Part 47 (2/2)

Makers Cory Doctorow 28550K 2022-07-22

”Ah.” Perry just wanted this day to be over. He missed Hilda, though he barely knew her. It would have been nice to have someone here at home with him, someone he could cuddle up to in bed and talk this all out with. Maybe he should call Tjan. He hit the b.u.t.ton on his computer that made the TV blink the time in Morse code. It was 1AM. He'd have to be up in six hours to get the ride up and running. Screw all this, he was going to bed. He hadn't even gotten a single email from Hilda since he'd left Madison. Not that he'd sent one to her, of course.

Lester was still snoring when Perry slipped out of the condo, a bulb of juice and a microwavable venison and quail-egg breakfast burrito under his arm. He had a little glove-box microwave and by the time he hit his first red light, the burrito was nuclear-hot and ready to eat. He gobbled it one-handed while he made his way to the ride.

There were two cop cars at the end of the driveway leading to the parking lot. Broward County sheriff's deputy black-and-whites, parked horizontally to blockade the drive.

Perry pulled over and got out of his car slowly, keeping his hands in plain sight. The doors of the cruisers opened, too. The deputies already had their mirrorshades on, though the sun was still rising, and they set down their coffees on the hood of the cars.

”This yours?” A deputy said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the flea market and the ride.

Perry knew better than to answer any questions. ”Can I help you?”

”We're shutting you down, buddy, sorry.” The cop was young, Latina and female, her partner was older, white and male, with the ruddy complexion that Perry a.s.sociated with old time Florida cops.

”What's the charge?”

”There's no charge,” the male cop said. He sounded like he was angry already and anything Perry said would just make him angrier. ”We charge you if we're going to arrest you. We're enforcing an injunction. Now, if you try to get past us, we'll come up with a charge and *then* we'll arrest you.”

”Can I see the injunction?”

”Sure, you can go to the courthouse and see the injunction.”

”Aren't you supposed to have a copy of it to show to me?”

”Am I?” The cop's grin was mean and impatient.

”Can I go and get some stuff from my office?”

”If you want to get arrested you can.” He pulled a dyspeptic face and drank some coffee, then got back into his cruiser.

The other cop had the grace to look faintly embarra.s.sed at her a.s.shole partner, but then she, too, got back in her car.

Perry thought furiously about this. The cop was clearly itching to bust his a.s.s. Maybe he hated the ride, or this duty, or maybe he hated Perry -- maybe he was one of the cops who had raided the shantytown all those years before. Perry had taken a pretty big settlement off the county over the shot in his head, and it was a sure bet that a lot of cops had suffered for it and now harbored some enmity for him.

As bad as this was, it was about to get worse. The goth kids who'd been hanging around in droves lately -- they didn't seem like the sort with a lot of good instincts when it came to dealing with authority figures. Then there were the flea-market stall owners, who'd be coming over the road to open their shops in an hour or so. This could get really G.o.dd.a.m.ned ugly.

He needed a lawyer, and someone to front for him with the lawyer. He could call Tjan -- he would call him, in fact, but not just yet. There were limits to what Tjan could do from Boston, after all.

He got back in his car and peeled across the road to the shantytown and the guesthouse.

”Kettlewell!” He thumped the door. ”Come on, Landon, it's me, Perry. It's an emergency.”

He heard Eva curse, then heard movement. ”Whazzit?”

”Sorry, man, I wouldn't have woken you but it's a real emergency.”

”Fire?”

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