A Small Gray Dot

I started to turn to Morgan but caught a motion from the guard. I swung back. He’d pulled out a walkie-talkie. I pointed the gun at him. “Toss it over,” I told him quietly.

He threw it hard, apparently in an attempt to either hit me with it or make me drop the gun. On the other hand, since he was staring at the gun, maybe he was simply scared. But I think he was still a bit out of it otherwise he might’ve made a better throw. I caught it with my free hand and stuck it in a pocket. The guard’s shoulders slumped as Morgan reached out her purple-gloved hand and caught mine.

Talbert looked up at me, his eyebrows crashing together in a scowl. “You can’t get out of Blue Heaven, tracker. There’s only one way out and if you make it to the entrance, they’ll be on you like fleas on a dog at the guardhouse. I don’t know what you told them to get in, but you’ll never get outta here with Morgan. They want her, you know.”

Morgan threw in, a worry frown crinkling her smooth forehead, “He said something about that earlier, Mr. Smith. I kept asking him to take me home but he wouldn’t. I was afraid to sneak off again, and we stayed at his place ‘til this evening. Then the phone rang and after he hung up, he said he was taking me to Dr. Bennett’s. He wouldn’t tell me why but said we were going there to wait for somebody. Then, right before he spotted you on the monitor, the phone rang and the doctor answered it and when he hung up he told Ken that somebody named Henderson had decided he wanted me brought to him instead, and he was sending a guard along as an escort.”

That brought me up short. So, this was more than just a horny asshole trying to hang on to a pretty woman. Once I learned from Frank that Talbert had taken Morgan to the house on Carter Street, I’d wondered if this might be something more than two lost people seeking shelter. It would appear that it was much more.

I ignored his belief that I wouldn’t get out of Blue Heaven, but what gave me pause was his statement that “they” wanted Morgan, coupled with Morgan’s that someone wanted Talbert to bring her to him. I made another change of plans.

“Who wants her?”

From the look on his face, he knew he’d said more than he should have, but the idiot defiantly plowed on.

“Somebody at the Semptor, that’s who. They’ll get her, too.”

“Who? Dr. Bennett?” I didn’t think that was likely, but…

“Nah, not him, our boss.”

“What’s your boss’s name?”

He looked at me as if he were trying to decide whether to tell me or not. I was about to give him some words of encouragement, when evidently he decided on “tell”, so he shrugged and said, “Julius Henderson.”

It was probably the same Henderson Morgan mentioned but I’d never heard the name. “Why?” I asked.

He looked at me with a blank face. “Why what?”

“Why does your supervisor want her?” I asked patiently.

“Oh. I don’t know.” He gave a slight shrug. “He said to get friendly with her and bring her to him, so I did.” He looked at her and smirked. “We got real friendly.”

Shit for brains. Or maybe it was because he was young and didn’t know any better. I’d started to hand the guard’s gun to Morgan but was glad I hadn’t. She might’ve shot him.

She stiffened and glared at him, and her pretty face grew ugly with outrage.

“You fucking jerk!” she yelled, pulling away from my hand. All I could see was a blur of purple as she threw one hand on a hip and commenced to shaking the other one at his face, and lit into him with many, many more words.

He leaned away from her wrath, his eyes stretched wide as he gawped up at her.

I think she actually scared him for a minute with the promise that if he smirked one more time she would de-ball him and feed them to her cat. Then his face turned red at one particular phrase that included the words “dickless, fake, motherfucker” (exclamation point) and the rather vehement statement that she’d had a better time with her vibrator (another exclamation point). The girl had a mouth. She even used a couple of terms I’d never heard.

I kept a straight face. I could understand her fury, and he definitely deserved it, but the night was cold and as educational and entertaining as her rant was, I didn’t have time to keep standing there, so after a minute, I caught her waving hand and tugged it, cutting off her tirade.

“Come on, Morgan. We have to go.”

She stopped cussing out Talbert and turned to me breathing hard. Her face was bright red and her lips tightened into a straight line but she jerked out a nod.

Talbert, his face also red, probably at some of the things she’d called him, and the guard who was sitting there with a stunned expression and an open mouth, watched in silence as we turned and headed back up Main.

Part Four: A Small Gray Dot

Chapter Twenty-six

BY THE TIME WE REACHED CARTER STREET, Morgan had cooled down, though her face was still tight. She had been silent while we walked but she finally spoke.

“Would you really have shot Ken, or that guard?”

I glanced down at her. “Yes.”