I opened my eyes at the sound of voices and two sets of footsteps—one heavy, limping tread, one light. Ted and Johnny came down the hall together.
“Something in the structure interferes,” Ted was saying. “Transmission is always shit in here. Nothing but static. For cell phones too.”
“I discovered that.”
Both looked fairly grim and seriously annoyed. Ted slapped his fist against his leg at every second step. I remembered Ted was ex-military. Invalided out after an improvised explosive device took out his LAV.
Johnny carried a bottle in the fist that wasn’t clenched.
I jackknifed up the wall and reached for it. Iced tea. I chugged, then rested the cold plastic against my forehead.
“A bad exorcism, Lillie? The sergeant tells me you had a spill, my lady. There’s a couch in the lunchroom if you need it. I said you should have taken another day off.”
So they had introduced themselves. I flapped my fingers in negation.
“The staff here wants you out,” said Johnny. “ASAP. They’re afraid the protesters will storm the building. More showed up after we came in. The crowd’s milling about, chanting and catcalling. Getting ugly. You’re in effigy. I spoke to a pair of patrolmen on scene out front. They’ve called for backup, they tell me it may take longer than usual to arrive. Another multi-car on the 401.”
“Effigy? That’s not nice. Usually, they lug cardboard coffins around and they parade all solemn and sorrowful. A few more minutes and I should be good to go,” I said. “What about the side door, fire escape?” I slugged down some more sweet cold tea.
“Barricaded with office desks.” Ted snorted. “Stupidest thing I ever saw. All the doors to this place are solid. Take a mortar round to blast them open. But it doesn’t matter, since the riffraff’s stationed a squad of their charming little selves outside the exits. We’re effectively surrounded, Lillie.”
“A window?”
“It’s a twelve-foot drop. First-floor windows at the sides and back are meshed anyway.”
“An effigy implies this isn’t an ad hoc protest,” Johnny said. “I think they’ve planned in advance and have been waiting for just such an opportunity, if not today, then some other.”
“You mean, like I’m an accident waiting to happen.”
I took a tentative step away from my wall support. A jolt shot clear to my hairline, but it was bearable, though I felt like Igor with a bolt driven into each temple. Ted gallantly offered his arm. I declined. The men fell in beside me. We headed for the front. Apparently, it was the only way out.
At the turn of the corridor we met the bailiff, more nervous now, pounding his knuckles into the palm of his other hand, as a short, gray-haired female office manager, her face flushed with high color and higher dungeon, told him off for not clearing the crowd. Beyond them, people popped in and out of office doorways like prairie dogs.
“You,” she said, wheeling about and stabbing a finger at me. “You’re the cause of this atrocious display. You’ll have to leave this building. Immediately. This is not a séance parlor. And you must take your ugly goon with you. And you, Ted Dempster, you should be outside clearing away those louts!”
The bailiff cleared his throat.
“Well, Holy Snit, Batman!” I said, crossing my arms. In spite of the black leather jacket and boots, with his short hair and clean-shaven face, his air of authority, Johnny Thresher looked entirely respectable. For my money, he looked like a cop. I glanced up at him. At the moment his posture expressed a certain restrained ferocity. Maybe she’d picked up on that.
“Goon?” I repeated. I couldn’t help it. I giggled.
She stepped closer, her bosoms threatening, and gobbled in my face. “I can’t have those rowdies break in here because of the likes of you. This is a government office.”
“Ms. St. Claire is here at a request from this office on government business, properly authorized,” said Johnny, stepping between us and forcing her back. “As am I.” He showed her his badge. “We will leave when we consider it safe and convenient to do so. I’ll make note that you offered us every possible assistance.”
She huffed and lost color. I felt a certain sympathy. Waredale had been such a torpid little town, so she’d probably never seen a full frontal protest riot in her life, except on television. As a matter of fact, neither had I. I had the idea I was about to. The rhythm and roar of the excited crowd were audible from here.
“Angie,” put in Ted, “stop squawking and shut up. Go have a cup of tea before you lay that egg.” He looked the bailiff up and down and sneered. “Stand aside and back off, chickenshit!”
The pair parted and we moved on to the big square lobby and its double oak doors and high double-sashed windows on either side. This, the most vulnerable entry of all, had no barricade. Go figure. Maybe they intended to erect one after we left.
More protestors had arrived after we’d entered the building. A couple hundred of them. Bussed in, most likely, so they could make a big deal with the protest. A milling mass of jerking placards decorated the courthouse lawn and most of the street. Some bore the standard SOS without emendation. A banner, reading Free Spirits for Free Spirits, waggled and waved. One stated in dripping black letters Soul Assassin.
On a pole by the sidewalk directly in front of the building, a stuffed gargoyle of a woman jerked and swung. My effigy. The white fright wig made the representation pretty clear, even without the sign hung around the figure’s neck that read Killer St. Claire. The most interesting thing about the effigy, however, was the yellowed skull under the wig.
“Grave-robbing bastards,” I said. I’d always had a sneaking sympathy for the SOS. I was losing it fast.
A couple of men stood on the roofs of cars parked by the curb, clanging garbage can covers together like giant cymbals. Above the banging, car horns and hollering, I could hear a consistent chant, “Burn the witch.”
The placards might as well be pitchforks.
Ted swore in disgust. “Hear that? Salem’s fucking lot. What century is this?”
Johnny, eyes narrowed, scanning the mob, said, “They’re into the second stage of protest dynamics at the moment, but they’re not having fun yet. Ted, can you identify their protest marshals? They’re apt to be the only people standing still. I like the guy sporting the Arafat-style kerchief on the bench to our left. He’s the only one wearing red and he’s exhorting the faithful with a bullhorn. Lillie, back away from the windows in case they decide to heave stuff. I expect they’ll resort to that next.”
On cue, something slopped and burst against the upper sash of the right window. We watched pieces and pale liquid slide down a pane. A tomato, likely. Apparently, a singular effort, for no barrage of sacrificial fruits and vegetables followed. I wondered if they had stones too. And were saving them for me should I appear. I was suddenly grateful the town had hardtopped over the cobblestones that once paved the main street of the old quarter.
Johnny checked his watch. “We wait.”
That sounded like a good idea to me.
“Lillie, how are you feeling?” he asked, without taking his eyes from the scene on the street.
“Better,” I said, meaning my head, and propped myself against the wall. The pain band around my forehead had lessened and loosened, slipped down like a hoop to constrict my chest. I wondered if the protestors were bolder now that Nathan was gone from the ASP. He’d claimed his militancy alone kept the SOS in their place.
“The boys in blue are taking their time. I’ll see what I can liberate,” observed Ted and disappeared down the hall. He reappeared shortly with a folding chair, made of tubular steel and padded vinyl. He opened it with a flourish.
“Here, lady. You still don’t look too good. Might as well sit out the siege in comfort. The staff back there are glued to the windows and twittering like a bunch of starlings. Silly buggers.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to Johnny’s back. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t come today, they might have
dispersed before this. Quietly.”
The crowd chanted. Red licked at the windowpanes. Not the pulsing, regular sweep of police overheads. The mob had fired the effigy.
Ted cocked his head. “I think I hear sirens finally… I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Lillie. I caught that bitch Barb at your desk when I came back from lunch. And that mouthy, delinquent, rat-faced kid of hers is out there right now with a placard along with the other peckerheads. Dollars to donuts she passed the word, no matter which day you picked.”
As the sirens bayed closer, the clamor outside lowered volume for a long moment, then roared like flames.
Johnny edged along the wall closer to the window. On the other side, Ted did the same.
“Yeah, hootenanny’s getting rough. More bodies arriving. They’re mixing it up with the SOS. We have a riot,” Ted reported, almost gleefully.
“Lillie, is there some significance to black scarves and black gloves on this new gang?” Unlike Ted’s, Johnny’s deep voice carried no thread of excitement.
I groaned and climbed on my chair so I could see over his head.
“They look like Nathan’s old lot! The ASP. That’s their signature. They go for an undertaker affectation of cravats and gloves. They think it’s suave. The SOS prefer white stuff.”
An awkward and confusing symbolism. I had come to think the ASP would be much more comfortable in white hoods. The pointy kind. With sheets. But they preferred the Inquisitional color. I suppose there wasn’t much difference in the end.
“Someone’s Toyota is going to need bodywork,” Ted observed. “And there goes the display window at the antique store across the street.” I had the impression Ted itched to be out there, knocking heads.
Three things happened at once. A fire truck nosed through the crowd from one end of the street. Helmets and shields of the riot squad pushed in from the other. The bailiff came yelling down the main corridor behind us, belly jiggling under his white shirt as he ran.
“Bomb threat!” he shouted. “Everybody out! Evacuate the building! Back exits!”
He smashed glass and pulled the fire alarm. Dingdingdingding blasted from overhead. I reeled down from my perch.
Johnny dove past me and grabbed him by the shoulder. Questions I couldn’t hear above the competing cacophonies, inside and out. The bailiff jabbered up at him and pulled away. People scurried out from doorways like roaches. I hadn’t realized so many people worked here. Maybe it just seemed like a lot, with the jostling and shrieking. A couple appeared on the staircase. The bailiff bellowed at them to go back and use the fire escape.
Checking each office as he retreated, the bailiff pumped his arm over his head, yelling, “Back exits. Move it. Go! Go!”
“Phone calls,” Johnny reported as we huddled to hear, “to the station and the media. About fifteen minutes ago. Type, location in the building, unspecified. Could be a hoax.”
“Shit! Well, that’s one way to get us to show our noses,” said Ted. “Pity you’re so striking, lady, or you could slip out right now with the rest of the rabble.”
Ted nodded at Johnny. “Your call, big guy. Do we go?”
Johnny clamped my shoulders and tucked me under his arm.
“We go.”
Ted squared his shoulders and scooped up the folding chair. I wanted to ask why, in the circumstances, he intended to lug a chair along, but there wasn’t time.
We started down the hall at a strict trot.
Behind us, the left window shattered. A smoking cylinder thumped, bounced and rolled against the wall. For a second I wondered. Tear gas canister shot wild?
“Pipe bomb,” said Johnny. “We certainly go.”
We ran like hell.
17.
“Left!” shouted Johnny. The three of us skidded, slewed and swung wide like a team of runaway horses.
The floor heaved just as we galloped into the cross corridor. The hallway vomited debris. Things blasted and boomed and whizzed and thunked. Or I imagined that they did. I couldn’t hear that well. A cloud of dust billowed after us and spread. I was slammed in a heap against the wall and pinned there by Johnny’s big body, my face squashed into his chest, his arm pressing hard on my head. Plaster crashed from the ceiling like an afterthought. My heart pounded double time. The pulse in his throat under my forehead seemed barely elevated. He smelled of leather and night and golden spice.
“Geesus,” grunted Ted, somewhere near my ringing right ear. “Reminds me of one time in Kandahar.”
“You okay, Ted?” Speaking was like mud wrestling with words.
“Something took a hunk out of my hand. I’m mobile. Let’s carry on, amigos. They might be gaining on us.”
Johnny hoisted me to my feet and we staggered on. The corridor seemed to have changed shape and lengthened into infinity.
A wad of stunned people congested the far end of the hallway. They hadn’t moved the desk they’d used to block the side exit and had obviously been climbing over it out the service door. Now they crouched behind it.
The rectangle that framed outside gleamed pale gray. Through it wind blew, driving back the choking dust but bringing with it damp and the heavy stink of acrid smoke.
Johnny propped me against a doorway marked Cleaning Supplies with a curt command. “Wait.” Ted propped the chair beside me and leaned against the wall, watching our rear. I wondered if he expected some of the howling mob to wade through the destruction to follow the bomb.
“You wouldn’t have a torn petticoat on you, would you, Lillie?” He held out his hand to show a ragged V-shaped furrow across the back of it, blood running free. The sleeve of his shirt was dark with it. “Shrapnel or wood splinters. Missed the tendons, I hope, but my fingers don’t work too well. And the thing won’t stop bleeding.”
“Take off your tie.” I fished a packet of facial tissues out of my shoulder bag, ripped off the plastic with my teeth and slapped the layers on his paw, wrapped his tie around it and tied it tight as I could with my shaking fingers.
“That ought to do it. Thanks. You make a good field medic, Lillie.” He coughed and plucked at his shirt. “Second shirt today. My wife will be pissed.”
“I doubt that. How’s your hip holding up?”
“It got a workout when we sprinted down the hall. I’ll live.”
“Why the sudden affection for this particular chair? I don’t understand.”
Ted patted it. “Useful things, chairs. Once cleared my way out of a bar fight in Detroit with one.”
Johnny helped several women to their feet and moved them back from the desk. A couple clutched and clung to him like frightened kittens, squeaking and sobbing. I felt like doing that myself. It occurred to me once again that big men have to put up with a lot.
He managed to sooth and detach his limpets and laid hold of the desk, wrenching it away from the door. The women nearly trampled him in their rush to get out. I would be happy to be outside too. He beckoned at us.
Ted cast one last look down the dim corridor, where smoke and dust wavered like ghosts. He picked up the folding chair.
“Ahead of me, lady, so you’ll be between us. We go.”
Johnny waited on the platform. He gave me a quick up and down assessment for mobility and miles per hour.
“Stay close,” Johnny said unnecessarily, as he led down the steps. If I were any closer, we’d be conjoined like Siamese twins.
Overhead, dark clouds slow-drifted like doom. A spatter of rain. A glare of fire to our left. Protestors dodged and raced across the lot in twos and threes, fleeing the confrontation on the street. A car alarm shrilled and cut off abruptly, followed by a whoomp. The building shuddered. Glass fell. Black, oily smoke rolled in from the street like a bail of barbed wire and snagged at our throats.
Ted whistled. “From the sound of that, some poor bugger’s car just went up.”
The women from the corridor, clutching each other and crying, huddled in a knot a few yards beyond the foot of the stairs.
“Ladies,
get away from the building,” Johnny ordered. “Move, get away from these walls.”
Over his shoulder, “Ted, my vehicle’s at the back. Let’s go.” An abandoned protest sign canted from the railing. I yanked it free as I went past. I wanted something in my hands.
They hit us, loping and yelping like a pack of dingoes, just as we cleared the back of the courthouse, forty feet from Johnny’s vehicle.
Someone yelled, “There’s the bitch!” and the group, six, eight of them, some still waving placards like tails, swerved and closed.
“Lillie, run!” Johnny roared as he stepped in front to meet the rush, swinging and laying about.
Be damned if I’d run. I followed him in. Ted waded beside me, wielding the chair like a ram.
I drove my tattered sign into a charging gut. Its owner’s momentum jostled me sideways and numbed my fingers. I lost my grip on my weapon. I careened into another body that clawed and grappled me. I elbowed the open mouth above a black goatee before something slammed my side and drove me to one knee among the trampling feet. A placard blurred above me. I threw myself at the legs. A body took a header over me. Another body smacked across my thighs and scrambled off.
Sounds without sense. Arms weaved and threshed above me like branches in a storm. The gray sky wheeled and darkened. I rolled again and managed to get to my hands and knees.
Johnny jerked me to my feet, Ted grabbed my other arm and we made for the SUV. I don’t think my feet touched the ground.
The pack didn’t follow. Some of them couldn’t.
“Seat belts,” snapped Johnny as we piled in. “We’re going cross-country.” He gunned the engine, laid on the horn and swung the wheel hard right. We jumped the curb to grass.
I think we took out a hedge and a board fence. We nearly T-boned a dumpster. I stopped looking after that. When the terrain no longer rocked and bucked and growled under us, I let out my breath and opened my eyes.
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