This Girl Who Was A Ghost, page 13
part #2 of Near Future Series
Cindy sat at an angle to the window so that half of her face glowed while the other half was in shadow. “I’m just sitting around all day, watching videos and getting fat.”
“We’ll go out and see a movie. You find a trailer you like, and we’ll see that.” Sammy just hoped it wasn’t the one with the rain-soaked prairie.
There was a knock at the door.
“It’s Igor, and he wants us out of here.”
“If it was him, he wouldn’t have knocked.”
Cindy’s eyes widened. “You think it’s that cop?”
Sammy walked out of the bedroom and down the hall. Cindy was right behind her. “Cops are good for breaking down doors.”
“Thought they only did that when you don’t answer.”
“Guess we better answer it, then.” The thought did cross her mind that it could be the cop wanting to ask more questions.
It was Leo. “Hi.”
Cindy stepped in front of Sammy. “Come on in, Leo. We haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been very busy.”
Sammy closed the door. “Making calamari?”
“How is everybody at the club?”
Leo hesitated as if it was a tough question. “Fine. Everyone seems to be fine.”
Sammy joined them in the middle of the living room. “Do you know anyone at the club, Leo?”
“Mostly by face.”
“Any news?” Cindy asked.
Leo’s face brightened. “I was able to secure a new piece of equipment for testing.” He was looking at Sammy when he said it, which meant it was for her.
Sammy rolled her eyes. “What? Drain me of blood in seconds flat?”
“Blood? No, not blood, although it’d be prudent to take another sample.”
Sammy meandered to the sofa and plopped down. “You’re a regular vampire, Leo. Did you know that?”
Cindy sat at the other end, looking dejected. “I mean about the club. Any news about the club?”
“All indications suggest it’s doing well. Oh, there is talk about expanding the lab to increase psychedelic production.”
“Was there any talk about paying me?”
Cindy inched up to the edge of the sofa. “Anybody asked about me?”
Sammy chuckled. “Yeah, Johnny is chomping his fingernails to the bone worried about you.”
“Guess I’m just another dim-witted, big-boobed girl,” Cindy said, dashing out of the room.
Sammy jumped up from the sofa. “When am I going to learn to shut my big, fat mouth?”
Leo grabbed her arm as she passed. “Nerve stimulation.”
“What?”
“The device I was able to secure creates nerve stimulation.”
“Geez, Leo, Cindy’s upset.”
“It seems to be a perpetual state for her.”
Sammy strode to the hallway. “I’ll nominate you for a humanitarian award.”
Cindy lay across the bed, head buried in the pillow.
Sammy sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sure everyone at the club misses you, even Johnny. I mean especially Johnny. He told me you were the best hostess.”
Cindy lifted her head. “He did?”
Sammy nodded. “More than once. And you know it was the truth because he and I never get along.”
Cindy wiped her face and sat up. “I think Johnny likes you in his own way, more like respect.”
“I’ll sleep better knowing that.”
Cindy grinned, putting her arm around Sammy.
“You check out those trailers,” Sammy said, “and we’ll see a movie.”
“Do we have any money?”
“I’ll find a way.”
“Is there anything you can’t do?”
Leo tentatively crossed over the doorway.
“Make Leo disappear.”
“That’s not nice, Sam.”
“I guess I should be nicer to him since he’ll soon be running a psychedelic empire.”
Leo huffed. “I have no such aspirations.”
“You’re going to need help when you expand.”
“You want to be my assistant?”
“Not me, Cindy.”
“Don’t push me on him, Sam.”
“He said you did a good job helping him recalibrate the equipment.”
Cindy looked up at Leo. “You did?”
Leo’s brows creased. “Recalibrate the equipment?”
“I swear he forgets his own name if I don’t remind him,” Sammy said. “The time Johnny had to remove the equipment for the inspection… You stayed here for about a week?”
Cindy shook her head. “It was only for a day.”
“It just seemed like a week.”
“Yes, I recall now,” Leo said.
Sammy stood. “So we’re all set. You get a new job, and Leo gets a new assistant.”
Cindy gnawed her lip. “I don’t know, Sam.”
“Just until we get all this stuff straightened out.”
“Only if Leo wants me.”
“Of course he wants you. Who else is he going to get?”
Leo shifted his feet. “Well, it’s not entirely up to me.”
Sammy stepped up to Leo and patted his shoulder. “I’m sure you can convince Johnny.”
“We should talk, Sam,” Leo whispered.
Sammy turned to Cindy. “Pick a movie?”
Cindy nodded, bounding out of the room, and Sammy followed.
Leo grabbed her arm. “Sam?”
Sammy spun around. “What?”
“This is not a good idea.”
“She’ll do fine.”
“It would be better to hire someone who doesn’t know you when conducting tests.”
“There’ll be no tests if you don’t hire her.”
Leo sighed. “The tests are for your benefit.”
“Yeah, you keep telling me that.”
“And you keep asking me questions I can’t answer unless I do the tests.”
“Cindy needs to get out of here and do something.”
Leo looked away.
“Have her go off and spin some knobs when I’m there.”
“Spin knobs?”
“I’m sure you can come up with something to keep her busy.”
“Sam,” Cindy shouted from the dining room. “Maria Santiago is interviewing Gladys.”
Gladys? Sammy raced past Leo, spotting a close-up of Gladys on the tablet, looking more sour than usual.
“Your son said that Samantha came in after Jane Doe?” Maria asked.
“She knew her. That much I know. Bad elements attract bad elements.”
“Samantha said that Jane Doe called her with your phone. Do you remember that?”
“I remember them talking over the phone, sharing their own sadistic sense of amusement.”
“Why would she use your phone?”
“It was just another sadistic, triumphant move. Lord over the weak and terrorized.”
“Yes, it must have been terrifying. I understand that you, your son, and the two remaining foster children were all bound.”
Gladys nodded. “It was one thing to terrorize me and my son, but another to do that to those young children.”
Sammy closed her eyes.
“But she was instrumental in freeing them?”
“I got the scissors to them.”
“How did you get the scissors?”
“I implored her to do one decent thing in her life and grab the scissors out of the drawer. My dear departed Francis used those scissors to cut the ribbon on our new home. The home now marred by those terrifying memories.”
“Your son said that Samantha gave him the knife to free himself.”
Gladys smirked. “I was calling the police. She had to do something to make herself look good.”
“So you yourself were free at that point?”
Gladys stared at the camera, eyes slightly squinted. “That’s right.”
“How did you free yourself?”
“It was all a blur. I knew I had to get to a phone to alert the police.”
“Is that the only part of your recollection that was blurred?”
Gladys sneered. “What are you trying to say? I was the one terrorized in my own home.”
“I’m just trying to get at the truth, that’s all.”
“You won’t get the truth from her.”
“Samantha?”
Gladys nodded. “She wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and smacked her in the face.”
Maria popped on with her effervescent smile. “So there you have it. Go to our Chasing News site and take the poll: who’s telling the truth.”
“I didn’t see the beginning part,” Cindy said.
The camera flashed to images of the concert hall with a male voiceover saying, “Tune in tomorrow for new insights on the avenging angel.”
Cindy looked up at Sammy from the chair. “That sounds interesting.”
Sammy’s stomach sank. She trudged into the living room and plopped down on the sofa.
Leo approached. “You’re looking a little pallid.”
Cindy crept up behind Leo. “Maybe we’ll go to the movies another time.”
Sammy nodded and propped her feet on the low table.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
________________________________________
A guy the size of a tree opened the back door to the Pleasure Palace. He nodded to Leo and smiled at Cindy. “Hi, beautiful. Where’ve you been hiding?”
Cindy glowed, giving him a little wave. “Hi, Boulder.”
He smirked at Sammy as if she were an amusing oddity.
“Any of them got normal names?” Sammy asked.
“He’s a sweetheart.”
“What do they feed him? People who don’t pay?”
A lady in her thirties with dark hair in a bun and wearing a white apron hugged Cindy. “You coming back, hon?”
Cindy bit her lip. “Hope so, Linda.”
“He’s inside.” Linda nodded toward the lounge.
Sammy grabbed Leo, who was heading downstairs. “He’s not down there.”
He let go of the door reluctantly. “If we must.” He trudged into the lounge.
Johnny stood by the table closest to the stage, leaning over the back of a chair facing two girls, dancers by the look of them. “Hey, Professor,” he said to Leo, “tired of looking at all those Petri dishes?”
Leo turned back to Sammy. “These are the things I must endure.”
A wolfish grin spread over Johnny’s face when he spotted Sammy. “Look what the cat dragged in, the city’s number one felon.”
“Look what the rats dragged in then died on your head.”
Johnny’s grin flattened. “How long has it been? Not long enough.” He snickered like he thought it was clever.
“How long has it been since you haven’t paid me? Too long.”
“If I paid you, I’d be thrown in jail for conspiring with a criminal.”
“Why you cheap—”
Leo grabbed her arm and whispered, “This is not helping.”
“Give me a shot of something, so I can shoot a finger out and wrap it around his neck.”
“Calm down.”
Sammy yanked her arm free.
Cindy stepped from behind them. “Hi, Johnny.”
“Hey, doll. You’re a sight for sore eyes, very sore eyes.” He glanced over at Sammy.
“How about a black eye?” Sammy mumbled under her breath.
Johnny took Cindy by the hand. “Let me have a better look at you.” He pulled her under one of the ceiling lights. “If you were up on that stage, you’d be swimming in money.”
“Yeah, none of it from Johnny.”
His oily smile dimmed. “You make the other girls look like gnomes.”
Cindy blushed. “Thanks, Johnny.”
He rocked her back and forth under the light. “I’d love to have you back, doll, but you have a cloud over you.”
“It’s better than having that rug on you.”
Johnny’s face soured. “That reminds me. I have to buy that lawn gnome.”
“Are you going to actually spend money for it, Johnny, or do you want me to steal it for you?”
Johnny glared at Sammy and stormed out of the lounge.
Leo puckered his lips.
Sammy thumbed Johnny walking away. “Go tell him.”
“Yes, it’ll be much easier now.”
“What are you worried about? Without your psychedelics this place would be just another dump.”
Cindy joined them, trying to muster a smile. “I guess not.”
“Don’t worry, Leo will get you the job. Right, Leo?”
Leo didn’t say a word.
“Want me to tell you what to say?”
“You’ve been so helpful already.”
“He started it with that ‘cat dragged in’ remark like I was a piece of rotten fish.”
Cindy grimaced. “I don’t want to be put in the middle of something.”
“Leo needs you, Cindy. You don’t want to disappoint him, now do you?”
“Don’t want to be a thorn in Johnny’s side.”
“I’ll be the thorn in his side. Make that two thorns, one for each side.”
Cindy grinned. “You can be so…stubborn.”
Leo sighed. “I’d choose a different adjective.”
“I’d choose a different mad scientist too.”
“To think I left academia for this.”
Sammy chuckled. “Now you’re at the University of the Pleasure Palace.”
Leo shook his head and strolled away.
“I don’t know about this, Sam.”
“Johnny will be thankful once you help Leo make more pills. Just don’t be too good at it, or he’ll want to keep you there. If you hang around Leo too long, you wind up walking like a duck and bumping into walls.”
“Where do you come up with this stuff, Sam?”
“Look at him walk.” Sammy nodded to Leo, who disappeared into the back. “It’s just like a duck.”
Cindy chuckled in light peppered breaths. “You’re terrible.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Cindy patted Sammy’s arm. “Oh, there’s Janine.” Cindy bounded past Sammy to a lady in her thirties with blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and a bag strapped over her shoulder.
Sammy raced to the back and down the steps, then met Leo at the bottom. “If he gives you any guff, tell him you’ll pack your bags, turning this place into the dump it is.”
“I’ll handle this my own way.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’ll relay my preferences for Cindy as an assistant.”
“Yeah, that’ll bowl him over.”
“I’m sure it will lead to inappropriate sexual innuendo. He has the libido of a teenager.”
“And the smarts of a six-year-old.” Sammy darted in front of him. “I’ll back you up.”
“I’m sure I can handle this myself.”
“Are you sure? It sounds like you need some backing up.”
“This will be painful enough. I don’t need the added angst.”
“I can stand outside his office, and you can wave if it’s not going well. Oh, better yet, I’ll blend and sneak in and turn that rug around. He’ll be so embarrassed that he’ll agree to anything.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, he’s been wearing that rug so long he doesn’t know how to get embarrassed.”
“Wait in the lab and don’t touch anything.”
Sammy ducked her head around him to look into the office door window, but Leo’s arm blocked everything but the front edge of the desk.
Leo held onto the doorknob and waved her on. “Lab.”
“All right, I’m going.” Sammy took a few steps, then turned back. Leo was still standing by the door. “I’m walking, see. If it makes you feel better, I’ll walk like you.” Sammy walked with a slight waddle, kicking her feet out, exaggerating the motion with each step. She turned back and watched the door click shut.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
________________________________________
She stopped by each of the gadgets in the lab that she hadn’t remembered seeing before. None of them looked like what she imagined the neurostimulator to be: a type of cap with dozens of wires popping out.
About ten black cages were stacked against the back wall in the corner, each about the size of two shoeboxes. Sammy peered into one cage at eye level. A whiskered pink nose greeted her. It was a white rat. “I’d free you, but Johnny might add you to the collection.”
She drifted from one lab item to the next, guessing what each one did. When she got to the end of the second table, Leo stepped in and strode to a side table where one of the newer gadgets sat. “Shall we begin?”
“Did you get her the job?”
Leo nodded.
Sammy meandered over to him. “You’re not just saying that?”
“She has the job at the expense of me being humiliated by his juvenile banter.”
“Did he say something about Cindy?”
“It’s gratifying to know that my well-being is front and center in your thoughts.”
“You? You’re like a bot.” Sammy studied him. “You’re not a bot, are you?”
Leo sighed. “Shall we begin?”
“I saw this bot the other night, and I thought it was a real person. His name was Shish Kebab Sammy or something like that. It wasn’t until he turned his neck that he gave himself away.” Sammy stepped to the side so Leo would have to turn to her.
Leo pulled out a stool from under the table. “I’m really Leo the lemonade man who has aspirations of becoming a scientist, so humor me and sit.”
Sammy hopped onto his stool. “You’re going to make me some lemonade, lemonade man?”
“Only if you remain quiet during the procedure.”
“‘Procedure’ sounds like it’s going to hurt.”
Leo picked up a cylindrical probe about the width and size of a long finger and adjusted the wave’s amplitude on the display.
“What are you going to do with that thing?”
He gazed down at the probe. “Stimulate a nerve.”
“What kind of nerve?”
“Motor neurons,” Leo said, flipping to another display of what looked like tree branches. “We’ll start with the ulnar nerve cluster in the arm.”
