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Finely
handcrafted silk wall hangings and delicate works of art held no interest at
this time for her. Ryan was in his heavily sound-proofed room in the bowels of
the mansion. Cindy shuddered. Though she couldn’t hear, she knew enough about
Ryan that death would come hard to that boy. Most of her agents stayed only long
enough to satisfy their curiosity, then left the room, disgusted by the crudity
of Ryan’s Old-World methods, but not by the results. That much they were
passed students at.
The
door to the study opened and she glanced up. Henri looked down from his towering
height at her and she felt a delicate shudder of fear.
“I
understand you aren’t satisfied with my plans, Mr. Long. No?” Cindy pulled
her legs up on the sofa. Seeing something she understood very well in the
man’s eyes, she smiled at him.
“You
know,” she said, slowly letting her eyes wander over his body, “that that
Melancowski woman will murder our Benny if I don’t get him.”
He
shrugged.
“Liar.”
she laughed. “I studied your dossier. You and my Benny are cousins. You love
that boy . . . .” Uncertain and more than half afraid, her voice trailed off.
His
hands twitched. The Eagle-Woman touched one drawn cheek. Henri closed his eyes
in a heart-breaking agony. She gave him a name and a phone number. Sheila
Drobnicki.
He
loomed over Cindy. She shrank away. He gave her a chilling show of teeth. In a
terse whisper, Henri relayed the information.
Carl
glanced at Todd through his rear-view mirror.
“She
really wanted to jump your bones? Why didn’t you let her?” Carl grimaced,
and ask delicately, “You ain’t . . . you know.”
Benny
cocked an eye.
“What
do you mean, You know, Ivanovitch? He
ain’t You know. You know?”
Face
a mask of innocence, Carl shrugged, popped the clutch and rammed the jeep into
second, and they bounced over the tracks and up the hill.
“Yo,
man, I just meant that-”
“What?
Because he thinks sex is more than a toy? Look where it landed us, man. Makes
you feel like a god and gets you treated like a . . . an animal.”
“Benny,
cool it, he was only kidding. Uncle Carl, I don’t because I want to keep for
the marriage bed, not because I don’t want to.”
Carl
flashed a toothy grin into the rear-view mirror at his nephew-by-marriage.
“Try the DA’s swimming pool. It’s heated and feels better than cold baths,
and is way, way better 'n takin a dip in that liquid ice you jerks call a
swimming hole.” He nodded and they rounded the curve on 940 and bounced out of
town.
Benny
slid down in his seat, shot Carl an I’ll-get-you-for-this look, and slouched
boneless. They shifted down, around the wreckage of the Interstate-80 bridge and
the crumbling bones of the terrorists who blew it up ten years ago.
Carl
took the turn onto the Sandy Valley Road a little fast. A mile later, he shifted
into third. Carl gunned the jeep and rammed the humped bridge on the Rock
Port-Sandy Run crossroads.
They
bounced high, all four wheels leaving the road. Carl whooped, echoed by Todd,
then jammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel in a sharp right to keep from
flying into the Miller’s living room. The jeep rammed it up to fifty, roared
onto the ‘Y’ of Owl Hell Road. They picked up speed until the stop sign on
Owl Hell-Sandy Valley crossroads.
Subdued,
Carl dropped Todd off at the gate to the farm. He nodded at Todd and forced a
grin. Benny moved to join Todd.
“Nah,”
Carl said, “I milked and cleaned up. Hang out with me for a while.” He
glanced at Benny, then backed the jeep out. Carl slid the stick in first and
they rattled down the mountain.
Pulling
into Leda’s drive, Carl moved slowly, almost painfully into the house. He
returned, squatted on the jeep’s hard seat and stared at the door. Carl
fingered his throat and scowled.
“She’s
hurt.” He stared at the floor boards beneath his black engineer boots for a
moment. Carl glanced at Benny. “I . . . she wants me to pick up some bim for
her. Sheila Drobnicki. Wanna go?” He smiled sadly and started the jeep.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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