Strange Robby (14 page)

Carrie ran into the room, out of breath. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm taking this fucking shit off so that I can get up and move around. Where the fuck were you? Didn't you hear me?"

It didn't take a genius to figure out that Spider was mad. Carrie sat down across from her and tried to look at her.

Spider looked away.

"I was upstairs, I came as fast as I could. What's wrong, Baby?" She took Spider's hands to stop her from unwrapping the leg further, and to get her complete attention. "Honey, the doctor said not to bend your leg."

"Don't tell me what to do!" Spider screamed back.

Carrie looked at her and smiled. "I'm not telling you what to do, Baby. We decided to move in together, remember? We talked about it."

"But . . . "

"I admit it. I had your stuff moved while you were in the hospital, before you had a chance to change your mind, because I need you with me all the time."

"But . . . "

"You can put your stuff wherever you want it when you get better. Right now I'm just having them put it out of the way. And, no, I'm not going to make you part with anything. It's your stuff, and it belongs in our house."

"That's just it, Carrie . . . This isn't our house. It's your house. I couldn't afford a faucet in this house."

"My grandfather left me a small fortune when he passed away. It was either invest it, or lose the money to taxes. So I bought this house. And this
is
our house. I finished the paperwork this afternoon . . . "

"Don't do that, Carrie. I don't want you to do that."

"Why not?" Carrie smiled. "You going to leave and sue me for the house?"

Spider looked horrified. "Of course not."

"Then what's the problem? We're together, we're going to be together forever, so . . . Can't you just enjoy the fact that we are together? That we can afford a nice house and a pool? Do you have to worry about where it came from, whose money bought it? If it doesn't matter to me, why should it matter to you? Laura told me you put your death benefits in my name, and you don't see me bitching about it. I know that means commitment to you. Well, guess what, Baby. I'm just as committed to you."

"Tommy!" Spider hissed then muttered. "I guess he tells her fucking everything."

"That's what couples do."

Spider calmed down. She was glad that she was with Carrie, and she supposed she could learn to live in luxury. She forced a smile and nodded. "It'll take some getting used to, that's all. I'm not used to having someone else make decisions for me. You have to admit that it's pretty sad that the only way I can give you anything is if I die"

"You give me things I've never had before, Spider."

One of the movers walked in then. He made Spider immediately uncomfortable. He was on edge, worried or something. She looked right at him and he looked away.

"That's got it, Sir," he said to Carrie.

Spider, still hung over from the drugs they'd given her in the hospital, couldn't quite fix on the guy. She hadn't taken any drugs since she got home and didn't plan to. She'd rather have pain than be groggy. As it was, it was hard to say what might actually be bothering the guy.

Carrie paid him, and he and his partner left.

"I didn't like him," Spider said. "He was worried or something."

Carrie looked in the direction the two men had gone. "He seemed like a nice enough fellow. A good worker."

"I'm still so groggy. I can't be sure, but . . . I think he was hiding something."

Carrie laughed. "Welcome to the world of the mere mortals, my sweet. Imagine never knowing exactly how people feel. Having to trust what they tell you is true." She looked with meaning at Spider.

It took Spider a minute to get what she was hinting at. "You know I love you."

Carrie smiled. "Yes, I think I do. But the point is that you know how I feel about you, and yet you still question my motives."

"I guess I still have trouble believing that anyone as amazing as you could actually love someone like me."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I ask myself that same question? Why do you keep selling yourself short? You, my love, are amazing, and I am very fortunate to be loved by you."

"As long as you keep believing that I guess I've got it made."

Carrie would have a fit, but she was at work, and what Carrie didn't know wasn't going to hurt her. So Spider had taken off the offending leg brace and driven to the nursing home.

Spider fixed the pillows behind Henry's head. He didn't sound good today; his breathing was raspy.

"Hey, Henry! You don't sound so good, bud. I'm sorry I didn't get by for a couple of days, but I got a little shot. Nothing bad, just grazed, but Carrie's treating me like a fucking invalid."

She told him all about the hostage situation and moving in with Carrie. She told Henry things she couldn't tell Carrie; things she couldn't tell Tommy. As she always did, she looked for any sign that he might open his eyes and come back to the land of the living. There was nothing, just the raspy breathing. Yet she felt him, felt his presence, could feel his emotions as they changed during the course of their one way conversation and knew that on some level he heard and understood her.

When she was leaving she stopped by the nurses' station. "Henry sounds bad to me."

"He's had a bit of a cold," the nurse answered. "We all have. As long as it doesn't turn into pneumonia, he'll be all right."

All right. He was never going to be all right.
Maybe it would be better for everyone if he just died. And maybe his soul lives a very full life in a world we never see or touch or feel, and maybe he needs this body to be alive to live in that world. Who could tell, who knew? Henry was not brain dead. Who knew what went on in his mind? Maybe his life was like one long dream, sometimes bad and sometimes good. Just like her life. She would rather be dead than be like Henry, because you just didn't know. You just couldn't be sure what his life was like. If it was like anything at all.

She had seen horrible things, lived through nightmares. But the unknown was the most terrifying thing of all.

 
"The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool
walks in darkness: and I myself perceived also that
one event happens to them all. Then I said in my
heart, As it happens to the fool, so it happens even
to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in
my heart, that this also is vanity."
Ecclesiastes 2:14&15

 

A lot of people came to Ninth Street, but not many of them stayed. James Filbert the First was an exception to the rule. Ninth Street was his domain, his turf. He did whatever he liked here, and no one seemed to give a damn.

He slammed the man's head into the wall again. "I told you, you old fuck," he liked the wet sloppy sound the old gook's head made when he struck him against the wall, so he did it again, "I need my money, and I need it now."

"I not have money," the old Korean man said. "You said you protect, but you not protect. Last week robbed two times, so have no money."

James laughed. "You were protected from me, you stupid old fuck." He let go of the old man for a minute and he slid down the wall to fall to a heap on the ground. James pulled on gloves and looked down at the heap without pity. "Guess I'm gonna have to make an example out of you now."

He was about to grab the old man when a shadow fell across him. He looked up and saw a guy standing there in a purple cape and a ski mask. He had read the papers, and he'd heard the stories, so he was not amused by the man's ridiculous appearance.

Suddenly he was seeing every evil deed he had ever done play out before him as if it were being pulled from his mind. Then there was a sudden tormentuous burning sensation in his brain. He crumbled to his knees. The burning intensified till his brain felt like it was going to explode, and then he pitched forward onto his face, dying. James cried out as his soul was ripped from his body. He looked down and saw his body, the man in the cape, and his former victim. For a hopeful minute he thought he was ascending into heaven, but the next there was pressure all around him—a dark place full of pain. He was swimming in blood, fighting to breathe. He was dying all over again. He couldn't breathe, and then suddenly there was a bright light in his face. Now he was cold, freezing cold, and something foreign was placed into his mouth. For a moment he thought they were going to suck his lungs right out of his chest. Everything was distorted like a bad acid trip. A huge man was holding him by his feet.

"It's a girl," the man said.

A woman with a big, ugly red face glared up at him and screamed. "A girl! I don't want a fucking girl! They said it was going to be a boy this time. My husband is never going to talk to me again."

"Don't you want to hold your baby?" the man asked.

The woman cried loudly and screamed, "Get it away from me!"

James tried to scream out at them, to say that this was all wrong, but all that came out was one loud, long cry.

Robby adjusted the ski mask to make sure that he was covered before he offered a hand to the old man.

The old man took his offered hand, never taking his eyes off Robby.

"You save miserable life. Kim Chung Lee not forget you save life."

"I wish you would," Robby said. He released the old man when he saw that he was on his feet. "You'd better get some medical attention."

Robby started to move away fast.

"Kim not forget you, masked avenger. You ever need help, you ask Kim."

Robby walked quickly to the truck, counting on the cover of darkness to hide him. He quickly took off his costume and stuffed it behind the seat. He breathed in and smiled. It felt good after all this time to have unleashed the power. Besides, how could he have justified watching as that scum beat the hell out of a defenseless old man? Still, he'd taken a risk. It was always a risk. He knew that now. He started the truck and took off. He couldn't afford to get caught.

He remembered the tortured look on the scum's face as he died and smiled. He'd had to let too many of them slip away. It seemed unnatural for him to do so. Right now he felt high as a kite. This guy had been a really bad son of a bitch; now he was just one more stiff. Still, Robby couldn't afford to fall back into the pattern he had gotten himself into before. It was just too dangerous.

He'd have to go back to the way he had been in the beginning. He had been careful and discreet, killing only as he had done tonight when the need to protect over-powered him. Once or twice a year. Since he had killed people that deserved it, no one had even looked for a killer, not really.

But not getting caught had made him feel invincible and cocky, and he had gotten more and more reckless, till he was killing anyone he saw who was evil. He'd gotten careless and brought the investigation too close to his neighborhood. Too close to himself and his family.

Still . . . He was a man who had very little control over his own life. His whole life seemed to be governed by other people's faults and their failure to hold up to their responsibilities. Responsibilities that he had to rush to fulfill before he was even old enough to know what he wanted for himself.

His life was filled with obligations and duties. The whole world wanted a piece of him, and he felt like there was nothing in the world that was just for him. Except this, the rush he got when he changed the whole world by removing a pimple from the ass of humanity.

Still . . . he had to be careful; he couldn't afford to get caught. That guy he passed in the bar last week, the slimy dick-wad who had mutilated an old lady and cut up cats just for the hell of it. He shouldn't have let him walk away. Maybe he could just kill him, too, tonight. Maybe no one would really notice. Or if they did, they wouldn't know it was him. He'd be more careful.

Oh, God! She was hot, and so close. "Please, Baby! Please!" she screamed. The fucking comlink went off. "Ignore it, please."

Spider ignored it, the problem was that Carrie couldn't, and the moment was gone. She sighed, frustrated. "Oh hell, get the fucking link!" she screamed. Then she laughed and flopped back onto the pillow. "I hate those things."

Spider got up, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

"Sorry."

She picked up her comlink and pressed the reply button.

"This had by God better be good."

"Sorry, Detective, but the Fry Guy is back full guns. We've got six corpses, each in a different section of town," he said.

Spider looked at Carrie and winked. "You owe me a hundred bucks."

"The Fry Guy?" Carrie asked, getting up and throwing on her robe.