Busted Flush

Halfway up, she paused and sat again. “Michael,” Kate said, her voice quick, quiet, and earnest. “I need you to cooperate with everyone. Everyone: with John, with Barbara, with Lohengrin, everyone. None of us feels good about this, but I’ve made my arguments. And, well, I’m here. The lousy politics keep getting in the way of the Committee, and the publicity garbage that goes along with all this—yeah, that’s all getting to me, too. More every day. But . . . I trust John, and I believe that he’s trying to do the right things. It’s hard enough for him and the Committee to accomplish anything without us fighting among ourselves. So let’s stop.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. You got it.”

She looked away from him toward the television screen, picking up her water and taking a sip. The sailors had settled on a channel: this season’s American Hero was playing, one of the interminable “introductions” with Buffalo Gal’s lumpy and hairy face staring laconically at the screen, a cud bulging her left cheek as she chewed contentedly against the western mountains in the background. The sailors watching the episode cheered as the video cut quickly to Auntie Gravity, whose ace was the ability to render objects temporarily weightless. Especially with the low sound, it was difficult to focus on anything about Auntie Gravity beyond her breasts, which appeared to have been cut-and-pasted from a bad pornographic cartoon: a massive chest far too large for her frame and defying the pull of gravity, straining at the cloth of her custom-made T-shirt. One of Michael’s multiple throats closed, a finger tapped his chest, and a mocking cymbal crash rang out in the lounge. The sailors turned, gave Michael a thumbs-up, laughing.

Kate grimaced. She set down the bottle of water and pushed herself up from the couch. Michael thought she was going to say something, but she just looked at him, her head shaking slightly.

“Sorry,” Michael said. “But, hey, they thought it was funny.”

“Yeah, they did.” She sighed and touched Michael’s top shoulder.

“Hey, I gotta go. See you later, okay?”

“Sure,” Michael told her. “Later. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Want another?” Rusty handed Michael a can of Old Milwaukee beaded with sweat. Michael took it in his middle left hand and opened it with the top left. Rusty shook his massive head as foam hissed at the opening. “That just looks weird, fella,” he said.

Michael grinned and tilted the can over his open mouth, draining half the beer in one swallow. He could feel it running cool down his wide throat on its way to join the other four he’d already had. He wiped at his mouth with the back of a hand.

The fierce Persian sun had set over an hour ago, and Michael and Rusty were sitting in the area called the Junk Yard, aft of the island, sheltered a bit from the wind by one of the Tilly cranes. They were sitting near Elevator Three, which was down. They could look over the edge to the well-lit and cavernous hangar below the flight deck, where sailors were working on one of the fighters. A female mechanic walked into sight in the floodlights, and Michael’s gaze followed her. “Man, look at the ass on her,” he said. “Even in those overalls, she looks fine.”

Rusty set down his own beer and belched loudly. “Kate,” he said. “Remember?”

“Don’t mean I can’t look.” Michael finished the rest of the can and tossed it toward the paper bag that held the twelve-pack. He wasn’t entirely sure it went in, but he shrugged. “Hey, I learned my lesson after American Hero.” He leaned his head back against the Tilly. His eyes closed, and he started awake. Rusty was still looking at him, so he figured it had only been a moment. “After that, I realized there’s no way . . . Hey, got another one of those?” Rusty reached into the bag and handed him a can, popping another one open for himself. Michael opened his and took a long swallow. “No way,” he said, the “way” coming out loudly enough that the young woman in coveralls glanced up at them, “that I can get involved with any aces or anyone famous ’cuz Kate would hear ’bout it. Some bastard like Hive would go an’ tell her, an’ then she’d just get fucking pissed all over again and go runnin’ off to goddamn Beetle Boy. So I made me a rule: don’t fuck aces, don’t fuck anyone famous, so Kate don’t think I’m just some asshole chasing after pieces of ass. ’Cuz I do love Kate. I do. Man, if I were with her . . .” He was gesturing with all six hands. He heard the can clatter against the deck, and managed to rescue it before all the beer spilled.

“That’s a good rule?” Rusty asked. One steely eyebrow climbed the oxidized metal of his forehead.