, didn’t you? You sacrificed your daughters—”
He put his hand up to stop me. “—that’s not all, Cable. Mathilda was pregnant with our son. The Order requested that they take the fetus before he was born and modify him with hormones and gene splicing applications from my two daughters. They made me slip Mathilda a potion that would induce false labor and anesthetize her at the same time. At first I vehemently opposed any such notion. But they threatened me and said if I wanted to continue a prosperous life at Neptunia, it would be best for me to consent. Otherwise they would eliminate me and my family.”
Benedict Royce was shaking and I gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. But that didn’t stop the shaking. “So you sold out your family, thinking there was no other way to save them…”
“Believe me, there was none. Not only that, but they can read your mind within twenty feet or so. So whenever I had an audience with them, they could read my fear and hesitation and remind me just how vulnerable my position was.”
“So, let me guess. They doped up your wife and rushed her to a secret lab where they operated on her, removed the fetus. Then she was told she had lost the child—when in truth those bastards were engineering a brand new little species of fish boy—how am I doing so far, professor?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what they did! How did you know?”
“Oh, I’ve had a little experience at one of their laboratories—one that would have resulted in the procurement of my family jewels. You don’t have to be an extra-terrestrial alien, just use common sense.”
“Good God, Cable. And you escaped?”
“Not really. You see, some good Samaritans came to my rescue at the last minute—and pow! the bad guys were dead and I was home kissing my girlfriend goodnight.”
“And no reprisals?”
“Nope. Not yet. Maybe I knew too much—and maybe I still do. Anyway, back to you. So they drug and extract vital genetic components out of your girls, and that modified them in some undesirable ways—”
“—the result was multi-tiered, but essentially the operations caused a rift between right and left brain lobes, and a personality disorder developed in both girls. Eden went the way of defiant rebellion while Zephyr seemed brain damaged on one hand and her Fiona persona emerged, becoming aggressive and articulate. But only Zephyr was modified to be the marine overseer for our son—who, most horribly of all—was modified and suspended in some huge test tube until he was fully formed enough to exist as some misfit marine creature.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically, “he’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”
Royce ignored me. “Oculus was expanding and they needed someone like Lexie who they could perform secret experiments on.”
“So what happened?”
“Lexie was a failure. They told me they’d keep an eye on his progress. But they never did. Lexie was the first of a long line of experiments—and failures. Subsequent marine ‘sea-children’ were born more obedient and efficient, I’ve heard. But I’ve never seen any.”
“Why did Eden and Zephyr consent to the operations?”
“They didn’t. Like their mother, they were drugged in their sleep to be compliant. Days later they awoke in their own beds, aware only that time had passed. Nothing more. I was the only one who knew the whole story.”
“Well, isn’t that nice? All these years, Royce, you kept those deep, dark secrets—even from a wife you couldn’t have sex with anymore because you felt guilty tearing her family apart and any more children born to you might have meant more experiments—isn’t that right, Mr. Upright Citizen?”
His eyes welled with tears. “Yes…yes…”
“And you sloughed it off as some high and mighty moral stance about sex and procreation—when all the time it was greed along with a good dose of fear that drove you. Then you waited through the years for the other shoe to drop, but you didn’t know if, when or how any of it would happen. It was like swimming on Mars, awkward and alien, but you thought maybe if you did your job well and remained a cog in the big machine, they’d forget about you—and their failures with your offspring. But they didn’t, did they? They knew that little Lexie was unique and the telepathic connection between him and Zephyr had deeper roots and they wanted to dissect them. So you opposed it, but what you didn’t realize, Royce, was that you came with an expiration date stamped on your forehead, ‘look at me, dupe and dummy’ for the company s
tore.”
“Yes, it’s true, Cable…it’s all true…” He sobbed a little as he looked out the window and then across to the hostage boxcar. “Zephyr—Zephyr is the most precious thing in my life. If—if I lose her—”
“—you should have thought about that before—a long, long time before, Mister. For all we know they’d have all been safe on some desert island by now—and Eden might bitch some, but at least she’d be alive! And what about your son? Have you ever bonded with him—or at least tried to communicate with him? How do you know he wasn’t hungering for your love all these years—the father he never had?”
Royce put his face into his hands. “I—I was embarrassed, ashamed to call him my son…a chattering little dolphin boy with a permanent smile…I couldn’t find a way in to him—”
“—you mean you didn’t want to find a way, Royce. Why does Lexie deserve less love or consideration than Zephyr—or your now dead daughter, Eden? She was starved for love, would have given almost anything to be held by you—or her mother, for that matter.” I had a feeling it was all going in one ear and out the other.
Just then the little switch engine began pulling the Tuscan red boxcar further back into the crowded freight yard. Royce looked alarmed. “Oh…they’re moving…we’ve got to follow them—no matter where they go—we’ve got to save Zephyr. I couldn’t bear it if she—she—”
“—don’t get your shorts in an uproar…we’ll bide our time a little longer. They’ve got to switch the boxcar to something on rails they’ve already assigned.” I put out my cigarette in the sidearm ashtray. “By the way, when you first called me you said I came ‘highly recommended,’ so who did drop my name in your ear saying that I’d be highly qualified for the job at hand—because I’d like to shoot him.”
Love Me or Kill Me Page 10
