<b>Roo'd</b>

# Roo'd

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# Chapter #29

They dropped Nancy off in Penelope, TX. She’d had a husband there once, she said, and could get them a deal. In the end they rolled out of Penelope in an ancient converted station wagon, faux-wood paneling peeling along its sideboards, biodiesel engine hiccupping and choking over a misaligned drive train. She’d taken the hyena with her, said she’d decided to call it Sid. She’d laughed at that, poking Baby in the ribs with her boney elbow. “Sid and Nancy” she’d said, “you get it?”

According to the thin guy at the garage selling the car, the guy with wispy strawberry-blond hair and Nancy’s nose, the SUV could get its software wiped and a new paint job in place half a day. Tonx told Nancy to take the rest of the profit from the car and keep it, knowing his cred would get back to the Hell’s Angel’s lawyers where it would be tabulated and later accounted for.

He’d also gotten a cheap mix kit from the garage, a bright red plastic thing covered in big crosses and warning labels. It practically screamed contraband, but it did the trick and Tonx was able to get Poulpe’s dose mixed up and down his throat before they hit the county line. The Frenchman settled into sleep, then, and stopped mumbling. They’d tried to change his clothes when they sold off the car, but decided on just wrapping him up tighter in the sheets and riding with the windows down.

Baby and Esco didn’t say much, didn’t ask where they were going, and Tonx didn’t bother to ask if they were coming with. He knew they were stuck with him for now and didn’t need the fight to get rid of them. Pharoe would hear about what had happened, and if he wanted to renegotiate he’d wait until he got the full facts to present his case. Pressing the point now wouldn’t help any.

So instead they just drove. Esco was changed, shaved, and cleaned, sitting shining and pristine in the front seat. Baby sat in the back with his headset on, running maintenance on his big black wasp. The two of them had had some sort of heated conversation about another of his flyers, but Tonx’s Spanish wasn’t up to the task and he kept misunderstanding something about a dildo. The little robot, Fox, was toast.

They’d been driving for a few hours when Poulpe woke up.

“I take from the smell that I have been remiss?” were his first words. In the rearview Tonx saw the warm light of sanity in his eyes, let go of a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Welcome back, Poulpe. I don’t think we ever properly met. I’m Tonx” he held one hand over his shoulder, withdrew it when he saw the other man struggling with the tightly wrapped sheet, extended it again as he got a hand free and pushed it forward. They shook upside-down and backwards, awkwardly.

“I thank you for the rescue. You two are the ones who saved me from the Boers?” he asked, turning his head softly towards Esco and Baby.

The smaller man grunted through his headset and Esco nodded his head, looked out the window.

Tonx’s eyes met Poulpe’s through the rearview mirror, held them, cautioning. Poulpe smiled.

“Even crazy men have ears, gentlemen” said Poulpe in smooth, accented Spanish. Esco’s head slowly turned around.

“Gracias” said Poulpe. He leaned back, then, and closed his eyes. Baby’s hands resumed running their routines. Tonx drove.

An hour later they pulled into a lone gas station and Tonx helped Poulpe unravel himself and limp to the restroom. Poulpe limped out in clean garage coveralls, the sheets a rumpled mess on the bathroom floor behind him.

“I am still in need of a shave” he said as he stumbled through the minimart inside the station, his bad foot shoeless and tied up in cloth strips torn from his former shirt. “But I hope I appear more human now.”

“As long as you’re feeling better” said Tonx. Esco was outside smoking, his jacket fluttering slightly in the breeze.

“Listen, Poulpe, I know you’re just now recovering, but we really need that data...” Tonx let the words hang. The events of the last few days had him spooked, but now he had contracts out to several people and could only push forward. Given Poulpe’s state of mind when he’d found him he was suddenly presented with the possibility that he’d bet on a bad horse, had pulled someone out of Disney for nothing.

Poulpe smiled and put his arm around Tonx’s shoulder, leaning on him as he limped. He led them out towards the door, letting their heads pull together. As his hand rested on the metal bar of the door’s handle he whispered in Tonx’s ear:

“The Latin American Jewish Association of Hawaii homepage background image. Standard Rijndael/CTR encryption, then RSI encrypted data set. Key phrase is 123654. Very good, Tonx?”

Tonx smiled with relief. “Very good” he said, pushing through the door and helping Poulpe to the car. As soon as the man was seated he turned to look at where Esco was leaning against the sun-bleached side of the minimart and walked out into the empty gravel parking lot. He pulled the yellow Hello-Kitty phone from his pocket. Its tiny glyph flashed to life as it detected the light of day, Kitty’s shotgun waving overhead in a cycle ending in a skull-shaped cloud on the smooth flat screen. He checked the time. If what Chueng had told him was true, he had another couple hours until the 24-hour safe period was over. His fingers tabbed in Cessus’s secure mailbox, waited the prescribed three rings before hitting the zero. A Korean woman’s voice read off a request to leave a message and there was an ancient beeping noise. Tonx smiled, remembering how his Mom had always got nostalgic about the beep.

He repeated what Poulpe had told him into the phone and hung up.

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