Porter (8 page)

Raspy was turning to look at his compatriot who was now slumping to the side and drooling as he snorted another breath. “Roger! You idiot! Wake up!”
Raspy’s eyes opened wide and he stepped over and kicked Roger’s leg. “Roger!” The big man just sagged farther to the side and Raspy pulled out his gun with startling swiftness. “Dean! Get your butt in here!” Allie knew she didn’t have the strength to make another port big enough and long enough to put Raspy out too! Raspy was looking wildly around the room as if suspecting someone of shooting poisoned darts
or something
. Worse he was moving constantly around, presumably to avoid such darts but also making it hard for Allie to consider making a port in
him in
precisely the right location. Raspy suddenly shouted, “Come out you bastard or I kill the kid!” He pointed his gun at Stephen!

Allie panicked, any of the things she could think to do might make him pull the trigger and she thought she would only be able to make a little port. She focused on the inside of her Mace pepper spray cartridge, then reached out for Raspy’s nasal passages.
Could she grab the gun and make a port at the same time? Suddenly, off to Raspy’s left she saw her mother tip her chair over. The sudden motion and loud bang as the chair hit the floor caused Raspy to move the gun briefly towards Mrs. Dans. As it did, Allie opened the biggest port she could from the Mace canister to
the back of
Raspy’s
nasal passage
.
She immediately knew it was a small port, but apparently it was plenty big enough to let a significant dose of capsaicin through.
Raspy threw his head back in agony but Allie saw him
convulsively
squeez
e
the trigger. T
he gun was pointing at Stephen again! There was a little pop, like a cap gun, but no roar.

Damn! She’d forgotten
that she’d let
water into that cartridge. Raspy
fell
to his knees and
dropped
the gun clutch
ing
his face which had turned bright red. He was
coughing and
gasping for breath and tears were pouring down his cheeks. Allie picked up the gun and jacked the slide to get the wet bullet out of the chamber. Then she handed the gun to her dad and went to get
the
knife out of the holster on
Roger’s
belt.

Allie had just started cutting her mother’s gag loose when one of the bedroom doors slammed open and a man stepped into the room carrying a sawed off shotgun. “Dans, put that phone down!” he yelled.

Allie saw her dad had a phone in his hand. Apparently he’d picked it up off the end table behind him
. He dropped it on the floor.
“Hello Forst,” he said resignedly.

“So Dans, I’m thinking your daughter has the port machine somewhere in those baggy pants. Keep your hands in view kid!”

Allie
found herself
looking down the apparently huge barrel of the shotgun and she slowly raised her hands in the air.

“What are you doing with a knife?”

“Cutting my mom loose.”

“Ah. Well. P
ut the knife on the table and step over here into the middle of the room.
Humpf, t
o think your dad had a working model all this time he had me chasing my tail trying to make another!
”
             
Allie slowly set the knife on the table. She tried to reach out with her sense for the shell in the chamber of the shotgun, but it seemed like she’d exhausted her talent for the moment. She stepped over
to
where he indicated.

“Now, I want you take off your pants without reaching in the pockets. I don’t know how you control the
‘
porter
’
, but I don’t want you even touching it. If I think you’re trying to do so I will fire this shotgun, got that?
I’ll shoot you above the waist though.
”
He chuckled. “
W
ouldn’t want to damage the porter!”

Allie nodded
and slowly reached for her belt, loosening it and the snap
to her pants
, then letting the loose pants fall.

Forst stared at her for a moment.
“
Nice legs! Now kick the pants
over here. I don’t suppose you’d tell me what you did to these idiots I’ve got working for me?” He pointed with his chin to Raspy, still wiping at his eyes and struggling to breathe on the floor.

Allie again tried to sense the shell in the shotgun, to no avail. She stepped out of the pants and kicked them over
part of the way to
Forst.

Still looking at her legs, he stepped forward, reaching down for the pants. A
s he did so
,
the barrel of the shotgun dipped toward the floor! Could she grab it? She was starting to step forward when, B
ANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Fo
rst was thrown against the wall.
Allie looked over to see her dad lowering Raspy’s
smoking
gun.
In the sudden silence,
“Holy crap, Dad! I didn’t know you could shoot!”

“Actually
a gun
’s a
pretty
simple tool
.” He reached onto the table and picked up the knife, cutting his ankles loose from the chair.

Allie stepped over to check on Forst who was still breathing but had four holes in his torso and looked pretty
to be in pretty bad shape
. “We’d better call 911.”

Her dad nodded at the phone where it lay on the floor, “They’re still on the line, I’m sure they’ll be here pronto after hearing gunshots.”
Now h
e was cutting
Sarah Dans
loose from her chair.  “Put Forst’s head down and his legs up, then check on your brother again if you can.
” In a whisper he asked,
“
I’m assuming you drained a hematoma off
Stephen’s
brain?”

Allie pulled Forst around until his head was on the floor, then lifted his feet up into a chair.
Assuming he didn’t want the 911 people to hear she whispered back,
“There was a collection of blood next to his brain
that I let out,
yes. Is that a ‘hematoma?
’”

“Yep, good thinking
. Did you bleed these other guys into their heads too?” He was checking on Roger and laying him down on the couch.

“No, just cold water out of a pipe.”

Allie’s mom picked the phone up off the floor. “Yes there has been a shooting and several people are badly hurt. Please hurry! No, the shooting is all over and
the
bad
men are
disarmed. Please hurry.”

Her dad turned to her, not seeming at all like his usual absent minded self.
In a low voice,
“OK, we don’t want the police figuring out what you can do, how did you keep the gun from shooting Stephen?”

“Water in the bullet.”
             
Her dad nodded. “Find the shell you jacked out of the chamber. Did you do that to any of the other shells?”

Allie nodded, “First shell in each of their guns.”
She was astonished at how fast her dad was figuring all this out. He didn’t seem at all like the doddering, befuddled professor she thought she knew.

“OK and put your pants back on.” He headed into the kitchen and came back with a dish towel.

Allie had been startled to realize that she was still just wearing her panties. She put her pants back on and picked up the shell off the floor. Her dad came back from the bathroom with another
cartridge
and went to
Mrs. Dans, placing her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone
, then went to
Roger, pulling his gun out of his shoulder holster with the dishtowel and jacking the slide, then putting the gun back without touching it with his fingers.
As he was doing this
he said, “Here’s our story, ‘Dean and Roger got in a fight in the bathroom and Dean never came back
out
. Roger must have gotten hurt because he passed out after he came back in
here;
Allie shot Jones with her pepper spray when he threatened to shoot Stephen. Otherwise we tell the truth about how they were trying to beat a technical secret out of me and threatening you
to
obtain
my cooperation.
The fewer
the
lies
,
the better our story will hold together.
”

Allie realized that Jones must be Raspy’s real name. She
bent close to her brother and sensed the inside of his skull. There was a little bit of blood but it didn’t seem like much and there wasn’t any pressure so, as weak as her port ability was, she didn’t try to let any out. She looked over at her mom who was calmly telling the 911 people that there were three
unconscious
people and one
“
bad
”
man who’d been shot.
She heard the water running in the kitchen.

The door slammed open and
two
armored
, helmeted
policeme
n
burst
in
wielding shotgun
s
, “Hands up!”

Allie and her mom put their hands up. Her dad called out, “I’m coming out of the kitchen.” After an OK from the policeman he stepped out of the kitchen with his hands up too.

Allie rode in the ambulance with Stephen and
her dad. Stephen was admitted to the hospital and taken away for a
CAT
scan. T
hey x-rayed
Allie’s
leg in the ED, gave her some antibiotics and turned
Allie and her dad
back over to the police for questioning.
X-rays had shown that
Dr. Dans nose was broken but they
taped a splint over it and
set him up to fix it
the next day
.
Her mother had already been questioned and released back to stay with Stephen.
Allie
and her dad were questioned for about
an hour or so and then they took a taxi to the hospital to
find that
Stephen was sitting up and talking, though still a little confused about what had happened.

Later a
s they went down to the hospital cafeteria, Allie’s dad said, “
I want you to know that
I’m very proud of you, Allie. It amazed me how you kept your cool
when you were dealing
with those guys.
”

“You aren’t mad that I didn’t tell you I could make ports again”?

He chuckled, “No.
I’ve always thought you probably could do it all along but just didn’t want to because I was such a pest. I think I deserved it. And now I can see that
a port has terrible p
otential as a weapon, not
just
as a useful technology so I guess I’ll give up on it.
”
He
pause
d
, then, “
I also
wanted to tell you how wonderful I think
your
success
with
‘Eve of Destruction’
is. You have
two
amazing talents
and
personally,
I
think your music is
astonishing
.”

Allie and her mom both stopped in their tracks. Her mom said, “
You knew?
!”

Allie said, “You’ve listened to our music?!”

He shrugged, “Sure, I’ve got both CDs and I went to
two of
your concert
s when I was in
Buffalo
for a meeting last summer. I
t
felt really cool,
being in th
at
crowd,
knowing I was ‘Eva’s’ dad.”

Allie’s mom said plaintively, “And you didn’t tell me?”

“Y
ou didn’t know?
And here
I thought
I
was the oblivious one.”