Chapter 14
Mulberry Bush
He didn't remember when the scrotum-pinched three-part falsetto harmonies of the brothers' Gibb started pumping their hi-hat disco tempo in his sun-scorched head.
Stayin' alive, stayin' alive, ahhh-hah-hah-hah, stayin' alive…Belt it, Andy!
Rewind two weeks. He woke, fetal scrunched on the corner of his California King bed, to discover the Stairway To Heaven riffs of his Classic Rock radio station, Classic spelled with a K on the sticker slapped over the dent on his bumper, hijacked by sappy soft rock and sentimental love tune infusions.
The radio station had pulled a programming switch-a-roo and reinvented itself overnight as Kool Breeze, a.k.a. all the Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Groce ballads a dissatisfied middle-aged woman, buzzed on box wine and reminiscing high school glory days, would comprehend.
Although he did, but not in public, give it up to poor, dead before his time, Jim. The man was a song wordsmith. His tear jerking Time In A Bottle the best two minutes and thirty-two seconds of You Tube sorrow and regret.
Leon carried the four-on-the-floor Night Fever dance rhythm into the shower, and grooved Tragedy in his fender-to-fender early morning commute; windows up, all the way up. Volume low.
A week after his 'forced', nocturnal and subliminal, introduction to Kool Breeze he casually sauntered into a record store and purchased a best of the Bee Gee's compilation, to the upraised eyebrow of the rockin' his pants low punk kid behind the sales counter, and the sideways glance of an elderly black woman with a Four Tops CD clutched in her pudgy hands.
Whether you're a mother, whether you're a brother, you're stayin' alive…Damn steel-tipped boots! They were heavy on his feet. Sorry, John, no time to bust a strut. Too tired for a Deney Terrio Hustle bump hip grind.
"Kennedy!"
He startled to the persistent primal howl of his name. Krauser's taunt annoying as the sun.
"I'm still here, asshole…Just stayin' alive," Leon muttered.
He stared out across the flat, wind-whipped plateau and down into a deep ravine cleaved from the red-rock escarpment. Narrow fissure corridors carved between the cragged cliff walls snaked through the valley.
He swiped his arm across his forehead, his determination run dry as his tongue. "It's a fucking death trap."
Dang straight, Skippy. Feel the city breaking and everybody shaking and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive…
##
"You wanted to see me."
His office offered warmth in wood and family photos. A well kept country den charm. Mahogany bookcases. Green and cream checkered wingback chairs.
"Please, come in. Have a seat." He faced the rain-splotched windows, hands clasped behind his back. His normally jovial demeanor was absent in the calm melancholy reticence of his voice.
Newspapers spread across the top of his desk. The Times. Post. Chronicle. None of the front page headlines kind. TerraSave Angel of Death. Calamity Claire Redfield. Death on Heels.
As usual the photographers managed to capture her at her grimy worst. Terse-lipped. Hand raised to shield her face from the cameras.
"They never seem to catch someone at their best, do they?" he said as though he'd read her mind.
"Not when it comes to me. I think the media goes out of its way to make me look like complete and utter crap."
Her comment earned her the courtesy of his front side and a half smile.
"Keeping busy?"
"For the most part. Yes. No. Eager to ditch the G-men. Leaving my house without an escort would be nice."
He nodded. Said nothing. His non-committal silence worth more than meaningless prattle. The room suddenly smaller, colder.
He lowered himself into his chair. His gaze set on the articles laid out before him. "The reports of your involvement in the Harvardville and WhilPharma incident are rather…troubling."
She noticed the newsprint stains on his jacket sleeves. Smudged black on tan tweed elbow patches. How long had he studied the inflammatory accusations before she arrived?
"Wrong place, right time. I won't apologize for happenstance, or my actions. I have a right to defend myself."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't, and I would expect nothing less than your honesty. An admirable, though these days, outdated quality."
He leaned back. Shoulders sagged. Something percolated beneath his half closed eyelids.
Her Redfield instinct spiked ten out of ten on the oh shit here it comes chart. He hadn't summoned her to hear her side of the story. Spin her back into work rotation. The desk may as well have been a guillotine. Shiny blade poised to drop.
"TerraSave principles, ideals, demand peaceful solutions, Claire. Non-violent resolution."
Beg? Don't beg? Argue? Let it be? How low to go when an unemployment line and a whole lot of spare time waited out in the wet?
"I can't help-"
"Can't help coincidence? Timing? Circumstance?"
"Something like that…"
##
Trudgin' along, trudgin' along. My legs are really achin', my forehead is a bakin', Ahh-hah-hah-hah…
He flopped down on his knees in the shade of a lone Joshua tree and surveyed the branched paths that cut through the canyon.
Eenie…. Meenie... Miney…. Moe….
Well, Skippy?
Gimme a minute!
"Kennedy!"
Thirty seconds.
He leaned back on his calves and plopped down onto his ass. Head rush blood whooshes pounded pain behind his eyes. I'm so completely fucked, my goose is pretty plucked…Whadya know, I'm the next Weird Al!
##
Agent Bartles waited outside the door.
"Come on," Claire snapped. Like a dutiful guard dog he followed at her heels, zigzagging left and right around the waist high separation partitions, to a cubicle tucked into a corner along the back wall.
Her desk faced the room, a panorama vantage point. She had unobstructed view of the entry doors, the outer hallway, the elevator, the stairs, and her fellow clock punchers. No one moved in her field of vision without being seen. Not a blizzard's chance in Hell someone, living or dead, creepin' up on her backside without her knowledge.
A box had been placed on the floor next to her chair. Claire flipped the lid off with the tip of her shoe and made quick inventory of her belongings. Zombie bobble head, last year's anonymous gag Christmas gift, check. Rolodex. Empty. Go figure. Check. Vacations in Paradise calendar. Check. Plastic sandwich container with a heart stamped design. Check.
She snatched her handmade rose flower topped pen from a cup holder. Angry. They'd rummaged her things. Hers!
She picked up the box and shoved it into Bartle's chest. "Here. Make yourself useful."
"I'm not a tote bag, Miss Redfield."
"You are now. Let's go."
They made their way to the elevator. Colleague gazes branded red-hot embarrassment on her neck. The door couldn't slide closed fast enough to block the twittered whispers and curious stares of her coworkers watching her from the corners of their downcast eyes.
Agent Bartle's arm brushed against her. Another invasion. Her home. Her life. Her things. Her space. "Do you mind?" She took two steps back. "It's called a personal bubble, Bartles. I'd appreciate it if you'd stay out of mine."
##
His feet were cooked. Itchy. Hot. Begging for a breath of fresh air. His shaky fingers fumbled with the shoelace knots.
That's not a good idea, Skippy.
Tell it to my toes. He wrenched his boots from his feet and stripped away his perspiration soaked socks.
He leaned back on his elbows and relaxed into the heated breeze and the feel of the dry soil pushed up between his broiled little piggies. Awww... Like sand on a beach. This right here is heaven.
"Kennedy!"
Now what, Skippy?
He burped and tasted bile. I don't feel so good. The inevitable wretch building in the back of his throat in nausea spiked waves.
He'd always assumed he'd 'buy it' with a bullet. Lived with the expectation each sunrise was his last; clean underwear in the morning, a will on file with an attorney, tidy apartment.
His back hit the ground. One arm stretched across his face to block the sunlight streamed through the dried, bayonet tipped fronds of the tree. Never in a million years had he considered his demise would be the result of the lack of a substance that covered seventy percent of the damn planet. Fucking water.
Dehydration was, he discovered, a cruel, cotton-mouthed, clammy-skinned, limb shaking, sweat your pee out your pores, bitch.
##
She promised herself she wouldn't give this shit hole the satisfaction of a meltdown. Not here, not now. There'd be plenty of time to sing the blues, tonight. Alone. What else is new?
'Our legal department drafted the following separation agreement. You'll want to read it over. I'll need your signature and initials on the spaces highlighted with an x.'
'Don't do this.' The typewritten words blurred in watery haze. Redfield or not this haymaker hurt. Stung her rejection straight to the heart of her feminine core.
'The decision has been made. It's beyond my control. We can't keep you on board any longer.' He tapped one of the articles with his finger. 'You're publicity poison, Claire. The very antithesis of the image we strive to uphold.'
'I need this job.' More than you know. Chris out of commission, big trouble brewing. Jill. I'll have nowhere to go to get away from it all.
'You'll find the termination amenable in terms of monetary compensation. Six months pay, vacation, and sick leave. In exchange, you agree you were not on assignment during the Harvardville outbreak and the WhilPharma incident. You were on vacation, and acted on your own accord.'
'It's not true. You're strong-arming me into a lie.'
'A small omission of truth to benefit the greater cause.'
She swallowed the lump in her throat. 'What about my cause? What am I supposed to do?'
He made his way around the desk. 'You're a bright young woman. There is plenty of time to find another niche in life. Consider it a blessing. Continue your education. Pursue a hobby. Six months of freedom to do whatever you like.'
I 'like' my job. Technically, now that it was official, her former job.
His hand found her shoulder. The squat fingertips pressed deep into her raincoat folds. 'Who knows? Other opportunities may arise to pique your fancy. Alternatives you haven't explored.'
Her gaze shifted to his hand. 'Such as?'
'You're a lovely woman, Claire.' He leaned forward, fingers trailing up and over her collar. 'There might be something I can arrange once the six months expire.' His lips close to her ear.
Perverted piece of low-life filth. Old enough to be her father, hell, her grandfather. When dolphins grow horns! Fuck you, and your little job too! The door didn't hit her in the ass on the way out.
##
Sage and soil. Rock and sky. The swell of a cloud to cradle the sun. His arm fell to his side.
I think you should get up.
He cocked an eye open. Whether she was death come to spirit his misery away, or a phantasmagoric mirage conjured in his hallucinatory mind, he welcomed the sweet cadence of her voice. Sat beside him real as the tree under which he lay.
"I can't. I'm spent. I've got nothing left."
Would you do it for me?
"That's dirty dice. I'd do anything for you."
And I would do everything for you.
Now he knew this was a vision forgery. The real Claire would never admit to such depth of feeling for him.
"Except marry me."
Twice he'd asked her. Twice she'd shot him down. He'd never understood the why, only that she couldn't have cut him deeper than if she had ripped his heart out with a bolt cutter and mailed it to him in a box. Maybe a little card tucked inside: You're good enough to fuck, trustworthy enough to share a secret, but not quite up to snuff to share a last name.
Ask me again when it's over.
"No, thank you." Stubble for a week. No appetite. Jack Daniels pissed off. A look a like screw to prove just how much she really meant. A little looped Time In A Bottle. He'd pass.
I love you.
"You have a funny way of showing it."
Fear can be a cruel master. It's hard to break free, easy to embrace.
"What the hell are you afraid of? Me?" And suddenly, he knew. The answer was plain as the vultures circling overhead.
A shadow fell across his chest. Claire slipped away in a dust spindrift. In her place stood Krauser. Burly. Muscles popping out of his veins. He was fresh as a newborn babe and ready, willing, and more than able to kick his ass ten ways from Friday and clear into Sunday.
"Have a nice nap, Sunshine?"
"It was," Leon groaned. "Till you came along. Long time no see, Jack."
"Smartass!"
Ripped from the meager shade with a speed that made the world swim.
Jack's face chiseled in striated lines. Pink pigment scars dotted with quarter dollar pockmarks and the pupils of his eyes bursting in lava orange glow.
"I-" Leon's stomach heaved. "Woul-dn't…" His gullet filled with vomit and a yellow, bile stream flew out of his mouth with the projectile force of a fire hose. Caught Krauser square in the jaw. "Do that if I were you."
Krauser's nose pressed to his nose. His sour breath raked fetid reek over his nostrils. "I ought to make you lick that off."
Does puke have water in it? If so, sign me up. He'd blow a giraffe for a nickel to ease the raw burn in the back of his throat.
His body jostled left. Tipped right. Throttled up and down. The earth moved in a hundred different directions at the same time.
"Stop. Please…Stop." God, make him stop. "Anything." He pawed at the fingers wrapped around his neck.
"Anything?" Krauser's teeth ground together. His lips curled down in a snarl. "Anything?"
"Whatever you want. Yes. Anything. I give. You win."
He landed on his side. The air expelled from his lungs in a rapid gush. That's gonna' hurt in the morning.
Krauser crouched beside him. His hand fisted a sopping wet hair chunk and wrenched his head to face him.
"Tell me you were wrong. Admit to me my evolution is superior. Grovel in my glory."
That's it! He'd chased him half way across a desert for some worship. One good grovel coming right up! Stayin' alive, stayin alive…