Freddy’s face grew beet red. He had two men here to conduct business. The last thing he needed was to look weak before negotiating, or heaven forbid, have the buyer disrespected.
If Freddy was mad, Gideon was livid. Even in his drug-addled state, he tolerated no insults. Temperamental and unpredictable, he’d killed men for lesser slights. He had no tolerance for women. He saw them only as things, possessions to use and manipulate, either for personal pleasure or as a business asset. He sure didn’t take any guff from one, especially from a skanky-ass, ‘beam-sniffing ho.
“Wives, submit to your husbands!” he roared. “Ephesians 5:24. That means ya jest need to be seen and not heard!”
“I ain’t nobody’s wife. And don’t come up in here slinging your Bible verses around like you’re something better than us, ya old fart!” she dismissed him without even raising her voice or looking up from her show. Wanda had lived a hard life. As they say in the South, she’d been “rode hard and put up wet.” She’d been abused, beaten, had overdosed twice and miscarried once. She’d been cheated on and lied to by men since the first time she gave it up in the back seat of her prom date’s hover. Nothing about them surprised her much anymore, and she had little patience for their childish games or their bullshit antics. She was a survivor. There wasn’t much in this shitty world that intimidated her. And a one-eared old fart sure wasn’t one of them.
“Why, you little diseased cunt!” He was so mad his face turned blood red. His wound throbbed so ferociously it felt as if the side of his head would explode at any second. Without thinking, he started toward the insolent female.
He froze as Rommel suddenly sprang to life, leaping across the coffee table to stand between Wanda and the threat he now perceived the stranger to be. Barking fiercely, he stood in an attack stance, and from a back bedroom, another racket started up.
“Raus du bastard!”
But, even over the barking dog and the vulgar parrot, he could not mistake the distinct sound of a laser powering up behind him. “Whoa there, you old coot!”
He turned very slowly to find Freddy pointing a very nasty-looking Krueger Tesla Series Vengeance Model Three at his chest. With exterior plumbing and a retro-chic ray gun look, this chrome and brass-trimmed beauty resembled something out of an old twentieth-century Buck Rogers comic. It was sexy. That is until you were looking down the business end of it. Behind him, he heard another weapon charging up. It seemed Wanda kept herself a gun in the hole as well. As usual, Junior watched it all, wide-eyed and at a loss as to what to do.
Therefore, he did nothing.
Except, deep down, just for a second, a strange thought flashed through the son’s mind. Shoot! Shoot, damnit! Put him outta my misery!
Gideon sighed. “Damn, I’m getting tired of looking down the barrel of a South African gun. If I’m a gonna get kilt, I wish someone would have the decency to do so with an American-made piece.”
Freddy sneered. “Hell, those Boers make the best shit. They’re the next best thing to a German, y’know. How do ya think they stayed in power all those years of white minority rule?” He tapped his temple. “Ingenuity and badass weapons!”
Gideon gave him a look of scorn. “Sorry, I failed ‘The History of Master Races’ back in high school.”
“Well, lemme edge-ee-cate ya on this: Wanda there might not be all sugar and spice.” Freddy held the pistol gangsta style, the flat of the wrist horizontal. The barrel wagged up and down as he made points of emphasis. The wild-eyed look on his face left no doubt in either Tuttle’s mind that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the Gideon right where he stood. “But she lives here ... you don’t. And if anybody’s gonna straighten her out, that’s gonna be me, not you. Are we clear on that?”
“Brenn in der Holle!”
Gideon turned to look at Junior, his eyes unreadable, then back to Freddy. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “Sure, we’re clear!” He gave a hollow smile. “Like you said, you’re the one saddled with the bitch.” Freddy’s face darkened, and it looked as if he might shoot anyway, but Gideon continued before he could. “So, are we gonna do business, or do we need to find another dealer?”
This comment seemed to catch Freddy off guard. He visibly shook himself as if trying to awaken from a deep sleep. It was as if he’d completely forgotten the reason the Tuttles were there in the first place. “You serious?” he asked. He looked to Junior as though to say: Unbelievable!
“We don’t have a lotta time.” Gideon fished a stack of cash cards out of his pocket that Ollie had given him before they’d left the ZiP stockade. “We need firepower, and we need it now.” He turned back to the still barking dog, “Can you please do something about that? I have a head injury y’know.”
“Rommel! Down boy! Hush!” The dog immediately ceased and sat back on its haunches. Freddy eyed the cards. “Yeah, I think we might can do business after all.” He deactivated the Tesla and turned the barrel up toward the roof. “That is, if you can do business without disrespectin’ me and mine.”
Gideon tossed the cards onto the kitchen table. “This enough respect for ya?”
Freddy put the gun down and picked up the cards. Pulling the rubber band off, he fanned them out like a poker hand, reading the denominations. He let out a soft whistle, “I think that’s definitely a start.”
“Good! Let’s get on with this.”
“Saugen meinen schwanz!”
“So … what are ya needin?”
“I need everything,” Gideon replied. “If I have to fight a small army … shoot it out with some ZiPs … knock down a spaceship
