Dirt Nap (A Marnie Baranuik “Between the Files” Story) (2 page)

He was exactly the man to have for any apocalyptic scenario, as long as it didn't include spiders: hard-assed and battle-ready, physically capable, proficient with weapons, and always geared for action. Unfortunately, using him for anything civilized was like using a chainsaw to make a smoothie. He had all the finesse of a rabid moose at a garden show. I had once used Mark Batten to break my own heart, with the same moose-and-chainsaw results, because while I think I’m clever, I'm actually a masochist. I was trying really hard not to do it again, and was temporarily succeeding by not looking directly at his biceps. I had very fond memories of biting them.

I crossed my arms over my humble chest to mirror his stance, and gave him an
okay-I-get-it
eye roll. He didn’t seem in much of a hurry to get out of my way, enjoying his moment of physical intimidation, maybe as much as I was. I wondered how long I’d have to spend in this cell if I jammed my knee into his balls, and whether or not it’d be worth it. 

Batten must have read it in my face; he stepped back. “Break the conditions of your bail and I’ll wring your neck.”

“Hear that, deputy? He’s threatening to assault me. I’m afraid for my life. Can I shoot him now?” I tried batting my eyelashes at him around Batten's shoulder. Either he wasn't impressed, or couldn't see my attempts at coquettishness and guile.
What good are my people skills if people don't notice them?

Eric made a sound like he didn’t quite believe me, or didn’t want to deal with this particular FBI agent, or both. Maybe he doubted shooting Batten would do any good. He probably had a point, there. I'd seen some of Batten's battle scars; he was as tough to kill as he was to like.

I grinned up at Eric as I passed. “Next time,” I said, “I’ll call Hood to rescue me.” He blanched slightly when I invoked his boss, but Batten placed one meaty hand atop my head and turned me towards the door like a wayward Chihuahua.

“You think the sheriff of Lambert County is going to have your back?” Batten asked, like he was diagnosing the status of my mental health.

“Well, I did until you said it like that.” I chewed my lip. “Fine, I’ll call Chapel.”

Batten growled at me. “You could just stay away from the damn Brinks trucks.”

“Or I could stay away from the damn Brinks trucks. But those SecuTrans guys are on notice. Bet that dude with the fancy arm tattoos screams like a little girl.”

Eric coughed to cover a barking laugh. 

“If you weren’t needed,” Batten said, “I’d let you cool your heels in detention until Harry wakes up.”

“You need me? Pardon my swoon.”

Batten just grunted.

“Do we have a body?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

Uh oh.
“Maybe you better just put me back, then.”

Batten shuffled to a stop at the desk with the deputy, signed the rest of the papers, and chucked the bag of my personal effects at me, which I caught midair: my keys with belt clip, my new gold watch (a gift from Harry), a crumpled pack of Juicy Fruit gum, emergency condom (hey, you never know), pocketknife, pink mini-Moleskine and golf pencil, my inner-pants holster and my Beretta Mini Cougar and its clip. Batten dropped the pen on the desk, grabbed my gun out of my hand with a disgusted noise, tucked it behind him, and watched impatiently while I crammed everything else in the pockets of my cargo pants. I put on my watch and clipped my keys to one of my belt loops, where they dangled noisily. He stormed ahead of me, slapped the double glass doors open with two impatient palms, slipped his Oakley sunglasses on, and did a walk that reminded me of an angry yeti across the hot asphalt. I followed his long-legged stride, keys jingling, half-running to keep up, and totally
not
checking out his ass. Much. 

The parking lot was empty except for one truck and Batten’s conspicuous black SUV, which might as well have had “I'M A FED” for a vanity plate. Batten never let me drive; he rarely even waited for me to close the door before getting in motion, either. This time, I almost had my belt done up when he rocketed the SUV into traffic.

“My go-bag is in my trunk, and my car’s still parked outside the bank,” I told him, fiddling with the radio until I found the B52’s
Rock Lobster
. I started car-dancing, doing the upper-body bit of the Swim, complete with nose-pinch.

He poked the off button on the radio; just before he shook his head, I caught a glimpse of a squelched smile. “No time. I don’t think throwing herbs and underwear is gonna work today.”

“Shows what you know,” I said, still rocking out despite the lack of music. “Throwing herbs and underwear always works.”

“We’re cloud-bound in—” He checked his watch, a no-nonsense black Timex waterproof. “Sixty-five. You and me. Chapel’s on dead guy duty.”

My housemates – my Bonded revenant companion, Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt: four hundred thirty-six years old; and my brother, Wesley, barely twenty – would be in their caskets, compelled to rest by the mighty weight of the sun. That left both revenants vulnerable, and as Harry’s DaySitter, it's my job to guard him while he was out. It wasn’t unusual for my boss, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Chapel, to sit with them in a protective role when I was elsewhere. We also utilized a service, The Organization, to provide additional security. Unfortunately, they always sent Viktor, an undead ogre with a penchant for molesting stiffs, but beggars can’t be choosers. I was even less comfortable with my very warm and squishy boss being guardian to the resting revenants: Chapel had, in the past, fed them both, and once a revenant has had a taste of your blood, he never forgets it.

“Can I at least get a coffee first?” I asked. “I could really go for a pumpkin spice latte.”

“You don’t need a coffee.”

“I need everything I want.”
Including your hot ass
. “Super-serious. You might have noticed my accommodations weren't exactly the fucking Ritz. The breakfast was pretty goddamned grim.” Actually, I had used my one phone call to ring Claire’s Early Bird and order a yummy cinnamon-apple Danish, a sausage patty, and a large orange juice. Too bad I had counted on the station’s coffee being drinkable; it was more like some kind of industrial solvent that no amount of doctoring could un-fuck. I'd have bet money that Batten had made it if I hadn't watched Deputy Eric ruin it himself. Maybe being a cop was the career of choice for incompetent baristas.

“You’re starting to let Harry’s hedonistic lifestyle affect you,” Batten said.

“You're the one driving his former Bugatti, dillstick. Did you see this watch he got me? Fancy-schmancy, from his last trip to London.”

He didn't even bother to glance over as he pulled into the Starbucks drive-thru faster than was strictly necessary. So grateful was I that I happily ignored his giving me the side-eye and telling the drive-thru girl, “You better double-cup. Can you double-lid? It really should have two lids. Maybe one of those sippy-cup things.”

I flipped him off instead of smacking his arm, because he was holding my latte hostage. I told myself that was all that was saving him from an ass-whooping of epic proportions, but I could tell by the look he gave me when he handed the cup over with exaggerated caution that he wasn't feeling particularly menaced. I bared my teeth like a feral squirrel. It worked about as well as you'd expect.

“Nothing in your teeth, Snickerdoodle. Can we go now, or are you going to gnaw on the seatbelt next?”

Deflated, I consoled myself with pumpkin spice. “Should have swung by Claire’s for a slice of pizza. I’m craving pizza.”

“You’re not getting pizza.”

“Where we headed?”

“Got any problem with helicopters?” Batten asked, though I could tell by the tone of his voice that the answer wasn’t going to matter.

“Who or what are we going to see?”

“Charles-Louis Le Pique,” Batten said.

I choked on my drink. Batten shot me a sour look and a wad of napkins in the same instant. I dabbed at the bright orange foam on my white t-shirt, coughed hard, and thumped my chest. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Our contact,” Batten said. “That’s his name.”

“I’m not laughing,” I told him solemnly. “I’m totally pro about this, even on the inside.”

“You’d better be.” His deep, lake-water blue eyes showed over the Oakleys. “He has no sense of humor at all.”

“Big deal,” I scoffed. “So I think his name is funny. What’s he gonna do about it?” The last guy with a ridiculous name we'd dealt with had been one Cosmo Winkle, and all he'd done was trash Sheriff Hood's truck, shrug off most of a clip of Batten's ammo, and then get swallowed up by a magic fissure in the parking lot of a shitty motel. Being a berserker zombie with a mouth full of kitty litter had a lot to do with that, though. Chuck le Puck
probably
wasn't a zombie.

At the light, Batten turned his head to consider me for a long beat. “Have you ever met anyone who didn’t immediately want to duct tape your mouth shut?”

“People skills, Hunkypants. You should try 'em. But to answer your question...” I pretended to think about it, smirking, “has anyone first met me while I was unconscious?”

I was honestly surprised that he didn't do more than scowl and punch the accelerator when the light changed. He probably didn't want me to spill my latte again.

***

The helicopter took us over various blurred shades of green and snow-capped Rocky Mountain peaks and in and out of clouds. I flipped through the slim file folder Batten had slapped onto my lap, ignoring the pilot-to-Batten chatter in my headphones and draining the last of my drink. In the folder were blurry photos of something crouched in a jagged opening in a rock face. The photographer had aimed for close-ups without putting the ground in the picture, or anything I could use to judge scale. No matter how I turned the pictures in my gloved hands, I couldn’t make out what end was up. The thing in question was an irregular, brownish-grey blur with lots of lumpy-bumpy bits. It could have been a garden toad or the Rancor, for all I could tell. Batten tapped my shoulder and motioned with his chin at the file, eyes expectant.

“It’s a blurry something with lots of lumpy-bumpy bits,” I reported, “in my expert, scientific opinion. Seriously, who took these fucking pictures, Sir Twerks-a-Lot? I need to hit him with a clue-stick. Or a tripod.”

“Do me a favor,” Batten’s voice pleaded through the headphones.

“I do favors in exchange for bribes.” I waggled my empty paper cup at him. “I can be bought pretty cheap.”

Not taking the obvious bait, Batten requested, “Be professional. On your toes. He’s the governor’s favorite cousin and biggest financial supporter. This guy could be a Marnie-sized pain in the ass.”

If Batten liked ass play, that was news to me, but I would gladly do all manner of things to his delectable derriere. I beamed over my shoulder at him. “Can I call him Chuckles?”

He exhaled slowly through his nose and pinched his forehead. “No.”

“Lou-Lou? Le Freak c’est Chic le Pique?”

He pointed at his frowny face. His brows furrowed so hard that it was all I could do not to laugh. He looked savage, and frankly adorable, and I wished I could tell him.

“How about Chuck-Lou?” I said instead. “That sounds like a new kind of martial arts practiced exclusively by steelworkers in New Jersey.”

The pilot glanced over at me long enough to flash an appreciative grin. I grinned back, keeping it right through Batten’s drawn-out groan.

“I wish I didn’t need you for this,” he said. “Isn’t there a Steve Irwin-type out there who does this better than you?”

“Of course there is,” I said with an encouraging nod. “You should call him, the sooner the better. His name is Devarsi Patel. He’s not a DaySitter, but he’s a helluva biologist and monster wrangler. I probably have his contact information in my phone if you want. It’ll take him a while to get here from Mumbai if he’s available, and he works privately, so he’ll cost you a few hundred thousand… or, for the pittance I get from you cheapskates at the PCU, you can put up with me.” I did a quick mental calculation based on the time he’d sprung me from the Ten Springs jail. “Which would be, uh, about thirty-five dollars so far, minus whatever you had to pay to bail me out. That can’t be right. Do I really risk my ass for so little?”

Batten looked at me steadily. “How soon can Patel get here?”

I pretended I didn’t hear that and flipped through the report on my lap. Le Pique Consolidated was a fairly big outfit, apparently. That sort of thing wasn’t my focus, and neither was its CEO. The quarry itself, an active open-pit mine, was perched between two nearly-naked mountains and dotted with equipment in each picture. These miners could have roused any number of things that react badly to being disturbed; it was impossible to predict what we were walking into. Something grey-brown and lumpy-bumpy. Maybe it was a rock. I sang under my breath, “It wasn’t a rock. It was a rock lobster!”

There was one statement taken from a dude named Hastings before the PCU was summoned via Batten. It didn’t say whether Hastings was his first name, his last name, or his only name, but I was choosing to believe the latter, and that he was a
Downton Abbey
-style butler caught up in a new mining career. The statement read, “The rock started moving, and then it growled at us, and then everything flew everywhere. I dunno, men just scattered, and it was hard to tell what was happening.” That sounded like a rockslide, or some force blowing from underneath. The lack of description and blank spots on the pages further frustrated me. I supposed that this guy was probably better with rocks than words, but, damn, dude, what the what.
You’re fired, butler
.

***

A Jeep with an oversized company logo splattered on the side and red mud decorating the giant wheels met us at the landing zone to take us to the work site. Under the sound of the chopper blades, I could make out grinding, puffing truck noises and growling engines echoing off rock. The Jeep plowed over and through the rough terrain instead of taking the flat, unpaved road, its hard-hatted driver not even flinching at the kidney-jolting bumps. We rounded a rocky corner at the edge of the quarry, and the noise coming from below became a grating torrent. When the Jeep stopped abruptly, I toppled out on Jell-O knees, my anxiety stirring.