Snake Oil - Waiting For The Galactic Bus - Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 33
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Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 33

"Jake! I've been living right after all."

"Charity - " Surveying the astonished and suddenly respectful faces around him, Jake couldn't supress a giggle. "Let me take you away from all this."

"Jake, I never saw anyone so beautiful in all my life or so in time," she vowed passionately, booting at Randy with the vigor and precision of a halfback. "Outa the pool, Flipper! Towel, Jake. I mean please, Mr. Iscariot."

He spread the towel expertly between Charity and the other men as she rose to wrap herself in it. "The rest of you freeze. You, the brain trust with the gun: you're tired of carrying it, so put it down."

Dazed but obedient, Roy Earl leaned the rifle against the tub. Charity skittered out of the bathroom, grabbing for the first clothes to hand. "Thanks, Jake. I'm always getting rescued without a stitch."

"Won't hurt sales," Veigle offered. "Don't worry, we'll find you. You're money in the bank."

Jake turned on him lethally. "I said freeze. All of you."

Something in the voice. Dressing hurriedly, Charity herself froze at the sound of it. Everything about Jake now was scary, even his back. She wriggled into jeans and a T-shirt, jammed her feet into tennis shoes.

"You won't get away with this, Iscariot," Drumm blustered. "Friend of the Prince or whatever, you're not big enough to cross the Leader."

"Oh? Anyone want to get paid off now?"

Charity couldn't see the exact movement of his right hand, but Drumm, Veigle and the guard shrank as far from him as possible. With a yelp of pure terror, Randy jumped clear out of the tub like a hyperactive salmon and sprinted out of the bathroom, trailing wet bubbles down the stairs.

"Ready, Charity?"

"Got my running shoes on. Think I'm gonna need 'em."

Judas/Jake scooped up the rifle and tossed it to Simnel. "Entertain the callers until we're gone."

Hurrying downstairs to the open elevator, Charity remembered her fled roommate. "Randy?"

Hidden but plaintive: "He's not going to pay anybody off, is he?"

"No, but there's some Seconal in the bathroom. Take the whole bottle." She jogged into the elevator after Jake and punched for down. Nothing happened. "Hey, elevator, move!"

"Please enter correct instructions," the elevator balked. "I used to be a - "

"I know, "Charity screeched. "You had great cheekbones. GO, stupid!"

"I most certainly will not." The elevator didn't.

"How'd you like to start life over as a stamp pad?" Jake offered with the calm of a poised cobra. "Basement, please."

The doors closed. They wafted downward to the piped music of Lawrence Welk. With a moment to breathe at last, Charity gazed adoringly up at her savior, the Archvillain of the Christian World. He looked beautiful. "Jake, did I ever tell you you remind me of James Mason?"

"Thank you. I always liked his work."

"Would you mind just this once if I kissed you?"

"Delighted, Miss Stovall. It's been a long time since the last. Ruth Snyder," Jake recalled tenderly. "Incompetent murderess but a very nice woman. Be my guest."

He didn't kiss well at all. His lips were slightly cold. Charity was faintly disappointed. She felt the hard knot of the leather bag against her throat and went cold herself. Under the ricky-tick elevator music, she heard again the voice almost forgotten - very familiar and much closer now.

Char-i-tee . . .

III.

BANALITIES.

27 - Judas with strings

Jake ran red lights with such reckless abandon, Charity kept looking back to see if they'd picked up any traffic cops.

"Don't worry about that." Jake took a corner with squealing tires. "The heat leaves me alone."

"Where are we going so fast, anyway?"

"A place you're ready for."

"Someplace real that makes sense," Charity yearned.

"With rules, order, regulations."

"Where people live like folks - look out that car!"

Jake swerved with the reflexes of a fighter pilot, throwing Charity against her door. "Lordy, where'd you learn to drive?"

"Never did, actually. Just sort of picked it up. No accidents yet."

"We're not there yet." Charity crossed her fingers and prayed silently. "Wherever there is."

"As requested, reality." Jake kept his eyes on the street ahead. "And Alice said, 'Who cares for you, anyway? You're nothing but a pack of cards.' And as the pack rose up and came pelting down on her, Alice woke up to reality. Getting dark."

Jake switched on his high beams. A startled pedestrian leaped back out of their lethal trajectory. Jake geared down and curved smoothly into a side street. Downtown Below Stairs slid by Charity's open window, garish with neon.

"Where are we going? 'Suming we get there in one piece."

"The Club Banal."

"Club what?"

"Banal," he defined: "the classically ordinary, predictable, unremarkable, unchanging. Not the worst, a long way from the best. Boring."

"That's a dumb name for a club. I already got bored out of my gourd by Randy Colorad."

"The Banal is much more than that," Jake explained. "The working heart of Below Stairs. Leaders come and Drumms go, but the bureaucracy remains. And there's the brothel."

Charity hoped she hadn't heard him right. "The what?"

Jake shrugged. "I believe the American term is cathouse."