Brownshirt stops at the restroom, and opens the door, not seeing me behind him. Things slow down as he spots the discarded shirt, he starts to turn, and I’m there, dagger point-down, my left hand sliding from behind to get a big handful of his right lapel, jerking it across his throat, cutting off his air. I hook the edge of my knife into the bend of his elbow, and rip back, severing arteries, tendons, pulling his suddenly-numb hand away from the grip of his pistol. As the knife comes free, I ice-pick into his subclavian artery, and shove the knife to lever him counter-clockwise, pulling firmly with his lapel in my left hand. The pivot slams us into the wall inside the restroom, and away from prying eyes. I jerk the blade free, hammer it into his lung, out, into the armpit for the axillary artery, out, and down into the femoral artery in his right leg, ripping out so hard I lift the dying man off the floor, and we fall sideways against the commode..
In less time than it takes for two slow breaths, I’m kneeling on a dead man, the old familiar stink filling the air. I reach back and push the door shut, turn the lock, take four deep breaths, stand-up — ow — and use my Hawaiian shirt and the sink to clear as much blood off of me as possible. A quick check of the mirror shows no blood, I drop my shirt on the dead guy’s face, I slip out in my black t-shirt, using a coin to spin the lock on the restroom from the outside. Hopefully my little murder won’t be found until the next time they clean the train car.
Two cars later, I take a seat. Four deep slow breaths, in through the nose, hold, out through the mouth, hold; and the adrenaline shakes start to level off. Once I’m in a state that I’m not liable to send Mrs Fred shrieking for the rafters, I move up to the car the family is in, and sit where they can see me. When the train pulls into Modesto, Mrs Fred gets off, holding the son. Fred and I move up a car, and get off on the same side, Fred holding the girl’s left hand, me holding her right. We step off, I paste a smile on my face, and swing the little girl back-and- forth playfully, just another Inclusive Modern Couple with their kid.
I left a rental panel van in the far parking lot — where the cameras probably weren’t well maintained — Fred lifting the daughter into the back, and we pull around to curbside pickup, where Mrs Fred puts the son in, then climbs into the front passenger seat.
We pull away from the train station, up onto Highway 108 towards Free America — excuse me, Nevada — and I set the cruise control at two miles an hour over the speed limit. Three hours later, we pull over at the 108/395 turn, I slip out, and open the back door. Inside the van is full of cases of bottled water. A very foo-foo bottled water, famous for foo-foo-ery in years past. Fred and I lift out the first four layers, revealing a padded cubicle with just enough space for a small family of four, they crawl in, and I replace the cases, bruises from my earlier dance with the Brownshirt screaming at me.
I get back behind the driver’s seat, make sure the air conditioner is on full, blowing through a hose to the hidden spot, and head towards Topaz Lake, Nevada; this time with the speedo at five miles under the speed limit.
Half of a sweaty hour later, and I come into view of the Cali Customs Station just this side of the Cali/Nevada state line. There’s nothing to show that anything’s up. The concrete barriers to force you to slow down and zig-zag aren’t blocked, the machine-gun muzzle in the guard tower is pointed skyward, and no-one comes out of the Customs shack for a moment as I come to a stop beside the mounted camera.
A moment, and the usual agent steps out of the shack. A rotund little guy, I always wonder what he did to wind up stuck out in the Great Back of Beyond, but my mama always told me not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Well, well, well. Mr Waterman! Starting to think your luck ran out and the Fascists caught you!”
I summon a grin, and hold my travel papers out the window. “Ah! You know, wife’s mother got sick, had to go down south.”
“Down south. You lucky fucker. How is civilization?”
“Not bad. Hot, though.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. So, let’s see it.”
Behind him, the shack door opens again, and an unknown figure steps out. My heart sinks. I don’t know this guy, but he has the stiff, pinched face, and fervent mien that usually belongs on the face of guys you see on the evening news after being caught with a basement full of young women and needles. I touch the butt of the pistol mounted under the dashboard for reassurance, but unless I’m very, very lucky, any dance started here will be ended by that machine-gun in the watch tower. I take a deep breath.
My Customs buddy turns, “Hey! This is the guy I told you about! The water-seller!”
Unknown guy steps up, regarding me with the sort of expression usually employed by scientists looking a particularly fertile petri dish. Crap. His voice is the dry rasp you would expect, “So. You expect me to believe you smuggle water to the Fascists?”
Behind him, Usual Guy smiles like there’s a good joke in the offing. That creepy feeling is thundering up my spine with all the delicate grace of a rhino in combat boots.
“Yeah! Come on, come on! Let’s see it!”
Moving slowly, I slide out of the driver’s seat, praying that no kids start screaming, and stroll to the back of the van. “So, are you the new Supervisor here?”
He looks at me, but doesn’t say anything.
I open the backdoor, and the regular guy beams like he’s won the Christmas Lottery, “See? Water!”
New guy look at me, “Water?”
I try to look a little abashed, “The Fascists love Cali water. They’ll pay five dollars a bottle for genuine Cali water.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. I wave paperwork at him, “I’ve got manifests, and a contract. I pay half of the profit in tariffs. Right here, actually, I pay the tariffs.” I try to look vaguely honest, with a touch of larceny.
Usual Guy grins, and smacks the spare tire housing on the right side of the inside of the van. A circular panel falls, off, revealing a distinct lack of a spare tire. Probably because of the rather large amount of oregano, stacked in neat bricks inside the compartment. “Ah!” says Usual Customs Guy, in the tone one would use at the height of a magic trick, reaches in, and grabs a roughly-wrapped partial bag.
We do this every time. One of these days, he’s going to grab the wrong bundle, and find out that the partial bundle of dispenseria-supplied mota is the only non-oregano bundle in there, but all Customs people think everyone’s dirty anyway, best to let him find some dope every now and then.
I look mildly offended, “I’ve got a ‘scrip for that…”
New Guy fixes me with a gimlet eye. “Citizen, that’s a bit more than ‘personal use’. A lot more.”
I look a bit discomfited. It’s not hard just right now.
“But I really don’t give a damn about what you sell to the Fascists. What I am concerned about is your obvious felony.”
I blink at him.
He points to a corner of a magazine sticking out from the top of the pile of oregano bundles. “Objectifying women is a penal offense in California.”
I look at the Playboy magazine. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Usual Guard slipping the four ounces of pot into the pocket of his jacket. Out here in the boonies, the closest dispenseria is hours away, and the poor little dears out here are sorrowfully deprived.
Other guy, though…
“So. I’m going to seize this unlawful pornography. Unless you have a problem…?”
“No, sir, I surely don’t.”
“All right, Citizen. On your way. Be sure to check in on your way back. And I expect an honest accounting for the tariff.”