40 Perks and benefits
“I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what you mean,” George said blandly.
“I’ve just spent a day with my guts on the puke’n’poop seesaw. It’s pretty obvious it was Michel’s fault. Unless he confesses, I’ll never know for sure. What the fuck makes you think I’d want to work with Michel?” Jesse said, his patient tone fraying toward the end.
“Nothing. But Michel, who will probably admit it if you ask, is going to view it as you failing a test. You were tested to see if you’re really as tolerant a stand-up guy as you seem to think you are, and I’m being tested on my management skills for joint Sixer-human projects.”
All of the bitterness Jesse felt for having been used formed itself into a conversational spearpoint. “What am I bid?” he said.
“Fuck you,” George said, with completely unexpected heat. His hair rippled.
“What?”
“I said, a most hearty and convinced ‘Fuck you!’” George said, “And I’ve got plenty of reasons to say it.”
“Oh, really? You admitted you’ve put my life in danger every time I’ve been with you. Somehow that does not give me the right to some little consideration, maybe compensation.”
“For the physical work you do, you are compensated. For the secrets I hope you keep, you will be compensated. For you telling me that we can solve our trust issues with money, I think ‘Fuck you’ covers it. You’ve never been motivated by money. Money merely represents autonomy, the freedom to choose what you do next, the freedom to live your life within your health constraints as pleasantly as you can.”
Jesse, breathing a little hard, said, “Please feel free to tell me what you have to offer beside money.”
George started to jiggle all over. Under different circumstances, Jesse might have laughed. As if sensing this, George stopped, and then extended a tentacle and rested it, like cold, somehow fizzy, plastic, on his hand.
“Friendship,” he said.
Jesse didn’t flinch.
“Let me touch your hair,” he said.
George’s hair slowly gathered itself and then slowly extended itself so that it rippled above Jesse’s hand. Jesse reached out and touched it.
“Don’t touch the ends. They’re sharp as hell,” George said.
It felt smoother than anything Jesse had ever felt. Slowly, it roughened until it felt like burlap, and then like the surface of a brick. He pushed a finger into it; it pushed back.
“Is it computational?” Jesse said. He tried to imagine any brain or computer being able to run something so sophisticated, and then curiosity ran on ahead. “And how long does it get?”
A section of the hair gently but snugly wrapped around Jesse’s body. Four more sections wrapped around his arms and legs. It lifted him into the air, until he was staring straight down at George. The springs in the sofa underneath George made protesting noises.
“I’m really sorry it’s fondling you like this,” George said.
“Why? This’ll be an awesome story for my memoirs,” Jesse said, trying to maintain the steady demeanour George seemed to like him for. The hair re-oriented him so that he was coasting around the room. It was painless and almost pleasant, and he knew for a fact that freaking out or thrashing was a really bad idea.
“My hair is not a bad sort, but it’s —“ and here George paused.
“‘Of diminished moral capacity’ should cover it,” Jesse said, from a corner of the ceiling. His voice sounded weird to himself.
“‘Inconsistently understood and applied moral capacity and extremely variable responses to perceived threats’ is more like it. I’m ecstatic you’re taking this so well. I’ve asked it to set you down gently, and it’s thinking about it.”
The hair, responding to George’s request, set Jesse back in his chair, and returned to home position.
“Remarkable,” George said. “My hair has freely promised never to injure you.”
“You can talk to your hair.”
“To a certain inconsistent and limited extent, yes. You have no idea what a relief it is. When I completely let go and let the hair do whatever it wants, I have no clue what will happen next. Sometimes it makes art. Sometimes it goes completely limp. Sometimes it stabs me repeatedly, and since it’s the only thing that can stab me it’s really not nice to have it on my head all the time. Sometimes it supersonically kills every flying insect within ten metres.”
“Hair that breaks the sound barrier — no gel on earth can restrain it,” Jesse said, theatrically. More seriously, he added, “Did your hair say why it likes me?”
“Because I do,” George said simply. “Now, do you really want to talk about money, or would you rather talk about perks?”
“Do I have to work with Michel?”
There was a long pause.
“I’m afraid of what Michel will get up to if you don’t. He likes the work, because it solidifies his defiance of Sixer norms, and makes him a hero to most humans who learn of it. Never underestimate Michel’s desire to be viewed as a devil may care hero.”
“That makes me wonder how you want to be seen.”
“As a protector of humanity,” George said.
“Oh, shit,” Jesse said, and fear sharpened his voice. “Sounds like we’ve got incoming alien troop ships.”
“Not that I’m aware,” George said, tartly. “I was thinking along the lines of big hunks of rock flying at Earth from the sunward side.”
“Rocks.”
“Space rocks. Planet smashing ones, which we haven’t seen yet. The Chelyabinsk event is pressing on my mind.”
“So, no spaceships materializing over Washington.”
“I have reason to believe that if my species ever had spaceships, they have cloaking technology and you would not see them on radar or with the naked eye. And if they haven’t shown up in eight millennia, which is how long we’ve been here, I’m betting they aren’t coming now.”
Jesse sat with this information for a while.
“Promise me you’re not lying.”
“I’m not. Ask any Sixer about it. They’ll all have opinions about the facts, but the facts will be more or less consistent. You know, Jesse, I’ll think more of you if you don’t ask me to promise that aliens aren’t coming. For all I know, a different species altogether wants to steal your junk food and toy with your women while threatening planetary extinction.”
You’re such a comfort, George.
41. Backing onto a battlefield
The only way I can confirm this story is by asking Michel. Or Kima. George is manipulating my natural curiosity.
Aloud, he said, “I notice you’re not keen on promises, so I don’t know how to put this.”
“You’re going to have to put it some way, if it’s about Michel,” George said.
Jesse thought it should be pretty obvious, but said it aloud anyway. “I want some assurance you, your hair or Michel won’t wake up some day, decide I’m an asshole, and kill me.”
George resumed his human appearance. Jesse’s relief was thorough enough to make him sag.
“I know looking at me’s a strain,” George said. “You handled it very well, as well as my hair mauling you, and there’s no reason for me not to look human, now you know the truth. No! I’m not changing the subject.” He had, in his set of expressions, a close-eyed smile with a wolfish glint. “Michel won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you. You’re the fifth human being I’ve ever talked my hair into accepting, and I didn’t have to try too hard. It even told me when it decided to like you.”
“I wish I knew whether you were even telling the truth,” Jesse said.
“You guessed I was saying something rude when I lit up. If you can read me that well, and you’re kindly disposed, how can you be anything but my friend? Why wouldn’t I speak the truth to a friend?”
Thanks, chuckles, but I really don’t think I can read you that well. My guesses are getting luckier.
George continued, “I’ll tell you when it happened. My hair started its one-sided interspecies bromance with you the night you closed the tailgate and started the truck, during the British Properties move. One of the hairs was keeping an eye on you while I was indoors.”
“On your orders?” And how long can those little suckers get?
“I was quite preoccupied at the time; it kinda snuck out while I wasn’t looking. Caregiving behaviour is not common among my species. I thought it was cute, and it worked out well for me,” George said.
“Oh my god,” Jesse said. “You just never can tell what your hair is thinking! I know I have the same problem.” He grabbed a chunk of hair, pulled it down over his nose, and blew it away.
Jesse was growing it out again, mostly because it pissed Raven off. The only other people whose opinions mattered were too discreet to comment on his appearance, except to make practical or complimentary remarks.
He also hated wigs, and wanted it long for a decent Scythian warrior ensemble, which Raven had promised a fabricator hookup for.
“To recap,” George said.
“Does this mean you’re leaving soon?” Jesse asked hopefully.
“Tired of me, are you?”
“Exhausted. I used to be a tube made out of pain, but now I’m just one of — how many people is it exactly? — who know about this.” He took a quick breath and said, “I don’t expect an answer. I’m also happy you quit lying to me about one thing, and sad because all of a sudden what seemed like the truth appears to branch into whole new kinds of lying.”
“Could you call it ‘prudently concealing the truth for strategic purposes’ and ‘prevaricating’ instead? I don’t have the energy to lie to you. It’s far, far easier not to. I have to lie, and I do lie, but if I have an option not to, I don’t.”
Jesse felt a memory percolate to the surface.
“You told the client you could smell blood.”
George sighed, and made what Jesse secretly called his ‘Kermit face’. “I did, didn’t I. Wish I could have stopped myself. I can smell it a long way off, if I’m expecting it.”
He suddenly stopped looking perplexed and seemed angry. “Just so we’re clear, I’m only going to say this to you once, and I’m not going to talk about it again, and I don’t want you to talk about it.”
“What painful revelations await our poor misguided young hero?” Jesse said, in a creditable imitation of Sideshow Bob. He was still happy he wasn’t looking at George the monster any more.
“Shut up, shut up! This is awkward and unpleasant for me, so give it a fucking rest,” George had sworn twice in one day, a new record. Grimly, he said, “I love the smell of human blood. Although I don’t need to eat, every month to six months I get a tremendous craving and I ingest some.”
“Oh, hell no,” Jesse said.
“I’m not going to ask you for a tablespoon of blood just because I feel like a snack,” George said, frowning.
“That’s no way to make me feel better. I know you could yoink a tubeful faster than I can move,” Jesse said.
“But I won’t. It’s all perfectly safe, legal and consensual, and it’ll never be connected to you,” George said. “I know how you feel about not giving consent, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I am a lot earlier.”
“When’s the day.”
“Don’t ask.”
“When’s the day.”
“Not for years.”
“Seriously?” Jesse asked, disbelief overriding his good sense.
George lost it.
“As far as I can tell, your brain is functioning normally, and yet you say the most ill-advised, inutile things. I’m trying to bring a city to its knees, and then stand it up again, facing a different direction. Nothing like this has ever been tried in human history, and I’m doing it on my own. You can mock me all you like, but my only meaningful goal in all this is that there be not a single casualty, not one, in the first seven days after the announcement. If I can prevent a mass panic and evacuation event, keep major services including emergency and hospitals running, and not have Vancouver implode into a world-class dumpster fire of riotous hooliganism, then phase one of me coming out as an alien, including the rapid rollout of Michel and Kima, will be at an end.”
George stuck a finger, which Jesse knew was no finger, in his face.
“You have no idea the amount of coordination and planning will go into this. I could stroll down Granville tomorrow and announce my presence, but what would happen to the two police officers closest to me? Would they be killed in the crush? What would happen to the EMTs? How many people would be killed in accidents and road rage incidents as they flee town? What will happen at the airport, the train stations, the bus stations? What happens when the army’s called in and tanks roll up and down the Burrard Street bridge? What happens when the local phone system crashes and the internet slows down and the transportation authorities panic and cancel all the buses and shut down the Skytrain and you can’t get through to 911 to get your sister to the hospital and the entire city is gridlocked and the looting starts?”
Jesse shrugged. It all sounded a little over the top.
“Yeah, shrug all you want. The only way this works is if I keep the city safe; world leaders will see that I’m being responsible, and a city that’s already used to the world showing up and then leaving three weeks later will at least survive intact.”
“I don’t think it will be that bad.”
George was silent.
“It’s a good thing you’re not on the planning committee, then,” George said tightly. “I’ll leave you to your cup of tea. Call you in a couple of days,” he said, and left.
Jesse made himself herbal tea and went back to bed.
42 You speciesist clownbag you
“I think this company needs a new name,” Jesse said.
“It ain’t midnight, and we ain’t moving,” Michel said, agreeably. They’d been sitting for an hour. The cab was starting to fog up.
“I hate waiting around and then jamming through the last bit of the night. My stomach hates it too.”
Michel was not a fan of the human tendency to personalize stomachs and cocks and ears and machines and animals. “Me and my stomach are all one person, as far as I can tell,” Michel said. Then, as if this triggered something, he said, “George says you’re a smart human, what do you think his hair is?”
Jesse watched the road, praying for a light, wishing he was driving so he could tell Michel to shut up and quit distracting him without getting a slap for his comment. “You zero-hearted son of a sea-slug.” He did expect a slap, but it didn’t come. George’s promised lecture about manners must have worked.
“Why insult me? Are you trying to confuse me? I can be more sober than George, sometimes.” Michel folded his arms and looked saintly. The pleasant face atop the bulging, muscular form was funny, but not enough to laugh at. Michel had better facial expressions than George. At certain fixed distances, George looked a trifle weird. Once he’d bobbled like a video game glitching, and then said he’d done it deliberately. Michel was seamless in his presentation. He could look like anything at any time, including nothing at all. He said Kima was even better at disappearing, but that watermorphs usually were.
As for Michel’s assumption of saintliness, Jesse was repulsed. He was still mad at Michel for deliberately farting in the truck, a completely silent onslaught, wave after wave of terrifying fumes. Jesse had rolled down the window, despite the rain, gasping; the inrush of damp air was welcome. It had been so bad at one point he thought his colour vision was changing, possibly due to some kind of deadly alien gas in his corneas. The stinging was so intense he thought maybe he should flee, and screw the move. But it wasn’t deadly. It was just Michel, fucking with him. He could contain the gas and let it out at a different time, but had decided to share about a month’s worth at once.
Remembering this with irritation, Jesse said, “I thought I was telling you to back off politely. Next time, maybe I’ll say I don’t enjoy being put on the spot. I think George likes me so much he’s made a kind of pet out of me. I’m probably not as smart as he says. I can’t speculate.”
“Your thoughts on the subject would be entertaining, at least.”
“I don’t want to speculate,” Jesse amended.
“Now you are starting to sound like a politician. Next you’ll be calling for the police to be allowed to do their jobs, which always seems to involve use of force on disadvantaged populations. And hey, it’s only pandering if I haven’t seen it, with what I got for eyes. I lived in Montréal for years, you know.” He always gave it the French pronunciation, never the English, making it into a smooth sexy word filled with promise. He also liked repeating things, another of his human-like tics.
Sensing Jesse meant it when he said he didn’t want to speculate, he said, “I’m gonna come back to you on the hair. I wanna complain about something else instead. It’s one of the great things about being friends with humans. If you complain to another – it’s Sixer, right, that’s what the focus group finally settled on?” (Here the contempt in his voice was rich and vast.) “Anyway, if you complain, you’re advertising lack of breeding fitness. I used to put it a different way, much more colourful, but George really didn’t like it. He’s trying to get me ready for television appearances, and he wants me singing one song, all the time, and only that one song, which is bullshit. I’m with you, I should be able to say what I want.” Michel had seemed charmed by Jesse’s lecture about free speech. What he really thought was often obscured by nonsense and frequent changes of subject.
Jesse saw what was coming, and said, “No, no, no. If I say there’s some shit you don’t talk about, you don’t.”
“When you tell me there’s shit I can’t say, you make the whole world a place of stinky darkness,” Michel said. “Everything’s always one hundred percent with you people.”
“I warned you about ‘you people’; it’s a red fucking flag,” Jesse said, turning his head to look at Michel. Michel obliged by turning his bottom half into the Disney Genie, including weird little stripes that made it look like he was reproducing the image based on something a badly aligned VHS might spit out.
Michel said, whining, “Can I at least complain about something? I really want to, so I’m going to. George’s love affair with the police creeps me the fuck out.”
Jesse frowned at him. “Why don’t you stop before you get sued? The last time he messed with the popo he thieved some zip ties,” he said, addressing the question. “That might be foreplay in some places, but I don’t think so.”
“That was the last time you saw him play with the cops, ‘cause that’s what he wants you to think. In secret he’s kissing them and hugging them and telling them they are very pretty.”
Jesse considered this. How to phrase the question without asking the question?
“I’m sure your time in Montréal left you with no respect for the cops.”
“Shotgun Bob was okay. You know, the people with guns shift around; it’s all the same kind of person, but sometimes they get paid by the Queen and sometimes they don’t.”
“I wish I knew some cops personally, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to hear about your take on their oath. May I also point out there’s a difference between a soldier and a sociopath?”
“Oaths are bullshit. You either understand what your duties are and what they mean, or you don’t, and fondling a book with one hand while saying solemn things in public doesn’t mean a fuckin’ word you say is true.”
“Leaving aside that public ceremonies about how you mean to live by certain rules is a hefty chunk of what humans do, which makes that comment speciesist, and you a speciesist clownbag so full of shit it should squeeze out your non-existent eyes, I really don’t care what George is up to,” Jesse said, wanting to bail from the conversation.
“You don’t think he’s planning something bad, getting all cozy with the police?” Michel asked, not at all disturbed by his verbal shellacking.
“I am not George’s human enabler. I’m not responsible for him at all. His actions don’t reflect on me any more than yours do.”
43 I only followed him around for a day
“How can you say that and call yourself his friend?”
“He calls me friend. From this angle it looks different.”
“What do you think his hair is?” Michel said.
“Whatever it is,” Jesse said, now forcing himself to acknowledge that he did think about it, “It’s tied to the fact he doesn’t eat. Do you know how many calories you burn through in a day?”
“I get by on about twelve hundred.”
“You learned about calories and checked.”
“They were invented before I was spawned; it wasn’t hard. It’s very strange to have watched the progress of science since before the turn of the previous century. Every time it speeds up there are these weird hiccups and waves of humans thinking the human race can be made more perfect.”
“You don’t sound hopeful.”
“I think you can get the average person to be better behaved, with a carefully selected bag of bribes and punishments, but mostly you gotta stop fucking with your own family structures to prop up capitalism. Nothing’s gonna be perfect ’til you manage that as a species.”
“No argument here. Nifty,” Jesse said with heavy sarcasm. “The client has finally shown up.”
The client was indeed visible, but there was a man holding a gun to her back as they got out of the car.
Jesse wasn’t going near the ex, who was an active service police officer well-known to be armed. “This looks like a job for Michel the Magnificent.”
“Aw,” Michel said, jumping down into the rain with a spectacular bounce, unnoticed by the couple making their unhappy way to the house. He loped up to the cop and said, “You holster that gun.”
“I’m a police officer and you’re interfering with an investigation,” the man said. His voice was clipped and his hair even more so. He paid no attention to the rain.
“Do as he says,” the client said. She managed to sound toneless and scared at the same time.
“Naw,” Michel said. “I really don’t think so.” He stuck his finger in the barrel of the gun, and then, no matter how hard the cop tried to pull the gun away, retained a tight seal on the muzzle. The cop struggled and yelled a bizarre series of threats, but did not fire, since while he was demonstrably unpleasant, he was not, technically, stupid. The client meantime made a run for the door like a sensible person. Michel made a jerking motion and the gun, butt pointed upward, swivelled around on his finger like a kid’s toy.
“You, beat it!” Michel said to the cop. “Let me know when you want me to come down to the cop shop to give this back to you.” He waved the gun around negligently. “S’okay, the safety’s on.”
“You’re in a lot of very serious trouble,” the cop said.
“You’re the one that’s never going to get another promotion after your bosses find out that you beat your wife, you lost your service weapon — what? No, you can’t have it —“ as the cop lunged at him again — “you screw night girls in your service vehicle, and you rob drug addicts for whatever they have, to plant on whoever you don’t like. You may have to become a security guard or go work on your cousin’s fishing boat.” Michel had been tasked with following him around for a day and he hadn’t found much to amuse him.
“Fuck you.”
“Come at me!” Michel said with joy.
Well that didn’t last long, Jesse thought from the truck. Butthead was on his ass on the dirty wet sidewalk, and Michel had tied him up with the zip ties the cop had (no surprise) brought with him.
“Say a word,” Michel said, “And I’ll shove my hand down your throat until you choke. I won’t even mind if you try to bite me.”
The cop started to yell.
“And you’re the fuckers George wants to make party plans with,” Michel said in disgust. He picked up some goo out of the gutter and shoved it in the man’s face. It took the cop about two minutes to stop coughing and choking, and when he had spat the last of it out he said, hatred bulging out of his eyes and every straining muscle, “There’s no place on earth you can hide.”
“Fuck, you’re dead boring,” Michel said in disgust, and choked him with a tentacle, as promised. He opened the car door, shoved the cop in, removed everything from his pockets and threw it all many metres away, and then tied him to something inside the car.
The move proceeded as planned. Every half hour Michel made sure his new friend hadn’t died or had a stroke or run away. Once when he opened the door the poor bastard started screaming in incoherent rage, trying to make himself heard above the rain and wind.
“Shut up, or I’ll cut your throat and dump you in deep water. You’re not wearing track shoes so they won’t even find your feet.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re right, my boss would be pissed if I killed a cop without his permission, just like the old days,” Michel said. “My boss says by the time the department’s done with you, you won’t be a cop, so it’ll be be plain old manslaughter if they can’t prove I planned it.” Michel ducked his head and seemed to be taking a good look at him. With cold contempt, Michel said, “Mebbe you can kill yourself when I let you go and everybody who doesn’t know you can feel sad about it.”
Then he forced his enormous form into the back of the vehicle and the cop disappeared.
Jesse ran up to the car and banged on it. Michel was sitting in the back, and the cop could not be seen.
“Where is he!?” yelled Jesse.
“I ate him,” Michel said, pretending to pick his teeth.
“You’re hiding him.”
“I’m running playback, shaddap I’m busy. He’s fine, getting a little educated.”
44 But that doesn’t mean you get to put dentistry on your resume
Jesse went back to work. The client, once she believed Michel had control of the situation and the ex couldn’t call for backup, worked like a woman possessed, getting as much of her stuff out as possible. Once again, it wasn’t the furniture or books, it was the photographs, the kitchen gear and the mementos. She didn’t even take much of her clothing, since it was all in a style that suited hubby. “I don’t give a shit about this house,” she said at one point. “He can keep it for all I care.”
After about half an hour, she started hiding in the house again. The cop was out of the car, and Michel was saying, “You can go back in when she’s out.” The cop looked cold, wet, not quite scared and very, very white under the ghostly streetlight.
As Jesse came up to find out why the hell Mr. Piggy was out of the car, Michel called, “Why do women marry? It’s not like it’s a game they can win.”
“What?”
“Never been more glad to be who I am,” Michel said in disgust.
“I’ll find her,” the cop said abruptly. “She’ll never testify against me.”
“I just showed you pictures of your last day, doing all kinds of horrible shit, and you’re worried about a court case with her? Shouldn’t you be worried about your job?”
“That’s all inadmissible evidence,” the cop said contemptuously.
“Once I figure out how to get it on the internet, who cares?” Michel said. “You’ll help me with that, right?” he added, turning to Jesse.
“Sure,” Jesse said. Speaking with care, he said, “Sir, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but if you assault or harass our client, we’re going to respond.”
Michel added, “My cousin got the Chief of the VPD on speed dial, so don’t be an idiot.”
“Seriously, we should drive him someplace remote and tie him to a tree and leave him there,” Jesse said.
“When I’m done with you you’ll be wearing dentures and shitting in a bag in a wheelchair,” the cop said.
“George won’t let me,” Michel said, ignoring the threat. He wiped away imaginary tears with the backs of his hands.
“Give me back my phone.”
Michel, not even trying to hide what he was doing, snaked his arm across the ground, picked up the sodden phone from where he’d thrown it, smashed it to bits on the roof of the car, and carefully handed what remained to the cop.
“Your phone, as requested,” Michel said. “I gotta find something that will motivate you,”
“Pull his teeth out,” Jesse said, angered by the threat. “It’s non-fatal and it’s what he promised me, so he must think it’s an appropriate punishment for people who piss him off.”
“Oooh, summary justice,” Michel said. He shoved his right hand into the cop’s mouth and emerged with a molar, bleeding with bits of flesh attached.
“Auuugh!” the cop yelled. He tried to run away and sadly, tripped. Blood poured from his mouth.
“Not ’til I’ve pulled out all of your teeth,” Michel said. “After that we’ll have to get creative.”
“I think maybe we should not be so angry and, you know, vengeful.” Jesse said. The cop’s distress was truly heartbreaking. Deserved, but heartbreaking.
“You suggested it.”
“Honestly, I didn’t think —“
“I’m not angry,” Michel pointed out. “He hasn’t seen me angry.”
Jesse wished he hadn’t been so spontaneous in his suggestion.
“Just let me go. You guys are crazy.” He spat.
“I don’t beat my wife,” Michel said pointed out, “And if I was dumb enough to get one I’d treat her like she wanted.”
“Crazy? I don’t think any of us meet the legal standard, even you, you fucking asshole,” Jesse said. “Tie him back into the car and we can push him off a bridge when we’re done.”
“No, no, don’t do it!”
Michel took the hint. “I think it’s a great idea. The coroner’s gonna have his hands full with this one.”
Michel gagged and bound the cop, returned him to the car, and they finished loading.
Jesse and the client went to the truck. Michel ungagged the cop, and as the cop realized that Jesse, who had not actually harmed him, and his wife, who didn’t spare a backward glance, were leaving, and that he was now alone, injured and unarmed in the company of the biggest fucking crazy goon he’d ever met, he finally panicked. Michel could feel the fright wash over him and grinned to himself.
“I need medical attention,” the cop bleated.
“What?” Michel said, handing back the car keys. “Drive. Dead men don’t need medical attention.”
“You can’t kill me. You won’t get away with it.”
“Got away with it every other time, didn’t I? Not that you knew that, but now you do. Turn left.”
“Where are we going?”
“The bridge.”
After a very tense and silent drive, they were on the Port Mann Bridge. Michel told him to pull over.
“It’s strictly against the rules, but there’s hardly any traffic this time of night. Look at me.”
Reluctantly, he turned his head.
“Mike Peller, you got two choices. Leave your wife the fuck alone or get pictures of you banging a streetwalker in your car on the internet. Fuck up again after that warning, and I’ll bring you here and shove you off this bridge myself.”
All Michel got was a nod. He got out of the car. “I’m keeping the tooth,” he said. “And the gun. I like souvenirs.” He moved out of anyone’s sightline, and vanished. The car took off east across the bridge, fishtailing and skipping across lanes.
Mike Peller took early retirement and moved to Thailand, which was probably sorry news for someone. Candace Peller, who immediately reverted to her maiden name, was not one of those people.
The Midnite Moving Co. is a prequel to the Upsun trilogy in which Jesse and George run a moving company which specializes in getting victims of domestic violence and landlord harassment into safer accommodation. Jesse’s doing it to pay his rent, but as he gets to know George, he starts to wonder who his secretive and unusual partner really is. Their story continues in the Upsun trilogy.