Chaingang

Inside his massive head Chaingang had his speech ready, and his friendliest shit-eating grin was plastered across his dimpled, beaming countenance. He had his usual line of confusing dialogue prepared. A bit of impromptu nonsense about how flat-out goddamn stupid he was for having left an envelope with some money in it taped to the bottom of the dresser drawer and how crazy it sounded but could he please come in and reezle frammen for a second?

The words would rush out in a storm of hot blasting confusion, startling yet nonthreatening, a fat comic bear's windy rhetoric infused with a kind of topsy-turvy logic, and while the unsuspecting party tries to respond to this intrusion, there is that awful coil of heavy chain snaking out of the huge canvas pocket, and it would all be over in an eye-blink.

The words stuck in his throat. Perhaps the cumulative effect of the powerful drugs had damaged his central nervous system. He'd been struck on the head at some point, because there was a place where his skull was tender to the touch, so perhaps that contributed to his inarticulateness. Or maybe it was just that he hadn't had much to say in the last couple of years.

Whatever the problem, nothing came to his tongue, so he brought up a juicy regurgitation and belched an expulsion of death-breath into poor Mr. Woodruff's face, pushing him back into the room, slamming the door behind him, and chain-snapping him in a blur of quick moves.

His computer was working well, if his speech center was not, and it notified him of the possibility of watchers to his flanks and rear. Tiny black marblelike eyes peered around the curtain. When he was satisfied that no one behind him was a potential threat, he took Mr. Woodruff into the bathroom and undressed both of them as if for intimacy, and—truly—what is more intimate than an organ donation?

Chaingang, naked, took his big fighting bowie and made three deep, precise cuts: the “autopsy Y.” Blood was everywhere. Fingers like huge steel cigars reached, ripped and opened Mr. Woodruff. He sliced the steaming heart loose and fed. Finally the scarlet roar of hot desire had abated. The delicacy was unusually sweet and tender. It had been such a long time, he'd almost forgotten the rush.

It didn't take long to exsanguinate the gentleman, and they took a nice shower together while he cleaned them both, pulling the gentleman back together with his all-purpose duct tape until he could get him loaded up for disposal. The bathtub and tile walls were easy to clean since he did not have to worry about traces in the trap.

He got dressed, went out to the Toyota and got plastic sheeting, one of the poncho halves, cord, and his Utility Escapes material.

The bed had not been slept in. He rumpled it, pressing in the indentation of a sleeping man. He wrapped his large bundle, which was somewhat lighter. The donor had given blood, for one thing, and there was the matter of a heart, which weighed approximately three quarters of a pound.

From Mr. Woodruffs clothing he took the driver's license and turned to the pages where his master motor vehicle blanks were tipped in. He selected the appropriate state, double-checking coded prefixes and license style, and removed the one he wanted. Not only had the authorities returned all his survival items, they'd upgraded them in some cases. There were new license blanks with the same small photograph of Daniel Bunkowski already affixed to each coded ID for all the states.

It was almost as if he were an employee of theirs. He expected that kind of arrogance from most monkeys, but not the sissy doctor, who purportedly understood that he had superior competency. What made them think he wasn't going to escape with this material, not to mention the munitions?

His mind sorted possibles: Perhaps they knew that MVB blanks were easily available both from street people and subculture bookstores. They might have realized that mail-order publications and other materials required a shipping time of several weeks. Maybe there was a time consideration attached to whatever motivated them to set him loose.

They'd inserted him into Vietnam in the 1960s, free to hunt and kill. He'd shown them that he could escape their plans to control or terminate him then, so what made them think he was under their thumb now?

He tried to examine, as objectively as possible, his various points of contact with the monkeys, beginning with his first adult jail time; through escape, evasion, revenge, recapture, the period of quasi-mercenary service, the bungled “abortion” by friendly fire, escape and evasion, more retaliation, the hunt by a detective who had become devoted to his destruction—when he was shot and almost killed, his wonderful time of recuperation and vengeance, and the child he'd sired—all the history that had brought him to this moment.