Get Real

43

KELP HALTED. “Whoa,” he said. “You scared me. I didn’t know anybody was here.”

“No, you did not. You will put your hands on top of your head.” The man was Asian of some kind, not the slender delicate Asian of the coastal countries, but a larger, meatier, mountain country Asian, a guy who looked as though he came from a long line of professional wrestlers. This must be one of the Asians Doug had told them about just today—or yesterday—and now, immediately, here he was, as big and dangerous as promised, plus a Glock pistol, an efficient-looking blue-gray watchdog with its one unwavering eye fixed on Kelp.

Doug had never met these people, and was glad of it. Even Babe, he’d told them, kept out of their way. And here was Kelp, in the guy’s bedroom in the middle of the night.

So how many of them were here? And what could Kelp do about it? Raising his hands to rest palms down atop his head, “I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought I could sleep here tonight.”

The man in the bed wore a white T-shirt and was partly covered by sheet and blanket. His right knee was lifted, beneath the blanket, with the butt of the Glock resting on the knee, the hand holding the Glock as still as a statue.

At the moment, he was in an investigatory phase, before deciding what to do about Kelp’s existence in his bedroom. He said, “Why would you sleep here tonight?”

“I missed the last train to Westin,” Kelp told him. “That’s happened a couple times before, and I crash here for the night.”

“Here,” echoed the man. “And who are you?”

“Doug Fairkeep. I work for Get Real.”

The man shook his head; the Glock didn’t move. “What,” he said, “is Get Real?”

“We produce reality television,” Kelp told him. “This is our building, GR Development. GR; Get Real.”

“That is not the company.”

“Oh, you mean Monopole,” Kelp said.

Now the man nodded, but the Glock still didn’t move. “Yes, I mean Monopole.”

“They own Get Real. But that’s who I work for.”

“Not many persons are permitted to enter this apartment.”

“At Get Real,” Kelp said, “it’s only Babe Tuck and me.”

“I have heard the name Babe Tuck,” the man said.

“I’m glad of that anyway,” Kelp said. “Listen, okay if I put my hands down?”

“Andy!” came a half-whispered cry, muffled by distance and the closed bedroom door but audible just the same.

Kelp decided to react big. Jumping a big sideways step farther from the door, though keeping his hands atop his head, he said, “What was that?”

“I heard that,” the man said. “You have someone with you?”

“No! Do you?”

“I do not.” Frowning with deep suspicion, he said, “You will open the door.”

“Open the door?”

“Andy!”

“I don’t know,” Kelp said. “There’s somebody out there.”

The man climbed out of the bed, the Glock never stopping its surveillance of the space between Kelp’s eyes. He wore tan boxer shorts. His legs were strong and mostly hairless. He said, “Open.”

“I’ll stand behind it, all right?”

Now Kelp lowered his hands, put both of them on the doorknob, and pulled the door slowly open.

This time, the “Andy, what’s happening?” was a little louder, and identifiable as the kid. The goddam kid.

The man with the Glock said, “You go first.”

“Oh, boy,” Kelp said.

It seemed to him a reasonable amount of fear would be the most plausible reaction to show at this point, so slowly he went through the doorway, peering in obvious fright to left and right. The man followed, switching on the kitchen lights, poking the Glock into the small of Kelp’s back to move him along, and Kelp said, “Listen, I need a weapon.”

“A weapon?”

Kelp turned to look at the man, who was even larger and more intimidating when standing up and standing close. “I don’t know what’s out there,” Kelp told him, “and neither do you. Maybe it’s more than you can deal with all by yourself.” He pointed to the row of frying pans hung from hooks above the island in the middle of the kitchen. “Okay if I carry one of those?”

The man gave a very small headshake. “What good would it do?”

“Make me feel better,” Kelp said. “Safer. Let me take that one there.”

Impatient, the man said, “All right, take it. But then you go first. Through that door.” Meaning the pantry.

“Absolutely,” Kelp said. He took down the frying pan, a nine-inch cast-iron model, satisfyingly heavy. “This seems good,” he said, hefting it in both hands, then swung it sidearm with all his might into the side of that head, just above the left ear.

The man dropped like a sudden avalanche. The Glock chittered across the tile floor to smack into the dishwasher. Kelp slapped the frying pan down onto the island, grabbed the Glock, turned it around so he wasn’t aiming it at himself, and paused to look at the man, who had returned to dreamland, lying on the floor on his right side, right arm extended as though showing the way.

There had been no more Andy’s since the kitchen lights had been switched on. Now, carrying the Glock, Kelp raced to the pantry, and there was the kid, on the ladder, just outside the breached window. He waved the Glock. “Get outa there!”

The kid stared wide-eyed at the pistol. “What’d you—Where’d you—”

“Go, dammit! I’ll tell you at the door.”

And Kelp raced away, to be sure his patient was still sleeping—and still breathing—and then to hurry on to the apartment door.