Морган Лливелин - Drop by Drop

“Not for a while. But I need to have a talk with Bud; is he inside?”

“He’s down at the garage. Wait and I’ll ring him.”

“Is your AllCom okay?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

Jack followed her into the house and waited while she rang the garage. The case of her AllCom was dull from long use, but the call went through immediately. After a minute’s wait Bud Moriarty’s blunt features, smeared with grease, appeared on the screen. “Sorry about that, Jack, I was down in the pit. What can I do you for?”

“There’s something I want to show you. Are you coming back this way?”

“In half an… no, I can come back right now. It’s almost lunchtime.”

“We’re having Chinese dumplings,” Lacey told Jack. “Do stay, they’re almost as good as sex.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“I said almost.”

Jack grinned. “You should try it with a man.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

Her relationship with Bud contained everything a marriage should—except sex. They were a fond pair but not a couple. Bud was interested in men. Lacey preferred women.

Asexual intimacy baffled Jack. For him any relationship with a woman—except for his aunt Bea—contained at least an awareness of sexual tension. The only time he broached the subject with Bud the other man had laughed. “If you leave sex out of the equation a woman can be your best friend.”

The three ate their meal on a wooden picnic table in the backyard, with paper napkins on their laps. Bud’s house was close enough to the river for a summer breeze to lessen the heat, but it was also convenient for mosquitoes. Although the air was thick with citronella, soon tiny dive bombers were attacking.

Jack slapped at his neck and arms. “Why in hell do you live here, Bud?”

“Cheaper property prices and lower taxes. I bought this place and the garage down the street for less than I would have paid for a house alone on the south side. There are a few inconveniences but nothing we can’t put up with.”

Lacey added with a wink, “At least we have a wooden toilet seat.”

When the meal was finished Jack led the way to the gleaming red Mustang waiting at the curb, looking almost as perfect as when it left the dealer’s showroom many years before.

“You put a set of brand-new tires on this for me,” Jack said to Bud.

“Yeah, a couple of months ago.”

“Pick one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pick any tire you like, and kick it hard.”

Puzzled, Bud swung his foot and delivered the requested blow to a front tire.

The rubber was mushy.

Bewilderment was replaced by dismay. “Don’t tell me they’re all like that, Jack!”

“They are.” There was a subtle change in Jack’s voice; an edge that had not been there before. “Did you put synthetic rubber on my car?”

“It’s just as good; even better,” Bud said defensively. “Synthetic can wear longer.”

“The invoice I paid specified premium high-performance rubber.”

“Yeah, well… I mean…”

“Natural rubber,” Jack continued in the tone Bea would have recognized as his lecturing voice, “is obtained by tapping rubber trees and using chemicals to coagulate the liquid into latex.”

“But—”

Jack was relentless. “Natural rubber is resistant to heat buildup, which makes it invaluable for high-performance tires on racing cars, not to mention trucks and buses and airplanes. On the other hand, synthetic rubber is derived from petroleum and alcohol and is a helluva lot cheaper, so it’s used on ordinary cars. But my Mustang’s special. Did I ever tell you I wanted to do things on the cheap for it, Bud?”

“No, but—”

“Stop right there. ‘No’ was the correct answer.”

“I’ve always taken good care of your car, haven’t I? When that drunk ran into you and we had to replace the door I couldn’t find an original anywhere, but I had an exact duplicate made. You didn’t say anything at the time.”

“You didn’t tell me it was a substitute. And don’t look so worried, we’re still friends. Except now I know I need to keep an eye on you.” Jack flashed his sudden dazzling grin—which did not totally reassure Bud Moriarty. “Unless I miss my guess, soon you’re going to see a lot of unhappy people complaining about their tires. Synthetic rubber contains petrocarbons.”

“I’ll replace your tires immediately, Jack, I have some high-perf tires in the garage.”

“How many?”

“Maybe a dozen, I don’t get much call for them.”

“Where’d you get them from?”

“A wholesaler in Benning. Why? You won’t need more than five.”

“Call right now and tell them you’ll take all the high-perf tires they have in stock. Get a firm commitment before the rush starts.”

“Are you crazy, Jack? I can’t afford that!”

Jack lifted one eyebrow. “How do you know? You’re going to have a partner; me. A disaster can be an opportunity in a cheap suit.”

Acrylic paint was not immediately vulnerable to the Change, but in a matter of weeks people noticed that the protective covering on their walls, both inside and outside, was wet. Was beginning to run.

Since the twentieth century contemporary artists had used acrylics to produce the intense colors. Occasionally they were used surreptitiously in restoration projects of the utmost delicacy. The Change evoked memories of the dreadful summer back in 2016 when the Seine flooded and priceless works of art had to be relocated from the basements of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. Fearing a similar disaster, museum staff began packing their modern masterpieces into hermetically sealed vaults in hopes of protecting them.

Then the Mona Lisa ’s inscrutable smile sagged into a jowly grimace.

At about the same time America’s asphalt roads began to soften; the secondary network that helped connect the country.

If Robert Bennett was right in assuming that industrial sabotage was behind the Change, it was sabotage on an unprecedented scale.

Shay Mulligan awoke promptly at five thirty every morning. It was his habit to lie very still at first, eyes closed, breathing shallowly, reluctant to let the world know he was available for more heartbreak. Then he’d take one deep breath, throw off the covers and spring to his feet as if he had all the optimism in the world.

He had just thrown off the covers when he realized he was not alone in the bed.

Shay froze, waiting for memory to return. Too much to drink last night. A blue-lit bar in an alley off Spring Street, and a girl he once knew…

He eased himself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. The rumpled sheets reeked of sex and sweat. A hundred horses were galloping through his skull. Slowly, to keep his head from falling off, he turned to look at the other occupant of the bed. “Lila?” he said tentatively.

“Hmmm?”

He knew she wasn’t asleep. Like a cat, she was fully awake and waiting.

“Is that really you?”

“Let’s see.”

She sat up and stretched. Arms extended to their utmost, fingers curling like claws. The mattress adjusted to her weight as she crawled over to sit beside him, letting the covers fall away from her naked body. He watched as a single drop of sweat rolled down the slope of her breast, dangled from her dark pink nipple and trembled there.

Shay wanted to lick it off. He licked his lips instead.

The drop fell to the quilt.

“It’s me, all right,” she confirmed. Her voice should have been husky, but it was clear and sweet. “I don’t think we had much conversation last night. you were bombed out of your skull. I wasn’t even sure you’d recognized me.”