Jezebel's Ladder (13 page)

The helicopter only had room for two passengers. Benny sent
the two most injured and stayed with the caravan. “I can wait a few hours to
get these fractures set. I’ll meet you at the hospital in Dallas. Butterfly can
share a room with Starlet.”

When the crew of the Life Flight
saw the state of the victims, they didn’t begrudge the long trip. Dr. Weiss
took possession of the Override and Ethics pages. The recorder and all Maverick’s
other possessions went to Crusader’s men. Steve refused morphine and would not
give up his gun until relieved of his duty at the Dallas hospital.

When Jez woke up, she was in a
hospital gown and had a cast on each leg. Sunlight poured through the
cornflower-blue curtain hanging between the beds. “I am getting so tired of
this.”

The perfect girl-next-door with
long, black hair slid the curtain back. Sunlight blazed even brighter behind
her. Jez was going to complain until she saw the stitches along the side of the
other woman’s face. The scar was terrible.

“I’m so sorry,” Jez told her. “You’ll
never be on the big screen again, will you?”

“Unlikely,” Claudette admitted. “You’re
another one of Maverick’s victims. What did you do wrong?”

“I told him he was a pervert, and
he broke my feet so I’d never dance again.”

Claudette began to cry for her. “They’ll
have to build us our own wing soon.”

Looking at her in this moment of
vulnerability, Jez could see why even Dirt Bag’s heart might melt for this
woman. Jez threw all the rules about debriefing out the window. “No. He’ll
never hurt anyone else.”

The actress sat down on Jez’s bed. “That
feels like putting an ice cube on a fresh burn. It gives me shivers of relief.
Does that make me a bad person?”

“I’m not a judge anymore. I just
turned a man into a vegetable out of revenge.”

Claudette laughed. “Little ol’ you?”

“I’m Jezebel Johnson, your
ex-husband’s first female agent. I also recently blackmailed him for a
leadership position.”

“What did he do?”

“It’s what he didn’t do: what
needed done. Do you know about the pages?”

The starlet nodded. “Just his first
one. He got secretive after that.”

“Believe it or not, he was trying
to save your life. Women usually don’t survive indoctrination. I’m kind of a
freak. I’ve collected and mastered more pages in a month than he has since he
started. I promised I wouldn't tell people the truth if he let me make the
rules for a while.”

Claudette whooped. “Keep kicking
deserving asses like that, sister, and you’re gonna have a long line of people
buyin’ you drinks.”

The noise caused a security guard
to peek in their door’s little window. When he saw Jez sitting up, he dialed a
number on his cell phone.

“I gave that up… mainly for Benny’s
sake. If you want to repay me, tell me a little about yourself and him.”

The actress raised an eyebrow. “Jealous?”

Jez nodded.

Claudette laid a sympathetic hand
on her arm. “Don’t be. We were friends for years, like cousins. My momma would
shoot me if I dated a non-Baptist. Besides, he doesn’t like tall brunettes.”

“Pull the other one. His dad told
me some stories about women of every hair color and skin tone.”

The actress gasped. “You’ve met his
biological father? I’ve only seen him from a distance at award parties.”

“Bernie’s a character, an
unrepentant bigot and hedonist, but at least he didn’t pinch my ass like his
poker buddies did. He knows how to treat a lady.”

They chatted about Benny for a
while, Claudette telling several anecdotes about their misspent youth in Hollywood. Lunch was wheeled in while they giggled over pranks he pulled on his tutors in
the trailer on the set. Without warning, she said, “You really love him, don’t
you, honey? I can tell by the way your eyes get all soft.”

Jez struggled. Eventually, she
said, “Yes, but it’s complicated. I’m not ready yet for what he deserves. He
rescued me, and I want to jump his bones right…”

“Hon’, no one expects sex after a
man like Maverick assaults you, at least not till the casts come off and scars
heal.”

“There are more scars.” Even though
Claudette was a virtual stranger, Jez poured out her whole story, starting with
her dad’s early death. She even related her history of lovers: her first time
with her first dance partner, her second at prom, Chance, and the blur
afterward. She avoided mentioning details about the pages, focusing on personal
issues.

Claudette was a very good listener.
When it was all out, the actress said, “You’re his Ruth.”

“Huh?”

“The Bible, dear. You’re going to
have to get yourself a copy if you hang around Benny much longer. He wants to
be a deacon some day. I recommend one where James Earl Jones reads. Ruth was a
widow, like you, who comes to a strange land. She survives by gleaning the
fields of a nice, older man. Her mother-in-law, Mara, tells her how she can
have the nice man as a husband.”

“What’s the catch?”

“You have to be sure and make a
commitment for life. Benny is a friend, and deacons aren’t allowed to get
remarried.”

Jez sighed, and redirected the
discussion to something that bothered her. “If that’s so important to you, why
did you break up with Fortune? He still loves you in his own twisted,
dysfunctional way.”

“Whoa, Captain Blunt. Did Elias or
Benny tell you this?”

“Fortune’s actions.”

“Funny, his actions tell me the
opposite time and again.”

“He made the password to his most
secure vault your name. Has he ever had a mistress, or been with another woman
since you broke up?”

The actress considered this. “No,”
she said, stretching it to two syllables. “His work was his first love.”

Jez looked toward the door to check
for eavesdroppers. “I can’t excuse what he’s done, but I might be able to
explain a great deal. I’m guessing he went off the deep end about three years
ago.”

“Yes.”

“Claudette, would you like to be a
part of the Ladder Project? Within five years, we plan to have a colony in
space. I can do your intake session, but you have to be willing. It’ll feel
like you’re the only kid in your grade who’s been told about the Birds and the
Bees. There are a great many things you won’t be able to talk about with people
outside the project. Elias has had three assassination attempts against him
this year. Hell, even I’ve had a couple now.”

The actress stared at Jez. “He
never told me.”

“I believe that was a colossal
mistake on his part. He’d be a lot farther along with your help. We don’t have
time for him to be a sexist idiot anymore.”

After she got done chuckling,
Claudette asked, “Why would you trust me?”

Jez shrugged. “I like you. Benny
trusts you, and so does Fortune. Someone in our organization sold me out to
Maverick’s people to be tortured. You are one of about three people I know didn’t
do it. You’d make a good recruiter and a better sounding-board. Besides, you
own 10 percent of his company, and that’s a good stick to get his attention
with. He needs to start with some ethics restructuring now if we’re going to
make it into space by the time he needs us to.”

“Darlin’, I am going to love being
your friend.”

“I sincerely hope so.” Because the
truth she wanted to share could be harmful to the actress as well as others,
Jez found that she could hold it back. For the first time since getting
assaulted with the ethics page, she felt like she had a choice. Maybe it was
just time stabilizing her, or she was adapting due to the torture. “We can
still be friends either way, but I need your decision about joining before
whomever that security guard called shows up.”

Claudette sat up straight and said,
“Reporting for duty, sir!”

Jez held her hand while she
explained, “I’ll start with the important facts. I talked to a doctor who’d
read Fortune’s file. It’s my business because we have some of the same symptoms
from the same root cause. His page can give him genius insight into mankind’s
problems, but at a high price. Think of a diabetic whose ability to produce
insulin burns out after years of too much sugar. Using the page releases
poisons into the body, and eventually the body wears out. I’ve been rationing
my use, but Fortune didn’t know about the side-effects till it was too late. At
his current rate of abuse, he has about three years to live. If we can get him
to abstain, he might last as long as six.”

The starlet was crying again. Jez
kept talking to fill the void. “He’s known about his prognosis since before
your divorce, and wanted to hide it from you. It’s not much, but I want to make
his remaining years as pleasant as possible. I can help him reach his goal in
five years. You can give him the will to live long enough to see it.”

Claudette was holding her, weeping
openly, when Crusader arrived.

He had on pressed khakis and a
long-sleeved, pastel-green, dress shirt. The former police officer looked like
he wanted to begin an interrogation. The obvious emotion in the room made him
uncomfortable. “Mrs. Fortune, could you please take a walk for an hour? I’d
like a few moments alone with Miss Johnson, and the doctors told me she shouldn’t
be moved for a while.”

Claudette started to get up, but
Jez stopped her. “I'm training her to be my replacement in recruiting. She
stays.”

Crusader’s brows shot up. “You don’t
do things halfway, do you? I may have to ask you personal questions about your
experience that…”

The starlet interrupted, “My
experiences with Maverick were just as personal. I may be able to add details.
Besides, you might be the traitor who turned her over to that monster. There’s
no way I’m leaving a woman who can’t defend herself alone with a man in those
circumstances.”

Crusader started to argue, but Jez
countered with, “We do it my way or I faint and trigger the monitors. The
doctors will carry you out.”

“Never make demands you can’t
enforce. You’re learning.” After sitting in the padded guest chair, the head of
security said, “I’ve read the reports from all the other survivors and listened
to the recording of your interrogation. Now I want to hear it from your side.”

“You make it sound like she’s up
for disciplinary action,” Claudette said.

“Ma’am, please. I need to hear her
side while it’s fresh,” he said, handing her a spare notepad from his
clipboard. “Write down anything you want to add. Proper debriefing is
essential.”

Jez began with her 10:00 p.m. phone
conversation with Benny, and relived the ordeal. From time to time, Crusader
would raise a finger and ask clarifying questions.

“What told you it was a trap?”

“Women’s intuition. We’d been
planning this meeting for weeks and each side thought the other chose the
place. Frank held them off, even blinded by the gas. He’s the reason I
survived.”

Later, Crusader asked, “What do you
mean side-effects of the Ethics page?”

Jez tried not to talk, to blank.
She held off the embarrassing secret for ten seconds. Only when Claudette
offered to leave did she spill. “I can’t lie. I’m learning to filter what I
say. I also can’t murder. I can’t go against the moral code we agreed to in the
think tank.”

The starlet laughed and said, “You’re
gonna make me pee myself, girl.”

The former dancer sighed, “Everybody
laughs. Try having a relationship of any kind with that hanging around your
neck. But it’s the price we pay to have other races who meet us believe what we
say.”

Claudette stopped giggling. “Oh,
darlin’, I was laughing at what this will do to Elias, not you. This will make
your relationship with Benny that much stronger. You have to have faith.”

The detective put his finger to his
lips to ask the starlet to resume her role as silent observer. He wasn’t
convinced. “What’s the biggest thing you ever stole from an employer?”

“A bottle of Goldschlager after
some prick fired me.”

“Why did he fire you?”

“For not giving him a blow job.”

“All you did was steal his booze
and get drunk on it after? You're a lightweight.”

“No, I also paid a bum twenty bucks
to shit in the front seat of his car. The rest he did for free. I didn’t ask
for it.”

Claudette laughed so hard, tears
started to form. Even the detective grinned. “You win, but you know this means
we can’t ever let you out in the field again. It makes you utterly useless as
an agent.”

“We can train her to say things
like ‘a lady doesn't reveal such things.’ If we put exceptions in that code of
hers, we can fix this,” Claudette said.

Jez shook her head. “He’s right. I’m
worthless in a fight and most agent situations. I may still be valuable in
signing treaties or contracts where honesty is an asset. I knew I’d have to
change jobs. That’s why I recruited someone the boss couldn’t veto. Maybe I’ll
take over the Red Giant project. Boring would be a welcome change. I’d like a
nice desk job with no risk of rape or murder for a while.”

He pulled out a medical chart with
detailed drawings of her injuries and prompted, “The steam tunnel?”

“First, I want you to thank Virus
for his distraction, disrupting their key systems at just the right time. I don’t
think Benny’s team could have rescued me without his help. Is he Oobie’s
friend?” Jez said.

The detective said, “No. Actually,
Dirt Bag caught him skimming ATM money from rich people and giving extra to
poor, single mothers.”

“And he blackmailed him into doing
work for you or facing arrest?” guessed Claudette.

“No, Dirt Bag donates a hundred
thousand a quarter to a charity of Virus’s choice. Ragnar was his handler for a
while. He’s probably the reason you had an angel. I see you visited Ragnar a
couple days ago. Any reason?”