Video Star (Voice of the Whirlwind) Read Online Free PDF Page B

with her overnight bag. She gave Ric a brief hug, then went to the table of the kitchenette. She picked up the white packet, hefted it in her hand. “Light,” she said. “Yeah. I can’t believe people kill each other over this.”
    “They could kill us,” Ric said. “Don’t forget that.” Marlene licked her lips and peeled the packet. She took one of the small white envelopes and tore it open, spilling dark powder into her cupped palm. She cocked her head. “Doesn’t look like much. How do you take it?” Ric remembered the flood of well-being in his body, the way the world had suddenly tasted better.
    No, he thought. He wasn’t going to get hung up on Thunder. “Intravenous, mostly,” he said. “Or they could put it in capsules.”
    Marlene sniffed at it. “Doesn’t smell like anything. What’s the dose?”
    “I don’t know. I wasn’t planning on taking any.” She began licking in her palm. Ric watched her little pink tongue lapping at the powder. He turned his eyes away. “Take it easy,” he said.
    “Tastes funny. Kind of like green pepper sauce, with a touch of kerosene.”
    “A touch of stupidity,” he said. “A touch of . . .” He moved around the room, hands in his pockets. “A touch of craziness. People who are around Black Thunder get crazy.”
    Marlene finished licking her palm and kicked off her shoes. “Craziness sounds good,” she said. She stepped up behind him and put her arms around him. “How crazy do you think we can get tonight?”
    “I don’t know.” He thought for a minute. “Maybe I could show you our movie.”

16
    Ric faced the window in the motel room, watching, his mind humming. The window had been dialed to polarize completely and he could see himself, Marlene behind him on the untidy bed, the plundered packet of Thunder on the table. It had been eight days since the hospital had been robbed. Marlene had taken the bus to Phoenix every evening.
    “You should try some of our product,” Marlene said. “The stuff’s just ...when I use it, I can feel my mind just start to click. Move faster, smoother. Thoughts come out of nowhere.”
    “Right,” Ric said. “Nowhere.”
    Ric saw Marlene’s reflection look up at his own dark plateglass ghost. “Do I detect sarcasm, here?”
    “No. Preoccupation, that’s all.”
    “Half the stuff’s mine, right? I can eat it, burn it, drop it out the window. Drop it on your head, if I want to. Right?”
    “That is correct,” said Ric.
    “Things are getting dull,” Marlene said. “You’re spending your evenings off drinking with Captain Islam and Super Virgin and Krishna Commando... I get to stay here and watch the vid.”
    “Those people I’m drinking with,” Ric said. “There’s a good chance they could die because of what we’re going to do. They’re our victims . Would you like to have a few drinks with them? A few smokes?” He turned from the window and looked at her. “Knowing they may die because of you?”
    Marlene frowned up at him. “Are you scared of them?” she asked. “Is that why you’re talking like this?”
    Ric gave a short laugh. Marlene ran her fingers through her almost-blond hair. Ric watched her in the mirror.
    “You don’t have to involve yourself in this part, Marlene,” Ric said. “I can do it by myself, I think.”
    She was looking at the darkened vid screen. Her eyes were bright. A smile tugged at her lips.
    “I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
    “I’ve got to get some things ready first.”
    “Hurry up. I don’t want to waste this feeling I’ve got.”
    Ric closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see his reflection anymore. “What feeling is that?” he asked.
    “The feeling that my time is coming. To try something new.”
    “Yeah,” Ric said. His eyes were still closed. “That’s what I thought.”

17
    Ric, wearing leather gardener’s gloves, smoothed the earth over the plastic-wrapped explosive device he had just buried under a pyracantha bush. He was