Patriot Smith, page 34
part #1 of Patriots Series
No one spoke for a bit but Hal finally looked at Sara.
“I noticed that, too. The thing where they’d sneak off when no one was looking. Not Mel, the rest of them. Do you think that they might be… I don’t know, um…” He didn’t speak for a bit, just seeming reluctant to say the words.
Sebastian did it, since he was wondering the same thing.
“That they might be Antifa? Terrorists? If so, well, they aren’t very good at it. They’ve been here for months and came in separately. I’m pretty certain that was from different states originally. I can’t prove that though, it’s just what I was told. We know that Rene was in on that kind of thing, since she told me all about that when she interviewed for a place here originally. Except that she was a local, more or less. From Spokane. She didn’t come recommended from Frank and Jan, she just saw the thing I put up on Craigslist and got herself in. She knew Calley Alperstein though. She was part of the terror cell that the FBI took down a few months back. Over that way a bit?” He waved in the right direction, which was toward the front of the house, off to the right. About a half mile away he thought. Maybe more than that but it had sounded close, at the time.
Interestingly, the others all looked at him as if he were talking in gibberish, except for Hal. He nodded, looking almost stern, for some reason.
“I heard about that. From the news? There had been something like ten people holed up in there, just about ready to launch an attack on Spokane. At least that’s what it seemed like at the time. Still, I don’t think Rene is with that kind of thing anymore. We talked about it a few times. After Mel tried to get her kicked out over it? I might not be an expert on that kind of thing but… Yeah. I’d bet my last dollar that she isn’t doing anything like that. Really, no one here is like that. The closest we have to anyone that seems like they might be is Karen.”
The words weren’t careful or being playful. The man didn’t take them back, either. He just stared at the actress, as if expecting her to blow up. That or go for a gun. Instead she just made a face. The kind that women used on men to tell them they were being stupid, even if they actually weren’t.
“What? This isn’t a good time to be joking around like that. We’re all probably just being paranoid. This, all of it, is more than enough to make that happen. The others are just actors, like we all are. Sure, liberals but that isn’t the same as terrorist. We need to just take a pill and step back from this for a bit.” The small woman didn’t seem ready to do that at all. In fact, she clenched a fist, seeming ready to start swinging.
The question was, of course, why she felt that way.
Sebastian nodded, because he might get mad if someone falsely accused him of things as well.
“Right. You were doing that thing that progressives do, claiming that we were all racists for being white and male. That is kind of their thing. What the terrorists all do. Other people do it too but it’s sort of telling, isn’t it?” His voice was calm, and didn’t sound angry or anything but she winced and took a step back. Like he might just be planning to beat her down.
She even unclenched her fist, rubbing her open palm against the leg of her jeans.
“That isn’t… I know that you aren’t racists. No one here is. Not even sexist… It’s just that… Well, I didn’t really like your Patriot Smith idea. I mean, I didn’t think it could work, so I brought up that to try and derail it. Sorry? That was all though. Just… We’re probably starting the witch trial phase of this whole thing now, aren’t we? Anyone that has the wrong idea is going to be as guilty as someone that bombs a building?”
The woman was tense, which seemed closer to correct now, for some reason.
Hal shook his head, then narrowed his eyes a bit.
“Maybe that’s why you said that. I’ll admit you haven’t exactly been running around saying things like that for months. Though, given what’s going on there, my guess is that the witches here aren’t Antifa, they’re going to be wealthy white men first. At least the pictures that they’ve been showing from California seem to be about that for now. No one is killing Antifa in the streets. It’s the other way around.”
Though, Sebastian knew, the one that he’d really seen so far had been La Raza. The Mexican movement to take America back from the people that currently held it. Mainly by using violence. The whole thing with California wasn’t new. It was just odd that no one had talked about a secession vote happening. That part probably meant it hadn’t and that the Federal government would be in a fight to take the state back from people who had seized it illegally.
Shaking his head, he took a deep breath.
“Well, Patriot Smith seems to be doing all right so far. I don’t know how well but…”
Hal grinned at him then, as if they weren’t discussing the odds that half the people they worked with were part of a terrorist cell.
“Eleven million and it hasn’t even been up for a day. It’s rating four and a half stars, too. We’re losing half a star for being poor, basically. There aren’t enough special effects, from what people are saying. The public. The reviewers mainly get it. That it’s about the story, not the ‘splosions.” The man went a bit goofy on the last word, seeming funny.
Four and a half stars wasn’t bad. Not when they were being compared to things that had multi-million-dollar budgets and teams of two hundred making them. In fact, it was kind of impressive that any reviewers had managed to touch it yet at all. They normally didn’t bother, unless you were on television.
Of course, if half their team turned out to be Antifa, they were screwed. After all, if that was the case, then he would be putting a call in to the FBI. That or at least talking to Agent Brevet, from the DHS. They could probably point out how to handle things at least.
That would suck. Those people weren’t the closest to him in the world, perhaps but they were friends of his. As much as anyone really was. Plus, without the rest of them, most of the current shows would be ending. They might recover from that but it would be harder, if they couldn’t pull off an entire season due to terrorism. At least if some of them were the terrorists.
It was tempting to sit and watch the television in shock but he got himself around and started working on more taffy, as well as hard candies. He alternated them for a while, calling Karen in to help him pull the things. She glared at him at first but on the second batch of pulling simply said what was on her mind.
“Don’t you think I’m secretly an evil Antifa member or something?” Her tone was strident and bitchy. Then, she had been sort of accused of being a bad guy. Then she’d had to admit that she was actually just a manipulative witch in order to deflect from that.
The thing there was that it sounded pretty real to him.
Like the kind of thing that she might actually do. Sabotaging a show she didn’t want to bother with. Terrorism didn’t, however.
“Not really. Besides, we’re friends. If you were that kind of a person, we wouldn’t be. That’s really why I’m questioning Jan and Frank. I never really liked either of them. With some cause but it was really there. The rest is suspicious. Still, it would be hard for people to hide who they were for that long. Even for actors, wouldn’t it? They’d have let little things come out. You know, Chloe would talk up being a vegan more, then subtly tell us that the dairy industry was about rape, or Marcus would have started cheering when thirty school kids were murdered, instead of seeming half in shock. That kind of thing.” Except that he really didn’t think it would be that hard not to do either of those things, once the words were out.
Marxist progressive didn’t mean the same as mentally handicapped, for all they could seem like that, sometimes. Then, any terrorist tended to seem slow and a bit insane to him. The fact was that he didn’t want them to be guilty. Or in danger, in particular.
On their fourth batch of taffy, a phone rang in the other room. Paul came walking into the kitchen after a moment, talking loudly. His silver cell pressed to the side of his face.
“You’re on the road? Good. Now, what the heck was going on there?” That question seemed to be getting an answer, which had Paul laughing after a moment. “Seriously? It was that? We were all thinking you were the next Antifa cell that was going to show up on the news. Good then! That sounds pretty horrible. Are you driving straight through?”
That seemed to be the case, from the look on Paul’s face. The man also seemed relieved when he hung up. He grinned a bit when he looked at the others, then let it sink into a frown.
“It seems that Frank and Jan were both trying to insist that everyone staying with them owed them sex. Not just, you know, as in asking or suggesting but actually threatening to lock them in if they didn’t perform for them. That sounds pretty messed up. I guess it took a few hours for them to actually get out of the house there when they left. They’re just on the road now. It’s dark, too, so they don’t know when they’ll be pulled over. Probably shortly, given everything.”
That sounded right. Still, if they’d been in that kind of a situation, maybe it was better to risk meeting up with the police a few times than to stay there, with crazy people that were… Well, whatever it was they’d been trying for, it had to be more than just sex. After all, if it had simply been that, then at least some of the people that had gone would have probably just put out. Maybe without even thinking about it too hard. That probably meant that what was being asked for had been pretty sick, to turn off everyone that was there.
Sure, Rene was pretty gay seeming but Melissa was there with them and if Frank had wine, she’d put out. Not even in return for the beverage, just because she didn’t seem to really say no that way. At least she’d seemed to have done things with every guy there, and Frank wasn’t bad looking, just kind of normal.
Of course, he hadn’t been an extorting or threatening jerk the last time they’d met, so it might be that he’d changed, for some reason. Possibly the stress of having a young kid he knew kill innocent people like had happened. It wasn’t the way that Sebastian would have responded to the same thing but everyone was different. It might have just been Frank’s way of snapping. Of losing control of what he was, on a deep level of mind. After years of being abused emotionally by Janice, it could really come out that way when he went off the deep end. At least in theory, the idea that a man denied the right to be what he really was, one held in a box made of an unworkable ideology or even just malice, that kind of man might do the sort of thing that seemed to be taking place over in Montana.
Nodding, not saying any of that out loud, he tried to think of what he needed to do next, given the new situation. That, he decided, was practicing some nearly magical decorating skills with colored buttercream frosting. Which meant he was able to give Karen’s stressed and beleaguered arms a break, and start making a small batch of brownies and some vanilla cupcakes before starting dinner. They were having potatoes with a meat gravy and a side salad that night, he decided. He just wanted it and the milk for the mashed potatoes would be going bad soon, if they didn’t use it up.
Then he needed to crib some idea for different decorations off-line. Witches, ghosts and skulls, with a Frankenstein’s monster or two thrown in for variety, if that could be managed. Things that didn’t take a lot of external bits of candy or props that were hard to get in order to pull off. He had the skills he needed, somewhere deep in his mind. The pastry bags, too. That didn’t make him a Halloween decorations expert. Hence, the need to look things up and practice. Being willing to admit that he did better when more planning and effort was put into things was just him being honest.
Smiling, feeling a good bit better than he had in days, he got to work.
No one even came in to ask what he was doing.
Chapter twenty-two
The trip back for the others took considerably less time than the trip to Montana had in the first place. Sebastian knew that was going well for a fact, because at least one person in the house was getting a call every five hours or so. Twice, those calls were even for him. Who chose to call him was interesting, as it turned out.
If he’d been trying to guess who would have bothered to get in touch with him in particular, Sebastian would have figured that Chloe would have been the one calling in on the land line. Then, that wasn’t a cell phone, so just using that number didn’t instantly reach him in particular or anything. He was in the kitchen all day. Working on making more candy and wrapping it, as well as using a kitchen scale to weigh one-pound bags of varied candies.
Those had to be wrapped in small sacks made of waxed paper, and the weights were all slightly over one pound, since he didn’t want to stint people. If they check it on a scale, no one was going to find that their little sack of sugary heaven was lighter than they’d paid for. Not unless their scale was wrong, of course. In that case there was nothing that he could do about it. Even taking his own scale along wouldn’t prove anything at all that way. It was a good one however. A digital that could tell the difference in weight down to a very small margin.
After that was finished, which took him until one in the afternoon, he had to make decorative boxes out of old cardboard and aluminum foil that looked homemade but like real effort was being put into things. He hoped that was how it would appear to people. That they knew what they were getting was worth something. It would have been even better if he’d had pastry boxes but for some reason it had never occurred to him when that had been a real option to stock up on things like that.
Mainly because Sebastian had truly never figured on becoming the kind of person to be running an illegal bakery out of his personal kitchen. If he’d known that was going to be the case, things would have gone differently. Like most people, he was making do with what he had.
Looking over the piles of silver covered boxes, all having lids made of hidden duct tape, he decided that it was going to be enough for that week. There were ten of them in all and if he managed to fill them up with that many decorated treats, he was going to be more than just surprised, he’d be downright shocked.
The first call that had come in was from Marcus. The guy hadn’t understood who he was talking to, at first, so asked to speak to Sebastian, personally. What came in then was pretty much a trip progress report, and covered that the funds were holding out, and that they were driving the speed limit but no more than that. What they weren’t doing was stopping, unless the police pulled them over. That, from the sound of it, was taking place every four hundred miles or so.
Interestingly, the second call was from Vina, who didn’t have her own phone and was actually trying to save the battery on Chloe’s. Given the other woman was driving, it made sense for her not to be chatting on the device at the moment. As excuses to avoid him, that was a pretty good one. Not that she had any real reason to do that, except that the day before everyone had been claiming that Sebastian was acting like a love-struck school boy over her. That part had seemed a bit off to him, except that it also kind of made sense.
Hal had started it, trying to tell Rene that they understood something was off. So he’d lied and made up a scenario that they all knew wouldn’t be happening. Then Paul had repeated a variation of it for the same general reason. Even changing it so that anyone listening that had met Sebastian before would get the idea. That it wasn’t normal for him. A new thing that only the people that had been there in the last months would be expected to know about. One that Jan and Frank couldn’t be expected to.
The trouble there was that Rene or Marcus might have mentioned it to the people on the other side, as part of their reason for why they needed to leave, which might have made Chloe feel uncomfortable with him. Hopefully that would be a matter that could be fixed when they got back. If not… Well, it would have to be. She didn’t really have any place else to go, and Sebastian owned the property. That meant he wasn’t packing up to live in the woods all winter just to stop an awkward conversation or two.
All of which, he knew on a deep level, was probably him making a mountain out of a mole hill. An alternate explanation, one that was just as likely, was that Chloe simply felt responsible for the trip, so had taken more turns driving all night and the next day. So, she wouldn’t be endangering lives by talking to anyone while she was responsible for their safety. As far as he knew, the woman hadn’t called anyone else there either, and some of them were people that she’d dated and had closer relationships with.
Still, while he kind of got why Marc would call for him, since they’d been working together fairly closely, Vina was more of a surprise. They weren’t really that close, even if she was a nice enough person.
After the last box was finished, Sebastian started baking. Doing that exactly as hard as he could with only a single oven. At the same time, he made several large batches of frosting, and got his decorating tools ready to go. It was, starting with the third batch of cupcakes, a race against time then. Eventually he was going to need to sleep, and working alone he had a limited ability to get things done. Even when Hal came and started to make the brownies and cupcakes for him, it was all that he could do to keep up. It took him nearly twenty minutes to decorate twelve cupcakes well enough to be somewhat impressive.
The brownies took just as long, because they needed a fudge frosting layer applied, which he hadn’t thought of at first. In fact, he nearly just did all of it up in butter cream, out of laziness. The only reason he was able to get it all done in time was down to the fact that Sara came in and he was able to sweet talk her into washing the large standing mixer for him. That and scrub up some pans, so that they could keep the flow of work up.
