Free We Are All Crew by Bill Landauer Page B

Esmerelda.
    It’s the big guy with the gray hair. Gray-Aide.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” Seabrook hisses.
    “Saving you,” Gray-Aide says. He glances back at Shwo-Rez and the dancing figures and lowers himself to the ground. “Everybody get down and stay behind me if you want to make it out of here alive.”
    I trip and fall on my face. I’m about to stand up again when I notice the others crawling on their bellies until the shadows cover them.
    We creep through the box city. The shadows undulate and ripple over us like moonlight on water.
    When we’re halfway there, the singing dies off. Ahead of me, the crawling figure of Gray-Aide freezes. His head turns, and he looks at us with satellite dish eyes.
    I hold my breath. Will the hunter guys see that we’re gone? The bonfire crackles. I squeeze my leg muscles and get ready to leap toward the tree line yards ahead of us through the corridor of musty-smelling cardboard.
    Then someone yelps, and the bad singing continues. It’s a song I think I recognize from a Honda commercial.
    Eventually, we’re back in the trees. After we’ve crawled far enough so that the bonfire and the dancing figures are safely out of view, Gray-Aide stands. He’s cradling that box of Cuban cigars the big Shrub King had earlier.
    “This is private property,” he says. There’s something shaky and uncertain in his voice. None of the “my liege” crap we’d heard before. He’s slipped back into sanity. “You’re trespassing.”
    “So call the police,” Seabrook says.
    He laughs. “Okay, okay,” he says. “All we wanted was to be left alone. Bob and me.”
    “What about the Shrub People?” Seabrook asks.
    “Ambience. It’s really not so bad for them . . . Doctor Seabrook, was it? And it’s not like we’re not providing them a service. The homeless shelters got full in Lynnbrook after Super Corp. poisoned the entire area and was forced to close down. Here, at least they have food. They look after one another. They need Bob. Bob needs them.”
    “Who are you?” Seabrook snaps.
    “We’re not bad people, Doctor Seabrook. We’re a licensed charity. Bob Schwartz is—was—a city councilman—”
    The singing halts, again, and Gray-Aide’s voice trails off. We all stand frozen for what seems like an entire double episode of Sniper Dude X .
    After a moment, the singing starts again:
     
    “We are Flintstone Kids. Ten million strong . . .”
     
    “I was city administrator,” Gray-Aide continues, more quietly this time. “That was . . . a year ago. Back then, Bob Schwartz was going to run for the state senate. Maybe even governor. You might not believe this, but that crazy son of a bitch might well one day have been president of the United States.”
    “What about Super Corp.?” Seabrook asks.
    Gray-Aide snaps, “Super Corp. was the biggest development deal in Lynnbrook history. Thousands of jobs, all right? They single-handedly lowered the unemployment rate by two percentage points. Bob Schwartz made that happen. He greased the tracks. It’s what great men do. He signed the papers. Didn’t want to, but he did. You gotta let a little bad happen, so you, personally, can do a little good.”
    “Yes, and he killed two thousand people,” Seabrook says.
    Gray-Aide shrugs. “They never could prove a damn thing. I mean, people. Hell. They die all the time.”
    “But you couldn’t convince Shwo-Rez of that. Could you?”
    “No. Stupid son of a bitch. If he would have just stayed on the council a little longer we would have beaten that federal investigation. But after his wife and kid died of lung cancer the poor bastard lost his mind. I tendered his resignation myself. Then, when they let him out of the loony bin, that very same day, I followed him out here. This is his land, private property. He was going to build a new estate out here three years ago when the whole Super Corp. mess started, and I worked out a 501(c)(3) deal. We’re providing a