Chapter 9:

The pretty blond was out of place in the rundown housing project that Latavia called home. Tall, with sparkling eyes in a unique blue-violet hue, and with a body like a Maxim model, she drew the attention of every face on the street, male and female alike. More than one person made catcalls or crude offers, and a good half of those were women! Lucy paid it no heed. She was in their world, and she knew it. Besides, she had a half-dozen of her friends waiting to bail her out.

Listening to radio chatter alerted her that there were watchers, and Lucy played it cool, knowing she'd soon be making contact. This could lead to another piece of critical information–another brick in the wall as Mike put it. It was the thing she lived for–the thrill of rolling the dice. But you've got a new thrill to think about, thought Lucy. She was getting married. Soon after, she hoped to be starting a family. Mike was right. Risking it all on one throw of the dice wasn't going to work anymore. Mike deserved better, and she wouldn't be much of a mom if she got geeked and left her kids without a mother.

A voice behind her announced, "girl, don't you know you broke down in the wrong neighborhood!" Lucy turned around to find a large black woman with short hair and a round face standing there. Lucy flashed her badge, announcing, "I'm here to unclog the pipes..." She nodded at the van across the street. The plump woman took a good look at the strange badge as Lucy calmly explained, "I hear there's frogs stuck inside..." "Well come on up," said the plump woman. Lucy signaled Tom, who stepped out of the van, wearing a set of ratty overalls. He caught up as the two women made the entry to one of the projects.

The threesome strolled past open doors and through the refuse that seemed to collect in this place of poverty. Lucy's keen eyes picked out small details as she passed this or that open apartment. There were large numbers of men and very few women and children if any. All those men looked young, fast, and rough. Guards, thought Lucy. The leadership of the Bloods was running scared. They had forted themselves up in this place, hoping to hold out against anybody or any thing that might come after them. Lucy filed that away. It was leverage against them.

The plump woman led the two cops up the stairs, claiming the elevator was out of commission. Neither cop said a word, but Lucy kept her eyes open. It was easy to get killed in a stairwell, and they didn't know for sure just who they were meeting up with. Climbing to the fifth floor, the plump woman led them off the landing and down the hall to an apartment square in the middle of the building. Knocking on the door, she called out, "it's me, Latavia." The door opened just a hair, and an eyeball asked the plump woman, "who's wit you?" "Plumbers come t'fix the water," said Latavia. "Come t'get them frogs out."

The door opened, and the three were admitted. Lucy found herself in one of the larger apartments, facing a half dozen large black men. All were 'flamed up' as the slang went, wearing their affiliations on their backs. A quick glance showed her 9mm Berettas, .40 Smith & Wessons, and a couple of old-school Colts. The gangsters insisted on patting the two cops down, and Lucy's 'friend' insisted on getting a little too close. "I prefer Italian," opined the Lenopan woman. "What," stammered the surprised thug? "I expect dinner before somebody grabs my tits like that," retorted the cop.

The startled thug came up with her badge and gun. "Like Men in Black," said the gangster, as he held the tiny little ray-gun out to his boss. "You would be Lucille," announced Lavonne James. "And you would be Lavonne James," replied Lucy. Shaking his head and laughing, the gangster opined, "I'd run into a burning building for you." Even though that was the code phrase, Lucy blushed anyway. "Her boyfriend already did," blurted Tom. Which only made Lucy's blush deepen. "Alright," said Lucy. "Now that we're friends... What can you tell me?" The gangster offered her a chair. Sitting down, Lucy crossed her legs and said, "we don't have a lot of time here, so I need to know everything you know."

"They're running their shit out of four trap-houses in my territory," said Mr. James. "Mixed bunch of guys... I guess what you'd call 'eclectic'." "Nice word," allowed Lucy. Mr. James had some education. "Mexicans... African Americans... Whites...," said the thug. "They've got 'em all... Like a UN of the ghetto. They only run traps, though. They don't try to run the corners. We figured maybe there's frogs in there. Can't get anybody inside to see. Last two who tried ended up in the East River." Lucy nodded, as she wrote that down. "Addresses," she asked? One of his thugs rattled off the addresses for her.

"Anything else," she asked? "Any word on rival gangs?" "No," said James, "but there's something else..." Leaning forward, he said, "people been comin' up missin', Ms. Mann." At Lucy's frown, he said, "first we thought it was the usual... Crackheads goin' off to some abandoned building and OD'ing. But it started to turn... It was workin' mommas. It was young boys in high-school who didn't run the game. Even a church-goin' woman." Lucy frowned. That was dangerous news. "Any clues what happened to them," asked Lucy? Lavonne James turned to one of his henchman and said, "go get the Reverend..."

The thug went back into the hall and was gone several minutes. When he finally returned, he had a distinguished older man with him. Reverend Paul Cummings had been asked to come down personally by the man he considered the scourge of his neighborhood. He hadn't understood why, and he was puzzled by the presence of the young blonde woman. "You're that girl from Mission Avenue," blurted the Reverend. "Yeah," sighed Lucy. "That'd be me." "News said you were some kind of super-cop form the west-coast," said the Reverend, as he came around in front of her. "Plumber," corrected Lucy. "I clean up messes."

Shaking his head, the preacher declared, "we got a big mess in this neighborhood, Ms..." "Mann," replied Lucy. "Lucy Mann." "Well," said he. "We been havin' people go missing from their homes and from the streets... good people. Not bangers. Not the crackheads. Family men and housewives." "Anything in common," asked Lucy? The preacher frowned. He hadn't really thought of that. "A street," asked Lucy? "A family? A trade?" Frowning, the reverend admitted, "five of 'em worked at an old factory off TBD street before it went bust." "Interesting," murmured Lucy. "Where's this old factory?"

Lucy spent more than two hours with the preacher and his nemesis, the gangster. Tom got an education on what questions to ask and how to ask them as Lucy pulled an astonishing amount of intel out of people who mostly didn't know what they were telling a stranger. When the conversation grew stale–the locals ran out of interesting things to say–Lucy declared the conversation over. Minutes later, one of Mr. James' pet thugs led them out the back of the tenement and onto the street.

"How'd you learn to do that," asked Tom? He'd been torn between being ready to piss himself and confusion over what to say or ask. With a shrug, Lucy replied, "it's not that hard, Tom. I've only been doing this since I was five. Though most everybody in my home town is Lenopan, there're about fifty human families. We go out of our way not to spoil things for them. And we do still get the County Sheriff through town, and sometimes some knucklehead from the state stops by. You have to learn early not to be afraid of being in the presence of someone who could hurt you..." "...because you'd give yourself away," rumbled Tom. He got it. No wonder she was so cool.

"For the rest," said Lucy, "I learned early that you don't put yourself out there. Most sentient species love to congregate. We love to talk about home and the weather and the clutch of eggs the wife just hatched..." "You lay eggs," he stammered. "Nope," said Lucy. "Just testing to see if you're learning. You pass, by the way..." With an impish smile, Lucy opened the door of the van to reveal their backup waiting impatiently. "Miss us," asked the Lenopan? Reese grunted, "just trying to avoid facing Mike with bad news..."

Continuing to talk, Lucy explained, "if you're on the run from someone or something, you don't talk. Don't talk at all, and you avoid situations where you'll be forced too. So you don't look like a wet-blanket with no personality, you encourage them to talk by pretending to listen." Tom nodded. He could see what she was saying now.

The van rolled back across town to the station while Lucy quizzed Tom on what he'd seen and heard. Reese put in her thoughts on the disappearances, noting that the NYPD tip-line had seen a lot of traffic regarding disappearances. By the time they got back to the station, they had decided on yet another tack for the investigation to take.

Arriving at the station, they found the Alphas in a frantic drill looking for one of their uniforms. It had turned up missing while Molly and her crew had been on the roof getting exercise. "Hey, babe," announced Lucy as she, Tom, and Reese came strolling up the stairs. Stopping in front of her man, Lucy gave him a quick peck on the cheek, asking, "how'd it go with the Mayor?" "Scared 'em," sighed Mike. He'd had to scare them. The Mayor and the Alderman had both balked at the expense required to outfit the NYPD to deal with having aliens among them. Mike had had to resort to scare tactics–dredging up some of the awful that Ben and Lucy had both been through–to get his point across. News that pretty much every human being on Earth had lost a piece of their lives after an alien managed to temporarily turn them all into mind-controlled drones scared the two of them shitless. Mike got his money–or rather the Commissioner did–but Mike wasn't happy about it.

"Honey," said Lucy, as she gripped his shoulders. "You're fighting behind the power-curve. Earth's all but defenseless, and it's time we started taking steps to correct that." From believing wholeheartedly in the secrecy the Magister had maintained over the years, Lucy had become a convert to Ben's side. There weren't enough Plumbers to maintain the illusion for Earth any longer. Humanity had to grow up. "How'd your thing go," asked Mike? "Went great, babe," said Lucy. "C'mon. I'll tell you all about it..."

Before they could get very far, though, the sound of a gunshot from the basement had everybody's attention. The sound of Nick's new toy was loud enough to attract every man and woman in the building. They all came running to the basement. There they found Nick examining the missing Plumber-suit. There was a rather substantial hole straight through the chest.

"Nick," shouted Mike. "What the fuck?" "Since we don't get blasters," said Nick. "I got this." He held up the AR-pistol. "What the fuck is that," demanded Tim? ".50 Beowulf," replied Nick. "Rednecks in Texas use 'em to bust wild pigs. They call it the DRT gun. Dead Right There. No chasing the fucking pig across half the county to see if it died. And... (with a flourish)... goes right through space-man armor." Dropping the magazine and clearing the chamber, he handed it to Mike.

"Holy shit," growled Mike. The barrel looked like a sewer-pipe. It was a lot like some of the old-time gangster guns with the barrel cut down and the stock removed. Nick had even attached a strap to the back of it. "Where'd you get this," asked Mike? "Ordered it online," replied Nick. "Got it on your budget." Holding out the magazine, he said, "only ten shots, but this gets us back in the game at least." He gave Molly a smirk. Molly answered with–a 'your ass is mine' smile. Lucy's hand on her shoulder suggested that she let it go. They were all in this together, and the Plumbers needed these guys pulling their weight.

The new toy got passed around, and everyone tried it on for size. It was a little heavy for Reese, but most of the guys thought they could handle it. "Try a two-handed grip," said Nick. "Maybe put a front-grip on it." "Good work, Nick," said Mike. "How many more of these can we get?" "Asked for five," he admitted. "Gunsmith figures he can assemble the rest from parts inside a week..." "Alright, everybody," said Mike. "Briefing in thirty..."