Time Travel Omnibus, page 1102
9 P.M.
“What do you think they are doing right now,” Caroline asked. They were finally relaxing for the night, and celebrating. Ben was drinking iced rum and coke while Caroline sipped a red wine. They sat on the patio, under a clear sky, full of stars, while a bay breeze kept them comfortable. The machines’ hum was barely audible as it continued to warp space in the garage.
“I bet they are having a cocktail, just like we are.”
“What’s next?” She asked.
Ben said what both of them had been thinking. “I think we need to visit them.”
“Sure, but shouldn’t we tell someone, or get a patent or something. This will solve all of our money problems, just like you said it would.”
“Even though this thing is all I’ve been thinking about for years, I’m not sure how to sell it.” Ben sighed as he took a long drink. “The government would probably make it classified and pay less for it than any big corporation. Still, that’s probably what we should do. It could be considered a threat to the nation.”
“I wondered about that,” Caroline admitted. “But, if anything done in the other reality can’t affect ours, how can it be a threat?”
After a thought, Ben answered, “A person could be kidnapped from a different reality, tortured for information, and not even be missing.”
“Our government would love it.” Caroline added.
Ben had been so consumed with building the machine and the physics involved that he barely thought about the ethics of using it. The situation dropped on them like a bomb. Any government would use the machine to have an advantage in world politics. Any big business would use it to gain an advantage in the market. There was no question that the machine was valuable. It was obvious that whoever controlled it had a clear advantage in business or government. Whoever controlled it had to be trusted.
Caroline broke the silence. “Why did you build it?” she asked.
“I had to see if it could be done, if I could do it.” In his voice she noted the pride of his accomplishment. He stood and walked to the wet bar in the corner of the sun room and made another drink for himself. The ice rang like a bell as it dropped into the empty glass. When he returned he carried the near empty wine bottle for her and poured. “I think I was caught up in the physics.”
“You said everything would be alright, like we would get rich from the discovery. Bill collectors are calling every day. We need to do something.” She knew that she was excited and she was getting a little loose lipped from the wine. She had to watch what she said, but her mixed emotions regarding the machine began to surface. “If we can’t somehow pay for that thing, it’s going to kill us.”
“Maybe I can get a paper published on the physics of time. That will bring in some extra money, a few hundred anyway.”
Caroline sighed. “Your work is worth so much more than that. If you publicize your theories someone else will build a machine. It should be you to get the glory.” The wine was going down easier than it was earlier, she was starting the get drunk and her thoughts were bouncing back and forth between selling it to a big corporation for a million dollars or the government. Ben had different thoughts.
“Why couldn’t we just keep it to ourselves for a while?”
“That won’t solve any of our money problems,” she reminded him.
“If we sold the machine to a big company they would use it to make a profit, so why can’t we?”
How could reaching into the past help us make money?” Caroline asked.
“We are the alpha reality and we know the future of any past reality we create. We could win the lottery, or go to the dog track and win on long shots. All we need to do is to go back a few days.”
Caroline nodded. “Or, we could find partners in the past who need some extra cash as badly as we need it.” They both looked at each other over the rim of their glasses. “Know any?”
Laughing now, Caroline was seeing the end to their troubles. It really was time to celebrate. Skipping over to the wet bar on the side of the patio she opened the ice box and pulled out a bottle of Champaign. Ben took it from her and helped get the foil off and pop the cork. When he looked up Caroline had shed her clothes and was slipping into the dark waters of their pool. She was beautiful. In the moonlight, her perfect breasts and shapely hips, beckoned him. “It’s time to celebrate,” she cooed with a flirting smile. He slipped out of his clothes and joined her; together they would drink straight from the bottle.
August 30
Five days before, the connection with the other reality was broken by shutting off the machine. When they needed to, they would start it up again and connect to a new reality five days behind them, again on Aug 25th when the mass generator first powered up. Ben and Caroline had been busy collecting newspapers and watching the odds on the sports pages. With a bright red marker all the long shot winners and lottery results were circled.
The Florida lottery paid out millions weekly, but it was monitored by the government and would take time to pay out. The big number teased them, but it wasn’t an option. Tampa had other options. There were two dog tracks less than an hour away. Thousands of dollars could be won on dog racing nightly. Not too far away was the Tampa Jai Ala fronton. Wagers were placed before the rounds and the winnings could be huge. The state also offered horse racing and off site betting on races across the country. The Seminole Indians offered poker and casino gambling at a resort hotel near the fair grounds. There was no shortage of ways to risk your money. But their plan eliminated the risk.
The real question was if they should covertly travel to the past and gamble, or work with their second reality duplicates. The duplicates were in deep and over the barrel, just as they themselves were. They would love to have the benefit of knowing the winning dogs at the track. And, shortly after the mass generator is started up, the duplicates would be thinking similarly. Ben and Caroline figured they would need to be included. It would be almost impossible to pass back and forth each night, five or six evenings in a row, and not be discovered. It was decided they would work together and be fair about it. The second reality couple would deserve at least 30 percent more because they would carry the tax burden.
When six days had passed they were ready. They had several hundred dollars in cash ready to wager and all the best long shots circled in red marker on the Tampa Tribune Sports pages. One cheat sheet for each of the next five days had been made for each of the participants in the endeavor. The Alfa couple would go to the Tampa Dog Track and the Beta couple would go to the Seminole Casino and do some off track horse betting. All they had to do was to introduce themselves to the second reality in the same way they had previously. They would go through the motions of passing the CD back and forth, exchanging data and creating a relationship with the second reality, just as they had done the first time. When the evening ended, they would all relax on the patio again, and think of all the possibilities and riches that the machine could offer them. In the morning, after recovering from the hangover, the second reality couple should have it in their minds that their debt needed to be paid before they went public. They would want to get out of debt, maybe get a new car, and then come up with a way to market the machine to the government. They figured it would ultimately get under government control anyway.
August 31
Everything had worked perfectly again. A connection had been made with a reality six days in their past. They passed a CD back and forth several times and experimented with small caged animals as well. It was incredible to think that they really could connect with a reality that was the same but completely different from their own. Everyone was excited and out of control with the thoughts of what could be done with the machine. It was agreed that at noon on the next day they would be ready for further experiments. At that point Ben and Caroline would suggest the benefits of gambling. It should be accepted without much hesitation, because the Beta reality had surely thought about it the night before.
9 P.M.
“What do you think they are doing right now?” Caroline asked. They were finally relaxing for the night. Again, Ben was drinking his favorite cocktail while Caroline sipped a red wine.
They sat on the patio, under a clear sky, full of stars, while a bay breeze kept them comfortable. The machines’ hum was barely audible as it continued to warp space in the garage.
“I bet they are having a cocktail, just like we are.”
They looked at each other and laughed. Caroline held a week old paper in her lap glancing at the old news while Ben scanned the race results for the tenth time. They had done their homework and were ready for the next evening at the Dog Track. Caroline would be betting the dogs. It wasn’t until the third race that a dog named Brave heart would take the win at twelve to one. A three hundred dollar bet would bring in over three thousand dollars. Race five had a dog named Clover at sixteen to one. Caroline would place five hundred on that one. The final pick of the evening would be Toledo Sam. The odds were ten to one. By the end of the night they should have over sixteen thousand dollars. Roughly three thousand of that would be taken out for taxes. They would be using their own IDs and numbers. It would be completely legal, and only a little unethical. There were no rules against using time machines. It would be there lucky week!
Ben heard a gasp from Caroline and looked over to her. Her face was frozen by what she read in the paper. “What is it?” He asked.
“You got to look at this,” she said getting out of the lounger and heading to the patio table where the light was better. She laid out the paper and pointed to the headline that read: “Four Dead after Shootout!”
“What’s that about?” Ben asked.
“Listen to this.” Caroling began reading.”Police arrive early Sunday morning to find four suspected drug dealers dead of gunshot wounds. Inside their car was a box containing a large amount of cocaine and a duffel bag with 1.6 million dollars.”
Ben was silent while he processed the story. It explained that drug traffic through the port had been increasing. Despite police and port authority efforts much of it was getting to the streets. Large quantities were sold to out of state dealers, and they suspected this was an out of state buy that went bad. Two of the victims were from Kentucky, and two were known local dealers. The next morning police found ear witnesses who heard noises that may have been gunshots around 2 A.M. but they did not report the noises.
Ben’s mind was reeling but Caroline was way ahead of him. “We were so caught up in looking for long shots that we missed the news. This is exactly what we need. All we have to do is get there after the shoot-out, but before the police find them, and take the money!”
“When did this happen?” Ben Asked.
Caroline flipped the paper over finding the front page date. “It’s the August 27th paper.”
She answered.
“They find the scene tomorrow morning.”
“We need to do it tonight! Right now the second reality versions of us are celebrating their first contact and wondering what they’ll do with the machine. We were in a drunken stupor by midnight.”
Caroline recalled, “I hadn’t been that drunk in a long time, it was a bit too much celebration for me!”
“We need to jump back about 1 A.M., there time, and do it,” Ben said.
Caroline flopped down into her lounger. “We’ve got a few hours to kill. I could use a nap.”
Ben jerked in response to her comment. “How can you sleep? My head’s spinning.”
“Listen honey,” she soothed him, “we are closer now to having all our problems solved than ever before. It’s as simple as going to the post office and picking up a package. Relax, it will be fine.” She was right, Ben thought. Everything they needed to know was printed in black and white. Still, he had a hard time relaxing and never slept as the clocked ticked into the night.
3 A.M.
They were standing before the curtain of shimmering black. It was time to take a step into the past. A little fear upset their stomachs. Caroling felt jittery inside, and Ben had weak knees, but wouldn’t admit it. “We know the trip doesn’t harm an animal.” He said. “The mouse made it back and forth several times, and it still traveled the maze without a problem.” Even knowing it was safe, they couldn’t help but feel nervous.
“It’s time,” Caroline said and they stepped through the ring together.
There was no tunnel and there was no visual experience as illustrated in so many science fiction movies. It was anticlimactic. They just stepped into and out of a mechanical ring circled by electrical coils that hummed with electricity. They were in their garage, right where they started. It was like walking through a mirror and stepping into the reflection. With a raise eyebrow Ben looked over at Caroline, and was surprised to find her almost giggling with a smile. She was exhilarated; the adventurer in her personality was released. Like a character in a great novel, she was living out the classic story of time travel, and she loved it.
They quietly passed through the door on the side of the garage and walked down the stone walk to the driveway. To their right they could see their pool and patio. They paused to look through the hedges at their own history. Exhausted from celebration and sex they could see themselves passed out on the loungers next to the pool. Caroline grabbed Bens’ hand and whispered into his ear. “That was a great night.”
Rounding the corner of the walk they got into their own car parked on in the driveway. It was an older Ford Taurus, but the car was dependable. Ben pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. As expected, the tumblers were exactly the same and the door opened without a problem. They pulled onto Bayshore Boulevard and started toward downtown Tampa. The port was on the opposite side of town and they were silent as they drove the short distance. Once they were close to the scene, Ben pulled off the road and parked under the cross-town expressway. “We should be able to hear the gunshots from here,” he said and they rolled down the windows to listen. It was the bad side of town, but they were watching their surroundings and to their pleasure the streets seemed empty.
It was a little after 2 P.M. when they heard the gun fight. Ben thought there were ten shots fired, but Carolyn counted twelve. After a short pause Ben started to the scene. They were headed for an old barn on the end of Alice Street, called the Crab Shack. It sat near the water’s edge; in fact the back side of the building was on stilts above the bay. Local fishermen tie up and sell crabs and shrimp from the structure. A dock alongside the barn ran out into the bay about twenty yards and Ben saw several small boats tied to it. Everything seemed quiet and normal. On the far side of the barn was a gravel parking lot, at first glance it looked empty, but as his headlights swung around, they lit the scene. Two cars were parked close to the old barn. One car was a black Nissan and the other was a blue Corvette. He could see two bodies on the ground between the cars. A third body was laid over the hood of the corvette, and the fourth looked to be slumped over the steering wheel of the Nissan. Ben jammed the car into park and jumped out his door. He raced to the back of the Nissan and took a look inside. It was dark but with his headlights lighting the scene he saw a sports duffel bag in the back seat. Between him and the car door a small black man lay dead on the gravel. Blood soaked his white shirt, he had been shot twice. Still clutching a small gun, his open eyes stared blankly into the night.
Stepping over the body Ben grabbed the handle and opened the car door. He heaved the duffel out and set it next to the body only long enough to pull the zipper an inch or two and see money inside. Satisfied, he grabbed the straps and ran back to his car, tossing it into the back seat.
“Hurry! Go!” Caroline was urging him. He jumped into his seat and grabbed the gearshift, but some movement caught his eye. As he glanced up a shot rang out and punched a small hole through his windshield.
“Hurry! Go!” Caroline commanded again. Ben threw the car into reverse and hit the gas. Gravel sprayed from the tires as the car jerked around. From between the cars one of the drug dealers had gotten to his feet. It was the guy from the hood of the Corvette. Ben could see he had been shot more than once, his shirt was covered with blood and his pants were soaked as well. Even with the injuries, he was on his feet and stumbling in his direction. Ben jammed the car into drive and headed out of the lot. Just as he hit the solid pavement of the street, the side window of the Taurus exploded into a thousand chips and Caroline screamed.
“I’m shot!” She exclaimed.
Speeding back toward town Ben looked at his wife. Pale and clearly in pain, she held her hand over the right side of her chest. Blood slowly oozed from between her fingers. She rocked and grimaced as tears flowed from her eyes.
“How could I have gotten you into this? I should have never let you come.” He apologized. The car was racing near 80 mph through the empty downtown streets. He ran the lights and shot over the Hillsborough River Bridge back onto Bayshore Boulevard. Just ahead was the turnoff for Tampa General Hospital. He headed for the ramp.
“No, no, take me to our hospital.” Caroline pleaded.
Their home was almost mile down the road. “Can you make it?” Ben asked, “Are you sure?”
She nodded as the wind ripped through the shattered window and blew her hair. Ben could smell the salty iron scent of blood, but he aimed his car home and pressed the gas to the floor. Her pale skin glistened with sweat as every streetlight raced by. She coughed once and blood sprayed the windshield as they pulled into the yard.
Ben was out of the car and to her side in an instant. He flung the door open and started to pick her out of the vehicle when he realized it was too late. She fell from the car with lifeless wide eyes. Her whole right side was covered with blood. She was gone. Ben fell to his knees, horrified and ashamed, and clung to his wife. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he realized what he had done. His temples throbbed as he strained a muffled curse at himself. He couldn’t lose her, he thought, and he hung to her for a long time.
Sept. 1
“What do you mean it’s September 1st?” She asked. It took her a few moments to get her thoughts together. She was still recovering from the night of celebration. “Yesterday was the 25th.”
“What do you think they are doing right now,” Caroline asked. They were finally relaxing for the night, and celebrating. Ben was drinking iced rum and coke while Caroline sipped a red wine. They sat on the patio, under a clear sky, full of stars, while a bay breeze kept them comfortable. The machines’ hum was barely audible as it continued to warp space in the garage.
“I bet they are having a cocktail, just like we are.”
“What’s next?” She asked.
Ben said what both of them had been thinking. “I think we need to visit them.”
“Sure, but shouldn’t we tell someone, or get a patent or something. This will solve all of our money problems, just like you said it would.”
“Even though this thing is all I’ve been thinking about for years, I’m not sure how to sell it.” Ben sighed as he took a long drink. “The government would probably make it classified and pay less for it than any big corporation. Still, that’s probably what we should do. It could be considered a threat to the nation.”
“I wondered about that,” Caroline admitted. “But, if anything done in the other reality can’t affect ours, how can it be a threat?”
After a thought, Ben answered, “A person could be kidnapped from a different reality, tortured for information, and not even be missing.”
“Our government would love it.” Caroline added.
Ben had been so consumed with building the machine and the physics involved that he barely thought about the ethics of using it. The situation dropped on them like a bomb. Any government would use the machine to have an advantage in world politics. Any big business would use it to gain an advantage in the market. There was no question that the machine was valuable. It was obvious that whoever controlled it had a clear advantage in business or government. Whoever controlled it had to be trusted.
Caroline broke the silence. “Why did you build it?” she asked.
“I had to see if it could be done, if I could do it.” In his voice she noted the pride of his accomplishment. He stood and walked to the wet bar in the corner of the sun room and made another drink for himself. The ice rang like a bell as it dropped into the empty glass. When he returned he carried the near empty wine bottle for her and poured. “I think I was caught up in the physics.”
“You said everything would be alright, like we would get rich from the discovery. Bill collectors are calling every day. We need to do something.” She knew that she was excited and she was getting a little loose lipped from the wine. She had to watch what she said, but her mixed emotions regarding the machine began to surface. “If we can’t somehow pay for that thing, it’s going to kill us.”
“Maybe I can get a paper published on the physics of time. That will bring in some extra money, a few hundred anyway.”
Caroline sighed. “Your work is worth so much more than that. If you publicize your theories someone else will build a machine. It should be you to get the glory.” The wine was going down easier than it was earlier, she was starting the get drunk and her thoughts were bouncing back and forth between selling it to a big corporation for a million dollars or the government. Ben had different thoughts.
“Why couldn’t we just keep it to ourselves for a while?”
“That won’t solve any of our money problems,” she reminded him.
“If we sold the machine to a big company they would use it to make a profit, so why can’t we?”
How could reaching into the past help us make money?” Caroline asked.
“We are the alpha reality and we know the future of any past reality we create. We could win the lottery, or go to the dog track and win on long shots. All we need to do is to go back a few days.”
Caroline nodded. “Or, we could find partners in the past who need some extra cash as badly as we need it.” They both looked at each other over the rim of their glasses. “Know any?”
Laughing now, Caroline was seeing the end to their troubles. It really was time to celebrate. Skipping over to the wet bar on the side of the patio she opened the ice box and pulled out a bottle of Champaign. Ben took it from her and helped get the foil off and pop the cork. When he looked up Caroline had shed her clothes and was slipping into the dark waters of their pool. She was beautiful. In the moonlight, her perfect breasts and shapely hips, beckoned him. “It’s time to celebrate,” she cooed with a flirting smile. He slipped out of his clothes and joined her; together they would drink straight from the bottle.
August 30
Five days before, the connection with the other reality was broken by shutting off the machine. When they needed to, they would start it up again and connect to a new reality five days behind them, again on Aug 25th when the mass generator first powered up. Ben and Caroline had been busy collecting newspapers and watching the odds on the sports pages. With a bright red marker all the long shot winners and lottery results were circled.
The Florida lottery paid out millions weekly, but it was monitored by the government and would take time to pay out. The big number teased them, but it wasn’t an option. Tampa had other options. There were two dog tracks less than an hour away. Thousands of dollars could be won on dog racing nightly. Not too far away was the Tampa Jai Ala fronton. Wagers were placed before the rounds and the winnings could be huge. The state also offered horse racing and off site betting on races across the country. The Seminole Indians offered poker and casino gambling at a resort hotel near the fair grounds. There was no shortage of ways to risk your money. But their plan eliminated the risk.
The real question was if they should covertly travel to the past and gamble, or work with their second reality duplicates. The duplicates were in deep and over the barrel, just as they themselves were. They would love to have the benefit of knowing the winning dogs at the track. And, shortly after the mass generator is started up, the duplicates would be thinking similarly. Ben and Caroline figured they would need to be included. It would be almost impossible to pass back and forth each night, five or six evenings in a row, and not be discovered. It was decided they would work together and be fair about it. The second reality couple would deserve at least 30 percent more because they would carry the tax burden.
When six days had passed they were ready. They had several hundred dollars in cash ready to wager and all the best long shots circled in red marker on the Tampa Tribune Sports pages. One cheat sheet for each of the next five days had been made for each of the participants in the endeavor. The Alfa couple would go to the Tampa Dog Track and the Beta couple would go to the Seminole Casino and do some off track horse betting. All they had to do was to introduce themselves to the second reality in the same way they had previously. They would go through the motions of passing the CD back and forth, exchanging data and creating a relationship with the second reality, just as they had done the first time. When the evening ended, they would all relax on the patio again, and think of all the possibilities and riches that the machine could offer them. In the morning, after recovering from the hangover, the second reality couple should have it in their minds that their debt needed to be paid before they went public. They would want to get out of debt, maybe get a new car, and then come up with a way to market the machine to the government. They figured it would ultimately get under government control anyway.
August 31
Everything had worked perfectly again. A connection had been made with a reality six days in their past. They passed a CD back and forth several times and experimented with small caged animals as well. It was incredible to think that they really could connect with a reality that was the same but completely different from their own. Everyone was excited and out of control with the thoughts of what could be done with the machine. It was agreed that at noon on the next day they would be ready for further experiments. At that point Ben and Caroline would suggest the benefits of gambling. It should be accepted without much hesitation, because the Beta reality had surely thought about it the night before.
9 P.M.
“What do you think they are doing right now?” Caroline asked. They were finally relaxing for the night. Again, Ben was drinking his favorite cocktail while Caroline sipped a red wine.
They sat on the patio, under a clear sky, full of stars, while a bay breeze kept them comfortable. The machines’ hum was barely audible as it continued to warp space in the garage.
“I bet they are having a cocktail, just like we are.”
They looked at each other and laughed. Caroline held a week old paper in her lap glancing at the old news while Ben scanned the race results for the tenth time. They had done their homework and were ready for the next evening at the Dog Track. Caroline would be betting the dogs. It wasn’t until the third race that a dog named Brave heart would take the win at twelve to one. A three hundred dollar bet would bring in over three thousand dollars. Race five had a dog named Clover at sixteen to one. Caroline would place five hundred on that one. The final pick of the evening would be Toledo Sam. The odds were ten to one. By the end of the night they should have over sixteen thousand dollars. Roughly three thousand of that would be taken out for taxes. They would be using their own IDs and numbers. It would be completely legal, and only a little unethical. There were no rules against using time machines. It would be there lucky week!
Ben heard a gasp from Caroline and looked over to her. Her face was frozen by what she read in the paper. “What is it?” He asked.
“You got to look at this,” she said getting out of the lounger and heading to the patio table where the light was better. She laid out the paper and pointed to the headline that read: “Four Dead after Shootout!”
“What’s that about?” Ben asked.
“Listen to this.” Caroling began reading.”Police arrive early Sunday morning to find four suspected drug dealers dead of gunshot wounds. Inside their car was a box containing a large amount of cocaine and a duffel bag with 1.6 million dollars.”
Ben was silent while he processed the story. It explained that drug traffic through the port had been increasing. Despite police and port authority efforts much of it was getting to the streets. Large quantities were sold to out of state dealers, and they suspected this was an out of state buy that went bad. Two of the victims were from Kentucky, and two were known local dealers. The next morning police found ear witnesses who heard noises that may have been gunshots around 2 A.M. but they did not report the noises.
Ben’s mind was reeling but Caroline was way ahead of him. “We were so caught up in looking for long shots that we missed the news. This is exactly what we need. All we have to do is get there after the shoot-out, but before the police find them, and take the money!”
“When did this happen?” Ben Asked.
Caroline flipped the paper over finding the front page date. “It’s the August 27th paper.”
She answered.
“They find the scene tomorrow morning.”
“We need to do it tonight! Right now the second reality versions of us are celebrating their first contact and wondering what they’ll do with the machine. We were in a drunken stupor by midnight.”
Caroline recalled, “I hadn’t been that drunk in a long time, it was a bit too much celebration for me!”
“We need to jump back about 1 A.M., there time, and do it,” Ben said.
Caroline flopped down into her lounger. “We’ve got a few hours to kill. I could use a nap.”
Ben jerked in response to her comment. “How can you sleep? My head’s spinning.”
“Listen honey,” she soothed him, “we are closer now to having all our problems solved than ever before. It’s as simple as going to the post office and picking up a package. Relax, it will be fine.” She was right, Ben thought. Everything they needed to know was printed in black and white. Still, he had a hard time relaxing and never slept as the clocked ticked into the night.
3 A.M.
They were standing before the curtain of shimmering black. It was time to take a step into the past. A little fear upset their stomachs. Caroling felt jittery inside, and Ben had weak knees, but wouldn’t admit it. “We know the trip doesn’t harm an animal.” He said. “The mouse made it back and forth several times, and it still traveled the maze without a problem.” Even knowing it was safe, they couldn’t help but feel nervous.
“It’s time,” Caroline said and they stepped through the ring together.
There was no tunnel and there was no visual experience as illustrated in so many science fiction movies. It was anticlimactic. They just stepped into and out of a mechanical ring circled by electrical coils that hummed with electricity. They were in their garage, right where they started. It was like walking through a mirror and stepping into the reflection. With a raise eyebrow Ben looked over at Caroline, and was surprised to find her almost giggling with a smile. She was exhilarated; the adventurer in her personality was released. Like a character in a great novel, she was living out the classic story of time travel, and she loved it.
They quietly passed through the door on the side of the garage and walked down the stone walk to the driveway. To their right they could see their pool and patio. They paused to look through the hedges at their own history. Exhausted from celebration and sex they could see themselves passed out on the loungers next to the pool. Caroline grabbed Bens’ hand and whispered into his ear. “That was a great night.”
Rounding the corner of the walk they got into their own car parked on in the driveway. It was an older Ford Taurus, but the car was dependable. Ben pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. As expected, the tumblers were exactly the same and the door opened without a problem. They pulled onto Bayshore Boulevard and started toward downtown Tampa. The port was on the opposite side of town and they were silent as they drove the short distance. Once they were close to the scene, Ben pulled off the road and parked under the cross-town expressway. “We should be able to hear the gunshots from here,” he said and they rolled down the windows to listen. It was the bad side of town, but they were watching their surroundings and to their pleasure the streets seemed empty.
It was a little after 2 P.M. when they heard the gun fight. Ben thought there were ten shots fired, but Carolyn counted twelve. After a short pause Ben started to the scene. They were headed for an old barn on the end of Alice Street, called the Crab Shack. It sat near the water’s edge; in fact the back side of the building was on stilts above the bay. Local fishermen tie up and sell crabs and shrimp from the structure. A dock alongside the barn ran out into the bay about twenty yards and Ben saw several small boats tied to it. Everything seemed quiet and normal. On the far side of the barn was a gravel parking lot, at first glance it looked empty, but as his headlights swung around, they lit the scene. Two cars were parked close to the old barn. One car was a black Nissan and the other was a blue Corvette. He could see two bodies on the ground between the cars. A third body was laid over the hood of the corvette, and the fourth looked to be slumped over the steering wheel of the Nissan. Ben jammed the car into park and jumped out his door. He raced to the back of the Nissan and took a look inside. It was dark but with his headlights lighting the scene he saw a sports duffel bag in the back seat. Between him and the car door a small black man lay dead on the gravel. Blood soaked his white shirt, he had been shot twice. Still clutching a small gun, his open eyes stared blankly into the night.
Stepping over the body Ben grabbed the handle and opened the car door. He heaved the duffel out and set it next to the body only long enough to pull the zipper an inch or two and see money inside. Satisfied, he grabbed the straps and ran back to his car, tossing it into the back seat.
“Hurry! Go!” Caroline was urging him. He jumped into his seat and grabbed the gearshift, but some movement caught his eye. As he glanced up a shot rang out and punched a small hole through his windshield.
“Hurry! Go!” Caroline commanded again. Ben threw the car into reverse and hit the gas. Gravel sprayed from the tires as the car jerked around. From between the cars one of the drug dealers had gotten to his feet. It was the guy from the hood of the Corvette. Ben could see he had been shot more than once, his shirt was covered with blood and his pants were soaked as well. Even with the injuries, he was on his feet and stumbling in his direction. Ben jammed the car into drive and headed out of the lot. Just as he hit the solid pavement of the street, the side window of the Taurus exploded into a thousand chips and Caroline screamed.
“I’m shot!” She exclaimed.
Speeding back toward town Ben looked at his wife. Pale and clearly in pain, she held her hand over the right side of her chest. Blood slowly oozed from between her fingers. She rocked and grimaced as tears flowed from her eyes.
“How could I have gotten you into this? I should have never let you come.” He apologized. The car was racing near 80 mph through the empty downtown streets. He ran the lights and shot over the Hillsborough River Bridge back onto Bayshore Boulevard. Just ahead was the turnoff for Tampa General Hospital. He headed for the ramp.
“No, no, take me to our hospital.” Caroline pleaded.
Their home was almost mile down the road. “Can you make it?” Ben asked, “Are you sure?”
She nodded as the wind ripped through the shattered window and blew her hair. Ben could smell the salty iron scent of blood, but he aimed his car home and pressed the gas to the floor. Her pale skin glistened with sweat as every streetlight raced by. She coughed once and blood sprayed the windshield as they pulled into the yard.
Ben was out of the car and to her side in an instant. He flung the door open and started to pick her out of the vehicle when he realized it was too late. She fell from the car with lifeless wide eyes. Her whole right side was covered with blood. She was gone. Ben fell to his knees, horrified and ashamed, and clung to his wife. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he realized what he had done. His temples throbbed as he strained a muffled curse at himself. He couldn’t lose her, he thought, and he hung to her for a long time.
Sept. 1
“What do you mean it’s September 1st?” She asked. It took her a few moments to get her thoughts together. She was still recovering from the night of celebration. “Yesterday was the 25th.”
