Made in the U.S.A.: The 10th Anniversary Edition

by Jack X. McCallum

  “Oh, hello!” the old guy said, looking up and giving them a goofy smile that was both charming and disarming in spite of the circumstances. “This is Mr. Randall Kraft.” The carved handle of the walking stick sank into the pink oatmeal with a squootch. “He’s the top dog. The big chief. The head honcho.”

  “Looks more like the headless honcho to me,” Carlos said breathlessly as he peered past Al.

  The old man looked down and dropped the walking stick. “Yeah. I guess I made a mess. But he got me mad cause he wanted to hurt the pretty lady. And he hit me first. Right here.”

  Al followed the old guy’s gesture. There was a little blood from a fresh injury within a larger, older wound that looked like a novice golfer had used the old bird’s head for a tee and knocked loose a sizable divot.

  “I’m Johnny,” the old guy said. “Do you like my doctor clothes?” There were two square pockets on the bottom of the baggy shirt like the pockets on a blazer. One of the old man’s hands was slipping in and out of one of the pockets.

  Feeling he’d seen that nervous pose and the fiddling-with-the-pocket routine somewhere before, Al forced a smile. “Looking pretty good, Johnny.”

  Johnny grinned. “Say! You guys look like you’re in trouble!”

  “That we are, Johnny,” Al said.

  Carlos took a shot in the dark. “The pretty lady. Was her name Jeannie?”

  “The woman Will was after?” Carlos gave Al a nod.

  Johnny rubbed his chin. “Gee. I think I heard that name, but I’m not sure. She was real pretty. Her hair was black when it should have been all shiny, but it was still her.” He voice dropped to a whisper. “She has a real cute ass. I saw it.”

  That did it. Carlos had to agree with old Johnny. Jeannie did have a real cute ass. The first two or three months they had worked together he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of it. As their friendship had grown, those feeling had receded. “That’s her. Where is she now?”

  Johnny gave a dramatic shrug. “Dunno. She and her daughter were taken away.”

  Carlos’ eyebrows shot up even as his body was slumping. “Daughter?”

  Al lifted Carlos through the doorway and set him on a gurney. Nobody had noticed Johnny beating this Mr. Kraft’s brains into mulch and he hoped they wouldn’t be spotted now. He asked Johnny, “Was there a guy with them? A guy who looks like . . .” Elvis! Now Al knew where he’d seen Will’s face before. The guy was a dead ringer for a very fit Elvis. “Looks like Elvis Presley on Weight Watchers?”

  Johnny’s eyes clouded over. He had to sort this out. Elvis. That was the singing guy. The King. He died sitting on the toilet, trying to poop. Darn, Johnny could have died like that too! Now, Weight Watchers. What was that? It sounded like a club. Was it like bird watchers? But what did they do? Sit around and watch fat people? That was silly. But there had been a guy who looked like a skinny King of Rock And Roll, so Johnny said, “Yes.”

  Then he added, “He’s a good guy. He fought and fought to help the pretty lady and he made Mr. Kraft real mad.”

  Carlos looked away as the big man sprinkled or sprayed something on his shattered elbow that, judging by how much it hurt, probably came out of a bottle labeled Liquid Fire.

  “Disinfectant,” Al said to Carlos, already applying a thick bandage to the wound and wrapping it carefully. As he made a sling for Carlos he turned to Johnny. “What did they do with Will? The guy who looked like Elvis?”

  “Oh, they took him away to be killed,” Johnny said casually.

  Al held out two white pills, tiny in the center of his broad palm. He asked, “You okay with a couple of Tylenol for the pain? I don’t know how much it will help but—“

  “But I should stay sharp,” Carlos said, not wanting to take anything stronger. He dry swallowed the Tylenol, hoping they would do something. The pain from his shattered elbow was so intense he was holding back tears.

  Al gently clapped Carlos on the back. “We got to get you out of here, son. We need a car.”

  Johnny raised an arm and waved it in the air. “I know where the cars are! I saw them once when I was being good and they took me for a walk.”

  “Hey man, what about Jeannie?” Carlos asked, carefully stepping down off the gurney.

  “We’ll look for her on the way,” Al said. “But if we don’t find her we leave, and come back with help. There’s too damn much here for just two guys to deal with.”

  * * *

  Doctors Mondani and Tupper were in a security station, one of many stations on each underground level of Compound West. The third floor down was devoted to biological and biomechanical research, and it was among the genetic data banks and cold storage lockers that the two men had their own offices and did most of their work. One wall of the station was made up of video monitors. Mondani, Tupper, and Security Chief Galderson’s second in command were checking feeds from the many hundreds of video cameras installed throughout the facility to try and discover where their detainees turned intruders were now.

  “Two of them are here,” Security Officer Dolan said, gesturing to a view of the autoport. “The reporter and his cameraman have gotten out of their temporary holding cell and appear to be waiting for someone. I’ve sent a few men to detain them and I made sure the autoport doors are locked down. Over in access corridor two-west-four-four is old Johnny. He’s with the cop and the short-order cook, both of whom look like hell, but they keep on going. That corridor leads to a stairwell that will take them to the autoport. As for Hill, Norman, and the dark-haired girl Godson brought in, they could be anywhere.”

  “Keep looking,” Mondani said to Tupper and Dolan. “And scramble every agent and security officer you can find to contain this problem. I don’t want any of our guests setting foot outside this installation.”

  * * *

  Godson was in his private room. It was in the deepest level of Compound West, the only room on that level not dedicated to machinery circulating and filtering the air or providing running water and electric power. The throb of the surrounding machines filled the room with sound and made the walls and floor and ceiling vibrate slightly. The room was spacious and warm and dark.

  Before entering the room, Godson flipped a switch in the hall, turning on the single light set in the ceiling of the room. After a minute he turned the light off. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

  Godson’s room was one of the few in the installation with a pin and tumbler lock. If he carried a key-card for more than an hour, the encrypted information strip on it became degraded and unreadable. A palm or thumb print reader wouldn’t work either. People whispered that Godson didn’t have any fingerprints at all, that he was born with hands and feet unlined and as smooth as glass, but the truth was weirder. Print readers worked on him, but for whatever reason, they seemed to record a slightly different set of prints each time they were read, prints that never came up in any of the many nationwide databases the Compound had access to.

  The cause of his shifting prints was unknown and, although it unsettled him, Godson simply accepted it. Mondani and Tupper had suggested a retina-scanner or an ear-imager or a DNA sampler to guard access to the room, but Godson had declined. He had nothing in the room to warrant such security, and he suspected those devices would fail him as well. Even most metal keys became distorted if he carried them too long, the blade bending or twisting, the teeth shifting. The key to his private room was made of silver, one of the few materials Godson’s touch could not alter or corrupt.

  At least he hadn’t been offered a scrotal surveyor as a door lock. Tupper had come up with that one by himself, insisting that the pattern of wrinkles on every scrotum was as unique as the ridges and bumps in fingerprints. Where he got his data was anyone’s guess. Godson had completely flustered the little fat man by asking him when, in this age of equal rights and affirmative action, he would be finished working on the scrotal surveyor’s feminine alternative. Tupper had instantly turned as red as a beet and mumbled somet
hing about the applications of mammogram data to scanning systems, suggesting that no two women could have identical patterns of milk ducts within their breasts, before he quickly fled.

  Godson opened the door on darkness and closed it behind him. He locked himself inside the room with the iron key. There were brackets on either side of the door, and into these he placed a thick beam of oak four feet long. It was simple, but effective. In the room were three objects. The dead light fixture overhead, a single straight-backed wooden chair in the center of the room, and mounted on the wall at a height of six feet a plastic glow-in-the-dark figure of a crucified Jesus Christ, the tiny face twisted in agony.

  The six-inch figure was made of white plastic, a poor casting in which Jesus had the bent nose and cauliflower ears of a club fighter, all glowing a sickly green. The little Son of God was naked save for a crown of thorns. Stamped on Christ’s left buttock was Hecho en Mexico.

  Godson sat in the wooden chair.

  When he needed peace and privacy, he came here to sit in the dark and stare at the glowing Christ, sometimes for hours at a time, sometimes for just a few minutes, like an executive grabbing a catnap. Once he had spent seven days and seven nights in the chair, not rising to eat or sleep or empty his bowels, sitting and staring as the light of the plastic Jesus faded into darkness. The longer he had looked at the tormented face of the little figure the more convinced he became that it was a rendering of his own face glowing with inner light.

  Sometimes Godson wondered if he’d ever meet anyone weirder than himself.

  He sat in the chair with his hands in his lap. The light began to fade.

  In the waning light of Christ on the cross, Godson soon sensed something overhead. Someone. Without understanding why, he knew he had to go to the autoport.

  A Page from the Past

  New York, NY, March 8, 1998

  For the moment Will felt free . . . but he missed the West. Lately it seemed every time he got close to the D.C. area or the Mojave Desert, he had someone on his tail. Was the Compound ever going to just let him be? Sometimes he imagined himself at eighty years old rolling down the sidewalk in a wheelchair as Compound trackers took chase.

  He’d just whupped some serious ass after feeling tense all week. Yesterday he’d gone to a firing range and blown the shit out of some paper targets, but it didn’t help. Last night he picked up a girl in a bar and let her blow the shit out of him, but that didn’t do much to relieve the tension either. Today he’d wandered in to Manhattan Slam, a fancy-ass health club where power brokers would meet to butt heads in the weight room or on the squash court. After purchasing a day pass he’d claimed a locker, changed into sweats and a T-shirt, and then roamed the club, hoping he’d find a way to work off his nervous energy.

  Will had overheard some jerk-off bragging to his friends, saying how sweet it was that he’d just pressed an awesome amount of weight and he wasn’t surprised no one wanted to join him in a game of handball because he had some classic moves nobody could match. The guy jumped when Will tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Hey pal,” Will had said, “I could use a good game. Are you up for it?”

  The jerk-off couldn’t back down in front of his friends, and five minutes later he was in a handball court with Will.

  Will stomped the jerk-off while the guy’s friends watched. Every time the jerk-off made a move on the ball, Will would simultaneously intercept the ball with one hand and deliver a light, humiliating slap to the jerk-off’s beefy face with the other.

  When the game was over and Will thought he had saved the jerk-off’s friends from any bragging for at least a day or two, he hit the showers.

  Twisting wraiths of steam obscured the white-tiled walls and chrome fixtures in the long room. Will looked left and right as he started a hot shower, seeing only one other guy at the far end of the room. He lowered his head into the hot spray.

  Will shook his head and brushed his hair back, then started lathering up his pits. Now there was a fellow, maybe the same guy from before, showering just to his right. The guy was wearing a big grin. Will thought he looked a little like Eddie Murphy in the movie where he played an African prince or whatever the hell it was.

  Will gave the guy a nod and turned away to wash his nuts. He didn’t want to give the wrong impression by maintaining eye contact just as he started soaping up his ball-sack. He was giving the old scrote a quick final rinse when he noticed that the long-haired dark-skinned guy who had been on his right was now on his left.

  Will didn’t care if somebody preferred to be a sucker or a suckee, but he was bugged by lousy etiquette, and he thought ogling somebody’s nads was pretty rude. He turned away from the wall to let the hot spray loosen up his shoulder muscles. He was watching the steam curl and shift when there was a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. He glanced down and over and saw that the guy beside him was working the rubbery length of what he figured was at least a half-hard dick. If that meat is flaccid, his ghosts chorused, getting a laugh out of this, then that boy’s a su-pah-freak, su-pah-freak! Good luck trying to find somebody who’ll let you bury that thing to the hilt!

  Will turned off his shower.

  “Hey,” the guy said in a rich voice. “You like?” He hefted his Chernobyl cock and smiled again. “You better, because you’re going to be chawing down on the beast.”

  Will was tempted to boot the guy around the shower room like a hacky sack until shit started dropping out of his dead ass. Chill out, he told himself. He made to walk past the guy when a dark hand grabbed his right wrist and stopped him dead.

  “I thought I made myself clear?” the man asked. “You don’t leave until you eat some cock and swallow my wad.”

  “Not interested pal. Nothing personal.”

  “Oh, but I take it very personally.”

  The grip on will’s wrist tightened. Damn, this boy is strong. He squeezes any harder the bones in my wrist are gonna snap, crackle and pop. Will twisted his wrist in the man’s grip, his fingers jabbing at pressure points in the underside of the man’s forearm. The man looked alarmed and Will pulled his wrist free.

  Will opened his mouth to say something smart and saw only a blurred shadow before feeling a fist strike his diaphragm. He tried to suck air but his torso was numb. A black foot swept at one of his ankles and his knees came down hard on the tiled floor. Water was running through his hair. He looked up and saw that every shower was on, hot water filling the room with steam. A spasm made him double over. When it passed he was able to draw a breath.

  The stranger was looking down at Will and chanting, “Suckit, suckit, you must suckit,” in a hushed voice as if he was saying the rosary.

  Something spongy butted into Will’s forehead, went away, then returned and pressed against his right cheek.

  “Say ahhh,” the stranger said. “Time to take communion.”

  Will raised his head and saw the now erect mocha-colored monstrosity swinging toward him like a boom. Will raised a hand to grab the guy’s wang, thought better of it, and ducked instead. When Will looked up again the guy was gripping his prick like a Louisville Slugger and giving it a mighty swing. The semi clipped Will’s chin.

  Will hopped to his feet. Holy cow, he cock-slapped you and tried to shove that joint in your mouth! His ghosts were more shocked than angry, but their anger was welling.

  Once more the stranger acted before Will could speak. Strong hands gripped his shoulders. Will was turned and slammed into the wall, his forehead rapping against the ceramic tiles. He splayed his hands and feet to keep upright on the slick floor and felt something approximately the size of one of his own fists begin to burrow between his butt cheeks.

  That’s fucking it!

  Will’s ghosts had him for the moment, and he went along for the ride. He turned, slapping the man’s erection away while bringing a knee up into the guy’s balls, gonads that were too huge to be real, too huge to be anything but perfect targets.

  The guy made a sound like h
e was reacting to a great punch line. “Haaaah!”

  One of Will’s hands chopped at the man’s nose. There was a satisfying little crunch and the blood began to flow. The man’s blood was so dark it almost looked blue.

  Will raised both hands to wring this bastard’s neck, but the stranger’s hands came up equally fast, grabbing Will’s own, their fingers entwining.

  They began to struggle, a test of raw strength. Will thought they must look like a piece of ancient sculpture depicting bare-assed wrestling Greeks. Hot water pelted their skins and the steam thickened around them.

  The man looked down at Will’s wiggling cock. “I think I might tear that thing off,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Considering sculpture again, Will thought that if the guy made a grab for his dick they’d end up looking like Rossi’s Hercules and Diomedes.

  The stranger was grinning again, and his hard-on was straining upward.

  I hope this guy hasn’t read A Feast Unknown, Will thought.

  “You’re thinking of Philip Jose Farmer,” The dark-haired guy said, his prick bobbing eagerly.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I am your better,” the man said with relish, “I am your superior. And I shall prove it by dominating you in the most debasing way one man can subjugate another.”

  Will’s arms trembled and he pushed against the stranger’s might. This sumbitch is strong! “You’re gonna show me you’re top dog by fucking me up the ass?”

  The man’s black eyes twinkled and his eyebrows flicked up and down. “Indeed!” He showed his teeth again and began bearing down.

  Will tried to shift his stance and slipped. He found himself holding the stranger back while balancing on one foot, the other finding no purchase on the slick tiles.