The Object: Book One (Object Series) (14 page)

Hailey's mood had improved drastically by the time Derek arrived.  She downed five glasses of bourbon, becoming less and less testy with each gulp.  Barry sat with her for a time, listening to her whine about her loser boyfriend, some kid who worked in the office of the escort service.  She had him convinced she didn't sleep with her clients, but apparently someone had spilled the beans.

"I'm pretty sure it was her," Hailey whispered, pointing in the direction of the kitchen,
from which came
the sounds of sizzling meat and
Sheila's rather impressive singing.  She must have wanted to become a vocalist but let the wrong guy lead her down the wrong path.  Barry had seen it before.  A singer is told she should be a model.  A model is told she should pose nude, that it will help her career.  Next up is stripping.  Then this, if you're lucky enough to land an escort gig in lieu of standing on a corner.

A pity for Sheila in particular, as she had real, raw talent.  Barry had planned to kill both these girls tonight, but he decided he would keep Sheila around for a while.

He looked at Hailey, who was still rambling about Sheila's betrayal, and began to snicker.  Hailey didn't know it, but Sheila just saved her life.

"What's so funny?" Hailey asked.

"Nothing," Barry said.  The doorbell rang and he stood.  "Sorry.  I was just remembering something funny that happened yesterday."

"So you weren't listening to me?"

"I was, I promise."

He
opened the door
.  Derek pushed his way in
quickly, a disgruntled expression on his face, but stopped when he saw Hailey.  He looked at Barry, smiled, and slapped him on the arm.  "Didn't know we had company," he said.  "Is that steak cooking?"

"T-bones," Hailey said.  She stood, wobbling, and came up to De
rek to introduce herself.

Barry left them and went to the kitchen.  Now he definitely wasn't going to kill them.  Sheila had set the table and was preparing a full dinner.  Salad, asparagus, twice-baked potatoes with bacon and sour cream, stuffed Portobello mushrooms, and a cheese cake.

"How the hell did you manage all this so quickly?"

"I went to culinary school for a year and a half," she said.  "I dropped out when my mom died."

"Sullivan?"

"Yep."

"You have an amazing voice,"
he
said.
  "You could have had a career in music."

Sheila smiled, but she had sadness in her eyes.  "Thank you.
"

"Why didn't you pursue it?"

She shrugged and returned to cooking.  Barry refilled his glass with bourbon and made a drink for Derek.  Then he called him out to the balcony so they could speak in private.

"Where's Whitney?" Derek asked when he stepped out into the cool evening air.

"She went to her sister's," Barry said.

They sat in the patio chairs.

"Probably a good thing.  You hear what's been happening today?"

"Aside from that?" Barry said, pointing up at the object.

"The shootings," Derek said.  "Bunch of west end gangs are crawling through the city like cockroaches killing every cop they can find.  Now they're hitting fire departments, too."

"Oh yeah?"

"Engines 16, 17, and 18 so far."

Barry was surprised.  It's not often you get more than you pay for.  "Who's behind it?"

"Hell if I know," Derek said.  "
We sent out a 10-19 to all units, brought them in, g
ave out every unmarked
we have available.  But we've still got dozens of cruisers on patrol, and the state boys think they can handle themselves.  They're all sitting ducks."

"Maybe you should go on vacation."

"Wish I could.  That's how I came to find out about Hayden.  Went to the hospital to see a couple of our boys
and saw Louis beat all to hell.  He was mad, too."  Derek began to laugh.  "Hayden must have jarred his brain loose 'cause he was talking about this girl who came in earlier.  Teenage girl, real cute he said.  Claims she was floating in midair."  Now he was laughing to the point of hysterics.  "So serious, too.  I mean, Louis is a prankster from way back, but I swear he actually believed what he was saying."

Barry sat forward.  "He said a girl was floating?  In the hospital?"

"In the ER waiting room.  You should see his face, Barr
y.
  Looks like a damn eggplant!  He p
robably has a skull fracture
, loopy bastard
.  Thinks the girl has an alien inside her
."

"Who was this girl?  What was her name?"

"I don't know."

"Was
she admitted?"

"Don't know that either.  Why don't you ask Hayden?  Louis said they left together.  Maybe she's his girlfriend.  He's got a girlfriend, don't he?"

"I don't keep up with my son's love life."

"I thought Whitney told me he did.  Or maybe that was Johnny's kid."  Derek sighed.  "Johnny's dead, by the way.  Him and half my other guys.  This thing's big enough to call in the national guard, but you can't get in touch with anybody right now.  Federal government's shutting us down, Barry, sealing us off.  Doesn't look good."

"What do you think they're planning?"

Derek stood and approached the rail.  He craned his neck upward and studied the object.  "To be honest, I think they're scared shitless.  I think they're scrambling to figure out a way to communicate with that thing, and if it doesn't happen in the next day or two, they'
re going to launch a nuke at us."

"Bullshit," Barry said, standing.  "That won't happen.  They've seen enough movies to know that thing's technology has to be light years ahead of ours--or else it wouldn't be here.  They detonate a nuke, we'll all be fried and that thing will still be sitting there."

"They're gonna do it, Barry.  Mark my word."

"Not in this day and age."

"Day and age?  What the hell are you talking about, man?  It's a
new
day, a
new
age.  We're not dealing with
domestic terrorists here.  Have you even put any thought into what that thing is?"

Sheila appeared at the door and said, "Dinner's ready."

"Okay, babe," Barry said.  He stepped up next to Derek and Derek looked at him.

"Well?  Have you?"

"It's a spaceship," Barry said.  "So what?  It's not the freakin' Death Star.  If it was here to blow shit up, it wouldn't have picked
Louisville
.  It would have picked
New York
or LA or
Tokyo
.  And there'd be more of them.  Unless it has a one-punch super-weapon that'll blow up the entire planet, in which case there's nowhere to go, so why plan for it?  Why not live today like you're going to see tomorrow?  Whatever that thing is, it's given us the opportunity of a lifetime.  We can rob this city until it's naked wearing a whiskey barrel.  No one's here to stop us, and no one's here to see it go down.  Open your eyes, Derek."

"My eyes are open," Derek said, "and you know what I see?  ICBMs.  They've already got them pointed at us.  Right now there's some young military tech. kid sitting in a little room waiting for the go code.  And that little shit's eager to push the button.  It's the American way, Barry.  You don't understand some
thing so you drop a bomb on it.  Lady Liberty's got crosshairs in her eyeballs and today she's looking at us.  You bet your ass.
  We need to get out of this city pronto.
"

Barry laughed deliberately, though in truth he believed Derek might be right.  The sky could light up at any moment and reduce him to vapor.  But if he could get his hands on whatever was attached to that man's head he saw today, the military blockades wouldn't be able to hold him.  That man had flung cars around like Hot Wheels, and from the looks of him he was half dead.

But Barry was strong, in mind and in body.  If he had that kind of power, maybe he could leap from
Main Street
to
Evansville
in a single leap.  Maybe he could stop a nuke in midair and send it straight to D.C.

He just had to find the guy and figure out a way to kill him.

Or he could find the girl.

Derek had gone silent
.  Still
staring up at the object.

It was everything Barry could do not to push him over the balcony right now.  Derek
always
had been
a scared, paranoid freak.  In college he'd spent most of his time developing conspiracy theories and losing girlfriends because he couldn't shut up about the ruling class
and
their plots of mass genocide.

When they we
re kids, Barry
used to sneak over to the high school gym and shut himself in one of the unused lockers in the girls' locker room.  Not only did he get to see all the girls naked, but he also l
earned all kinds of scandalous information from their gossiping.  One girl, Lindsey Strange, was cheating on her boyfriend with her math teacher, Mr. Parker.  She read a note he'd written her to all the other girls, and when they all left the locker room for gym class, he stole the note and used it to blackmail Mr. Parker repeatedly.  He got a new bike out of the deal, then money.  Next he approached Lindsey and made her strip naked in front of him
.  He
made her get a really short haircut, which earned her so much ridicule at school that she quit the cheerleading team.  Mr. Parker found another job and moved away, and Barry spent two years wearing Lindsey down to the point that she fell in love with him.  She sat with him on the school bus.  She started coming to his house under the pretense of tutoring him in advanced mathematics.
  She went from being his own personal slave to being his girlfriend.

It was all culminating to Barry's ultimate plan, losing his virginity to her, but Derek ruined everything.  He'd always suspected something was wrong with Barry's and Lindsey's relationship.  The first of his conspiracy theories, as it were.  Sure enough, one day when Derek stayed home sick from school he went snooping in Barry's room and found the note.  Then he slowly began to piece everything together.  He found out where Mr. Parker had moved to and called him.  Mr. Parker explained everything, and then Derek ratted Barry out to their parents, Lindsey's parents, and the school principal.  Barry was admitted
to a psychiatric hospital for thirty days and when he returned Lindsey was gone, having been yanked out of school by her parents and sent to an all-girls catholic school for her junior and senior year.

Barry h
ad hated his brother ever since, and on top of aspiring to one day kill him, he'd also set the goal to sleep with every one of Derek's girlfriends and as of now had an eighty percent success rate, including Derek's wife.

"Let's eat," Barry said, turning toward the balcony door.

Derek didn't respond.  He was still staring at the object.

Barry snapped his fingers.  "Hey, Dr. Strangelove, we eating or what?"

"Yeah," Derek said, distantly.  "Whatever you say, boss."

~ ~ ~ ~

Roger spotted Sprinkles coming out from under a bush and as the cat scampered up
15th Street
,
he was left with two
choice
s
: stay and help the woman cop whose partner lay on the ground bleeding profusely and screaming, or slip away unnoticed and chase after Sprinkles.

Neither option sounded appealing.  If he ran away, he would carry more guilt than he thought he could live with.  If he stayed, he might never see the cat again.

It's just a stupid cat
, his ex-wife would say
right now
.  Nina hated cats.  She hated all animals.  That was her term of endearment for Roger on his worse days--the days of fighting, late nights, her discovery of drug paraphernalia
above the bathroom medicine cabinet, the time he brought home a girl from a bar when Nina was supposed to be pulling a double at the hospital
, the day he punched his supervisor at the warehouse and got fired
. 
You're an animal, Roger!  You behave like an animal!

He didn't argue.  She was right.  That's why he didn't fight her when she hired that big bald-headed attorney and took everything except the '93 Taurus that hadn't been driven in two years.  He could have had his half, or more, after discovering she'd been sleeping with the guy throughout the divorce proceedings, but he blamed himself for that.  It was over.  There was nothing he could do.

Kind of like this situation.  Sprinkles was already out of sight and he didn't see which way he went.  He only had one option left: save the lady cop.

The gang members stood like a firing squad in the street from one curb to the other, unloading clip after clip into the squad car
, shooting wildly.  They looked like they had plenty of experience holding their guns in cool and intimidating ways but little experience actually target shooting
.