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Schertzer gave Ron a sly look. "No. No body.
'Least not that fella." He straightened with pride as he said, "Got
maybe five-K for that one."
John turned a ghostly shade of gray and twisted away for
a close personal inspection of the weedy growth along the door.
Bruce studied John's heaving back for a moment.
"What's with him?"
"He's from Colorado," Ron said.
"Oh." Bruce gave John a look of pity mixed
with contempt. "I alus say folks from the mountains is fags."
"Where's the man now, Bruce?"
"Huh?" Then Bruce smiled. "I done my
duty for my country, Deputy. Yes-sir. I sold him to the Janissary Project."
He grew sullen and scowled at Ron. "Would o' got maybe more for the Grey
kid here. You want a cut?" He smiled and his voice grew reedy with
pleading. "Half?"
John trembled. He glanced at Ron. His father-in-law's
eyes were half closed, hand very tight on his pistol's holster. John felt a wave
for revulsion of Schertzer, far more than if the man had been a simple murderer.
A murderer was a lot closer to normal than the attitudes of the people who
worked for the Project.
Benny's smile grew icy and Misty whimpered. He let her
lean against him and even gave her back a gentle pat of comfort.
"Misty kept dropping hints." He blushed.
"I came here with the bim. Something, Schertzer's gun, I guess, hit me from
behind." He gave Misty a sour look. "I should a known when she called
me Young Stud." He looked away from them all, his jaws hard. "It was
my . . . working name at the Manse."
"Now, Benny honey," Misty cried, her eyes
searching his, "You had some fun. We did stop twice on the way here. Ain't
just anybody I'd do that with, you know." She sighed and kissed his
nipples. Benny pulled her mouth away with an impatient gesture.
"When I woke up I was naked, my hands and feet
tied up behind my back, like a hog." He grew pale with outrage. "Ol'
Brucey here," Bruce cringed from the look on Benny's face and John yanked
him upright, "Bruce wanted to play meat-in-the-middle, with me as the
meat," Benny finished, his voice deadly and quiet. Schertzer whimpered and
scurried to hide behind Ron.
"I . . . I told him, I don't do that." Benny
closed his eye and something like an illness took his face, paled his skin to a
dull sheen. "Not the bread, not ever the meat." He flushed and
explained for Ron's benefit, "They wanted to both do it with me at the same
time. I don't, not with guys." His face dark and feral he took an
involuntary step towards Schertzer, hands reaching, half clawed.
Ron jumped between them.
Benny slumped, hands falling to his sides. He looked
at Misty. "They were shooting up. Using a candle to heat the tar. Brucey
wanted to stick me too, but I told them the Feds wouldn't want me if I was high.
So they beat me for kicks. I don't know how I got loose." Two Swords
growled at Benny. "My hands were still tied, but the ropes on my feet were
gone." Benny flashed a weak grin and showed Ron the weeping blisters on his
wrists.
"They done that to you?" Ron grow cold, he
turned on Schertzer, his face savage, dark red, his eyes mere slots of black
anger.
"Nah, man," Benny continued, "I did,
when I burned the ropes off."
"Christ." It was said by Ron, echoed in
reverent tones by John and Boone.
"Freedom," Benny said, his head high and
proud, "is worth the cost." He glanced at his hands and gave John a
cold smile.
Ron stooped and took up the shotgun. He broke it open
to extract the spent shells as evidence. Benny started to dress.
One of the shells was heavy in his hand. Unspent.
Misty had reloaded and was prepared to kill him. Or anyone coming through that
door. Dammit.
"Benny?"
Curious at the soft tones, Benny looked up, one leg in
the jeans, the other raised.
Ron slammed a fist in Benny's face that knocked Benny
through the door and into the high weeds.
With a shriek of mortal terror, Misty threw herself
over Benny in an effort to protect him from more blows.
"Don't you dare hurt him again, Ron
Donnelly," she cried, and pressed Benny down. "He makes me
faint."
The cruiser slid out of the muddy drive with a bellow
and screamed onto the tar and gravel road, headed for town. Moments later a car
slowed and pulled into the Schertzer's drive. Mike Donnelly scowled and geared
it down into first.
Ron frowned. He studied the water-filled paperweight
in his hands, rolling it back and forth with great deliberation.
"Benny?" Ron waited until he had Benny's
full attention. "Did you kill the Longs?"
Fear nibbled at the corners of Ron's mind. If Benny
had murdered the elderly couple, then it was his job, his duty, as a sworn
officer of the law, to arrest the kid. He had no more choice in it than did
Benny.
The thought of sending this young man to a lifetime of
bars and sadistic guards sickened Ron. Worse, if John were correct, Benny would
never make it to prison. What would follow was far worse in Ron's estimate.
Better . . . Benny trying to escape . . . one bullet in the back.
And after Benny had saved not only his life, but the
life of his son. Ron heaved a sigh. For Terry Marie's sake, Benny could not be
allowed to go to a . . . say it, dammit, a whore house, a stable, with the
knowledge that Terry Marie was carrying his child.
For the first time in his life the man in him
regretted his calling.
The answer was soft, long in coming.
"No."
Ron blinked with relief. Then he saw the guarded look
in Benny's eye and the ache in his head returned full force.
"It will go easier on you son, if you were to
confess."
Benny tipped his head back and stared into the pale,
bland face. "That's an old one, fat man. It never does, it never
will."
He shook his head. Ron was a cop, yes, but unless
Benny was very badly mistaken, there was a fatherly concern in those dark eyes.
"No. I didn't do it, Ron. Mandy Long was kin, on
my Grampa Wya's side. They made the mistake of taking in a hunted man."
Benny concluded in a bitter voice, "they were Family, I love them."
Jaws clenched to stop their trembling he closed his eye to hide the deep ache of
loneliness and anger within.
Ron nodded. He could see the truth when it slapped him
in the face enough times.
He leaned back, pleading with Benny. "Then who,
son? You have to tell me or be arrested as our only suspect."
Benny thrust himself from the chair, hands shoved deep
into the back pockets of his jeans. It was purely instinctual, in the
reformatory a kid kept his hands in his back pockets by orders of the guards.
That way you couldn't sign at a bro, talk to him in hand-speech. It saved a lot
of pain coming at you from nervous guards, made them feel respected when you
preformed like a well trained monkey. Benny could feel the cuffs and shackles
growing on him.
"I c-can't tell you, man." Benny
straightened and snatched his hands from his pockets. One hand massaged the
other wrist.
Ron eased his bulk forward in the chair. "You do
know. Don't you? Tell me. Tell me, dammit," Ron shouted, "and clear
yourself." He raised his hands in supplication. "You're telling me the
truth, son, but unless you tell me what you know-"
Benny whirled and darted for the office door. Johnny
Lyndon spat out his chew and snatched him to the floor to slam Benny's head on
the tiles. "Dammit, Lyndon, take it easy on him." Benny struggled,
stunned by the blow. He was cuffed and dragged into the common holding cell.
Outside, Mike Donnelly followed the trace of the
'finger' in his hands. He came up the steps to the Sheriff's department and
smiled.
"Yeah, that's our man."
Benny stared at Mike Donnelly through the bars and
smiled. It was a pleasant smile, an odd smile, one calculated to enrage.
"What are you smiling at, monkey?"
"Y'know," Benny said, his voice serious and
light all at the same time, "You ain't nothing, man. Sell your own flesh.
Whoremaster." Benny said it with a grin his good eye cocked up at Mike.
"Screw you, Greylov. I'm doing my duty, that's
all."
Benny said, very low and very quietly, "By
selling your own sister into prostitution, Donnelly?"
Taken aback, Mike whispered in a sharp edged tone,
"What the hell does that mean, boy?"
Smug now, Benny grinned and announced in a caustic
growl of laughter, "Think about it, dude. From one ex-Marine to one
jack-boot thug."
At Donnelly's silence, Benny added, "Who do you
know that we got in common, so to speak." He stuck his tongue in cheek and
winked. Donnelly hit him, just once, and as hard as he could, with all the hate
and rage of a brother behind his fist.
Benny was slammed back onto the steel plate that
served as a bunk in the cell. He spat out a mouthful of blood and mucus and
rocked with laughter.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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