Night Games Pt. 11

"Got up next mornin' and I grabbed my gun.

Took a shot of cocaine and away I run.

Made a good run, but I ran too slow.

They overtook me down in Juarez Mexico."

-T.J. "Red" Arnall, "Cocaine Blues"

*

Gordon Walker stepped out of the driver's side of the Piaggio Ape that he'd pulled over to the side of the street. Alice Mei, knowing what was coming, remained in the passenger seat, and hunkered down.

"Howdy, officers!" Gordon said in his best effort at mimicking Spencer Malone's Texas accent. The two Policia officers emerged from their car and began walking toward him. Gordon raised his palms in a friendly greeting, then lowered them back to his sides and readied the collapsible metal batons he had up each sleeve in case they were needed. "Is there a problem?"

"Remain where you are, sir." The officer on his side of the car told him. A disgusted look crossed the cop's face as he approached. Gordon took another step toward the man until he was standing in the gap between the two vehicles before innocently stopping and looking the cop in the eye. He turned and looked at the cop's partner, who met his gaze. Gordon saw the partner slowly reach for the gun in his holster as the one on his side of the car took another step toward him. The partner blinked, and that was enough to set things off.

Gordon lunged forward and grabbed the closer cop by the wrist of his gun hand. He side-stepped the man and caught him in a half-nelson, spinning him until the cop was facing his partner and Gordon had him as a human shield. The partner's hand landed on his gun. Gordon whistled and the man looked up and saw that he'd already taken his hostage's gun and had the weapon pointed at him.

"I did all my killing in the army." Gordon told him. "And I'm not looking to pick up a murder rap today. So, drop the gun, walk over here, and get ready to take a little nap."

As the cop obeyed, Gordon nodded toward the Ape. Alice stepped out, approached the cop that Gordon wasn't holding from behind, and the prongs of her stun gun made contact with the back of his neck. He collapsed to the ground. Gordon pistol-whipped the one he'd been holding in the back of the head. The cop dropped to his hands and knees. Alice hit him with the stun gun, and he passed out next to his partner. Gordon collected up the guns and tossed the weapons under the cruiser.

"That was fun." Alice told him. "What the fuck do we do now?"

"Run." Gordon answered, removing the safety vest and hard hat he was wearing. Alice did the same, leaving the two of them wearing workers' jumpsuits. They ran down the sidewalk toward the bottom of La Collina.

"What the hell's going on?" The voice of Tracy Baker came over the earpieces both of them were wearing.

"We got pulled over." Alice explained. "We took care of the cops, but now we're on foot."

"We need that extraction." Gordon told them. "Franz, where the fuck are you?"

"Passing the Marketplace." Franz Hauber replied. "I am on my way."

The left side of Gordon's jaw sloughed off his face and fell to the ground. The two of them had been wearing latex disguises provided by Oscar Dodge, but the heat of the San Finzione sun that day had caused them to sweat heavily in the utility workers' outfits they'd been wearing, and now the adhesive was coming off. Gordon looked over at Alice's face and noticed that it was beginning to peel.

"We're losing our disguises." Gordon informed them. "And we're still in jumpsuits. We have to get off the street."

At the next corner they came to, Gordon turned down the street, into the residential neighborhood on the hill. Alice followed him onto the residential road of houses on either side.

"We need to get off the street NOW!" She reiterated, sirens getting louder in the distance.

Gordon pointed to a house up ahead. One with the blinds closed and no cars in the driveway. They ran past the house that death metal was booming from and toward that one. Gordon boosted Alice over a fence before climbing it himself. They landed in the backyard.

The two of them walked up to a back door with a window in it. Gordon slid one of the metal batons out of his sleeve and extended it with a flick of his wrist. He smashed the window and opened the door. They ran into the kitchen, where Alice got out of sight and readied the stun gun while Gordon checked out the house. He returned to the kitchen and nodded that they were alone, and she followed him into the living room.

"We've found a place to hole up, but not long." Gordon told the rest of the team. "Once those two wake up and call this in, we'll have less than ten minutes before they lock down the neighborhood and go house-to-house, checking backyards. That's when someone's going to notice the broken window and find us."

"Ja, Ja!" Franz replied. I am nearly around the Marketplace, getting ready to turn up La Collina."

Alice ran to the bathroom and checked her peeling face in the mirror.

"You need to get that makeup off quickly." Oscar Dodge advised over the comms. "Can you find some alcohol or something?"

Alice checked the medicine cabinet and found nothing. She then went into the larger bedroom, where Gordon was seeing if the male occupant of the house's clothes would fit him. The bedroom had its own bathroom and Alice opened it to find cosmetics. There was alcohol, but there was also something else. She reached for a bottle of nail polish remover.

"Found something better." She announced, grabbing some toilet paper, and pouring the liquid into it. The acetone quickly dissolved the spirit gum, and she left the remnants of her disguise in the sink. The wig followed it. She wetted another wad of paper and went back to the other room to give it to Gordon. He had found something in the closet and was changing out of the jumpsuit. Alice opened the other to see if there was anything that would fit her. She found a sun dress and removed her outfit as well. Gordon was too busy thinking of the task at hand to take the moment to appreciate what Franz saw in her. That thought led him to wondering where that fucker Franz was.

"I am coming up Strada al Castillo now." Franz told them. "I see the cops up ahead. They have called an ambulance."

"We ran about a block down the hill and turned right." Alice explained. "So, left turn for you. We're six houses down.

"Ja, I am turning." He answered. Gordon went to the house's living room, rubbing off his makeup and letting it fall to the floor as he went. He peered through the blinds, looking for Franz's BMW. Alice followed him out and noticed the trail of latex goo he'd left through the house.

"That's not cool." Alice told him. "Sure, we had to break in and steal clothes, but we don't have to make a mess, too."

Gordon didn't answer. His heart lifted when he saw a car approaching but fell when it went past. Then he saw Franz's vehicle behind that car, and it lifted again. Franz pulled into the driveway and undid his seat belt. As the two left the house and quick-walked toward the BMW, he slid over to the passenger seat and fastened his belt again. In his present state, if they ran into more cops, Walker was the better choice for escaping them.

While Gordon got into the driver's seat, Alice got into the car behind him and immediately slapped Franz upside the head.

"Where the FUCK have you been?" She demanded.

"Picking up something for later." He tried to excuse.

"If we get out of this, we're going to have to talk about whether or not there IS a later!"

Gordon ignored the domestic dispute next to him and backed out of the driveway. Franz had an extra pair of sunglasses in the visor, and he put them on. They drove to the intersection that would take them back onto Strada al Castillo and down the hill. Helicopters approached as Gordon turned on to the busy thoroughfare and casually drove past the Policia officers setting up roadblocks.

* * *

In Contessa Helena de San Finzione's limousine, Helen, Susan, and Mander were on their way back to the castle. Helen's phone was muted and on speaker as she listened to La Policia coordinating their search via conference call. She and Susan were waving to the Yia-Yia as they passed the café outside the Marketplace when a raised voice came over the speaker.

"Officers down!" The voice called out. "Incident on La Collina! Corner of Strada al Castillo and Strada Della Casa! We have two suspects on foot last seen fleeing down La Collina."

Helen grabbed the phone and unmuted it.

"This is Special Unit LFC. I am enroute to the scene." She said over the line. The partition was already lowered, so Helen told Scappa to take them there.

"Copy that." Said the dispatcher on the phone. "All units on site, make way for SU: LFC's vehicle."

Susan turned to Mander.

"La Fucking Contessa?" She asked him quietly.

"La Fucking Contessa." Mander confirmed.

La Policia lifted the barricades to let La Contessa's limo through. They pulled up to the scene where paramedici were tending to the two officers. Mander got out and held the door for Helen. Susan followed her. They walked over to where the officers were being treated.

"How are they?" Helen asked the first paramedici.

"Stun gun burns to the back of the neck. This one's arm was pulled out of the socket, but he should be fine."

"Their guns are missing." Helen observed.

"The criminals tossed them under the vehicle." The cop said groggily. "We won't be able to get them until we back up the car."

Susan had observed Mander's interactions with Helen in moments like these, and figured it was appropriate to whisper in her ear like he would.

"Like you said about the hotel." Susan observed. "Just enough violence to get the job done."

Helen nodded her agreement. She pointed to the GPR on the back of the Ape.

"And there's Dr. Rocco's machine, so we've got that back."

"We've got something over here!" Another cop called out. Overhead, the helicopters began moving out to search the neighborhood.

The three of them followed the cop's voice and found what he was pointing at. A mass of latex and goo on the sidewalk. A few meters ahead, there was another. Mander regarded the discarded utility workers' vests and hardhats.

"We've been in air-conditioning all day, in the limo and indoors." He told the women. "But it's been a pretty hot day to be out wearing workman's clothes and pushing that big thing about."

"Hot enough to melt someone's disguise." Susan commented. Helen agreed and the three of them began following the trail. It rounded the corner onto Strada Della Casa. They continued following it until it went off the road and stopped at a fenced-in backyard. Mander cupped his hands for Helen to climb over.

"Shouldn't we go back over there and get some cops to come with us?" Susan asked. Mander hefted Helen over and motioned for Susan to do the same.

"La Policia need warrants." Helen told her. "La Contessa is welcome everywhere. Come on."

Susan shook her head and accepted Mander's offer of a lift over the fence. Once they were both over, he climbed it and joined them on the other side.

"No, they don't." She said when they were all together again. "This is hot pursuit of known felons who just attacked cops! I've watched enough TV to know you don't need a warrant for that."

"Ok, ok." Helen agreed. "It's because they'll complicate matters and it's fewer people who'll see me employ The Thing, so fewer people who have to be told they experienced the Bystander Effect and Mass Hysteria."

Susan admitted the point. "Mass Hysteria" and "The Bystander Effect" were the Government of San Finzione's official explanations for why it sometimes seemed that La Contessa had the power to freeze crowds in place or cause them to experience missing time. Researchers came to San Finzione to find out why both phenomena happened so frequently in the country, only to conclude it all a hoax after meeting with La Contessa.

Mander drew his Desert Eagle.50 and gestured with it toward the broken window in the back door of the house. Helen acknowledged it and produced her Ruger LC9 from her purse.

"Maybe you should go back to La Policia after all, Susan." Helen remarked, pointing to the latch on the gate that could now be seen from this side. "Anything could happen in there."

Susan understood. She remembered Helen's earlier words about not wanting to do anything dangerous on Take Your Susan To Work Day. They were going into this armed and she had nothing but The Thing at her disposal if anything happened. The smarter idea would be to go tell the cops that La Contessa is planning something dangerous. She opened the latch and went back to the street.

Mander approached the door. He guessed correctly that the one who'd broken the window then unlocked the door from the other side and tried the knob. When it turned, he burst in with his gun at the ready and checked the kitchen. From there, he repeated the process, sweeping the living room. He motioned that it was safe for Helen to enter, and she followed.

"Closet's been ransacked." Mander observed. "And here's two workers' jumpsuits. They changed clothes in here."

Helen walked into the adjoining bathroom and found the pile of goo that had been Alice's fake face. She noticed the open medicine cabinet, saw the unopened bottle of alcohol, and smelled the air.

"Nail polish remover." She told Mander. An empty bottle on the floor confirmed it. "They got rid of the rest of their disguises in here."

"Not entirely in there. There's another of those trails leading out of the room." He said, pointing at the bits of Gordon's disguise that he'd left on his path. The two of them followed it to the front window of the living room, where Helen noticed that one of the slats on the window blinds was askew.

"Then Walker and whoever watched the street for something." She stepped over to the front door and tried the knob. It opened easily. "Their extraction. Probably Franz Hauber. We know he's out and about in the city right now."

"So, they're likely already outside the area the police are cordoning off." He noted.

"Probably so." Helen replied. She stepped outside to where Susan and La Policia were approaching. "They were here." She called out to them, walking down the front steps to approach the group. "But they're gone. Hauber must have come and gotten them. They're in a vehicle. We need to start checking surveillance cameras."

"Well," Mander commented, watching the cops enter the house. "Their disguises are gone. Walker should show up on those cameras now. So should the other one."

Susan rejoined them and the three walked back to the injured officers.

"You find anything in there?" She asked the pair of them.

"We can determine from the trails that their disguises were coming off." Helen offered. "And someone found a bottle of alcohol and a bottle of nail polish remover in the bathroom, and they used the remover to take off the makeup."

"Nail polish remover is acetone." Susan pointed out. "Is that a better choice for removing this stuff?"

"Rita could probably tell us that. Or a chemist like the one Luc's been looking for."

When they returned to the scene, the cop who'd been stunned from behind said that he didn't get a look at his assailant. The one whose shoulder was being slammed back into place said that it was an Asian woman, but her face was peeling, and he couldn't discern which Asian race she was. When Helen was done talking to them, Susan approached her again.

"Anything else we can do here?"

Helen called for the senior officer on the scene. She informed her that local surveillance cameras should be checked immediately and who they were looking for. The officer went to go instruct others and Helen turned back to Susan.

"With them gone, I think that's as much as we can help here." Helen admitted. "We should get back to the castle and see how the others are coming along."

* * *

In the library at Castle Finzione, Troy and Julie Equals were poring over books. Troy was continuing his project for Helen of figuring out exactly how Uongo could strike out independently as a diamond-producing country. Julie had made a list of things she'd need for the art projects Helen had in mind and was now studying photos of the task that lay ahead of her. She'd given the list to Nunzio Lombardi earlier, who was out gathering the items she'd need to get started. On a blanket laid out in front of the table before her, Lord Vincenzo Ramon the Second and Lord Byroni Troilus de San Finzione crawled about and slobbered on toys.

Seated at the next reading table, a laptop had been set up for Rita Delvecchio, who had been going over footage from the Eye of Andalusia robbery when a Policia officer arrived with a flash drive containing footage of the theft from the Ministry of Science that morning. She'd been looking at the disguises that the three men on the videos were wearing, trying to see if there was some detail she could notice.

Rita's life had definitely become more unusual since meeting La Contessa and her friends. Her job had originally been simple enough: Pose as La Contessa at parties she didn't want to attend. And with the makeup and wig that she now carried at all times, if she didn't exaggerate her impression like she would for comedic purposes on the show, it worked. Since meeting La Contessa's friends, though, she'd been attacked by the Triads and helped fool members of La Familia de San Finzione into getting some comeuppance. And now she was looking for jewel thieves.

Helen had told Rita about The Thing early on into the job, her criminal mind considering the possibility that Rita might one day get kidnapped or taken hostage and knowing the truth about the legends of La Contessa might mean her life. Helen also commanded her not to tell anyone the secret who didn't already know. She'd also given Rita a command to, if she ever had an issue with it, remember how much Helen pays her for this job. She'd met Susan in Seattle and the Equals on one of their many trips to San Finzione in the past.

Helen, Susan, and Mander walked into the library. Helen and Susan went over to the carpet, knelt down, and picked up the babies.

"Hey, we're back. What's everyone got so far?" Helen asked the room. Troy went first.

"I think I'm getting somewhere." He reported. "They'll need investors, but it can be done."

Helen acknowledged that he'd made progress. She turned to Julie next.

"If Nunzio's able to get everything I asked for, I can get started as soon as he gets back. It seems that, like Troy, you've found a way to keep me safe in the castle and out of the fun stuff."

"Sorry." Helen apologized. "We went to see The Swede earlier."

"Oh!" Julie exclaimed. "The Swede! How's he doing?"

"Still fuckingk metal." Susan answered. That got a smile from Julie.

"Ok, you're on that." Helen stated. She turned to Rita. "Got anything?"

"I've been comparing the videos to the mug shots La Policia sent over. The makeup artist is very good. I can't hear the sound on the other one, but the man in it is a good actor. I believed he was concerned about the machine."

"Well," Helen told them. "His name's Franz Hauber. Luc was able to tell us that. There are also two women in their group, which, counting the still-unknown disguise expert, brings the crew to seven. We nearly caught one of them and Walker today, but they slipped past La Policia. But I think seven is it. Any more than that, and the split on the job would be too little for the risk involved. The Swede knew the first name of the one that we think brought them all together, Tracy. I don't suppose that name means anything to anyone here."

The others agreed that it didn't.

"Didn't to Luc when I asked about her either. Oh, one other thing, in case this wasn't complicated enough already. If my information's right, we don't have three days to get it back, we have two. Hauber told one of the people who tell me this kind of thing that he plans to leave town the day after tomorrow. So, that's when the buyer's coming."