The lawn gnome gang struck again—as we knew they would. But this time, we had a secret weapon.
The waiting, though, was maddening.
Stentor the ogre was as anxious to help as he was eager to get his voice back. He had asked to stay at the opera house, on a provisional basis, even if only to sweep out the hall, but the Phantom had sneered at the idea. He claimed he couldn’t tolerate having such a failure around, because it would sour the notes of his other singers, particularly the promising young women he taught in his underground grotto.
So, while Stentor waited for a call to come in about Mr. Bignome, he hovered in the Chambeaux & Deyer offices. For hours. We like to welcome our clients, but we’re not a recreational center, especially not for enormous, hulking, clumsy, and depressed ogres. He had nothing else to do.
Sheyenne worked at her desk, waiting for the phone to ring. The clock ticked. I tried to concentrate on other cases inside my office, which was a refuge because Stentor couldn’t easily fit through the door.
The ogre paced in the main lobby. He bumped into our potted artificial plants. He jostled Sheyenne’s desk. He lumbered into and through her ghostly form, which he found more unsettling than Sheyenne did. He apologized profusely. He even offered to help do the dishes in our kitchenette, but his large hands had a tendency to crush the coffee cups. Sheyenne barely managed to rescue my sentimental mug that said, “World’s Greatest Detective.”
It was a relief when the lawn gnome gang robbed another store.
When McGoo called, Sheyenne thrust the phone toward me, and I had to dodge Stentor, who turned around, bumped the wall with his big shoulder, and knocked my fedora off the hat rack. I caught it as it fell, knowing I was going to need it.
McGoo’s said, “Showtime, Shamble! Alarm just went off at the Wilted Blossom. Squad cars are on their way, but it’s only blocks from your offices.”
“We’ll beat you there.” I tossed the phone back to Sheyenne, who caught it in her ectoplasmic hands as I beat Stentor to the door. Racing out, the ogre crashed into the jamb, damaged the frame, and hurried after me.
<1L#>
The Wilted Blossom was an ecologically conscious specialty shop that had made a business out of recycling and refurbishing used floral arrangements from funerals, sprucing up bouquets to be repurposed “for all occasions.”
Since Mr. Bignome and his gang targeted only specific categories of businesses, McGoo and I had put an alert on all likely shops. Living in fear, every one of the business owners had the police station on speed dial.
As we ran down the sidewalk, I knew that today Mr. Bignome’s reign of terror would end.
Distant wailing sirens grew louder, howling like frustrated werewolves on the day before a full moon. Ahead, I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of small-caliber machine-gun fire. Stentor bounded ahead of me on his long, muscular legs, yelling in his incongruous mousy voice, “Stop, thief! Stop!”
Farther down the block, I heard a much louder echo of the same words coming from the Wilted Blossom. The getaway jalopy was parked halfway up on the curb, and a lawn gnome sat gripping the steering wheel, racing the engine, ready to zoom away. The black-painted gnome leader and his fellow gang members backed out of the shop carrying bags of cash, firing their Timmy guns in the air.
Stentor whispered at the top of his lungs, “Stop—surrender!”
Unable to help himself, Bignome bellowed, “Stop—surrender!”
His gang members were confused. “What do you mean, boss?” asked a gnome in a jaunty red cap and red vest. “Why should we surrender?”
“Drop the loot!” Stentor cried in a little squeak.
Again, Bignome couldn’t help himself. “Drop the loot!”
The lawn gnomes dropped their bags. “I don’t like this new plan, boss,” said a grinning gnome in emerald green with a special St. Patrick’s Day shamrock on his lapel.
Struggling to control his voice, Bignome yelled, “I didn’t mean that—pick up the cash. Let’s get out of here.”
Stentor yelled, “No, we should surrender.”
Bignome repeated in a thunderous operatic voice, “No, we should surrender.”
As the squad cars came closer, the lawn gnomes were frightened of their leader’s peculiar behavior, but they knew what to do. They all piled into the jalopy as Bignome hopped up and down, gesticulating.
“We gotta escape, boss,” cried the shamrock gnome.
The getaway driver revved the puttering engine. Bignome tried to grab a sack of the stolen cash discarded on the sidewalk, but the jalopy had already started moving. Finally, the leader tottered forward to hop headfirst into the back of the jalopy. “Go, go! The cops are coming.”
Stentor squeaked, and Bignome echoed, “No, change of plans—shut off the engine. Put it in park. We have to wait to be arrested.”
“Boss, you’re scaring me,” said the driver, and accelerated out into the street, heading toward us.
Even with all the excitement, I noticed dark clouds gathering overhead like gray water balloons pregnant with a downpour. Several streets up, rain began streaming down.
The ogre shouted, and Bignome was mortified when his mouth yelled for all to hear, “I like to wear pink underwear! Especially lacy underwear.”
Stentor bounded in front of the getaway jalopy, but the panicked gnome driver swerved around him, just as I was trying to stop the car. The jalopy slammed into me, right at knee level, and knocked me flat before it squealed away.
Finally, two squad cars arrived at the Wilted Blossom and raced down the street in hot pursuit.
As the lawn gnomes fled down the block, Stentor yelled in his displaced ventriloquist-like voice, “Turn left. No, turn right! Stop right here. Look out for that pedestrian! We really should surrender. Turn around.”
The gnomes’ jalopy wheeled and spun away on a wild course, ricocheting from one direction to another. They accelerated toward the heavy rainstorm a few blocks away. As Bignome flailed and tried to reassert control of his voice, he yelled, “I pick my nose and eat my boogers!”
The squad cars tore past as I picked myself up from the street, and I saw McGoo in the front seat of the first one. He waved at me but didn’t stop. They were in hot pursuit.
The gnomes’ jalopy screeched through an intersection and careened forward into the rain, slipping down an alley, despite the contradictory directions being shouted from their leader in the back seat. The squad cars were half a block away and closing.
Then I heard a rumble and a hiss, a rushing sound . . . and displeased yelps and shouts from many unnaturals on the cross street as they scrambled up front steps to get out of the way.
The sudden torrential rain had created a roiling gray flash flood, far too much for the gutters to handle. The stampede of water scoured the street, surged through the intersection, and swamped the squad cars, picking them up like little toys. The sirens wailed and warbled, then died, sounding like a banshee with a sudden-onset head cold.
The flood continued to stream down the street, carrying debris, trash cans, sodden teddy bears with appliqued fangs, a special discounted shoe display of models designed for cloven feet. A forlorn mummy—who was naturally lightweight because of his extreme dehydration, hollow bones, and fluffy bandages—rode cross-legged on an upside-down trash-can lid, as if it were a lifeboat.
Furious that the lawn gnomes had gotten away, Stentor balled his toaster-sized fists and growled, although the sound that emerged was more like a “meep.”
As the sudden flood waters subsided, McGoo and the pursuing cops fought their way out of the scattered squad cars and stood soggy and disgusted. The storm front rolled through the Quarter, and the police resigned themselves to the fact that the evil gang had gotten away again.
A grinning weather wizard strolled along the sidewalks, unbothered by the fresh puddles he sloshed through. Thunder Dick’s drenched tie-dyed robes clung alarmingly close to his body, revealing more about his undergarments, or lack of undergarments, than he intended to show. His hair and beard were plastered to his skin, but he seemed to be in an extremely chipper mood.
“How did you like that? Just another example of my services to the Quarter,” he said. “I can outdo my opponent’s puny attempts at rain showers. Look how much grime and dirty residue I just rinsed away.”
Behind him, the tuxedo cat tiptoed along, looking for dry patches on the sidewalk but finding few of them. The floating mummy climbed off of his garbage-can lid, gingerly touching a bandaged toe to a solid curb.
Bedraggled people of all species emerged from doorways, everyone annoyed, some actively growling.
Oblivious to the mood, Thunder Dick cheerfully waved. “If you vote for me, I’ll keep all the streets clean.”
Sputtering and angry, McGoo came up to him. “You just let a bunch of criminals escape! I should arrest you for obstruction of justice.”
Thunder Dick was puzzled. “But I have my permit, which specifically explains that I am not responsible for delays caused by the weather.”
The other monsters were closing in. Since I could do nothing for Stentor at the moment, I went to save my other client before he got lynched.