Giving Him Hell_A Saturn's Daughter Novel Page 10

  I almost choked on laughter as the good senator and his scientist father stared at the list in equal parts horror and fascination.

  “I want the Benedictines,” I insisted, fighting a grin. One really shouldn’t grin when confronted with the devil, but despite flaming chandeliers and blown glass, I just couldn’t cope with believing in the tenants of hell.

  As far as I was concerned, Schwartz was right. Hell was right here on earth—or in a dimension we could cross into under the right conditions.

  “When have you ever seen a nun?” Andre asked, rightfully so since I probably look more Muslim than Christian to him. Color blindness doesn’t exist.

  “In the hospital, after one of my leg surgeries. The nuns sang Christmas songs in the chapel. That’s as close to heaven as I’ve ever been.” I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. I really don’t have a spiritual side. I’m a lawyer, after all. But those nuns were beyond awesome.

  “You’re not serious?” Paddy asked, staring at the list. “An exorcism?”

  “Think of it in terms of closing any holes into another dimension,” I said encouragingly.

  “If that were physically possible,” Paddy mused, going into one of his fugue states, “chances are good the holes would blow open elsewhere. The quantum pressure . . .”

  I left him to it. Men were checking their watches and heading for their cars. We hadn’t settled anything. I needed to do something drastic to protect my adopted home and friends.

  “Gentlemen,” I shouted, moving away from Dane so it didn’t look as if I had his permission to speak.

  “We came here to inform you that we’re not helpless,” I shouted once I had their attention, “that the Zone will fight eminent domain if it’s taken for the benefit of a profit-hungry, environmentally unfriendly organization like Acme. That is not the purpose of eminent domain. We are open to any studies the EPA would care to conduct and any improvements they might suggest, but you cannot steal our property and shut us down. Not without a fight.”

  Dane clamped a heavy hand on my shoulder, through Max’s bomber jacket. “What Miss Clancy means is that we still need to work together to do what’s best for the Zone neighborhood. I apologize for the interruption. My secretary will call you, and we’ll organize another meeting somewhere a little less explosive next time.”

  “Nice, Maxie,” I said under my breath. “You’ll be a politician in no time.”

  “And you never will be, Justy,” he agreed in a low voice, reminding me with the nickname that really was Max inside the suit and tie. “Let’s get Andre’s damned circus in motion and put an end to Gloria’s stalking while I’m still alive to appreciate it.”

  I might not believe in a superstitious, Bible-thumping fiery pit, but I’d spent some of the worst weeks of my life bringing Max back from what we called hell’s outer circles. I wasn’t letting him go again so easily. I left him to answer a question from his security people and caught up with the EPA rep before he could reach his car.

  “I meant what I said,” I told him. “We’ll help however we can to clear up the harbor pollution, but it’s ten years too late for the people living there. Eminent domain is out of the question.”

  This gray-haired fed wasn’t as slick as the others. He had bags under his eyes and an air of infinite weariness. “Says the mouthpiece working for the wealthy scoundrel who owns the land,” he said with a shrug.

  Mouthpiece. Nice. Not. “That shows how little you understand.” I nodded in Andre and Katerina’s direction. “If she should tell him the land is a menace and to get rid of it, he’d sell us all out to the highest bidder. That’s not the point. You do not want a medical clinic in an environmental hazard zone next to the chemical company that caused that hazard. Clean the harbor up if you like, but keep Acme and their cohorts out of the picture. They are not upstanding citizens.”

  He looked at me with a little more interest. “I’m with the federal government. The state controls eminent domain. Without state involvement, nothing’s happening.”

  “Then let nothing happen. Don’t let them sell you on eminent domain for the sake of cleaning up the hazard. Andre may be a slumlord, but he isn’t the villain in this picture.” I handed him my card and walked away.

  I didn’t know if I’d accomplished anything, but I felt better for having tried. Of course, I wasn’t helping any when I walked straight toward Katerina and Andre.

  “The circus is on,” I blithely said under Andre’s glower. “Let’s round them up, head ’em out.”

  I picked a charred piece of plaster from Katerina’s blazer. “Do you need a tour of a senator’s home,” I asked her, “or are you ready to head back?”

  She brushed my hair with her hand and handed me a burned chunk. “I think I want to be able to escape on my own legs before I go back in there,” she said dryly. “Gloria and I used to work together on volunteer committees. I had no idea that she had let the place run to rack and ruin. That’s not like her.”

  “She wasn’t herself those last years,” Andre said consolingly.

  I politely didn’t snort and moved the subject forward. “I want to be part of the circus when it happens, please.”

  “You bring the nuns, I’ll bring the clowns. What’s the big guy gonna do?” He jerked his chin in the direction of Dane, who was back-patting and schmoozing the lawyers.

  “Bring the flame thrower,” I said with a shrug.

  I took the Harley back to the Zone and my new slate-blue office. Stupidly, I decided to stop at Chesty’s for lunch first. Running scared apparently makes me hungry. I should have asked Schwartz if my would-be murderer was out on the streets yet, but I had this itching for normal. I just wanted to be a lawyer stopping for a bite to eat.

  As soon as I parked, Tim came running from the florist shop across the street, waving a paper as if he’d been waiting for me.

  “The city has condemned the shop!” he shouted, nearly in tears. “The plants will all die. We just got a new succulent shipment!”

  Nancy Rose, the owner of the florist shop, was Tim’s second mother. His first was a drug addict who OD’d a year or more ago. Tim would do anything for anybody who helped him. He worshipped Nancy.

  This was what a lawyer did, I reminded myself. I snatched the letter from his hand and skimmed it as I crossed Edgewater in the direction of the florist shop.

  It was still December. It was still cold. And the pavement still felt like Savannah in July. We could probably grow plants out here—for all I knew succulents were flesh-eating greenery—but I didn’t mention the street heat to Tim. He was a teenager and a bit impervious to any oddity but his own—as a gay teen with a tendency to literally vanish, he had a lot to cope with.

  Nancy Rose was a short, plump, fiftyish, grandmotherly sort with dark graying hair she didn’t bother dying or styling. Wearing khaki slacks and denim shirt, she looked up when the bell over the door rang, then returned to potting.

  “I probably should retire anyway,” she said with resignation. “Business is bad. I just don’t know what else to do with myself.”

  The shop was a veritable jungle of plants. I wasn’t a nurturing type and had never bothered growing even a spider plant, so I didn’t know the names of most of the inventory. But there were towering trees and tiny blooming bundles of flowers and the place smelled like a forest. I had a suspicion Nancy had a hidden weirdness involving green things. No one grew jungles like this in Baltimore, much less in an environmental disaster zone.

  Amid the greenery I spotted a familiar shape. I pushed away a large fern frond and came face to face with a garden gnome. Someone had placed a red felt elf cap on its ugly head and turned the automatic pistol into a Christmas tree.

  “Tim,” I said warningly, nodding at the statue.

  “He was cute,” he said defensively. “I didn’t think it would hurt to keep him warm in here.”

  “In the Zone, Tim? Really?”

  “I broke the gun,” he argued. “And glued the greenery onto the stock.
I can glue his feet to the shelf.”

  “Timmy has a talent for decoration,” Nancy acknowledged. “He did all the fairy lights in here.”

  The entire ceiling glittered with tiny white lights. They adorned the taller trees, along with jolly red bows. “Very festive.” For a second, I almost smelled live evergreens.

  My mother didn’t believe in Christmas. My heart kind of craved the Dickens’ specials I’d seen on TV, with peaceful villages, big fluffy trees, pretty lights, and drifting snow. I didn’t need the presents and bows, just the serenity of the glass globe fantasy. Tim had created a lovely peek at my dream.

  I didn’t kid myself into believing a jungle in the Zone qualified as a Dickens’ village, but it was worth defending. I waved the condemnation notice. “We’re fighting these,” I told Nancy. “If you want to join the coalition, let me or Andre know. We may have to secede from the city and create our own town.”

  “Our own town?” Nancy looked up from her potting. She was wearing little round spectacles just like Mrs. Claus should. “None of us has that kind of money. Even if we did, it would mean more taxes.”

  “Has your heat bill gone down lately?” I asked, raising my eyebrows pointedly.

  She looked surprised. “I guess it has. We keep it kind of tropical in here, but I haven’t had to turn up the thermostat this winter.”

  “Use the money you saved on heat to buy some live Christmas trees. See if they don’t bring in a profit. Use that profit to pay into the town fund. We just have to use our heads to figure out how to make this work.”

  “We already have ribbon,” Tim said eagerly. “I could sell holiday bows.”

  “See? The money part is easy when we put our heads together. It’s dealing with the monsters that’s a little harder. But we’re trying.” I studied the gnome in the greenery and wondered if he had been a monster or just an underpaid flunky.

  “It will take a whole lot more money than a few bows and trees will make,” Nancy said skeptically.

  “Not when you have lawyers willing to work for free. It’s all just paperwork.”

  She actually started to look a little hopeful, and that made me very afraid. But I was a hard worker and learned fast, plus we had Julius’s brilliant legal mind on our side. Maybe, as long as the research company’s CEO was a gremlin on my roof, we stood a chance.

  “Anything can happen,” I warned. “Because it always does. Just don’t buy a retirement cottage in Florida yet.”

  Tim hugged me. He actually hugged me. And it felt good.

  I left them cheerfully discussing Christmas plans. In the street, the manholes glowed brighter, and a couple of Do-Gooders were hanging real wreaths where the burned out lights had once been. I could smell pine.

  Smiling, I inhaled the scent.

  And smelled gas.

  Fourteen

  The gargoyles had alerted us to our last emergency, when the chemical plant had exploded with green and pink gas that left half the inhabitants of the Zone comatose or violent. I glanced up at the two stone creatures on the florist shop. They looked back at me, bored.

  Complacence is dangerous anywhere, but particularly in the Zone.

  “Gas, fellows?” I asked. “Smell anything dangerous?”

  One actually sniffed the air, then settled his wings more comfortably and closed his eyes for a nap.

  Edgewater needed a real warning siren. Like a tornado siren, it would mean run for cover when Acme spreads its chemical clouds—or gas leaks from the sewers.

  I just wasn’t sure where cover was.

  Since no one else was panicking, I called the gas company and reported a leak, like any normal citizen might do. Infrastructure deterioration, I reminded myself.

  Then I calmly walked down to Bill’s Biker Bar, which does a booming beer business at noon, leaned in, and shouted, “Anyone smell gas?”

  A few of the guys looked around, sniffed, and shrugged. Hulking Bill emerged from behind his shiny mahogany bar, drying a mug, and strode into the street. “Nope, nothing. You been working too hard? Come in and have a fish cake and a beer. What did you do to your hair?”

  I’d forgotten about the burned bits. I needed a mirror. “Playing with fire,” was all I told him, tugging to see if any more came off.

  Silent Bill had been talking more lately. He was probably more brute than brains, but he was a solid guy to have behind you. Trying to calm my jittery nerves, I followed him back to the bar and let him fuss over me.

  “How’s Milo?” he asked, delivering a well-seasoned fish burger.

  “I left him at the office guarding Sarah and Ned,” I admitted. “I probably ought to get back and see if anyone survived.”

  Bill snorted. “Well, bring him down here for fish sometime.” He wandered off to deal with another customer.

  I loved the Zone and the people in it. There was potential here. How could I live with myself if I let everyone down? How did I know who to fight when all I had to work with was hot streets? My Gloria theory was all I had.

  Munching my sandwich, I called and found the Benedictine nuns first because they were easiest. For a generous donation they happily agreed to sing for a holiday benefit at Senator Vanderventer’s home.

  Learning about eminent domain would take more time. I didn’t know how much time we had, but at least the law was familiar territory, and I knew my enemies. I needed experts on my team. I ran a few searches on my cell and had a list by the time I finished lunch.

  I really didn’t have to investigate everything myself, I concluded as I walked back to the street. I’d spent a lot of money to work my way into a white collar job where I didn’t have to get my hands dirty, right? Let the gas company handle leaking pipes. I did not have to go under the street—especially if I couldn’t visualize weirdoes out of my space anymore.

  Outside, a truck advertising Jacuzzis was parked near an empty storefront. People with the time and money to indulge in a sauna or whirlpool bath didn’t live on this end of town. It was worth a side trip to check out the anomaly. Keeping my hands clean didn’t mean my curiosity was dead.

  Two guys in coveralls stepped out of the van carrying pipes and assorted equipment. Ignoring me, they dragged their dollies down an alley toward the cordoned off harbor. I followed.

  They were setting up a spa on one of the steaming manholes in the back lane near the fenced off area.

  “Not enough hot water in your part of town?” I asked. I knew better than to question, but I could never help myself.

  They scarcely gave me a second glance. I hadn’t felt that invisible in a long time.

  “Hot springs have healthy minerals,” one of them finally replied. He had a jackhammer in hand. A jackhammer. In the Zone.

  One more anomaly to investigate. Had Acme sold this land around the old plant?

  Most of the city thought the EPA had cordoned off the chemical hazard caused by the old plant’s explosion and the ensuing chemical flood ten years ago. Apparently the city had short term memories or believed the harbor had magically cleaned itself. No one but the people who lived here fully understood the Zone’s real eccentricity . . . but hot springs! Infinitely delusional. One hoped they knew better than to drink the bathwater.

  Ignoring an itchy feeling, I roared the Harley back up the hill. I wanted to bag some eminent domain lawyers before I ran into any more interruptions.

  Schwartz and the DG guy, Hanks, were waiting for me outside the office. I didn’t like leaving my bike out where anyone could help themselves, so I unlocked the office door and rolled the bike in with me.

  Schwartz shook his head and Hanks stared, but heck, I was still wearing my biker leather and burned hair. Let them make of it what they would. I was more concerned about why Ned hadn’t let them in.

  “To what do I owe the honor, gentlemen?” I asked, parking the bike at the back of the lobby. Ned’s desk was empty. Milo didn’t run out to greet me. In my world, silence was not only creepy, but dangerous. It took all my focus sometimes to keep
a handle on my paranoia.

  Schwartz spoke first. “I just stopped by to let you know that your friendly mugger got out on bail this morning. Rob here mentioned housing vagrants, and we got to talking.” Schwartz propped the heavy bike more securely.

  I rolled my eyes. My life was a thrill a minute. “And the two of you decided jail was a nice warm place for the homeless while crazed utility shooters stalk the streets?” I asked, while listening for some evidence that Ned and Sarah and Milo hadn’t killed each other.

  “Kaminski has been ordered to stay clear of the Zone as part of his bond,” Schwartz said stiffly.

  “But Dedicated to Good has agreed to spend some of their grant money on renting the Morgan building,” Hanks said excitedly. “We need to know if Mr. Legrande still has legal ownership, and if he’ll rent it out for a minimal sum if we fix things up. Lt. Schwartz said he’d see what he could do about finding off-duty policemen as security.”

  Oh crap, uptown cops in the Zone was a disaster in the making. I gave Schwartz the evil eye. “What, you think Leibowitz will work off duty?”

  “After the eminent domain protest and all the missing person reports were filed on MSI’s security guards, the honchos think we need more feet on the ground,” he said nonchalantly, with his official face on.

  I translated—Acme complained. Which meant Max’s father, ex-Senator MacNeill, had reported Graham Young’s disappearance, because Paddy wouldn’t notice unless the plant blew up in his face. And with his substantial assets locked up in a blind trust, Dane didn’t get a say in anything.

  Filling the town with Do-Gooders and cops couldn’t possibly be safe. Realizing how that sounded inside my head, I rubbed my brow and tried to remember which side I was on.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll talk to Andre. Eminent domain talks are currently at a standstill. I make no promises that we can hold them off,” I warned Hanks, who’d broken into a big smile.

  “Thank you! Here’s my phone number. Just let me know what Mr. Legrande says, and I’ll have the crew down here immediately to start cleaning up the building.” He handed me a scrap of paper.