Retired

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Soon we were looking at the back of a building on the very edge of town. The walls were old-style brick and the doors were painted red. The shutters were a garish purple and the curtains hanging in the windows were all a different color. Over the back door was a red light that burned brightly in the evening air.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"That depends on what you think it is."

"Is that a pleasure house?"

"It is what you think it is."

We moved up and knocked on the door. A middle-aged woman with a painted face opened the door. "We are not open yet. Go get drunk at a bar and... Oh, my God! Is that you, Drake?"

"Yes, Momma Kita. I am back, and I am in trouble."

"You are always in trouble. I thought we had seen the last of you sixty years ago."

"We need a place to hide for a few days."

"Get in here before someone sees you. The basement is shielded and should keep you safe. You already know that though."

"Momma Kita, this is Lizell. She is very special to me," I said, as I walked into the house.

"So, someone finally caught you. Good work, Lizell. We all thought when his momma died he would never be anything but a sneak thief. Then one day, he and that other rascal he used to hang around with joined the military and slipped off one step ahead of the police."

"You know they only wanted me for questioning. You always taught me that stealing was wrong."

"No, I taught you not to get caught. The people who have taken over the town come here at night. You will have to stay in the basement during business hours."

"We will stay hidden. Is there any chance you have some of those stuffed mushrooms made up. We could really use something besides trail food."

"That's the boy I came to love. Food first, fighting second," she said as she led us to the kitchen. "We were all at Randall's funeral."

Soon we were sitting down in the basement and eating Momma Kita's stuffed mushrooms. I once would swear the customers came here for these and not the girls.

"How long have you known Drake?" Lizell asked as we ate.

"I have known him since he was born. His momma used to work for me a long time ago. She met his daddy and he convinced her to quit and become his wife. They were a good couple. His father was a dock worker down at the space port. When Drake was fifteen, a local crime group tried to get his father to help them smuggle in some illegal cargo. He refused and they killed him and his wife. We girls kind of took Drake in after that. He was officially a child of the court and lived at the children's home. During the day he was here, at night he went to the children's home. We couldn't let him stay here at night. If a customer got out of hand, Drake would turn into an ass-kicking machine."

"So he has always been a bodyguard of types?"

"You know what he used to do in the military?"

I looked up sharply. How did Momma Kita know what I used to do?

Momma Kita looked at me. "You are not the only one who can see." She got up and retrieved a book from the shelves. When she returned, she opened it. It was full of newspaper clippings of my military career. "We were all so proud of him. Then, ten years after his career started, he just disappeared. We all wondered what had happened to him until I found this on the news web one day." She showed a picture of me standing next to Robert. It was taken the day after the funeral for his father.

"That day my heart swelled with pride for the young man I had helped to raise. We had a hard time tracking him, but snippet here and a bit there told us how it was going. This is the last article we ever found." This was another picture of me standing next to the emperor. In that picture, I wore the rank I had achieved before I retired.

Lizell looked up at me and back at the picture. "You were the Supreme Marshal?"

"It was an honorary title. Technically the Supreme Marshal position only exists during a time of full war and that person is in absolute command of the military, second only to the Emperor. He put the pins on me and told me when war broke out I would assume my new duties. Until then I would act as the Grand Marshal of the Praetorian Guard."

"That is not the way I heard it," Momma Kita said, with a smile. "I heard that he put all the military under your command and told you to run it."

"Who told you that outrageous lie?", I said with a smile.

"An angel," Momma Kita answered.

In my ear the beeps started again. This time it was five cycles of three beeps.

The last of the customers had gone home and the doors were shut again. It was a couple hours before dawn and I stood on the roof, looking through a pair of binoculars. There were now two more jump shuttles at the space port. I watched as they removed the hovercars from the cargo bay and reset the homing beacons. That trick would not work again. Then I saw something that made me growl.

A group of men came out of one of the shuttles, and in their midst walked a woman. It was the Grand Duchess Daria. I would know that bitch in the dark.

In my ear the beeps started again. This time it was twenty cycles of two beeps.

I had to ground those shuttles. I would see this lady in chains before this was over.