Jonathon King - Midnight Guardians

“Marty Booker?” she said in greeting.

The man did not stop his methodical curling; left, right, left, right. His biceps were bulging with the effort, blood pumping through engorged veins that looked like fat blue worms crawling just under the skin. He also did not open his eyes.

“How’d you guess, Detective?” he said, the words leaking out between clenched teeth.

“Familiar hair color,” Sherry said.

There was a twitch of a smile at the corner of the guy’s mouth as he tightened his lips to finish the repetitions, and then dropped the weights to the floor beside him. Booker took a towel that was draped across one of his wheels and wiped his hands. He finally looked Sherry in the eye and offered his hand, which she shook, and then nodded up at me.

“This is my friend Max Freeman.”

The man’s handshake was hard, the skin almost hot to the touch. I could feel the callus on his inside palm. He looked me in the face.

“You’re the dude who helped out with the junk man a few years back, right? The serial killer doing druggies in the northwest.”

“It was Sherry’s case,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, turning a smile back at Sherry. “She blew the guy’s face off, if I remember.”

It was, in fact, a case I’d been pulled into by Billy. One result was that I had surprised the serial killer in his own lair only to have him get the drop on me. He was about to finish me off when Sherry saved my ass by putting a 9 mm into the man’s brain.

Sherry said nothing, and kept any recognition of the incident from showing in her eyes. Instead, she looked down at Booker’s wheelchair.

“Nice rig,” she said.

“Yeah,” Booker said, thumping the wheels with the heels of his hand. “Nothing but the best for a gimped-up cop; your county tax dollars at work.”

But he quickly dumped the cynical tone and returned Sherry’s attempt to break the ice by assessing her own chair.

“Yours ain’t bad, either. Built for speed, eh?”

“Yeah,” Sherry said. “Lightweight alloy, it’s good for distances.”

Booker nodded and looked down in his lap. “Never was one for the long run. More of a short blast kinda’ guy.”

Sherry was silent, seemingly lost for words, an unusual predicament for her. I was starting to feel an uneasy creaking in my knees, like I needed to move and get out of the way. But then I sensed the movement of others in the room as a couple of the corner lifters inched their way over to us.

“And hell, now he’s an even shorter blast,” said a voice from the group, a comical tone in his voice. “Just kidding…”

Sherry pulled one wheel back, spinning her chair around.

“Well, it’s you, Detective Sergeant Richards,” said a mutt-faced man dressed in a black stretch-fabric shirt, hemmed above the shoulders to show his bulky biceps, and tight at the waist. His matching black shorts were as loose as the shirt was tight, hanging down below his knees. He had one of those half-smiling faces on that tries to show he’s being friendly and funny, but smart-assed and dangerous at the same time. It probably worked on teenage girls looking for adventure. It only made me begin flexing and curling my fingers.

“Never seen you in here before, Detective,” the man said with one of those glances back at his friends, to indicate he was speaking for all them. “Trying to get back in shape, ma’am?”

Sherry cut a look at Booker to assess his reaction. I figured she was looking for something that might indicate friends or foes. When she got no sign, she turned back to mutt-face.

“Did someone invite you over here, McKenzie?” she said to the guy. “Because we’re having a conversation that entails stringing nouns, verbs, and adjectives together, so I doubt that you have the capacity to participate.”

I heard a couple of sniggers escape from someone’s mouth. Sherry was still staring at mutt-face, a.k.a. McKenzie, who, I’d guessed by now, was some sort of cop. Despite being verbally dinged in front of his buds, he kept the faked-up smile on his face in place.

“Hey, you’re a stitch, Detective,” he said, gesturing to Sherry’s missing leg, “pardon the pun. But we were just wondering if maybe you were recruiting for some special unit with our buddy Booker here-a new gimp patrol or something.”

I did not move. I’m about six feet three and a lean and ambling 215 pounds. I’m quicker than I look, and I knew my stamina was twice as good as anyone in the room other than Sherry. She on the other hand is as lean as a cheetah. Everyone here outmuscled us in bulk. It would be nasty if we had to get into it. But I’d learned over the years to let Sherry handle her own situations. To interfere is to hint that she can’t take care of herself, and that’s the last thing anyone in their right mind would want to do with Sherry.

She just nodded at the gimp patrol comment and then gestured to McKenzie’s crotch, matching his cynical smile.

“Why, McKenzie?” she said. “You have a recent amputation or something? You are looking a little light these days.”

Now the sniggers turned to laughter, peppered with a few woofs.

“Smart mouth for a girl in a wheelchair,” McKenzie said.

I could see him flex the muscle in his abnormal-size neck, giving Sherry that shrug they must learn when they’re posing in front of the mirror. It’s not much different behavior from that of a cane toad that puffs itself up to appear bigger, in order to scare off an attacker.

McKenzie was sizing me up. I had several inches on him, but we were probably the same weight. I’d have him on reach if it got physical, but you’d have to be careful not to let him get a hold of you.

“Don’t look at him, dickless,” Sherry said, careful not to let anger seep into her voice, thereby letting the scenario spin out as locker room jibbing. “Challenge me, tough guy.” She waved her hand around the room, indicating the variety of workout machines.

“Let’s see if you can make my short list,” she said, looking him up and down. “Excuse the pun.”

McKenzie huffed and looked back at his buddies. And when no help was offered, he turned around to Sherry. “You choose, little girl,” he said.

Sherry looked around like she was deciding, but I knew exactly where she was going.

“Dips, rockhead,” she said, pointing at two matching iron towers that included pronged handles at about chest height. She wheeled over and McKenzie and his gang followed. When she unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off to reveal a workout bra underneath, I instantly wondered if she’d had this scenario in mind all along. Her arms and shoulders rippled with finely cut muscles, slim and corded, devoid of any softness that might indicate fat of any kind.

McKenzie stepped up and peeled off his shirt to go naked from the waist. He flexed his pectorals, which jumped like trained gerbils on his chest, and then tried to stretch his huge biceps, which because of their size seemed to bend his arms at a permanent angle.

An older man in khakis and a polo shirt with the gym’s logo stitched on the breast appeared from behind the half-wall office and sauntered over. When he caught my eye and recognized me as a stranger, I gave him a shrug, as if I had no idea what was going on. He stood next to me and folded his arms, watching.

After locking the wheels on her chair, Sherry pushed herself to a standing position. On one leg, she hopped over to the machine on the right and positioned herself between the handles that flanked her shoulders. She put her palms on the two grips, with her elbows cocked behind her shoulders. The fabric of her bra stretched tight across her breasts. McKenzie followed suit on the machine next to her, his smile intact.

“Count out your own reps, McKenzie,” Sherry said. “Unless you need help from your boys here if you get past ten.”