Episode 033

Jequon and Mercy steal a car. Mercy wonders why God would want to harm her partner in crime.

download other formats

SHOW NOTES:

• Welcome to Martha in Tuscon, Arizona! 
• Dempsey D. is the musician who plays almost all THE VEINGEL intros, outros, and theme music.
• "Idoncare+3" is featured at the *very* end of this episode.
• Pre-episode chatter gets much more interesting when listeners start asking specific questions, so…
• Keep stroking my ego with all your wonderful feedback and comments, but also give me something to talk about next week when you do. Thanks!
• (or I'll have to start posting pictures of my cat)

 

CHAPTER 33

It felt good to cry, to let it all go: the paralyzing fear of losing Cindy, the humiliation of getting caught in a lie on national television, the rejection by fair-weather friends…stabbing pains dulled with each sOB. And to have someone holding her as she cried-someone whispering reassurances and wiping away her tears-someone as strong, and confident, and (surprisingly) tender as Jequon? that felt amazing.

Which felt terrible.

Who's holding Cindy right now? Mercy wondered.

Cindy: alone and afraid and trembling and calling out to cold silence for her friend who was too busy thinking naughty thoughts about a not-quite-human man to answer.

Suddenly, stealing a car didn't seem like such a horrible crime, and Mercy said as much.

Jequon tilted his head a little to one side. "I thought you didn't want to deprive anyone of their ride to work?"

"I want to find Cindy, is what I want. So how do we do this?"

"You know of any restaurants with valet service and underground parking?"

Mercy thought for a moment. "Mister A's. About a mile and a half from here. Why? You're not hungry again are you?"

Jequon shook his head no.  "You'll see. Let's walk. We'll pick up fresh clothes on the way."

"Horton Plaza's just a few blocks up Broadway."

"That a mall?"

"It's a seven-story mall."

"They have a GAP?"

"I said it's a mall, didn't I. You like their clothes?"

"I prefer a good tailor. But the GAP is bland and homogenous and perfect for blending into crowds."

Mercy didn't want to burst his bubble, but short of an NFL locker room, or a casting call for the movie 300, Jequon wasn't going to be "blending in" with any crowd.

"As long as I don't have to shop there." GAP pants rode too high on her hips.

"Shop anywhere you'd like. And don't be afraid to pay for quality as long as it doesn't draw attention…you know, above and beyond the pull of your pretty smile. On me."

He counted out five one-hundred dollar bills from the thick roll he carried inside his front pants pocket, handed them over, and then re-sheathed the cash inside two knotted-off condoms (Magnums, she was both pleased and a little embarrassed to note).

"That enough?"

She nodded. "More than," and looked away before he could see her blush.

 

#

 

When she spotted Jequon back outside the entrance , he was dressed in a pair of kaki cargo pants, a spruce green, long-sleeve cotton shirt, and brown leather hiking boots. Mercy had chosen a gray cashmere sweater from Ralph Lauren, a pair of Lucky jeans, and black Ecco slip-on walking shoes. Underneath, she wore a fresh pair of lace-trimmed silk panties, and a matching bra from the same collection. If Jequon ever saw her naked again, she'd by-God be wearing sexier panties than the nappy-looking cotton ones she'd thrown on in haste before meeting him at the Café yesterday. Lesson learned.

"Took you long enough," Jequon said, greeting her with that closed-lip, dimpled half-grin of his.

She took his hand and they struck out east on Broadway. "Sorry. It took me awhile to find the right shoes."

In truth, she'd spent a significant portion of the time masturbating inside the dressing room at Macy's. She hadn't wanted to embarrass him this morning, so she  told Jequon she'd only been joking about him dry-humping her derriere. Actually, she'd been prodded awake on at least three occasions; him snoring away oblivious each time.

"Well it was worth the wait. You look nice."

He knows, Mercy thought, but at least I can concentrate now.

"You look nice, too. I like the smell of your cologne."

"I'm not wearing cologne," he said.

She frowned. "You're not?"

"Pheromones. Remember how you didn't even notice your foot stroking my thigh last night? That's why."

"But everyone has pheromones."

"Nephilim have extra. The angel DNA I received from my father acts like an exponent in the expression of base human traits: From vision, to hearing, to strength, to the levels of hormone circulating in our bloodstreams-everything about us is a little more potent than the standard man."

"So the reason I can barely restrain myself from ripping your clothes off and ravishing your body right here in the street is purely chemical?"

Oh my God I can't believe I just said that out loud.

But Jequon didn't even lose stride. "I don't know if it's purely chemical…but the response is definitely part of my curse, yes." Like: ‘just another admirer.'

Mercy noticed the way other women shamelessly appraised him as they walked past. "Chemical or not," she said, "I think it's best if we don't encourage it. I don't want any silly urges getting in the way of finding Cindy."

"You're right. We need to stay focused."

The way he said it, so matter-of-fact, like he was telling her what she wanted to hear, while he felt another way entirely, suddenly made her feel uneasy. What had he said of vampire lore? that what had an OBvious basis in biology, most resembled the truth? 

A homeless man, no more than twenty years old, sagged against a wall next to a cardboard sign that read: ‘Never the same after Iraq. Pleez help.' Jequon handed the boy a hundred dollar bill as they passed.

"It's none of my business, but I need to know: where do you get your money? I can't see a Naphill holding down a day jOB."

"Yeah, I don't do so well on the assembly line. I do a lot of volunteer work, though. Helping install pedal-powered wells in Africa, rebuilding homes in New Orleans…that sort of thing," he said, artfully not answering her question.

She persisted. "That's very good of you. But seriously, how do you earn a living?"

He chuckled. "That's a funny way of phrasing it."

Mercy rolled her eyes to let him know she wasn't amused.

 "You really wanna know? It takes a while to explain…"

"We have at least another mile before Mr. A's."

He was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, "Okay. Just keep in mind that our current system of asset management is predicated on the fact that land ownership, taxation, and all the other realities of modern economics, are made uniquely challenging for a group of people who can't legally exist, and who therefore have no rights under any nation's laws. Frankly, I'm not the best guy to be explaining this. David was our financial whiz. Unfortunately, the SOJ cancelled his check the other day."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Mercy said.

"Thank you. Anyway, how it works is, everyone in our family, lives off investment income. Disbursements are proportional to Generation. 1^st Gens receive two-thirds of the total, 2^nd Gens receive two-thirds of the remaining third, and 3^rd Gens get the rest; we don't recognize anyone beyond the 3^rd Generation, because by then the paternal line has been diluted so much it has almost no influence on gene expression. Veingels are taken care of as well, of course, with the exact amount of their disbursement left to the discretion of the Naphill who turned them, or, as the case may be, the Naphill who turned the Veingel who turned them. Given the immense value of the holdings we've accrued over the years, even the most recent Veingels are quite well off by most standards, earning low to mid six-figures on average."

"But you said you can't legally own anything, so…"

"Holdings which have been retained under the same ownership for a suspiciously long number of years are constantly being restructured and transferred to the names of recently turned Veingels, who on paper at least, own the stock or investment property or whatever, until they reach an age where actuarial science says they should be dead, at which point the shell game repeats. Plus we have a whole array of dummy corporations, trust funds, and numbered accounts in the Caymans to help facilitate the process."

"Makes sense, but how do you OBtain these investment vehicles in the first place?"

"Newly formed Veingels convert their existing assets and savings over to family owned holdings."

As necessary and commonsense as Jequon made this scheme sound, for a woman as financially independent as Mercy, something about it didn't sit right. She'd worked hard to achieve the success she now enjoyed as a sought after psychotherapist. She'd made sacrifices. In grad school, she rented a mold infested garage instead of an actual apartment, so she wouldn't have to take out student loans. While accruing supervision hours for her professional license, she fetched latte and picked up dry cleaning for a narcissistic record exec at Capitol Records, all the while squirreling away money for a down payment on the house she'd one day be able to afford.

"Sounds like a cult to me," she said and let go of his hand.

"Except, unlike most cults, we can actually deliver on immortality."

They turned left on 5^th and headed north. "Yeah, that's half true, seeing as how, when you say ‘turned' you really mean ‘damned,' right?"

Jequon didn't say anything. The model of maturity.

Well he should be mature at his age, Mercy thought. She'd only had thirty-five years to grow up, a good portion of which only served to stunt important areas of her development. At age fourteen, she caught Richard (her ‘father' who didn't deserve the label) cheating with the town whore on the neighboring farm. ‘V.D. Vernee,' people called her. On the mile-long walk home, Mercy tried to invent a more forgivable excuse she could give her mom for why he'd be late to supper again. But when she got back to the house, the only thing that would come out was the truth. Her mother was devastated; could barely look Mercy in the eye for years afterward; too embarrassed, too ashamed  for being so naive. Mom had helped pay Richard's way through community college. Borrowed money from Mercy's great granddad to buy their first year's seed for planting.

"I'll bet you've contributed way more than your fair share to Nephilim neck-worth," Mercy said.

"Relax. A couple more snide remarks like that, and you won't have anything to worry about," Jequon said, as yet another sun-tanned, svelte, SoCal slut did a three-sixty to gape at him as she passed by. Her immediate impulse was to claw the woman's eyes out if she let her gaze linger one more nanosecond on his glorious ass. But then Mercy realized, Jequon hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention to the girl. That he was, in fact, one-hundred-percent focused on her.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You should be. Like I said before: I'm not him. I'm not any ‘him'."

#

 

 They didn't speak as they walked the rest of the way steadily uphill to 5^th and Laurel. There, Mercy guided them down one block and around to a parking garage entrance on 4^th Avenue, which lead to the basement of a brown office building. High overhead, lush vines spilled over a railing along the perimeter of the roof, on top of which perched the restaurant. Her fear of heights prevented Mercy from fully appreciating the view on the few occasions she'd dined there.

Jequon led them down into the garage and approached the valet attendant who stood next to a wooden podium beside the elevators. Mercy was curious to see how he would pull this off, but too nervous to actually watch. She excused herself to find a restroom. When she returned, the valet was gone, and in his place, Jequon stood, wearing a gold nametag.

"Looks like you had better luck than at the car rental."

"College kid," Jequon said as if that explained everything.

"What? JOBs aren't as important to people in college?"

"I just paid for his college. All of it. Plus grad school, provided he doesn't go to Harvard."

"You're not carrying that much in your pocket. Why would he believe you'll follow through?"

"Simple: after I borrowed his phone to call my bank, he called his bank. They confirmed a sizable transfer had been initiated."

"How sizable?"

"A hundred grand."

"Well that's a little overkill, isn't it?"

"It's what it took. What the hell do I care? You'd rather I put him to sleep next time?"

He had a point, and as a gorgeous black Mercedes CLK pulled in, it looked like he had them a ride, too. Mercy stepped away from Jequon to give him space to ‘do his jOB,' and a silver-haired man in a blue pin-stripe suit got out, whistling the theme to Mission Impossible. He smiled at Mercy, then, greeting Jequon, said, "The scenery here keeps getting better and better." She watched as the man handed Jequon a twenty and said in a conspiratorial tone that he was confident he'd take good care of her. Mercy wasn't sure if he meant her or the Mercedes. The man gave Jequon the keys, wished them both a "splendid" day, and disappeared inside the elevator.

"Should I get in?"

"Not yet. Man the podium for me in case anyone pulls in."

Jequon drove around the corner into the bowels of the garage. He killed the engine and got out, and then she heard the echo of boots on concrete as he walked back.

"I thought we were stealing a car?"

"Karma's a big deal when you live forever," he said. "He was a good guy. We'll wait for an asshole."

On cue, a Mitsubishi EVO coasted into the garage, announcing the extreme ass-holiness of its driver with every window rattling thump emitted from its trunk full of subwoofers. A nineteen-year-old-ish  kid got out, sporting blond-streaked dreads and an OBvious attitude prOBlem. He was dressed in board-shorts, flip flops, and a polo shirt with the collar turned up. Aviator sunglasses on to protect his eyes from the waves of disgust directed at him in a steady stream from his fellow man. Jequon nodded a ‘hello' and walked around to the passenger side to get the door for his girlfriend. She let herself out before he could make it, ignoring all but her reflection in the makeup kit she palmed. Nothing said ‘stripper' like clear plastic high heels and a red satin dress (which covered less leg than most of Mercy's lounge-around-the-house t-shirts would have). Nothing, that is, except the word ‘HARDER,' tattooed in gothic script on her lower back,  and framed by the oh-so-stylish cutout of her whore-suit.

Surfer Pimp threw his keys at Jequon and strode to the elevator, and Barbi-liscious, or whatever her stage name was, click-clocked after him, muttering what sounded like ‘take a picture' under her breath as she jiggled by Mercy.

Safe behind the closing doors of the elevator, Lames Bond said, "scratch my WIP and it's your ass big guy."

After the elevator dinged up a couple floors, Jequon turned to Mercy and asked her to get in.

#

 

They took Laurel Street to the I-5 North exit and Jequon got himself acquainted with the heavily modded EVO engine. He floored the gas pedal and Mercy strained to keep her head level against the surprising acceleration. To her, the innocuous silver car looked like a grocery getting econo-box, not a sports car, but they were doing one-thirty by the time they merged onto the interstate.

"This is much better than the Mercedes would have been," Jequon said. "Faster, and less noticeable. Little shithead's going to miss it."

Maybe so, but Mercy wished she'd had some saran-wrap to cover the seat with. No telling what might have crawled out from underneath fem-borg's dress.

"So now what?" she asked.

"Now we go to OB and find Deany Hopper."

"Who?"

"The gentleman who loaned us his motorcycle. I'm going to pay him for any damage it suffered when it got towed off the bridge."

She started to OBject, but changed her mind. It was the right thing to do. In terms of Karma. In terms of finding Cindy...

"Something on your mind?"

"Uh…yeah. I guess," Mercy stammered.

"Care to share?"

She didn't really, but it felt like Jequon was extending her an olive branch, willing perhaps, to forget the regrettable comments she'd made earlier about the source of his blood money, err, ‘cash flow.' "It's a little embarrassing," she finally managed.

"More embarrassing than me seeing you naked last night?"

Mercy looked out her window at an osprey perched on a street lamp. "That wasn't embarrassing. That was…anyway-I'm just surprised at how often you go out of your way to do right by people."

"Why does that surprise you?"

"Because you're not human for-"

"-yes I am," Jequon interrupted.

"But you're not only human. If people knew what you really are, they'd try to-"

"-kill me?-"

"-yeah, so I don't understand why you bother being so nice to them?"

"You know what I am. You're not trying to kill me."

"Jequon, don't play stupid."

"I'm not. So tell me: what's the difference between you, and the people who want me dead?"

It was a rhetorical question. He was leading her. Where exactly, Mercy wasn't quite sure, but it seemed like he might be opening up, so she decided to play along.

"They only know what you are, but I also know who you are."

"You don't. Not really."

Mercy took a deep breath. Chewed at the inside of her lip. What did he mean by that? Was it a warning of some kind? A hint she shouldn't trust him?

"You know, you'd make a pretty good therapist yourself. I ask you a question, and not even a minute later, we're talking about me again."

"That's because the answer to your question is something you need to learn about yourself."

"What are you implying, Jequon? That I don't want to kill you only because you're helping me find Cindy?"

"Not at all," he said.

Mercy flushed red again,  this time as much in frustration as embarrassment.  Great. Now he'll accuse me of projecting. She cracked her window to let in some fresh air and tried to regain her composure.

"Okay, I'll bite. What do I need to learn about myself?"

"The answer to my previous question: what's the difference between you and the people who want me dead?"

"Dammit Jequon, I'm too stressed out to pretend you're Socrates. Make your point already."

"Look, I'm not trying to piss you off… This is something fundamental-something you and I share."

"I'm listening."

"Can I ask you one more question without upsetting you? Because then what I have to say will make more sense."

"Ask away."

"You said you didn't understand why I choose to do right by people more often than not, even though I'm Naphill...but if you were in my position, would you act any differently?" He answered his own question. "No. You wouldn't. You'd do what's right, because it's right-and that's the difference between you and people like the Sons of Jared: they define what's ‘right' by what God tells them to do. They look up. People like you and me look inside."

Mercy was quiet for a long while, thinking about what he said. They were at the corner of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Newport in the heart of Ocean Beach before she finally responded. "You're right. I wouldn't act any different if I were you. Maybe it's God who should act differently. The more I get to know you, the harder it is to understand why He'd want to damn someone so special for the sins of their father?" She wanted to fess up to the white lie she'd told Jequon about her dad being a stunt driver. Give him the pathetic truth about Richard so he had a little more insight into her trust issues. But a sharp lighting bolt of pain behind her eyes stole the words.

"You alright?" Jequon asked.

She must've flinched. "Yeah, just a chill."

How easy float the butter-lies… Nonsense speech. Another symptom. And then:

"Jequon, do you smell something burning?"

"Not right at this moment. Maybe you're smelling the ashtray."

"Yeah. That's it." But Mercy knew better.

This, she thought, is what I get for questioning God.