3rd World Products, Inc.
Book VIII
Copyright©2005 by Ed Howdershelt
ISBN 1-932693-26-2
Caution: Some Erotic Content
Chapter One
That prickly feeling of being watched stood the hairs up on my neck and arms before I was a block from the house and it stayed with me all the way to the gas station.
As I filled the bike's tank, a brunette woman in a car with Maryland plates asked for directions to Beacon Street.
I gestured toward Pasco County and said, "Head south on nineteen, turn left at the Little Road stoplight, and watch for Beacon Street about another mile from there."
The woman thanked me and I used the act of watching her leave the gas station and enter traffic on US-19 to continue to scan that general direction. Nobody seemed to be paying any particular attention to me, which only meant that I couldn't conveniently spot the watcher.
I pushed the bike to a parking slot in front of the station's front doors and went inside. At the magazine rack by the doors I pretended to browse, carrying on a brief 'Nice day, isn't it?' sort of conversation with the clerk in order to have a reason to look up and around intermittently.
There were eight cars at the pumps or elsewhere in the lot, one of which had Ontario plates and one that had Minnesota plates. All others were Florida tags. Nobody within immediate view was paying any obvious attention to me or my bike.
Looking farther afield, I scanned the department store parking lot next door. A white Cadillac nosed into a parking slot near the store's garden center and a blue pickup rolled slowly down the last row of cars as if looking for an open slot.
The pickup turned at the end of the row and continued up the next row at the same snail's pace. Oddly enough, it passed one open slot, then another, then several. The driver's face repeatedly turned toward the gas station.
Hm. I looked around the gas station's lot again. A guy in jeans and a black tee-shirt got out on the passenger side of a blue Nissan sedan parked near the far end of the store. He lounged by the pay phone there as the Nissan backed out of the slot and drove away toward the department store.
I made a note of the Nissan's license number on the corner of a freebie apartment guide and continued dividing my attention between the guy by the phone and the blue pickup.
The pickup slowly reached the end of the row and equally slowly headed toward the gas station. The guy by the phone suddenly hung up and headed toward the gas pumps.
Hm, again. Definitely something going on. I studied the people and cars by the pumps to see what might be of interest to him and immediately saw two possible targets.
A woman had set her purse on the trunk of her BMW convertible as she pumped gas. The man on the other side of the pumps was holding his wallet in his left hand as he filled his SUV.
Instead of entering the station's lot, the blue pickup stopped alongside the grassy parking lot divider. I saw the reverse lights flash as the driver put the truck in park, then he leaned across the seat. The truck's dome light came on as the passenger door opened slightly.
Good 'nuff. When the driver again sat upright, I used my implant to send a hard stun at him and returned my attention to the guy on foot. He ambled past an RV, turned behind it, and reappeared on the other side at a full-speed run toward the BMW.
The woman screeched and recoiled when the guy yelled at her. He grabbed her purse, tucked it under his right arm like a football, and hauled ass for the pickup truck.
As soon as he'd yanked open the door and heaved himself inside, I sent a stun at him. He slowly toppled out of the truck to land hard on his right shoulder. That seemed to rouse him a bit, so I stunned him again.
Inside the store, the counter clerk stared out the window in amazement. I went to the counter and rapped it once to get her attention.
Tearing off the top of the freebie guide's cover, I handed it to the clerk and said, "This is the license number of the car that dropped off the runner. The cops'll want it."
She stared at the bit of paper for a moment, then asked, "Why are you giving it to me? Why not give it to them?"
Grinning, I replied, "This place just became a circus. There are lots of witnesses and you'll get paid for time you spend with the cops. I won't. See ya."
I topped up my coffee cup and went outside to my bike, slung the cup between the bungees strung from mirror to mirror across the handlebars, and swung a leg over the saddle.
The clerk's eyes were on the scene at the pickup, where a few guys and the woman who owned the purse had assembled. When I cranked up the bike, the clerk looked at me for a few moments, then her eyes returned to the truck.
As I let the bike back out of the slot, a man ran up to me and asked where the hell I thought I was going. I ignored him and rode out of the gas station's lot toward the department store, then used their Cormorant Avenue exit to get to US-19 and headed north.
Stopped at the Berkeley Manor Boulevard light some minutes later, I realized that my feeling of being watched hadn't left me.
There was no point in looking around beyond keeping an eye on the traffic. If the people following you are experienced and nothing happens to disrupt their quiet surveillance of you, chances are excellent that you'll never spot them.
Was I absolutely certain that I was being tailed? No. It just seemed very likely. What the hell; I decided to take the easy route first and see if anybody would screw up.
Instead of waiting for a green light and continuing forward, I turned right during the red light and headed east on Berkeley Manor at a leisurely pace. Still within sight of the intersection, I turned right on Pendleton Street and followed it until it curved sharply and became a dead end a block or so further.
Just past the curve I parked the bike on the sidewalk and got off it to walk back toward the curve. When I could see all of Pendleton Street beyond the curve, I used some cabbage palms for concealment.
If time and circumstances permitted, a tagger in an unfamiliar town would check a map before leaving a main road. If he had a support system, he'd likely also have one or more partners; people with whom he could swap positions now and then during surveillance.
My abrupt change in direction at the light had been intended to cause some consternation and make any followers hurry a bit. It was the sort of ploy that wouldn't work well with old hands, but might readily make an overzealous neophyte reveal himself.
Only a couple of minutes passed before a late model silver Chevy sedan slung itself through a turn onto Pendleton and hurried my direction. It slowed a bit for the curve and I saw that the driver was a blonde woman.
She didn't see me, but she saw the bike and looked around almost frantically as she braked hard to stop the car just short of a row of red markers at the end of the road. I noted the car's plate. It was a rental.
Flipping open a cell phone, she talked to someone as she put the car in reverse and began backing up to turn around. Stepping out from behind the cabbage palms, I pretended to be zipping up my fly before I walked toward her car. The woman spotted me as the car backed up.
People from other places tend to think grass only grows on solid ground, but that's not always the case in Florida. Grass here may be sprouting from a thin layer of sod plopped down over the same sort of sand you find on a beach.
The lady let the car roll backward just a little too far. The car's rear wheels left the pavement and spun uselessly in loose sand as she tried to get back on the pavement. Her efforts sank the back tires nearly hubcap-deep in the sand.
I was nearly to her car when she snapped the phone shut, reached for something on the seat beside her, and opened the car door to get out.
"Hi, there," I said, pointing at her rear wheels, "Want some help with that?"
She was about five-nine and wore a medium blue jacket-and-slacks outfit. I could almost hear the gears whizzing and turning in her head as she eyed me and decided how she'd try to play it.
"Uh... where did you come from?"
Thumbing back at the cabbage palms, I grinned and answered, "I had to step behind some bushes for a minute."
Her gaze narrowed, but she continued playing the innocent.
"Why'd you park your bike way over here?"
I shrugged. "A sidewalk. There's nothing solid enough for a kickstand over there." Switching my gaze to her car, I said, "Looks like you're well and truly stuck, ma'am. Get in and I'll push you back onto the street."
Her gaze narrowed even further and she eyed me from head to toe. "You're going to push this car out of the sand? All by yourself?"
Shrugging, I replied, "You can help push and get all hot and sweaty if you want. Or you can steer and keep it from getting stuck again on the other side of the road. Your choice."
Looking very dubiously at first the sunken rear wheel, then at me, she asked, "You really think you can move this car?"
Shrugging again, I replied, "Well, hell, it's worth a try, isn't it?" Heading for the back of the car, I said, "Hop in and get ready, just in case."
As I put my hands on the back of her car, she shook her head slightly, skeptically muttered, "Yeah. Sure. Why not?" and opened the car door to get in.
When she started the car and put it in drive, I got a grip on the bumper and used my implant to create a narrow field pad under the rear axle as she spun the wheels.
Feeding power to the pad lifted the axle -- and thereby the entire rear of the car -- until the tires hung about a foot above the edge of the pavement.
Feeling her rear end elevate made the blonde turn to look back at me in complete startlement as the engine revved even higher. I grinned at her and shoved the car forward as I let the field pad dissipate.
Boom! The car's rear wheels landed on the pavement, instantly and screamingly got a grip that sent the car lurching forward, and the blonde had to stand on the brakes to avoid dropping her front wheels in the sand on the other side of the street.
Dusting my hands on my jeans, I grinned and waved to her as I headed for my bike, where I took a sip of my coffee as she got out of the car and stood staring at the back of it.
After a moment, she seemed to gather herself a bit, reached into the car for her purse, and marched over to me.
"Thanks," she said, holding out a twenty, "Can I give you something for helping me out of there?"
Well, at least she was staying in character. I looked her over. Late twenties or early thirties. Kinda cute, but she had a somewhat formal manner. No wedding ring.
"Sure, ma'am. How about dinner tonight?"
She stammered, "Uh... well, I... I think my boyfriend might not like that idea very much."
Reaching for the twenty, I took it and put it in my shirt pocket as I said, "Then I guess this'll have to do. Want a receipt? You won't get your money back without one."
Her gaze narrowed again and she stepped back a pace.
"A what? What the hell are you talking about?"
Shaking my head slightly, I mounted my bike, started it, and replied, "Uh, huh. Never mind, ma'am."
Kicking the stand up, I put the bike in gear and rode back toward Berkeley Manor. In my rear view mirror I saw the blonde snap her phone open and poke it, then put it to her ear. I wondered if she'd bother to mention that she'd been made.
As I turned onto Berkeley Manor, my implant pinged.
I answered the chime with, "At your service, milady."
Sue said, "You've had an interesting afternoon, Ed."
"I'm happy to have entertained you, ma'am. Got any idea who's following me and why?"
"Of course. The lady behind you is Andrea Rickman of the NIA. The man she just called is Tony Pierce, also of the NIA. They have instructions to keep you under surveillance until further notice. No reasons given."
"Well, damn. I'd really prefer that there were reasons of some sort for people following me, y'know."
She chuckled, "That's quite understandable."
Looking around, I saw a dark blue Chevy like Andrea's sitting at the edge of the Citgo parking lot.
"Would ol' Tony be in that blue Chevy ahead?"
"Yes, he is."
"Kewl. Thanks, Sue."
Instead of passing the entrance to the Citgo station, I swung in and stopped beside the driver's door of the Chevy. The man in the car stared out at me, his cell phone forgotten. I made a motion for him to roll his window down. After a moment, he rolled it down a couple of inches.
"Hi, Tony," I said, "If that's Andrea on the horn, tell her it isn't too late to get that receipt. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks, after all. And if either of you want to tell me why you're following me around, drop by the house later. Bye."
Letting the clutch out, I headed past the pumps to the lot exit on US-19 and rode north. I half-expected to see one of the Chevys behind me before I got home, but I arrived in my driveway without company. Oh, well.
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