Ryan eyeballed the chirpy salesgirl. “Will do,” he said, and moved away as she pressed too close for comfort.
Underwear took some extra looking, and there were no bras to be found for the women. Trying to help conserve funds, Doc made a show of announcing he was sticking with his genuine one-of-a-kind long Johns.
“Keep wearing those moldy old drawers, and they’re going to adhere to you like a second skin, Doc,” Mildred retorted. “One of these nights, I’ll have to surgically remove the smelly things!”
“Smelly? You dare cast aspersions on my cleanliness, woman?” Doc boomed in his best outraged tone of voice. He struck a lecturer’s pose, one hand on his hip and the other tugging at the lapel of his frock coat.
“Now you’ve gone and done it,” J.B. said sadly.
“I will have you know my personal hygiene is beyond reproach! On occasion, this extra layer of clothing I wear might be a burden during times of warmth, but who is the one enjoying the insulation when a brittle chill settles down around us at night? Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner, that’s who!”
“Alas,” Mildred retorted, sarcastically lifting the back of her hand to her brow and striking a shrinking-violet pose. “Once again I, Dr. Mildred Winona Wyeth, have been struck down by the irrefutable logic of a doddering old fool in a threadbare pair of long Johns! What can I do but admit defeat! Defeat!”
Doc gave Mildred a withering look. “At last she admits it. I have witnesses. Witnesses! Ryan, we must race posthaste to a notary public so that I might have this moment legally documented and signed!”
“No can do, Doc,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “I’ll pony up for a pair of black socks for your feet, though.”
Doc bowed at the waist. “You are a kind man, my dear Ryan. Much too kind.”
The place was wearing on everybody, and once the needed items were located, Ryan plunked down the charge chit for all.
“Another thing,” J.B. said. “We need to stock up on some ammo if prices aren’t too high.”
“Only one way to find out,” Ryan agreed.
Strangely enough, when they reached the designated area for blasters and ammunition, the storefront was abandoned. Closed. Empty. J.B. checked with the shop’s neighbors and discovered it had sold out the inventory over a month earlier. The owner hadn’t been seen since.
“What you think happened, Dad?” Dean asked after the Armorer returned with the bad news.
“Don’t know, son,” Ryan replied. “I do know one thing, though.”
“What?”
“We’re going to have to continue to conserve on bullets.”
Chapter Sixteen
Upon his return to Freedom Center Station, Ryan had gratefully stripped out of his clothing and stepped into the shower stall to examine his injuries minor cuts and contusions; two broken toes; a lump the size of a robin’s egg on the back of his skull; a shoulder turning even darker colors of blue and purple. Even his tongue hurt, where his teeth had slammed on it when the android threw him into the wall of the pit.
Ryan turned the faucet, praying for a long hot shower.
What he got was a trickle of water that wasn’t exactly cold, but sure as hell wasn’t piping hot. The temperature was as tepid as it had been on the previous night. Ryan quickly washed his hair and body, wincing when he had to raise his twice-injured shoulder. The shower wasn’t at all what he had hoped for.
He kept his face under the stream of water as long as he could stand it, then dried himself, taking extra care with the open socket where his ruined left eye had once been. Ryan slid the scuffed eye patch back on and stared at his reflection.
“I need a shave,” he muttered, “but the hell with it.”
Nude, he stepped out into the small bedroom adjoining the bath. Krysty was flipping through a small book with a cracked red leather binding she’d found in the drawer of the nightstand.
“What you reading?” he asked.
“Holy Bible ,” she replied. “Been a while.”
“Sure.”
” ‘Placed here by the Gideons.’ ” Krysty read from the cover. “Wonder who they were? Some kind of traveling-preacher show? Mebbe they went from hotel to hotel, leaving Bibles all around to spread the word of God.”