American Blackout (Book 3): Gangster Town

by Tribuzzo, Fred

  Was Becca or anyone in government making the calls?

  “No one,” the frightened man answered, terrified to stop talking, since he breathed air as long as he talked. “Becca Givens, the mayor, was to be kept in the dark. Jane told us this. Her father downstairs was the one exception.”

  “We know about him,” Cricket said.

  “Against everything we’ve been told, everything we practiced, we’re to keep the mayor alive.” Cricket could hear the watercooler talk in his voice. The daily gossip of executioners about what a jerk the boss was for not letting them do their job.

  “That itchy hand probably wanted to take action.” Predator stood over the doctor, who wasn’t used to having to look up at someone talking down to him.

  The man recovered a bit of his professional air and started to nod until Predator slugged him with an old fashioned roundhouse, and Doctor Finney took on the role of a frightened patient, whimpering, with slumped shoulders.

  “Okay, I’ll ask one last time, which vial puts you to sleep? You’re getting a shot before we leave.”

  Exhausted from the ordeal, the man pointed to the vial Predator had first grabbed from the man. Predator gave him the shot, and the man winced.

  Predator said, “Oh, we’re sticking around for a few minutes in case it’s just a flu shot or something that keeps you awake. If it’s not what you say it is, I’ll inject you with every tube in your fanny-pack arsenal.”

  “Get in bed,” Cricket commanded.

  As the man drifted into sleep, struggling to watch his captors, Predator held a vial and then another close to the man’s face, saying, “I wonder what this one does.”

  57

  Escape

  In the back seat of the ’49 Ford, Predator and Cricket remained quiet. Cricket had left the hospital room first, and Predator followed in the doctor’s lab coat. The driver asked about their visit and started down the quiet street, saying, “It’s really warm tonight, like spring. The weather’s crazy.”

  “Yeah, that happens,” Predator said. “But it’s warm enough that if something comes barreling down out of Canada, like a frigid cold front, we’re gonna see some major snowfall.”

  “Are you tuning in to the Weather Channel?” Cricket playfully nudged her friend in the ribs.

  “I was done with the Weather Channel years ago. Too political. I like the old-fashioned reporting on movements of air masses, low- and high-pressure areas stubbornly doing their thing, and not global warming behind every unusual occurrence.”

  “Feeling something in those spry old bones of yours?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be keeping an eye on the barometer. Like Kennedy getting shot, I know what I was doing in the afternoon, winter ’77—the pressure dropping like a rock—big-ass storm that year. They got hit down here in Cincy; we did too in West Virginia. Mountains helped as well.”

  “What were you doing?” Cricket asked.

  “Performing my duties as husband and provider to the wife and kids.”

  Cricket started to laugh and then shocked everyone when her voice climbed an octave: “Boots! There! In the alley!”

  The driver screeched to a stop and picked up a two-way radio, and made the call like he was calling in an accident. The large cat glowed in the dark alley, due to windows above shining with lanterns and candles.

  “That’s a beautiful animal,” Predator said.

  “Get the van here,” the driver shouted. “Angel needs this damn animal back in its cage.”

  Cricket stopped herself from questioning the driver’s coarseness. After all, Angel was in charge, and he exhibited real love toward the animal.

  “I’m getting out,” she said.

  “Why?” the driver said.

  “I’m following the cat. Come around the block, and I’ll point to where she is.”

  “Not smart to tail an animal who’s pregnant and probably hungry,” Predator said.

  “I’ll be careful,” she said, stepping out, eyes on Predator, and then shifting her gaze to the driver, saying, Look out, I don’t trust this guy.

  “All right,” the driver sighed. “Sounds like a pretty good idea.”

  Cricket closed the door quietly and started down the alley. She hadn’t seen Boots exit the alley onto the next street. She did turn once back to Predator, who had his window cranked down. She gave her friend a thumbs-up.

  There was a garbage container, lid open, and she kept her distance, hugging the opposite building. She stopped once and listened to hear if the big cat had jumped in looking for food. Nothing. She passed an iron door and found it was open. She wanted an escape if Boots decided to attack.

  Was the driver just nervous about coming up empty-handed? Would they injure the animal during its capture? There was something personal in the driver’s tone, not, “Hey let’s help the boss catch this thing,” or, “What a great thing to have the animal back in the zoo to thrill the children.” Some motivation was hidden from her and Angel. Was there a profit to be made by some individual who could fence the exotic animal? Or worse, some cult believing that if they drank the animal’s blood, it’d give them new powers?

  She dropped her paranoia about the driver and cult of animal sacrifice. Besides, Angel would surely find out.

  She turned to see that the car was gone at the end of the alley, and was startled to see the big cat on its belly alongside the garbage bin. It had been watching her as she processed useless information and lost situational awareness. She had nowhere to run, except to backtrack quickly to the steel door past Boots. If she sprinted down the last fifty feet of the alley, the cat would nail her before she reached the street. She let a few beats pass and started talking to the animal. A lot of questions that made the snow leopard growl, although it sounded like the most powerful mew she had ever heard.

  “Okay, too much information. Boots, there’s the door. I have to walk past you and open it. You go inside and I’ll close it, but not shut, so you can push it open if I don’t come back. But you need to hide. I know this is crazy. But I’m worried for you. I need to throw these men off your trail. Hormones and instinct are both telling me this.”

  Briefly the leopard listened in silence, and Cricket started to walk past the animal when it rose and started walking toward her. The animal followed the strange woman whose heart was rapidly thumping against her rib cage. When Cricket reached the door, she pushed it open and kept walking. She didn’t turn toward the cat but heard it pause, its breathing change, as though Boots felt relief at being able to take cover. Cricket stopped, turned slowly, and saw the cat staring at her.

  Her heart jumped, snatching the gasp that escaped her. She had hoped to see the cat already gone inside the building. Boots looked at the opening and then back to Cricket, and they both heard a car approaching. Boots growled once and entered the building. She hurried to close the door and then ran toward the street where her driver would be pulling up.

  The Ford arrived in front of the alley, and moments later another car stopped at the opposite end, blocking Boots’ escape. Three men in the other car got out with rifles and shotguns. Then a van pulled up.

  Predator rolled down the window and waited for her to say something. So did the driver.

  She looked back down the alley and hurried to the driver of her car. The other men were headed their way.

  Quietly she said, “Right before you got here, the cat left the alley, headed toward the river.”

  “You sure?” the big driver asked.

  “Yeah, radio your buddies to drive toward the river. You too. I suggest you pause at each alley. The cat broke into a run. So get going. I’ll walk south. Pick me up when you return. The Weather Channel says it’s gonna warm up in the next five minutes, courtesy of global warming. I’ll be fine.”

  The driver gave her a strange look. Nobody joked much anymore.

  Predator was smiling from the back seat. He knew bullshit when he heard it.

  The man radioed his cronies and soon left.

  Cr
icket started to walk south as the car headed toward the river. When it took a turn, she ducked back into the alley and ran to the door. She listened and heard the big cat moving on the other side.

  “Boots, it’s safe.” She felt young, full of wonder and fear, yet strong, like Lee Ann, in love with every animal on God’s green earth. Her heart was breaking for a creature that might maul her, eat her when the door opened. Should she open it and run? Have her gun out?

  “Boots, I’ll do my best to keep them off your trail.”

  She knew what needed to be done. She opened the door and turned away and started walking. The big cat emerged quickly and answered her with more of a grumble then a growl. Clearing its throat?

  Boots matched Cricket’s steps. She knew the animal to be magnificent and repeated the line, a new mantra. There was a shot of energy from the animal that it was communicating, challenging, and questioning the presence of the two-legged alien in a moment-by-moment language that made her feel the animal’s presence along her back.

  Cricket neared the street and was terrified of being attacked. Some old knowledge, something her dad had warned about came to mind. Don’t look a bear in the eye. Hell, don’t look any large predator in the eyes.

  She caught headlights in the distance aiming toward her from both the north and south.

  “Boots,” she talked firmly yet quietly. “You need to go now. I don’t know if you’ll figure that out.”

  She felt the animal’s warm breath on her hand. She froze.

  Again she told the snow leopard to move. It made a sound like a sneeze and a grunt combined and lunged down the alley.

  Moments passed and luckily both cars were moving slowly, and the one with the three hunters had a powerful spotlight that they shined along storefronts and alleys.

  Predator hung out the open window, smiling, giving her the thumbs-up.

  58

  Sabrina Downtown

  Ajax flew between buildings at an altitude of several stories. Because the buildings leaned and their facades pooched out in unexpected places, he couldn’t pinpoint where in the city the big cat was. It had brought down some weary night traveler on foot and taken its dinner quietly.

  When Ajax spotted Cricket, he hovered nearby, amazed and angered at her insistence on saving the animal, and worse, creating a bond between them in the process. His wish to punish her was diminished by his love for her. Enviously, he watched her bravely help the animal and open herself to attack, and was mystified, unable to foretell what the next moment would bring. After all, Sabrina was just a big cat with eons of stored instinct, not prone to evolutionary steps forward. Yet something miraculous was occurring, and he let inspiration override anger and scoured the city for the recently dead, enjoying several satisfying meals that night.

  59

  Family Wars

  Becca was wearing a purple cape, nearly floor length, that billowed behind her as she stormed past the great picture window overlooking the river.

  “You could have killed that doctor with that sedative.” Becca fiercely eyed Predator and Cricket. The mayor’s transformation into a red-haired Medusa would have chilled to death the stoutest warrior. “There’s a premium on highly skilled individuals.”

  Elaine and Sister Marie sat quietly at the dining room table. The girls were thankfully asleep.

  Cricket said, “I figured the old woman I helped was in safe hands. I didn’t know she had been designated useless, premium-less, like Predator Jones. Doc Finney talked a lot about the usefulness of people.”

  “You’re nuts. You think I’m having people killed? He’s a young doctor, full of himself, and you were threatening to kill him. We’ll figure this out. We’re contacting the woman’s family tomorrow.”

  Elaine, drink in hand, approached her daughter. “And if they are practicing euthanasia, what will you do? How will you stop it? How will you punish the criminals? It may not be as much fun as putting a scientist on trial for being skeptical of a fad.”

  “Mother, the doctors and nurses are under enormous pressure. They’re making decisions that to us on the outside may look callous.”

  “You mean, may look like a callous murder.” Elaine glided up to her daughter, face-to-face.

  Cricket never saw the woman stumble or slur her words, even though there was a drink in her hand from dinner, or even late afternoon, until bedtime. Mother and daughter remained in some ongoing drama of love and betrayal.

  On the mundane side of things, Cricket saw that Elaine appeared thinner than when they had arrived only a week ago. Yet in her long black dress she possessed an elegance in the lift of her shoulders, her head straight, unlike her daughter, who was tense most of the time and seemed to be crouching, ready to pounce.

  “Your drinking makes you unable to separate fact from fiction,” Becca hissed.

  Elaine shrugged. “I know you’re unsettled. There’s a lot of unsettling news coming from the hospital. Doctor Finney confessed tonight to Mr. Jones and Cricket that he was murdering patients.”

  “He was under duress; he’d say anything.”

  “Not a man with nothing to hide and an ounce of integrity.” Sister remained calm, waiting for Becca’s wrath, served up cold.

  “Sister Marie, Patriarchs murder my citizens. My doctors and nurses do their very best to save my citizens. You’re aware that we all die someday?”

  “By God’s hand. Not the hand of someone playing God. If that poor woman’s life was taken, she had no chance to come to God’s side in the last hour of her life. Instead, she may have died in terror and helplessness.”

  “What about suffering?” Becca smiled, walking past her mother and Cricket, standing toe-to-toe with Sister Marie.

  “Not all suffering is created equal,” Sister said, arms crossed.

  “Amen to that,” Predator said, walking to the table, where a carafe of wine sat. He poured himself a glass.

  Becca stammered, “Tell that to the person in agony due to stage-four cancer, or a burn victim.”

  “Or maybe the person chronically depressed,” Sister added. “Mankind’s list is endless when it comes to our indulgences. In some European countries, they went from the individual making the decision, death with dignity, to deciding themselves who should live or die. I watched frightened people just like the woman at the hospital come into an understanding of their fear and suffering shortly before their death, and an understanding of a loving God as well. How awful to cut short that journey in the last hours and days of a person’s life.”

  Have I been playing God? Cricket listened closely to Sister as she made her case for the preservation of all life right up until the end. Cricket had ended people’s lives quickly. No second chances. No do-overs. The most haunting moment was the man lying paralyzed by a bullet and Cricket telling him of his fate later that night when wild dogs and coyotes would arrive. The man had been one of several responsible for the downing of her dad’s plane. That factor took a back seat as Sister Marie sparred with their host.

  Becca, losing ground and with no one taking her side, made a feeble reply about the sacrifice of the one for the good of the many.

  Sister Marie cautioned, “You’re twisting a great foundational truth, exemplified in Christ’s life, for wiping out people who are deemed undesirable in order for the group to survive in the style they are accustomed to. That is wrong!”

  Angel entered the room unexpectedly. His unassuming smile made him even more attractive as moderator, referee.

  Elaine informed him of the discussion and shared news of the snow leopard’s appearance and disappearance.

  “Has anyone spotted the animal?” Cricket asked.

  Angel had been stirring the ice cubes in his drink, handed to him by Predator, who was moving to the hard stuff as well.

  Angel briefly held up the glass and eyed everyone in the room with a special affection for each person present. Al Pacino in The Godfather, early on, before all the killing and the crumbling of his soul.

  W
ithout rancor, Angel said, “You know where the big cat is headed.”

  Everyone turned to Cricket.

  She stammered, “I caught sight of it—”

  “And you saw it headed south,” Angel said.

  “Yes, she was headed to the river.”

  Angel raised his glass higher. “I want to toast the beautiful Emily Cricket Hastings for her keen awareness. My Sabrina—known to the children here as Boots—has been cornered in a one-block area and will soon be caught, finally protected the way she needs to be protected, fed and loved.”

  60

  Pillow Talk

  Cricket was nestled against Fritz’s shoulder in bed.

  “One helluva day.” Fritz exhaled. He had missed the heated ethics debate, and had also missed Angel, who stayed long enough to get Becca’s temperature down, promise to head up the hospital investigation, check with the drivers about Boots, and flatter all the women before leaving for his place on the west side of the town.

  “The hospital thing is definitely a gray area,” Fritz said.

  “No way.” Cricket jumped up, grabbed the pillow, and smacked his chest hard with it. “I told you what that doctor told us about the head nurse—who lives and who dies.”

  “Weren’t you and Predator threatening to shoot him up with every drug in that belt of his? Torture followed by death will make most of us say a lot of crazy stuff.”

  “What about using only one floor?”

  “Well, power is in short supply.”

  “C’mon, the Coyotes, people on trial for their scientific beliefs, a woman disappearing.”

  “No one’s talked to her family yet.”

  “This is unbelievable.” Cricket fell back into bed, and it was Fritz’s turn to sit up and give his side.

  “Slavery is the real monster. We have evidence they’re going to drive ‘the herd,’ their words, into the stadium within twenty-four hours. I think they’re planning a series of shipments over several weeks. The river’s clear. We need to take the stadium, free the folks being held captive, and crush this group. Sergeant Wills was at the airport when I landed. He got my report. He has two hundred men and women, mostly ex-cops and military, available for fighting.” Fritz had spent the day flying to Wright-Patterson with PJ Bob and scouting the river south of Cincinnati. “Two ships out of Louisville, very likely slavers. I doubt anyone is conducting dinner cruises. Don’t know how long it’ll take for them to get here. An hour later I returned, and they were parked at a small town about five miles outside Louisville. Cleveland is trying to get info on any unusual uptick in people missing, more gun battles, kids being orphaned. All signs of slavery on the march. And Wills’ people are combing the docks, likely places to drop off and pick up their catch.”