Super Shareware Collection/Super Shareware Collection.iso/info/sun9311.zip/FIC2

Text File | 1994-02-01 | 22KB | 363 lines

Get a Life
Copyright (c) 1993, Robert McKay
All rights reserved



                               Get a Life
                            by Robert McKay


     Gardner's thin form moved through the empty streets.  ELO had once
done a song about "Night in the City" - that was the time and place
now.  He was not downtown - that forest of skyscrapers and their winds
did not interest him - but he was fairly near it.  He could look up and
see the tallest buildings tearing at the low clouds that scudded
overhead.
     On these cold, damp, raw nights, it was not a pleasant task to
move through the darkened streets of this neighborhood.  Yet it was the
task Gardner had set for himself.  He was lightly bundled for the
night, wearing a black turtle-necked sweater, jeans, and a battered
pair of running shoes of indefinite brand.  His face carved a path
before him, its marble features sharp.  His hands were thrust in his
pockets; had he withdrawn them, they would have been surgeon's hands,
long, slender, and dextrous to a fault.  Small beads of condensation
glistened on the wool Gardner's sweater and rested on his hair as it
swept back over his collar and partway down his ears.  A spangle of
crushed diamonds glittered as these drops passed under the rare
streetlight.
     Turning a corner, Gardner spied a figure a block away, on the next
corner.  His pace remained steady, but his head came up and his
nostrils flared.  He had been seeking someone such as this.  Her
clothing was outrageously unsuited for the weather; the short skirt
provided no protection at all, and the low cut of the neck must have
chilled her thoroughly.  Working no doubt out of sheer necessity, she
was forlorn and alone on the corner, at an hour when most traffic had
ceased.
     Gardner approached.  He saw as he drew near that the woman was not
as young as she dressed, or to be more precise, had aged more than her
clothing was designed to lead people to believe.  A hard and
unrewarding life had clearly been hers, for the lines had gathered
around her hard eyes and the too-heavily made up mouth.
     "Whatcha want, honey?" the woman asked, mercifully popping no
bubblegum.
     "You," replied Gardner, firmly taking her elbow.  "You are all I
want."
                                 * * *
     The patrol car cruised by the alley, the passenger cop idly
shining his spotlight down the length of the cluttered passage.  "Hey,
stop!" came the voice through the window that was slightly open to
allow cigarette smoke to be sucked out.  "There's a body in that
alley!"
     The car stopped with a flash of brake lights.  Thrown into
reverse, it came slowly back until the light could shine down the alley
again.  Inside, the driver was patient.  "Are you sure it was a body?
I mean, there's drunks sleeping in these alleys even in winter, with
the snow and ice on the ground."
     "I'm sure.  It wasn't lying down like it was asleep.  It's
position was - there it is!"
     The doors of the car popped open and the two officers climbed out,
stuffing batons into the rings on their belts, and making sure their
guns were loose in the holsters.  They approached the figure lying in
the muck and wet of the alley.  Shining a flashlight on the figure, the
driver of the car saw a woman, dark roots showing under the hard blond
of her hair, her dress only slightly disarranged, her skin beaded with
the mist that was falling.  "Is she dead?"
     "I dunno."  The passenger crouched beside the body, his hand
feeling for the carotid pulse.  "Feels like it.  No pulse, and cold as
an ice cube.  I guess we gotta call this one in as a DB."
     "All right, I'll make the call.  You start marking off the scene."
     An hour later, as the coroner's wagon pulled out, a detective
finished scribbling in his notebook.  He'd been taking information from
the first two officers on the scene, the occupants of the patrol car
that still stood near the mouth of the alley, its lights now flashing
garish tints over the crumbling brickwork.  The officer before him -
the driver of the car - cleared his throat.  "Say, sergeant, did the ME
say what killed her?"
     "He said he didn't know for sure, but it looked like she just
died.  No cause.  She just . . . died."
                                 * * *
     An office in the suburbs.  Computer terminals winking on as
secretaries, programmers, data entry people, and others come in for the
day.  Among them, a man who looks like youth personified - though a
youth that is not quite sunny, not quite wholesome.
     Gardner's suit was black, with a white carnation in his lapel.
Many envied him the Porsche he drove today, as well as the Jaguar he
had driven the day before.  Gardner passed through the outer office to
his sanctum, where he flicked on his own array of monitors.
     There were a few minutes before the phones would begin their day-
long ring - time to scan the monitors with something approaching
leisure, time to pull off the coat and hang it carefully on the rack,
time to scan some papers left on the desk.  Gardner signed one letter,
initialed two reports, and chucked the rest in a basket to be filed.
He wouldn't notice when the papers were removed from his desk; the
phones were beginning their serenade, and the monitors were one by one
coming to scrolling life as price quotes displayed themselves.
     One monitor, placed squarely above the array and centered above
the top row, was devoted to headline news - local, national, and
international.  Gardner's scanning eyes moved over it as they moved
over the rest of the display, taking into account reports of unrest in
Turkey, a bombing in London claimed by the Provos, a new oil strike in
the Russian Republic, a ranch merger in Texas.  He noted the picture of
a face on this monitor - a face he knew.  The hair was dark in the
picture, taken from police files.  The lines were slightly less
prominent, but he recognized the woman he'd met last night.  She had
been found dead in an alley, about three hours after he'd seen her.
     Gardner held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and continued
his conversation, while tapping on computer keys with two fingers and
blinding speed.
                                 * * *
     Gardner's house rested on its lawn with suburban typicality.  The
cars in the drive, however, denied the standard suburban mold, quietly
displaying money.  Gardner had lived in the house for 12 years, never
bothering to move to a better neighborhood as his bank accounts grew.
In the back yard, the pool sat dry.  It had not been filled since
Gardner bought the house - he never swam.  He'd never covered it,
either, and the collection of leaves, grass, twigs, and other litter on
the bottom was threatening before very long to rise up and create new
land.  When it did, the grass that grew on it would be as immaculately
manicured as the lawn surrounding the vacant pool.
     Inside, Gardner, on this Saturday, lay along the sofa.  The sun
outside glared around the edges of dark shades fully drawn.  In the
corner, the television flickered, an old black-and-white movie playing.
Gardner's attention was not on the movie, however; his nose was stuffed
into a book.  The doorbell rang, an incongruous sound in the air
conditioned dark of the house.
     Gardner quietly laid his book down, marking the place with a strip
of hammered gold.  The bookmark had been made for him, and the price
had been paid in cash.
     Striding to the door, Gardner's dark jeans and black short-sleeved
shirt made his pale skin gleam.  At the door he grasped the knob and
pulled.  On the concrete step outside, a delivery man sweated in the
summer heat.  Gardner smiled slightly.
     "You Gardner?" asked the delivery man.
     "Yes."
     "Package for you."  He held out the package and thrust his
clipboard at Gardner.  "Sign on line number 35."
     Gardner laid the package on a small table by the door, and
scrawled his signature.  "Is it hot enough for you?"
     "Oh, yeah.  I'm glad this is my last delivery - I'm about to
melt."
     "Why don't you come in and have something cold to drink?  I have
water, of course, and some Cokes in the refrigerator."
     "Sure, why not?"  The delivery man stepped inside, wiping
perspiration.  "Boy, if it gets any hotter, they'll have to haul
icebergs down from the north pole!"
     Gardner closed the door behind the delivery man.  As he turned to
follow the visitor, his eyes glowed red in the dimness of the entry.
     The next morning, the delivery man's body was found in his van
three miles out in the country; the medical examiner could determine no
cause of death.
                                 * * *
     Gardner sat comfortably at the table.  Facing him was a mirror
that, he knew, concealed a room with someone watching and listening.
Across the table from him was a sweaty detective, who chewed Wrigley's
with much fervor and no class.  He had just bustled in, 20 minutes
after Gardner had been shown into this room by a uniformed cop and told
someone would be with him shortly.
     The detective flipped through a folder.  Without glancing up, he
asked, "You know why you're here, right?"
     "I am being held for questioning in the case of a suspected
homicide."
     "Yeah."  The detective looked up for a moment.  "You musta gone to
some fancy college, the way you talk."
     "Is that a question?  If it is, I submit that it is hardly
material."
     "Yeah, yeah."  The detective closed the folder and looked straight
at Gardner.  "You of course know where you were when - those questions
have already been asked.  So I won't waste our time asking again.  I'll
ask another one.  What do you know about the death of Jeffry Sulman?"
     "Who was he?"
     "He delivered a package to your house two days ago.  It took us a
while to discover this.  Someone had balled up the list of stops and
tossed it into a pasture.  We were lucky some cow didn't eat it."
     "Were there any fingerprints on the paper?"
     "Only Jeffry's.  You can bet, buddy, that if we'd found yours
you'd be in jail right now."
     Gardner smiled coldly.  "I suggest, officer, that you release me.
Clearly that paper hadn't been wiped off, or it wouldn't have the
driver's fingerprints on it.  And it most certainly didn't have my
prints on it, or, as you said, I would be in jail.  You have no grounds
to hold me."
     "Yeah, we got grounds.  We know that the guy was alive when he got
to your place.  That was his last stop, and he delivered a package,
which you signed for.  You're the last person we know of who saw him.
So you're a number one suspect, and that's grounds."
     "Are you prepared to place me under arrest?" asked Gardner.
     "We're thinkin' about it, yeah.  We'll let you know.  Now, do you
have anything to tell me?"
     "Only this.  I did not kill Jeffry Sulman.  I do not know who did.
And if I am not either placed under arrest or released within a few
hours, I will contact my attorney and file legal action against the
appropriate parties."
     The detective stared.  "Oh, yeah?  We'll see."  He rose.  "Don't
go anywhere."
     The door closed behind the policeman.  It was locked, of course;
Gardner had no doubt of that.  He looked straight at the mirror.  A
slow smile came over his face, and for a moment, his reflection ceased
to appear.
                                 * * *
     At work, comments were going around about Gardner's appearance.
No one dared broach the subject in his presence - his tongue could cut
like the finest razor - but the office was rife with speculation.  Over
the past six months he'd aged dramatically.  His patrician face had
grown lined, and had fallen in alarmingly.  His hair was both thinning
and graying at an abnormal rate, and his hands were shaky.  His voice,
once clear and powerful, was now a scratchy parody of what it had been.
Age spots were breaking out in legions, more each day, and Gardner's
gate had gone from a vigorous stride to an elderly shuffle.  No one
knew why.
     That is, no one besides Gardner knew why.  His life was draining
away.  He'd lived for a long time on borrowed energy, and now, forced
by police attention to restrict himself and draw on that stored
vitality, he was consuming himself.  Just as the body of a man deprived
of food will, eventually, turn on itself and burn muscle tissue in the
vain struggle to remain alive, so Gardner's life had turned on him,
killing him by inches to avoid death by yards.
     Gardner had known of his situation for some time.  He'd known
that, after having been released for lack of evidence in the case of
the dead delivery man, the police had instituted surveillance of his
house, his job, and his person.  He had to compliment the police on
their capacity for discretion, for the officers were not obtrusive and
would have been missed by someone less vigilant and capable.  But they
were there, and for six months they'd hovered over him like vultures,
waiting for a slip, a move, a word or gesture that could link him with
the delivery man's death.  The strain was, literally, killing him.
     As he shuffled out of his office at the end of a fall day, Gardner
knew that he must either recharge himself, or die.  He could last, at
most, another couple of months.  After that he would be too weak to
move, too weak to reach out for the life he needed even if it were
brought into his reach.  He had to act, or die; he had no other choice,
and the observation of the police had to be circumvented somehow, for
die he refused to do.  He'd waited as long as he could, hoping the
authorities would give up, but they had not.  Tonight, then, he would
slip out of their sight.
     That night the plan went into motion.  Standing before the full-
length mirror in his bedroom, Gardner smiled a faint echo of the cold
expression he'd long used - and his image faded out of the mirror.  He
hobbled out of the room, switching off the light as he did so.
Proceeding toward the back door, he wavered, became translucent and
then transparent, and finally was a mere shadow of iridescent mist
dancing in a small shaft of moonlight coming in around the drawn shade.
The sliding glass door came open a crack, and the mist exited.  The
door remained open.
     The spindle of shaky mist passed slowly over the grass, and
filtered through the cedar fence that surrounded the yard.  It moved
slowly down the alley, startling a cat as it staggered - if mist can
stagger - by the feline's crouching place.  The mist passed out of the
alley into the street, and disappeared in the glare of a streetlight.
                                 * * *
     The patrol car cruised the downtown area.  The skyscrapers towered
into the clear air, the crisp bite of fall swirling around them in the
perpetual wind created by any collection of massive, upward-springing
structures.  The car's spotlight moved over doorways, sometimes
illuminating a security desk, where the occupant would wave at the car
before returning to his monitors and his cheap novel.  No winos were in
evidence tonight; they tended to keep to the back ways of downtown in
good weather, coming out onto the main sidewalks only when it grew cold
and it became more imperative to make a pitiable impression.  The cops
in the car knew that some of these homeless people were genuinely
homeless, trying desperately to find a way out of the gutter.  They
also knew that most were derelicts, winos, addicts, and other flotsam
who cared not what dismal shore they were cast upon, as long as they
were left alone when comfortable, taken in by a shelter when it got
cold, and tossed enough cash to buy the next bottle or needle or bag of
powder.
     The patrol car turned a corner, leaving the downtown buildings
behind and coming into an area of crumbling brick where the structures
were older, lower, and less hygienic.  The car cruised this area,
noting that the hookers had for the most part been allowed to go home
by their pimps.  A few pushers hung out, carefully doing nothing
suspicious while the car was in sight; as soon as the cops disappeared
around a corner, the officers in the car knew, the traffic would resume
with a vengeance.  The officer riding as a passenger shook his head and
rubbed his eyes.  He must be getting tired - he thought he'd seen a
small mist emerge from an alley and for a moment, before it was
swallowed by the glare of an electric lamp, faintly resemble an old
man.
                                 * * *
     An hour later, on the same street, a powerful man strode along.
His stocky form was well suited to his business, which was carrying and
using concealed weapons.  His bulky shoulders and chest made the hiding
of a pistol in a shoulder holster rather easy.  He had good eyes, quick
reflexes, and no conscience.  He was wanted for several petty crimes,
and was suspected in a couple of murders.  As he walked down the
sidewalk, he had a purpose, for he had been hired to break up,
permanently, a floating book that had not bothered to obtain the
authorization of the local gambling entrepreneur.
     As the man passed a dark doorway, a sparkle appeared behind him.
He made a few more steps, and then the sparkle materialized into the
form of a tottering old man.  The trembling hand reach out and seized
the gunman's shoulder; the hired man whirled, in these circumstances
his hand diving into a pants pocket for a switchblade.
     The old man smiled, a slow, chill movement of his lips that held
no mirth.  It was a cruel, hungry smile, one that made the hired man
think vaguely of death, and of where he would rather be at the moment.
     The cracked voice of the old man was a mere whisper in the night.
"I believe you'll do.  You are eminently vital, and that is precisely
what I require."
     "Mister, I don't know who you are, or what you're doing, but you'd
better just back off.  I'm ready for whatever you're offering, and
frankly, old-timer, I don't think you're ready for much of anything."
     "Oh?  Perhaps you're right.  On the other hand . . ."
Suddenly the old man's hand darted to the thug's temple.  The hired man
jerked, trying to avoid the touch, but he wasn't quite fast enough.
The bony fingers touched, clung, and tightened.  Those fingers actually
held the thug upright, while the old face leaned close, the eyes, now
glowing a molten red, glaring into the man's face.  And, as the hired
gunman slowly weakened, sagged, and finally collapsed to the ground,
the old man straightened, brushed back his now-black and thick hair
with both hands, and strode away with the energy of one who is only
middle-aged.
     On the sidewalk, the gunman lay, nothing showing how he had died.
                                 * * *
     Gardner killed twice more that night.  Each time he grew younger
in appearance, more vital in his actions, more deadly.  His cruel
fingers latched onto the temple of a wino lying in an alley and a
priest coming home from administering last rites, and as the leering
eyes bored close, drained the life from them.  Gardner sucked the life
he needed from his victims, and left them where they fell, for the
coroner to finally decide that the deaths has no discernible cause.
     As he straightened from the last kill, that of the priest, the
patrol car came around the corner just a block away.  Engrossed in his
work, Gardner's attention had been focused away from his ears, and he
had not heard the engine or the tires on pavement.  The officer in the
passenger seat happened to fling his spotlight on the patch of sidewalk
where Gardner still half-crouched over the priest's body.
     Gardner froze, startled.  The car accelerated, and the loudspeaker
called upon Gardner to remain where he was and make no sudden moves.
He complied.  Straightening slowly, he stood over the body as the car
pulled up next to him and the two officers climbed out, their hands
resting on the butts of their weapons.
     "What are you doing here?" asked the driver.
     "Minding my own business, officer, as I suggest you mind yours."
Gardner's voice was cold with controlled fury.  His eyes glinted a
faint red, the fire banked in their depths.
     The passenger from the patrol car had been examining the corpse.
He now stood, drawing his gun.  "This man is dead.  Please put your
hands on top of your head and turn around."
     The fire in Gardner's eyes grew more evident, but he complied.
His reflection appeared in a storefront window, and the driver of the
car was puzzled to see that reflection smile, though it was a hunter's
smile, not the gesture of a man who is amused.  And then, as the
officers approached to cuff the suspect, the reflection vanished in an
instant.
     The split-second of reaction was all Gardner needed.  Whirling, he
lashed out with a clubbed fist at the nearest officer, the driver,
whose handcuffs went clattering into the street.  The officer's blood
and brains spilled onto the street as he fell, his skull shattered; he
fell solidly, like a tree.
     The other officer, just out of Gardner's reach, fired his weapon.
The full clip, at such short range, took Gardner in the chest.  The
policeman could see the impacts shake Gardner, could see the holes
appear in the black leather of Gardner's jacket, but could discern no
blood or pain.  And then Gardner, taking a step forward, swung.
     The officer ducked, and Gardner's fist grazed the top of his head.
The cop dropped as if poleaxed.  Gardner turned, and as he stepped
slowly away, swirled into a dense bank of glittering mist that rose
into the air and passed from view.
     The stunned officer recovered.  Gardner was never seen again.
Within two weeks, three unexplained deaths had occurred in a city 200
miles to the south.