Moonlight Rises (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) by Vincent Zandri

school.”
    “I learn how to say, ‘fuck’ and ‘ you’!” barks Commander Obama. “Do not correct me when I speaking the English.”
    “I get it,” I interject. “Yes, yes, yes, I very well get the point.”
    “See ass pie?” Commander Obama says to the short Obama.
    “Ass! Hole!” small Obama corrects again. “Word is Ass! Hole! Yes?”
    I’m fearing an all out brawl, which might not be a bad thing. But I also want to get the hell out of that basement. I decide to lay on some Moonlight charm.
    “Wow you really know how to frighten somebody, Barack. Your English is excellent and you really know what you’re doing. In that whole torture-the-guy-in-possession-of-the-important-information kind of way. I’m gonna have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
    I feel Commander Obama actually smiling proudly under his rubber mask.
    “I can do well in this country of the brave Bambis and the soft belly, yes?” Commander Obama adds.
    “Yes, Mr. Obama,” I say. “Only in America can a man like you grow up to be President.”

CHAPTER 24

    THEY UN-TAPE US FROM the tables.
    Having duct tape torn off your bare chest is torture enough. Big and short Obama get a kick out of the procedure, like they’re giving us a waxing that glam chicks out in L.A. only dream about.
    Then a fourth Obama appears on the scene. Or maybe this Obama has been there lurking in the shadows the entire time.
    This one is shorter than the short one with the Conair. And smaller too. Slighter. The newly arrived little one applies some Bendatine solution to Georgie’s chest. Following that, the little Obama bandages him up. What we have here is a torturer with a conscience
    “Don’t take this off until later,” the little Obama whispers. “And those jerk-offs made me agree to all this.”
    The voice shocks me more than that dead-in-the-water Conair did Georgie. It’s a female voice. It isn’t like the others. Do I suspect dissension in the ranks?
    I most certainly do.
    They yank us off the tables, stand us up, replace the duct tape on our mouths with fresh tape, and bind our wrists together behind our backs. Then they lead us up the stairs and out a trap door, to a four-door BMW with tinted windows.
    No one says another word without the use of those voice synthesizers. That’s when something dawns on me. If they’re so protective of their voices, is it possible I know one of them? Otherwise, why hide your voice?
    But I’m in no position to push the matter. Plus there’s the issue of the smaller one. The one with the woman’s voice. No way she’s a part of the original gang-of-three that beat me to death just other day. She’s a newbie. Far smaller than her teammates. By all appearances, she’s willing to blow her cover by whispering to us, and by helping mend the small punctures Georgie received from that Conair wire.
    Commander Obama and short Obama snuggle up into the front shotgun seat. Commander is pressed up tight against the door, yet somehow manages to hold a .9mm on us over his left shoulder. The taller of the three Obamas gets behind the wheel, fires her up. The small female Obama squeezes in beside me, an identical .9mm gripped in her left hand.
    That’s where they make their mistake.
    Putting Georgie and me together like that. If I were doing the transporting, I would have placed someone in between Georgie and me. Or I would have at least put one of us up front in the middle, instead of that fireplug. That way they could prevent us from working together to undo the duct tape that binds our wrists.
    To be truthful, it isn’t all that difficult.
    As the BMW moves slowly across a barren landscape of formerly suburban McHomes, I maneuver my wrists towards Georgie even with them being bound behind my back. And I can do it without Commander Obama being the least bit suspicious. After all, he’s wearing a mask like the rest of them. And he’s also shoved up tight against the door. He has limited or even zero peripheral