Read Earth vs. Everybody for Free Online Page A

throwing rocks at something else,
something that made a more satisfying noise when they hit it. Damn cops.
    I made my way
back to CrimeCo, took a shower, changed clothes, and got a cup of coffee. What
a day. My co-workers seemed surprised to see me.
    “Hey, Burly,” one
of them said, “what are you doing here? Did you sleep in and miss the
double-cross?”
    “Yeah,” said
another, “I thought you were being double-crossed today.”
    When I didn’t
answer, another one looked at my face. “Hey, what happened to your mouth?”
    “Rocks.”
    Eventually, after
enough people had expressed surprise that I wasn’t in prison or dead, I began
to get suspicious. Maybe, I thought, maybe I had been set up to take the fall
from the first. Maybe that’s where my code name “Fall Guy” came from. A lot of
“maybes”, admittedly, but it got me thinking.
    For the rest of
the day I wasn’t much of a bodyguard for Larry. I had too much on my mind.
People would jump on him and start slugging him as I wandered on ahead, lost in
thought. He’d say something like “Help me, Frank!”, or some such thing, and I’d
come back and shoo them away. Then I’d wander away again and pretty soon I’d be
thumbing absently through some magazines at the newsstand as Larry was being
kidnapped and driven away screaming. I just wasn’t paying attention to my job, is
what it comes down to.
    “If you weren’t
the best bodyguard I’ve ever had, I’d fire you,” Larry told me.
    “If I wasn’t the
best, I’d quit.”
    The next morning
I noticed all my co-workers were looking at me with those sad double-cross eyes
again. Uh-oh, I thought. I know what that means. Sure enough, the gang’s next
caper was posted on the assignment board, and once again I was to play a key
role in it. We were going to raid the weapons depot at the Armory, and they
were planning on opening the gate by wedging me into the keyhole and blowing me
up. My code name for this one was: “Dead Guy”.
    That’s when I
realized Buzzy was definitely out to get me. It wasn’t just my imagination. It
couldn’t be. I don’t have an imagination.
    I decided I’d
better do something pretty quick—get Buzzy before he could get me. Fortunately,
there was an easy way to do that.
    I called the
police, told them who I was, said I was fine, thank you, then told them I was
working for a space alien who was the head of a huge crime syndicate. And that
he was the brains behind the recent Mint Robbery and many other unsolved
crimes. Then I gave them CrimeCo’s address. They thanked me for the tip and
told me they’d be right over. Cops like getting tips like that. Makes their
jobs easier.
    But when the police
arrived and I triumphantly led them into the building, CrimeCo had been
miraculously transformed into an ice cream manufacturing plant. All the
machinery was ice cream machinery. All the records were ice cream records. And
everybody, including me, was wearing an ice cream man’s hat. It didn’t look
like a criminal operation at all now. It looked more like an ice cream place. I
went outside and checked the address to make sure me and the cops were in the
right building. It was the right building all right. I went back in to make
sure everything was still ice cream. It was. I was impressed. I knew I was
dealing with organized criminals here, but, wow.
    “This wasn’t like
this before, officers,” I assured them, indicating all the ice cream they were
seeing. “All this ice cream you’re seeing.”
    “It wasn’t, eh?”
    “No.”
    “Do you know what
the penalty is for turning in a false alarm?”
    “I ought to by
now,” I said, sourly. “I’ve turned in more false alarms than... wait! There’s
one thing he can’t have changed. His evil alien body. Follow me.”
    I led the cops up
to Buzzy’s office.
    His secretary,
Debbie, said Mr. Theremin was in, but wasn’t seeing anyone today. Especially
not any cops. One of the policemen started making an appointment for