Laughter rippled through the crowd. People fell quiet.
"Okay, settle down, folks. This is the part you've been waiting for all day."
Chapter Fourteen
"We laugh at you, Uncle Tommy!" Sammy called.
Tommy knew better than to glance over at his niece. He would laugh and not be able to stop.
"Yeah, yeah, besides the comedy."
"Since when?" Natalie called, just loud enough for him to hear.
Tommy froze for a second. Had she really said that? A cool wave spread through him, and he realized it was relief that despite the pressure of the day, despite that semi-argument they had in the van, she felt comfortable enough to sass him in public. He grinned at her, and she grinned back, visibly challenging him.
Tonight was going to be good.
"All right, people." He raised his hand, palm forward, as if taking a vow. "By the power invested in me by Everest and Jennings, and the maker of the posture perfect bed, I return to you your mobility. I grant to you eyes that see and ears that hear. I command you -- stand up and walk!"
The quiet in the gym grew a little deeper. People watched him, visibly waiting.
For the punch line?
"Come on, folks," he groaned. "You can't be that dead." He groaned louder when mutters rose from the crowded gym, people disagreeing with him, some laughing, some slumping in their chairs. "It means you can stand up now. And that's all she wrote." He turned his wheelchair, ready to roll off stage, and a roar of protest rose up from the crowd. "Huh? What's that? What do you want?"
"Tell funny stuff!" Sammy shouted, her clear, sweet voice audible through the hundreds of responding voices.
"Well, if I have to…" He wheeled closer to the edge of the stage and settled in. "Okay… Hey, did you guys feel like maybe you were prisoners of war, doing that million-mile walk we learned about in the history books?"
Voices came from different sides of the gym, correcting him, responding in kind, demanding he get into the "funny stuff." Tommy gave them his widest grin and let his silence work for him. The longer he sat there, the more they would get worked up -- up to a point. Eventually, his silence would work against him. It took years of performing to learn the right timing.
"Yeah, yeah, like I know anything about going to war, about being in the military. It's not like I tried, y'know? I went and registered when I turned eighteen, like you're supposed to. I mean, I am a law-abiding, patriotic citizen."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Natalie grin and shake her head, and pull Sammy up to perch on her lap. He lost his breath for a second when his niece settled in and leaned back against her, visibly content and secure.
Hey, if Sammy loves her, then… Then what? Later! Deal with it later, gimp, you got a show to do!
"But they didn't believe me! I told the truth, I wasn't physically able to serve -- I mean, they didn't ask about my mental capacity..." He only hesitated a second, waiting for the audience's reaction. Only a few snickered. Maybe the rest of them were just too tired to catch the subtleties. "But they made me come in for a physical exam -- and the doctor told me to HOP up on the examination table! I said, 'Hey, if I could hop up on the table, I'd already be in boot camp.'"
This time he got a much better reaction. More laughter, shaken heads, comments, grins.
"I used to have fun with the military when I was in high school. We used to have these career days, every other month. Recruiters from colleges and vo-ed schools and -- you got it -- the military, would come in and set up in the cafeteria, and you could get out of class to talk with them. Some guys in my class didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives -- they went every time. But I used to play with the minds of the recruiters. Took a lot of talent, believe me. I'd wait my turn -- I could see the recruiter trying to ignore me without looking like he was ignoring me. Know what I mean? And I'd roll up to the table and I'd say, 'Hi, I'm Tommy Donnelly. I'd like to be a foot soldier.'"
More, and louder groans from the audience.
"These poor guys, they thought I was mental or on drugs. They tried so hard to be nice, and explain to me just why I couldn't be in the Army or the Navy or whatever. And I would just pretend I didn't understand. I'd say things like, 'You could make me a paratrooper. Armor plate my chair, give me a bazooka, and drop me behind enemy lines.' Finally, one guy realized I was serious -- at least, serious about blowing his mind. I think he warned the others, because they wouldn't even look at me from then on. Dummies ruined all my fun."
*****
"Guy's kind of weird, but he's good," Chuck said.
He and Simon stood in the shadows of the hallway outside the gym, watching the activity inside.
"All I care about is finding out where our stuff is," Simon said. "How long is the freak going to keep talking?"
"We should just start looking for ourselves, not wait for him. While everybody's busy in there."
"Yeah." He glanced once more through the door, then turned and headed up the hall to the lobby intersection of the Mission. "Got to admit, Franky had the right idea. Who'd look for drugs at a place like this?"
*****
"Now, my best friend from gimp school looks like Conan the Barbarian," Tommy said. "Imagine Travolta's face, the Incredible Hulk's chest and shoulders and arms, and bread stick legs. That's my best friend. He likes doing really fun stuff, just to blow people's minds. He used to love to ride down the hall in high school, singing at the top of his lungs. Now, you got to understand what it's like navigating a wheelchair down a high school hallway during class change." He paused, looking around to judge how intently the audience was listening to him. "It's like doing the slalom down a really tricky ski slope -- only the poles keep moving and they scream really loud when you hit them.
"Now, my friend, he'd be doing the slalom and singing at the top of his lungs. Which isn't so bad in itself, because his voice was good. But it was the song he was singing. You know Lynyrd Skynrd's classic -- 'Give me three steps, give me three steps mister.'"
The applause rocked the entire gym. Tommy pretended to be knocked backwards by the reverberations.
*****
Simon stood in a recessed doorway, keeping watch down the hall. Chuck came out of the first storage room and shook his head. He re-set the lock and moved down the hall to the next doorway marked "storage," and pulled out a lock pick.
*****
"We are not dealing with a sane individual here," Tommy said. "This is the guy who once went through a McDonald's drive-thru. Now, the problem with McDonald's is, they are not ready for people in wheelchairs. In the drive-thru, at least. The poor girl on the speaker hears this deep voice saying, 'I'd like fries, shake and a cheeseburger.' She gives him the price and tells him to come up to the second window, waits a few seconds, but no car pulls up to the window. Suddenly, this huge hand comes up from nowhere -- kind of like Thing, in the 'Addams Family.' Slaps down money. Exact change, of course. Grabs the bag. Vanishes. Re-appears and grabs the shake, and burns rubber. Poor girl doesn't know what to think. What can she think?"
*****
Chuck had only begun to search the storage room off the kitchen when Simon ducked into the room with him and pulled the door closed. He gestured for silence, then slapped the light switch. Out in the kitchen, voices rose up in conversation and plastic trays clattered down on the counter. Clean-up after the meal had begun. Both men scowled into the darkness, and Simon pulled his gun from his waistband, to run his fingers over the barrel and grip, and flicked off the safety.
*****
Tommy slowly wheeled backwards, bowing as far as his chair would let him, as applause and laughter rolled through the gym. He caught movement from the corner of his eye and yelped, seeing the curtain coming down. He shoved hard, getting out of the way, then pivoted and zipped across the stage in the shelter of the curtain. Seeing Claire standing in the nook where the pulley system for the curtain was hidden, he nearly forgot to stop his chair before running into the rail that kept people from
falling over the edge into the stairwell.
"Hey! How's it going? Is Paul here -- did they let him out of the hospital?"
"No." Claire stepped back to lean against the railing, looking weary but peaceful. "He lost enough blood to justify keeping him overnight while they build him back up."
"That's all, right? I mean, besides a hole plowed through his side. The worst of it is blood loss?"
"Looks like it. He doesn't have a concussion. Of course, the pain is pretty rotten right now."
"How are you?" He slid up close enough to her he could catch hold of her hand. "What are you doing here, instead of going straight home?"
"Like I trust you and your band of hooligans not to bring the house down while my back is turned?"
"Mommy!" Sammy shrieked, nearly leaping out of Natalie's arms when the woman brought her backstage.
Tommy left the two of them alone to hug and catch up, and decided he was glad not to have to deal with Sammy's torrent of questions. He glided down the behind-stage ramp and Natalie followed him out into the hall.
They made their way to the kitchen to help with the cleanup. Fortunately, most of the work consisted of gathering up the untouched sandwiches to store for meals for next week, the same with the cookies, and making sure there were enough trash barrels lined with garbage bags to take all the paper plates and cups and napkins. There were supplies to put away, and Tommy was too tired to make his usual joke about being a living shopping cart, as he loaded boxes onto his lap and wheeled down to the supply room. The second box, of unused plastic tablecloths, was just above shoulder height. As he maneuvered to lift it high enough without tipping himself backwards, hands came from behind him and took the box, lifting and sliding it home.
Irritation welled up from his gut and he turned around, ready to scald whoever it was. Didn't anybody around here ever get the message? If he wanted help or thought he couldn't do something, he'd say so and ask for help.
Then he saw it was Natalie.
"Thanks. You know, you don't have to help out like this."
"You aren't trying to get rid of me, are you?" she said, just a faint echo of her usual sauciness in her voice.
"Who, me? I may be gimped, but I ain't crazy."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Though I hope you'll do better than that later on."
"You better believe it."
For just a few seconds, it was good to sit and grin at each other. Then something in her eyes and around her mouth started to soften, and he could almost hear sappy music start to well up, with heavy emphasis on violins.
"I think it's time to get out while the getting is good," he blurted, and turned to wheel out of the room.
"Coward!" she said, turning to follow him.
"Who, me?" He kept going.
The mass exodus of volunteers and cleanup crew kept him busy, saying goodbye, sharing congratulations, responding to comments about the comedy routine or answering questions about how they could make it bigger and better next year. Sooner than he liked, the Mission was empty. Nikki and Brock came to help close up and walk the perimeter of the building, making sure everybody was out.
Gray wasn't happy. Tommy had spent enough time with the big Akita, either watching him endure the rough love of the children or receiving some face-washing when Nikki thought he had been too uppity, he knew when Gray was in a good mood. This wasn't it.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked, when Claire was in the office with Natalie and Sammy, locking the donations into Pastor Wally's office and gathering up all the little girl's toys.
"Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to read our guardians' minds," Nikki said. She went down on one knee and stroked Gray's head with one hand, massaging his thick chest fur with the other. "What is it? Where is it? Or is it a them? Is there someone still here who shouldn't be here?"
"That's the problem with having so many people in the building for so long," Brock added, watching her try to calm her companion. Gray was so tense, Tommy swore he could see the dog vibrating under his fur. "All the smells, everything overlapping. He knows he feels something that shouldn't be here, some danger, but until this place airs out and smells return to normal..." He shrugged.
"Uh, you've spent a lot of time studying how dogs think, have you?" Tommy said.
"Okay, that's speculation, but it's as good a guess as any. And sort of based on experience," he added with a shrug and a grin.
"What I'd like to do is have a walk-through with Gray and Puck," Nikki said, standing. "I'm going to take him out, walk around the outside again, and wait for Jennifer to bring Puck by. Then we'll start from both ends and work our way to the middle." She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and headed for the lobby doors.
"You want us out of here?" Tommy said. He held up both hands, cutting her off before she could turn and respond. "Sorry. Dumb question. Been a long day."
Nikki grinned at him as she, Brock, and Gray headed out the door. Tommy waited until the door swung closed, then he looked down both hallways. Something put a shiver up his back, but he couldn't decide what it was. He rolled into the office to find Claire on her cell phone and Natalie on her hands and knees, digging under the deep bench built against the wall. Sammy stood behind her, bent over, twisting in that way only little girls could do, to look under the bench as well.
"Lost a contact?" Tommy said.
"Worse." Natalie sounded strained. "Somebody's eyeball popped out while somebody -- I'm not saying who -- tried to see if she wanted to be an eye doctor."
"That's not what I was doing," Sammy said with a giggle, and stood up straight again. "Somebody stepped on my dolly's head and it popped off and went under there."
"Why would somebody step on her head?" Tommy shivered when Sammy shrugged.
That was just it -- nobody he knew of who had any business going into the office would be so oblivious that they would step on a child's toy and break it, and then not say anything.
All of that added up to mean someone who had no business in the office was walking around while everyone was busy with the after-walk dinner. Specifically, someone who didn't know that a certain little girl left her toys lying around as if the office of the Mission was her living room. Besides the fact that in essence, the Mission was indeed Sammy's second home.
Tommy shivered again, thinking of what Nikki had said, and Gray's tension.
Someone was wandering around the Mission who had no business being there. Except maybe nasty business. He glanced over his shoulder, out the lobby doors. Nikki and Brock were nowhere to be seen.
"Uncle Tommy?" Sammy stepped up to him and leaned against his leg.
"Yeah, shorty?"
"Is Daddy gonna be okay?"
"Oh, yeah, he's going to be just fine. I bet you and your mom can go see him tomorrow after church, and maybe even bring him home. Won't that be great?"
"Is that what the doctors say?" Natalie said, emerging from under the bench. She held up the glass bead that had come off the rag doll someone had made Sammy for a birthday present.
"Forget about the doctors," Claire said, stepping up to the counter to lean over it and join their conversation. Tommy knew just from the renewed color in her cheeks, she had good news. "Paul is ready to come home now. Seems the tough guy hates hospitals."
Tommy opened his mouth to make a smart remark, then he looked down at Sammy. He had a good idea why Paul didn't like hospitals. Claire seemed to get the same idea at the same time. She shrugged faintly and exchanged a sad little smile with him.
"So, what were you three talking about before? Nikki looked like she wasn't particularly happy about something," his sister continued.
"Oh, dang." Natalie held out her half-size backpack. "I put my camera down somewhere and I can't remember where."
"Where were you last taking pictures?"
"If I knew that, I'd know where my camera is. Or was. Who knows? Someone could have picked it up and taken some pictures, thinking they were helping out. Not that I'd accuse any
one of walking off with a camera that wasn't theirs, but…"
"Just because people are helping the gimps of the world doesn't mean they're honest," Tommy offered.
"Let's do a walk-through, now that everybody's gone," Claire said.
"Uh, guys? Nikki is having Jennifer bring Puck over, and they're going to have the dogs do another check," he said. "Maybe going through isn't that smart of an idea."
"Where did you spend most of your time? Other than the kitchen," Claire added, and gestured for Natalie to come with her. "We'll just go there and back. We'll be back before Jennifer gets here, anyway." She wrinkled up her nose at her brother and she and Natalie hurried out the door.
"How come nobody every listens to the poor little guy in the wheelchair?" Tommy muttered.
*****
By the glow of the security lights and the moonlight spilling through the skylight, Chuck and Simon ransacked the kitchen, opening all the cupboards, looking in the canisters, pulling pots and pans and towels out of drawers and leaving them on the floor.
"You hear something?" Simon whispered.
Chuck started to shake his head no, then stopped and listened for two seconds, then nodded. He followed Simon into an alcove formed by tall metal wire storage shelves. The door into the hall swung open and Claire and Natalie came in, pausing in the doorway as Claire leaned in and felt along the wall for the light switch. The light came on and they both inhaled sharply at the mess strewn all across the floor of the kitchen.
"Do you think--" Natalie began, stopping short when Simon stepped out of the alcove and pointed a gun at them.
"Don't think. You'll stay out of trouble that way," he said.
*****
Simon led the way into the Mission office. Natalie thought about how Tommy had rammed the two men who were dragging Franky away. Would he see them in time and try something similar, or had he been frightened by Paul getting shot?
Wheels (Tabor Heights Year Two) Page 22
