Shop Talk (17 page)

Peering into the rearview mirror, Mona pulled down the neck of her shirt. The bruises were a faint yellow now, almost gone. Thank goodness, she thought as she let the turtleneck snap back into place. It was nearly noon on a hot and fragrant April day.

Unless she found a doctor who was as skilled as he was enthusiastic, she’d have to give up her research on asphyxiation and the female orgasm until fall. It was too hot in Biloxi in May for turtlenecks. Well, truth be told, she’d grown weary of research. The things she’d learned about powerful men and their need to give and receive debasement were not what she’d entered the field expecting to find.

She’d tried hard not to pigeonhole and categorize men, but somehow they kept sorting themselves into lines labeled by their professions. Even now, when she was resisting as hard as she could, she saw her past lovers begin to march into queues. There were the doctors on the left, with their meticulous personal grooming habits and their need for instruments of pain. The slap of flesh against flesh did not excite them like the use of a metal tool.

The next line was composed of men in expensive suits, ties that made a statement, and personal grooming habits that often left something to be desired. A tiny, black riding crop made them fumble backwards with unmitigated fear. Words were their preferred method of debasement. Lawyers. They loved to be called names and forced to say terrible things about themselves and their mothers. They liked bondage, but the sharp heel of a boot did not bring them nearly the pleasure of a well-placed insult.

The next line of men wore blue collar shirts and work boots. Mona smiled. These were men who would go to great pains to construct a scenario for their fantasies. Plumbing, wiring, stout wooden beams. These men knew the business of erection. Their approach to the give and take of sadomasochism was less refined, more spontaneous. They thought little about what gave them pleasure, but they recognized it when they felt it.

She sighed softly as a line of uniformed men took shape. Whether firemen, cops or soldiers, they all had the desire to rule. They were less work than the others, for her. They took the initiative and then forced her, hand-cuffed and pliant, to do their bidding. It was nice to wedge one of these between two lawyers. Refreshing. But she wouldn’t want a steady diet.

Not of any of them.

At that thought Mona opened her eyes. Glancing into the rearview mirror, she saw that Andromeda had pulled up behind her on the big Harley. Mona’s watch was over, and she’d learned only that Marvin Lovelace never went anywhere without his cane and that he had a post office box, number 264, at the main post office rather than door to door delivery. Even as Andromeda dismounted from the bike and started toward her, the door to Marvin’s apartment opened and he stepped out, thin legs revealed in jogging shorts. He wore a sweatshirt and carried a towel. Well, thank God Andromeda would have to jog with him. Mona didn’t mind activity that got her heart rate up and her body pumping, but she wanted a better pay off than sweaty clothes.

At Andromeda’s tap, Mona rolled down her window and took in the black spandex shorts with red suspenders, black T-shirt, knee-socks and hiking boots. Andromeda was dressed for action. Her eyes were concealed behind her ever-present Raybans.

They both watched as Marvin got in his car and prepared to back into the street.

“I’ve got him now,” Andromeda said. “Anything?”

Mona shook her head. “Good luck.” She cranked her car. “I’ve got an appointment at three. I have to stop by the store for some hamburger meat.”

Andromeda lifted one eyebrow behind the glasses. Sometimes it was better not to ask. She went back and straddled her hog, pulling her helmet on before she fell in behind the pale blue Taurus that Marvin Lovelace drove toward Highway 90.

As the hog ate the miles, the wind whipped against her face, giving her a sense of freedom that was a drug. Straddling the Harley, she could forget the black gloom that emanated from her mother and hung over her life. Ahead of her, Marvin tooled along the highway, careful to stay just within the speed limit. The scents of the beach came at her. Water, tide, fish, a burger joint, the tang of gumbo, and, pungently, asphalt as she passed a road crew repairing potholes. The bike gave her a sample of the world around her while speeding her through it.

Marvin headed north, away from the coast. Andromeda was mildly intrigued. Most joggers opted for the beach, where they could strut. But Marvin was an old fart. The competition from the younger studs would surely be depressing. It was a revealing fact about his character.

At the 1-10 junction, he went west. Andromeda had a bad moment as she realized he might head to New Orleans. She’d given her mother a shot of codeine cough syrup laced with paregoric. It would be good for only four or five hours, and then Natalie was going to wake up in an awful mood–hung over and constipated. At the turn to Saucier, she expelled a sigh of relief as she followed Marvin. She had no idea where he was going, but at least it wasn’t New Orleans.

He took several twisting turns on roads that became narrower and less paved, and Andromeda thought several times she’d lost him. She was forced to drop back to avoid detection, yet she was close enough to see him stop at a long drive with a massive gate. His thin arm reached out of the car and punched at a keypad. The iron gate slid open, and Marvin drove the Taurus through. Even as she watched, the gate slid back into place, shutting her out.

“Damn, damn and double damn.” She rested her foot on the ground to balance the bike, waited several minutes, then parked her bike on the side of the road in a clump of weeds and walked to the gate.

There was no indication what lay beyond the gate. Marvin was probably a snowbird, and this was most likely a private club. She fingered the key pad, lightly, not depressing any of the buttons. She knew enough about security to know that some sophisticated systems would signal an alert if an improper code was keyed in. She went up to the gate. There was no sign of a guard, or of surveillance cameras, she thought belatedly, and with relief. The perimeter of the compound was fenced with what had to be the stoutest electric fence she’d ever seen. The strands were eight feet high and about six inches apart, heavy gauge wire. She counted sixteen strands. A squirrel would have a hard time getting in or out.

The wrought iron gate itself was interesting. What had at first appeared to be a woodland scene, was not at all. The center piece of the gate was the profile of a falcon-like bird gripping the earth in huge talons. In its beak, the bird held a saber and a gun. But the most interesting thing was the bird’s eye. It was split by an S-shaped line that divided it perfectly in two equal halves of dark and light. Andromeda stared at the eye, a chill touching her even as her finger traced the garland of laurel leaves that encircled the figure.

She examined the entire gate. Strangely enough, as close as the electric wires were, the sliding gate tines held just enough space for her to slip through. Wisdom whispered in her ear, urging her to remain outside the strange compound. But the murmur of caution was obliterated by the more pleasurable sense of freedom. She had more than four hours left. Plenty of time to duck in the gate, have a look-see, and get back to her bike. She patted the pocket of her shirt. Her camera. Document, document, document. The role of the writer. Observe, document, draw conclusions. This was an opportunity she couldn’t resist.

Turning sideways, she wedged herself through the gate. On the other side were towering pine forests and wildflowers. Gravel scrunched beneath her hiking boots as she hurried down the pitted road that looked like a million dirt trails leading to some good-ole-boy’s hunting lodge. Only the high-tech gate spoke of the possibility of something else. That and her intuition. She felt it deep in her brain. Here was the seed of her screenplay.

She could visualize the opening shot, angling up into the trees, then back down to the narrow path, framed by the thick pines. The shot would be sinister, but there would be no clear evidence why. Here was the place she could introduce the science fiction element that would sever her story from Jazz’s thriller plot. Here in the pines, where aliens could land without human detection, was the perfect location. Andromeda began to trot, eager to see what waited around the bend in the road.

To her complete surprise, the trees gave way abruptly to a long pasture that extended to the horizon. The ground was flat, spreading to the edge of the field, where it curved up and disappeared into blue sky. Just on the rim of the horizon, a tall, thin man was jogging. Marvin. He’d actually come all the way out to Saucier to jog. It took her a moment to realize that the slight blurring of Marvin was caused by another line of electrical fence. He was obviously on the far side of it, jogging like a demon. His knees moved up and down like pistons, and Andromeda felt a moment of admiration for his self-discipline. The old codger was in terrific shape.

Remembering her camera, she pulled it out and snapped a few shots. Small, compact, the latest in photographic technology, Andromeda loved the camera. She had just raised it once more when she felt a warm gust of breath at the base of her neck.

Another breath of expelled air smote her neck, combined with a spray of moisture. Camera still held at her eye, Andromeda spun around and began madly clicking. What appeared in the viewfinder was a huge black nose, split down the center and dripping moisture, and a huge pink tongue. The mountain of black fur behind the nose was enormous. Very slowly, Andromeda lowered the camera and stood face to face with a buffalo. It was the biggest land mammal she’d ever seen.

Andromeda took two steps back. The buffalo took two steps forward, its pink tongue flicking out to lick its wet nose. The head was massive, broader than Andromeda’s hips, and far hairier. Andromeda removed her Raybans for the first time in eight years and accepted that she’d never been so scared before. No wonder the electric fence had been so forcefully strung. Buffalo. A faint rustling among the pines clued her to the fact that the big bull, and indeed it was a bull, was not alone.

“Shit.” Andromeda clicked off a few more photos, squinting at the bright sunlight. She slid the Raybans back on. “Shit,” she said again as two more big animals stepped out of the woods. To her surprise they were plain, ordinary cows, polled herefords. But what were those wooly creatures at their sides? Andromeda took off her glasses one more time as she stared at the baby calves. They were not cows. And they were not buffaloes.

“Beefalos.” She whispered the words. A bastardization of cow and buffalo. So, someone in Saucier was cross-breeding animals.

Andromeda lifted the camera and clicked off the rest of the roll. This was too good to be true. Beefalo. Something that would never have occurred to her in a million years–cross breeding. An excellent science fiction theme. Perfection. But what if the breeding program involved humans and aliens? Right here in Mississippi. And whole colonies of rejects could have been turned loose to forage in the backwoods. “Yes!” She cried out the word before she could stop herself. “A combination of
The X-Files
and
Deliverance.
Yes, oh yes!” She twirled around, stopping abruptly when she caught sight of the buffalo, who was no longer licking his wet nose in a friendly fashion. He lowered his head, snorted and looked at her through shaggy brown fur.

“It’s okay,” Andromeda said, hoping a buffalo would respond to a voice of reason. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The buffalo snorted again and pawed the ground.

“Shit.” Andromeda tucked the camera in her pocket so that her hands were free. The horns of the buffalo were short and curved, deadly. The massive forehead could crush a person.

“I’ll be leaving now,” Andromeda said. She glanced to the horizon where Marvin Lovelace was long gone. Another fact became clear to her–he’d been jogging on the other side of the electrical fence for a reason. He knew about the buffalo.

Never turning her back, Andromeda angled toward the woods. It was at least a half mile to the gate, but there were trees she might have a prayer of climbing. The other direction led only to the open field and certain death.

She felt her heart slow as she gained the woods and the buffalo had not moved any closer to her. He stood, head lowered, glaring. She had begun to believe she was going to make it when a young calf sprang out of the woods with a startled cry. The terrified animal bolted past her, racing as if the devil had hold of its tail. Andromeda gave a cry of pure terror. The ground beneath her feet was pounding and rumbling. It took less than two seconds for her to realize the jolting came from the weight of the buffalo, which had begun to charge.

Darting among the trees, Andromeda ran for her life. The pines had obviously been carefully managed as a crop. All lower limbs had been trimmed. The trees stretched tall to the sky, without a limb for her to grab and swing up. The few hardwoods were scrub oaks, too narrow to withstand an attack by an enraged buffalo. Feet slipping occasionally in the deep pine straw, Andromeda ran for the gate, praying her sense of direction would not fail her.

Behind her the buffalo came, snorting and sliding in the straw worse than she was. She heard it smack into a tree and bellow with rage. Far in the distance was the cry of a man, then another. It could be help or additional danger, but Andromeda had no intention of waiting around to find out. She burst through a thicket of dogwoods and saw the gate up ahead. The buffalo, stymied by the close growing trees, was still coming. With her last spurt of energy, Andromeda launched herself at the gate and prayed that she could turn sideways in midair. She struck the metal with a sickening thud and then shimmied through, falling out on the other side and scrabbling to her knees. Rocks gouged her flesh, but she crawled over to the ditch and dove headlong into the tall black-eyed susans and weeds that crowded the mushy, weed-choked gully. She cowered lower at the loud whang of the buffalo ramming the gate.

Before she could catch her breath, there was the sound of a gunshot. Then another. The earth shook with the thunder of pounding hooves. Peeking over the weeds, she saw the buffalo shake his head at the gate and then trot back into the woods. The loud roar of an engine preceded the appearance of a Land Rover at the gate.