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He glanced into the mist-rimmed mirror on his left and frowned. Behind the long rooster tail plume of rainwater was the cruiser, lights flashing. And, no doubt, siren wailing. Cops got a thrill out of that sort of crap.
Benny leaned into the bars.
No. Better see what the dude wanted and get it over with. Probably had a nice fat ticket to give the nasty ol'
Uohali Sun rider, that harassing ayotli of a gili.
The Uohali slowed. Benny eased her onto the muddy gravel of the road's berm.
Sliding to a halt behind the motorcycle, the heavy-set deputy threw open his door and managed to leap out. He came up behind the motorcycle, eyes wary, gun held in both hands.
"Off the 'Sun, kid."
Face a careful neutral, Benny let the man shove him against the patrol car.
"Spread 'em. You know the routine." He kicked Benny's feet apart before Benny could do as ordered.
Nose inches from the car's muddy hood, Benny closed his eye. Cindy. Now the usual performance, extraordinary only in its predictability. Cop arrests subject. Subject jailed. Agents spring subject . . . Subject kills agents. God help him, that was starting to be the only fun part, but the thought didn't make him smile.
The tiny red blip on her screen stopped. Superimposed over the black two meter holograph were the lines of a road map of North Carolina. It was dark here, the lights few and far above them, almost lost in the hall's cavernous shadows. Cindy threw a nervous glance around at the dark ceiling with it dim tracts of lighting. Those ravens were close, she could feel them, watching.
"Our pet is somewhere south of a place called Moyock, people." She peered at the screen. Not too many roads in that vicinity. "Route one-sixty-eight. Move it or we'll lose him again." The Jacksonville fiasco had almost put her on the dirty end of the stick with the Boss. "Remember what he did to Ainsworthy and Smith. But, dammit, I need him unharmed."
Her fingers flew over the keys, printing out an exact a location as the graph was able. Men with dark suits and inhuman eyes piled into cars and raced east from Fayetteville, North Carolina.
The deputy patted Benny down, muttering, "Kid, from the looks of you, I bet you got a rap sheet a mile long and as dirty as any professional con's."
Wary of surprises like dirty needles, Ron's hand reached under the Benny's crotch and he yelped.
"Glory be, a concealed weapon. Wonder how that got there. What? No answers, kid? And a switch blade, at that. My, my, but you are a bad boy. Ain't you, kid? How about you tell me why you did it."
Benny half turned, wanted to explain about the Long murders. Ron's fist smashed into Benny's side. Blood trickled down the inside of Benny's tee shirt and Benny's teeth ground together to stop a groan. He grunted. Carl always said never show a cop any weakness, or they'd abuse you to death. The fist caressed his side again, not hard, just in warning.
"Are you a murderer, Grey? Hm? It was two days ago. Bet you were feeling real safe, just wandering around North Carolina like some rubberneckin' tourist. Hey," Ron said in a laugh, "I got some bad news, boy. We have a witness who says you were at the scene."
Ron paused. "Want to tell me about it, son?"
Benny rolled his eye. Man, this was too much. Every arrest it's the same. Good cop/bad cop. At least they usually broke it up. First comes the jerk, like this dude, who roughs you up. Not enough to show, because that would be illegal, and cops never break the law. Where they can be caught. Then comes Sweetie-pie who expects you to fall all over yourself and tell him your life story. After all, he's nice, not like the cop with the hard-on. Until you don't tell him what he wants, then it would be,
Sorry, boy, I tried to help, but you didn't want it.
Piss on them. What cops don't know they got a bad habit of making up, like that arrest in Dayton, Ohio the other year. Cops nabbed the wrong dude, a guy who wasn't even the same race as the one they wanted. They roughed him up . . . almost killed the dude, and got clean away with it.
Do:hi:yi, man, because crap happens.
Just in case the man was getting a little impatient Benny shook his head. He didn't need another fist in the ribs. Not those ribs.
His hands were jerked roughly behind him. All that ran through his mind was the collar and a look of triumph that would be on Cindy's face when she chained him. Self-disgust filled Benny. He was a loser. An all around loser. Give it up, man. Let it all just go. What a way to live, running scared half the time, running terrified the rest. Chains would draw the Owl, bring the Hunters out and then he would die.
Let Cindy possess his soul. In the end she'd be the bigger loser. The Owl would take her as well as him.
A faint, mocking voice asked, 'And my grandkids?'
Benny's head hung in shame.
The hefty cop's hand came back to the knife-pocket in the crotch of Benny's jeans. Benny testicles cringed. A tear of anger rolled down one cheek, washing a muddy track to splash on the car.
Trapped, shackled to the operating table at the Manse. The Arab looked on and laughed.
"'Castration. A slave's punishment for daring to strike your master, boy.'" Feet strapped into a set of birthing stirrups, held so tight he couldn't take a step for hours afterwards without pain. Not that he did much walking with a bullet in him.
Raleigh stepped between the stirrups, scalpel glittering like some living thing in his hands.
"'Hope you like camel races, Benny,'" he said, giggling in that high-pitched laugh of his. A hand, soft, white, fondled Benny's genitals. A gleam came into his eyes.
"'Finish it,'" the Arab snapped. The warmth in Raleigh's eyes dulled. "'Are you getting all this, Judge?'" the Arab asked Harrison of Philadelphia's Juvenile Court. Harrison smiled and drew close, the tiny camcorder a black mar on his face.
As the scalpel slit the scrotum even teeth sunk deep into his tongue at the flash of pain and the hot blood in his mouth couldn't stop Benny's scream. He swung around and his heel drove into the cop's paunchy guts.
Shocked and surprised after the meekness of the kid, the big man grunted at the attack. Doubled over he tried to raise his weapon and the engineer boot snapped again.
The gun splashed far out over the murky waters.
"Little . . . bastard," the cop grunted, and his stomach shoved out the free soda pop and chips consumed at the store.
Benny looked up at him, on his knees, dumbfounded as to how he had gotten there. He stumbled up, reeled to the
Uohali Sun and in a frenzy of confusion, threw himself on and was tearing away.
Benny looked back and spat a mouthful of blood at the cop.
Cindy leaned back in the chair. The wavering red blip moved again. It was staying on one-sixty eight. She rubbed a hand over her weary face and waited for a call. Donnelly was on the crew now. He had some hatred for the pet, but that meant nothing. He was a good man, a good agent. By this time they all hated him. Using Donnelly's anger would help capture Benny.
Green blips raced south. Donnelly, he had other uses.
She smiled.
Like Benny always said, Work is only one of my favorite four-letter-verbs.
Through the mist blue and red lights flashed closer. Benny shouted an inarticulate cry of rage. His muddied fist beat on the tank and Benny leaned into the wind.
The Uohali disappeared from Ron's sight.
"Don't matter," he said harshly, and reached for the mike. "Be in Moyock soon enough. The boys'll get him." He chortled a laugh and then grimaced at waves of nausea that shivered up from his stomach.
The radio snapped and hissed. Ron tried another band. No voice squawked out at him.
He glanced out and saw the glittering stub of the antenna.
"Damn it all," he shouted. "You'll pay for this, kid. Destruction of County property." The mike smashed onto the windshield and Ron stamped on the accelerator.
The Uohali sputtered and nearly died. A sign flashed by, proclaiming,
MOYOCK, ONE MILE
Maybe he could find help in town, somebody who was a 'skin. Benny shook his head. Man, but that kid he bought the
Uohali from was a real punk. Didn't know the first thang on 'Suns. What a crap-head little beanpole.
'Maybe they should take away his red-neck frat card.'
"You said it, Grampa."
The motorcycle shuddered to a halt. The sneering laugh died. Far down the rain-swept highway the cop's siren whispered a mocking salute.
"What in thee hell?"
Ron peered through the windshield and into the deepening gloom. A single headlight. On his side of the road, too, so far as he could tell.
The punk?
"Now I got you." He punched the wheel and roared with laughter.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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