Partners
by
Leslie R. Lee
Copyright Leslie R. Lee 1995
First sold to Crimson magazine, 1995?
“What about them?” Humm-D asked, pointing at a couple driving by in a foreign car. Through his dirty windshield, Rex graced them with weary disdain.
“Nah,” he said, choking down more beer. He was too hot. Even with the sun down hours ago and the air conditioner whining its usual tune of futility, it was still way too hot. “Let’s just go home.”
Humm-D shook his bald white head, whipping sweat around the interior of the beatup old Mustang. He turned up the volume on the radio. It wasn’t tuned to any station. Just static. Rex hated that, but didn’t say anything. Humm-D loved static. Said he could hear the special voices in the white noise. At home, he’d stare at an old black and white TV that pulled in static on every turn of the knob. A knob! When was the last time a television came with a knob, for chrissake? But Humm-D would sit there for hours, transfixed, giggling and hooting and slapping his fat knees. Rex sighed.
“There! ” Humm-D said, pointing a pudgy finger. “Those ones.”
Rex scanned them. A couple. Groggy from a plane ride. In a rental car. Staring at a map. Perfect.
Rex shifted the car into drive.
“No, wait,” said Humm-D. “That one.”
A man. Alone. Walking. Here? At night? This was just too good.
“Okay,” nodded Rex. “This one.”
They waited for the man to continue down the wide, well lit boulevard. A tourist, a foreign tourist, maybe thinking he was in Sweden, or some other damn African country, where he could stroll around at midnight as if he owned the whole damned place. This stroll was taking him down a side street. A dark side street that had to be deserted. Just had to be.
Rex lurched the car forward.
“Wait,” said Humm-D. He was staring intently at the radio. “You sure?”
Rex drove to the street where the man had turned down.
“Let’s go back for that couple,” Humm-D said.
“What? Are you nuts? They’re gone, man. This one’s right here.”
“They don’t like it, Rex. Let’s wait for someone else”
Rex rolled his eyes. “Let’s just do this one and get our asses on home.”
“You sure, Rex?” He pulled out the sawed off shot gun. “I don’t think I like it. And neither do they.”
“Listen, Humm-D. I drive up. You blast him, okay?”
Humm-D nodded, reluctantly.
The street was dark, bordered by an uncaring wall on one side, and a parking garage on the other. Rex pulled Nina out and gave her a quick kiss right on the muzzle, letting his tongue probe down the barrel as far as he could. He breathed in the heady smell of the metal and caressed her butt. His body tingled from Nina’s touch, up through his eyebrows, right down to his toes, and all the important points in between. He gave Nina one last quick kiss and tucked her between his thighs.
He watched Humm-D take last minute instructions from the static filled radio. Humm-D was just too weird. The car slowly followed the stranger. Suddenly, he mashed the accelerator pedal, then slammed on the brake.
The car squealed to a halt right next to the man. Humm-D flung his door open. Rex braced himself for the roar of the shotgun.
“Money!” Humm-D snarled, shoving the gun at the stranger.
Rex didn’t know whether to be more surprised by the lack of noise or by the stranger. He just kept walking. Humm-D spat out a curse and heaved his six foot four inch frame out of the car.
“Just shoot him!” Rex shouted, grabbing Nina. The Mustang lurched suddenly and died.
Instead, Humm-D spun the stranger around by the shoulder and in one vicious motion smashed the stock against the man’s face.
Time slowed to a crystal clarity. The man’s head flew off his neck. The hands sprung upwards as if to catch it but couldn’t. The body spun around in confusion then just slowly collapsed.
“Oops,” said Humm-D.
Rex didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Oops? Humm-D had just knocked some guy’s head clean off its body and all he could say was “oops”? He wanted to run. No. Drive. Drive as fast and as far as he could, if he could just get the damned engine to turn over.
“They told me not to hurt him,” Humm-D said plaintively. “But I didn’t hit him that hard, did I?”
Rex just shook his head, trying to wrestle the wreck back into life while juggling Nina at the same time. She’d jumped into his hand without hardly being asked like the good girl she was. Humm-D took a step towards the body.
“No!” Rex yelled. “Leave him!”
“What about the money?” He took another step.
“Forget it! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Humm-D looked longingly at the jacket, shrugged, and turned.
The body sat up.
Nina barked out a shot wildly, almost tearing out of Rex’s hand. The bullet smashed the car’s radio.
Humm-D was no slug though. Drugs might have scrambled his sanity, but not his reflexes. He pirouetted, and the shotgun flashed up with speed uninhibited by conscience. He was too late. The body knocked the gun aside and grabbed Humm-D by the neck.
Rex felt Nina wanting to take care of the stranger. Trouble was, Nina would take care of anybody in the vicinity, including Humm-D. He stumbled out of the car and headed towards the melee. Humm-D was desperately struggling with the hands around his neck. He took a swing at where the head should have been and hit only air. Rex would have laughed if the wild swing hadn’t clipped him on the cheek. He gave Humm-D a swift kick in the ribs. Later, he’d tell him it was an accident.
Except it looked like there wasn’t much “later” left for Humm-D. Maybe thirty seconds. Rex grabbed the shotgun, swung it high, and smashed it down on the arms. The body staggered backwards. Minus the hands. It waved its arms around in the air before sitting back down. A small corner of Rex’s mind wondered where all the blood was. There should have been geysers spewing red all over the place.
Humm-D grabbed one of the hands and twisted it off his neck. Fingers fell to the ground and wriggled like worms. The other hand just let go, clutching at emptiness on the asphalt. He collapsed, gulping in air.
Rex gave the disembodied hands a wide berth. “You okay, man?” he asked trying to lift the big man up.
Humm-D tried to reply but just choked and gagged.
“Come on, come on , come on. Man, we gotta get outta here.”
“Don’t leave me!”
Rex spun around. “Who said that?”
“Help me! Please!”
It was the head. The head was talking. “You can’t leave me,” it wailed. “Not like this.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rex snarled at it. “Just watch me.”
“Wait! I can help you. Show you stuff. Imagine. All things you can do.”
“Yeah, right. Like fall the fuck apart. Come on, Humm-D, let’s go.”
But Humm-D was watching the head. And listening, cocking his head like he was listening to the static on the radio.
“Think,” the head implored. “Breaking in. Easy. Just send hands. Escape police. Simple. Nothing stops you.”
Humm-D nodded eagerly.
“Hey, if it’s so great,” Rex sneered, “how come you need our help?”
“Don’t. But if police come, complications. Watch.”
One of the hands was making it’s way towards the body. But too often, it would stray, going around in circles, then stopping, exhausted. The body tried to help by crawling close but it seemed to zig when it was supposed to zag.
The head looked exhausted as well. “Too many pieces. Could have handled just the head. Too long to reattach everything.”
“What the hell are you?” Rex asked.
“A man. Just a man. A man with special powers. Powers he’s willing to share.”
“Forget it. It’s too damned weird.”
Humm-D though was crawling over to the head.
“Leave it, man. Let’s go.”
Humm-D shook his head and picked the head up by the hair.
“Ouch, watch it will you?”
He took it over to where Rex stood. “Throw it away, throw it away,” he said cringing.
Humm-D tried to say something again but nothing came out. He pointed to his ear though.
“Good,” the head said. “Man of reason. I’ll tell you... how to separate your hand... and you help me... put myself together. We’ll call it even.”
Humm-D pantomimed the act of pulling his head off his own neck.
The head chuckled. “Oh no. Too dangerous. You don’t want that.”
Humm-D dropped the head on it’s face. The man howled in pain and anger. The body and hands quivered and went in opposite directions. Humm-D picked the head up again.
“You fool. Not something to play with. Truth, I tell you. Truth”
Humm-D punched the face in the nose. Rex grinned. This, he knew something about. He grabbed the head and smashed it into the Mustang, then dropped it.
“Now let’s go,” he said.
Humm-D shook his head again, and retrieved the head.
The thing was making noises like it was about to die.
“Not easy,” it managed to say. “Don’t you see? Got to keep together. A hand, easy. But all of you? I was nuts. Learned it all. Should’ve stayed with them.”
“Who?” asked Rex.
“The Tibetans. Should’ve stayed with them. Had to leave. Come home. Just to say good bye. To old friends. One of them, killed.” The head looked Rex in the eye. “As a matter of fact, it occurred just recently, in a drive-by robbery somewhere in this same area.”
“Too bad.” Anybody with any smarts knew that this territory was owned by him and Humm-D. “We’re leaving now.”
Humm-D stepped away from the car, pointing to the head. He squatted on the wall squeezing the thing.
“Alright!” the head yowled, as it realized that Humm-D was going to pulverize it. “I warned you. Remember that.”
Humm-D held the head up to his ear. The man whispered.
Rex shuddered in the sudden quiet, glad he couldn’t hear what was said.
“There. Now me. Put back together.”
Humm-D smiled, jumped off the wall, and walked over to the body that was twitching with excitement. One hand had finally reattached itself. He dropped the head into the lap, flipped the shot gun into his hands, and blew five ragged and bloody holes into the man’s face and body. There was no more twitching.
Rex cackled. “Good bye.”
He watched Humm-D’s hand crawl along the kitchen table and reattach itself to the arm.
“What’s it feel like?” he asked.
“It doesn’t feel like much of anything,” Humm-D shrugged, his voice was still hoarse. “It’s just like reaching for a glass of water. You just do it.”
Rex couldn’t help babbling throughout the wild ride home. All the things they could do now. How easy breaking in was going to be. How things were going to be great. Different. Wonderful. Weird. The weirdest thing, though was the television. Humm-D hadn’t immediately turned it on when they came home. He couldn’t listen to the static on the radio. It was dead. But he could’ve turned on the tube. Instead, he just sat quietly, releasing a finger or an ear or something. Usually, it would just sit there. The hands could get around by themselves though. Rex shrugged. If Humm-D wanted to be quiet, it’d be alright with him.