Well, Hannibal was 0 for 1. He tore apart the building's whole basement and didn't find anything. Oh, he wasn't expecting to find any dead bodies down here…he considered that possibility momentarily but didn't seriously expect there to be…in fact there was nothing. Nothing down here that anybody could possibly be after. He'd seen that movie Murdock had mentioned, he knew all about The Little Girl, and why everyone who came to her home had to die. He knew it better than most because he'd done more than see the movie when it came out, he'd read the book a good number of years ago and it had left a lasting impression on him. One thing he did specifically remember was that everybody was curious about the little girl, because she didn't go to school, why hadn't she gone to school? Because her father had taught her himself, and boy had he taught her. The landlady hadn't thought much of learning Hebrew off a record, but when you got down to it, how was that much different than learning French in school, when the majority of the students who took it would never put it to any practical use? Hmm?
Hmmm, Hannibal crouched down on the basement floor at the bottom of the stairs and thought. He tried to remember…admittedly he hadn't seen that movie for several years, but all of a sudden, as if he'd just tapped a locked memory in his head, pieces of the dialogue came back to him clear as day.
"How old do you have to be before people start treating you like a person?"
"Don't give in and play their game, fight them any way you have to, survive. That's what he said."
"He whispered to me in a very soft voice that I wasn't like anybody else in the world; and people wouldn't understand me, they'd order me around, tell me what to do and try to turn me into the person they wanted me to be. Since I was only a kid, I couldn't say anything, I'd have to stay alone, keep out of trouble and make myself very small in the world."
"You keep saying 'them' like everyone's out to get you." "Maybe they are."
Yes, he remembered, and he could see how Murdock drew the parallel, and it was eerie just how much it all applied to what was going on here and now as well. Except in all good faith, Hannibal couldn't believe that it was the same thing going on, there was something else, something they weren't seeing. He wasn't prone to playing by the rules but he knew they had little choice but wait for the landlord to return to the city before they could go around asking the questions he felt certain needed to be asked. In the meantime however, what were they going to do? He inhaled and got a whiff of himself after tearing up the basement for over half an hour and decided the first thing he'd better do was go back upstairs and get a shower. Even he was starting to wonder what was taking so long at the dentist's?
By the time Hannibal changed into a fresh set of clothes and returned to the living room, he saw the girls were gathered on the couch and at the table again, reading their schoolbooks…most of them. He just happened to be walking past and wouldn't have paid any attention, except a flash of something caught the corner of his eye and he took a step back and turned to the table. Surprisingly, Chloe actually seemed to be engrossed in her work…but maybe not so surprisingly was that it wasn't a schoolbook she was involved with. No, Hannibal knew the names of all the classic pieces of literature that were assigned for high school kids to read: Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Diary of Anne Frank, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, all those sorts…so the swastika on the front cover was already a dead giveaway this was not curriculum related.
It was a small fat paperback book, small enough he almost missed the cover art entirely, maybe that was the point, it had to have been smuggled in when nobody was looking. He glanced at the title, though it was one he already knew, The Resort by Sol Stein. Not a very old book, as his memory recalled, it had only come out a few years ago, it was not advertised as a horror novel, this wasn't in the league of Stephen King or Richard Matheson, no…but no mistake, it was a horror story, on league with maybe Ira Levin: Stepford Wives, The Boys From Brazil, more so Boys From Brazil than The Stepford Wives, for sure. Hannibal had taken part in 2 wars and seen all the horrors attached to both and in time considered himself desensitized; one rainy night back in 1981 maybe, he'd picked it up from a revolving rack in a drugstore, figured a little thriller nighttime reading would do him some good. He'd read it in one sitting, and didn't sleep for almost two days didn't eat for almost as long either. No, as far as he was concerned, no way in hell this was a suitable book for a teenaged girl to read, hell, for any teenager to read, period.
"Chloe," he said to her, before he even realized it, slipping into his commanding officer tone, "You shouldn't be…", he caught himself. What was he going to say? What could he say? Censorship was one thing but there was just no way to justify a kid reading this, but how could you explain that without giving it that forbidden fruit appeal? He settled for a calm, rationalized, "I just don't think this is appropriate for somebody your age to be reading."
Of course Chloe said nothing in return, her choice of response instead however was to pick up another book off the table, her history book, and opened it to a chapter on the Holocaust complete with photographs.
"Yeah I know," Hannibal told her, mildly annoyed that she had a rebuttal planned out that he could hardly dispute. If the truth wasn't too much for her to read and see with her own eyes and to bear and live with, why was a book of fiction? That, he supposed, was why school history books were so tightly abridged, never the full details, just enough for a general idea, all the same…
Hannibal decided he wasn't going to mince words with her, at an unexpected moment he snatched the novel up and told her, "Now read your schoolbooks."
The phone rang, Face answered it and talked briefly for a minute, before hanging up and telling everybody, "That was B.A., Lorraine and Jolene just left the dentist office."
"What took so long?" Hannibal asked.
"Looks like Jolene got more than just one tooth taken out," Face said.
"He could've told us that earlier," Nancy said.
"Well, not quite," Face said, "Before they saw to Jolene, they had to see to B.A. because he got in a fender bender following them and had to have one of his own teeth fixed, and they had to give him so much Novocain to actually numb anything, it just now wore off."
"Well isn't that brilliant?" Daisy asked, "He was supposed to tail them without them knowing it, they know it now."
"Come on, men," Nancy said to the other girls, "We better check the kitchen and see what's on hand that Jolene will actually be able to eat for the next day or so."
"Sheesh," Face said, "Self-sufficient, aren't they?"
"They have to be," Hannibal replied, "That's what happens when there's no one else around you can trust."
"Say Hannibal," Face turned to the Colonel, "What do you make about this whole neighbor situation?"
"It's a good question," he said, "It'd be a hell of a trick surveying them to find out what it's all about."
"Got another idea, Colonel?" Murdock asked.
"Oh just something off the top of my head," Hannibal said, "The landlord's out of town temporarily, but we don't know if who's behind everything knows that. So, I say we use it to our advantage."
"How?" Face and Murdock asked.
Hannibal grinned as he explained, "There are only two families left in this whole building…what would happen if a third family moved in?"
"A third family?" the other two parroted.
Hannibal nodded, "Just suppose a family new to the area moved in here, also with a child they were homeschooling."
"It would force somebody's hand, that's a safe bet," Face complied, "But where're you going to get another family from?"
Hannibal grinned.
"Oh no," Face groaned.
"So Big Guy, which tooth was it they worked on? Can I see it? Did you get a gold filling put in? Can I see it, huh-huh-huh?"
B.A. rubbed his jaw and warned Murdock, "Shut up you crazy fool, I'm having a bad enough day already, now I gotta work on my van."
"Sorry to spoil the fun, B.A.," Hannibal said, "But that's going to have to wait, we've got some work to do ourselves."
"What's that?" Lorraine asked as the women made themselves at home in the kitchen and sat down.
"We're going to make whoever's raiding this building think that a new homeschooling family has moved in, and see what they do with it."
"Are you serious?" Lorraine asked him.
"Very," Hannibal said, "It'll be perfect."
"How do you figure that?" Jolene asked over a mouthful of gauze pads.
"Well first of all nobody knows we're here, so if one of us makes a public display of moving in, people will be curious but not too curious."
"What about a child?" Lorraine asked, "Where do you plan to get one to make it look convincing?"
"We have one right here," Hannibal explained, "The police took Chloe's family, her mother and brother, but nobody has come back for her, which leads me to believe they don't know she's still here. Even if they did, the last time anybody would've seen her, she would've looked vastly different to how she does now. And I've got the perfect parent in mind." He pointed and everybody looked at Murdock and Chloe unintentionally standing side by side, both in jackets and baseball caps, indeed it did seem perfect, almost too perfect.
"You think it could work?" Jolene asked.
"It's worth a try," Face said, "If we happen to draw that social worker woman out of the woodwork again, we might be able to get some answers out of her."
"Yeah, I can just imagine what techniques of persuasion you might be inclined to use," Nancy spoke up.
Face glared at her through one eye and repeated his previous comment about hating smart kids.
"So when do you plan to try this idea?" Lorraine asked.
"Preferably on Monday," Hannibal said, "It's my guess more people move over the weekend when they're off work, therefore we should have an easier time getting a moving van on Monday to cement the appearance."
"Exactly how convincing do you plan to be?" she asked.
"As much as we can," Hannibal answered, "That means we're going to have to gather up Chloe's schoolbooks," he looked to the teenaged girl but didn't address her as he added, "And she's going to have to erase her name from all of them and put in a cover name."
"Why?" Violet wanted to know, "Why since nobody ever gets in to anybody's apartment to look around?"
"Just a precaution," Hannibal said, "Incase anybody would happen to accidentally on purpose sift through everything during the moving process." He caught the murderous glare Chloe had for him and he added, "Nobody likes what we're going to do, but if we're going to get any answers, we have to do it." As if he'd just thought of something else, he continued, "And there's something else we need to work on." He turned to Face.
"What is it, Hannibal?"
"There are about 20 sets of parents in jail currently awaiting any further developments in their cases," Hannibal said, "What would you reckon their bail is?"
"Ah, well let's see," Face said, "It's not murder but child abuse, child neglect, child endangerment, those are still very serious charges…given though that only 10% of the bail is needed to post and get out of jail, and they can't even cover that, I'd say…I don't know, maybe $1,000 per person would be needed."
"Well," Hannibal told him, "You're our finance man, so finance the bail to post for them."
"What?" Face asked.
"Face, we know these people are being unjustly held on trumped up charges, and we all know what that's like," Hannibal said, "The least we can do is get the wheels in motion to get them out of jail."
"Hannibal, you can't just go down to a jail and bail out 30 or 40 random people," Face reminded him, "People are going to ask questions."
"Fine," Hannibal said, "Then we'll let Douglas D. Fernbinder get them out, he wants to get famous off this case, right? What better way?"
"That won't do any good either, Hannibal," B.A. said, "You go looking for attention and you gonna get it, and then they're gonna figure out who we are."
Hannibal was unfazed by this bite of reality, "Then we'll start small, bail out a couple sets of parents first and talk to them, then bail out a couple more, and a couple more, and pretty soon we should have every last one of them out of there."
"You think the others will know something about all this?" Lorraine asked.
"It's possible," Hannibal said, "In jail they can't talk to anybody, their bond's too high for them to pay, so they can't get out, they can't go public about anything, they can't do anything where they are right now, they're right where somebody wants them to be and we've got to get them out of there."
"Who would we start with?" Face asked, "What're we going to do, put all their names in a bowl and play high rise roulette?"
"What about Chloe's mother?" Violet asked Hannibal.
"We could," Face said hesitantly, "But the real problem's going to be getting the kids back from the social workers."
"But you can do it, can't you?" Nancy asked skeptically.
Hannibal's only answer was, "We haven't been met with a job yet that we couldn't pull off."
"No," Face added lightly, "We just have them blow up in our faces a few times until we get them right."
The girls all groaned in unison at his comment.
"So what do you do on the weekends?" Hannibal asked Lorraine that night after dinner when she and Jolene were cleaning up the kitchen.
"Actually I've been meaning to talk to you about that," she told him as she filled the sink for the dishes, "Usually on the weekend we let the girls sleep out in the living room so they can watch TV late."
"So that means we've got to find a new place to sleep," Face commented.
"Somehow I don't think it would be a good idea if we take the girls' bedroom," Murdock said, "Though we'd probably feel right at home there anyway…least I reckon I would…it reminds me so much of my room back at the…"
"Murdock," Hannibal decided it was best to cut the pilot off before he gave the women anything new to worry about, like the fact that 1/4th of the A-Team resided in the mental hospital. Somehow he had the idea their nerves were already frazzled enough by everything they'd been through. "Don't worry about us, ladies, we can sleep anywhere."
"I know that's right," Murdock said, "The Angry mudsucker sleeps all the time on planes, soaring high above the plains at thousands of feet, zooming along at 500 miles an hour, turning, turning…"
"Murdock," Hannibal said in a subtle but threatening tone.
Lorraine eyed the two men suspiciously and asked Hannibal, "You really think he'll be believable as Chloe's father?"
"When Murdock puts his mind to something there's no stopping him," Hannibal said as he proudly clapped a hand on his Captain's back, "He knows the scams as well as I do, we've certainly been doing them long enough. He'll be just fine, you'll see."
"But you do think everybody's going to buy it?" Lorraine asked.
"I don't see any reason why they shouldn't," Hannibal said, "All anybody has to acknowledge is that there's a new family in the building who doesn't belong here, who also is not sending their child to public school. That ought to be enough to set off anybody's warning bells who's involved in this scheme."
"How long do you think it'll take?" Jolene asked, "Everybody else lived in this building for years."
"That was before," Hannibal explained, "This is now, and now somebody's trying to get everybody out as quickly as they can without drawing too much attention to themselves." He snapped his fingers as an idea came to him and he asked Jolene, "Would you mind if the four of us stayed up in your old apartment tonight?"
"I don't mind," Jolene said, "But I don't know what you'd want it for."
"Simply put, we'll be able to keep an ear out for anything suspicious that might happen down here tonight," Hannibal told her, "We'll be close enough that should anything happen, we can just drop in, but we'll also be out of sight where nobody could possibly anticipate us."
"You don't really think it will, do you?" Lorraine asked him.
"I don't think it's likely, but that doesn't make it impossible," Hannibal said to her, "But how about tomorrow? What do you guys usually do around here?"
"Well," Lorraine said, "On the weekend, it doesn't matter if the kids are out, they usually head out early and come back around lunch, and depending on everything, head out again until late in the afternoon. Anymore it's the only real freedom they have to walk out of this building and do anything normal."
"Well," Hannibal replied, "We won't do anything to get in the way, but I strongly suggest one of us stays with them when they head out all the same, just incase."
Lorraine nodded, "I understand, and I appreciate everything you're doing to help us, Mr. Smith."
"Hannibal."
"Hannibal," Lorraine corrected herself.
"Well between you and me," Hannibal went over to her so nobody could eavesdrop on what he was going to say, "I think it's doing my men some good to be around your daughters. B.A.'s always involved with kids because of his work at the daycare center, but Face and Murdock…well…this is uncharted territory for them, I think it'll do them some good to get some experience in of being around kids and having to deal with them. As long as we remain fugitives, settling down isn't in any of our futures, which also makes it hard getting attached to anybody. So I consider this a healthy exercise in human interaction for these two, especially for Face, he's the eternal bachelor…Murdock gets kids, they're not drawn to him like B.A. but they like him, but Face," he grinned mischievously and told her, "This is a crash course for him, and quite frankly, I'm enjoying the show."
Lorraine just laughed in response.
That night Face lay in one of the double beds in Jolene's apartment and tried to sleep but he couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned every which way and turned on every side and flopped around like a fish out of water. He picked up the pillow and pressed it over his own head and tried to block out the noise, but nothing would work. Screaming in frustration, he tossed the pillow and threw his feet in the air and wondered if he would get any sleep before the morning. Finally, he'd had enough and he jumped to his feet and stormed out to the living room where Hannibal and B.A. were still up and watching an old movie on the TV.
"I can't take it anymore!" Face announced in a rage as he stormed in.
Hannibal hit the mute button on the TV so they could still have the light in the otherwise dark apartment and asked his Lieutenant, "Take what, Face?"
"That noise! That infernal music!" Face looked about ready to hit the ceiling, "It's been over 2 hours now and every time I think I'm going to be able to go to sleep, it starts up again!"
Murdock groggily came into the living room dressed in his pajamas and let out a large yawn and asked while struggling to keep his eyes open, "What's going on?"
"For two hours now all it's been is 'Three blind mice', 'Three blind mice', 'Three blind mice!'" Face screamed in frustration.
"Murdock," Hannibal asked the pilot, who was sharing the bedroom with Face, "Is the TV downstairs keeping you up?"
Murdock shook his head, "No, Colonel, I came out to see what Faceman's ranting and raving about."
"How many hours can they play the 3 Stooges on TV?" Face asked, "And why in the middle of the night when people are trying to sleep?"
"Face, if you don't like the music, just ignore it," Hannibal said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"How can I ignore it?" Face wanted to know, "Every time I'm on the verge of falling asleep, it starts up again, 'Three blind mice, three blind mice, three blind mice!'"
"Lorraine told you the girls would be up late watching TV," Hannibal said, "What did you expect them to watch, David Letterman?"
Face sat down on a chair and rubbed his exhausted eyes and murmured, "I don't think I can take much more of this. Between that music and the three of them laughing nonstop and carrying on, this is like a slumber party from hell."
"Just be glad we don't have a ground floor seat to it," Hannibal told him.
"How am I going to get any sleep?" Face asked.
"Try putting a little cotton in your ears, Faceman," Murdock said.
"A little?" Face repeated, "A bag of cotton balls couldn't drown out that racket."
Hannibal just chuckled to himself and commented, "You would not do well with 3 A.M. feedings, Face."
"Who would?" the Lieutenant replied.
"Well you better figure out some way to get some sleep," Hannibal said, "Because when the girls go out to the park tomorrow, you and Murdock are going with them to make sure they stay out of trouble."
"Oh no," Face shook his head, "No way, uh-uh, no, you go with them and keep them out of trouble, I'll stay here and stay on Pinko Patrol. No matter what happens here, nothing could be as bad as chasing those four terrors around all day."
Hannibal just shrugged and remarked, "Suit yourself."
Face was halfway back to the bedroom when he stopped. He knew that tone. It was the one Hannibal used when he managed to trick somebody into something…he couldn't possibly…no, he couldn't have. No, Face considered every possibility he could think of, there was no way by him staying here, and Hannibal going to the park, that he could possibly get the short end of the stick on this one. Could he?