Obviously not. I knew what I had to do. Even though I generously offered the opportunity for someone to develop a better plan for getting into Acme, I really wanted to be the one to save Bill and Sarah. But if I tried, the likelihood of my damning someone to hell was pretty high. It wasn’t as if Acme would let a woman with chimp hands escape without putting up a fight.
Besides, I had a whole lot of enemies in the Vanderventer camp—like maybe all of management and anyone related to them. They probably had wanted posters bearing my face tacked to the walls. They couldn’t prove I’d done anything to Dane or sent their goons to Africa—one of my more brilliant visualizations—but after months of spying on me, they had reason to suspect it.
“None of that drawing straws nonsense,” Andre announced. “We only have this one chance, and we have to do it right. Paddy, can you get back in without clearance?”
Our scientist shrugged, slumped his shoulders, let his straggly hair fall over his face, and crumbled bread into his beard. “Yeah,” he muttered.
Wow, and I’d thought I was good at keeping my head down! Paddy had me beat by a mile. Or maybe he had just miraculously recovered and simply mocked his prior behavior. In the Zone, it was best to keep an open mind. Or an empty one, ignorance being bliss and all.
“Schwartz, if you put on your uniform and showed up at the gates, do you think you could get access as a policeman?” Andre continued his Lord of All He Surveyed act.
Schwartz squirmed uncomfortably at the notion of suiting up and faking authority he really didn’t have, but he nodded.
“Clancy and I are persona non grata up there, so we’re out,” Andre continued. “Paddy, do you think we can reach both Sarah and Bill and carry them out, or will we be limited to finding out where they are so we can go in later?”
We were up to the royal we now, were we? I bit my tongue and tried listening instead of reacting.
“Locate first,” Paddy decided. “They’ve been adding underground bunkers even I don’t know about.”
Andre rubbed his eyes tiredly at this information. He muttered a few epithets under his breath. I knew the feeling. I wanted to go in, guns blazing, like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne rolled into one. As previously noted, subterfuge is not my strong point. I wanted the good guys to wear white hats. Even Paddy appeared pretty shady right now.
“Frank it is,” Andre ordered.
Which made sense. Frank was our Finder. But just finding didn’t save my friends from Acme’s depredations. I couldn’t justify leaving them in there. I wanted Bill out because he’d hate being a guinea pig, but I was the only one who knew what Sarah was capable of. She could damn us all to hell if she woke up suddenly and didn’t see a familiar face. I didn’t particularly want to spend eternity dancing in flames, but I couldn’t risk seeing my friends do the same, either. Rescuing Max’s soul from hell had been a one-time fluke.
“Nope. I’m going,” I decided, against all common sense. I didn’t even have the strength to lift Sarah should we find her. “Schwartz, meet me at Pearl’s in half an hour. Can you get an official car?” I stood up and stalked toward the door before anyone could react. “Paddy, once you get inside, keep a lookout for us, please?”
“Clancy, don’t be an ass!” Andre warned, blocking my path.
“I can clock you in one,” I told him. “I don’t want to, but I will. You don’t know what Sarah is, but I do. Trust me on this—you don’t want to leave her in there and find out.”
He’d seen our tattoos. He’d seen Max in my mirror after Max died, and he’d been there when I’d whacked Dane with my flaming compact. There was a lot he didn’t know, like about Max being Dane now, but he knew I wasn’t normal. Still, he glared.
“How can you find Sarah if Paddy can’t?”
“I have no friggin’ idea,” I admitted. “But she’s less likely to fry me than Frank. So get over it and let me by.”
Got him smack in the old curiosity with the word fry.
Andre had once explained his weird prescience as the ability to add two and two and find three. I could see the wheels in his head spinning now, but I didn’t intend to linger while he added up Sarah’s husband dying, her mother being neutralized behind jail cell bars, and similar incidents. I jerked on my hood and gloves as a futile security precaution and opened the door.
Lieutenant Schwartz didn’t generally approve of my pressure tactics, but he was an old-fashioned gentleman who looked out for me when others didn’t. He accompanied me back up the hill to our respective apartments. Technically, we both worked on the same side of the law. Maybe he harbored some foolish hope that in return for keeping me safe, Senator Dane would coerce the police into giving him another promotion.
I didn’t disillusion the poor guy. We all had dreams.
I twitched uneasily at that thought. My dream of someday being a judge would be in serious jeopardy if Acme caught me trespassing. I reassured myself that Max’s clearance made my activities perfectly legal—unless I took up body snatching or got mad and nuked a chemist.
As we reached Pearl’s place, Schwartz removed a glove and glanced at his watch. “Be down here in twenty minutes. Pretend you’re a research scientist or something, will you?”
“You’re a good liar, Schwartz.” Leaving him with that ambiguous compliment, I trotted up to my apartment with all the agility of an overweight turtle. I should have shucked the suit downstairs.
I shut Milo in the kitchen with his food and litter box. He gave me the evil eye, but I could worry about only so many things at once. Bill and Sarah had to come first.
Scientist. Crap. What did a scientist wear? Nervously, I dragged my heavy, hair into a clip on top of my head. I’d bought suits at a consignment store for my law clerk gig, but I didn’t think scientists wore pinstripes. Blazers, maybe. Khakis. Button-down shirts. I had those from law school days. I added the dark-plastic-framed reading glasses I used to wear before Saturn Daddy fixed my eyes. I donned a pair of sensible pumps. All I needed was a tablet computer, which I couldn’t afford. A backbone of steel would have been convenient as well.
After finding Max in my mirror, I was still wary around reflective surfaces, but I did a quick double check, added some pale lipstick, and toned down my natural Persian bronze with too-light face powder I’d bought out of a bargain basket. I wouldn’t fool my friends, but maybe I could trick a security guard or two who didn’t really know what I looked like.
I debated returning the hazmat to Andre’s bomb shelter but figured I didn’t have time for arguing with Cora. So I left it to be delivered later and made tomato-mozzarella-basil sandwiches for me and Schwartz.
He accepted his gratefully when I ran out to his unmarked vehicle right on time. Cop cars are never really unmarked. Security would recognize the official plates and extra antennas.
“Will Paddy stay sane enough to help us?” I asked before tearing into my bread, hoping to stifle my fear by feeding my hunger.
Schwartz frowned. “I’ve been wondering about that, too. Did he suddenly get sane or has he been sane all along?”
“Huh, so it’s not just me he’s been fooling? Doesn’t exactly make him trustworthy.” Max hadn’t been worried about the family eccentric—did he believe Paddy was crazy, too?
“He’s all we’ve got,” the good lieutenant said with a shrug. “Just don’t do anything that will cost me my job.”