Free Everyone's Dead But Us by Mark Richard Zubro Page A

protecting.”
    “Who gets to decide what that is?” I asked.
    Morgan said, “Your righteous dismissal of class distinction doesn’t. You don’t. This isn’t America. You have no standing.”
    I said, “At this moment, nobody’s got a lot of standing, including you.”
    Morgan’s chuckle sounded colder than January in the Yukon. “We are not created equal. Not hardly. Not on this island. We are as equal as our money allows us to be.”
    I said, “My class distinctions may not count, but your class superiority doesn’t count for shit either. Nobody on this island has enough money to stop this storm. Nobody has enough money to get an official police force here. Cash can’t communicate with the outside world. You might be able to burn people’s money to keep us a little warm in front of a fire, except everybody probably uses credit cards. I suspect they don’t provide a lot of warmth. We could be equally dead if we don’t find out who the killer is and who set off the explosion.”
    Deplonte said, “Why are we wasting time debating? Are we done in here yet?”
    “We are wasting time,” I said, “because people’s lives could hang in the balance. Aren’t you afraid that there’s a killer on the loose? He’s done one hell of a lot of destruction to the island already. Maybe there are other bombs planted. More people could die.”
    “That’s why I have Morgan,” Deplonte said. “For protection. I don’t need you.”
    Scott, who has infinitely more patience than I, said, “Perhaps before this is over, we will all need each other.”
    Morgan said, “You two can stay with us and look with us or you can go.”
    I said, “I’ve got the only flashlight.” An impasse of stark practicality. Dawn was breaking but it was adding shadows to the gloom rather than dispelling darkness. Morgan hesitated. Deplonte, his not-quite-majesty began chewing on his right thumbnail. After several moments, Morgan capitulated. He wasn’t a fool. I guess we could have arm wrestled for the thing. By himself Morgan would have been a formidable opponent. His sort-of-royal majesty probably would not have been a lot of help in any serious battle. I suspected alone, I had a decent chance against Morgan’s strength; with Scott on my side, we’d have a damn good chance. I also began to suspect that Morgan wasn’t simply some overmuscled and convenient stud bunny. He knew there was danger. Part of protecting his charge would be to go along for now.
    We continued to examine the villa. Everything was clean, neat, and in its place. The living room took up the entire front section of the first floor that faced the sea. The villa was about half a mile inland but built on what I suspected was one of the highest points on a reasonably flat plain. The island was flat the way I thought of Iowa as being flat. If you took Interstate 55 south from Chicago to St. Louis, that was flat, barely a mole hill in sight. If you took Interstate 80 west of Des Moines, you got gently rolling countryside, no real hills, certainly no mountains, and by most definitions flat, but it was more varied than the Illinois prairie.
    The view was tremendous. The bar had numerous exotic liqueurs and top-shelf brand hard liquor. The bathrooms were pristine solid marble. No tile on these floors or walls. The fixtures were gold plated. A device that remotely resembled a microwave oven sat on the edge of the bathtub.
    “What’s this?” I asked, highlighting it with my flashlight.
    Deplonte said, “A towel warmer.” Adding enough “how could you be so stupid not to know that?” to his tone that I’d have cheerfully shoved the appliance up his recently penetrated butt—sideways.
    Tudor’s laptop computer sat on a desk in the study. This room was lined with books and was the only one with skylights. The rain poured unrelentingly. I opened the computer top. It didn’t even beep or peep or make a protest. It was very dead. Even were it designed to do so, we weren’t