The girl’s half-moon-shaped eyes were just wide enough to give her a look of constant surprise. Her stream of stupid questions did little to change my impression of her as both pretty and pretty stupid.
Back in the Marines, we called girls like her “scrub.” You enjoyed them for a night or two and moved on. This girl’s vacation would end in two days. By that time I’d be glad to see her go. For that face, though, I could put up with dumb questions and conversations about movie stars for a couple of days.
“I’m not a normal clone,” I said. “I’m a Liberator. Liberator clones don’t have the death reflex.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Aren’t Liberators supposed to be dangerous?”
“I make my living beating the shit out of people in an Iron Man competition,” I said. “I guess that makes me dangerous.”
“But you wouldn’t hurt me,” she said, pulling herself closer to me so that our bodies touched. She wore an ice blue bikini top and a green wrap around her tiny waist. I could feel the warmth of her body. Oh yes, I could definitely put up with stupid questions and conversations about movie stars.
We were sitting in a booth in a beachside diner. It had two benches, but she opted to cram in next to me. I noticed that a lot of girls did things like that. Maybe it made them feel like they meant something to me, like they were more than a hobby.
“Nope,” I said, “I would never hurt you.”
She smiled. She practically purred. If someone had told me she was still in high school, I would have believed it; but she claimed she was twenty-one years old. She may have actually been eighteen or nineteen. Two years younger than me …four years younger than me, it didn’t really matter. Leanne or Katerina, whatever her name was, she was old enough to take care of herself.
“Maybe Ava’s a Liberator,” the girl said.
“She can’t be a Liberator,” I said. “All Liberators are male.”
“Then how do you reproduce?” the girl asked, shock showing on her face.
She better be good, I thought to myself. “We’re clones. We don’t reproduce; the Department of Defense manufactures us. That’s why they call us synthetics.”
Now disappointment showed on her face.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “All the machinery works.” Until that moment, I had not stopped to think that she might see me as disposable, too.
She smiled and moved in so close that she practically sat on my lap. The idea of mating with something not quite human seemed to have aroused her curiosity.
I looked at my watch. It was almost 1900. I didn’t need to be at the Palace until 2030, and work didn’t really start till nearly 2100. Time enough, I told myself as I suggested we swing by my apartment. Time enough.
Sad Sam’s Palace …
The Palace was an old auditorium at the edge of town, a few miles west of the Waikiki tourist district and one mile inland from the harbor. It was a three-story cement-and-plaster castle surrounded by auto-repair shops, warehouses, and bars. Its light-studded marquee stood out like fireworks among the dark alleys that populated the seedier side of Honolulu.
We rolled into the parking lot at 2030. The sun had long since gone down, leaving the sky black with veins of gray clouds. The Palace’s brightly lit silhouette cut an ostentatious figure against the sky. A huge marquee with flashing bulbs spelling the name “SAD SAM’S PALACE” flickered above the facade.
“That’s Sad Sam’s Palace?” the girl asked, as we drove toward the side gate. She seemed more confident around me now that we’d run by my pad; perhaps she thought she had impressed me.
“That’s it,” I said.
“Does it ever scare you, you know, fighting for a living?” she asked. “Are you ever afraid that you’ll get hurt?”
The “are you afraid” question …It almost made me miss conversations about Ava Gardner. “No,” I said. “I don’t worry about it much.”
“You must be really good,” she said.
“Either that, or I just like getting the shit kicked out of me,” I muttered quietly enough that she would not hear me.
“Harris,” the guard said as we rolled into the lot. “Big crowd tonight. You better give ’em a show.”
“That’s the plan,” I said as I drifted past. I parked and climbed out of the car. My date sat quietly, waiting for me to open her door for her, but I was already in fighter mode and opening a door for my date was the last thing on my mind. Seeing me headed to the back door of the Palace without so much as a backward glance, she opened the door for herself and caught up to me. She might not have been brilliant, but the girl was bright enough not to complain.
I didn’t have time to think about her now. I had other things on my mind.
We went into an alley leading behind the Palace. The place was dirty, with an overflowing Dumpster surrounded by a wall of garbage bags. The overly sweet smells of stale beer and old food filled the air. The alley must have made my date nervous; she stayed close to me as I knocked on the pea green metal door.
“Harris,” the guard said as he made room for me to step in.
“How’s the competition look?” I asked.
“Not as good as the company you’re keeping,” the guard said. He stared at my date and made no attempt to camouflage his interest. His fascination with my girl irritated me.
“Do I have anything to worry about?” I asked.
“You’ve seen this guy before. His name’s Monty.” The guard said this while staring at Leanne or Katerina. Whatever her name was, he was still watching her, and she didn’t seem to mind the attention.
“Big guy?” I asked.
“Short. Five-eight, maybe five-ten. You trashed him bad last time. He’s still missing his front teeth.” The guard—I could not remember his name—was missing a few teeth of his own. I might not have been the one who extracted those teeth, but I had little doubt that he’d lost them fighting in Sad Sam’s ring.
“Thanks,” I said, and turned toward the locker room.
“I don’t think I like this place,” my date said.
“You don’t think you like it here?” I asked. “Give it a little time. You’ll know you don’t like it.”
“You don’t think I’ll like the fights?”
“Some girls like them, and some girls don’t,” I said.
The hall was long and dark with cinder-block walls and a cement floor. The Palace’s auditorium was alive with bright lights, loud fans, and beer. In the tunnels and locker rooms, the atmosphere was somber, dim, and quiet. A metal bucket sat in a corner, a mop growing out of the dirty water it held. The air was humid and smelled of sweat. Somewhere not too far away, a couple of security guards, janitors, or possibly fighters were telling dirty jokes. I heard the punch line—“I told her, ‘Speck you later!’ ”—followed by roaring laughter.
I led my date to a doorway where one of the floor waitresses stood. “Can you get her a good seat for the fight?” I asked.
The waitress gave my date a quick once-over, then said in a bored voice, “So you’re the girl of the week. Pleased to meet you.”
“I can’t come with you?” Leanne—by this time I was pretty sure her name was Leanne—pleaded. She gave me a desperate look with those beautiful brown eyes.
“That’s probably not a good idea. I’m headed to the men’s locker room.” I patted her hand and continued on my way. They almost never gave me a locker room to myself, and bloodied fighters were a common sight. Leanne might be all right watching the fight, but she didn’t want to see the aftermath. She would have a good table near the ring, and the waitresses would warn away any guys stupid enough to approach her.