Damn Him to Hell (25 page)

I didn’t think emergency personnel drove plain sedans or blocked alleys.
Not normal
, warned my suspicion-ometer.

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
Whassup?
“Where are you and what do you know about this?”

“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.

Fury fully engaged
. I struggled with the red rage, ready to damn them to hell whether they were evil or not. Except, for a change, I’d actually planned ahead and knew precisely how to do this using my smarts. I didn’t need Saturn’s powers or to risk my eternal soul.

Calculating the goon with the gun behind me wouldn’t risk offing his pal, I fell forward and
rammed both palms into Scaredy-Cat’s chest. He was twice as big as I was, so I couldn’t hope to knock him down, just throw him off-balance with surprise. While he staggered to regain his footing, I grabbed his jacket and located the bulge of his gun. I aimed my knee at his balls at the same time I relieved him of his weapon.

I’m not much on guns, and Pearl was in the way of a shoot-out, so disarming was my only intent. I flung the weapon into the shrubbery as Scaredy-Cat gasped and curled around his bruised junk. Saturn had fixed my lameness. That didn’t mean he’d made my knees any less bony.

Milo shrieked his mighty roar and leaped for the guy with the gun. But my cat had to sail past Pearl, and his aim was off. He merely landed on the intimidator’s shoulder. The goon shouted with pain as Milo ripped at his ear, but he didn’t drop the gun. I had to act fast before my cat got hurt.

There were no water sprinklers to imagine raining on this parade. No pots of shit available. I did the best I could with what I had on hand—I called on the yellow-jacket nest I’d been giving wide berth all summer. While Milo ripped an ear, I envisioned enraged wasps and directed them at the intimidator with the gun.

When the right tools are at hand, justice can be swift
. I needed to add that to the handbook.

I dropped to the ground, and Pearl had the sense to step out of the way as well.

Man, you’d think the intimidator had personally kicked wasp ass, I thought admiringly as a black, angry cloud rose over the rail. With a little help from
my visualization, the furies of hell swarmed out of the bushes like all the plagues of Egypt. Yellow jackets hurt. Even Milo leapt to the rail and over to Tim’s porch for safety.

With furious wasps swarming his head, the intimidator hurdled the railing, screaming. He crushed a few half-dead azaleas below and fled for the sedan. While Scaredy-Cat nearly fell off the step dodging angry insects, the main mass of the yellow-jacket nest followed on the gunman’s tail. Pearl shrieked and ran back inside. The bugs didn’t follow her. They stuck with the gray-suited goon.

With the wasps safely heading in the right direction, I straightened when the guy with bruised balls tried to run and kicked his knee, hard. He howled. That’s when the cop cars screamed down the street, a little late for the party.

The med student and his suit merely stared and wisely stayed out of the way of the swarming insects. I figured Tim dodged back inside. He didn’t like police or wasps.

I hadn’t had my breakfast yet, and I get mean on an empty stomach. I just leaned against the porch rail, crossed my puny brown arms, and let the big men figure out how to handle the situation.
Innocent little ol’ me couldn’t have caused all this ruckus, right? They’re all twice my size
. I shook out my glossy hair and smiled pretty for the men in blue.

Andre arrived in his Mercedes convertible right after the cop cars parked a fair distance from the raging insects. The intimidator was inside his sedan, but
yellow jackets have a reputation for a good reason. They’d followed him in, and the ones on the outside were circling the car, hunting for new openings. The goon was screaming bloody murder and swatting too hard to turn on the ignition.

Scarcely giving the swarming bugs a second glance, Andre strolled toward me, both fighting a grin and wearing his stern, don’t-mess-with-me demeanor. Two-faced shark, the bastard.

“I was thinking pancakes for breakfast,” I called, remembering my bedhead and combing my fingers through my thick mane. That was usually all it took to tame it. Andre’s appreciative gaze said the gesture worked. “Leo said he’d be here shortly. Want to join us?” I asked.

“Blueberry with antifreeze syrup?” he asked sarcastically. Despite my most excellent offer, he didn’t take my arm and retreat to more pleasant environs. Instead, he grabbed the collar of the guy I’d just kneed and dragged him upright.

Now that the Zone’s unofficial mayor had arrived, the cops warily climbed out of their cars. The yellow jackets stuck to the unmarked white sedan. The baddies weren’t going anywhere in their vehicle anytime soon.

I nodded at the corner and called to the cops, “There’s another car blocking the alley, if you want one that isn’t under attack.”

A pair of uniforms peeled off in that direction. The other pair separated, one taking Andre’s prisoner, the other advancing on the frozen fool on the other porch.
So maybe that one really did think he was legitimately evacuating the neighborhood, which made him an even bigger fool.

“We think they’re the same thieves who broke into the warehouse,” I lied to the officers. “They were threatening poor Pearl and pulled a gun on me. I’ll happily press charges.”

Policemen didn’t like the Zone because we were peculiar and our troubles seldom fell under normal laws. So I prettified the situation in terms they understood.

“What have you got inside that they’d go to this much trouble for?” one uniform sensibly asked, handcuffing my black-and-blue-balled victim.

I pulled the fake evacuation orders out of Scaredy-Cat’s pocket and handed them over as evidence. “Green gas,” I said with a straight face. “Evidence of chemical warfare and valuable only to Acme.”

“Neighborhood dispute?” the cop translated wryly.

“You can call it that. We may not have evidence on the warehouse break-in, but we have witnesses who saw them attempt to enter our houses under false pretenses. Waspman pulled a gun. You’ll find it in the yews. Just let me know what you need and I’ll comply,” I said with good cheer, hiding my fury. If I didn’t have to work regular hours anymore, I could spend as much time as I liked testifying against bad guys.

This realization was a totally major development and walloped me upside the head.

By offering to take me on as partner, Julius was doing me a favor so large I couldn’t comprehend the immensity. Without Judge Snootypants breathing
down my collar, I had time to pursue justice legally, without interference from anyone, a hitherto unknown freedom. I wanted to pop champagne and dance, but I’d have to save it until I had Acme where I wanted them.

I wasn’t pretending my new job would be easy. The walls I had to climb next were perpendicular and towered way out of my sight. But I stupidly preferred challenges to pouring coffee for twerps.