Chapter 10: There’ll Be Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight

“I just can’t see any good reason to stay here,” Stormy was explaining to Smokey and Kate as they sat around the breakfast nook’s table in Kate’s big kitchen. “If your buddy will get us out of California, we can decide if we want to join the Pirates or do something else. I think I’d be happy just about anywhere if Patti is there with me. Neither of us has quite the CAP to be a sponsor, so unless we find a special person, I’d guess we’ll fight from Anouilh.”

Kim, having been privy to Smokey’s plans, was perched, listening on a tall counter stool. “Uncle Richard is a special man,” she injected. “I’ll bet he’d take you, and you’d only have ta fuck just enough to get pregnant. When I’m fourteen, I plan to keep him really, really, busy!”

“Kim, honey,” Stormy responded, laughing. “Me ‘n Patti are bi, not lesbian. We just haven’t found the right guy around here to scratch our itch. Kate and Smokey and the other three I hear Richard picked up are going to keep him plenty busy. He may be worn to a shadow by the time you turn fourteen. He and Smokey might just have the right kind of friend though.”

Kim keyed right to the ‘worn to a shadow’ statement and retorted, “Unh-unh! Auntie says he’s a super stud. I’m gonna make him show me.”

The repartee was cut short by a burst of automatic gunfire through the breakfast nook’s bay window. The house was surrounded by the Earth First gang, and Gus, spotting his now hated camgirl, had opened fire.

No bullet hit its intended target, but shards of glass flew in an inward arc, striking everyone at the table. From outside, there was the sound of a single shot, but only chilled air entered the room.

Bobby thundered into the room and dropped to the floor at the sight of the shattered window, adults down, and lots of blood. Kim, already using a folded dishtowel to apply pressure to her mother’s neck, commanded, “Kill the lights and call 911. Tell them shots fired, four wounded, and officer down. When they say help is on the way, find Mom’s phone and speed dial Uncle Richard. Tell him Mom and Auntie are wounded, and I said to get his ass out here.”

As he completed the second call, she heard, “On the way. Maybe three hours out. Take care of the young’uns. Love you!” She pointed upwards and instructed, “Unlock the front door and then get back upstairs and make sure the kids are okay. If they’re awake, get them into Mom’s bed and keep them there. Put on some music and use a flashlight to read to them. It’s gonna get noisy real quick.”

Two police officers were the first to arrive, and they burst thought the door with weapons drawn. Kim looked up and told them, “Out back. Automatic fire through the window. Then a single shot, who knows?”

As one cop stooped low and looked out the window, she continued, “Only Mom was bleeding bad, spurting, and I’m good until the ambulance gets here. The right side of Auntie’s face is cut up, and she and Corporal Patti and Stormy are out cold. Those three aren’t gonna bleed out. Go find the bastards that did this!”

“We’re on it,” the officer with sergeant’s stripes declared as the pair turned and ran back out the front door.

In the short interval before an ambulance arrived, Kate looked at her daughter and whispered, “Custody and medical paperwork is in my top right desk drawer.” Despite the pain she added, “You’re doing great Baby. You’ve earned the right to have Richard suck your titties all you want.” Her eyes closed.

As Kim heard one of the officers yell “all clear back here”, two ambulances pulled up, followed by a fire truck. EMTs from all three came through and into the kitchen. “The officers say it’s clear in back, so you can turn on the lights,” she told them.

“Four stretchers,” the senior EMT directed as he kneeled beside Kim and examined her efforts. He opened a large hemostatic gauze pack and told her, “We’ll swap out. I’ll count to three, and you move your hand and that pad.”

When Kim followed his instructions, he quickly examined the wound and told her, “You did just right. She’ll be okay, but not so much if you hadn’t acted. We’ll take good care of your mom.” He paused, gauged the young hero’s equilibrium, then joked, “Got to. She manages our 401k.”

As they wheeled the two sisters towards the ambulance, the police chief strode into the kitchen and looked around and asked the EMT who was examining Patti, “How’s my officer?”

The technician answered, “The short answer is ‘nothing life threatening’ for either of these two. Lots of cuts to the back of the neck and head, the glass missed the spine and major blood vessels. Some cuts on opposite sides of the faces from each other. Looks like they’ll need a good bit of plastic surgery. And I’d say both hit their heads as they fell. Both are out, and maybe have a concussion.”

He motioned to Kim who was standing at the sink scrubbing off blood and listening intently. “She was out of the path of the shots and glass. That blood on her is all from her mother and aunt. Kim’s quite the hero. Stopped her mother from bleeding out.”

As he finished, the sergeant reported in to the chief, “One deader out back. He’s dressed in black with a ski mask, and it looks like he was the first shooter. No weapon, but brass is scattered all around him. My best guess is he was executed for screwing up. We stayed back and taped off the area as soon as we determined he was dead. Detective Watson just got here, but not any of the others I heard you call in. What in God’s name is going on?”

Once briefed by Kim, Richard and the Pirate planning team had decided that plan C would be positioned as a strictly normal employer’s retrieval or medical transport of a gunshot victim. He and his team would transport aboard Spook’s Herc before it crossed into California. Hopefully, that would help keep the assholes’ Confederacy phobia and prohibitions at arms’ length.

Intentions would be communicated to the hospital where Smokey and Kate were receiving their initial care. Accompanied by his medical team, he would take them by ambulance to the Herc, pick up the kids on the way, and di di mau out of California. Once in the air and over the border, Smokey and Kate would be placed in a Confederacy med tube or transported to the Moon. If they needed med tube treatment sooner, well fuck you California.

Loki, that Norse trickster, saw his plan and smiled.

Bradley Hunter, mayor AND local Earth First boss, was spitting mad. “Dumb fucking Polack. Didn’t suspect the panel truck had a tracker. No clue we were waiting to take whatever he and his buddy stole. No idea he was on probation, and no idea we need that damned financial expert to keep our money straight. Should have shot the prick before he ever had a chance to fuck us over.”

The mayor looked around the city council chambers, and told the other assembled Earth First adherents, “Looks like he may have tipped our hand. Too many of the police force were AWOL and unable to respond to the chief’s call-in. Bound to be an investigation. We need to move up the timetable on our takeover.”

“Okay, priority number one,” Hunter ordered, “we need to isolate the chief and her holdouts. She’s still over at the Novak house supervising the investigation, so Bates take fifteen men and pin her in. I’ll be by later to negotiate.”

The rail thin man who had clearly mastered ‘command presence’, turned and pointed, “Carpenter, take a team and station yourself outside the hospital. We need to be sure we can get to treatment if one of the boys is hurt.”

As the two groups departed, he pointed again, “Howard, you’ve got a good relationship with the fire department, take six men with you to the Main Street station and make sure they don’t get their backs up and do something stupid. Jules, you take six to Mammoth Road and do the same.”