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CHAPTER37
Gabe helped to ensure all residents were accounted for, but he couldn’t find Curtis.
“Natasha, have you seen Mr. Curtis?”
She shook her head, looking dazed and saddened. The fire had been stopped, but not before it claimed her apartment.
“I haven’t, Gabe, not since he helped me with the hose.”
“Where could he have gone?” Gabe asked himself.
The worst of the fire was out, and firefighters were in the mopping-up stage. The fire stopped at Curtis’s apartment, but the apartment next door had been badly damaged. At the very least, Curtis would find his place full of smoke damage.
Across the street, Gabe saw a pair of black-clad individuals who looked like the two he’d seen outside of apartment 6. He also saw them join a group looking as if it was gearing up to cause trouble. Gabe found his way to a uniformed officer as a chant started. He wanted to be certain all the uniformed officers saw the threat before it became too hot to handle. Oh, how he longed for the days when he didn’t have to view any crowd bigger than three as a threat.
“Hey, hey, ho ho, you pigs have got to go.”
It was weak, but there was always the fear it would get stronger. Before Gabe could say anything to the officer, he heard someone else speak up.
“Why don’t you all shut up?”
He turned; it was Natasha.
“You all weren’t here getting people to safety—the cops were.”
“Traitor!” someone yelled.
“She’s not a traitor; you are,” a man next to Natasha hollered.
Several voices chimed in, supporting him.
The troublemakers tried to start the chant again. “This is our zone. Cops go home.”
“It is not. You don’t even live here” came the response, with even more people murmuring in agreement.
“You didn’t fight the fire; you started it!” someone else yelled.
The crowd of plaza residents began to shift, become angry, hurt. The anger was directed at the troublemakers, who were now outnumbered.
One of the troublemakers threw a water bottle at an officer. It missed, bounced a couple of times, and rolled away. The man standing next to Natasha ran to it, picked it up, and threw it back.
“Knock it off,” another man yelled. “We’re tired of your nonsense. My granny doesn’t have a home now because of you fools. Leave the police alone.”
He was quickly joined by several more men, along with Natasha and some women.
“We’re taking back our neighborhood or what’s left of it. You are not welcome here,” Natasha yelled.
All around her, people shouted in support. Then their chant started.
“Hey, hey, ho ho, all you gangsters got to go.”
It was resounding, it was loud, and it shocked the group of troublemakers.
They had no leader, Gabe thought. Now he looked around for Jareb Moore. The man was nowhere to be seen. As the chant against them grew louder, the troublemakers seemed to fade away, like roaches disappearing into cracks.
+++
“Destroyed?” Matt’s features darkened with anger. He took a deep breath and turned away. Danni knew he was trying to digest what this meant.
