Freaky Deaky

Skip said, being gentle with her now, "Sweetheart, that whole show back then was a put-on. You gonna tell me we were trying to change the world? We were kicking ass and having fun. All that screaming about Vietnam and burning draft cards? That was a little bitty part of it.

Getting stoned and laid was the trip. Where's everybody now? We've come clear around to the other side, joined the establishment."

"Some have," Robin said.

Look at her telling him that with a straight face. Skip stared at the red names shimmering there on the wall, flashing at him.

MARK

WOODY

"Mellow me down with the acid," Skip said, "paint the names on big so they'll burn into my brain. You been taking me back to those days of rage and revolution, huh? I'm into a goof, but I can hear and think.

What I don't see are Mark and Woody snitching on us. They weren't into anything heavier than a peace march. What'd they know about our business? Nothing."

Robin said, "They knew I was meeting you in L.A.

Mark did. I saw him just before I left."

"Well, that doesn't mean he told where to find us."

"Skip, I have a feeling, okay? I know he did."

Man, she did not like to be argued with. Never did. It tightened up her face, put a killer look in her eyes.

"Okay, they informed on us and now they're sitting on fifty million bucks. You look around this dump you're living in and you feel they owe you something. Am I telling it right?"

"We feel they owe us something," Robin said.

"Fine. How much?"

"Pick a number," Robin said.

"How about seven hundred thousand? Ten grand for every month we spent locked up. Three fifty apiece."

"I was in longer than you."

"A few months. I'm trying to keep it simple."

"Okay, how do we go about getting it?"

"I ask for it as a loan."

"Seven hundred big ones. I can imagine what they'll tell you."

"Maybe the first time I call."

"Then what?"

"Then late one night their theater blows up."

Skip said, "Hey, shit," grinning at her.

"The subtle approach, blow up their fucking theater. I love it."

"The smoke clears, I try again."

"Pay up or else."

"Wo. This isn't extortion, I'm asking for a loan."

"That what you're gonna tell the cops?"

"I haven't threatened anyone."

"They're still gonna be all over us. Shit, me especially, I'm the powder man She was shaking her head at him in slow motion.

"They won't know anything about you, you'll be at Mother's. She's on a three-month cruise, you'll have the whole house to yourself."

Skip felt himself getting into it, wanting to move around.

"I'd have to line up some explosives. Keep it at Mommy's. Man, I love dynamite, and I never get to use it.

Dynamite and acid, man, that'll Star Trek you back to good times. The way it was."

Robin was smiling at him, raising her arms, and her arms reached him way before she did. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders. He had to tilt his head back to look up at her face, at her pale skin stretched over bone, her cheeks hollow, sunken in. He could see what her skull looked like in there. He could see hands holding her bare skull and a teacher voice in his mind saying this was a woman thirty-five to forty, a hunter. The voice saying, Look at the fucking teeth on her, this was a man-eater.

The jaw in the skull moved. Robin said:

"From that time we first met-oh, but we freaked them out, didn't we?"

Skip blinked, feeling his eyes wet.

"You know it. Couple of the baddest motherfuckers ever to set foot inside of history."

Now the skull was grinning at him.

"You stole that line."

"Yeah, but I forgot from where."

Man, look at this fine girl.

Skip said, "You're working me over like you used to and I love it.

Getting me to play your dirty tricks on those boys… But just suppose for a minute, what if it wasn't Woody and Mark that got us busted?"

Robin's face came down close. He could feel her breath. In the moment before she put her mouth on his, Skip heard her say, "What difference does it make?" 5 aturday noon in the kitchen of his dad's apartment in St. Clair Shores, Chris said, "This doctor, he not only won't look you in the eye, he doesn't listen to a thing you say. I tell him why I'm leaving the Bomb Squad. I don't see where it's any of his business, but it doesn't make any difference anyway, he's already made up his mind. I'm leaving 'cause I'm scared, I can't handle it." Chris was getting a couple of beers out of the refrigerator.

Chris's dad, Art Mankowski, was frying hamburgers in an iron skillet, working at arm's length so the grease wouldn't pop on him. His dad said, "Get an onion while you're in there, in the crisper. Listen, you'd be crazy if you weren't scared."

"Yeah, but this guy wants to read a hidden meaning into everything, like with the spiders."

"You want your onion fried or raw?"

"I'd rather have a slice of green pepper, if you have any, and the cheese melted over it."

"I think there's one in there, take a look. Get the cheese, too, the Muenster. Where'd you have it like that?"

"It's the way Phyllis makes "em," Chris said.