John Shirley - Wetbones

"He was doing some time for -" He glanced at his clipboard. "Possession of cocaine. Chances are, he's on a run somewhere."

"He's not a drug addict, he's not 'on a run'." Jeff crossed his arms over his chest, then dropped them by his side, then crossed them over his chest again. "Did you guys search the Denver place?"

"No sir, we didn't have a warrant and we'd need a lot more to go on than the word of a kid you talked to in Juvie Hall."

Prentice considered bringing Amy into it. Her turning up dead, her connection to Denver. The credit card. The stories of the More Man. But it would seem irrelevant to the cop. One thing at a time, please. Just the facts. And it sounded kind of silly to Prentice, now, when he imagined explaining the connection.

''That guy Denver is up to some weird shit," Jeff said. "I know he is."

"Seemed like a regular Malibu producer type to me," the cop said. "Which means he might be up to some weird shit, but probably not kidnapping. I get a feeling about these things, I learn to respect those feelings, you know? The kid is not out at the Ranch. That's my feeling… You have any evidence of kidnapping you haven't given us?"

Jeff chewed his lip. Finally he said, "No. But -"

Sparks scribbled on his clipboard, then glanced around, as if it had just occurred to him that they might be in "possession of cocaine" themselves, since Mitch had been. Thoughtfully, he said, "You have any evidence of kidnapping, best thing is to go to the FBI. One of their specialties." He looked at Jeff. "Do you think, sir, that Mitch could be hanging with some of his drug-using buddies? I mean – we have to assume, given his record -"

"That's all. Forget it, man. We should have known better," Jeff said sharply, opening the screen door so hard its hinges squealed.

The cop stood up, glancing around the apartment, stalling. "I was going to ask if I could use the phone -"

"They got one at the donut shop," Jeff said, gesturing toward the door.

The cop's jaws worked and his cheeks mottled. "This isn't a good way, sir, to get help from the police," he said, crossing the room.

"Nothing from nothing is nothing," Jeff said, slamming the door after the guy. "Christ!"

He and Prentice looked at each other. Then burst out laughing. Prentice's laughter more genuine. "'They got one at the donut shop!'" Prentice repeated, shaking his head, laughing.

Then he stopped laughing, and said, "Hey."

Jeff was crossing to the kitchen. He paused and looked over. "What?"

"He said, The kid's not out at the Ranch. That was the way that fat-ass cop put it. Like…"

Jeff nodded. "Familiar, calling it the Ranch. Like he was using a nickname for it. Like he knew the place pretty well…"

Los Angeles

Ephram was tired. But'they were nearly there. It was eight p.m., just getting dark in the California summer, and the Porsche was flying along the Santa Monica Freeway, on its way to Venice. There were more palm trees, now, and the traffic had eased. The sky was going brown-violet at the horizon.

He glanced at Constance. He felt the ache, again, that had been plaguing him. Her eyes were sunken. Why did this bother him? He knew it would happen. It always happened. Her expression was composed and happy. The way she kept it.

Ephram shifted down as the traffic thickened, people up ahead rubbernecking a minor accident.

She hates me, he thought.

Then he thought: No, she doesn't. Because I have her soul in my hands, and I make it perform for me like a small, trained animal; I squeeze it and reshape it like gelatin. She feels what she is commanded to feel. And it certainly wouldn't matter, if she did hate me.

The traffic slowed to a crawl; his attention was freed up. So he reached into her. Without even looking at her, no acknowledgement from him about what he was doing but a faint, smug smile on his lips; he reached into her brain with the 'plasmic fingers and squeezed her pleasure centre. She squirmed on her seat and moaned. He prompted her and, accordingly, she said: "I love you, Ephram."

He looked at her. No, she didn't love him.

He could make her mean it, though. He reached more deeply into her…

"I love you, Ephram," she said, turning to look at him, her eyes glazing with devotion, with sentiment. But her voice betraying a hint of desperation.

A black cloud swirled inside him. "No. you don't."

He reached over and grabbed her hand and began to squeeze her fingers together, hard. She whimpered with pain. "Now you love me?" he demanded. "When I do this to you?"

"Yes!"

He squeezed harder. Could feel the bones in her hand on the verge of cracking. She cried out.

He hissed, " Now you love me?"

"Yes. Yes." No pleasure in her now, just pain and fear and the steel corset of his command: Tell me you love me.

He let go of her hand, but reached under her skirt, grabbed her pubis, through the filmy panties and began to twist the soft handful of skin and flesh. "Now you love me?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes!"

She experienced no masochistic enjoyment of this whatsoever. He could see that clearly.

He twisted her crotch again. Harder. "You hate me."

"No, I love you."

"Hate me."

"Love you!"

He could let go of her mind and see what she said. She'd probably still say she loved him, out of fear.

"You disgust me," he said, letting go of her.

Then he gave her a charge of pleasure, to keep her quiet. She made a low, humming sound and nestled deeper into the leather of the bucket seats.

Maybe, he thought, if I spent enough time at it, I could make her really sincerely love me, giving her no option but that. Enough pressure on the mind would bend it into any shape at all. And that would be sincere love, wouldn't it? What sort of ridiculous contortions did people go though – and put others through – to make people love them, in ordinary relationships? This was more honest.

It would be real love. As much as there was such a thing as real love…

He wished it were night, so he could see the stars, look for guidance in the secret constellations. The sunset was taking its languorous, smog-blurred time. The lights of the city were glimmering brighter in the twilight. The drug dealers would be out on the street… And some of Denver's people, too, would be there…

Probably stupid to come to Denver's town. Could I be steering myself to self destruction, somehow? he wondered. Why did it matter so much what the girl felt today?

What was wrong with him?

He gave himself a small jolt of pleasure – something he was very cautious about doing, normally. Didn't want to bum himself out.

But he felt better, almost immediately. The evening took on a different cast. It went from tragedy to comedy.

When they drove up beside the traffic accident, they had a good long look It was worse than he'd imagined. There was blood and broken glass.

If he'd been here at the time, he could have made the victims of the traffic accident enjoy the crash, the mangling. Have to try that sometime. That'd be funny. A little auto-motive psychic tampering. That'd be a gas, ha ha.

The bitch hates me.

The San Fernando Valley

"I'm sorry, sir, we were told invitations only. You got to have a printed invite." He was a stocky, gum-chewing kid of about nineteen in a Burns Security uniform, with walkman earphones pulled down around his neck. He'd stopped them walking up the drive to Arthwright's place. It was a long, circular drive leading to a modern, jutting house with as many round windows as square ones. In the balmy evening, soft red and blue "Malibu" lighting painted blush and eyeshadow on the house's facade. The drive was ornamented with a cactus garden and miniature palms. Jags and Rolls-Royces and BMWs and Corvettes and the occasional Volvo lined the drive, nose to tail. "You can stay, sir," the security guard was saying to Jeff, "but -" He looked apologetically at Prentice and shrugged. "Sorry.''