Earth vs. Everybody Read Online Free PDF Page B

said no, but one guy said he had seen something.
    “Well, now that
you mention it,” he said, “I’ve noticed that he’s been spending a lot of time
investigating you lately.”
    “Me?”
    “Yeah, he’s got
us doing all kinds of background checks on you, questioning your neighbors, and
watching you pretty much around the clock.”
    Well, that was
news to me. And pretty ironic too, when I thought about it. All the time I had
been investigating him, he had been investigating me! And it had been done with
such subtlety I hadn’t even noticed it. I noticed it now though—now that it had
been pointed out to me.
    Now, when I
looked around a corner to snoop on Buzzy, I noticed all the faces looking back
around that same corner at me. With all of us taking notes and trying
unsuccessfully to be quiet.
    And on my way
home, if I turned around quickly, I could see the whole company following me.
They were taking up most of the street back there. Couldn’t miss them, if you
knew what to look for.
    Now, you would
think that this general lack of trust on both sides would have indicated that
my job might be in jeopardy. But no such thing, apparently. A month after I
started my investigations I was surprised to discover that I had been selected
to take part in the Organization’s biggest job of the year!
    We were planning
to knock over the Central City Mint, the place where they make all the Yogi
Berra Quarters. And I was told I had been hand-selected by Mr. Theremin himself
to play a key role in this caper. This surprised and delighted me. I was
confused and proud.
    Everyone involved
in the caper got packets that contained their individual instructions,
detailing the parts they would play in the operation. Mine said “Fall Guy” on
it. I hoped it didn’t mean that literally. I hoped it was just a code name for
something else. I was pretty sure it was.
    All the guys at
work looked sad when they found out I had been selected for the job. Some
busted out crying. I wondered what it was all about. I asked one of them but he
just cried louder.
    Shifty said it
was nice knowing me. And I said it sure as hell was. It was about time somebody
noticed how nice it was knowing me. I didn’t think to ask what he meant by that
until months later. It was too late by then.
    So that’s how, on
the day of the robbery, I found myself standing outside the Central City Mint,
as the rest of the gang ran out of the building carrying sacks of shiny new
quarters. As they passed me they handed me whatever incriminating evidence they
had on them—masks, notes, guns, even fingerprints somehow. I put the
fingerprints in my pocket. This was my chief role in this caper—to collect
everything in one spot so that in the event our men were caught they wouldn’t
have any incriminating evidence on them. It would all be on me. And I would be
safe too, because… because… I took out my packet and read my individual
instructions again, frowning.
    After the rest of
the guys had all gotten safely away, and I found myself still standing there
alone holding all the incriminating evidence, shifting some of it occasionally
so I could hold it better, and looking through my instructions again, it
occurred to me that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next. They had
carefully briefed me up to this point, but either they hadn’t told me what to
do next, or I had forgotten it. And my instruction packet didn’t mention
anything about me getting away at all.
    By this point the
police had begun arriving on the scene, and the guys who worked at the Mint
were all jumping up and down and yelling and pointing at me, so I figured I’d
better do something, even if it wasn’t strictly according to the approved plan.
It looked to me like I was going to have to start improvising at this point. I
hated to do that. That wasn’t the way we did things at CrimeCo (formerly Crime
& Sons). But I didn’t know what else to do.
    I turned and
started to move away from the front