Allowing a little extra time to get back to the hotel and fight the crowd in
the auditorium, Cade suggested that he and Mandi head back at eleven-fifteen.
"Besides," he added, "I've only won one game tonight. That's wearing rather
heavily on me, you know."
"Poor baby," said Mandi, snapping in her last two balls and the eight. "If
it's any consolation, nobody else has won against me in something like six
months."
"Well, in that case, I guess I'm all consoled now, ma'am."
Mandi chuckled and racked her stick, then picked up her purse and sipped the
last of her Coke.
On the way to the front door, she stopped, took a look around the bar,
sighed, and said, "This may have been my last night of real anonymity, Ed."
Cade leaned to kiss her cheek and said, "Doubtful. Like I said, there are
lots of beautiful blondes. Just try to blend in."
With a ladylike grunt and a roll of her eyes, Mandi led the way to the
sidewalk. Enroute to the hotel, Cade called room 423 to make sure John and
Phyllis Morey were in place.
By eleven-thirty they'd found standing room near the front of the auditorium
and a nervous -- almost frantic -- Paul Money had spotted them from his position
near the stage.
He edged through the crowd to them and asked, "Is everything ready?"
"Yup," said Cade, "Mandi will go change and wait for my call. I'll stay here
and wait for your fifteen-minute warning. As soon as I make that call to her,
I'll take some of your people and we'll rope off her route from door to door.
You'll station people in here to make sure the doors stay clear. Exactly fifteen
minutes from your signal, she'll walk in with the car."
Paul nodded, although he was apparently still not fully convinced that
things would be that simple or go smoothly.
"Paul, relax," said Cade.
With a sharp glance, Paul snapped, "I can't relax!"
Shrugging, Cade said, "Okay. Won't help any, though."
Mandi chuckled and said, "Later, people," and slipped out the doors to the
corridor. Paul returned to the backstage area.
The last scheduled show ended at ten to midnight. Paul gave the signal -- a
small wave and a nod -- and Cade called room 423, where Mandi waited with John,
then he took the rope team to set up the walkway.
"We've never done this before," said one of them. "Why the hell are we
roping off the hall?"
"You'll see," said Cade. "Keep the walkway clear, and that's a dead-serious
order, people. You don't even have to be nice about it; just tell 'em to get the
hell off to one side."
"Excuse me, but just who the hell are you?" asked a woman. "I don't think I
like your tone."
Glancing at her, Cade said, "We don't have time to discuss this, lady, so
get with it or get lost. If you stick around, you'll see why it's important to
keep the walkway clear."
As soon as the ropes were in place, Cade tagged four of the bigger guys with
the task of keeping the lane clear and told the woman who'd balked to stand by
at the driveway doors. She glared at his crisp order to stand by, but said
nothing and went to the doors. Cade sent another guy to wait by the auditorium
doors.
At five minutes until showtime Cade saw three people with WNN tags and
camera gear cross the lobby toward the auditorium at a dead run.
Cade whistled sharply and yelled, "WNN! Get over here and set up! You have
about two minutes!"
The guy in charge of the little group came to talk to Cade.
"We were told..."
"She'll be coming in those doors," interrupted Cade, pointing at the street
entrance. "You can buzz around her, but don't get in her way. She'll be carrying
a Crown Victoria like the one that blew up today."
The brunette woman in the WNN group exclaimed, "She's bringing a car into
the hotel?!"
"Yeah, so stay clear of things. Now you've got one minute."
Walking to the street entrance, Cade looked up in time to see Mandi land
with the car at the bottom of the ramp. A few others saw her land, as well, and
assorted sounds of amazement came from the bisected crowd.
Mandi headed quickly for the doors. Cade and the balky woman pulled them
open wide and held them as Mandi very carefully carried the Crown Victoria on
her shoulders through the doorway and into the hotel.
Once she was inside, the astonished crowd stood watching her pass as if she
carried an armed nuclear weapon, but Cade shouted, "Keep 'em back! Back!" on
general principles.
WNN's two camera guys circled Mandi and the car like a pair of wolves,
panning every inch of the scene as she marched toward the auditorium with the
Crown Vic. The woman with the microphone settled for walking alongside Mandi at
a distance as she spoke softly into the mike. She sounded as if she was
reporting a golf tournament at first, then her voice became somewhat louder as
she got over her own astonishment.
At the other end of the roped-off path the auditorium doors had swung open
at the same time as the street doors. Some of the con volunteers there were busy
keeping the rubbernecking crowd clear of the doors, but as Mandi approached, the
people shrank back from the entranceway.
After carefully easing the sedan through the auditorium doors, Mandi lifted
herself and the car into the air and flew toward the stage, but didn't land
there.
Paul had felt it necessary to make sure they knew the stage couldn't handle
the weight of the car. As Mandi settled to hover about a foot above the stage,
he paled slightly and prayed that she'd remember not to touch down.
Grabbing the mike from the stand a few feet in front of Mandi, Paul cleared
his throat and said in an odd tone of somber astonishment, "Ladies and
gentlemen... this is Mandi Steele!" His voice firmed up and he very clearly and
in a strong tone repeated, "Mandi Steele!"
The crowd gasped and there were a few shouts, but not because of Paul's
introduction. Mandi had shifted the car from her shoulders upward and was now
holding it by its frame at arm's length above her head.
With a pause as he glanced back at her, Paul continued speaking by reading
from a prepared note, detailing her accomplishment of the day by which she saved
downtown Atlanta from a similar Crown Victoria packed with explosives.
WNN's camera guys continued circling Mandi at the extreme edges of the stage
as the woman with the mike bit her lip and dared herself to step forward to
speak with a smiling woman who was holding a car rock-steady over her head and
who wasn't touching the stage.
To the woman with the mike, Mandi quietly said, "Catch me outside when I put
the car down."
The woman nodded and stepped back as Mandi flipped the car onto its nose and
grabbed the front axle, then flipped it completely end over end and caught it at
the same point.
Some people in the front rows screamed and a couple of them fainted. Cade
was amused to see that one of the fainters was the Klingon woman from Brooklyn.
"Paul," said Mandi. "It's time to say hi."
Paul nodded and approached her with his microphone.
"Hi, everybody," said Mandi. "I decided to go public after those pictures of
me appeared on the news. DragonCon seemed like a perfect place for someone like
me to do that."
There were some chuckles and some barks of laughter from the crowd as Mandi
held still for the cameras. After a few moments she lowered the car to one
shoulder. Paul dropped the mike at her feet and ducked almost convulsively away.
"Aww, I scared him," Mandi said with a grin. "Sorry, Paul. My bad. People, I
have to take this car back out to the parking lot now. Since this is the end of
the show, you're all welcome to follow me outside."
Mandi flew toward the doors and people made way for her without having to be
told. The WNN newsies hurried to catch up and failed because Mandi didn't bother
walking to the street doors.
She lay flat in the air beneath the car and flew it through the doorway,
over the heads of those now within her roped-off pathway, and out the street
doors to the parking ramp.
Once she was in position and hovering a couple of feet above the ramp, Mandi
simply shrugged the car upward a few inches and zipped out from under it before
it could begin falling to the ground.
The Crown Vic landed almost perfectly on all four of its tires at once,
bounced heavily, and shuddered to stillness. People came to wonderingly touch it
as if to see if it was a real car.
Pinching the fabric of her bodysuit at each shoulder, Mandi gave it a couple
of ear-splitting snaps that seemed to obliterate the two big, dark smudges on
her back.
"Kewl," said Cade. "Talk about stainproof..."
She then took off her cape and gave it a rolling snap that left a faint
cloud of undercarriage residue in the air.
As she put it back on, Cade opened the front passenger door to retrieve the
damp towel in the plastic bag, then used the towel to wipe smudges off the skin
of Mandi's arms and shoulders as the WNN people approached.
"Messy, messy," whispered Cade. "You need a bath, lady. Do you always get
this dirty when you play with cars?"
Mandi snickered as she held up a forearm smudge for Cade's attention. He
used the opportunity to check her makeup as he buffed her arm clean. No damage.
Prosthetics in place.
"Makeup's fine," whispered Cade. "You know, those fake teeth are kinda
sexy."
Glancing sharply at him, Mandi started to say, "They aren't..." then said,
"Watch it, smartass."
"Oh, yes'm. Watching it now. In fact, there's a spot on the back of your
right leg. Hold still another minute."
Kneeling behind her, he folded the towel to a clean spot and rubbed the
smudge from Mandi's calf. As he stood up, he saw the brunette newswoman eyeing
him sharply, curiously.
Patting Mandi's shoulder, Cade whispered, "There you go. All clean, milady.
Go gettum," and stepped back a pace as he re-bagged the towel.
A hotel employee stood near the front of the car. Cade tossed the bag to her
with a grin and said, "It's a hotel towel."
The woman looked at the bag, then at Mandi, and clutched the bag tightly to
her middle as if afraid someone would take it from her. Had the towel suddenly
become a souvenir?
From the glove compartment of the car Cade took a sheaf of folded papers,
which he handed to Mandi. She, in turn, offered one to the newswoman, who took
it and started to introduce herself.
"I'm Julia Waters," she said, "WNN news. Would you answer a few questions
for me?"
"After you've read the brochure, if there's time," said Mandi. "That's my
press release. I can't stay long, so see if your questions are on there, okay?"
Julia's eyes fell to the brochure and she opened it.
As she did so, Mandi held up another brochure and said, "I have about a
hundred of these, if anyone wants one."
The crowd seemed to surge forward as a mass of grasping hands. WNN's
newsteam found themselves jostled out of position as both Cade and Mandi handed
out the brochures.
Many immediately began clamoring for autographs. Cade handed Mandi a pen and
continued to hand out brochures as Mandi signed brochures, clothing, arms, and
whatever else people presented with a quick, cursive 'MS'.
Just as they handed out the last of the brochures -- right on cue -- Cade's
cell phone rang. He answered it, then tapped Mandi's shoulder and handed the
phone to her.
"Mandi," she said, then listened intently for a moment, said, "Be right
there," and pushed the 'off' button as she handed the phone back to Cade.
For the benefit of the audience, she asked Cade, "Will you take care of the
car for me?"
Nodding curtly, Cade strode around the car, got in, and started it. Easing
through the crowd, he headed the car down the ramp toward the street, glancing
in the rearview mirror.
Mandi raised her arms for quiet and said, "I'm sorry, everybody, but I've
been called away. Thank you all for your time," then she launched herself
skyward.
Turning right at the corner, Cade drove half a block and turned right again
into the hotel's receiving docks. One of the guys from John's A-group opened the
second set of gates and Cade turned the car over to him, then shut the gates
behind him as he drove the Crown Vic to the front parking area.