Epilogue

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"Check please."

The parking lot was empty, except for his car and the one next to the dumpster -- probably the cook. He knew the waitress walked -- he'd offered to give her a ride enough times. She probably thought he was coming on to her. That's okay. She didn't know. He wouldn't accept a ride from a guy like him either.

A lone sodium lamp lit the entire lot from atop a pole in the far corner. Its buzz was louder than the invertebrate inhabitants of a midwestern field on a warm summer evening.

So loud he didn't hear the other car until it scrabbled to a halt beside him.
"Hey, watch..."
He turned around to find a gun in his face.
"... it."
With a very hard-looking man staring down the barrel.
"Turn around. Hands on top of the car."

"Hey, I'm sorry. Next time I'll order more than coffee."

He was frisked. Thoroughly.
Very thoroughly.
Funny. The frisker's hands seemed a little small...
He felt a hand squeeze his member. "Hey!" he squeaked. "I've got a permit for that."
"You don't need one for that small a caliber." The voice was higher-pitched than Mr. Turn Around, but still masculine. Sort of.
"Cut it out, James." That voice was female. Young. Familiar...
He heard something like a radar detector.
Like a radar detector at a Sheriff's convention.
Frisker: "Fuck me, you were right."
"Of course. I'm always right." The female's voice. It sounded like... no.
Mr. Turn Around: "Turn around slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them."

He turned around.
And his dick twitched.

"Bet you thought you'd never see me again."

Rebecca.

She walked right up to him and wrapped him up in a bear hug.

He felt like he was in a vice. She was strong. Like her arms were made of steel. He remembered her legs were even stronger...
She poked him in the side. "Putting on a little weight there, tiger."
"Didn't think I had a reason to keep it off."

"We need to go." Mr. Hardass With The Gun.

He nodded toward the gunman. "Bruno?"
"No," Rebecca answered, "Bruno's back home. I needed the A Team for this one."
That was the extent of the introductions.

There was someone else in the back seat. Sleeping, apparently. To his chagrin, Rebecca took shotgun, and Frisker made it three in back.

"Where to?"
"The old rock quarry."

They drove for a half-hour. It wasn't a leisurely cruise. If he'd eaten lunch, he would have lost it.

Finally they pulled into a pitch-black canyon. He'd never been this far out of the city before.

It occurred to him that this would be a really good place to kill someone.

"Now what?" Not-Bruno.
Rebecca seemed to be in charge. "Out of the car, James."

She got in the back seat next to me. Frisker went around to the other side, crouching outside the open door, next to the coma patient.
They started talking like he wasn't there.

Gun: "This is a bad idea."
Gay: "We don't have a choice. It's either this or we lose him again."
Gun: "Kay will-"
Girl: "Kay can suck my dick!"

He couldn't help but interject. "Uh, Rebecca, is there something you're not telling me?"
"I haven't had an operation, if that's what you're asking." She grabbed his hand, shoving it up her skirt.
Definitely no dick.
He felt himself blush as he pulled his hand away.

Gay: "Aw, he's shy."
"Come on, we're out of time," Rebecca said. "Check him, James."
Gay -- James? James -- checked the sleeping man from the other side. "He's still under."
Rebecca slid into the back seat. "Okay, baby, do your thing."

"Huh?"
"Touch him."
"Um, I don't swing that way."
"I didn't say blow him. Just put your hand on his forehead or something."

Suddenly he understood. And it sounded like a Really Bad Idea. He felt a shrinking in his pants. No, we don't want Him again. "Is he-?"
"Dick Jones? No. Dick Jones is gone."
He looked at Rebecca with fearful suspicion.
"Trust me."
He looked to James, who rolled his eyes. Trust her?
"Don't listen to them," Rebecca said. "They don't know you like I do." Ahem.
"Touch him," she prodded again.

So he did. He put his hand to the sedated man's forehead.
"Feel anything?" Rebecca asked.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to- urgkk!"
Holy shit. He knew that feeling. It felt just like that fateful night in the park. Only sober.