curiosity and sneak.
I sneaked. Maybe I should tell Fat Chick the next rule is:
I peered through a crack between the fence boards at the back alley. A plain white sedan blocked the nearest exit. If I tried escaping out the opposite end of the alley, I could be spotted and outraced.
I didn’t think emergency personnel drove plain sedans or blocked alleys.
With back alley escape blocked, the only cover between me and whoever was in the house would be the houses themselves and their overgrown shrubbery. Lacking Andre’s nifty tunnel, I had no way of getting out of here, if it was called for.
Before performing any stunts involving the Harley and white sedans, I crept under the shrubbery between Pearl’s and the house on the far side from Andre’s, intelligently avoiding the hornets in the bushes next to Andre’s place.
Another unmarked white car waited in the street. Very weird. Acme’s goons usually arrived in fancy black Escalades. Cops would have used marked emergency vehicles.
Tim had been taking care of the potted plants on Pearl’s porch lately. They were finally showing signs of life, but the greenery didn’t conceal Pearl standing in bewilderment just above where I crouched. She was wringing her hands in her apron and talking to a tall guy in a gray suit and shades. He had the confident stance of a fed and not a shifty goon.
Another one stood on the steps of the neighboring house, speaking to one of the nameless and interchangeable med students. I shrank back into the bushes, hit Leo’s private number on my cell, and willed him to answer.
“We have what appears to be feds evacuating the neighborhood,” I whispered when I heard his tired
“I’m on the shit shift and just about to head home.” He sounded a little more alert. “I’ve not heard about any evacuation orders. No black-and-whites?”
“None. Which means someone’s bluffing, right?”
“They have to have court orders to force you to leave your home. Uniformed emergency personnel can only suggest evacuation, not legally enforce it. At this hour, I’m going with intimidation tactics. They’re after our patients.”
I liked the way Leo thought. “Can you send us some cops? Or do you want me to do this my way?” I was already mad enough to conjure a gate to hell for thugs harassing old ladies. But evidence was still light on any other wrongdoing. Hell is a stiff penalty for being a bully, and I didn’t want to end up in a wheelchair. Guilt did not necessarily equate evil.
“I’ve got two cars in the vicinity. Give them ten. I’ll be there in thirty.” He hung up.
The brute who must have been pounding futilely on my apartment door appeared on the porch, wearing the same menacing attitude of his comrades in arms. He glared at poor Pearl, who shook a little harder. Silver-haired and toothless without her dentures, Pearl was harmless. I was sure, like everyone else, she had a story. That didn’t justify scaring her half to death.
“No one’s answering. It’s a matter of life and death. If your tenants are asleep, we need your keys to wake them.” Gray Suit stuck out his hand, using his authoritative voice and appearance to pressure my landlady.
It occurred to me then that if these were Acme’s goons, they didn’t know to which house the warehouse tunnel led. What they really wanted was in Pearl’s basement, without any witnesses to see what they were doing.
If these pretend feds were from Acme, someone besides Gloria had sent them, which meant Gloria might not have been the only ugly over there. Bad, bad news. We really needed to rescue Bill and the others from the plant before Acme turned them into Frankenstein monsters. Or turned them blue like the buildings. I only hoped it wasn’t too late.
Schwartz had said ten minutes until his men could get here, but I could hear sirens screaming in the distance. I had to hope they’d been closer than Schwartz thought and that they were heading this way, because I was about to get obnoxious. Shoving aside the bushes, I sauntered onto the square patch of front lawn.
“Good morning to you, Mrs. Bodine,” I called cheerily. I waved at the confused med student wiping sleep from his eyes on the other porch. “Bit early for visitors, isn’t it?”
Pearl’s jaw relaxed in relief. Paddy had said not to underestimate her, but she seemed happy to see me. The med student narrowed his eyes warily, which was probably the more intelligent reaction to my unusual gaiety.
“These gentlemen say we need to evacuate, dear. Something to do with the chemical cloud, I think?” Pearl said as I approached.
“A little late for that, gentlemen. We’ve all been exposed and we’re all still alive.” Milo leaped out of my bag to sniff trouser cuffs and growl. I never knew whether he was half bobcat or dog. I just let him do his thing.
The creep on the stair edged away from Milo. My cat’s reputation probably preceded him. He’d nearly ripped the head off one of Acme’s guards in the past. I used the cleared space to elbow my way to the porch.
“Federal orders, ma’am,” the unfriendly guy behind Pearl snarled. “Mandatory evacuation.”
Ignoring him, I patted Pearl’s shoulder. “Leo is on his way. Why don’t you fry up some nice crisp bacon while I talk to these pretty men?”
“Can’t allow you back in there, ma’am,” Unfriendly warned, blocking the door with his bulk.
“Unless you have a court order, you can’t keep us out,” I said, keeping the anger down and the cheer level up. “Legally, by blocking our access to the door, you are giving us no avenue of retreat, which means we can act in self-defense. So let’s see the orders, boys.” Legal educations are so very useful—at least mine would be, right up until the point I flung the creeps into the bushes.
“Orders aren’t needed for an emergency evacuation,” the scaredy-cat afraid of Milo countered. “These orders are straight from the top.”
On the porch next to us, the med student was listening to our argument and conspicuously blocking his own door. On the other side, Andre’s door opened, but no one appeared on his porch. Which probably meant Tim had come out to spy. Julius wouldn’t leave Katerina’s side, and who knew where Andre was. But knowing I had support just yards away, I managed to keep from losing my cool. There’d been a time when I’d been all alone, and my obnoxiousness got out of hand as a result. These days, I was enjoying company and going for sane.
“We don’t have to comply with emergency evacuations,” I countered. “Only a court-ordered one. I’ll have to see your documents.”
The sirens were screaming closer. The gray suits grew restless. Scaredy-Cat on the steps finally produced a packet of papers from an inner pocket and handed them over.
I was angry enough to contemplate ripping them up and flinging them in their faces, but med students and Tim weren’t totally reliable bodyguards. Stalling until the cops arrived was the safest route. I bolted down the lid on my pressure-cooker temper and glanced through the bogus legalese, almost laughing at their feeble attempts.
“Very nice, boys,” I said. “I could have done better and it would have cost you less, but these appear impressive enough to scare an old lady and a few exhausted interns. Probably wouldn’t pass Julius, which is why you’re not on his doorstep.”
I folded the papers up and handed them back. “You said it yourself, the governor doesn’t write up court orders in an emergency, and that’s all these papers are declaring. Next time, try to remember who’s ordering us out, use a little more imagination, and conjure better excuses. Now leave before we have you arrested.”
Which shows where conceit gets you. I’d stupidly thought I could intimidate the intimidators, forgetting that goons carry guns. The one barring the door pressed one into my back.
“This official enough?” he asked, shoving me toward Scaredy-Cat.
