One Helluva Bad Time- The Complete Bad Times Series

by Chuck Dixon

  “I said those things?” Lee said.

  “You know, to be a good liar, you need a good memory.” She tapped his lips with a finger.

  “I’ll try to remember that. I was going to tell you I won the Powerball next.”

  She bopped him on the forehead with the heel of her hand.

  “Hey!”

  “We’ve been seeing each other over three months and the only thing I know about you is your name. I know you’re ex-military because your tats don’t lie. But I don’t know shit about you beyond that. Money’s not a problem for you and your time is your own except for your mysterious trips to who knows where.”

  “We have a good time, right?” Lee said. “And you know I like you.”

  “We have an awesome time. You fly us around on chartered jets and spend like a Saudi. You know how to make a girl happy, and you’re good-looking in a rough kind of way.”

  “Sucks to be my girlfriend, huh?” he said and tried a smile.

  “Is that what I am?” Her expression darkened. “How am I supposed to know that?”

  “Hey, you sound like you’re getting serious, Bat.”

  “Do I?” It was a challenge.

  It was at this moment in every relationship where Lee would begin his exit strategy. He’d duck away at the earliest opportunity to evade that old velvet trap. Something stirred in his gut and he was moving on before he knew it, leaving a broken heart and, usually, a good number of his clothes behind. He was the type to flee without farewells. In his mind, he’d never actually broken up with a woman. It was always just here, just tonight, and gone in the morning.

  But not this time. No itch burned in his stomach. He didn’t begin fantasizing his escape. There was no urge to slip away with no forwarding. He really liked Bat and wanted to stay with her for who knew how long. Maybe she was even The One. That struck him as a crazy thought as he’d never considered that The One ever existed. The notion of the perfect girl for Lee was like Big Foot or Santa Claus; a fun idea that never stood up to serious contemplation. Still, no warning jingles from his flight instinct.

  Maybe because she was also a combat vet. She knew not to ask questions about that because she wouldn’t want those questions asked of herself. And, he admitted, she was a combat vet who was as hot as a swimsuit model.

  Besides, stuck in a pop-up tent two days from anywhere was not a great place for the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech.

  “I think I deserve the truth,” she said with a viselike grip on his right ear lobe.

  So he told her the truth. The Tauber Tube and traveling back through time to prehistoric Nevada and the ancient Aegean and being hunted by the Russian mafiya some of the time and a mysterious multi-billionaire all of the time and how he and a bunch of ex-Army buddies made a fortune by finding treasure in locations they found on their visits to the past.

  And the craziest part? She believed him.

  5

  Caesarea Provincial, Capital of Judea, AD 16

  It was beastly hot despite every effort to make it otherwise.

  For prefect Valerius Gratus, no effort was made at all. He left that to the slave boys who populated his coastal palace. And there were many of them, and all had their function.

  He reclined naked on a marble couch while slaves misted him with water from a clever device that sent liquid under pressure to a network of brass hoses positioned above him. Slaves worked a kind of bellows that sent the water through pipes to exit through pin-sized spicules to create a cooling vapor that descended upon him like the lightest rain. The chilling effect was aided by more boys working broad linen fans to fashion a wind to accompany the artificial drizzle.

  And still Gratus sweated like a racehorse. He lay in a pool of his own effluvia that smelled like soup from the garlic-laced meal he’d eaten at last night’s feasting. This damnable place felt as though it were shrinking around him in a cloying and unwelcome embrace. The office of prefect was given him as though a boon by edict of Tiberius himself. But Gratus was left to wonder what he had done to deserve such a slight as to be given the task of governing a sweltering land of swamps, sand, pestilence, and Jews. And its governance was not entirely under his aegis as he answered to the legate of Syria for all but the slightest decisions.

  The single consolation of this unenviable office was that he was mostly left alone in his post. There was enough graft to more than satisfy his greed and enough pretty boys to satisfy his other needs. The boys were cheaper here than in Rome or Gaul and, while he still found Greeks to be the most beautiful, he appreciated Arab youths for their docile compliance to his every whim. Gratus raked off enough from taxes and tariffs and straight bribes to populate his home with a seraglio of young flesh.

  He turned his head to regard through sleepy eyes the three boys working the fans. They were lean, dark, and free of the ugly muscle tone and body hair that signaled their coming into manhood. Diminutive bronze gods, they were with sloe eyes and clever hands. Despite the crushing heat, he felt himself becoming aroused and, having made his choice of an Arab lad, began to rise from his couch.

  Gratus was motioning for the selected boy to lower the fan and come closer when Ravilla, his troublesome and annoying attendant, entered the open courtyard of the villa. Ravilla was assigned as his lictor and provided legal counsel that the prefect seldom heeded. The prefect suspected that Ravilla reported to the legate in Antioch.

  “Honorable Prefect, you have a visitor,” Ravilla said with the disapproving sneer that was a permanent fixture to his features.

  “Tell them I am occupied with the business of the empire,” Gratus grumbled.

  “They insist they have an appointment,” Ravilla insisted.

  “My calendar is clear, lictor. Tell them to come another day.” Gratus was standing now and taking the boy’s hand in his. The boy looked up at him, smiling shyly. The smile the prefect returned was of a predatory nature.

  “He brings gifts,” Ravilla said.

  Gratus dropped the boy’s hand and whirled in fury.

  “Why did you not say so as you entered, you troublesome excrescence?” Gratus roared. “See that he is attended to in my offices while I dress!”

  Gratus stormed for his private chamber alone. He spared one remorseful glance back to the smiling Arab lad and that promising mouth. The business of the empire took precedence.

  “And with what business do you petition the prefect?” Gratus proclaimed as he entered his official greeting room with its racks of unread scrolls and pedestal holding up a bust of Emperor Tiberius that was as inaccurate as it was flattering. The black marble walls, high lapis ceiling, and fine fixtures of brass and ivory were meant to intimidate visitors and usually did.

  This visitor was clearly not impressed. He stood before Gratus’s enormous malachite table, dressed in an indigo robe of silk-trimmed linen, looking impatient but attempting to conceal it beneath a veneer of boredom.

  “You may call me Sutra Vari,” the man said with a nonchalant air. “I come from the east across the harena maris and many ranges of mountains.”

  The man’s Latin was oddly accented but precise. He spoke it with no hesitation, but there remained a sense of the rote in his tone. And that was not all that was odd about him. He was tall for a foreigner from these climes. His face was close-shaven and a crown of snow-white hair atop his head. It appeared to be even whiter in comparison to his mahogany colored skin. His features were fine, even patrician, with a thin nose well-set between black eyes. His most remarkable feature was his teeth. They were even and straight, and as white as virgin marble. Gratus had to wrench his eyes away from betraying his fascination. But he’d never seen such perfection in teeth except perhaps on a prize chariot horse.

  “Are you a man of position in your land?” Gratus asked while taking a seat in his own chair and gesturing for the visitor to do the same. The man did not take the invitation and remained standing.

  “I am not, honorable Prefect. I am a man of considerable resources, ho
wever.”

  “And what is your business in Caesarea, if I might be so bold as to inquire? And what result do you seek from this audience with me?”

  “I am a trader in goods. Rare goods of excellent quality, wise Prefect. I dare say, items such as may be unknown within your empire.”

  “That answers my first query but not my second,” Gratus said, growing impatient with this foreigner’s evasive manner. Can no one east of Brundisium ever come straight to a point?

  “As I told your servant, I bring gifts to honor you. In my lands it is customary to be generous with hosts and as I am a newcomer to these lands and you are, in effect, the host...”

  “I see! I see!” Gratus said, fixing a smile on his face. The stranger returned it showing, once again, those magnificent dentibus.

  The stranger snapped his fingers and a pair of Arabs, smelly adults with matted beards and rags for clothes, entered carrying a large cage of gleaming metal wire between them. Inside was a pair of birds that resembled pheasant but for iridescent blue wings and jet black bodies.

  “A rare species from the mountains of my homeland. Their meat is tender and succulent. You may enjoy them as a meal but, as they are male and female, you may also breed them for sport.”

  “Yes, yes! Birds!” Gratus said and gestured impatiently.

  The stranger snapped his fingers once more and two more Arabs more filthy and ragged than the first two entered carrying a basket piled full of a fruit that resembled apples of a yellowish hue.

  “A fruit of my native land. Great pains were taken to keep it chilled and unbruised for your enjoyment. It is crisp like your own apples but sweet like pears.”

  “Hm.” Gratus was unable to conceal how underwhelmed he was.

  A single Arab was summoned, and in his hands, he held a slender ceramic bottle decorated with exquisite relief sculptures in iridescent blue of elephants and deer and monkeys.

  “The wine of my land. It is crushed and fermented from a rare berry found only at the highest reaches of the ranges that ring the place of my birth. It brings comfort and relief from pain and remorse.”

  Gratus sat wrinkling his nose at the bottle as it was placed on the corner of his desk.

  “And my last offering.” The dark stranger clapped his hands once and yet another pair of odiferous Arabs entered bearing a rolled carpet on their shoulders.

  “A carpet,” Gratus said dryly. What was the obsession of all these black bastards with carpets? He had enough moldy rugs gifted him to cover the road back to Rome with their ornate hideousness.

  The Arabs jerked at the binding ribbons and lifted one hem of the rug, causing it to unravel, suddenly depositing a figure onto the floor of Gratus’s office. A boy. A naked boy with tawny skin and flawless of limb with a shock of silken hair as black as a raven’s wing. The boy rose to his knees and peered up at the stunned prefect with bold eyes that vowed for a passionate heart. Gratus felt breathless.

  “As Cleopatra was delivered to your own Julius,” the stranger proclaimed without irony or drama.

  “Yes, yes...” Gratus said and reached out hands to take the boy’s to help him to rise to his feet.

  “I trust you are pleased, munificent Prefect,” the stranger said and bowed his head.

  “I am. Most pleased. But what is this in aid of? What do you anticipate in return for such generosity?” Gratus said, too enthralled with the vision before him to feel the least bit suspicious.

  “Only your friendly regard should our paths cross again in business or in society,” the stranger said and bowed once more as he backed away to make egress from the prefect’s presence.

  “Oh, you have it. You most assuredly have it,” Gratus said, not turning from the boy’s fixed gaze to watch the stranger depart. He could not now even recall the name of the visitor with the too-perfect smile.

  Gratus awoke late the next day in a state of euphoria he could not explain. His sleep had been deep and dreamless and quite sudden. He had the new boy brought to his bed where they shared the strangely bottled wine—Gratus insisting the boy drink a full measure before his lips would touch the cup. This was the land of Herod, and one must always be cautious when taking food or drink from an unfamiliar source. The boy became dreamy-eyed, but there was no further ill effect, so Gratus drank greedily the thick, sweet wine. Its effect was almost immediate, and Gratus settled back on his bed as though carried on the wings of doves and watched the world swirl close about him while the splendid boy explored his body with daring hands.

  And that was the last he could recall of the evening before. He awoke as though still in the embrace of the spirit’s charms. He was warm within and cool without and had not a worry in the world. Certainly not at all like the rude awakenings he’d experienced on other mornings following a night of drinking. The haze of comforting bliss stayed with him even as he rose to find the corpse of the magnificent boy lying contorted and pale as a ghost on the floor at the foot of his bed. The lad lay with glassy eyes and foam-flecked lips, his lifeless hands gripping the nap of the carpet that had served as his vessel.

  The prefect stumbled naked about his house, aware that he should be alarmed but feeling untroubled by his discovery. A physician was summoned, but found no symptom of poisoning in evidence but for the wild aspect of Gratus’s eyes. The boy, the physician surmised, died as a result of ill favor from the gods.

  Gratus thought no more about it beyond regret over not being able to recall what had occurred between himself and the gifted boy. Ravilla, his ever-present lictor, insisted that it was an attempted poisoning and that the strange visitor of the day before be brought before them to answer for his actions. Gratus acceded to this only to remove the noisome lictor from his presence.

  No evidence was found of the visitor, but soldiers located the Arabs who served in his caravan and brought them back to the palace, where they were scourged and finally strangled with ropes. They knew nothing of the stranger except that he hired them in Seythopolis to carry him and his goods west to Caesarea. He paid them generously in silver and released them from his service. Beyond that, they knew nothing, and each went to their death protesting the same.

  That was the end of the matter, or so Gratus believed.

  Two nights later he made for his bed with a pair of his most treasured slaves to find a bottle much like the one given him by the stranger resting on a table. It was decorated as before in blue relief depicting jungle cats this time. And this bottle was smaller by half than the one before. He called the servants together and questioned each one. Not a one had any idea how the bottle had come to be in the prefect’s rooms. He dismissed them all, even the pair he’d intended to bed.

  Gratus’s thirst and the memories of the delicious rapture the wine created in him overcame his trepidations. He poured a few sips into a cup and tasted it cautiously. It was thick and sweet as he remembered. He could feel the warmth of it creeping into his limbs and poured himself a more generous serving, draining the smaller bottle, and surrendered to the enveloping effect of the draught.

  He awoke the following morning feeling the same jocund drowsiness as the time before and spent the day idly lying upon a chaise watching the shadows grow longer along the walls of the courtyard. The lictor tried to engage him in the business of the day, but Gratus only waved him away and returned to his study of the clouds scudding overhead like his own personal parade.

  That evening he went to his bedchamber alone to find a new bottle upon the table. This one was even smaller than the night before and encrusted with images of braying donkeys. Gratus snickered at the jest though it held no significance to him. He drained the bottle in three long swallows and fell back upon the bed to plummet into Elysium.

  This went on for several days. Each night a new though increasingly diminutive bottle was found on his bed table. And each day he felt the effect of the draught less and less as the volume of the bottles shrank.

  The seventh day passed in distracted ennui and all the prefect could think of
was the coming of night and his new bottle of the healing tonic. But that night he entered to find the table bare of a bottle of any size. On hands and knees, he crawled about the floor looking for a vessel of any kind and found none. Exhausted, he dropped into a fretful sleep and was awake before the light of dawn tinged the mountains to the east. His mood was in stark contrast to the prior days. He was short with the slaves and even cuffed a body servant hard enough to draw blood from the boy’s mouth. Gratus felt uneasy, as though stalked by a nameless dread. He was physically uncomfortable as well, alternately flushed and chilled, and had the disturbing sensation that his skin was growing tighter.

  The following days and nights were hell made real as the prefect was racked with intense pains in his limbs and a crippling agony in his gut. He would not eat as all tasted like ashes, no matter how sweet or seasoned the servants prepared it. He could not sleep or even sit or lie down for prolonged periods. His hands shook and his head pounded, and no amount of wine would relieve his torment. Gratus’s mind shrank to the solitary focus of those tiny bottles and his overpowering desire to feel their effect once more or die.

  He lay on his couch, writhing in a lake of sweat, when Ravilla entered to inform him that the mysterious stranger had returned to seek a second audience.

  The prefect staggered into his office with hands clawing for the stranger who was standing cool and immaculate before him. Gratus fell to his knees before the man and begged for the gift of another bottle of the elixir.

  “Honorable Prefect! Remember your station!” Ravilla cried in alarm, but Gratus groveled and snuffled and kissed the hem of the stranger’s robe.

  “He does not wish your counsel,” the stranger said boldly to Ravilla.

  “Then perhaps the legate in Antioch will listen to me,” Ravilla said, taken aback by this dark bastard’s effrontery to an official and citizen of Rome.