Posted 5:08 PM by Alfred

Dark - part 6 (see links on sidebar for other chapters)

The Arby's had hit the spot. Something about the combination of fries, roast beef, and arby's sauce had also managed to clear his psyche for the serious brain-wrangling he was expecting to come on. Who was this girl from his dream? The picture from the library (which he still had thank you very much) had sent him back to the dream almost. He couldn't stop picturing her perfect breasts, the nipples full erect despite the girl's fearful expression. Her face had appeared almost a perverse Mona Lisa, an expression pained yet pleasing hidden behind that strange smile.

The picture and the dream had also brought about a profound physical need he had been neglecting the last few days, which he promptly took care of upon getting back to his cabin on the lake. As he touched himself, he thought of her, dancing on that table, but he switched the desperate look on her face for the casual smile appearing in the picture from Westways. He came almost violently, his muscle spasms matching the twitching feeling going on in his mind.

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The next afternoon he was on an airplane headed for Honolulu. He’d already caught a flight to Seattle that morning, and luckily the layover had been minimal. Dark didn’t really care for lounging around in airports. The travel papers were drawn up under his Mark Jensen alias, one he had acquired from a skinny software executive from Washington. That was definitely one of the fringe benefits of the torture business: all kinds of useful information that your employers didn’t need but you did. The trick was in learning how to take advantage of it. This guy, Eddie Sudlin, had been into Dark’s employers for about 20 grand. The guy was a mover and shaker in the rising software/computer industry of 1996 but he was a sucker for a black jack table and a vodka collins. The long and short of it was that Mr. Sudlin had fallen way behind on his loan when Mr. Scalari, resourceful gentleman that he was, knew that the guy had money stashed away somewhere. Scalari had politely asked for payment once, then twice. Sudlin blew him off. Well three times may be a lady, but it sure ain’t Scalari’s magic number. If someone blew off Scalari after two warnings, that was one too many, and he was, how shall we say, fucked.

Amazing the tactics people will use to try to get out of telling you something. One of the most common is to tell you all kinds of stuff not related to what you’re getting tortured for. I mean, let’s face it, anything to stop a guy from taking a cheese grater to your nipples (and yeah, they had done that), anything to stop the show and get your captors to listen for a second.

Well one of the gems Eddie Sudlin had spilled was his alias and cover identity as a retired lumberjack in Idaho who was supposedly living off of a disability pension. He’d even gone as far as to set up a pension fund under the fake name as a shelter for money. The only hitch was it was a steady income stream over time, and boss Scalari wanted his cash now. Right now.

So eventually, this guy had dished the goods they were looking for: a safe in his Seattle condominium, the opening to which was behind a fake section of bricks in the fireplace. After Scalari’s men had checked the safe and found over $40,000 worth of diamonds and rare coins, the boss gave the order to kill the guy. Which was great for Dark, because he had enough information to go take over this guy’s other identity in Idaho. A few fake identification documents and he was on his way. He even intercepted the guy’s pension payments.

He wouldn’t have even risked using the Sudlin cover had it not worked so good for him during heated times in the past. He’d had plenty of covers that seemed good as gold fuck him over. But Sudlin had set this thing up perfect.

So he traveled as Mark Jensen, retired lumberjack, off for some Hawaiian rays and maybe a luau or two. The decision had come to him immediately upon waking up that morning, after a long and deserved ten hours of sack time. He could feel the heat coming in, still a few days away, but someone was on his ass, he knew it. He rented a car under another, more disposable fake alias, and drove to Butte, which was a few hundred miles away from Flathead. Bigger airport to get lost in and maybe it would throw off his pursuers if they tracked him down to the cabin he’d been staying in. He didn’t know how anyone could, but he had found people pretty well hidden, now hadn’t he. Oh yeah and they had come to know old nelly in the belly yes indeedy. Dark knew what would happen to him if whoever was after him caught up. Being the bad guy, although it may keep you up nights, (less every year he was in the business) sure did have its professional insights.

After a six-hour flight, the captain ordered the flight attendants to secure themselves, and the plane came in for a landing. Dark waited for his luggage and stepped outside to flag down a cab. Within minutes a green and white cab came to a stop in front of him. He threw his bags in the back seat and got in.

“Where to?” the driver said. He was a dark fellow with a sizeable belly and a friendly smile, probably Hawaiian/Filipino.

“Waikiki. The Sheraton, I guess.”

“Well, there’s three Sheratons, brudda. You care which one?”

“As long as they put a mint on the pillow I’m golden, pal.”

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