Flights

My flight arrived at 8:05 yesterday morning.  I was on the trail of Eddie Suberi.

Eddie was a small-stakes grafter who stayed a step ahead of the law until he got violent.  He assaulted a man in Kansas City and spent a few years behind the high, gray walls of Missouri’s historic state penitentiary.  They give tours there now so the curious can see where prisoners slept behind yard-thick stone walls and made shoes for German-American businessmen in from St. Louis.  The morbid can see where the condemned died from injection, gas, electricity, or hanging, depending on how far back they want to go.

Eddie didn’t die in prison.  He learned.  He got out and moved on to bigger marks and bigger scores.  He learned how to use muscle and he wasn’t afraid to flex it.

Eddie finally took money from someone who had enough money to do something about it.  He called the agency and the agency sent me.

I’ve talked to police in six jurisdictions since I landed.  Eddie had at least as many addresses.  A pretty girl who worked for a living and paid her own rent occupied each address.  They said Eddie was fun.  He was happy to pay for drinks, clubs and contraception.  His drinking buddies couldn’t remember any specific instance when Eddie paid for drinks or a cover charge.

I haven’t slept since I got here.  I’ve eaten all my meals in a rental car that is so nondescript it isn’t worth describing.

I’ve pieced together a good picture of what Eddie has been up to the last several weeks.  It looks like his flight out of town left at 8:20 yesterday morning.

The Boneyard

The sky was cloudless and bright.  Vladimir gazed at the high gibbous moon.  He pushed his senses out.

His soldiers waited in their places in the clearing.  It looked like newly plowed field, uneven with large clods of hard earth.  The night before, it had been a snow-dusted pasture, abandoned by livestock and left to the occasional deer.

Beyond his soldiers, a safe distance away in the trees, Vladimir sensed the gleaming eyes and steaming breath of the pack.  He normally stayed out of the territories claimed by the packs.  He did not fear them.  As a general and king, he knew the cost of conquering those who could not be readily subjugated or eradicated.

He was here by invitation tonight.  The pack was frightened.  They were immune to much that troubled ordinary men, but they were mortal.  They did not know if one of their own could fall to the corruption, but they dared not risk it.

They viewed Vladimir and his kind as immune to disease.  They also saw a kind of rightness in calling him.  As the pack leader had put it, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

He had watch scores of men dig graves for hundreds of his enemies.  His own sword had cut through the diggers’ necks before he kicked their bodies into the trenches.  It was how he rewarded the valorous vanquished and warned those who remained.  These memories stirred nothing in him but the one emotion he had carried with him from his former life, bloodlust.

A barely perceptible shiver in the earth drew his attention back from distant memories and distant watchers.  He looked down.  As he watched, the clods began to shake and tumble over boiling soil.  Fingers poked out of the soil like sprouting plants.  They grew into hands and arms.  In a moment, heads arose.  Thin remnants of hair were matted with dirt.  Cracked papery skin stretched across skulls, pulled back in grimaces from yellow teeth.  The bodies were covered to varying degrees with rags crusted over with mud and blood.

Vladimir’s troops were held their positions.  Two hundred bodies surrounded them, thirteen warriors including himself.  As a man, he had lead thousands and defeated tens of thousands.  He had never faced an enemy like this, animated by dark energy.

The walking dead began to move.  They turned toward the village that was a few mile to the south, almost straight toward the moon.  He had seen the chimney smoke and rising heat, but he did not know how these corpses knew where to find the living.

The bodies moved around him as if he were a stone in a stream.  Those arms that reached out to draw flesh to clacking teeth turned inches from his chest.  He did not like it.

He reached for his sword and as one, thirteen blades flashed in the moonlight.  It was followed by a rumble of cracking vertebrae, falling skulls, and tumbling bodies.

He didn’t need to speak.  His troops knew their orders.  They stacked the bodies.  They piled the heads separately.  It was work beneath skilled swordsmen, but none complained.  They were too proud to show a hint of dissent in the presence of the beast that had crept up to the edge the clearing. With a signal from their captain, the creature fled to fetch fire.

Vladimir’s soldiers would not stay to watch the fire.  They had a village to visit before dawn.

The Night Eye (4)

“Thanks, but I should be able to catch the last bus.  David may need a ride, though, unless he plans to spend the night in the lab again.  Good evening, gentlemen.”

“She’s a little young to be your mother hen,” Kezatz teased as the door clicked closed.

“I think she’ll be a fine wife someday, if there’s a man in Chitoki smart enough to keep up with her.  Well, Adam is expecting you.  You know the way?”

Kezatz knew his way.  He followed David down the hall as far as a little laboratory where a furnace for melting glass glowed.  He proceeded to the end of the hall and up the stairs.  This floor was mostly business offices, which were dark and silent at this time in the evening, except the one at the top of the stairs.  This was the office of Adam Medama, president of the enterprise, which was selected more for proximity to the labs than for executive amenities.

“Come in, Chief.”  Adam greeted his visitor with open arms.  They embraced like family.

From appearance, they might have been family.  Both had dark hair, though Kazatz’s was streaked with gray, brown eyes, faces that were still winter-pale in budding of spring.  They were different enough in age to be father in son.  Kezatz’s was the same age the senior Medama would have been; they had walked the same beat together as rooky cops.

“Have you heard from your mother?” Kezatz inquired.

“Yes, we exchange letters almost daily, but you know that.  She tells me she gets letters from you, too, keeping her up on all the Chitoki gossip.”

“It’s not gossip.  I’m just letting her know what is going on with old friends.  She could come back and keep up with it herself.  She’d be warmly welcomed home.”

The Night Eye (3)

Kezatz’s visits to this part of town were more political now that he was chief of police. Some of the local tycoons were politically active and some weren’t, but their confidence in the police, or lack of it, could make or break a chief. He was the first chief to rise up through the ranks of the Chitoki police department and probably the first one that wasn’t crooked since the founders built a little stone jail on the bluff overlooking the Kawatani.

“It’s a bit nippy, Untenshaw. You want to come in with me.”

“No thanks, Chief, I’ll be alright.” Untenshaw was a young cop who served as Kezatz’s driver. He loathed being separated from the car, as if someone would take his seat if he left it empty.

“Greetings, Chief.” David Taseker opened the door before Kezatz could touch the buzzer. “I saw you pull up. Adam let us know you were coming.”

“I thought this place was closed for the day.”

“The work day is over on the production side. Things are a little loser on the research side,” answered David. He grinned like a kid who was getting away with something. He looked like a kid, in Kezatz’s eyes, even with the stubble that was coming in after a long day away from the razor.

“Don’t stay too late, David.” A young woman entered the foyer. She was already in her coat and had her hat on her head. The coat cinched with a belt around a high waist that accentuated her figure. “Adam will be saying, ‘Your extra hours are money in my pocket.’ His pockets are full enough.”

Kezatz searched his memory. His success as a detective was built in part on his excellent recall of faces and names. “Good evening, Ms. Kiri. It’s late. My driver can take you home.”

The Night Eye (2)

He was falling too fast to risk landing on the shore. He might survive the fall if he could hit the water and miss the black rocks. It all looked black from his vantage. The water was rising under him quickly and he sucked in a deep breath.

The tide was high. It was a mixed blessing. A high tide covered the some of the rocks, but a falling tide could sweep Adam into the sea.

He didn’t waste time calculating, but swam with all the energy he could muster. On the dark beach, Adam forced his shivering hands to explore his pockets. I must write down all I can remember. He found a leather-bound notebook, it pages sopping, a dull stub of pencil, and a heavy pair of eyeglasses. “Thank God,” he sighed.

2

THE VISIT TO MEDAMA LABS

Bernard Kezatz could enjoy the good fortune of others, especially a friend. He could still remember many dinners with the Medamas where they bragged on little Adam and his good marks in school.

Little Adam was Dr. Medama now. His plant, modestly called a lab, sat by a rail spur lined with dingier manufactories and warehouses. Kezatz had been out here a lot in his days as a beat cop and detective. Theft from the factories had been common during the war, when resources were scarce. Now things were more prosperous, and Medama was part of the reason. He scratched together a little money of his own and a lot of investor to buy a maker of telegraph and telephone equipment that was nearly done in by wartime shortages. He made production more efficient and put in a line of high-end optics that turned things around.

The Night Eye (1)

THE NIGHT EYE

1

ESCAPE AT THE KAWATANI BRIDGE

Adam Medama woke with a start in unnatural darkness. He was flooded with pain from the throbbing lump on his head to the burning stripe on his thigh. He reeked of smoke and the memory of flames drove him to push and kick against constraints until he was suddenly free under stars and a cold wind.

He had been loosely wrapped in a tarp. He was surrounded by rumbling slats, the bed of a truck. A cautious glance into the passenger compartment revealed two hulking silhoettes and the lights of the Kawatani Bridge ahead.

Adam pushed his aching brain to figure out what was happening. He once served on a commission to evaluate plans to harness the Kawatani River for power. He remember the grim joking of his father’s coworkers at the police department who called the bridge Lover’s Leap and the Bridge to Nowhere because—No.

He returned to the tarp a searched the edges with hurried fingers. Chords ringed the edge at intervals and at each corner. He quickly arranged them, pushing cold fingers to tie knots, before rolling himself back into the tarp.

The truck slowed to a stop. The driver and his companion worked quickly, not even stopping to shut their doors. There wouldn’t be much traffic on the bridge at this time of night, especially with what Adam knew must be happening elsewhere.

They worked with wordless coordination. Adam forced himself to be limp in their grasp. He was briefly very heavy in their arms, followed quickly by a instant of weightlessness. Now.

Thrusting out with every limb, he unfurled the tarp. The chords pulled him back painfully and burned against his wrists and hands. He forced himself to keep his grip and draw his elbows down. The tarp was too small to make an adequate parachute, but Adam trusted himself to the wind. Tides and rock made the mouth of the Kawatani River treacherous, but the wind that roared down the valley gave it its nasty reputation.

Action Packed (End)

Greasy Hair turned to us.  “You fellas should go get an up close look.  That boy won’t be botherin’ none of our women again.”

 Lenny said to me, “Let’s get out of here.”

 We drove in silence.  I’m not sure how long we were on the road before I noticed something tapping on my heel.  It was a gift from the Jimmies, a quarter-full bottle of bourbon.

 “Give that to me,” said Lenny.  He removed the cap and wiped the mouth with his sleeve.  He tipped back the bottle and swallowed a single gulp.  “To Moon.”

 “To Moon,” I answered.  I took the proffered bottle and a more generous swig than Lenny had allowed himself.  I stretched my arm out and poured the rest on the road’s dusty shoulder.  The brief stream of liquor broke into a thousand golden droplets.  I flicked the bottle away and it flashed in the sun before it disappeared in the tall grass.  “May we all rest in peace.”

Action Packed (18)

The sheriff sped by and hastily entered the little jailhouse.  A few seconds later, a deputy hurried to join him.  In spite of his speed, the dust of whatever country road he’d been patrolling covered his bumper.

 A contingent from the park marched across the square toward the jail.  A larger portion broke off to follow them with less apparent purpose, but boiling with energy.  The leaders went straight to the door and nearly walked into it when it resisted opening.  A few men were dispatched to bring a bench across from the little green patch in front of the courthouse.

 Lenny jumped.  I caught on a second later; nearly fell over sliding out of the booth.  We both threw money down on the table and ran to the door.  We stopped on the sidewalk, frozen with indecision.  Even under the striped awning, the air was so humid and warm I was dripping.

 I wish I could say there was a hero in my story.  There was no Atticus Finch to make a reasoned appeal to higher character.  No one spoke up at all and angry shouts prevailed.  There was no marshal with jangling spurs and six-guns to quell the unruly.  The sheriff and his deputies were locked in the closet of their own jail.  There were not singing cowboys to gallop into town and save the day.

 The crowd outside the jail parted and men began to pour out through the door.  They were greeted with cheers.  They led Moon out with his hands cuffed behind his back.  They already had a rope around his neck and pulled at it like a leash when he struggled.  Someone kicked Moon’s feet out from under him and he fell on the asphalt.  More hands took the rope as they dragged him across the street.  The onlookers at the park raised a cheer.  When they dragged Moon into the park, someone had already climbed into the oak to help pass the rope over one of its thick branches. 

 The hanging was not a quick execution.  They hoisted Moon up with the rope already around his neck until his feet dangled about the level of the heads of the crowd.  He kicked and twisted, but each time he flung out a foot, it moved with less speed, it sought the ground with less hope and desperation.  We watched until his body quit swinging.

 The crowd dissolved slowly.  Groups of three or four men would break off and drift away.

 Greasy Hair passed us again, this time with a couple of friends.  He told them, “S’about time we put some n****rs in their place.”

 “I think that boy shit his pants.”

 “They’ll all shit themselves when we put them down.”

Regarding Sex Robots

From the desk of Edward Bradford

Dear Readers of Whole Grain Serial:

If Mr. Bradford’s mention of a bainshunfu-bot in “Leviathon” in any way inspired or contributed to the creation of an actual sex robot, he would like to express his regrets.  He believes that it is regrettable that fornication is a sin and terrible that pornographers have done so much to multiply fornication while draining it of pleasures.  He dislikes that inventors are getting into the game.

Mr. Bradford would like to assure the nerds of the world that the worst sex he ever had (i.e. with a real, live, actual woman) was vastly better than the best of any substitute for sex he has experienced.  It was so much better it is more a matter of contrast than comparison.  He is confident that your experience will be the same.

Put in the effort of persuading a woman to do it with you, even if you must resort to the legitimate relationship of marriage and pass on fornication, and invest you intellect in something fruitful.  Even if you don’t make mankind better, you will be better off increasing human pleasure rather than decreasing it.

Sincerely,

Angelica Rioles, Secretary to Mr. Edward Bradford.

Action Packed (17)

The waitress returned to the kitchen.  I could hear girlish giggles.  Young faces occasionally peered out from the opening between that separated the kitchen from the dining area.

 Normally I’d be glad to flirt with fans.  That day I looked out the window and watched dusty men pass by, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in huddles of five or six.  A couple of old trucks passed with high sides of wooden slat, like one might have hauled swine to the market, but these were full of ragged men who clasped their hats on their heads with sun-darkened hands.

 Another waitress brought out our food.  She wore a similar outfit with the addition of a thin gold band around her left ring finger.  She was pretty, but older than the girl was, and clearly not impressed with us.  Maybe she was the girl’s mother.  She came back and topped off our coffee cups, then lingered with a look of disgust on her face.  She wasn’t looking at me.

 “What’s going on over there?” Lenny asked.

 I turned toward the park and saw scores of men gathering in the shade of the oaks.  I didn’t look like a town picnic.

 “I don’t know,” answered the waitress.  “I haven’t seen such a tattered bunch since I was a little girl.”

 A loud knock on the window made us all jump.  A skinny man with greasy hair and a dirty shirt waved at the waitress.  She waved him away.

 “You know him?” I asked.

 “Yes.  If he’s in town, it’s for trouble.”

 We watch him jauntily stumble toward the park.  He stepped into the street without looking, though there was little danger of something hitting him.  I doubt Lenora ever bustled, but even on its quietest days you’d see housewives gathering their little needs, kids at play and industrious men taking care of their little businesses at the courthouse or the title company or on their way to the feed shop.  We didn’t see these people, just men like the one who left a sweaty handprint on the diner window, on foot and hanging from the sides of trucks and even a couple of horse-drawn wagons with peeling paint.

Lenny dug into his sandwich, but I kept my eye turned out on the town square and the dark cloud of men forming under the broad oaks.  A few men stood head and shoulders above the crowd having claimed buckets and boxes as makeshift daises.  They stood out because of their skinny ties and sports coats, too.  I couldn’t hear these gesticulating figures over the drone of the diner’s fans, but I could hear high-pitched yelps and a few wild howls.