“Sure,” I said.
“Dress down; I need you to take me into Morrowtown.”
As we climbed into the truck, I said, “We’ll save a couple of hours if we go in your flier.”
Freeman glared down at me, and said, “We’ll take the truck.”
“Is there a reason I am wearing civilian clothes?”
“Yes,” Freeman said, and he did not speak again for the entire two-hour trip. I tried to distract myself with memories of boot camp, but you cannot ignore a man whose very presence radiates intensity. I could feel him sitting beside me. I suppose he chose the truck to avoid calling attention to himself; but there was no way this black-skinned giant was going to slip into Morrowtown unnoticed. Just thinking about Freeman trying to be inconspicuous made the long ride pass more quickly.
The townspeople may have grown accustomed to Marines, but the sight of Freeman sent them running. People hurried out of our way as we walked through the streets. When we got to the gambling house, we found it locked tight. “Do you think anyone is in there?” Freeman asked.
It was late in the afternoon, but Guttman usually played well into the evening. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Good enough for me,” Freeman replied. He drew an oversized particle-beam pistol from his belt and aimed it at the door. Without warning, he fired a sparkling green beam at the door, which disappeared behind a cloud of smoke and sparks. Then, lifting a massive boot, he kicked the smoldering remains out of the doorway.
“We could have knocked,” I said.
Freeman did not answer as he disappeared into the smoke.
Kline had struck me as somewhat timid the first time I saw him. On this occasion, he went from timid to terrified. As I stepped through the doorway, I saw him standing beside the liquor bar inside the foyer, the same place he had been standing the time I came with Guttman.
Looking both scared and surprised, Kline stared unblinkingly at the remains of the door, then raised his hands in the air to show that he held no weapons. His gaze shifted in our direction, and he said, “May I help you?”
Freeman walked over to Kline and placed the photograph of Crowley on the bar. “We’re looking for this man.”
Kline looked down at the photograph and studied it for a minute. “He came in a month ago. That was the only time I ever saw him.”
“What do you remember about him?” Freeman asked.
“He played a few hands and left; that’s all I know,” Kline said, trying to sound casual.
“Maybe this will jog your memory,” Freeman said, pulling out his pistol and pressing its muzzle into the fleshy area between Kline’s eyes.
Kline’s eyes crossed as they looked up the barrel, but he remained composed. “I think he came here looking for soldiers. He asked me if any of the Marines from the base were coming and offered me $100 to let him join the game.” Kline’s voice trembled, but only slightly. Considering the size of the pistol pressed against his head and the damage that pistol had done to his door, I thought Kline remained amazingly calm.
“Anything else?” Freeman asked.
“That’s everything,” Kline said.
Never shifting his gaze from Kline’s face, Freeman placed his pistol on the bar. He did so very gently, taking great care not to scratch the finish. Then he reached into a pocket below his chestplate. After fishing around for a moment, he removed a small silver tube.
“Your name is Kline, is that right?”
“Yes,” Kline said, staring at the tube.
“Do you know how to kill ants, Mr. Kline?”
“By stepping on them?” Kline asked.
“Yes, you can kill one ant that way, but I mean a whole hill of ants.”
Kline shook his head.
“You poison one ant with something slow and highly toxic. Kill it too fast, say, by stepping on it or using a fast poison, and all you have is a dead ant. But if you use the right poison, something that works real slow, that ant will infect his entire colony.”
“Is that poison?” Kline asked.
“No, sir,” Freeman said, shaking his head. “Just a little Super Glue.” He pushed one of Kline’s hands down on the bar with the palm up. Kline tried to close his fingers; but when Freeman squeezed his wrist, the hand fell open. “Now you keep that hand right there, right like that, Mr. Kline.”
Freeman pulled the eyedropper out of the tube and squeezed, forcing several drops of clear white liquid to ooze onto Kline’s trembling palm. “See, that didn’t hurt. A little glue won’t hurt you.”
Kline sighed with relief.
“Now this, this could hurt you.” Freeman pulled something that looked like a lime from his pocket and pressed it into Kline’s freshly glued hand.
Kline was no soldier, but he recognized the grenade the moment he saw it. “What are you doing?”
Freeman closed Kline’s fingers around the grenade and held them shut as he quietly counted to sixty. When he released Kline’s fingers, he wiggled the grenade to make sure the glue held fast. Then he pulled the pin from the grenade. “Ever seen one of these?”
Kline was speechless.
“This is a grenade. A high-yield grenade will take out a full city block. This here is a low-yield grenade. Small ones like this aren’t nearly so bad. It might only destroy a couple of buildings.”
“I see,” Kline said, his composure gone.
“I made this one just for situations like this,” Freeman continued. “This grenade senses body heat. As long as there are no temperature fluctuations, you’ll be perfectly safe. You might want to use your other hand when you grab ice out of that freezer over there. Freezing air would set it off for sure. Don’t pry the grenade from your palm. A change in temperature like that’ll set it off, too. You wouldn’t want to hit it with a hammer or drill into it, either.”
“I see,” said Kline.
“See that hole where I took the pin? If anything goes in that hole except this exact pin, that grenade will explode. Don’t stick anything in that hole. You understand?”
“Yes,” Kline stuttered.
“You might lose some skin when I pry the grenade out of your hand.”
“When?” Kline asked.
“Think you can remember all that?” Freeman asked, ignoring the question.
“When will you take it?” Kline responded.
“The grenade is set to explode in forty-eight hours,” Freeman said. “If I don’t see you before then, I guess you can keep it.”
Kline’s generally nonplussed facade melted, and his lips pulled back into a grimace. “But…but how will I find you? Why are you doing this?”
“We’ll call this an incentive, Mr. Kline. I think you know more information than you are telling me,” Freeman said.
Kline looked at me for help, but only for a moment. “How will I find you?”
“I’ll be at the Marine base, Mr. Kline. You come down and visit me if you remember something. But don’t wait too long. Don’t show up in forty-seven hours and fifty-nine minutes because I won’t want to talk to you.” With that, Freeman packed up his picture of Crowley and his gigantic pistol. He screwed the cover back on the tube and started for the door. I followed.
“What makes you so sure he’s hiding something?” I asked, as we stepped out onto the empty street.
Freeman did not answer. Having reverted to his silent self, he walked to the next building. “Stop here,” he said, ignoring my question.
The air was hot and dry. Since I was not wearing my climate-controlled bodysuit, the early evening felt like an oven. The sun started to set, and the sky above Morrowtown filled with crimson-and-orange clouds. The buildings, mostly two- and three-story sandstone structures, took on a particularly gloomy look in the dying daylight. Lights shone in some nearby windows. Freeman’s khaki-colored clothes looked gray in the growing darkness.
“How do you know Kline is hiding something?” I asked again.
“I’m not sure he is,” Freeman said. “I want to track him if he leaves town.”