Spy High (7 page)

I waited for his response, half-wishing
I could see his expression just now. Was he choking with laughter
the way I had done?

When his reply appeared on the screen,
it was as emotionless as Stemp’s best poker face. “Understood.
Continue to discourage.”

This was where it got tricky. My
fingers hovered over the keys again. Really none of my
business.

But Moonbeam would be such a wonderful
grandmother, and she wasn’t getting any younger.

I drew in a deep breath and typed,
“Your mom wants grandchildren. Are you ever going to tell her?”

The cursor blinked on the blank screen
while moments stretched. I tensed at the crunch of footsteps on the
path outside, but they didn’t come as far as my tent. Must be Orion
returning after his shower.

At last the cursor moved again.
“Someday, I hope. Was there anything else?”

I typed “No” and the text screen
vanished.

Flopping back on my cot, I stared up at
the canvas ceiling. What must it be like to be separated from your
wife and child for months at a time, unable to even mention their
names? No photos, no phone calls, no childish scribbles taped
proudly to the refrigerator. No spontaneous hugs and sticky kisses.
No bedtime stories. No little voice calling him Daddy. Just an
empty house and the constant fear that any message might contain
news that would rip his heart from his chest.

My eyes misted and I closed the laptop
and hurried out into the rain, suddenly needing something to
do.

Tugging my hood up, I wandered
aimlessly down the path. Same activity choices as earlier, minus
one. I’d completed my report to Stemp so I was back to reading,
scrubbing clothes by hand, or working out.

Or…

I smiled and headed uphill.

All was silent when I strode into
Skidmark’s gravelled clearing. The vehicles still sat where they
had been parked, and the stream of rainwater from the gutters of
the garage sounded like Niagara Falls.

I poked my head inside, gratified to
find the work bay empty except for a few tools strewn on the floor.
Perfect.

After a quick tidying, the bay was
ready for use. I hauled the overhead door up and hurried out to pop
the hood on the truck. Surprisingly, the ignition wire was secure
on the distributor cap so I jumped back in the cab and fired up the
engine.

I had just closed the garage door
behind the truck when Skidmark staggered out of the woods to prop
himself against the wall, his ever-present joint smouldering
between his fingers. He surveyed me from half-closed eyes, and I
braced myself for insults.

Instead he surprised me with a civil
question, only slightly slurred. “Gonna work on it?”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized
I’d been holding. “Yeah. I noticed you have a pair of valve-cover
gaskets hanging on the wall over there and I thought I’d just pop
them in and clean up the engine a bit. Looks like it’s been blowing
oil for a while.”

Skidmark considered that with the aid
of a deep drag on his reefer. “Yep,” he said finally.

I turned away in relief and began
gathering grimy tools from their scattered heaps on the blackened
workbench before turning my attention to the truck.

Absorbed in the soothing mindless work
and pleasant smell of grease and motor oil, I had almost forgotten
Skidmark’s sleepy presence when he spoke again as I bent over the
engine some time later.

“Yeah, girlie. Bend over and I’ll slip
you my tool.” His wheezy laughter made me smile in spite of the
repulsive double entendre.

I straightened and eyed him with as
much seriousness as I could muster. “Too bad marijuana destroys
your reproductive system. By now you must have nuts the size of
lima beans and you probably couldn’t get your tool up even with
that engine hoist over there.” I nodded at the hoist in the corner.
“Otherwise I’d totally go for it,” I said straight-faced, and
batted my eyes at him.

He wheezed laughter until he began to
cough, clinging white-knuckled to the workbench until the paroxysm
passed. “Far out,” he croaked at last. “Girlie, you’re gonna kill
me.”

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “You’d
have a heart attack and die anyway if I jumped your bones.” A sense
of inevitability filled me as Ratboy stepped through the door at
the precise moment I uttered the words.

Of course. It had to be the one person
in the whole commune with absolutely no sense of humour.

His face contorted with rage. “What are
you doing, you filthy whore!” Fists clenched, he strode toward
me.

In the instant it took for me to decide
whether to blow my cover by pulling my gun or defend myself with
the ratchet in my hand, Skidmark sent a trolley jack rolling in
front of Ratboy with a well-aimed push of his foot. Ratboy tripped
and went down in a flurry of unintelligible words that were
probably violent invective.

By the time he regained his feet,
Skidmark had a tire iron in his free hand, and I was gripping a
breaker bar I had snatched from the jumble of tools behind me.

I dodged as Ratboy spat at me. “Whore!”
he snapped. “Stupid, worthless whore!” He turned his ire toward
Skidmark. “You said it would be ready by two o’clock! Why do you
let this stupid-”

“…whore,” Skidmark supplied
helpfully.

Ratboy’s eyes narrowed in fury. “You
are…” he hissed a string of incomprehensible words in Skidmark’s
face. “Both of you! Have it ready by three o’clock! Or else!” He
whirled and stalked out.

“Hey, be cool, man,” Skidmark mumbled
to his receding back.

I drew a deep, slow breath and laid
down the breaker bar with a shaking hand, keeping it close just in
case. “So…” My voice trembled slightly, and I swallowed to steady
it before continuing, “What did he call us this time?”

Skidmark eyed me for a moment before
sucking on his cigarette. Then he offered it to me, his hand as
steady as ever. “Toke?”

“No. Not now, not ever.”

He blinked. “’Kay. That’s cool.” He
took another drag, but I noticed he didn’t relinquish the tire iron
in his other hand despite his apparent nonchalance. “Dunno,” he
added. He shrugged, yawning. “Defilers or something. That is one
uptight dude.”

I snorted, hiding my still-hammering
heart. “Defilers of Dickwads. I like it. It sounds like a rock
band. We should get T-shirts.”

Skidmark wheezed amusement and began to
drift toward the doorway.

“Not so fast.”

He froze at the threat in my tone, then
turned slowly to face me. “Aw, come on, be cool,” he wheedled.

“I am not cool! I am pissed! Why the
hell didn’t you tell me you’d promised him the truck for two
o’clock? I wouldn’t have started this job if I’d known.”

Skidmark blinked at me in silence. Then
he sucked in a lungful of smoke and let it out again in a leisurely
trickle. “You didn’t ask.”

Fighting the urge to pick up the
breaker bar and introduce it to his kneecaps, I gaped at him in
outrage.

I drew a deep breath, then another.
Anger management. Thank you, Dr. Rawling.

“Fuck you, old man,” I said at
last.

He winked. “Any time, girlie.”

My reassembly of the engine wasn’t
enjoyable. I rushed through the job, made sure everything was in
working order, and vacated the premises by ten to three.

Wandering down the path behind the
garage, I took slow breaths, trying to ease the tension from my
shoulders. The rain had finally stopped, and when I discovered a
bench perched at the edge of the hill I spread my waterproof jacket
over its wet surface before sinking down on it.

The ground fell away steeply and the
heavy clouds had lifted enough that I could see the entire commune
spread below me, small figures moving around oblivious to my
surveillance. A fitful ray of sun braved the clouds and I sought
its warmth, closing my eyes.

Ratboy’s enraged features filled my
memory and my muscles tensed in reaction, my eyes popping open.

If I’d been alone, I could have shot
him. Killed him without a qualm and stepped over his dead body on
my way out. A bullet was an instant and permanent solution to
problems like Ratboy.

I drew a shaky breath. God, how fucked
up was I to even think that?

Below me the commune looked like a
dream, gently wreathed in streamers of dissipating mist. Its peace
and harmony seemed unreal and unattainable, a world I could no
longer inhabit. What kind of sicko had I become?

The sound of footsteps made me jerk
around to look behind me, my fist knotting around a heavy branch
I’d picked up from the trail. A moment later I slouched back and
closed my eyes again when the reek of pot smoke and body odour
accompanied Skidmark’s arrival.

“Fuck off, old man,” I growled. “Unless
you’re standing there with a cold beer and an apology, you’ve got
ten seconds to leave before I play a drum solo on your ribs with
this stick.”

After a moment of silence his footfalls
receded, taking his foul miasma with them. I drew a long breath and
returned to my dark contemplation.

Several minutes later Skidmark’s stench
assaulted my nostrils once more. I was about to snap at him when an
instantly recognizable pop-hiss jerked me upright to see him
extending a beer can dripping with condensation.

“Sorry,” he said.

I stared open-mouthed for a moment,
then accepted the peace offering, its blue metal icy-cold in my
hand. Kokanee. At least the old goat had taste.

I took a long swallow, letting my
eyelids drop closed as the bubbles performed their crisp dance on
my tongue. A deep sigh escaped me. After four long months in the
alcohol-free commune, my taste buds were in heaven.

“Don’t tell,” Skidmark warned. “Bad
enough I gotta share my weed.”

“If you didn’t offer it to everybody,
you wouldn’t have to share,” I pointed out after another long
swallow. I fanned at a wayward tendril of smoke. “God, that’s
disgusting. Why would you even smoke that shit?”

He looked mildly affronted. “It’s good
shit.” He sucked in another lungful. “It’s medicinal. Need it for
pain.” He lowered himself to the bench beside me, smoke trickling
through his beard. “Uptight dudes give me a real bad pain in my
ass.”

My lips twitched in spite of myself,
but I didn’t reward him with a smile. I jerked a thumb at the end
of the bench. “Other side.”

Skidmark got up and moved and I felt
his gaze on me. When I slitted my eyes at him, he nodded at the
branch. “Why? So you got a clear swing?”

“No.” I took another swig and closed my
eyes again, leaning my head back. “So you’re downwind.”

Wheezy laughter greeted that statement.
Silence fell while I drank and ignored him, breathing evenly and
easing the tension from my muscles.

After a long interval he spoke again.
“You don’t talk much. Why not?”

I shrugged without opening my eyes.
“Why?”

I took a lazy swallow of beer, holding
onto my relaxed state with deliberately slow movements. The can
felt light in my hand. Almost empty. Maybe he had more.

I heard the soft hiss of his toke
followed by silence, and I imagined his vacant expression and the
smoke seeping out through his bushy whiskers.

“Aw, man, that’s deep,” he mumbled
after a while.

I drained the can and extended the
empty in his direction. “Beer me.”

Nothing happened, so I wiggled the can.
After a moment I opened my eyes to see Skidmark studying me
blankly.

“I want another beer,” I clarified, and
pushed the empty can into his hand.

“You should stay away from that dude,”
he said without moving.

“No shit, Sherlock.” I scowled at him.
“Are you going to get me another beer or just sit there yakking all
day?”

As if moving underwater, he set the
empty can down and withdrew cigarette paper and a small bag of pot
from his pocket to roll a new joint, twisting the ends with intense
concentration. Then he unhurriedly re-stowed the baggie and lit
up.

He sucked in a deep draw before
releasing the smoke on a breath so long I expected him to shrivel
like a deflated balloon. Then he turned and blinked lethargically
before inquiring, “You one of them bull dykes?”

I stared at him for a moment before
replying. “Yeah.”

“Far out…”

I waited.

Right on cue, a few moments later he
began, “You wanna-”

“No.” I rose, tired of him and tired of
myself. “Do they call you Skidmark because you shit your
pants?”

He wheezed amusement. “When you slam
the brakes on the road to hell, the skidmark stays long after the
tires roll on. Roll on, baby, roll on,” he crooned before seguing
into a dreamy off-key version of BTO’s Roll On Down The
Highway.

I left him sitting there, the thin
smoke from his roach eddying in the still air while he slowly
strummed nonexistent guitar strings.

Striding back to my tent, I swung my
heavy stick at the ferns lining the path, half-wishing Ratboy would
appear and get in my face again. When I caught myself fantasizing
about bludgeoning him with my makeshift shillelagh, I laid it on
the ground outside my tent and went in to gather some workout
clothes instead. Probably better to work off my pent-up adrenaline
constructively.

Though it wouldn’t be nearly as
satisfying…

Shaking my head at myself I made for
the gym, leaving my stick behind just in case temptation reared its
rat-like head.

I drew a breath of relief when I
arrived to find the gym unoccupied except for Moonbeam, who was
working out wearing yet another flowing tied-dyed caftan. Ducking
into the change room, I gave thanks that she didn’t expect the rest
of us to dress like her. Having all that fabric hanging off me
would drive me absolutely crazy.

Well, crazier.

I pulled my baggy sweatpants over my
ankle holster and headed for the chin-up bar.