Near White Post, Virginia
It was well into January now. Cindy shivered and threw more wood on the fire. How long could one boy elude some of the world's finest detectives? She took her baby from the sour old woman who was his nurse.
"You may go now, Berretta."
The old woman looked to Cindy as if she wanted to demand the child back. Berretta nodded and took herself to the kitchen.
Cindy patted the baby and sank to the rugs.
"How's mama's little soldier today?"
He lay on his back and smiled, so like his father it made her heart ache.
"I love your daddy. Did you know that, Benjamin?"
Benny, Benny, come back to me.
Cindy groaned. If he came back, after another year he would be terminated. If not by her, then by Grace Hylnn's crowd of fanatics.
She kissed her son.
In the shadows that flickered in the light of the fireplace, a raven watched the child and muttered a happy croak.
Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, two days later
He snarled a grin and helped her dress.
"You got my money?"
The woman nodded. She held out a small briefcase. The lieutenant reached for it but the woman shook her head. "Information first. Then the pay-off."
"Fair enough." The lieutenant shrugged. He uttered a hard laugh. "The kid is in ward 2B, bed four-hundred and twenty. You won't be able to miss him. He's got all the nurses hanging on his dick."
The woman's face darkened and twisted into something akin to jealousy.
He snatched at the briefcase and bolted from the camper. He made it almost all the way to his car before the first shot smashed him into a dumpster.
"What?"
Benny stared up at the cold faces of the MPs, and shook the grogginess from his head.
They helped him down to the adjutant's office and left him there.
An MP with a chest full of hot wind questioned him about his relationship with
Laudon.
"Relationship?" Benny snorted at the man. "I don't know squat about the creep. He left me alone and I returned the favor. OK?" Benny managed to cross his legs and met the hard glare of the MP with one of his own.
"Laudon was mixing it up with some people from the JP, the Janissary Project, that's all I know."
"He was seeing a woman. According to what was left of his remains in that dumpster, he had had sex only minutes before his death. What can you tell me about that?"
Benny shrugged. "The JP'll sell your soul for a nickel. They use people like animals, and when they're done with 'em, bam, not a problem? A crooked smile settled on his face. Benny took out a pack of tobacco and a bible of papers. He cocked an eye ap at the man.
"No smoking on base. You know that, kid."
Benny smiled. "Religious thangus, Sarge." He held up a neatly rolled cigarette before the man's skeptical eyes. "Injun stuff."
"Right. And I'm Sandy Claus. You're registered Caucasian, so lay off the bull shit."
"Might be light, skin be bright, but that don't mean you be right. I ain't white. My faith is my business. Remember the law from the '90s? Even cons have some rights on how they worship."
The sergeant growled a sigh and snapped, "Go get the kid a light, Lerries."
Quivering with indignation, the private stalked out. Benny sat, staring at the sergeant with an inane smile on his face.
"You better talk, kid. You're in on the deep end with this one. Laud's old man wants you ass."
"I didn't do squat." Benny flared at the man and grabbed his crutches. "How the hell am I supposed to shit when I have to use these yet?"
The sergeant leaned close and said into Benny's face, "You had motive. And nobody knows where you were at the time of the murder. Confess and it'll go light with you."
"Right. Leavenworth in the spring, such a sight to see. Those assholes in that pen will kill you for the lint in you pockets, and that's just the C/Os." Benny stared at the pores on the man's face. "Back-off." He smirked. "I was, ah, busy. With a certain nurse. Asked her, she'll tell you. It was his old man's friends in the JP that nailed Laud's sorry ass. I heard he tried to sell me to them. You know who I am and what the JP made me do. What I was." Benny flushed. "She wants me back bad enough to kill for me, the bitch."
The sergeant folded his arms. "Who?"
Closing his eye, Benny shook his head. "You got a death wish, don't you?" He shrugged at the MP's cold stare. "OK. Her name is Cindy VanTur. As in Cindy the bitch McAllen hyphen VanTur. Right now she's probably in Who's Who in Washington, DC. Laudon sold me up the river, Sarge. You gonna finish what he started? You gonna sell out a brother Marine?"
The man snapped his fingers. "Get out." As Benny left, he called, "This ain't over, kid. You stick close."
Hanging from the crutches, Benny uttered a short, hard laugh.
"Where the hell do you think I'm gonna go? The minute I step foot off base, I'm in chains again. See this?" Benny opened the collar of the bathrobe. "They're scars from a freekin collar she made me wear, man. If she thinks you know to much, guess what, you get to be a host at a whorehouse like I did. Have a good night,
Sarge."
The sergeant glared at Benny and fingered his own neck.
Weeks ground by. The muscles in his upper arms bulged, threatening to rip the tee shit off his back. Sweat ran into his eyes to blind him. Benny clumped around on his legs but they were little more than wood. But he was walking, and that had to count for something.
It was Carlos that wrecked things with Sweet-Bottom. Carlos and his own greed.
"Yo, Ben-nee, my man." Carlos winked at him. "We got us new meat in the hall, bro."
Benny swung through the doors on his crutches and stopped, awed.
She was maybe five-foot and seven inches. The lady was an inch taller than he was, and the resemblance stopped there, thank God. Dark, Latina, a waist he could span with his hands, and he definitely was in the need to get his hands on that waist.
A butt that was meant to be worshipped, breasts a man would kill to see in the natural. Her eyes . . . liquid. Whiskey, he decided. Like fine old bourbon.
If the angels all had faces like hers, then Benny wanted to go to heaven, and fast.
Her eyes took in all of him and Benny hunched forward a little to cover his desire for the woman.
"I take it you're Grey?" she said, her voice a mirror of her beauty.
"Baby, I'm anything you desire right up to and including your wildest fantasies."
Benny flushed. Blood rushed to his face and certain other body parts. Benny muttered a small hiss and fought the swelling that was fast becoming a very painful, very embarrassing cramp.
She laughed, caught her bottom lip between small white teeth, and winked.
Benny felt faint.
The woman led him into the session.
Sweet-Bottom was definitely getting jealous. It took him three days to make a pass at Alicia.
Removing his hand from her posterior, she chuckled.
"Where would you take me? You're broker than I am, Benny." Tapping her chin with the tip of her index finger, she squinted at him. "Maybe," she said slowly, "I could use a cup of coffee. When you can walk without the sticks. How about it?"
They clattered to the floor.
Benny walked to her. At just the right moment his legs weakened and he was smiling into her navel, the tip of his tongue itching to tickle her there. Women, it worked ev-very time, at least with the motherly type.
His tongue grazed her bare midriff.
Alicia jerked away, her eyes wide. "None of that, Grey," she warned. The eyes, they always give it away. She couldn't hide the smile in those brown eyes.
From his knees, Benny said, "The docs tell me I'm doing so good they want to write about me to the Vatican or something, but I think they just want my bed space. No room on the rolls for me, either." He reached for her. "Got any ideas?"
Her teeth worried at her bottom lip.
Inching up, Benny moved into her arms.
She studied him for a moment. "Could be. My folks live off base. I rent their garage apartment. Interested?"
One finger stroked her navel, his eye warm on hers as she squirmed.
"Sounds cool. So long as I pay half the bills."
She laughed, her head tipping to one side. "Bennito, it isn't important. I know you won't have much until you can work again."
He gave her a crooked smile and his eye hardened.
"It is to a man, baby. It is to me."
Sweet-Bottom stood in the doorway of the hall, a tear welling in her eye.
Life goes on, baby, you roll with the punches.
Terry Marie Donnelly ran up to Alicia and swung.
Benny caught her arm in an iron grip. She tore loose and bared her teeth.
"I ever see you again, Grey, I'll finish what the Project started. You hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Sweet-Bottom."
Her hand smashed over his face and she stalked away.
Another few weeks and the crutches were history. He said a few good-byes, awkward and uncertain, and managed to walk out under his own power. Benny packed the few things he had with him, and limped out to meet Alicia. Sweet-Bottom was there, waiting with a pack of nurses at the door. He glanced at her, and his face burning, turned away.
"Yeah, I'll be 'round. Got to finish getting these back in shape, yo." One fist hit the right leg. He felt it, the hit, and smiled. "Another month, that's what the docs said, and I'll be good as new."
Myers and Boyle hugged him, and Myers slapped his butt.
"You be good, here else I'll put y' right back in here."
"Yes, ma'am."
Alicia pulled up in a battered old 2002 VW bus, the paint lumpy with rust, faded, but he could still see the ancient '60s style design of flowers on the yellow body. She waved at the nurses, popped the horn, and grinned. Benny hobbled out to the van.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
|
