Archie would come through the middle window of courtroom 334 at exactly 3:00 p.m. as indicated on the clock behind the public seating area. “Might be a minute or two late,” he promised Robert at their last meeting, “but I won’t be a minute early. You can count on that.” And so they did.
At 2:50 Sarah drove the truck up to the security station that controlled entry to the courtyard. Robert slumped in the passenger seat beside her, pretending to sleep on company time. A woman would never be permitted to drive unless her male partner had more important things to do.
The gate opened, but one of the two guards had questions. “Log says you were here earlier today.” The cop was African-American. The name on his ID tag was Lemonjello Luper. Under other circumstances Sarah would have asked him how he got that name and how it was pronounced, but today she didn’t have the time. Besides, it might be out of character for a sanitation worker to be openly curious.
“Last crew missed a dumpster.” She tried her best to sound bored, as if she couldn’t care less whether the guard let her in or not. “One of the judges complained, so here we are.”
“Rakestraw,” she added to give her story the ring of authenticity. “Placed the call himself.” Would a sanitation worker say himself or hisself? Too late to worry about such details. “The human garbage these judges put on the street, you wouldn’t think he’d notice one little dumpster.”
Lemonjello Luper might have smiled a little as he copied the number of the sanitation company from the driver’s side door.
“Have to call your supervisor.” He shrugged apologetically. “We all got rules to follow.” Officer Lemonjello would have followed those rules if Big Shorty had not appeared on the scene at that precise moment. Perfect timing for deception number one.
“Signs and wonders!” Shorty shouted as he waddled through the space between the garbage truck and the guard’s station. “Where the hell is the goddamned popsicles?” He removed his broad brimmed gardener’s hat, placed it over his heart, and sang a few words of the Born in the USA—just enough to demonstrate his amateur singing status and his professional commitment to America. Then he used his hat to fend off a swarm of insects invisible to everyone but him.
“I give my goddamn legs for this country, and look what they give me in return. Goddamned Africanized bees.” Shorty continued swatting foreign insects as he lurched past the open security gate and moved toward the courtyard much faster than Officer Lemonjello thought was possible for a man with such a significant disability.
“Wait up, my man,” Lemonjello called out to the crazy double amputee who would have been maced and handcuffed by now if not for the sensitivity training mandated by the State of Oklahoma. He waved Sarah forward, warning her to check with him on the way out, then he and his fellow officer left the guard station to subdue the mentally challenged amputee who just committed public trespass. As Sarah drove past the scene of the disturbance, it was clear that Shorty wasn’t going peacefully, regardless of the “compassionate” force employed by the two guards.
In answer to the reasonable demands of the officers, Big Shorty invoked the name of Martin Luther King Jr. and accused Lemonjello of being an unsatisfying dessert that wasn’t even on the menus of the finest restaurants. He used the word “fuck” sixteen times in a single compound sentence and demanded the police summon an interpreter who was fluent in Ebonics.
Sarah forced her attention away from Shorty’s distraction play and devoted her full powers of concentration to steering the cumbersome garbage truck into the correct position. The courtyard was considerably smaller than she expected and she had only three minutes until Archie went airborne. She didn’t have time to protest when Robert kissed her on the cheek. She was too preoccupied to interfere when he left the confines of the garbage truck and walked toward the ruckus at the guard station with both hands doubled into fists.
Was that part of deception number two? She looked up at the middle window of Judge Rakestraw’s courtroom. Closed! Well, that was Archie’s problem. She had less than two minutes to get the truck into position.
Owl Dreams Page 29
