"Showdown," - Part 10 - The
Panty Imprecation
by Robin
Under cover of darkness, Alex Krycek slipped
into the trailer park and crept up to the double-wide mobile home
that belonged to his sometime paramour, former beautician and
full-time barfly, Renata Detweiler. The relentless ticking emanating
from his prosthetic arm reminded him that he now had less than
60 hours to retrieve the Thong of Power from Renata, locate Skinner
and find some way to get him back to Marta Stuart and Marita Covarrubias
before the incendiary device would flame him like Bill Gates in
an Apple chat room. He surveyed the area and noted with satisfaction
that the Peterbilt belonging to Earl Elvis, Renata's truck driver
husband was absent. Luck was with him.
He popped the lock on the door and like a shadow - a loudly ticking
shadow - slipped inside. The sound of sobbing brought him to a
halt. Renata was sitting at the kitchenette table, garbed in a
black spandex tube dress and lace up boots, the very picture of
sorrow itself - if sorrow had platinum hair and wore three shades
of eye shadow, that is. Krycek stepped into a pool of light cast
by the Coors beer lamp that Earl Elvis won at his last tractor
pull and coughed discreetly. Upon seeing him, Renata flung herself,
especially her heaving and substantial bosom, upon his chest.
"Oh Alex! He's gone! Earl Elvis is gone!" She moaned,
wiping her dripping nose on his shoulder.
"Now, Renata, honey. The man's gotta make a living..."
Renata pulled back and gave him an irritated look.
"No," she explained, as though to a dim and recalcitrant
child. "He's not on a haul...he's *gone* gone." Alex
looked at her blankly.
"Dead, you jerk! My Earl Elvis is dead!" And with that
she fell to weeping while still managing to push Krycek to the
wall, rubbing up against him in a most distracting fashion. Alex
rolled his eyes and sighed. It was obvious that Renata expected
consolation but he was pretty sure that between the time bomb
in his prosthesis and framed picture of Earl Elvis adorned with
black crepe sitting on the kitchen table he was not up to a round
of The Lonely Countess and the Frisky Chauffeur tonight.
"Hey!" She suddenly lifted her head. "Where's that
ticking coming from? And how come you have *two* arms now?"
"Renata...honey..." Alex looked soulfully into her eyes,
"I know this isn't the best time but I'm in a little trouble.
I need to pick up that package I left with you and get going or
this new arm of mine is going to explode and roast me like a weenie."
Upon hearing that, Renata stepped back from him, unable to meet
his eyes.
"Well, Alex, darlin'. You know I'd do just about anything
for you and all..."
He felt the cold right hand of fear close around his heart and
the cold left hand of fear tuck his testicles up into his abdomen.
"The package, Renata! Where is it?" To his alarm, she
began sobbing uncontrollably. He forced himself to remain calm
and, sidling over, he wrapped a companionable arm across her shoulders.
"Just tell me what happened, Baby. I won't be mad."
Surreptitiously he used his bionic arm to punch a hole through
the table top.
"Well," she began, smearing the trails of mascara that
streaked down her face with the palm of her hand and tucking a
strand of chemically treated hair behind her ear. "I never
meant to pry but when you left that package, you seemed so nervous
and sneaky...Ithought it might be marijuana or somethin', you
know, illegal." She bit her lip and peeked at him. He nodded
sympathetically and checked his watch.
"Anyways, I thought I'd just take quick look and if it *was*
somethin' like that I'd bury it out back or put it in the truck
so's it wouldn't be on the premises here..."
"Very smart," he nodded, suppressing the growing urge
to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze till her eyes popped
out and bounced around the trailer like ping pong balls.
"Well...when I saw that pretty thong, I just had to take
it out and get a better look at it. And then Earl Elvis came in..."
her face screwed up into a mass of colors and textures vaguely
reminiscent of a painting by Jackson Pollack.
"Then Earl Elvis came in..." he prompted gently as the
fingers on his bionic arm began to tap divots in the table top.
"Well, what could I tell him Alex?! He could see it was made
for a man!" She paused and looked him in the eye. "A
really *big* man at that..."
"Yeah, yeah..." he winced. "But what happened to
it? Where is it now?"
"I'm getting to that...Anyways, I had to think of something
so I told him I bought it for him - an early anniversary present,
like - and he got *real* excited!" Her eyes widened at the
memory. "If I'd a known he liked fancy panties so much, I'd
a bought them for him years ago!"
Krycek removed his arm from her shoulder and covered his eyes.
He was beginning to understand what Fox Mulder saw in those strange
fits of uncontrollable crying to which Mulder was prone.
"Well, he wanted to try it on right away and there was just
no talking him out of it..." Renata said. "I had to
let him or he'd know it wasn't for him. So he did...And then...."
her fingertips went to her lips and her eyes scrunched up. It
took a moment for him to catch up to her. Slowly he removed his
hand from his eyes and turned toward her in horror."
"He put it *on*?!" She nodded mutely in response.
"Everything seemed OK at first. And he was so cute just dancin'
around the trailer like a little Chippendale trainee. But then
he started to sweat and moan. I thought he was havin' a heart
attack!"
"Please *please*, Baby - cut to the chase!" The raw
need in his voice got through to her.
"They blew up!" She wailed. He nodded that he understood
and then shook his head when he realized that he didn't.
"What blew up?"
Still wailing she pointed at Alex's crotch.
"They?...*They* blew up?" he said, horrified.
She nodded. Krycek crossed his legs and crouched slightly in sympathy
with the lately departed Earl Elvis.
"The thong?" he squeaked. "It blew up too?"
"Oh, no." She regained her composure. "He got it
off and flung it away. But not in time. They wouldn't stop swelling
and swelling..."
"Ok, Ok...I get it," he cut in feeling slightly nauseous.
"It took eight full hours to clean everything off the walls..."
"OK! OK!...Just..." He paused and drew a couple of deep
breaths. "Just tell me about the Thong, honey."
"Well I wasn't about to keep it here! And you never told
me when you'd be back." She turned on him angrily. "And
you never told me it was so dangerous!"
"Renata!" he gripped her arms and pushed his face into
hers. "Where...Is...It?"
"I took it down to throw it in the ocean." She said,
lifting a defiant chin.
"You threw it in the ocean?!!" He screeched in a sudden
and unflattering soprano.
"Well...no. I was about to but a guy down at the harbor offered
me $50 dollars for it...."
"What guy, Renata? What guy?"
"He was just a guy in a suit. Said he was taking a cruise
to Europe and it was just what he needed for Costume Night."
"Renata, think... Did he say anything else? Anything at all?"
"Mmmm. Well, he did say that his friends in Switzerland would
get a big kick out of seeing it. The thong, I mean. Said they'd
been looking for something just like it for a long time..."
A man in a suit! Switzerland! Looking for a thong! That could
mean only one thing. The man on the docks was a leg man for the
Consortium! The blood drained out of Krycek's face and pooled
in his abdomen. He felt woozy. He wanted to lay down on the floor
and curl up in fetal position.
Tick...tick...tick... The sound brought him back to himself. Perhaps
the leg man didn't realize what he had. Maybe he thought it was
only a facsimile. Yes! It had to be! If he'd known it was the
real article, he'd have popped Renata and dropped her in the harbor
somewhere. There was still time. As long as the fool didn't try
to wear the damned thing!
Krycek straightened up and moved with a purpose as he always did
when there was something nefarious and dastardly to be accomplished.
He strode to the door, then strode back and held out his hand,
snapping his fingers impatiently. Renata rolled her eyes, fished
around in her ample cleavage and handed over the $50 bill. Krycek
gave her a lingering kiss, copped a quick feel, then shot out
the door and into the night.
Two precious hours later he was on the
docks looking for the cruise ship "Gilligan" which was
scheduled to depart for Europe that night. The ticking from his
bionic arm was beginning to sound like thunder. He had to find
that ship and get the Thong back. He would worry about finding
Skinner later.
Alex became aware that someone was staring at him. Staring at
him intently. Staring at him with hatred. Staring at him with
loathing. He turned. Standing on a piling at the end of a rotted
pier he saw a perfectly sculpted masculine body, quivering with
barely suppressed rage, silhouetted against the harbor lights.
Obviously, AD Skinner had found him first.
He took a tentative step backwards but Skinner strode swiftly
toward him, reaching out to take Krycek's head in his hand and
pop it like a pimple. In a move so blindingly fast that neither
men saw it, Krycek's bionic arm whipped up and knocked Skinner's
arm away. They both stood, mouths open in surprise for the space
of a heart beat. Then Skinner lunged again, this time grabbing
the prosthesis and squeezing mightily. The arm was more durable
than anything the AD encountered before and when he could not
crush it to a fine powder, he simply lifted and held Krycek dangling
in the air, feet kicking ineffectually at his tormenter. Skinner
clenched his jaws in quiet triumph, causing a medium-to-tall wave
set parading across the harbor. He fixed Krycek with a basilisk
eye and nodded.
"You're mine, Rat Boy..." he crooned in a voice so rich
and velvety that Krycek found he was getting drowsy and that,
really, having Skinner beat him to a pulp might be a *fun* thing.
"Drop that Rat, Sir!" A familiar voice ordered from
a nearby alleyway. Dana Scully, her service pistol at the ready,
stepped into the light.
"Agent Scully! What are you doing? Take that gun off me!
That's an order!" Skinner said, giving Krycek a shake for
good measure.
"You have to put him down, Sir. Now! We need him alive."
Scully said apologetically but keeping her gun trained on her
boss. "I don't want to shoot you, Sir, but I shot Mulder
once under very similar circumstances and if I have to..."
"Agent Scully, we have no need of this piece of filth. He's
just another fly speck to be wiped off the shining windshield
that is America."
"Ordinarily I would agree with that, Sir. But I've just gotten
word that the Thong has fallen into the wrong hands. And the only
people in the world that can handle it safely are you, me and...Alex
Krycek..."
to be continued...