Heller's Punishment

by JD Nixon

Copyright JD Nixon
2012

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition,
Licence Notes

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the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of
fiction. All characters and locations in this publication are
fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or
real locations, is purely coincidental.

JD Nixon is an
Australian author and Australian English and spelling have been
used in this book.

Discover
other titles by
JD
Nixon
at
Smashwords.com
:

Heller
series

Heller
(free ebook!)

Heller’s Revenge

Heller’s Girlfriend

Heller’s Punishment

Heller’s
Decision (due 2012)

Little Town
series

Blood
Ties
(free ebook!)

Blood Sport

Blood Feud (due
2012)

Cover design by JD
Nixon

~~~~~~ ######
~~~~~~

Chapter 1

“The word is of
Greek origin of course, from
deinos
meaning terrible and
sauros
meaning lizard. Hence the term ‘terrible lizard’. But
in fact that’s a misnomer, because they weren’t lizards at all.
Rather, they constituted an entirely separate type of reptile.”

Would he
never shut up?
I thought with a silent scream, my facial
muscles aching from maintaining a polite listening face for so
long.

“They lived
during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras.” He chuckled.
“I’m sure you remember watching
Jurassic Park
, although I
feel I should warn you that the movie was inaccurate or speculative
in several key respects.”

He paused to
push his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and a tiny bud
of hope blossomed inside me that he’d finally finished his
extensive monologue. But then he continued and my bud withered and
died. “It’s commonly believed that large numbers of dinosaurs were
then wiped out in an extinction event that hasn’t yet been agreed
upon by palaeontologists. Some argue about the catastrophic impact
of an asteroid collision with Earth, but others think that gradual
climate change was responsible as the dinosaurs weren’t able to
adapt fast enough. Most people think that all the dinosaurs died
then, but interestingly though –”

Oh no, I wasn’t
falling for
that
again.
Nothing
he’d said had been
interesting so far.

“– it is
believed that some of the avian dinosaurs instead evolved into our
modern-day birds. So we could say that we are indeed still ‘walking
with dinosaurs’ today.” He chuckled again. “And speaking of that,
it’s commonly thought that mammals and dinosaurs didn’t exist
together. But they actually did, although the mammals were only
small creatures at that point in time, at the very beginning of
their evolutionary existence. So the idea of humans and dinosaurs
together is laughable.”

Cram it,
Einstein
, I thought, stifling another yawn, wondering if it was
possible to strangle him with his own tongue.

His name was
Elton and we were colleagues at
Heller’s Security &
Surveillance
, a small but expanding business that offered
top-shelf security and surveillance services. We were both employed
there as security officers and I hadn’t worked with him before. But
I was starting to understand the sympathetic glances and pats on
the shoulder from the other men when
Heller’s
hardarse
security manager, Clive, announced that I’d be paired with Elton
for a weeklong job.

Hmm, maybe
Clive did this to me deliberately
, I pondered. He wasn’t
exactly an admirer of mine.

Elton was a
sandy-haired tall man, six-five at least, bulky with muscle but
with a sensitive, even-featured face and the only security man I’d
yet met who wore glasses. He was conscientious, earnest and
encyclopaedic, bringing along a scholarly tome on medieval weaponry
for a bit of light relief during our breaks. He seemed like a
really nice guy, but I just wanted him to zip it for five minutes.
Was that too much to ask? He was boring the arse off me and making
the assignment painful.

We’d been hired
to supplement the security staff of the city’s natural history
museum for a showing of
DinoDreaming
, a display of realistic
animatronic dinosaurs. The museum was expecting the display to be
the most popular one they’d ever hosted, hence the extra security
required. Although glancing over at the two museum security staff
assigned for the day, I wondered how they’d cope with much at all.
One was small and past retirement age surely, his white hair
carefully combed and greased with some foul-smelling cream that had
probably been popular when he was a teenager. The other was an
anaemic young woman with prominent blue eyes and lank, dull brown
hair who looked as if she’d faint if you tapped her on the shoulder
from behind. But I guess a natural history museum didn’t become
rowdy too often. It was only later that I learned that both were
volunteers, which explained a lot.

The pair was
both fascinated by Elton’s endless knowledge about dinosaurs, their
open-mouthed attention only encouraging him – unfortunately – to
pontificate further. On our arrival and before it was open to the
public, we took a casual stroll around the amazing display. The
huge replica dinosaurs were inanimate right then, but would later
roar and move, flicking their long tails and scratching out with
their claws. It would be spectacular and magical and scary. Kids
would love it. My favourite was a huge egg in a nest that hatched
revealing a tiny baby dino emerging.

The dinos were
housed in a lush living prehistoric garden, populated with plants
that would have existed during that period. It was a beautiful
setting, although Elton tutted, informing us that while the gingko
plants could be traced to prehistoric fossils, the other ferns and
palms were distinctly not authentic to the era, being more modern
in provenance.

“Really?” asked
the washed-out young lady in breathless awe, gazing up at him with
open admiration. And I’d swear that in response he grew an unneeded
two inches taller, as if it had been a long time since someone had
appreciated hearing what he had to say. That was kind of sad,
because he was a fine specimen of a man, and undoubtedly knew a lot
about . . . well, everything. But he was just so damn
boring
. And after another ten uninterrupted minutes of
listening to him expounding about palaeobotany, during which the
other two listened, rapt, I prayed to be mauled and eaten by a
dinosaur just to get away from him. It would surely be less
painful.

I’d better
resign now
, I thought glumly. There was no way I was going to
make the rest of the week with him and I wasn’t sure how tolerant
our boss, Heller, would be about me stuffing up another job. Let’s
be tactful and say that I didn’t exactly have a sterling work
record at
Heller’s
.

Finished with
the plants, Elton moved on to the dinosaurs, his little audience
following him, hanging on his every word. “Now the Stegosaurus is
quite a fascinating creature.”

I doubt it!

“It was a
herbivore and had a very small brain in comparison to its large
body size, therefore probably needing to use its bony plates for
defence. But some argue that the plates may also have been used to
regulate body temperature or for display. To attract a mate.”

The young woman
blushed and giggled and he glanced down at her, surprised and
pleased by the attention. She shyly turned her eyes up to him in
return.

Ooh, go for
it, Elton
, I smiled to myself. She didn’t need bony plates on
her
back to show her interest in the big man.

“You can see
that its tail was held stiffly outright and it’s believed that was
because . . .”

Bored, I
wandered off, looking at the other dinosaurs by myself. It was a
great display. I decided that it would be a blast being on duty
inside this room, watching the dinos strut their stuff and the
reactions of the parents and children.
Hmm, maybe if I stayed
out of hearing range of Elton, I could make it through this
assignment after all.
That would be preferable to having Heller
yelling at me. Again. He was sort of scary when he was angry.

The museum’s
events coordinator hurried towards us. She was a fidgety, portly
woman with a permanently anxious expression on her face suggesting
that on waking each day she feared for her continuing employment.
She exuded a strong smell of need – she
needed
this display
to be a success for her museum. Perhaps her annual performance
appraisal was riding on it?

“Has the
entertainer turned up yet?” she asked.

I shook my
head. We hadn’t seen anybody.

“Oh dear,” she
said quietly, checking her large-faced watch. “He should have been
here thirty minutes ago. I
knew
I shouldn’t have gone with
him. He seemed so . . . flaky. I should have chosen the older man.
What was I thinking? What will the Director say?”

Distressed, she
paced around, absently straightening a fern here, touching a gingko
there, her mind on more pressing matters. I placed my hand on her
arm when she approached me again.

“Is there a
problem? Can we help?” I asked.

“No, no, no,”
she moaned. “I’ve spent too much money on this. The Director is
going to be so angry with me.”

Unexpectedly,
she burst into tears.

“Oh, hey,” I
soothed, unsure of what to do, my hand hovering over her shoulder.
I settled for a couple of vague pats on her back. “What’s the
matter? Maybe there’s some way we can help?”

“Not unless
you’re willing to step into the entertainer’s shoes,” she sniffed,
trying to pull herself together. I felt for her. There’s nothing
fun about losing it at work.

I shrugged.
“Try me.”

She glanced at
me, her eyes watery and pink-rimmed. She took a deep breath. “I
hired a costume. A dinosaur costume. My plan was to have him wear
it and walk around the museum, drumming up excitement and leading
people upstairs here to the display. Just for today, the opening
day.”

“That sounds
like a great idea.”

“No, it wasn’t.
It was a
terrible
idea. The costume was
very
expensive to hire and now the entertainer has done a bunk on me.
It’s a disaster!”

“Well, I still
think it’s a fun idea.” I thought for a moment. “Maybe one of us
could wear it for you instead.”

Her eyes filled
with hope. “Really? Do you think . . .? Would one of you be willing
to . . .?”

“Sure, why not?
I can’t imagine that we’ll need all four of us here on duty.” I
smiled at her. “My colleague and I are used to doing all sorts of
things in our job.”

And while that
was certainly true for me, I probably shouldn’t have been so quick
to declare the same for Elton. Because when the events coordinator
rounded up the other three and proposed our plan to them, he stared
at her as if she’d just suggested a threesome with him, her and the
Stegosaurus.