Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse - Gischler Victor (читать книги полностью .txt) 📗

XXII

Davis Shelby had grand plans for turning the Bank of Cleveland into a classy hotel.

Almost none of those plans had yet come to fruition.

But Shelby had made a valiant start. He’d knocked through the church basement into the bank basement, and steps up took him to the lobby. The lobby was undergoing a conversion into an informal lounge, with a heavy, ornate pool table and a dartboard and a foosball table that looked ready to crumble. Couches and plush chairs. The teller counter had been converted into a bar, self-service since Shelby couldn’t staff it. There was a huge five-gallon jug of pink liquid labeled FREDDY’S TOOTHACHE MUSCADINE and a stack of mismatched cups.

They paused for a drink, and Mortimer understood the toothache part. The pink wine was like a thin, stinging cough syrup. So sweet it made him wince. He had a second cup.

The room was minimal but clean and warm. A single bed. A stand with a pitcher of clean water and a washbasin. A narrow couch along the far wall. No windows. Bathroom down the hall.

“Your pal can stay on the couch, I suppose.” Shelby cast a sidelong glance at Buffalo Bill. He didn’t have a handbook to tell him what to do when a valued Platinum customer asked for the release of one of his slave laborers. Shelby was loath to lose a bicycler but reluctantly decided he could use some goodwill with a Platinum member. Shelby even suggested that if Mortimer should happen to find himself at the home office he might put in a word about what a stand-up guy Shelby was.

Sure. A regular Conrad Hilton.

Shelby left them in the room, muttering about the chef.

Buffalo Bill fell onto the couch, sighed dramatically. “Jesus H. Christ, I’m glad you came along, old boy. I was thinking I had a long, tedious future riding a stationary bicycle into the sunset.”

Mortimer flopped on the bed. “What the hell happened to you after the cannibal camp?”

“It is a long, hair-raising tale of woe and toil.”

Mortimer shook his head. “Can’t listen to a hair-raising tale dry. Better go downstairs and get the jug.”

Bill grinned, left the room and returned thirty seconds later with the jug and two cups. He handed one to Mortimer and filled it with too-sweet wine.

Mortimer gulped, smacked his lips. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Buffalo Bill had been scared shitless, running through the night forest, a raging gang of inhuman flesh-eaters on his heels. Sore from being tied up, he put the pain out of his mind and kept running. The thought of being cowboy stew had spurred him on. But even with the heart-pounding fear turning his mouth all cottony, Bill found himself circling back. Maybe with the entire tribe on the chase, the camp would be unguarded. Bill could not bring himself to leave his hat and six-shooters.

But they had left guards at the camp, and Bill was forced back into the woods, directionless, cold, unarmed, tired and alone.

Mortimer thought him foolish, to run back into the hellish maw of the cannibals for a hat and a pair of guns. But maybe Bill was doing something more than that, something even more important than Bill himself realized. He wasn’t going back for guns and a hat. He’d been going back for his identity. Even now, on the couch without his hat, without the gleaming pistols, Bill looked deflated, somehow less than he was. Mortimer remembered first seeing him on the road coming down the mountain, standing with his legs spread, six-shooters blazing, demanding Mortimer’s release with wild confidence. He’d looked like a hero.

Now he looked like another dirty, ragged refugee. What could a man do if he couldn’t even hang on to who he was?

Anyway, he was safe now, and drinking cheap wine. There were worse things.

“None of that explains how you ended up on a Joey’s bicycle,” Mortimer said.

Bill laughed, shook his head. “That’s the most boring part of the whole story. I finally found a road, walked along until I found a barn and crawled in to sleep for the night. Guy kicks me awake the next morning, points a shotgun in my face and tells me I’m trespassing. Next thing you know, I’m pedaling my ass off.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Mortimer lifted his glass.

“Screw you.” But he laughed again and drank. “What about you?” Bill asked. “Any adventures on the way here?”

Mortimer’s laughter trailed off. He took a long, slow drink. The image of Ruth’s face made his gut twist, beautiful and innocent one second, terrified and mad the next. The memory of Mother Lola’s grotesque nudity made him shudder. So much since the panicked flight from the cannibals. It seemed like a month ago.

“I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“Sure.” If Bill sensed anything awry with Mortimer’s mood, he kept it to himself. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

“I’ll be here.”

Bill left Mortimer alone.

The bed was comfortable and warm, and Mortimer had a full belly. It was a welcome change not to be afraid and cold. Stay, a voice in his head told him. Rest. Sure, then what? Go home.

The cave? That didn’t seem like home anymore, it couldn’t be, not now that he knew there was a living, breathing world going on. A strange world, and a dangerous one, but it was the only thing going. No, Mortimer would keep looking for Anne. Maybe it was his version of going back for his hat and gun.

Surely nature must abhor stasis. There’s something in a man that makes him go and go and go, and maybe the direction wasn’t even important. He would find Anne, and it would be everything or it would be nothing, but it would be forward motion if nothing else.

Mortimer dozed.

He was nudged awake five minutes later by a freshly showered Buffalo Bill. “Come on and buy me a drink.”

XXIII

The Cleveland Joey’s lacked the party atmosphere and pure sexual energy of its sister establishment in Spring City. No girls dancing in cages. No smiling women working the crowd. But as a reasonably friendly neighborhood saloon it was passable. Men playing poker and drinking at various tables, an ancient toothless crone behind the bar, serving slow but eventual mugs of beer. The lighting was low but not too dark. The music was something by the Dixie Chicks. Mortimer recognized it because Anne had been a fan. Maybe she still was.

The old lady indicated they should take any open table, so they found one in a corner and sat. Shelby showed up ten seconds later, looking harried and put out.

“If you want a girl, I’d get on the waiting list now.”

Mortimer shook his head. “Just food.”

“And beer,” added Bill.

“There’s omelets and sausage. The eggs are fresh. I just got them.”

Mortimer smiled. Looked like he’d have a chance to try some of Bobby’s eggs after all. “Okay.”

“You got anything else?” Bill asked.

“No. I’m cooking myself. No chef.”

“He quit on you?”

“Hell if I know,” Shelby said. “He never showed. At least if I was running a circus the fucking clowns would turn up for work, right? Anyway, I thought I heard some shooting, so maybe he’s dead.”

Mortimer frowned. “Shooting?”

“Way out on the edge of town. Like an hour ago, and it’s been quiet since.”

Mortimer and Bill exchanged glances. Mortimer asked, “Should we expect trouble?”

Shelby shrugged. “Town militia will handle it. Anyway, a thousand Red Stripes could ride in on Harley Davidsons for all I care as long as they brought me a chef and ten guys for the bikes. You want the omelets or not?”

“We’ll take two plates,” Mortimer said.

“And beer,” Bill shouted after Shelby.

The old lady brought two mugs of the Dishwater Lager. They sipped. Mortimer realized he was comfortable. Warm. He’d been warm since coming here and figured maybe the church was old enough to have an oil-burning furnace. Maybe even coal-burning. He wondered if there was anyplace a nuclear power plant still functioned. That would be a lot of energy. A town could pretend nothing had happened with that kind of power, dishwashers and microwave ovens and televisions. Except there were no TV channels anymore. You could watch DVDs maybe.