He turned to the jury.
“This woman is not an expert witness on the subject at hand, climate change…”
“Man-made climate change,” Cricket retaliated, and the judge pounded the gavel, pointing at Cricket with her free hand.
Maxine verbally lunged at her amidst the uproar. “That’s your second offense. One more outburst and you go to prison this morning.”
“That was only the first so-called outburst,” Cricket announced as the uproar and laughter continued.
“That’s enough,” Judge Maxine screeched. “Bailiff, take this woman from my court and incarcerate her.”
Becca stood up, and the room descended instantly into quiet. “Bailiff, you’re not taking anyone to jail this morning.”
Maxine raised her head like she stood as guardian of the court and no white gal was going to tell her what to do in her court, yet Maxine never uttered a word. The prosecutor also stood in shock and looked about the room for support, yet said nothing. Though thankful, Cricket wondered at that moment if she was looking at the woman behind the Coyotes. At that moment, the redheaded Medusa of Mount Adams had silenced everyone back into their corners.
An uneasy silence continued. A few cleared their throats, including the judge, who spoke first.
“Proceed, Mr. Parker. But I will keep a tight rein on my court.”
Sure you will. Cricket stood taller in the witness stand.
Cricket received a quiet affirmation from Sister Marie, too, who spoke volumes over the space of the courtroom.
“From your layman’s perspective, what is the single best argument against all the research of nearly every scientist on man-made climate change?”
Cricket caught herself from gloating openly on the “man-made” punch-back, avoiding a grin. A chill told her forces were at work in this courtroom among all the players that were every bit as terrifying as what had happened yesterday to a family of four.
She addressed the jury and witnessed the intensity in Sister’s eyes that said, Stay on track; be somber, serious, thoughtful.
“I’m not a scientist. But I’ve had an interest in the weather ever since my dad took me up flying when I was six. I’ve read several books on the subject and a lot of online articles when you could still go online.” This was her time. The room would never be this quiet and attentive.
“I’ll start with common sense, from a layperson’s perspective. Since the start of the twentieth century, mankind has been sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in greater amounts every year. How much is really unimportant. I think we know that by the end of the twentieth century, a lot more was going into the atmosphere than in 1950.
“During the century, as greenhouse gas emissions increased, the temperature varied slightly, up and down. In the 1970s, global cooling was predicted due to a slight decrease in global temperatures, and a new ice age was predicted.”
Cricket looked around the courtroom. Becca wore a crooked smile, and Beth smiled like an angel who had just received her wings. Another angel took his seat behind Becca and Sister: Angel Flores. He looked relaxed and happy, in contrast to the tension on many of the faces in the courtroom.
Cricket had the room. A feeling of power gave her a pleasurable heat down her body. “For the last twenty years, temperatures have been flat. Yet those twenty years saw the greatest human production of greenhouse gases when you include all the nations, especially China and India.”
Ralph stepped into her moment. “I believe scientists have a better understanding where we are headed. Those are small changes over a few decades. The science predicts catastrophic warming in the centuries ahead. Do you have anything else to say?”
“Thank you. There is one more thing I’d like to add.” Cricket’s remark made Ralph grimace, regretting his generosity. Cricket noticed that Becca was no longer staring at him, which had to be a relief for the prosecutor.
Cricket scanned the entire room, the jury, and gave a respectful nod to the judge, who simply looked confused. Sister Marie had coached Cricket the previous night on how to behave, and had helped her flesh out her common-sense arguments with facts.
“Now even though the temperatures didn’t climb over the years with greater CO2 emissions, there is another factor that matches almost perfectly the changes in global temperatures: the sun. The sun’s very small changes of intensity match the slight changes in the earth’s global temperatures. The sun gets a little warmer, the earth gets a little warmer. There are other sun-induced temp changes linked to the solar wind, but I need more study to articulate that scenario.”
There was silence after she finished. Angel raised his hands like he was ready to clap, and seemed very happy for her. Becca glared right through her.
The prosecutor shrugged, signaling that something unimportant had just breezed through the courtroom, not worth his time. “No more questions, Your Honor.”
The defense also backed away from questioning her, and Cricket was soon in her seat.
The prosecution called other professors, who took stances against their colleague. Cricket was disgusted. No loyalty. No concrete evidence of warming, only rumor and computer models that were wrong even when you input data from recent conditions and were given results that didn’t match the actual weather.
On a recess break, Angel approached her in the hallway. She liked the attention and imagined Angel’s brother being as bad as Angel was good. She felt he had had a lot of input into the city’s governance and direction. Yet she didn’t think he was as environmentally conscious as Becca, with her half-baked ideas about recycling and the use of plastic bags, or using the courts to enforce politically correct goals.
“Besides your brother’s criminal activities, was he involved in any occult stuff? When I was at this house—”
“Oh, I heard about that terrible place from Becca. Did you see signs… signs of devil worship?”
“Everywhere. The place was evil as hell. I felt a presence, and I didn’t even tell Sister Marie.” She was making him special by excluding everyone else.
“How about your husband?” Angel asked.
Cricket shook her head. “It’s too weird. Fritz has so much to deal with on all levels.” She paused to examine her reasons for not confiding in her husband, and let it go: Tonight, I’ll tell him tonight. She continued her confession. “I’ve felt people’s evil a lot during the months since the EMP attack. This was something else. Like I was being watched, even judged, but not by God. Crazy, put on the scale for some other cause. Pretty upsetting.” Angel took her in his arms, and she didn’t resist. She cried uncontrollably, and Sister Marie was soon at her side.
If there was evil present, it took up residence in Becca, who singed her with killer eyes. The redhead on the warpath. Cricket had upset her courtroom and now was making a fool of her by running to her boyfriend for comfort. Around Angel she felt again like a teenager around the officers her dad had worked with. Strong, attractive men. Good men. And she felt a moment of peace.
“You’re an amazing woman,” Angel said, pulling out a beautiful monogrammed hanky and drying her eyes. The last twenty-four hours and her testimony had given her a much-needed release in Angel’s arms.
Cricket noticed that Sister Marie appeared to have her burdens briefly lifted, too. Her beautiful friend, the closest human being to her very own mother, had counseled her on testimony and to remember the people she loved dearly and who had died, and to allow those losses to impassion her reason, imbue her thinking with clarity. Sister had said that reason was a beautiful tool along with its everyday counterpart, common sense. Cricket had used her reason to the best of her ability to make a layman’s case against the myth of man-made global warming.
These thoughts helped her to keep her head on straight, and she quickly kissed Angel on the cheek. Becca turned around and stormed into the courtroom.
“My way of saying ‘thank you,’” Cricket said. Then, glancing over her shoulder: “We’re not going to lose our happy home?�
�
“I’ll talk to her.” Angel smiled warmly. “In the meantime, say hello to Mr. Predator Jones.”
“I wasn’t planning on stopping by there today. Tomorrow for sure. We got reports that he’s doing just fine. Maybe just bronchitis.”
“This is a different time. I’d keep an eye on anyone going into the hospital these days. I don’t know, just a feeling. I have a meeting with a businessman later on, or I’d stop by and see him.” Angel’s smile expanded, showing his perfect teeth. “What’s the American expression about men like Mr. Predator?”
“He’s a real character.”
“Yes! A few words can say so much.”
56
Bedside Manners
Sister Marie elected to return to the house with a very grumpy Becca Givens, who caved before leaving the courthouse and lent Cricket a driver to visit Predator at the hospital. Angel had worked his magic on the mayor and disappeared as promised for a meeting. Closing arguments were scheduled for tomorrow.
Predator lay in bed listening to Cricket’s people analysis from the trial. Though attentive, he made no wisecracks, and had nothing to say except to exhale loudly a few times, looking out the window.
“I’m leaving here tonight,” he said. “You have a driver?”
“Yeah, I do. But are you sure you want to leave? The generators are quiet, so the fuel cells must be working. That’s a plus. Another night of rest might help.”
“Oh hell, Cricket, it’s a sore throat, maybe a slight fever, congestion. A few hours of flying or wrenching and I’ll be fine.”
She drew close, glanced at the partially closed door. “Predator, what’s wrong?”
“Wrong? This place is all wrong. I almost walked out the first morning after I visited the old lady you rescued. The terror was still in her eyes even though she was heavily drugged. Thought maybe old age. Now I think she witnessed or was about to witness some ugly new variation on the shitty world we now inhabit.”
He sat up taller in bed.
“Lots of lies. I can smell them. Never told you I have a real nose for liars. Never took the drugs they left for me.” He dropped a handful in her palm. “Have Sister Marie take a look. See if she can identify them. Hell, all I needed was aspirin. Last night they gave me another weird-looking pill. When I refused, the smart-ass said, ‘You a pharmacologist, an expert?’ ‘I am a man with a well-functioning brain!’ I told the little creep. Told him he was no expert, either, except for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Cricket recalled her exploration of the hospital floors. Becca had dismissed anything nefarious by saying they had to consolidate resources, even though her dad was monopolizing hospital equipment and medical attention. Cricket knew she would have done anything to keep her father alive in the same situation.
Their eyes turned toward the tall young doctor who had just walked into the room. The man would have passed for a daytime TV doctor: well-trimmed beard; big, sad eyes offset by a warm smile; a face to bring comfort for all the world’s pain. Cricket hadn’t seen him on previous visits.
“How’s the patient?” The man put his hand out to shake, and Predator took it reluctantly. “I’m Doctor Finney.” He rested his free hand on a fanny pack that had a row of vials for shots.
“Sign me out of here, Doc. I’m going home tonight.”
“Where’s home?”
“I’ve got a cozy place at Lunken where I work.”
“Are you a pilot?”
“Forever. I also wrench.”
“I had an uncle who was a pilot.”
“Military?”
“No. Civilian. Corporate job. He loved it.” The doctor smiled approvingly. “Being a pilot is a very useful job in our new world. There are still good reasons to have planes. Nobody told me of your skills.”
The doctor eyed Cricket, who shrugged. “That wouldn’t be the most important thing anyway, Doc,” she said.
“Oh, I disagree.” He placed a stethoscope against Predator’s chest and asked him to breathe deeply. “In this new age, our usefulness is most important.”
“So I’m still useful, Doc,” Predator said sarcastically. “Great. Does that mean you’re going to let me live and not inject me with one of the flavors from your fanny pack?”
The doctor looked at Predator with those big movie star eyes and laughed.
“Now I know why you’re really important to have around,” the doc said. “Humor. I haven’t heard anyone with a real sense of humor since the attack.”
The doctor asked Predator to lean forward, and he opened the back of his hospital gown and listened to his lungs. Cricket waited for the diagnosis.
“There’s definitely congestion in your lower lungs.” The comment made Doc Finney smile. “You’re not going anywhere, young man. You need rest, and you’ve come to the right place. You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Predator.”
The doctor pulled one of the vials from his fanny pack.
Predator pointed at the vial in the doc’s hand. “Wait a minute, Doc. What do you got there?”
“A sedative to help you sleep.”
Cricket said, “My friend can sleep at our place and lay up there for a few days, and get mullein tea and plenty of rest.”
Predator ripped off the sheets and swung his legs onto the floor. His speed startled the doctor. She also saw a change in the doctor’s eyes—the look of a man annoyed by a bug. He had been the kingpin, moving from room to room for months. No one to challenge him. A complete egotist.
“Don’t make me call for the aides,” Doctor Finney threatened, his easygoing manner long gone.
Cricket whipped out the Colt .45 from inside her long leather coat. The doctor looked as if she had pulled out a hissing cobra. Even Predator looked mildly surprised but quickly took Cricket’s side.
“Don’t yell,” Predator said, his spirits rising. “She’s been known to shoot off someone’s nose for snoring. I suggest you tell us all about the little appetizers in that cute fanny pack. My, my, I spy two rows of delight.” Predator pulled one from the pack and held it up the doctor’s face covered in sweat.
“You sweat too easily, Doc. Not a good look for you.” Predator pressed the vial against the tip of the doctor’s nose, and the man flinched. Cricket pressed the muzzle against his temple.
“Doctor Sedative,” Cricket whispered, like Dirty Harry. “Don’t move. Don’t say a thing. Was there a follow-up drug, later tonight, after I left?”
Predator had loaded the vial onto a syringe. “If you had a choice of any member in your fanny pack, which would you like me to stab you with—I mean inject?”
The man worked his mouth, wanted to scream for help, but believed the threat. Cricket stared at him with eyes that could drill a hole through his skull.
“We have a duty as doctors,” he said, trying to maintain a professional air, though his voice shook and his handsome bedroom eyes started to cross.
“As executioners,” Predator said, dressing into his work jeans and flannel shirt. He held the needle in front of the doc’s left eye. “I went to visit the old lady last evening and found her heavily sedated. She wasn’t going anywhere. Tonight, before Cricket arrived, I took a walk and peeked in and found her gone and her bed made.”
“Where is she?” Cricket did her best not to yell the question in the doctor’s ear. “I brought that woman down to this floor. I didn’t know what was going on, but I do now. Was Predator slated to die tonight?”
The man shut his eyes. He had nowhere to go, no lifeline, no God for strength. Cricket smelled a coward.
“Talk!” Predator demanded. “We’ve shot our way out of worse predicaments than this. Make it sweet and short. Or you’ll die for a poor style choice, excessive wordiness, dangling participles. Time for declarative sentences, asshole.”
Cricket shoved him onto the bed and told him to remove the fanny pack.
“I shouldn’t joke,” Predator said, aiming a finger at the vials. “A dead giveaway. You’re like the fool
at a party with an arsenal of tequila shots in his belt. Helping everyone get high. Your job was to do it for the last time.”
While talking, Cricket handed Predator the .380 she kept on her ankle and an extra magazine. They waited.
The doctor made his plea. “We’re all trying to survive. This city could only survive with tough choices made daily. We don’t have the luxury to care for people destined to die, or who…”
Cricket watched his arrogance dry up, his mission in life replaced with the desire to wake up the next morning and feed the birds, drink his coffee, and chat with his wife, all the small pleasures he might soon lose. He zeroed in on Predator, hoping that the old aviator would understand the world’s plight better than the wild-eyed “kid” with the big gun.
The doctor stumbled through his next sentence. “Sometimes a person doesn’t have the right attitude… to live in these difficult times.”
“And I was one of those people,” Predator said.
“Yes, but I didn’t make that decision. That’s why I was so surprised. Pilot and mechanic are important roles.” He returned to sycophant.
“You don’t look smart enough to decide who lives and who dies,” Cricket said.
“You’re right,” the man said. “I know my job—”
“Who made the decision about the woman down the hall?”
“Our staff makes the decision.”
“C’mon,” Cricket said.
“Cut to the chase,” Predator said, shoving the barrel of the gun under his nose. “Your eyes keep going to the door. You’re not going to be saved. You die along with the next person who walks through that door. You got five seconds to make everything crystal clear.”
The man let loose a torrent. A few times his captors told him to stop and back up. The head nurse, Jane Gleason, made the decisions on who received treatment and was released and who died. He swore that outside the head nurse, he had no idea of the chain of command.
American Blackout (Book 3): Gangster Town Page 17