April (33 page)

"Lots of times we slept in the plane with our weapons beside us, because we were in some God forsaken rat hole in the middle of nowhere and afraid we'd never get to the plane and get out, if we didn't stay aboard. Been in more little dirt strip pest holes, with minarets and palm trees, than I care to relate. These were old heavy lifters. Some of them so old they had propellers, not ducted fans, big old windmills. They could fly with a whole lot of holes shot in them if you had to."

"We still meet Easy's old buddies from time to time and they never get very specific about where or when they worked together. Don't forget Honey, I grew up in Detroit. You could go out on the street and buy a gun, easier than you could find a good pizza. And the old smart cops were scared to get out of their armored squad car. Real educational place to grow up. Answer your question?"

"Yes it does. I just wanted to be sure you could use this if I gave it to you." April reached back and unclipped the extra laser on her belt. She could see Ruby's eyes linger on the twin which stayed on her belt. She never missed a thing.

April showed her the pressure points to open the handle and screen and explained there was a tutorial which would help her set it up. "It's set at lowest power right now until you find the menu and turn it up." Ruby examined it in her lap, as April explained the basics. With Ruby's back to the rest of the room April was happy with their privacy.

Ruby seemed real pleased with the gift. "I assume then I'm to share this with my husband. You can bet he has something lethal squirreled away he hasn't even told me about, but he'll be tickled with this. He might even have more need of it outside pressure where he works, if it comes to trouble. Thanks April."

"About Easy," April added. "My brother and I are buying a scooter and will be doing some business with it. Would you ask your husband if he would consider moonlighting for us if we need some help? Bob and I are both going to be taking the license exam soon, but we might feel a whole lot better getting somebody to take a few flights with us who has some real experience, especially if we get some work which involves doing a flight to another habitat."

"Easy tells me frequently, in great detail, how he's still the greatest scooter pilot ever. Seriously though, he is good. I'll let him know." She said it like a goodbye - getting up and heading back to work. April watched her walking away and tried to see where she had put the laser, but it was concealed and April had somehow not seen where she had stowed it she was so slick.

April took a deep breath and mustered her nerve, then punched Jon's number in the pad. She thought about trying to present her problem with Doris as a pure security problem and make him feel obligated, but she suspected he was too smart to be manipulated so easily. She decided she would just straight out tell him she felt it was the right thing to do and appeal to him to help. Hadn't she read somewhere forgiveness was easier to get than permission?

Chapter 17

April looked across the desk at Jon. This was the first time she had ever been in his office. Maybe it would have been better to get him out to some neutral site, but it was too late now. She had been all worked up about Doris and asked to meet face to face before stopping and thinking what she wanted to accomplish. He had invited her to come right over, before she had thought to ask for a different place. The office was so small if he came around the narrow desk, she thought she'd have to step outside to allow him past. Margaret had been in the outer office and greeted her warmly and an older lady had smiled at her and seemed very happy to meet her, who they called Theo, about her grandmothers age, rail thin in all black with a single string of pearls and a pair of half glasses which were almost certainly a stage prop, since vision was so easy to correct. Margaret was in a call with someone so Theo walked her to Jon's office and asked if she would like coffee?

Jon was looking at Theo, in a way which told her it was unusual for Theo to be offering to serve refreshments and made an awful choking throat clearing noise. Theo cut it off with a quick piercing look and said "You sound like you need a cup too Jon," in clipped curt speech. Not a question or an offer. April suddenly got the feeling  he was going to get a cup and he'd jolly well drink it and like it, if he knew what was good for him.

April started relating her meeting with Doris and all she had said about her father.

Theo came back with three cups of coffee and a small platter of almond cookies and baklava, which must be out of the ordinary since Jon's eyes had actually bugged out. She positioned them for April and pointedly far out of Jon's reach, although he got a huge mug of black coffee. Theo planted herself on the corner of Jon's desk and made herself comfortable with her back to the wall, as there was no third seat in the office, or even room for one.

April went on to confess she had given her key card to Doris and pleaded not only the necessity of safe guarding someone at risk for family violence, but explained about the father's alliance with Art and the potential for intelligence about what actions might take place with the rock. Theo made occasional little appreciative noises, to acknowledge the impact some of the information had for her.

"I'm sorry to dump another problem on you, when so much else is going on."

"Hey, everything else keeps happening. Freight gets pilfered, folks get in arguments and stuff gets lost, people write crap on the walls. It's our job," he said dismissively.

"Well Jon," Theo said, "we don't really have a proper police matron. I'll volunteer to meet and assess this young lady and I'm sure you'll be able happy to inform the court through her attorney, when she hires one groundside, she is voluntarily being supervised by one of your female officers. I'll help her if she will allow it, because I have been through the same trial of fleeing an abusive family."

April was glad to hear what was motivating Theo. But Theo was so pushy she worried she'd alienate Jon over the issue of Doris, which she didn't need, as Jon was an important asset for her.

"Theo, I'm sure you have a great deal of experience and I'm happy to hear you will help, but I want to tell you my grandmother was involved in social work of this kind. If there is anything you find you need to ask, about how to work the system, especially the Earth end of it, I'd like to give you her number. Just tell her I asked for her to help. Would you like the number?" She asked, ready to write it on a sticky pad from Jon's desk.

"Sure." Theo agreed. "I don't know what I might ask her yet, but I will always keep all the resources I can muster." She said, taking the note. April was relieved that was so easy.

"I'd like to go down to the Holiday Inn now. She is probably holed up there to avoid running into her dad and I'll do a preliminary interview."

"Please." Said Jon. "Thanks for taking the initiative. It's always better to have volunteers than assigning a job."

Jon seemed to relax visibly when Theo exited and took a sip of his coffee, contemplating April. She felt so sorry for him she pushed the cookie plate over to share.

"I don't know exactly what happened just now," April said. "But I had no idea Theo would take such an interest. I didn't set it up to have her put any undue pressure on you. I  didn't know Theo before coming in here today."

"No, no. It's OK. This really worked out as well as I could have wished. I really would have called Theo in and used her, if she had not thrust herself into it like she did.

I didn't want to say anything until she was gone, but you are doing it again you know, don't you?

"Doing what again?" April asked confused.

"You are snooping out the action. First you found the spy who did a job on the Singhs and now you have uncovered the USNA agent and plan of action for controlling M3, after they come in and do a grab on the Rock."

"Maybe, that's filling a lot of the blanks in with guesses. But it does look mighty suspicious. You know it's not right," April complained. "If Margaret had brought this to you it would have been described as a fine piece of detective work. But when I do it it's snooping. I only found out because I was trying to do the right thing by Doris anyway. I really just kind of lucked out."

"That's fine but in the end the information about her dad is going to be more important than how Doris gets treated. Theo might have even been worried I'd lose sight of Doris, with the bigger issues on the table. The issue hits so close to home she just had to make sure I never got an opening to decide to do the wrong thing." Jon picked a piece of baklava and took a break to daintily nibble the corner off.

"Theo seems to be one of those strong personalities - almost an elemental force of nature," he explained. "She got the name her dad had reserved for a son, she's a Theodore, not Theodora and in more ways than you ever want to know he made life difficult for her."

"I didn't find out about her background until one day they brought a fellow in who had beat up his wife and threatened to kill his daughter, because he claimed in a drunken rage he wasn't sure she was his child. It would have still been OK, but he was handcuffed to Frank's desk there next to Theo's and he made the mistake of addressing Theo with what you might call a gender slur. When she got up and was unlocking his cuffs he must have sensed something was wrong. She grabbed him by a little finger and his hair and marched him in the wash room."

"I tried to rush over to stop anything bad happening. After all he had just beat up a much younger woman pretty badly. My other people all stood in my way and blocked me out of the wash room and Skip insisted quietly she wasn't in any danger. Theo came out, got in her purse and got what appeared to be a piece of heavy plastic braided hose, filled with some kind of metal shot and went back in with it. After awhile she came back out and told Frank to take some supplies in and tell the fellow to clean the room up."

  "Whatever she did I couldn't see a mark on him. Frank directed him to resume his seat by the desk, but this time he didn't cuff him to it. The fellow sat there as rigid as could be and trying not to look at Theo, but he looked like a rabbit poised to run."

"After a while she looked up and checked him out. It was obvious he could see her out of the corner of his eye because he started  shivering, so I called to Frank to bring him in here and he sat him in the chair you're using. I told him truthfully, when someone causes a serious problem here, we usually just ship them back home. But I had a feeling he might have just had such an altering experience I could release him. Besides, it would be safer for his wife and daughter if I kept the whole problem here, where we were aware of it, rather than sending them all down home where he could start up again."

"So I asked him and he was uncommonly eager to assure me he would never give us trouble again. I told him I was obligated have to have agent Wilson, who had helped him to the restroom, inquire of his wife on occasion and make sure she was not being mistreated again. I can't tell you how emphatic he was, that she would find no problems and I believed him. Theo has suffered a lot of the same crap that man's wife and Doris caught and she simply doesn't put up with it anymore. You won't find a better advocate."

"Wow, she doesn't look capable of being so
rough
."

"Yes, but I didn't just tell you because it's an interesting story. It's not correct to terrorize prisoners, even if it did probably save the rest of the family. It's wasn't properly Theo's or my judgment to make. We
should
have shipped him Dirtside. You shouldn't lose control of your own people like I did. So, now you know, even though you favored me over Eric Willard, I'm not perfect by a long shot. How does that affect
us
?"

"I don't know anybody perfect, but you're my friend now and I can see you try to do what's right and it's enough you care and try, as far as I'm concerned. OK?"

"OK, but would you be comfortable to do business with me if I wanted to hire your scooter?"

Her mouth fell open, because the shift threw her completely off. She hadn't seen where he was going. To her this conversation left the original subject in broad leaps. To her thinking there was just no direct bridge from an interesting story about his agent, to asking if they would work for him. Was he really saying he wasn't always in control or perfect, so could she still work for such a person? Who was perfect or always in control? Nobody she knew. Did he really demand that much of himself? She could see she was a long way from understanding how Jon thought.

"You wouldn't be hiring the boat, you'd be hiring
us.
I already had my dad say you offered me a job, but I was sure he was just teasing. But even if he wasn't, he said I couldn't do it yet because it was too dangerous."

"As for Bob, I hate to say it about my brother, but despite his many talents I don't think he is suited to police work. He is a business man, but he is way too good at taking any advantage he sees. He'll even give me the short end of the stick if I let him and he feels no shame about it. It just seems natural to him to take whatever advantage he can get and if you let him, he sees it as your fault for allowing it. It seems to be getting worse as he gets older too. I can see him getting in over his head if he has too many chances to shave the edge on ethical issues. Do you understand what I'm saying?

"I do, although that's more than I wanted to know, but what I'm interested in is the scooter you guys are buying. I've found out the last couple days it's really hard to hire a scooter in this market and the owners are ridiculously risk adverse. If my department was your first customer, before you are known to everyone as couriers and seen coming and going all the time in the business, it might really help us, because we have a passenger pickup which might call for some finesse and secrecy. I believe you would approve of picking your friend Jeff's dad up?"

"Well sure, but how'd you hear we have a scooter? Bob has it in for rebuild and it hasn't been re-registered yet."

"The old owner told me who he sold it to, when I called him up thinking he still had it. He even suggested you might not be all scheduled up with work, until you are sure when it's coming out of the shop."