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There were four Oberon five-thousand-dollar bills, one on the bed, one on her bloody back, two on the floor.
There was a message written in blood on the wall over her head. The message was this: OOOPS!
Just OOOPS!
As in Ooops, I thought she was you, Sparky, knowing you are a master of disguise. As in Ooops, I thought she might know something, Sparkster old man, as to your whereabouts. As in Ooops, don't be angry, Mr. Valentine, and can I still have your autograph? I'm a great fan.
She started to moan.
I hurried to the bed and knelt beside her, turned her over. What he had done to her face almost defies description. One eye was open the tiniest crack. She recognized me, and reached for me with one bloodied hand. I caught her wrist; I could not afford to have her blood all over me now.
"...didn't know 'nythin'," she croaked. Blood spilled from her mouth. "...Trev'r? Is it you, Trev?"
"It's me," I whispered in her ear. "Shhh. Be quiet now, honey, and I'll do what I can do."
I'd been keeping an eye on the door to the bathroom, which was not in the line of sight from the bed. More importantly, I'd listened with every fiber of my body for the sound of water ru
I looked around for a weapon. I had several interesting items concealed in my suitcase, but it was far too dangerous to cross the bedroom again because he'd be able to see me for about half the trip. It had been sheer luck he wasn't placed to observe me when I came through the door from the parlor. Don't ever count on luck like that continuing.
Nothing looked good until I spotted her violin case on the floor by the bed. She really had played me some bluegrass tunes on it, and now it was stowed in this sturdy metal case about two feet long....
It was not a Louisville Slugger, but it would do. I crept to the side of the bathroom door and made myself very still. When his nose came out of the bathroom, that's when I should start my swing.
His snakelike speed almost saved him again. He must have seen some movement out of the corner of his eye, because his right arm started to come up and his head started to pull back. Neither move was quick enough, but seeing how close he came made me more sure than ever I would never meet this man in a "fair fight."
"A fair fight is one you win," my father used to say. "It's as simple as that. If you must shoot somebody, aim for a spot right between the shoulder blades. From a great distance, if possible."
I was aiming from very close, but my goal was to knock his fucking head right into the left-field bleachers. I heard bone crunching as his nose spread out on his face. Blood gushed, and he staggered back. I kept right up with him, not assuming I could fell him with one blow after the way he'd fought on the Brita
This time, there was no question of leaving him alive. But I quickly ran into a problem. How was I going to tell if he was dead? Lord knew, he had proven incredibly tough the last time we met.
I placed my palm against his chest but could feel nothing. It didn't seem to be rising and falling. I thought about putting my ear close to his heart, but every time I thought about it I kept getting the last-reel scene from ten thousand B pictures. You know the one. The monster is lying there, "dead," and suddenly rears up, snarling, ready for round two. No, thank you. When I was around his "corpse," I intended to keep my eyes firmly on his hands and his face.
I'd done what I could. Short of carving him into pig jerky with my Swiss army knife, I didn't know what else to do.
I carefully searched him. I found papers, identity cards, three passports. He had a knife strapped to his leg, and a gun in one pocket. I looked at it. It had a normal handgun shape, but nothing else about it was familiar. It was made from hard gray plastic. There was a readout on the left side that displayed a lot of information, none of it meaning anything at all to me except the number "15" where it said ROUNDS REMAINING. That's nice, I thought, as I could see no way to reload the thing. I jammed it into my pocket.
When he was picked clean I left him there and returned to Poly.
I eyed the twenty thousand dollars covetously. It was my fare, in semiluxurious accommodations, to Luna.
Relax. Don't get upset. I'm a thief, but I'm not that low.
It's a custom that evolved slowly as medical science got better and better at patching up what was broken in the long-suffering human frame. Now almost anything is fixable, even some types of brain damage, though your friends might not recognize you when the doc's finished patching up your cerebrum.
There's a scene in the classic movie The Godfather where one of the Corleone brothers grabs a camera from a police photographer, ruins the film, and smashes the camera. As he's walking away the mobster flips some bills from his wallet onto the ground, paying for the damages. It is a gesture of pure and utter contempt, a great moment in cinema.
That's what had happened here. Isambard Comfort had broken Oberon laws against assault and battery, but the penalty in such cases, in most jurisdictions, was to be fined for the cost of repairs, plus some punitive damages. You could pursue the batterer in civil court, but awards for pain and suffering tended to be small. Since most people had never had the living shit kicked out of them, there was no broad understanding of just how much pain and suffering could really be worth, in dollars and cents. Most court cases involved a punch in the nose. As long as you didn't employ a deadly weapon—narrowly defined to a blade or a firearm—you were unlikely to do jail time. If it was a first offense courts tended to be lenient. I doubted Comfort had a record on Oberon—or on Pluto or Charon, for that matter.
Comfort was paying Poly's medical bills. And spitting on her pain and suffering. There was also a threat implicit in the gangster gesture.
I was once worked over by a professional, a man who enjoyed his work, who had nothing against me and when it was all over seemed a little surprised that I was vexed about the matter. I was so peeved, in fact, that I waited five years before paying him back, with interest, just so it would come out of the blue, with no warning. That man still jumps at the sound of doorbells....
I leaned over and kissed her forehead. It was the only place that looked as if a touch wouldn't hurt.
"...Trevor?"
"I'm here. I've got to go, but help will be here soon. Hang on."
"Didn't know... where you were... he thought..."
"I know, babe. I'm so sorry. I made a big mistake."
I couldn't tell if she heard any of that. She seemed to drift off, and I took a deep breath and headed for the door.
Those little wide-angled peepholes they put in hotel doors? Most people think they're there so you can see who is outside. They are, but also to see if anyone is outside. I never leave the room without checking first, and it's been proven a good practice several times before this. The redheaded woman was in my field of vision.
Hmmm. Could she be an i