The Wrangler: The only thing standing between the beautiful kidnapped heiress and death was -- The Wrangler. (10 page)

"Ah, what they don't know won't hurt 'em," said the Wrangler, grinning.

The Agent lifted his beer into the air, "To Jimmy and Frankie," he said, "They deserved better."

"Damn straight," said the Wrangler, saluting with his beer as well. "So, what's this news about a mutual friend you have for me?"

The Agent reached into his jacket and pulled out some folded papers and passed them to the Wrangler. The Wrangler opened them up and saw that they were printouts of digital camera photos. They showed the Man looking very, very dead. His face was puffy and swollen and there were various bruises and cuts on his upper torso (he was wearing only a pair of shorts and some sandals. A thick flow of blood had apparently streamed down his head, leaving dark streaks running down his cheeks, like tears made from dark, dirty oil.

"Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy," said the Wrangler. He meant that, although he had not had any red-hot desire for revenge. "You tracked him down, did you?"

"Not really," said the Agent. "Funny thing happened. As you know, I jumped off the balcony when I heard you yell so I wasn't killed by the blast. I hid in the water until I felt OK, and made my way down to the beach where I boosted a car and got the hell out of there.

"A few days later I hear the cops are looking hard for somebody who looks exactly like the Man, and for somebody who don't look at all like me. So I knew you'd helped me give 'em the slip. So I'm feeling pretty good. Then about two weeks ago I'm sitting in a bar and this guy comes along and sits next to me. And this guy is legendary -- he has done some very heavy hits. He is NOT a guy who you wanna mess with in any way, from everything I've heard.

"He says to me, 'I been asked to talk with you by a client. He has an assignment for you. Thinks you'll wanna take it."

"'I'm always up for bizness,' I told him."

"Good," said the Legendary Guy. "Here's the deal. My client wants you to hit this man." And he tossed a picture of the Man on the table.

"I wouldn't mind hitting him at all, actually," I told him. I owe him."

"That's good," said the Legendary Guy, "because the fee for killing him will be this -- you get to keep breathing."

"Oh?" said the Agent. Even the Legendary Guy didn't scare him enough that he wouldn't respond to a challenge.

"Yeah," said the Legendary Guy regretfully. "I've been hired to give you this job. If you take it and complete it in the next two weeks, everything's fine. If not, the next part of my contract will involve me hitting you. I'm hoping you take the deal -- I don't really want to hit you."

"If you don't really want to hit me, why'd YOU take the contract?" asked the Agent. "Same kinda deal for you?"

"No," said the Legendary Guy. "For me, it's really about the money. I get obscenely huge amounts of money on this job either way. So, I'd rather get the money just for sitting here and talking with you. If you take the job, this would be about the sweetest gig I ever had."

"Hey, I don't want to make trouble for YOU," said the Agent, grinning, "and I really do owe this guy. A LOT of people owe this guy. So I guess I'll be taking the gig."

"Good," said the Legendary Guy, grinning back. "In that case, here's his address and phone number and some pictures of the grounds around his apartment."

"Does your client have any preferences about how the job is done?" asked the Agent.

"He didn't state any," said the Legendary Guy, "but I got a distinct impression that he won't be at all upset if it takes a long time and is extremely painful. But if you wanna just pop him, that'll do."

"So how do I tip you off when I do the job?" said the Agent.

"You don't," said the Legendary Guy. "We'll know. If you see me again, it'll mean we both screwed up -- you'll have screwed the hit on the Man, and I will have screwed the hit on you."

The Agent nodded. He knew what the Legendary Guy meant -- if he had to kill the Agent, then the Agent would never see him, just feel the bullet or whatever.

He came out of his reverie and looked at the Wrangler.

"So I whacked the Man," said the Agent. "It was ridiculously easy -- apparently, the Man had no idea he'd been made. I was waiting one day when he came back to his apartment, tased him, tied him up -- sloppily by your standards, I'm sure -- and beat the living hell out of him, then put a round through his skull. Gotta say, though, he held up pretty good through that beating -- tough guy. Not a smart guy, but a tough guy."

"Payback's a bitch," said the Wrangler, "especially considering the Man probably saved both our lives with his scheme."

"How do ya figure that?" asked the Agent.

"It's obvious the Legendary Guy's client was Willock," said the Wrangler. "I talked with Willock in prison -- his people somehow managed to dig up everything there was to know about me, I mean, they had me cold. He's got big bucks and he's connected and he hates the Man. So he used you to kill the Man. Now, what do you suppose would have happened if the Man hadn't pulled his doublecross and the job went as planned?"

"We all get paid?" asked the Agent.

"Yeah," said the Wrangler. "And meanwhile, Willock hires the Legendary Guy or someone like him to track us all down and kill us. Because we're all the same in that scenario, the gang of bad guys who kidnapped and raped his daughter." (The Wrangler doesn't mention Willock's awareness that he'd saved Christine's life -- he gets enough grief for being soft on kidnapees as it is.)

"That reminds me," said the Agent. "There's something the Man mentioned when I was working him over. How did you figure out he was gonna whack you?"

The Wrangler explained about the telltales and the Man's threat to Christine.

"Yeah, but how'd you figure he meant to kill you?" asked the Agent.

"What would be the point of just killing Christine?" said the Wrangler. "No way she would be providing any clues if she lived. No, killing Christine only made sense if it was part of a package deal with killing me and Frankie -- which meant he'd get our shares. Plus, it would mean he'd fucked us over good, making him more the Man."

"True," said the Agent. "So, how'd you figure the bomb at the condo?"

"When I saw that the laptop had a live webcam hooked up to it, I remembered that Frankie had used the exact same setup to detect whether or not the Man actually was gonna blow us up," said the Wrangler. "It meant the Man must be somewhere else, watching the monitor. And given that he rigged the trailer to be blown up, he probably also had the condo rigged to blow. When he saw us, it wouldn't take him more than a second to figure it was time to finish the job he'd started by blowing us up."

"Exactly right," said the Agent. "I, uh, made some enquiries along those lines when I was working the Man over, and he said he was in the condo building next to the one we were in, watching the webcam as you supposed. He also had one on the marsh so he could watch for the money drop without being seen. His idea was that if the cops or anyone got tipped about the pickup, he'd see them going in to investigate, and he could, if necessary, blow up the condo to give the cops a distraction while he got away. And when he saw us, of course, he figured he'd better kill us before we found him and killed him. He really hated having to spoil his plans like that and let the money go, but he figured if you or I got within shooting distance of him, he had a very good chance of being dead."

"He was right about that," said the Wrangler, "and, speaking of dough, it's a shame you didn't get paid for all that work you did on the Man."

"Well, I kinda did," said the Agent, grinning, "though this is one job I didn't mind doing for free. But I remembered that the Cleaner had a friend in the Philly mob, and I sent him a set of these pics with the notation, "In Memory of Frankie Carlucci." They really liked that. So, I get a call from his buddy a few days later. Word is, my concern for Frankie has been noted and appreciated, and that any time I want to do some business, I will be welcomed by them. And y'know what that means..."

"You have an in," said the Wrangler.

"Yes, I do," said the Agent. "They've already offered me a job that looks pretty damned good ... but I'll need a good crew to start with. I could use someone who knows what he's doing and can be trusted to watch my back. Interested?"

"I'm always interested in biz," said the Wrangler.

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Markus the Meaty is the mighty warrior who commands the Shameless Outlaws, and Slinky the Slave Girl is his slave, but it's not the typical relationship. Slinky, the former leader of a band of cougar women, is smarter than Markus and a better fighter, too. In a world where outlaw bands, pirate bands and cougar women battle one another constantly, a slave girl who can defeat enemies by the horde is an excellent thing to have, especially if you are not the smartest warrior on Lothar. In fact, Markus will not sell Slinky for any price, mostly because he knows if he does, she will simply escape and return to him, and not even his semi-magical Carl Talbot Underoos would save him from losing the battle that would ensue. Anyway, that's his EXCUSE for refusing to sell her at any price -- though his battlefield strategies often lead to glorious near-victories (or "defeats" as some call them) Markus may be smarter man than he seems.
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It's about time someone wrote a fun, sexy science fiction novel about sexy slavegirls on a barbarian planet full of roaring dinosaurs and big, strapping barbaric warriors, and that's exactly what Pat Powers has done in his novel "Karg." Not since John Norman's Gor novels has a writer so skillfully interwoven a science fiction plotline with strong sexual bondage imagery.

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