Chapter 17
Happy landings there, Buddy!
Note: The descriptions and accounts in these stories are fictional and do not portray any actual people or events.
Suzanne almost fell off the roof herself when she looked down and saw Pavel point the gun at Robbie, and then something landed on Pavel, making a sound sort of like a big watermelon dropped from the second floor. Some guys in dark grey suits held guns on the other caterers, put plastic cable ties around their wrists and ankles, cloth hoods over their heads, and then shoved them in the back seat of their black Tahoe. An ambulance arrived almost immediately, and the attendants put Pavel, who was unconscious, on a back board, and then she realized that the guy that had fallen off the roof must have jumped on Pavel deliberately. He looked familiar. They strapped him to backboard too, and then loaded both of them in the ambulance and took off in less than two minutes. She suddenly placed him: that was the guy who had followed her to Waco. She saw Robbie stand up, but he looked a little woozy. Her phone buzzed with a text from her father. It had a photo of a red headed guy in his thirties and one line of text "Find Agent Smith and ask him how you can help".
She looked up and saw the guy in the photo talking with Erminia and Brujo, and hurried down the stairs. She first checked on Robbie, getting there right after Lara did, and Robbie didn't have a scratch on him, he was just having an adrenalin reaction. Agent Smith hustled over and asked her to sit with Robbie, give him some water, and watch for signs of shock. He told her a drunken guy had fallen off the roof, but he was the only one hurt, and that was all she had seen.
Suanne said, "What about Pav..."
Agent Smith was adamant. "A drunk guy fell off the roof and that's all you saw, right!" as he looked her right in the eyes. "Tell Robbie to say the same thing."
By this time the two other guys in suits were talking to all the other people that had seen the guy fall. This early in the morning, there really weren't that many people here yet. A big white Cintas step van showed up, and two guys in funny looking rubber suits with gloves and plastic bags on their feet and plastic hair nets ran to pick up Pavel's gun, and Robbie's racket, and everything the bogus caterers had put out for snacks, and all the stuff that had fallen off the roof with the guy who fell. Agent Smith got in one of the black Tahoes and then he and the white van took off, disappearing down a road that was marked 'no outlet' and about two minutes later two city police black and whites rolled up from the other direction, followed by an EMS unit. Her phone buzzed again, her father texted again, "stick to that story, will call you later, and do not turn your phone off." She saw a bunch of characters flash on her screen, and then it showed only a jumble of nonsensical symbols.
The EMS guys went over to look at Robbie, shining lights in his eyes and asking him questions. He kept saying "I did not fall off the roof" and then, "the guy who did almost hit me" and then "they took him away in an ambulance", then "a regular ambulance, just like yours". The cops were talking to everyone around the court and taking notes.
When they got to Suzanne, she opened her mouth to speak but they said "I think I already know, Miss. Some drunken guy fell off the roof and that's all you saw, right!"
"Actually officer, I didn't see anyone fall, I just heard a big thump. I came down the stairs from the roof to look and the ambulance was already driving away. You guys sure are good!" She gave him her best breathless coed look, but he did not respond. He must be gay, or maybe really married.
The cops came over and said they were confiscating her phone, but when they tried to page through it, they saw it was trashed. "This one is fried, too, Sarge. What the heck is going on?"
The EMS guys wanted to take Robbie to the hospital, but he absolutely refused, saying, "I didn't get hurt, just surprised!"
The police radio crackled, and the speaker/mics on the cop's shoulders all announced "Unit 1311, 10-61" The sergeant stepped away from Suzanne and Robbie, and dialed his cell phone, and spoke into it for a moment.
He then motioned to the other cops and said "10-24, 10-22, and you are all 10-8! Roll out a here forthwith!" The radio crackled again with another set of ten signals and some addresses.
The cop that had been talking to Suzanne said "What's the deal Sarge? We are told to disregard, back in service, and then we get immediately sent to routine burglary calls we don't normally roll on!"
"Stow it, Stowkowski! Talk to Sergeant Vincent if you think you have a problem. Do you read me?"