Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (13 page)

Eric looked at the black man. “What’s your name?”

“Seaman Monroe Adams Washington.” He shrugged and grinned. “My mama tried to cram as many presidents into my name as possible. My brother Lyndon’s even worse off.”

Eric smiled. “He in the navy too?”

“Marines. Figured they get all the chicks.”

“Not all,” the petty officer winked.

Eric inspected both men, pacing back and forth in front of the cage. “How long have you had them?” he asked Dr. Chen.

“Five fucking days!” the petty officer said. “We been cooped up in this pen for five days. We gotta piss and crap in a goddamn can that she don’t empty but once a day. It’s goddamn humiliating.”

Eric turned to D.B. “Take Spock outside and wait.”

“Will he go with me?” she asked Dr. Chen.

“Sure. Take his hand and lead him. If he gets restless, keep tickling him. He can take that for hours.”

D.B. took the ape’s hand. “Come on, Spock. Time to beam aboard.” They left.

“Look it that,” the petty officer said. “They let the goddamn ape go waltzing around while we stay locked up in a fucking cage.”

“The ape,” Dr. Chen said, “is a vegetarian. They don’t eat animals.”

Washington shook his head. “Look, lady, we know we made a mistake. We only want to get out of here and back to our home. We got family.” He looked at Eric. “You look like you understand. Help us out, mister.”

“Where’s your home?” Eric asked.

“Well it used to be on board the
Dakota
. Slickest damn sub you ever seen. We were docked in San Diego for some repairs when the quakes hit. Ocean churned up so much it tore the sub in two like it was some toy you get out of a cereal box.”

“Where do you live now?” Eric persisted.

“South,” the petty officer. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Near Dirk Fallows’ camp?”

“Who?” they both chorused.

“Corporal Dirk Fallows.” Eric stepped closer to the cage. “He and his men are buying gold around here. I’m looking to peddle some.”

Washington said, “Look, man, if it would help us any, I’d tell you about this Fallows. I’ll tell you everything from birthplace to shoe size. But the truth is, we don’t know the dude.”

“Or anything about gold,” the petty officer said. “Why would anybody be buying gold here? Don’t make sense.”

“Ours is not to reason why. Ours is just to make a profit.”

Washington laughed. “He sounds like you, Bolinski.”

Bolinski grinned wolfishly. “Yeah, well in Philly, ya gotta have a shark’s instincts just to make it to the corner schoolhouse alive.”

Eric didn’t say anything for a while. He paced in front of their cage. He stopped in front of Bolinski, studying the huge muscular arms where his shirt was rolled up past the elbows. “You’re looking a little pale, Bolinski. Not getting much sun down south lately?”

“Hey, pal, I looked a hell of a lot tanner before I got locked up in this brig.”

“Yeah,” Monroe chuckled, “even my tan is fading.”

Eric shrugged. “I’d like to help you boys, I really would. But unless you can tell me where I can find Fallows, I can’t do a thing. Take it easy, fellas.” He started to walk out of the room, followed closely by Dr. Chen.

“Goddamn it, man, help us,” Bolinski bellowed. “It’s not our fault we don’t know no Colonel Fallows. We were just hunting for food for our families. Shit, that’s not a crime, even now.”

Once outside, Eric pulled Dr. Chen aside. “What are you planning to do with them?”

“Let them go, I guess. I just held them long enough to see if they had any friends following. Guess not.”

“Hold onto them one more day. Okay?”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why? They’re taking up time and eating my food. They seem to be telling the truth. I’m sorry they don’t know this Fallows man, but you can’t punish them for that.”

“Hold them,” Eric said. “They’re lying.”

She shook her head. “I’m a pretty good judge of character, Mr. Ravensmith. I believe those two men. And since this is my compound, I’ll decide who to detain and who not to.”

Eric released the safety on his crossbow and bumped the arrow-end against Dr. Chen’s chest. “If you’re such a good judge of character, why is my finger on this trigger. Less than a pound’s worth of pressure will make this zoo mine.”

Dr. Chen did not back down. Her dark eyes bored into Eric’s. “I know you can kill, Mr. Ravensmith. I recognize the look. But I was hasty in my earlier condemnation, letting my grief for my father interfere with my judgment. Yes, you could kill me. But you won’t. I believe your young companion. You want to find your son. You won’t do that here.”

Eric flicked the safety on and lowered the bow. “You don’t bluff so easily yourself, Doctor.”

“Wendy,” she said with a relieved sigh. She offered her hand. Eric shook it. It was warm, the skin calloused from gardening.

“Maybe you are right about me,” Eric said. “But you are wrong about them. They know something.”

“Male intuition?” she smiled.

“Evidence. You notice their uniforms? A little soiled, but no tears or serious wear. They’re fairly new.”

“They could have had extra uniforms.”

“Look how pale Bolinski is. People in California all have tans, only these days it’s not from lying around the beach or playing tennis. It’s from hunting or gardening or building. He’s too pale, and it’s not from natural skin pigmentation.”

Dr. Chen started to offer an explanation, then stopped. “What else?”

“I referred to Fallows as Corporal Fallows. Later Bolinski called him Colonel Fallows, which is correct.”

Dr. Chen absently picked a lock of her straight black hair and began chewing on it. “What does that add up to?”

“Unanswered questions. I intend to find out the answers tonight.”

“How?”

Eric’s smile was cold and flat. “You don’t want to know.”

The rain came suddenly. At first it was a pounding rain, harsh and almost vengeful, but after an hour it calmed to a gentle pelting.

“That’s the only blessing out of all this,” Wendy Chen said, staring out the window. “California finally gets enough rain. Something about the Halo, I suspect.”

“At this rate,” Eric said, “within a year or two vegetation will have reclaimed most of the land.”

“And insects,” D.B. complained, swatting at something flying around her face.

Wendy pulled her hair back and tied a hunk of rope around it, forming a long black pony tail that hung down to her buttocks. “The point is, in a couple years, people will have to overcome whatever fears and differences they have to form little pocket societies, like the city-states of ancient Greece. The rest of the state will be a tropical jungle. That’s when I’ll release the animals.”

Eric smiled. “Let them go forth, two by two, and be fruitful and multiply.”

“Okay, maybe it sounds a trifle pretentious. But what’s wrong with a little Eden?”

“Paradise regained?” Eric said. “It’s been tried.”

“Not by me.” She pressed her hand against the window, watched the glass fog up around her warm flesh. “You’re probably right. It is crazy.”

“But nice crazy,” D.B. said.

Spock was in the corner of the room arranging thick shaggy rugs over a large tractor tire. He worked slowly, but meticulously, shifting and tugging the carpets until they were just right.

“What’s he doing?” D.B. asked.

“Making his bed. It’s his own design. He had a mattress once, but he tore it apart within an hour. Actually, that arrangement is remarkably comfortable.”

“Yeah?” D.B. went over and stood next to Spock. “Mind if I try it out, Spock?”

Spock looked at her, puzzled. Then he looked at Wendy. Wendy signed to him while talking to D.B. “I’m telling him you like his bed.”

Spock signed back and Wendy and Eric laughed.

“What’d he say?” D.B. asked.

“He says it’s his bed,” Eric said. “And that you should go find your own.”

D.B. poked Spock playfully. “You little punk.”

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful ape,” Eric said.

“You’ll find it’s not all games and tickling with Spock,” Wendy said. “He’s like a child, stubborn and petulant and moody. He requires an enormous amount of attention.”

“Doesn’t he play with Madonna?” D.B. asked.

“Oh yes. They play for hours. And the amazing thing is he has been teaching her Ameslan. He’s taught her seven signs outside those that I taught her. But he wants favorite-child status. Special privileges.”

“What do you do then?”

“The same as with any child. Discipline. Like now. He’s acting this way because we aren’t paying any attention to him. So we’ll leave. It’s time he got some sleep anyway.”

Eric nodded. “It’s time we all got some sleep.”

The three of them started for the door. Immediately, Spock plopped onto the floor and began making a mournful whoo-whoo sound.

“What’s he doing?” D.B. asked.

“Crying. Apes don’t shed tears.”

The sound continued.

“Aren’t you going to do something?”

Wendy shook her head. “He’ll stop. I pamper him enough.”

They walked down the hall, the whoo-whoo sound echoing around them. That and the sad patter of rain was too much for D.B. She stopped. “I can’t stand it. Look, I don’t want to screw up your scientific experiments or anything, but can I stay with him a little longer? I mean, he won’t suddenly go nuts or anything, will he?”

Wendy looked at Eric, who shrugged and said, “She’s always been a sucker for stray apes.”

“Okay. You can stay with him. He can be rough playing, so be careful. Just in case you get sleepy, you may want to stick a few of the stuffed alligator dolls around you. He won’t come near you then.”

D.B. laughed. “Come on.”

“Really. He’s afraid of alligators, even though he’s never seen one, never even been near the reptile house. But I’ve shown him pictures and it makes him very frightened. So I use little alligator dolls from the gift shop and stick them in places I don’t want him to go. It works.”

D.B. hurried back toward Spock’s room. She called back without turning her head. “You two have fun. Maybe you can find a good book to read together or give each other pop quizzes.” Her laughter drowned out even Spock’s moaning. They heard her unlatch Spock’s door. His moaning stopped altogether.

“Well,” Wendy said, unbuttoning her blouse. “Are we going to make love or what?”

Her home was a trailer just behind the Animal Care Center. They walked through the warm rain, her blouse open, the large drops bursting against her smooth dark skin. She wore a white bra that had a tan sweat line under each cup. Somehow, that thin discolored line was more erotic to Eric than the sight of her breasts or thoughts of what they would be doing. In those tan lines were hours, months, of hard work, laboring to keep this place functioning. To keep the animals alive. Not for any personal gain or profit, but for some wacky dream about populating the encroaching California jungle with animals. He admired her determination. And that was the strongest aphrodisiac of all.

They stepped into her trailer. The inside was spartan. There was a single bed, a battered old dresser, a radio/cassette player, a desk scattered with scientific data about the apes. Taped on the wall was a map of the zoo with Post-it notes slapped here and there with details for where she planned to improve the place.