‘Thanks, Eddie,’ they said, in unison.
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Now scoot.’
They scuttled off into the undergrowth. Eddie shook his head. If they were his, he’d electrify the compound.
The path wound across the island for nearly a mile. Towards the end the ground rose slightly, and then gave out into a circular clearing. This was about fifty yards across, and was completely clear of trees and bushes. It was covered in short, manicured grass, soft like you got in Europe instead of the sharp and tough Florida scrub. In the middle were four armchairs—three of which were black leather recliners, the other the kind of worn affair you’d find in a cheap motel—and a standard lamp, which shed a warm glow for a couple of yards around. Eddie walked straight over and sat in the chair that didn’t recline.
‘I’m here,’ he said.
They kept him waiting for a while, as usual.
George, meanwhile, was walking back to his room from the Marquesa’s reception, after making a dinner reservation for the following evening. He was one of those people who enjoy their food, and look forward to it, and take enjoyment in planning where the next meal is going to come from. That evening—after careful consideration—they’d gone to Crabby Dick’s on Duval, and had good steak and blackened dolphin while sitting on the upper deck and watching people wandering past below. The Marquesa’s bistro was supposed to be pretty good, so that was where they were going to be eating tomorrow night. George didn’t quite have his whole menu planned out, but he’d made some ballpark wine list plans and narrowed his appetizer options down to two. Though at the last minute he might go wild and switch to something else. You never knew.
Planning food events was also useful because it gave George something simple and practical to think about. Jen had accepted his story about getting sidetracked on the way to buy Danish, and been touched by the flowers. They’d had a nice day, just wandering around. Stood on the Southernmost point, looked at Hemingway’s house and all the cats, drunk their own volume in iced fruit drinks. Then spent a late afternoon hour around the Marquesa’s pools: there were two, both small, hidden in the leafy courtyards created when three wooden Victorian houses had been loosely combined to form the hotel. Jen floated around, gently paddling this way and that, while George sat in a chair wearing a T-shirt and holding a copy of the local newspaper. Though it was no longer an exactly recent development, he’d never quite got over the disappointment of finding that he’d somehow become housed in an older man’s body, and preferred not to inflict the sight of it upon the world.
He watched his wife swim, glad that he’d gone to see Eddie that morning. He’d been nervous, and expecting many things: blank incomprehension, ridicule, or one of several different methods of extracting money. Instead he seemed to have been taken seriously, which for an hour or so had made him feel light-headed with relief. There was no way of telling whether the guy could actually do anything—could be that it was just a more complex scam than he’d been expecting. But he felt better for having done it, whatever happened. When you’re wife’s touched because you bring her flowers and the only reason you did it is to cover up the fact you’ve been lying to her, that’s a bad feeling. You realise that you should bring them more often, and that you’d like to, but somehow you don’t. It mainly just doesn’t occur to you. Unless you’re hiding something, and the guilt that engenders makes you realise how much you love the person you’re lying to. He didn’t want to be covering up any more. He wondered briefly what percentage of flowers in the world were bought for the right reasons—then shitcanned that stream of thought and tried to read a story about a local group of poets. He couldn’t. It wasn’t interesting. If there was a local poet in the whole world who wasn’t shit then George believed he must be in hiding somewhere, along with all the good local artists.
That, at least, was what anyone peeking would have found in George’s mind that afternoon. He’d grown very used to covering up what was really going on in his head, because he was finding it increasingly inexplicable and disturbing.
At night the pool area was deserted, with that strange, restful atmosphere public places get when the public isn’t there to clutter them up. It was dark except for a couple of low yellow lamps, the vivid blue-green glow of the pool, and a few stars visible through the palm cover above. George was passing almost exactly the same spot where he’d been sitting in the afternoon, when he thought he heard something. At first he assumed it was another guest out for a stroll, and got a smile ready. No-one appeared. He stopped, looked around. Someone had put in a lot of effort growing plants in and above the courtyard, with big hibiscus and ground palms and all manner of other things Jen would know the names of. During the day you could see geckos, some of them pretty big, running all over the brickwork floor. Maybe that was what he’d heard. He started walking again, and started quietly to scale the low steps around the waterfall which was on the way to their suite.
He was still a way from home when he heard something that sounded like a door handle being turned, and then Jen’s voice saying his name in the form of a question. As if someone had opened the door to her suite, and she’d looked up to see no-one there, and wondered if he was playing a game.
George started to run.
‘Eddie, my man—how’s it hanging? How are you, guy?’
Eddie looked down from the stars, to see that the three reclining chairs were now occupied. He’d given up hoping to see how they managed to do that—being not there one minute and then there the next—but it still irritated him.
‘Hungry,’ he said. ‘And bored. You get a warning from when the assholes shine the big light in my eyes, you got video surveillance on the pier. You must know when I get to this chair. So how come it still takes you fifteen fucking minutes to get your asses out here?’
‘Touchy,’ said the first alien. Yag was his name. He, like the other two, had his recliner tipped back as far back as it would go, and was lounging with his arms and legs hanging off the sides. ‘Think Eddie’s a little out of sorts this evening, fellas.’
‘It’s just rude, is all,’ Eddie said, and lit another cigarette.
‘You know we don’t like smoking,’ another of the aliens said. He was about six foot eight, thin and spidery like the others. His skin was the usual pale golden colour, and glistened wetly. The way they looked, you’d expect them to smell pretty bad. Actually, they smelled of spearmint. His head was slightly elongated but otherwise not too different to ours. He was called Fud, and he was pretty drunk.
‘You don’t give a shit about smoking,’ Eddie said, not putting it out. ‘It doesn’t even do anything to you guys. You’re just being a pain in the ass, as usual.’
‘We do too care,’ Yag said, stifling a burp. ‘Everybody cares. It’s a zeitgeist thing.’
‘You bring us anything?’ the third alien slurred. Eddie didn’t know his name. The spindly fucker had always been too wasted to pronounce it. Maybe that was how that Key got called No-Name too. Always too drunk to talk.
Eddie pulled the bottle of overproof Rum out of his pocket and lobbed it to the alien. It landed on his stomach and he went ‘Ooof.’ Then pulled off the cap and took a long pull, before handing it on to Yag.
‘I had some cigarettes too,’ Eddie said, ‘But seeing as you guys don’t like that kind of thing, I gave them to the greys instead.’
‘What?’ Fud snarled. ‘Where were they?’
Eddie laughed. ‘On the path. What’s up with you guys? Masters of the universe and you can’t even keep your pets under control?’
Suddenly Eddie found himself with the three aliens staring at him, and for the moment they didn’t look so drunk.
‘When we want a human’s advice on how to run our affairs,’ the un-named one said, ‘You’ll be the first to know, Kruger. In the meantime, shut the fuck up.’
Eddie held the stare. ‘Your call. But with those animals screwing around like assholes the whole time and flashing lights over people’s houses, sooner or
later it’s all gonna go wide.’
‘It’s under control,’ Fud said petulantly.
‘Yeah right. Like that stupid autopsy video really made everybody think it was all just a hoax. You guys watch television ever? It’s the greys who’re flavour of the decade, not you.’
‘We don’t give a shit what your stupid fucking species thinks,’ No-name shouted, jumping to its feet and jabbing a long finger at him. ‘I’ve wiped my ass on brighter life-forms than you, shit face.’
The sides of the alien’s head were pulsing slightly, narrow slits opening in the temples. Eddie had seen this happen before, and suspected it was a prelude to something bad. Longing for a straightforward Colombian or two, he was glad of the gun in his jacket, even if it wouldn’t work. At least he could hit one of them with it, if it came to it. He stood up.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ Yag said, mildly. ‘Eddie, calm down. Come on. Have a drink.’ He held the bottle out to him.
Eddie took it, made a couple of inches disappear, and then passed it on. Fud drank. His temples stopped bulging.
No-name glared at Eddie a final time, hiccupped, and took a drink. He sat down, then grinned. ‘Give us a smoke, Eddie.’
Eddie passed him a cigarette, lit it for him, his heartbeat gradually returning to normal.
‘That’s better,’ Yag said, and kicked the ground so his recliner spun in a gentle circle, making a quiet ‘wheee’ noise as it went. ‘So, what you want to talk to us about, Eddie? Let’s do business.’
‘Man called George Becker,’ Eddie said, sitting down. ‘Lives in Illinois. I’m authorized to buy an abduction vaccine on his behalf.’
‘Excellent,’ Yag said, rubbing his thin, long hands together. ‘What will the market stand?’
‘Looking at him, I’d say forty thousand.’
‘Then that’s the price. Plus five thousand dollars.’
Eddie sighed. ‘Why the extra five?’
‘Because we feel like it,’ Fud said, and the three of them cackled. ‘You got a problem with that, ape-boy?’
‘No problem at all,’ Eddie said, reflecting that had these guys been a crew of humans out of Miami he could have just whacked the bunch of them six months ago. ‘Forty-five thousand dollars,’ he continued patiently, ‘In return for which you leave him the fuck alone, stop freaking him out with phone calls and screwing with his car and faxing him and putting stuff in his dreams and memory and this shit about some forest with rocks in it.’
‘Sure thing,’ Yag smirked.
‘And, of course,’ Eddie said, having been caught out this way before, ‘You don’t abduct him either.’
‘When do we see the money?’
‘This weekend. And leave the guy alone in the meantime, yeah? He’s on vacation. And get a mobile phone or something. I’m sick and tired of schlepping out here every time.’
‘You want us to come find you instead?’ Fud asked.
‘No,’ Eddie said.
‘So we’ll see you here in a couple of days.’ The alien waved a hand. Eddie was dismissed. He got up, walked away.
As he disappeared down the path No-name said, with obvious satisfaction, ‘Going to have to kill him sooner or later.’
Fud and Yag raised an eyebrow each.
‘Eddie’s okay,’ Yag said. ‘Does what he’s told, doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t ask the right questions.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Yag smiled, ‘He didn’t think to ask if it was us who were buzzing this George Becker character.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Hell no,’ Fud laughed. ‘Never heard of the fucking guy.’
‘How were the weirdoes?’
‘Weird,’ Eddie said, accepting the beer Connie handed him. ‘Tell you the truth, they’re really beginning to get on my nerves.’
‘Why don’t you just clip them, have done with it?’
‘Yeah, right.’ Eddie grimaced, and glanced around the bar. ‘Jesus—what the hell’s got into these people tonight?’
The room was crammed with tourists, apparently at one in a desire to demonstrate how much noise the human head was capable of producing. Sweating groups of guys and girls, a few couples, everyone happily talking and shouting and even singing—with the exception of a peaceable and remarkably sun-burnt couple sitting at the end of the bar, who appeared to be methodically establishing how many Golden Margaritas you could drink before your brain melted. Connie saw Eddie glance at them.
‘From London, England,’ he said. ‘Just married.’
‘And I would care…why?’
‘Whatever,’ Connie shrugged. ‘Just filling you in.’
Eddie sat and quietly smoked a cigarette, working his way through a bowl of pistachios and piling the shells neatly where Connie could brush them in the trash with one negligent sweep of his hand. He’d told the weirdoes forty thousand on the assumption he’d put his standard ten on top. Fifty felt about right. The arbitrary and fuck-ass irritating extra five they’d stipulated left him with the dilemma of deciding whether George would go for fifty-five, or if Eddie had to take half rate this time out. Wouldn’t be the end of the world, what with his overheads being not much more than zero, but no-one likes getting stiffed on a deal. Eddie in particular didn’t like it, but he was exploring the notion on the grounds that not charging the extra might store him up some brownie points somewhere. He didn’t really believe in karma, but every now and then he paid lip service to it or some other edited highlight of a belief system, on the grounds that you never knew—and that someone who’d put as many people under the ground as he had did well to hedge his cosmic bets.
Meanwhile he watched as Connie served the bar sitters, kept half an eye on the customers who looked likely to be first in line to cause trouble or be sick, and filled the orders that Fran brought in from the outlying regions. Fran was a cheerful and tough 23, had big hair even by Florida standards and tattoos on her wrist, shoulder and small of her back which Connie wasn’t strictly in favour of. Wasn’t his business, but he hated to see lilies gilded and he was of a mind that tattooing a woman’s body was like air-brushing a pair of leaping dolphins into the background of the Mona Lisa, just to perk it up a bit. Fran, though attractive, had a voice which could bend trees when she was riled and Connie elected as usual to shelve the observation. Instead he reminded the English honeymooners that it was only just after nine and the bar was open until three and thus they could afford to take it easy in terms of volume of alcohol consumption per unit time. They thanked him for his insight and consideration, and ordered another couple of Margaritas. Connie moved them up to pole position in his internal list of People Most Likely To Pass Out Before Midnight, but mused that at least they were likely to do it politely.
Then he noticed Eddie turn his head sharply towards the door, and glanced that way himself. Two seconds later, George, the guy from the night before, came running into the bar. His hair was awry and his face red and he was panting like his heart was considering its options and leaning towards a CVA. Eddie was on his feet before the door had stopped swinging, and flashed two fingers on the way across. Connie quickly turned and sloshed out a couple of tequilas, yelled at Janine to get her butt out the kitchen and hold the fort a minute, and took the drinks out the side door.
On the sidewalk outside, Eddie was standing in front of George. He had a hand on each of the guy’s shoulders, and was talking to him in a low, even tone. George’s eyes were wide and he was still breathing badly, his hands down by his side and trembling. His weight was only vaguely distributed over his legs, and if Eddie hadn’t been there George would have been flat on his face in a moment.
Eddie took one of the drinks and held it in front of George’s mouth. ‘Drink this,’ he said. George shook his head as if trying to flick water off it, eyes staring at some point on Eddie’s chest.
Eddie grabbed his hair, pulled the man’s head back in one sudden snap and tipped the booze straight down his throat.
George sp
luttered like a man pulled up out of deep water and went into a coughing jag that sounded as if tissue were coming loose. Eddie meanwhile tossed the shot glass at Connie, who caught it in one hand and handed him the second with the other. But when George stopped blinking and rubbing his eyes, they were focused back on the things in front of him.
‘Sorry for that,’ Eddie said. ‘But things really are going to be a lot simpler if you just do as I say. You need another drink?’ George coughed once more, and hiccupped, then shook his head.
Eddie nodded, satisfied, and knocked the drink back himself. ‘I take it something’s fucked up,’ he said.
George’s finger had stolen up to his lips, and he was rubbing them like there was something ingrained there which he couldn’t stand. ‘They’ve. Oh. She’s gone.’
When he’d managed these words he suddenly looked around, as if he couldn’t understand what he was doing in this place talking to these people and was seized with a desire to go running away in some random direction.
Eddie reached out, grabbed his arm. ‘Your wife?’
There were only two salient facts. Jennifer Becker had disappeared. George didn’t know where she’d gone. In the time from him hearing her saying his name and him making it up the steps to their suite, someone had stolen her away.
‘When was this?’
George looked at his watch. ‘Forty, forty-five minutes ago.’
Eddie pursed his lips, looked away down the street. Two things immediately occurred to him. The second was that the woman had been taken round about the time he’d been sitting talking to the weirdoes. In other words, the assholes had sat there and set a price, all the while knowing that some of their buddies were already on the way to abduct the target. As it was, they’d been too fucking incompetent—or drunk—to even get the right human, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that they were jerking him around. No-one had ever successfully jerked Eddie around before, no matter what planet they were from. Never for long, anyhow, and never for long enough to tell the tale.
George started slightly when Eddie swung his gaze back at him. For a moment he saw something in the younger man’s eyes, something that made it very clear that Eddie wouldn’t be your first choice of guy to have a fight with, unless you were a SWAT team on the top of your game. George didn’t know it, which was probably just as well because it was the last kind of thing he needed at that time, but he was one of only two people who’d seen that look in Eddie’s eyes and lived to see the next hour. The other had been Eddie’s father, a long time ago, and he’d since died of his own accord.
More Tomorrow: And Other Stories Page 54
