"Okay," said Iggy, but Gazzy chuckled and slapped him a high five.
"Besides, they're the Ghosts," Fang reminded him. "They have it on all their jackets."
"Oh, I must have missed that," Iggy said sarcastically, and Fang mentally smacked his forehead.
"Yo," someone said, and he spun to see a guy named Keez walking toward them. That morning they'd been lying low in an empty lot in east LA, and they'd suddenly been surrounded by a big gang. Literally a street gang: the Ghosts. They'd all tensed to fight, but one of the gang, Keez, had recognized Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy from the news. He'd also been reading Fang's blog. The gang controlled this part of the city, and Keez had offered them a safe house.
Now he nodded at Fang. "This way, dude."
"We're famous," Iggy whispered, so low that Fang could barely hear him.
"So's swine flu," Fang whispered back.
They followed Keez to an abandoned building in the middle of a scary, decrepit block. People eyed them curiously, but with a simple hand motion from Keez, they looked away.
"I want a Ghosts jacket," the Gasman whispered to Fang. Fang felt the Gasman's hand start to reach for his, then drop. Since they'd split, the Gasman had been trying to be super tough. Fang had to remind himself that he was just a little kid. Max, though she was about the toughest person Fang had ever met, was weirdly good with all the mom stuff, putting bandages on, calming the kids down when they had bad dreams. He'd never realized how much extra work that took.
As they followed Keez up some broken brownstone steps, Fang reached out and took the Gasman's hand. The kid looked up at him, surprised, but then Fang felt the small hand tighten around his. So he'd done the right thing.
Two big guys were standing guard at the front door, but a nod from Keez made them step aside. Inside it was a lot like that burned-out crack house Max and Fang had found in DC, only with less cozy charm. But it was relatively safe and hidden, and those were two of his favorite things.
"Crash here." Keez motioned them into a shell of a room that looked as if one of Iggy's bigger experiments had exploded in it not long ago.
"Cool. Thanks, man," Fang said. Then he, Iggy, and the Gasman collapsed on the floor. It was time for Fang to step up and make a plan.
75
"This is your plan?" Iggy's voice held disbelief.
"Yep. Grab your backpack."
The Gasman didn't say anything, but Fang wondered if he was wishing he'd decided to go with Max. The first day it had seemed like an adventure. Now it was starting to seem just...painful. But there was no way Fang was going back-until Max ditched the cretin.
The offices of People magazine were on about four floors of a colossal building in downtown LA. Fang was sure that if Angel were here, it would be no problem for them to see the president of the whole company and convince him to publish an entire special issue about Itex and their evil ways.
But he was Fang, and he could work his own wiles. He held up a bag of deli sandwiches, and the front guard signed them in. "Delivery elevators in the back," he said in a bored voice.
"Let's take the stairs," Gazzy whispered.
"We're going to the twenty-seventh floor," Fang whispered back.
Basically, stepping into the elevator felt like volunteering for psychic trauma. It was small, enclosed, and full of other people, all of them better dressed and significantly more hygienic than the bird kids.
On the twenty-seventh floor, they practically leaped out of the elevators into a designer reception area bustling with people. Fang held on to his bag and approached the main desk.
A guy in his early twenties with mod rectangular glasses looked at them as though they were three scruffy homeless children.
"Can I help you?"
"I need to speak to your top reporter," Fang said coolly. "I have a story with worldwide implications. You print what I tell you, and this magazine will go down in history."
The reception guy was unimpressed. "Do you have an appointment? With anyone?"
Of course not. That would require a level of forethought that Fang hadn't mastered yet. He felt the deli bag had been a master touch. "I just need to speak to someone, right now."
The guy sneered. "I don't think so."
"If they find out you didn't let me talk to someone, you'll get canned so fast you'll feel like tuna."
That was when the guy pressed the button for security.
Fang tapped Iggy's hand twice. "Let's go! Now!"
76
Two burly security guards picked up their pace as soon as they saw Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy race toward the stairwell. Fang knew that when someone was chasing you, you never got on the elevator, twenty-seven floors up or no. They could lock you between floors, be waiting for you. You always took the stairs.
Fang yanked the door open, and the three of them flung themselves downward, four steps at a time. They pushed past startled employees and almost collided with someone delivering sandwiches. Behind them, they heard stairwell doors being opened and security guards yelling. On one floor, the door opened right as they passed, and Fang felt someone take a swipe at his jacket. He continued to leap downward, keeping track of Iggy and the Gasman out of the corners of his eyes. Unfortunately, there were no windows in the stairwell that they could escape through.
The stairs felt endless and went back and forth so tightly that Fang started to feel seasick. Keep it together, he told himself. Keep it together. You've got a little kid and a blind guy depending on you.
"Okay, about to reach bottom!" Fang alerted Iggy after endless minutes. "Eight more steps, then a hard left!"
"Gotcha," said Iggy.
Finally they reached bottom. If they could just make it out the front doors...
There were eight security guards waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Fang whirled to head back upstairs, but the door closest to them opened, and four more guards started thundering toward them. The three bird kids bolted into the lobby, trying to break through the line of guards.
Unsuccessfully.
"We're leaving!" Fang snarled, but a guard had the back of his jacket and his belt loop. He marched Fang to the big glass doors, muscled them open, and tossed Fang down the building's front steps.
"You don't weigh nothin'!" he said in surprise.
"Don't come back!" said another guard.
Iggy and the Gasman landed on the sidewalk next to Fang, and they quickly scrambled to their feet. After some of the situations they'd been in, getting thrown onto the sidewalk like trash wasn't that bad, but it meant that Fang's big plan had bombed. He dusted off his pants, opened the deli bag, and passed out squashed sandwiches as they made their way back to the safe house. WWMD? Fang wondered. What would Max do? Besides let a murderous creep into their lives, that is.
"No go, eh?" Keez was honing a switchblade on a spinning metal wheel.
"Nope."
"You shoulda whooshed out those wings, man," he said. "I saw you guys on the news once. You got them wicked wings, right? That woulda done it for sure."
"Uh, I didn't want to resort to cheap tricks," Fang muttered. Plus, he hadn't thought of it. Keez was right. That would have worked like a charm. Shoot.
On to Plan...H?
77
"The plan is hot dogs?" said the Gasman, enthusiastically wolfing down his second one. "I like this plan!"
Fang did a quick 360, but this section of El Prado had only the usual assortment of dealers, homeless people, and Ghosts. Nothing too threatening.
"The plan is not hot dogs," Fang said, wiping his fingers on his jeans. "We're just killing time till the real plan falls into place." Of course, there was no real plan-yet. But Fang was the leader of this particular flock, and leaders always had to look confident, even when they were blowing smoke. Another lesson he'd learned from Max.