Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

  Kirk nodded. "Just what we fucking needed. All the damned publicity doesn't make our job any easier. I really didn't think she'd win the election."

  "No one did, or they would have made sure she didn't. Guess people really are becoming more tolerant," Jason said, then washed his sandwich down with some stale beer.

  "Or the other guy was just so fucking incompetent that the people would rather vote for a queer," Kirk snarled. "Either way it throws a big fucking monkey wrench into our plans. We're going to have to be a whole lot more cautious. Like Deacon said, we need to reevaluate our methods."

  Jason shrugged. "I'd just like to go home. I haven't seen my old lady or the kids in three months now."

  "There is a reason why the agency discourages such emotional attachments," Kirk said.

  "Because they don't want us to have any heart, any compassion." Jason threw his sandwich wrapper into the trash hard. "Hell, I was bled out a long time ago, Kirk. I thought that I could get my humanity back by having a family. It didn't take me long to realize that by having something that I cared about so much, I had finished selling my soul to the agency. By having a family I'd given the fucking agency absolute leverage over me. That's why I hate your guts, Kirk. Because I know that on the day that I didn't do the agency's bidding you'd be only too happy to hang my little girl up by the hair of her head and torture her until I gave in."

  "You never have understood, Jason. This is bigger than any one person. More important than one family. The future of the free world . . . "

  Jason jumped up and glared down at Kirk. "Who the fuck are you trying to sell! Don't give me that 'future of the free world' shit. We're playing with people's lives. A few assholes have decided what is right for everybody. They have created something that has gotten out of control. And the fucking Fed we iced—he was right. We created something that's going to kill us. Between you and me, it can't come fast enough. I was in too deep when I realized just how fucking far around the bend the SWTF is. Now I keep doing shit I know is wrong. I don't have any soul left, but unlike you I still have a conscience, and when we plug some poor fuck like that Fed I don't sleep. I have guilt. But I keep doing it because the agency owns my fucking soul. They got your soul, too, Kirk. You're just too dead to know it."

  "If you're quite done psychoanalyzing me, you can run along and set up the equipment. See if we're picking anything up."

  "Yessir, Massa. What evah ya say, Massa," Jason said sarcastically as he bowed all the way out of the room.

  "She didn't look very happy about winning the election," Tommy said as he started slipping out of his monkey suit.

  "She wants to do the job, but she doesn't really want the title. She's been worried about the publicity all along. Apparently the campaign has been something of a strain on she and Spider's relationship," Laura said. She stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Whenever she was in big crowds of people she always felt filthy until she showered and washed her hair. "It has to be a really weird time for her. New relationship, new job, new duties."

  "Really?" Tommy asked, curious. "Spider didn't say anything about it."

  "Well she wouldn't, would she?" Laura said. "From what Carrie says that's most of the problem. Spider would really rather stay in the closet, and now—like it or not—she's out. Everywhere she goes people know who she is and that she's gay. She's having a lot of trouble with it." Laura combed her hair. She started to blow it dry and decided it was too much like work.

  Tommy walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth. "A few weeks ago, the lieutenant got smart with Spider—made some crack about Carrie. I've never seen her so mad. I don't blame her. It's nobody's business, and now everybody knows. For a lot of people that's all the reason they need to hate her. It's not fair."

  "But it's the way things are." Laura slapped him on the ass and left the bathroom for the welcome comfort of their bed.

  Laura smiled and squashed into her pillow. For her, being in their bed was like being in the only really safe place in the world. Safe from the outside world. A place she and Tommy shared alone with no intrusions. The last few weeks with the campaign had been hell for Laura, so she could only imagine how it must have been for Carrie.

  Tommy spit the toothpaste out. "Do you mean that Spider and Carrie are having trouble, like they're going to break up?"

  Laura waited till he stopped gargling to answer. "No, not at all. Carrie hasn't said anything like that. They're in love, and I think it would take a lot to break them up. It's just been tough, that's all."

  Tommy walked in and crawled into bed. He wrapped himself around Laura and she snuggled against him.

  "Are you tired?" Tommy whispered in her ear.

  "Not at all," Laura breathed, and started crawling all over him.

  Spider and Tommy had pulled a late night stake out waiting for a little weasel-faced creep named Freddy Brown. They had reason to believe that he might have witnessed the recent murder of a hooker.

  "At first the fuckers were everywhere," Spider was saying. "Even found one hiding in that God awful hedge on the west side of the house. A son of a bitchen gnat couldn't squeeze through, so this dick head took battery powered hedge clippers and cut a hole in the fucking thing. He had a fucking camp stool there and had been sitting there God only knows how long filming the house."

  "What the hell for?" Tommy asked.

  Spider shrugged. "Who fucking knows? Waiting for us to do it in the yard or something I guess."

  "How'd you find him?" Tommy asked.

  "Well, as you know I've been a little squirrelly lately. I was looking around before we went in the house, and I saw the sunlight reflecting off his lens. I thought he was SWTF, so I freaked out, right? I go back out the gate and sneak around behind him, grab him and start kicking his ass. Carrie is of course having a conniption fit, 'You're going to kill him! You're going to kill him!' so I wasn't listening to her. Then I realize she's yelling out that the guy is trying to show his press card."

  "What did you do then?" Tommy asked, laughing.

  "I punched him in the face one more time and let him go. Carrie called the cops and had him arrested for trespassing. He's threatening to sue me for his injuries, but Carrie says he can't. She was pissed off at me anyway. Said I over reacted."

  "Not you," Tommy said sarcastically. He took the binoculars and looked at the building as if seeing better would make a person who wasn't there appear.

  "So, you think this dick head is ever going to show?"

  "He has to come home some time," Spider said.

  "Of course it doesn't have to be till after we give up staking out his fucking building," Tommy mumbled. "Wait a minute!" Tommy removed his binoculars.

  Both partners watched as the man got out of the taxi, and both ducked down lower when they saw him looking around.

  When he was sure he was in the clear, Freddy Brown paid the cabby and headed for his building.

  Tommy and Spider got carefully out of the car and started walking down the sidewalk in the man's direction.

  Freddy's head spun quickly around to look at them. He didn't wait even a second; he took off running.

  "Shit!" Spider screamed and took off after him.

  Tommy was right behind her, remembering to turn on his comlink and to scream, "Stop! Police!" It was procedure, and it was stupid because no crook ever stopped just because you told them to.

  "Fuck you, man!" Freddy sped up and turned down an alley; they followed. He hit the fence and was over—no problem. Spider hit the fence first, but Tommy cleared it before she did.

  When they reached the other side of the fence Freddy was already gone. They looked around, but there was nothing. A horn blared.

  "Let's go!" Spider screamed and took off towards the street. They rounded the corner just in time to see Freddy run through yet another lane of traffic. Tires squealed as the drivers hit their brakes. Freddy rolled over the hood of one still-moving car and was across the street. Spider and Tommy dodged traffic holding their com
links up and yelling "Police!" as if that had ever stopped any officer from being hit by a car.

  They got across the street just in time to see the son of a bitch run into a four story walk up. They started chasing him up the stairs.

  Spider stumbled. Tommy stopped momentarily to see if she was OK. Spider nodded.

  "I'm too old for this shit," she panted out.

  Tommy nodded and they started back up again.

  "You little fucker, when I catch you I'm gonna rip you a new asshole!" Spider screamed.

  He ran all the way up and onto the roof, and then the little fucker barricaded the door. Spider and Tommy broke through it just in time to see Freddy jump from one roof to the other. They took off running. At the edge they both stopped, looked at each other, and then looked down. Then they looked at each other again and shook their heads no.

  Freddy laughed and flipped them the finger.

  "You dumb little fucker," Spider panted out. "We just need to talk to you."

  He took off running across the building and was soon out of sight.

  "Lost . . . suspect . . . witness," Tommy panted into his comlink. He reached down and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  Spider grabbed her side and collapsed on the roof.

  "I'm . . . fucking . . . gonna . . . die. Wish I couldah . . . just shot . . . the stupid . . . bastard," she panted out.

  "That . . . would have . . . sort of . . . made it hard . . . to question him." Tommy flopped on the roof beside his partner.

  "What?" Tommy asked. He rubbed his eyes and stared at Spider's image on the vid-phone through a sleep-covered haze. He turned to look at his wall clock and started shaking his head. "Never mind. At six o'clock on Sunday morning I don't care what it is. I want to sleep."

  "Come on, Tommy," Spider begged. "Look at us! We're turning into old, flabby, married people."

  Tommy sighed, threw up his hands and walked into the living room where he flopped down on the couch. She could come in or not; he didn't give a shit. Crazy damned white woman, 6:00 on Sunday morning. He'd kick her ass if that wasn't what she was asking him to do.

  Spider walked in but didn't sit down. She was wearing a sweat suit that was so drenched, she'd obviously already been jogging in it. "Come on, man! It'll be fun!"

  "Nothing's fun at 6:00 on a Sunday morning." He seemed to realize what she had said before. "And, for the record, we are old, flabby married people."

  "I don't think we can afford to be."

  "Then go play with yourself!"

  "I got a woman for that now."

  "You know what I mean."

  "Come on, don't you want to be in shape?"

  "I'm in perfect shape for an old, flabby, married guy. I work out almost every day, that's more than most guys my age."

  "For how long? A half hour a day, an hour on weekends? Wouldn't you like to be back in the kind of shape you were in when you were king of Ju-whatsit?" she asked.

  "To tell the truth, no," Tommy said bluntly. "What I would like is to still be asleep. To wake up at 11:00, have a Twinkie for breakfast, then sit and watch the fucking tube until my brain is dead, and . . . "

  "Ah, come on, Tommy. It'll be fun."

  "What it will be is insanity," Tommy said. "Why, Spider? In all the years we've worked together you've never had any interest in learning Jujitsu. Why now?"

  Spider sat down; she wasn't bouncing around now. "Tommy, when I was in the service I had martial arts training. Nothing close to what you've had, but I had it. I was in perfect physical shape. I felt like I could handle anything they threw at me, and I damn near died more than once. I don't feel like that right now. I need to be able to walk the razor's edge again, and I only know one person who can teach me that."

  Tommy nodded. "This has something to do with losing that punk the other night, doesn't it? That guy was half our age, and he makes his living on those streets."

  Spider nodded. "That's part of it, but not all by a long shot . . . The body they found in the river in Forcehaven."

  "Yeah?" Tommy said.

  "It was Harry Sullivan, the FBI guy I talked to." She whispered in case Laura was up and might hear them. "He had been tortured before he was killed. I think it might have been because he gave me something he shouldn't have."

  Tommy took in a deep breath and let it out. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what he gave you."

  She shook her head no.

  He stood up and started for his room to change. In the doorway he stopped and turned to look at her. "Will you do what I tell you without questioning everything I say?"

  Spider nodded.

  "You will have to train every single day."

  She nodded again.

  "I mean it, Spider, if we start this, you're going to have to go all the way with it, or you might as well not bother."

  "Tommy, you're acting like I've never been in training before, and I have," Spider said.

  "This will be like nothing you've ever done before."

  "Good, I'd hate to be bored."

  Chapter Eleven

  "That which has been, it is that which shall be:

  and that which has been done is that which shall

  be done: and there is nothing new under the sun.

  Ecclesiastes 1:9

  Two months passed with no sign of the Fry Guy or the SWTF for that matter. Spider had relaxed a little, but she hadn't stopped training.

  "I thought the crap would stop after the election," Carrie told Laura. "You know, that things would get back to normal. But for about three weeks afterwards the press were still on me like flies on shit . . . "

  "Don't you love all the wonderful metaphors you learn living with a cop?" Laura laughed.

  Carrie nodded. "Thursday in court I almost told the jury to look at the 'fucking' facts in the 'fucking' case and find the 'fucking scum-bag' guilty. It never ceases to amaze me how many uses Spider can find for the word 'fuck.' Sometimes I think 'fuck' is the only word she knows. Except of course for the ever-popular 'scumbag.' Anyway, I had about decided that I had made a big mistake running at all, and was trying to think of ways—without having a heart attack—that I could just let Chalmers take over for me. But then Congressman Hampton got caught with a transvestite, and suddenly I was old news."

  "Thank God for scandal," Laura said with a laugh.

  There was a loud thump against the living room wall, and one of the pictures rattled fell off and landed on the couch. Carrie was glad she had decided not to sit there. Before either one of them had a chance to run into the garage, Tommy poked his head in the door.

  "No one hurt." He panted to catch his breath. "No hole . . . in wall."

  "Aren't you playing a little rough?" Carrie asked. Since they had started this martial arts training kick there was barely a week went by that Spider didn't have at least one new bruise. "I don't want to have to take her home in a bag."

  "What are you worried about?" Tommy asked, rubbing at his head. "I'm the one who hit the wall." He shut the door and ran back into the garage.

  "As if that somehow makes it alright," Laura said, shaking her head. "Tommy says she learns very fast, and she has apparently showed him a couple of moves he didn't know. Just last week he was telling me how wonderfully she was doing, as he held an ice pack over his eye where she had blacked it."

  "I'm sorry," Carrie said, shrugging helplessly. "I don't know why she got it in her head to do this, but I know that it's turned your schedule upside down, and I'm sorry."

  Laura shook her head. "I'm not. Carrie, Tommy loves Jujitsu. Hell, it's the one thing in this world that he will admit that he's good at, but he had all but stopped practicing. I'm glad he has someone to train and spar with. I have never seen him so self-confidant or motivated. I just wish he'd loosen up a little bit. Have more fun with it instead of being so intense all the time." Laura got up and put the picture back just in time for someone to slam into the wall and knock it off again. She threw up her hands and sat back dow
n as Tommy's head popped in the door.

  "No one hurt. Wall not broken," he gasped, and disappeared again.

  Laura smiled broadly. "Since he's fighting again he's about three times as horny as he was before."

  "And that's almost never a bad thing," Carrie said with a grin.

  "Focus, Spider," Tommy ordered.

  "OK." Spider took a deep breath. Just how long had she been standing on her fucking hands? Felt like an hour. All the blood in her body was in her hands and brain; her feet were going to sleep. Sweat was running down her cheeks and into her eyes.