As bad as this was, it was about to get worse. The goth kids who'd
been hanging around in droves lately -- they didn't seem like the sort
with a lot of good instincts when it came to dealing with authority
figures. Then there were the flea-market stall owners, who'd be coming
over the road to open their shops in an hour or so. This could get
really goddamned ugly.
He needed a lawyer, and someone to front for him with the lawyer. He
could call Tjan -- he would call him, in fact, but not just yet. There
were limits to what Tjan could do from Boston, after all.
He got back in his car and peeled across the road to the shantytown
and the guesthouse.
"Kettlewell!" He thumped the door. "Come on, Landon, it's me,
Perry. It's an emergency."
He heard Eva curse, then heard movement. "Whazzit?"
"Sorry, man, I wouldn't have woken you but it's a real emergency."
"Fire?"
"No. Cops. They've shut down the ride."
Kettlewell opened the door a crack and stared at him with a
red-rimmed, hung-over eye. "Cops shut down the ride?"
"Yeah, they say there's an injunction."
"Gimme a sec, gotta put some pants on." He closed the door. As Perry
listened to the sounds of him getting dressed, he reflected that he'd
done Eva the favor she'd been seeking: he'd found something to keep
Kettlewell busy.
Kettlewell quizzed him intensely as they drove back across the road to
the police-cars. He called Tjan and got voicemail, left a brief
message, then got out of the car and stood still outside it, waving at
the cop-cars.
"What?"
The male cop looked even more dyspeptic.
"Hi there! I wondered if I could get you to explain what's going on
here so we can open up shop again?"
"We've shut you down to enforce an injunction."
"What injunction is that?"
"A court injunction."
"Which court?"
The cop looked really angry for a second, then he got back in his car
and fished around. "Broward County." He sounded aggrieved.
"Is that the injunction there?" Kettlewell said.
"No," the cop said, too quickly. They both knew he was lying, jerking
them around.
"Can I see it? Does it have information about who to talk to to get
the injunction lifted?" Kettlewell's tone was even, pleasant and very
adult. The voice of someone used to being obeyed.
"You'll have to go to the courthouse. They open in a couple hours."
"I'd really like to see it."
"Oh for chrissakes," the female cop said. "Just show it to them,
Tom. God." She spat on the ground. Her partner gave her a look, then
handed the paper over to Kettlewell, who pored over it intently. Perry
shoulder surfed him and gathered that they were being shut down for
infringing Disney Parks Company trademarks. That was weird. You could
hardly go ten feet in Florida without tripping over a bootleg Mickey,
so why should the market-stalls' Mickey designs trigger legal action?
"All right, then," Kettlewell said. "Let's make some phone calls."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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