Edward Lee - Operator B

Operator B

Edward Lee

Bedlam Press

An Imprint of NecroPublications

Orlando

2010

Smashwords Edition

Also available in a signed trade paperback edition.

ISBN: 1-889186-49-X

Operator B 1999 by Edward Lee

Cover Art 2006 Travis Anthony Soumis

this digital edition June 2010 Bedlam Press

For Doug Clegg

PROLOGUE

Dad? Mom?

Stu and Sarah Billings simultaneously leaned up in bed; Sarah dragged the sheets up over her bosom, flicked on the lamp. Hows that for timing? Stu thought, flushed in embarrassment. Hed been out of town on business for two weeks, and this was the first time since then that he and Sarah had a chance to

In the bedroom doorway stood their thirteen-year-old daughter, Melissa, tall and slim in her flannel nightgown. She was rubbing sleep from her eyes but also quivering.

Honey, whats wrong? her mother asked.

You have a bad dream? Stu guessed.

Their daughter just stood there for a few more seconds. When she lowered her fists from her eyes, it was obvious shed been crying.

I-I woke up, she peeped, and

What, honey? Sarah asked.

There was a man looking in my window.

Stu got up, hauled on his robe, then guided Melissa to the bed. You stay here with your mother, honey. Ill go check it out.

But, Stu, Sarah fretted, shouldnt we call the police?

Stu considered this, then tossed a shoulder. Naw, its probably just one of those kids from down the road. Theyre always cutting through our yard at night to drink beer behind the fence.

Melissa sat next to her mother on the bed. But, Dad, this wasnt a kid. It was a man. He was bald.

A lot of those punks shave their heads, honey. Its this Goth thing. Just stay here with Mom, and Ill be right back, Stu assured. I promise.

Sarah hugged Melissa. Your fathers right, sweetheart. Everything will be all right

Yeah, Stu thought. When neither Sarah nor Melissa were looking, he quickly slipped the Smith & Wesson revolver out of the dresser and stuck it under his robe.

First, to Melissas room. He peered out the window, saw nothing outside but the night. Yeah, its probably those pinhead punks. They drop out of school, shave their heads and put all these metal studs and rivets in their facesand throw their empty beer cans in my yard.

Of course, Melissa had probably just had a dream; shed dreamed of the face in the window. The counselor at school had told Sarah and him it was typical.

Melissa had been only three years old when her father had been killed in a plane crash; her mother killed herself a year later. Thats when Stu and Sarah had adopted herimmotile sperm had prevented them from having a child themselves. It didnt matter to Stu, nor to Sarah. They wanted a child and they got one.

And after ten years, neither of them even gave it thought that Melissa was adopted.

She was a model child. Intelligent, courteous, perseverant. A straight-A student at Sligo Junior High.

But she was shy, too. Pensive. Too often, she seemed bottled up, uncomfortable about revealing her feelings. The counselor had told them that even though she didnt consciously remember her early childhood and biological parents, there would indeed be some subconscious shadows. Ghosts of things that werent right, that werent the way they were supposed to be. Melissa felt haunted but by what she didnt know.

Father dead, mother dead. Her whole world turned inside-out, Stu considered.

Didnt matter that shed only been three. Of course thats gonna have an impact on a kid, whatever the age.

Stu walked down the long hall to the living room, then turned toward the kitchen and laundry room. This was the first time he regretted buying a one-level rancher. Thats just great, Ive got these bald-headed Goth kids looking into my daughters window. Christ

No one could be in the house; the ABC alarm wouldve gone off. In the laundry room, he stepped into his floppy yard boots, which he donned every Saturday to mow the grass. He turned off the alarm on the console by the door.

Then he went outside.

It was warm. Crickets trilled, making the air thrum. The darkness looked infinite. Goth kids, huh? he thought. They think its funny to scare my kid?

He pulled out the Smith revolver, a .44.

Well see who scares who.

He backtracked the opposite direction. If there really was a peeping tom, this would be his probable direction of escape. Stus unlaced, booted feet took him around the back yard, across the patio, and then along the west side of the house.

He honestly expected to find nothing. What he found instead

Oh, shit!

was a tall, bald-headed man standing beside the azalea bushes.

Calm down, the man said in the softest tone.

The fuck! Stu yelled, and all at once the sensation shocked him: snakes churning in his stomach. He jammed the gun forward. You were staring into my daughters window!

Yes, I was, the man said.

Youre a goddamn pervert! You get off looking at kids!

Its not that at all, nothing like that at all, the bald man said.

Oh, it isnt?

A stare-down in the warm noisy night. Mosquitoes buzzed about Stus head. He pointed the revolver out straight, its sights lined directly onto the bald mans night-shadowed face.

Let me give you some sound advise, the man offered. His voice flowed like some smooth liquid. Never point a deadly weapon at someone you arent fully prepared to kill.

The man held his hands half-up. Stu was sweating but maintaining his bead.

Then

swish

The mans hands moved in a blur, snapped the revolver out of Stus grasp.

Fuck, Stu thought.

Its nothing like you think, the man said.

Ive got money, Ive got two cars, credit cards, some jewelry, Stu said. Ill give you whatever you want.

To spare your life?

No, to spare my daughter and my wife.

The man wasnt pointing the gun back at Stu, he was just holding it. And if I say thats not good enough?

Fuck, Stu thought again. Then Illfight you.

Oh, a tough guy, huh?

Im no tough guy, Stu said. Christ, you just took a gun out of my hands in less time than it takes me to blink. But lets be real. Ill give you everything I have to leave my family alone. But the only way youre walking into my house is over my dead body. He didnt know where these words were coming from. In his terror he could barely think, and he was so scared hed already pissed himself. You got the gun. But if you miss, Ill gouge your eyes out, Ill bite your face off. Ill do anything to defend my family.

Right answer, the man said. Relax. Civilians dont handle stress very well. He handed the big pistol back to Stu.

What the

My name is Willard Farrington, the man said.

Wait a minute, Stu thought. Farringt

Thats right, the man added. Im Melissas real father. Thats the reason I was looking in her window. I just wanted to see her.

But

Theres no time for that, the man said. No time for explanations. He passed Stu a pale-blue piece of paper. Thats a routing number and an account index. Ive deposited $500,000 in a trust for Melissa. You cant ever touch it. She cant touch it until shes eighteen. I can only hope that, as her father, youll guide her to do the right thing with it. Its for her future, college, things like that.

Stu stared at the sheet. Her father, he thought. They said you were killed in a

Theres no time for that, the man repeated. Then he looked at his watch. Theyre on their way. I cant be here when they arrive. Then the man tossed Stu what looked to be a shoebox. This is for you and your wife, to help out. Dont be assholes with it. Take care of Melissa.