The Brummie Con (Sunken City Capers Book 4)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  Puo says over the comm-link, “Talk to me. I’ve got two more loads of stuff, then I can join you.”

  “No,” I say. “Stay put with our equipment in case the Cleaners show up.” Plus you were in the hospital a week ago, we don’t need another heart event right now.

  “I’m coming to help,” Puo insists.

  “The equipment is too valuable,” Winn says. “You need to stay with it, and we need to know if the Cleaners show up.”

  “Agreed,” I say. Damn right, it’s too valuable. Puo and I have spent a lifetime and no small fortune assembling and curating those tools. We had to flee to the west coast because of the anti-gravity suits, and then all that shit with Colvin snowballed from there. I am not going to lose our equipment because the Cleaners happen to stumble upon it. Not to mention we seemed to have accidentally collected quite a few Cleaner squeegees that would be awkward to explain.

  Puo harrumphs.

  Winn and I slow down as we crest the hill, the trees turning from pine to oak and maple. The symphony in my ear slows, the brass section dropping to barely a whisper. Blue pixels from the nightvision outlines the owners’ two-story farmhouse-style home with a large wrap-around covered porch. The house is dark, quiet, and the hovercar is right where we left it. No sign of the Cleaners. Whew.

  “C’mon,” I whisper to Winn.

  “What’s the plan?”

  I cross down the hill, using the oak and maple tree trunks to hide my approach. “Warn them.”

  “Great,” Winn whispers back. “How? Knock on the door in the middle of the night?”

  I look up at the cold overcast night sky, searching for any lingering hovercars. The cloud deck is low tonight, a few thousand feet, more than low enough to hide nasty surprises waiting above.

  “No,” I say to Winn keeping my eyes on the sky. “We’ll have to sneak in and warn them without turning on any lights.”

  “So, breaking and entering,” Winn says.

  I clench my jaw inside my helmet and look back at him. This is a thing with Winn—according to him, I only ever think of ways to break the law to solve problems. “Got any better ideas?” I snap. “We can’t risk the lights flaring on—it’d be a signal to anything waiting in the clouds.”

  Winn is silent as we cross over to the house. I do the best I can to move quickly from cover to cover in case there is anything in the clouds watching us.

  “Well?” I demand.

  “No better ideas,” Winn placates.

  What’s with the tone? Why pick at an old scab and then try to put it back?

  I lightly step up onto the wooden porch. Normally, I’d try and find a side or back door, but the roof of the porch will provide me cover as I try and work the front door.

  Puo gives an update, “One more trip left. And man, it’s cold out.”

  “Roger that,” I whisper. “Entering the house now.” I try the door: locked. Always easier to walk into an unlocked house than spend time picking an open lock.

  I run my fingers over the deadbolt lock. The metal is cold through my thin gloves. The outside casing is loose. It’s a combination biometric-analog lock. I can tell this the way I can tell it’s cold outside, it’s a feeling born of a lifetime of experience.

  I look around the slatted-wood porch for where hidden fingerprints may be lurking. There’s a padded swing bench in the corner—I can perfectly imagine old Hank and sweet June sitting there together in the summer, reading or talking as the sun sets—the symphony in my ear even has a nice light summer quality to it. It’s a nice thought. Time to go steal a fingerprint so we can break in to make sure they’re not slaughtered by the Cleaners.

  I retrieve my tools from a jacket pocket and then dust the armrests of the swing carelessly. I’m not trying to hide our presence. We need to get in and get out quickly. There’s a group of five fingerprints on the underside of the armrest. I use a clear plastic strip to lift off the thumbprint and then walk back over the lock. I slip my electronic tumbler in, a long thin wire attached to a thumb-sized dull-gray casing, and then put the thumbprint down in the dull-gray-casing part and press. Two seconds later, it blips green and the muffled sound through my helmet of the lock clicks open.

  The door pushes open with a low squelch from breaking the seal around the door. The house is warm, cozy; it feels like a roaring fire had been left to burn out. It feels great after being out in the cold night. The house itself is well-lived in but clean, uncluttered. Winn sidles up behind me and eases the front door shut, but not before peaking out again for any sign of the Cleaners—none.

  “Upstairs or downstairs?” Winn whispers. There’s a staircase right by the door leading up.

  I make a snap decision. “Downstairs.” Master suites are typically on the first floor, and Hank and June are older, making stairs an unwelcome daily ritual.

  I can’t hear anything with my helmet on and the symphony playing—the absence of sound is making my skin crawl. I can see the house in wonderful blue pixelated detail, but I can’t hear anything. I can’t hear if Hank and June are stirring. I can’t hear if a hovercar is dropping down to a park outside.

  “I’m taking my helmet off,” I whisper. “I can’t hear anything. You lead, I follow.”

  “Understood,” Winn says. “How do we communicate?”

  I slide my helmet off, and slip my comm-link into my pocket. I turn around and shrug at Winn to answer his question.

  The house is shrouded in darkness, full of barely discernible shadows. I focus my breathing to be steady, giving time for my eyes to further adjust.

  Winn slides by me and looks like he nods slightly as he passes. I grab onto the waist of his jeans over his butt to follow him, the tips of my fingers rubbing up against the top of his butt cheek— Well that’s a distraction I don’t need right now.

  He leads me slowly through the living area and past where I remember the stairs to be. Our steps are quiet on the thick spongy throw rugs covering the wood floors. The house smells like Christmas, fresh baked goods with the scent of pine from a Christmas tree. The only sound I can hear is the rumble of the heater pushing warm air through the vents.

  Winn motions toward a short hallway and turns to lead me down it. It’s too dark for me to make out the end.

  Winn walks slowly but confidently, leading me down the hallway. I strain to hear anything in the stillness, and try to stop thinking about what my fingers are brushing up against.

  A bedroom door emerges out of the darkness. This must be it.

  Winn delicately turns the doorknob and eases the door open. The hinges creak in the silence and he stops immediately.

  My heart beats against my ears as I listen for any sounds of stirring. Nothing. I squeeze Winn’s butt before I can think about it to let him know to continue—damn it.

  The hinges continue their low creaking as the door opens enough for us to fit through. Winn doesn’t say anything as he pops his head in to look around. The bedroom must be occupied if he’s not saying anything.

  Winn takes a step forward into the bedroom and then all hell breaks loose.

  The lights in the bedroom flare on and Winn recoils from the sudden brightness.

  An iron golf club swings out from behind the door.

  I lash out and grab the handle to stop it from clobbering Winn.

  Motion stirs on the bed.

  “Gun!” I scream.

  Both Winn and I drop to the ground immediately. “We’re friends!” I yell from the floor. “We’re here to help!”

  “Help what?” Hank yells back from behind the door holding the golf club threateningly over us. June is sitting up in the bed with a large handgun in both hands pointed at us. The black-metal handgun contrasts with her pale white skin and looks like it’ll break her wrists if she fires it.

  “June,” I say in shock. “You have a gun!”

  “Damn right I do,” the sweet old lady says. “Who are you?”

  “It just seems so out of character for someone named June,” I sputt
er.

  “Help what?” Hank yells again.

  “Help you escape,” I say, focusing back on Hank.

  “From what?” he asks.

  “From the people that are coming,” I say. When Hank doesn’t say anything immediately, I look up at him. He has short curly white hair that frames his aged African-American face and his cloudy brown eyes stare intently at me through thick glasses. After a seconds silence I add, “We need to kill the lights immediately.”

  Hank glances at his wife, who shifts in the bed to lower her gun.

  “You’re the renters,” June answers her own question. She’s wearing a long loose white T-shirt

  “Yes,” I say.

  “What people?” Hank asks.

  “May I get up?” I ask. Always best to ask permission when someone has a gun pointed at you, even if they’re sweet old ladies named after America’s favorite mom.

  “No,” Hank says.

  “You need to kill the lights,” I repeat. “I’m sorry, I really really am. But there are bad people after us, and we think they followed us here.”

  “I already called the cops,” Hank says.

  “Shit,” I swear under my breath.

  Hank gets a smug look on his face. “You can explain all this to them when they arrive.”

  “Hank,” I say forcefully, “you really need to start listening to me. The police aren’t coming. These bad people will have intercepted your call. All you did was tip them off we’re here. And now that the lights flared on—”

  “And what’s that?” Hank indicates the underwater gun Winn is holding.

  “Protection,” I say.

  Winn lets go of the gun and moves his hand away slowly.

  “These people are coming,” I say. “You need to get out of here. And you need to kill these lights immediately.”

  Swirling blue and red lights descending down from the sky flash in the bedroom.

  “Cops aren’t coming, hunh?” Hank says.

  Oh, shit. “Hank,” I say more calmly than I feel. “Cops don’t flash their lights announcing themselves when responding to a burglary call.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HANK SILENTLY lowers the trap door in the bedroom wood floor above us right as the front door squelches open—that’s louder than I originally thought. All four of us are in the three-foot-high crawl space created between the house and the cold bare earth. Even back in my helmet the space smells of lifeless old basement. My nightvision picks up many cobwebs whose inhabitants have long since died.

  Two sets of footsteps creak through the floorboards near the front of the house.

  June, at the head of the pack, starts leading us, crawling on her hands and knees toward the front porch. Fortunately, Hank had enough wits about him (after June yelled at him that she believed us) to grab some sweaters and shoes for them before ushering us all down into the bowels of their home.

  Winn follows right behind June; I follow Winn’s taut ass about two feet in front of me—What is the matter with me? Maybe I am an adrenaline junky. Hank brings up the rear of our convoy.

  Creaks from footsteps—loud enough to get through my helmet—come closer as they move into the house and make their way to the bedroom. We wisely left the light on for them as a feint.

  Hank and June are crawling better than I hoped for an old couple, but still not fast enough. The owners of those footsteps are going to learn quickly that no one’s there, and then they’re going to start searching. Our plan has two parts: first, escape the house; second, come up with a new plan. That second part of the plan would’ve gone a lot better for us if the Cleaners weren’t about to discover that we’ve already escaped.

  The hard ground is cold through my thin gloves and unforgiving on my knees, and it feels like little specs of dirt are cascading down on my neck from above—at least I’m choosing to believe those tickles are specs of dirt.

  June leads us to the edge of the house. We each squeeze under the two-by-six beam and into the wider space underneath the wood-slatted porch. She silently points to one of the latticed wood panels that extends down from the outside edge to the ground.

  I crawl around Winn and June, and come up to the latticed panel to look through. Nothing. Not even the swirling red and blue lights from before.

  Winn taps his ear.

  I ease my helmet off and slip the comm-link out of my pocket and put it back into my ear. I’m greeted by a string concerto. “Kill the music,” I whisper.

  “But the Cleaners,” Puo protests. “They know—”

  “I can’t hear shit,” I say. “The music only makes it worse. Between getting jammed or shot from behind, I’ll take jammed.”

  Puo does as he’s told.

  “What’s the plan?” Winn whispers over the comm-link once the concerto cuts off.

  “I need to go take a look to see what we’re dealing with,” I whisper back. “Stay here with Hank and June.” I glance back and see that the sweet old couple has crawled near each other and are holding hands on the ground as they shiver in the cold. The sight infuriates me. We’re going to get them out of this. And then, I’m going to deal with these Cleaners once and for all.

  “Roger that,” Winn says.

  I can’t hear a damn thing in this helmet. This is a big fucking design flaw. We can illuminate the night with nightvision, but we can’t pipe in audio or, even better, enhance it from the surroundings?

  “It’s a good idea,” Puo pipes in quietly. “I’ll start working on that as soon as I can.”

  Wait, did I say that out loud?

  “You didn’t mean to say that out loud, did you?” Puo asks, a hint of humor in his voice. When I don’t respond, he continues, “No, no. This is good. You’re sufficiently pissed. Go forth and do something stupid and clever.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I whisper as I gently remove the wood panel and set it to the side. I stay low as I move out into the yard, looking around and using the house and foliage to circle around the back of the house, making sure to keep a low profile ducking under windows.

  I still can’t hear anything—it’s driving me up a wall, like someone is about to sneak up behind me and cleave an ax into my neck and I can’t freaking hear them approach.

  There’s the Cleaners hovercar, parked right behind Hank and June’s hovercar in the hardened earth driveway created between the house and a row of oak trees. “I got a visual on the Cleaner’s hovercar,” I whisper. “One car, a sedan with a maximum occupancy of five. There’s one goon lingering outside of the car, and there are two goons in the house, which leaves a possibility of two unaccounted for.” I can’t tell from here if the Cleaners car is empty or not.

  Winn and Puo both acknowledge, then Puo adds, “Need me to come assist—”

  “No,” I say. The last thing we need right now is another shadow moving in the night when we’re unsure of where everyone is.

  “Plan?” Winn asks.

  “Shaady’s joyride with a split,” I say.

  Puo exhales his indigestion over the comm-link.

  “What’s that?” Winn asks calmly.

  “Well, look at you growing,” I say. “Asking and not moping.” That was one of Winn’s issues; he would always get all pissy about not knowing everything and claiming Puo and I spoke our own private language that he didn’t have the translator for.

  “Not the time for this,” Winn says with urgency.

  “I’m going to steal the Cleaners hovercar,” I explain. “You’re going to take Hank and June’s hovercar. We’ll drive in opposite directions. While we’re distracting the Cleaners, Hank and June will stay on foot and meet up with Puo to get him and our equipment out of here.” No one should know the forests around here as well as Hank and June do. “Understood?”

  “Understood,” Winn repeats. A second later, presumably for Winn to lift his helmet up, he whispers the plan to Hank and June and where Puo is hiding.

  “Tell them to stay in place,” I say, “and then you need to come join me around th
e back of the house.”

  Winn obliges and then whispers, “I’m on my way— What?”

  “What, what?” I ask.

  Winn doesn’t answer right away. Eventually he whispers, “We’ll honk the horns when we’re airborne in the car.”

  Oh. Hank and June were asking how they’ll know when they can slip out from under the porch. Good thinking.

  Winn whispers again that he’s en route.

  I keep an eye on the goon about forty feet away from me around the corner of the house. He looks to be taller than me (I’m five foot nine) but shorter than Winn (who is six foot) and made up of square shapes. Square buzz cut, square face, blocky build—the kind of build that looks like he’s got a belly, but it isn’t soft.

  Winn whispers that he’s coming up on me.

  I glance back and watch Winn approach. He sidles up to squat next to me. His presence is comforting, someone to watch my back since I can’t hear jack shit in this helmet.

  “Are you still complainin’ about that?” Puo smirks.

  Damn it. I really need to stop mumbling out loud.

  Puo continues, “Whine, whine, whine. Want some cheese with that whine?”

  I heroically restrain myself from unloading on Puo. “Chameleon,” I whisper vehemently, “I’m going to squeeze you so hard cheese is going to come out of your ears.”

  “And you would eat that?” Puo asks. “That’s just plain gross. But, hey, it’s your picnic on the bearskin rug. How spreadable do you think that would be?”

  “Chameleon,” both Winn and I snap. Then I add, “Shut. Up.”

  Puo does as he’s told. Freaking Puo.

  To Winn I whisper, “I’m going to sneak over to the nearest oak tree over there. You position yourself behind that tree there.” I point to two oak trees in the row that frame the driveway. “Then throw one of these rocks—” We’re standing near some fist-sized landscaping rocks butted up against back of the house. “—as a distraction when the goon is between us, I’ll sneak behind and attack—”

  “I should be the one to attack,” Winn says.