Remember Tomorrow (18 page)

Frustrated, he packed the instrument away, along with his change of clothes. Looking around the room he had been given, he could see a table, a chair and a bed with a good mattress, clean sheets and blankets. Inside, he knew that this stirred some kind of memory, but as with everything else, it was just that fraction out of reach. One thing he did know: to find such luxuries was rare for him and he was loathe to think about being without them again. And yet he had the feeling that circumstances may be working against him to pitch him out before he had a chance to settle and gain some new memories to replace the blank spaces in his head.

Putting these thoughts to one side, he decided to go down and join Budd. He was hungry and he also wanted to work out why the old man’s attitude had changed so rapidly. It was obvious that he had feigned his enthusiasm for J.B. so as not to piss off the baron. But the big question was why he didn’t want him around.

J.B. found that the old armorer ate with the sec men in the kitchen at the back of the house. It was warmer there than anywhere else, with a middle-aged woman, glistening with sweat, working over a log-fueled stove. Several sec men, including Esquivel, were sitting around a long wooden table that showed signs of heavy age and use. Budd was with them. As soon as J.B. entered the room, the hum of conversation died.

“So you’ve joined us,” Budd stated flatly.

“If you’ve got no objections,” J.B. countered.

Budd shrugged. “Not my call. Sit down and eat with us. You know Esquivel,” he added. “These others are Drury, Caine and Easy.” He pointed to each in turn and they acknowledged J.B. “They’re on duty here tonight. Xander works a rotation system on the sec around here—Xander wants Esquivel to stay here on permanent duty and keep an eye on you,” the old man added with relish.

J.B. wasn’t surprised that the baron wanted to put a guard on him. Caution wasn’t a bad thing, despite the fact that the baron was convinced of his identity. Duma had enough of an armory to make that an imperative. But he was damn sure that Budd wasn’t supposed to let this slip—something confirmed by the look Esquivel shot him. The air suddenly grew frosty once more, despite the heat of the kitchen.

J.B. sat and the woman put a plate in front of him, with fatback bacon, beans and cornbread. “Yeah, and I’m Liza, though that ignorant old fart thinks I don’t count, seeing as I’m only a woman,” she said.

The sec men laughed and J.B. was glad for her breaking the tension that had suddenly sprung up. But he still wanted to know why Budd was hostile. And seeing as Esquivel had evaded the subject, he’d just have to find out for himself.

They ate in silence for a while, none willing to risk the old man’s rancor and ruin the meal. But something had to break the uneasy quiet. It came in an unexpected manner.

Just as they were finishing, J.B. heard something behind him. Someone else entered the kitchen, and as he looked up and caught the expression on Budd’s face, he could tell that it was someone the old man was pleased to see.

“Hey, wonderin’ where you were, boy,” Budd said with undisguised warmth. “Y’nearly missed the eats.”

“I was just trying to work out why that MP-5 wasn’t working—I can’t find a damn thing wrong with it.”

The voice was soft and firm: a youth, but one who was old beyond his years. J.B. shifted in his seat to get a look at the newcomer, who was also eyeing him with curiosity. The lad was only about eighteen, with light brown skin and long dreadlocked hair that was tied up behind his head. He was about five-eight, and only a hundred or so pounds. Despite the obvious lack of bulk, he carried himself in a manner that suggested a wiry strength. For a moment, it reminded the Armorer of someone—maybe more than one person. The long hair, but plaited…And yet a flash of something pale and milky white. It was there and gone before he had a chance to focus on it.

Their eyes locked for several seconds, each trying to assess the other. J.B. knew instinctively that the young man was the reason for Budd’s hostility toward him, but couldn’t quite work out the reason.

Esquivel broke the silence. “Olly, guess you didn’t get to meet the infamous J. B. Dix earlier. And J.B., this is Olly, Budd’s son.”

Dark night, now it became clear. The old man had been training his son to succeed him. And from the comments the lad had made about the MP-5, he was a keen student. But now Xander had installed J.B. and ruined the old man’s plans.

J.B. didn’t blame him at all for being hostile. But, at the same time, he found himself with no say in the situation.

“So you’re the one that rode with Trader,” Olly said slowly, looking J.B. up and down as though merely looking could divine his secrets.

“That’s what they say. I can’t remember a fucking thing, and like I keep telling your father,” he added pointedly, “it’s not me who’s making these claims.”

“Same effect, though,” Budd grumbled.

“Leave it, Dad,” Olly murmured, seating himself. “It’s too late tonight, but first light tomorrow we’ll see if he’s as good as they say.”

Esquivel shot a wry grin at J.B. The sec man was aware of J.B.’s earlier encounter with Budd and the impressive results. But let the boy find out for himself.

There was tension in the air now and J.B. felt that he didn’t need to be around this shit. He got up and made to leave the room.

“Till tomorrow, then,” he shot back over his shoulder. He walked out without looking back and was halfway to his room when he heard footsteps behind him. Instinct kicking in, he whirled and went into a defensive crouch, moving toward his tracker. Engaging the enemy in an arm hold, he flipped him onto his back and had the point of the Tekna at his throat before he realized it was Esquivel.

“You’ve been here too long,” J.B. murmured, “I could have had your throat out before you reacted.”

“Mebbe, mebbe not,” Esquivel replied calmly. “I could have taken you out, but Xander wouldn’t like it. I had to risk you’d look before striking. ’Sides which, you’re a little jumpy.”

“Yeah,” J.B. replied ruefully, coming to his feet and resheathing his blade. He held out his hand in placatory gesture and Esquivel took it, allowing the Armorer to assist him to his feet. “I figure that must mean I’ve had to be lately.”

“Yeah, well, just watch yourself in here. Any more stunts like that with another sec, or better still with Budd, and they may just use it an excuse to buy you the farm.”

“What about the boy?”

Esquivel shrugged. “He’s okay—a nice kid with a real gift for this. If you take over, I figure you’ll keep him. It’s just that his father wanted to hand it over totally to him. You’re a problem he didn’t need.”

“Y’know, the stupe thing is I understand that,” J.B. mused. “I didn’t want this any more than he did. But he’d better not try to fuck me over.”

Esquivel shook his head. “He’s too scared of Xander to do anything—unless he could pass it off as accident or your fault, which is why you need to get off the wire. As for Olly, he wouldn’t do anything ’cause it’d come back on his dad. Besides which, if you really know your stuff, he’ll get too interested to hold any grudge against you.”

J.B. looked shrewdly at the sec man. “Guess Xander knew what he was doing when he put you on my back.”

Esquivel shrugged again. “Listen, I know why you wanted out of the kitchen and I figure you haven’t had some fun for a while. So, seeing as you’ve got the rest of the night and fuck all to do, why don’t we hit a few bars and you can see a little more of Duma and what it’s like.”

“You got the jack,” J.B. said.

Esquivel grinned. “Yeah, but Budd’ll enjoy taking it out of your pay.”

N
IGHT IN
D
UMA WAS
different to day only in the amount of light that was artificially generated. Oil, generator-powered incandescents and old salvaged neon lights cast a series of conflicting glows and shadows across the sidewalks and roads of the ville. Unlike the farming-oriented villes or those that had to be careful of their resources, Baron Xander had built Duma into a ville that was possibly one of the richest across the Deathlands. By attracting convoys and making it a meeting and trading point for them, and by schooling his subjects in the art of draining every last drop of jack from the convoy teams while they were in the ville, Xander had found a way of keeping the wealth of the convoys within the boundaries of his fiefdom.

And the best way to get jack from a convoy team was by offering brew, jolt and pussy—mebbe not in that order.

Along the crisscrossing main streets of the ville, which were broken only by the blacktop that ran through the center, virtually every building offered all three—at a high price. There was no cost-cutting or free enterprise in Duma, no bargains to attract the customers. They would come anyway and Xander set the prices, which weren’t to be tampered with.

The teeming streets were full of drunk and high people, the women competing to take in patrons. The drunker the better. That way they could get them in and out quickly, making way for the next paying “guest.” The noise, smoke and stink of sweating, drunken humanity was almost overwhelming. But if this was to be his new home, then J.B. figured he’d better get used to it.

By that time of night, he was also getting less attention than he had earlier in the day, as the people around were too drunk and too absorbed in their own interests to care. The Armorer and the sec man slipped into a bar.

“Best drink around here. Icepick don’t mix too much shit in with the brew, try to make the alcohol last longer. And he does the best moonshine in the whole of Duma. Swears it was something that was in his family way before the nukecaust. ’Course, he’s also full of shit, so I wouldn’t trust that part. Drink will blow your head off, though.” Esquivel grinned as they settled themselves at the bar.

“Sounds good to me,” J.B. agreed, as the sec man ordered for them.

When the glasses, filled with a grayish brown spirit, were in front of them, J.B. picked his up and turned around to cast an eye over the bar. It was full, most of the patrons either standing by the bar or sitting around a handful of tables that were scattered across the small floor. Chairs backed into one another and it was easy to see that the later it got and the drunker and more stoned the patrons became, the more likely it was for fights to break out. Most of the trade seemed to know one another and were clustered into small groups around the tables, arguing and laughing loudly by turn. The women with them were gaudies, some not even bothering to look anything but bored, who were hired for later in the evening.

Music was provided by a black guy who sat in the corner, playing a guitar and picking, singing an old song about giving love a bad name. J.B. had another flash of memory, someone once telling him that music was a universal certainty that survived all and had common themes. Songs survived where people didn’t. A flash of someone who talked in a long-winded, odd fashion that wasn’t always understandable…but was somehow familiar.

A few cheers and a smattering of applause made him realize that the musician had finished. He was replaced by a white guy with a set of drums, who stared to beat out a series of slow rhythms.

“This is worth watching,” Esquivel murmured in his ear, ordering another two shots of the spirit. Its coarse, woody taste wasn’t exactly pleasant, but J.B. appreciated the warm glow it left as it slipped down his gullet.

As the drummer continued, a woman came into the room from the back of the bar. Moving to the drumbeat, she began to strip slowly. With his attention half-focused on the audience, J.B. found it hard to get into what she was doing. The effect she had on the crowd was fascinating, as quiet spread over them, their concentration rapt.

“Enjoying your first night in Duma?” someone whispered in J.B.’s ear. And unless he had changed sex, it wasn’t his sec escort. The Armorer turned to find Ella-Mae at his elbow, a grin on her face and a glass of the liquor in her hand.

“Guess you might say that—though I’ll wait and see what happens next before I really make up my mind,” J.B. replied, indicating the area where the woman held court.

“Would have thought you could guess that,” she said. “Or at least guessed why Es bought you here…likes his jollies a certain way.” With which she indicated the stage, where the woman was pleasuring herself.

“Dark night,” J.B. whispered as he turned to watch the woman.

The drunk and stoned patrons whooped and hollered, but J.B. found it all a little strange. He had the vague notion that he’d seen some weird sights over the years—even if most of them were lost to him now—but this was one of the strangest simply because he’d never seen it done in a bar.

“Not doing much for you?” Ella-Mae whispered in his ear.

“Can’t say it does,” J.B. replied mildly. “But then, I didn’t know this was going down. You, on the other hand…Well, mebbe it does it for you.”

“Okay, that makes us even,” she replied with a grin. “You gotta drink somewhere and most places have something going on. As it happens, Jessie there is a nice girl when she isn’t onstage. But then, everyone’s got to earn jack.”

“There must be other ways,” J.B. mused.

“Not under Xander,” she answered, unable to keep the edge of bitterness out of her voice. “I’m lucky and I don’t forget it. I can’t forget it.”

J.B. looked at her. There was a fire in her eyes that was appealing. Ella-Mae obviously took no shit from anyone and was hurt for those she knew who had no other options. She was a deep woman and he found that fascinating. Certainly, if he could trust her, she’d be a good ally in this ville.