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Title: "My Name is Ishmael"
Author: R. Schultz
Series: The Pretender
Rating: R, for violence and language.
Code: F/m
Pairing: Miss Parker/others
Disclaimers: MTM and NBC own all rights to “The Pretender” and it’s characters. I play with this pocket universe but I always return it as good as new, so please don’t sue. All rights to this particular story go to me under common-law Copyright. Sept. 2000
Spoilers: None. Sometime after fourth season.
Summary: Miss Parker has spent a passionate night with Jarod, and her entire universe has changed. Not for the better. She and brother Lyle have got to talk. This is a dark storywith a very bleak core.
Comments may be sent to CousinDream@msn.com
MY NAME IS ISHMAEL by R. Schultz
I see right through you
I know right through you
I feel right through you
I walk right through you
Alanis Morrissette
They’re curious, I know that. I don’t do things like take an entire day off without having been shot first or on another Valkyrie’s wild goose ride to Des Moines or Jacksonvillle. The guards buzz me inside with no more than their usual lech, and the tall Black with the glasses tries to chat me up as usual. Hoping to get lucky. Sorry, guy. This is not the week you’re wishing for. I’m still sore from my encounter with my dream man.
Inside I make a beeline straight to Daddy’s little executive nest. Him and I have business.
“Angel,” he manages, getting up to give me the usual air kiss. I don’t bother asking if he’s busy, and he’s surprised I haven’t waited for a command to show up here. Instead I grab him in a hug, wiping a warm sincere smile onto my face.
“Oh, Daddy,” I honey at him.
“Sometimes I miss you so.” Naturally he breaks the clinch as soon as he can, but he’s off-balance. Time to strike.
“Why, well, I miss you too, Angel,” he says as he backpedals a step. Wondering WTF is happening. What I’m up to. “Anything wrong?”
“Nothing, Daddy, it’s just that I worry sometime about the two of us. We’ve gotten so far apart. Do you still love your little Angel? Do you want to come with me to Lunch today? We don’t talk much anymore. Or even see each other except when we’re arguing or giving each other papers or memos. We’re family, and I’d like to spend an hour with my Daddy. Is that bad?”
Yeah, like we we’ve ever been real close. Well, yes, we were once, but we don’t discuss that, do we? Five years of my life and you’ve never mentioned it once. Not since I got back from school.
“Lunch?” He seems surprised and instantly suspicious. Wondering what my agenda is today. He’s still not accustomed to me playing the family-ties card first.
“I knew you’d say yes!” I gushed. Lay it on thick.
“I’ve already phoned ahead and Jason is going to give us a pair of his stuffed pork chops for lunch, with a little wine of his choice.” I can see him trying to remember who Jason is, until he can process it properly. Yeah, you old fart, Daddy Dearest, the head chef in the executive dining room.
“Angel,” he begins. “Today might not be a......”
“I’ll be by at quarter before twelve, Daddy. Bring an appetite, and Lyle if he wants to come. It’s time for us all to practice a little bit harder on our being a family, don’t you think? Good! I knew you wouldn’t let your little Angel down!”
That should give him a mouthful to chew on.
--------------------------------
Broots was backed off his computer when I arrived. Staring at the quadrille of words and numbers. A tarantella of data, with my computer nerd siftng it for usable information. Talk about focused.
“What?” I grumble at him, asking rather than barking.
“Have you ever noticed, Miss Parker, how movie stars only seem to die in threes? One dies and then two others follow. Just like that. Bump, bump, bump! It’s weird.”
My technogeek is reading the morning news on the Net. In a minute he’ll remember he’s doing it on Corporate time and I’m leaning over his shoulder. Instead I pat his shoulder. Miss Nice Guy Parker, that’s me.
“Broots...” Not geek or nerd or anything like that. “...I’ve been noticing for some time that you’ve been a pillar of iron for me these past four years. Someone for me to rely on whenever I need a computer wizard.”
I chuckled for him. “Okay, maybe there’s a little rust on your iron pillar, but I appreciate your effort, and want to let you know there is something I can do for you in appreciation”
Don’t die on me now, &%$#@ it! You’re going to be a gem in my corporate treasure chest, not my lover. Of course that’s always an option, but one I shouldn’t need to come to. Another pat on the shoulder, leaning close enough to him that he could smell my touch of “Estee Lauder” behind the ears. Just a friendly caress of the chin, reminding me of one of the things I like in the male of the species. That faint invisible stubble on the face.
“It’s not much, really, but would you like one of the company cars to drive? You’d have to settle for one of the Hyundai’s, or a Plymouth. Nothing fancy. But you’d get a company VISA to go with it, that should be a great deal of help. Hmmm?”
Touching his face. Maybe I’ve been too hard on him.
Then again, maybe not.
“You’ve never been happy chasing Jarod, have you?” He shook his head no, wondering what I was leading up to.
“If, just an ‘If’ mind you, I could get us reassigned, the three of us, would you like to come to work for me? You keep the car in any case, but I’ve always believed in the positive aspects of bribery. You keep the car, and we let someone else handle Jarod. Would you like that?”
He started twice to speak before succeeding.
“A car? That’d mean so much to me, Miss Parker, you know how a repair can wipe you out. Ummm, ah, maybe you don’t, but for us little people something expensive like a new transmission is murderous.” Pause before next thought.
“Ah, Miss Parker, I’m not sure how to say this, ummm, but, ah.... About Jarod? I mean, ah, what about him? They might send Lyle or Brig...” Dead stop while he remembers my Daddy’s young wife is dead.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll catch him, I mean, ah, you don’t want Lyle or Mr. Raines to get hold of him, do you?” Process that sentence, Broots.
“I mean, you don’t want them to capture Jarod before you do, do you?” Yeah, he’s saying. For four years we have gone through Holy Scary Hell in your crusade to find the Centre’s missing Pretender. Now it’s a nice day and let’s all forget our old crusades and maybe we’ll start another? Whoops-see-do! What The F&%$#@???
“Jarod is a big boy, and no matter what we do for, or with someone, they’ve still got to create their own loves..”(&%$#@ it!)” ...lives. We can’t do it for them.”
Broots looks at me funny. This is already a challenging day for him.
“If Jarod wants to be free of the Centre, all he has to do is lean back into the wallpaper and blend in,” I remind Broots. “The Centre would have given up the hunt years ago except Jarod keeps teasing them. Even if LabRat continues to twist the Centre’s nose, it’ll still never be easy to catch him. You know that.”
Not saying how many times Jarod has deliberately given me, Sydney, us, clues as to his whereabouts. Hints I’m positive Lyle or Raines will never enjoy.
I love you, Jarod, you stupid sumbitch. I can say it to myself now. But you’re an asshole for pulling the corporate chains here just to hear the guard dogs bark.
Remembering you naked, remembering you inside me. Screwing you like a mentally unstable ferret doesn’t mean I can overlook your many stupidities. I may always burn to remember what we did in my home, but we’re a fairy tale that ends badly.
“Just say for now you’d like to work for me and we’ll go from there. Capisch?” Say yes, Broots, and let’s lay this one ghost in its grave. The hell with the search for the Jarod Grail.
“I, ah, that... I think that’d be okay, Miss Parker. What will we be doing next? That is, if we work together any more?”
Poor Broots. He has it really bad for me and has for years. I love his daughter, but not him. How the hell do you get love without giving it first? Maybe that’s the problem with Jarod and me. We’ve been loving ectoplasm instead of flesh and blood. The best sex I ever had in my life occurred night before last. But it wasn’t enough.
I touch Broots cheek again with the back of my hand and walk away. It’s time to move on with my life. Or death. “You see Sydney, tell him we have to talk.” I’m sure Broots nodded at my back. I should stop wearing the mini’s. If I’m not going to allow Broots to get any, I should abandon my permanent campaign of tease.
---------------------------------------------
Lyle was standing at the wet bar when I breezed into his office. Opening up a cold Snapple. I tried hard not to stalk or get angry beforehand, knowing he was already relishing engaging me in conversation and scoring points on the sister. The one he’d like to lay over that Maple desk of his and fuck silly before he killed her.
He offered me a drink, knowing full well it was early morning. I took a can of frigid Pepsi and walked to a chair. Sitting down without waiting for him to offer me a chair.
He tried a little small talk. trying to irritate me. As usual. I managed to keep my voice neutral and rolled the cold can on my forehead. I set it on the edge of his desk, and he eyed it. Knowing it’d leave a wet ring.
Relax, Lyle. It was &%$#@ sealed Maple, Lyle. It won’t stain the wood. I terminated his remarks by mentioning I was having lunch with Daddy today. He might be invited, but don’t count on it.
“I’ve changed my mind. Do you mind if I get a drink after all?”
I got up without waiting, and in a minute was back with a big double shot of his green label sourmash. Lyle stared as I placed it against my chin. Then rolled it over to my mouth and tilted my head back, slugging down the JD in one swallow. I placed the shot glass next to the cold and perspiring can of pop.
Making a show of it, I retrieved my revolver from behind my back. Not the Baretta automatic. Today I’m packing my S&W. By the time he realized I was standing and holding a gun, he was facing that black hole in the barrel.
“My goodness, little sister! So early in the morning to be making big bad threats. And here I’d hoped you were beginning to like me.” Believing I wouldn’t shoot him.
He asked a few questions as I broke my S&W open, but I ignored him as I dropped all six of the 9mm rounds onto the desk. Close to my soda pop and my shot glass.
“Give me a second, Big Brother, and I’ll explain it to you.”
When he saw me put one round back in the chamber, and then spin it he was beginning to get alarmed.
“Lyle,” I began, “we’re going to reach a new level of understanding. Today. Now.”
I aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger. Hello to the rest of my life. Both of us heard it fall on an empty chamber. “Sis, you shouldn’t do...”
“It’s called Russian Roulette, brother dear...” I spun, aimed, and pulled the trigger again. The shit ceases today. He flinched, looking, thinking, realizing I was just out of reach for any desperate lunge.
“....and it’s something we should play more often.”
Spin, pull the trigger, spin again when it didn’t fire. This day is the first day of the rest of my miserable life.
“We didn’t get to play any little boy games or girl games when we were growing up.” Pull the trigger, spin, aim it at his head. Good-bye,
“Now we can play games. My games. I don’t think any of your games are the damned least bit fun.” It did not fire and I spun the chamber again.
This time I put the barrel into my ear and pulled the trigger. End it. End it now. My life is ashes in my mouth. Click.
After the silence faded, I spun it and aimed again at Lyle.
Lyle had gone completely white by now. He was sweating when I pulled the trigger and quickly spun the chamber again.
“One of these days you were going to kill me, Lyle.” Pull the trigger, watch him flinch and shake. Spin the chamber. Put it to my own head again. Ashes.
I pull the trigger, spin again. The sweat was pouring off Lyle, as if he had just risen from the sea. Death is beautiful. I’m insane now, and I can smile at the realization. They’ve won and now I’ve won.
“I’ve read psychopathic serial killers can dismiss their own deaths as immaterial, because they had a higher calling. So long as they accomplished some of the deaths they needed, it was okay for they, themselves, to die.” Pull the trigger, spin, point it at Lyle.
“Sociopathic killers, however, do their murdering for sport, for fun. When they’re hurt themselves, or facing executive death, they’re afraid. They think they shouldn’t be hurt.”
Pull the trigger, Lyle is stuttering and I smell urine, and I don’t know if it’s his or mine. Spin, place the gun to my own head. My life is ashes. Pull the trigger, spin, aim at a badly shaking Lyle.
“They’re cowards. They can’t abide the thought of pain being inflicted on their own precious bodies.” Pull the trigger, spin, sweat on Lyle’s face running off his chin.
“You’re a coward, brother.” I place the gun against my temple. A loaded gun, the paradigm of masculine rage and despair, the antithesis of feminine hate and anger. My death would be viewed as murder regardless of whatever Lyle might claim. Murdering executive-level officers was not a practice the Triumvirate could condone.
“I’m not.” I pull the trigger. Ashes. Click. I spin the chamber and find no emotions in me as I face my murderous brother over the barrel of my S&W.
For minutes I watch my brother begin to shudder, then sob, laid over his expensive desk. Crying into his three-piece designer suit, tears wetting his thumbless hand. Broken. Full of hate, yes, but for now, cowed.
“You fuck with me again, Lyle, and you die.” I pulled the trigger. Again. Again. Then.... The explosion was so very loud in this room. It was loud enough to give me ringing in my ears for the rest of the day. Lyle cried when liquid spattered his skin. It wet me also.
I could smell where he had emptied himself into his pants, but I said nothing. After some seconds he raised his head, watching me reload my revolver. The can of Pepsi was in the corner somewhere. We were both stained by the pop after I’d shot the can. The whole room was. I fitted the pistol back into its holster in the small of my back and walked out of Lyle’s office, pretending not to smell anything.
Raines was next. I’d have to make peace with him. I had to give him some sort of victory after this. I’ll offer him the chance to do the chasing after Jarod. It should settle him down. Wait until he’s failed a few times. Jarod isn’t going to give any tantalizing clues to the bald man, or have chummy chats with Lyle at one in the morning.
Eventually Jarod had said he’s sent me most of the stuff he has on my mother. I’d try to learn something about his family, but it was a low priority now.
Jarod understood it wasn’t a game anymore. I’d stopped playing in the early hours of yesterday. Letting him use my sore body, talking, understanding things with him we both had previously denied.
Today Lyle had also just discovered I was through playing games. I was going to try to make my life by myself now. I had to.
I couldn’t even dream of a future now that included Jarod. It was a depressing prospect. Discovering my life at my age in a job I hated at a corporation I detested. The American dream in a new millennium. I tried not to think of biological clocks ticking. Tomorrow I’ll contemplate going to an island off Chile. I’ll contemplate quite a few things tomorrow.
Daddy still had to be converted, but I thought I could handle him now. People who are accustomed to using or manipulating other people, don’t really see themselves being used or manipulated. Especially coming from someone they’d made dance like a puppet. They haven’t the defenses in that direction.
My knees were still shaking and I knew I’d peed on myself in there. Check the damage in the toilet. On the plus side, my stomach wasn’t bothering me, and I didn’t feel like a cigarette.
Maybe Lyle will kill me now. Fuck him. A life dictated to you by insane others is not a life. He was going to do that, kill me, eventually, anywise. So nothing has changed. I’d gone in there a dead woman walking and was still one. We’ll see what tomorrow does. All life is tomorrow’s. Mine is without Jarod now. Life is a winding road, and I’m starting on a new journey. What was that line in “Moby Dick”?
THE END
Author: R. Schultz
Series: The Pretender
Rating: R, for violence and language.
Code: F/m
Pairing: Miss Parker/others
Disclaimers: MTM and NBC own all rights to “The Pretender” and it’s characters. I play with this pocket universe but I always return it as good as new, so please don’t sue. All rights to this particular story go to me under common-law Copyright. Sept. 2000
Spoilers: None. Sometime after fourth season.
Summary: Miss Parker has spent a passionate night with Jarod, and her entire universe has changed. Not for the better. She and brother Lyle have got to talk. This is a dark storywith a very bleak core.
Comments may be sent to CousinDream@msn.com
MY NAME IS ISHMAEL by R. Schultz
I see right through you
I know right through you
I feel right through you
I walk right through you
Alanis Morrissette
They’re curious, I know that. I don’t do things like take an entire day off without having been shot first or on another Valkyrie’s wild goose ride to Des Moines or Jacksonvillle. The guards buzz me inside with no more than their usual lech, and the tall Black with the glasses tries to chat me up as usual. Hoping to get lucky. Sorry, guy. This is not the week you’re wishing for. I’m still sore from my encounter with my dream man.
Inside I make a beeline straight to Daddy’s little executive nest. Him and I have business.
“Angel,” he manages, getting up to give me the usual air kiss. I don’t bother asking if he’s busy, and he’s surprised I haven’t waited for a command to show up here. Instead I grab him in a hug, wiping a warm sincere smile onto my face.
“Oh, Daddy,” I honey at him.
“Sometimes I miss you so.” Naturally he breaks the clinch as soon as he can, but he’s off-balance. Time to strike.
“Why, well, I miss you too, Angel,” he says as he backpedals a step. Wondering WTF is happening. What I’m up to. “Anything wrong?”
“Nothing, Daddy, it’s just that I worry sometime about the two of us. We’ve gotten so far apart. Do you still love your little Angel? Do you want to come with me to Lunch today? We don’t talk much anymore. Or even see each other except when we’re arguing or giving each other papers or memos. We’re family, and I’d like to spend an hour with my Daddy. Is that bad?”
Yeah, like we we’ve ever been real close. Well, yes, we were once, but we don’t discuss that, do we? Five years of my life and you’ve never mentioned it once. Not since I got back from school.
“Lunch?” He seems surprised and instantly suspicious. Wondering what my agenda is today. He’s still not accustomed to me playing the family-ties card first.
“I knew you’d say yes!” I gushed. Lay it on thick.
“I’ve already phoned ahead and Jason is going to give us a pair of his stuffed pork chops for lunch, with a little wine of his choice.” I can see him trying to remember who Jason is, until he can process it properly. Yeah, you old fart, Daddy Dearest, the head chef in the executive dining room.
“Angel,” he begins. “Today might not be a......”
“I’ll be by at quarter before twelve, Daddy. Bring an appetite, and Lyle if he wants to come. It’s time for us all to practice a little bit harder on our being a family, don’t you think? Good! I knew you wouldn’t let your little Angel down!”
That should give him a mouthful to chew on.
--------------------------------
Broots was backed off his computer when I arrived. Staring at the quadrille of words and numbers. A tarantella of data, with my computer nerd siftng it for usable information. Talk about focused.
“What?” I grumble at him, asking rather than barking.
“Have you ever noticed, Miss Parker, how movie stars only seem to die in threes? One dies and then two others follow. Just like that. Bump, bump, bump! It’s weird.”
My technogeek is reading the morning news on the Net. In a minute he’ll remember he’s doing it on Corporate time and I’m leaning over his shoulder. Instead I pat his shoulder. Miss Nice Guy Parker, that’s me.
“Broots...” Not geek or nerd or anything like that. “...I’ve been noticing for some time that you’ve been a pillar of iron for me these past four years. Someone for me to rely on whenever I need a computer wizard.”
I chuckled for him. “Okay, maybe there’s a little rust on your iron pillar, but I appreciate your effort, and want to let you know there is something I can do for you in appreciation”
Don’t die on me now, &%$#@ it! You’re going to be a gem in my corporate treasure chest, not my lover. Of course that’s always an option, but one I shouldn’t need to come to. Another pat on the shoulder, leaning close enough to him that he could smell my touch of “Estee Lauder” behind the ears. Just a friendly caress of the chin, reminding me of one of the things I like in the male of the species. That faint invisible stubble on the face.
“It’s not much, really, but would you like one of the company cars to drive? You’d have to settle for one of the Hyundai’s, or a Plymouth. Nothing fancy. But you’d get a company VISA to go with it, that should be a great deal of help. Hmmm?”
Touching his face. Maybe I’ve been too hard on him.
Then again, maybe not.
“You’ve never been happy chasing Jarod, have you?” He shook his head no, wondering what I was leading up to.
“If, just an ‘If’ mind you, I could get us reassigned, the three of us, would you like to come to work for me? You keep the car in any case, but I’ve always believed in the positive aspects of bribery. You keep the car, and we let someone else handle Jarod. Would you like that?”
He started twice to speak before succeeding.
“A car? That’d mean so much to me, Miss Parker, you know how a repair can wipe you out. Ummm, ah, maybe you don’t, but for us little people something expensive like a new transmission is murderous.” Pause before next thought.
“Ah, Miss Parker, I’m not sure how to say this, ummm, but, ah.... About Jarod? I mean, ah, what about him? They might send Lyle or Brig...” Dead stop while he remembers my Daddy’s young wife is dead.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll catch him, I mean, ah, you don’t want Lyle or Mr. Raines to get hold of him, do you?” Process that sentence, Broots.
“I mean, you don’t want them to capture Jarod before you do, do you?” Yeah, he’s saying. For four years we have gone through Holy Scary Hell in your crusade to find the Centre’s missing Pretender. Now it’s a nice day and let’s all forget our old crusades and maybe we’ll start another? Whoops-see-do! What The F&%$#@???
“Jarod is a big boy, and no matter what we do for, or with someone, they’ve still got to create their own loves..”(&%$#@ it!)” ...lives. We can’t do it for them.”
Broots looks at me funny. This is already a challenging day for him.
“If Jarod wants to be free of the Centre, all he has to do is lean back into the wallpaper and blend in,” I remind Broots. “The Centre would have given up the hunt years ago except Jarod keeps teasing them. Even if LabRat continues to twist the Centre’s nose, it’ll still never be easy to catch him. You know that.”
Not saying how many times Jarod has deliberately given me, Sydney, us, clues as to his whereabouts. Hints I’m positive Lyle or Raines will never enjoy.
I love you, Jarod, you stupid sumbitch. I can say it to myself now. But you’re an asshole for pulling the corporate chains here just to hear the guard dogs bark.
Remembering you naked, remembering you inside me. Screwing you like a mentally unstable ferret doesn’t mean I can overlook your many stupidities. I may always burn to remember what we did in my home, but we’re a fairy tale that ends badly.
“Just say for now you’d like to work for me and we’ll go from there. Capisch?” Say yes, Broots, and let’s lay this one ghost in its grave. The hell with the search for the Jarod Grail.
“I, ah, that... I think that’d be okay, Miss Parker. What will we be doing next? That is, if we work together any more?”
Poor Broots. He has it really bad for me and has for years. I love his daughter, but not him. How the hell do you get love without giving it first? Maybe that’s the problem with Jarod and me. We’ve been loving ectoplasm instead of flesh and blood. The best sex I ever had in my life occurred night before last. But it wasn’t enough.
I touch Broots cheek again with the back of my hand and walk away. It’s time to move on with my life. Or death. “You see Sydney, tell him we have to talk.” I’m sure Broots nodded at my back. I should stop wearing the mini’s. If I’m not going to allow Broots to get any, I should abandon my permanent campaign of tease.
---------------------------------------------
Lyle was standing at the wet bar when I breezed into his office. Opening up a cold Snapple. I tried hard not to stalk or get angry beforehand, knowing he was already relishing engaging me in conversation and scoring points on the sister. The one he’d like to lay over that Maple desk of his and fuck silly before he killed her.
He offered me a drink, knowing full well it was early morning. I took a can of frigid Pepsi and walked to a chair. Sitting down without waiting for him to offer me a chair.
He tried a little small talk. trying to irritate me. As usual. I managed to keep my voice neutral and rolled the cold can on my forehead. I set it on the edge of his desk, and he eyed it. Knowing it’d leave a wet ring.
Relax, Lyle. It was &%$#@ sealed Maple, Lyle. It won’t stain the wood. I terminated his remarks by mentioning I was having lunch with Daddy today. He might be invited, but don’t count on it.
“I’ve changed my mind. Do you mind if I get a drink after all?”
I got up without waiting, and in a minute was back with a big double shot of his green label sourmash. Lyle stared as I placed it against my chin. Then rolled it over to my mouth and tilted my head back, slugging down the JD in one swallow. I placed the shot glass next to the cold and perspiring can of pop.
Making a show of it, I retrieved my revolver from behind my back. Not the Baretta automatic. Today I’m packing my S&W. By the time he realized I was standing and holding a gun, he was facing that black hole in the barrel.
“My goodness, little sister! So early in the morning to be making big bad threats. And here I’d hoped you were beginning to like me.” Believing I wouldn’t shoot him.
He asked a few questions as I broke my S&W open, but I ignored him as I dropped all six of the 9mm rounds onto the desk. Close to my soda pop and my shot glass.
“Give me a second, Big Brother, and I’ll explain it to you.”
When he saw me put one round back in the chamber, and then spin it he was beginning to get alarmed.
“Lyle,” I began, “we’re going to reach a new level of understanding. Today. Now.”
I aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger. Hello to the rest of my life. Both of us heard it fall on an empty chamber. “Sis, you shouldn’t do...”
“It’s called Russian Roulette, brother dear...” I spun, aimed, and pulled the trigger again. The shit ceases today. He flinched, looking, thinking, realizing I was just out of reach for any desperate lunge.
“....and it’s something we should play more often.”
Spin, pull the trigger, spin again when it didn’t fire. This day is the first day of the rest of my miserable life.
“We didn’t get to play any little boy games or girl games when we were growing up.” Pull the trigger, spin, aim it at his head. Good-bye,
“Now we can play games. My games. I don’t think any of your games are the damned least bit fun.” It did not fire and I spun the chamber again.
This time I put the barrel into my ear and pulled the trigger. End it. End it now. My life is ashes in my mouth. Click.
After the silence faded, I spun it and aimed again at Lyle.
Lyle had gone completely white by now. He was sweating when I pulled the trigger and quickly spun the chamber again.
“One of these days you were going to kill me, Lyle.” Pull the trigger, watch him flinch and shake. Spin the chamber. Put it to my own head again. Ashes.
I pull the trigger, spin again. The sweat was pouring off Lyle, as if he had just risen from the sea. Death is beautiful. I’m insane now, and I can smile at the realization. They’ve won and now I’ve won.
“I’ve read psychopathic serial killers can dismiss their own deaths as immaterial, because they had a higher calling. So long as they accomplished some of the deaths they needed, it was okay for they, themselves, to die.” Pull the trigger, spin, point it at Lyle.
“Sociopathic killers, however, do their murdering for sport, for fun. When they’re hurt themselves, or facing executive death, they’re afraid. They think they shouldn’t be hurt.”
Pull the trigger, Lyle is stuttering and I smell urine, and I don’t know if it’s his or mine. Spin, place the gun to my own head. My life is ashes. Pull the trigger, spin, aim at a badly shaking Lyle.
“They’re cowards. They can’t abide the thought of pain being inflicted on their own precious bodies.” Pull the trigger, spin, sweat on Lyle’s face running off his chin.
“You’re a coward, brother.” I place the gun against my temple. A loaded gun, the paradigm of masculine rage and despair, the antithesis of feminine hate and anger. My death would be viewed as murder regardless of whatever Lyle might claim. Murdering executive-level officers was not a practice the Triumvirate could condone.
“I’m not.” I pull the trigger. Ashes. Click. I spin the chamber and find no emotions in me as I face my murderous brother over the barrel of my S&W.
For minutes I watch my brother begin to shudder, then sob, laid over his expensive desk. Crying into his three-piece designer suit, tears wetting his thumbless hand. Broken. Full of hate, yes, but for now, cowed.
“You fuck with me again, Lyle, and you die.” I pulled the trigger. Again. Again. Then.... The explosion was so very loud in this room. It was loud enough to give me ringing in my ears for the rest of the day. Lyle cried when liquid spattered his skin. It wet me also.
I could smell where he had emptied himself into his pants, but I said nothing. After some seconds he raised his head, watching me reload my revolver. The can of Pepsi was in the corner somewhere. We were both stained by the pop after I’d shot the can. The whole room was. I fitted the pistol back into its holster in the small of my back and walked out of Lyle’s office, pretending not to smell anything.
Raines was next. I’d have to make peace with him. I had to give him some sort of victory after this. I’ll offer him the chance to do the chasing after Jarod. It should settle him down. Wait until he’s failed a few times. Jarod isn’t going to give any tantalizing clues to the bald man, or have chummy chats with Lyle at one in the morning.
Eventually Jarod had said he’s sent me most of the stuff he has on my mother. I’d try to learn something about his family, but it was a low priority now.
Jarod understood it wasn’t a game anymore. I’d stopped playing in the early hours of yesterday. Letting him use my sore body, talking, understanding things with him we both had previously denied.
Today Lyle had also just discovered I was through playing games. I was going to try to make my life by myself now. I had to.
I couldn’t even dream of a future now that included Jarod. It was a depressing prospect. Discovering my life at my age in a job I hated at a corporation I detested. The American dream in a new millennium. I tried not to think of biological clocks ticking. Tomorrow I’ll contemplate going to an island off Chile. I’ll contemplate quite a few things tomorrow.
Daddy still had to be converted, but I thought I could handle him now. People who are accustomed to using or manipulating other people, don’t really see themselves being used or manipulated. Especially coming from someone they’d made dance like a puppet. They haven’t the defenses in that direction.
My knees were still shaking and I knew I’d peed on myself in there. Check the damage in the toilet. On the plus side, my stomach wasn’t bothering me, and I didn’t feel like a cigarette.
Maybe Lyle will kill me now. Fuck him. A life dictated to you by insane others is not a life. He was going to do that, kill me, eventually, anywise. So nothing has changed. I’d gone in there a dead woman walking and was still one. We’ll see what tomorrow does. All life is tomorrow’s. Mine is without Jarod now. Life is a winding road, and I’m starting on a new journey. What was that line in “Moby Dick”?
THE END
