"What the fuck is this? The association's declaring martial law?"
The guard met his gaze. "Exactly."
He'd meant it as a joke. Well, not a joke exactly, but a cutting barb, an exaggeration intended to embarrass the guard and draw attention to the absurdity of such a situation. Instead, he was confronted with a flat acknowledgment that his sarcastic overstatement was the truth.
He looked over at Maureen in the passenger seat. Her face was red, livid with anger, and she leaned around him to address the guard.
"Listen, you! We are the homeowners' association and you work for us!
Our dues pay your salary! Now open that goddamn gate and let us through!"
The guard looked at her coldly, then turned his attention to Barry. "I
suggest you back up and turn this vehicle around."
"What is your name?" Maureen demanded. "I'll have your job, you insolent son of a bitch!"
"My name is Curtis. And as you know, I also live in Bonita Vista." He leaned forward, resting an arm on the open window frame of the Suburban, letting the tip of his face cross over the invisible boundary that separated the inside of the vehicle from the outside. "And I'd appreciate a little respect from you, you insolent cunt ."
He smiled, pulled away, tipped the black cap that covered his blond brush cut. "Good day, ma'am, sir."
Barry put the transmission into reverse and backed up the way they'd come. At the tennis court, he swung into the small parking lot, turned around, and headed up the hill.
"We're trapped," Maureen said incredulously. "We're trapped here and we can't escape."
"Let me think," Barry told her. "We'll go back home for J a minute and try to figure something out."
"There's nothing to figure out. I suppose we could walk out of here, but it's a half-hour hike to town and that's the only place we could get to. Besides, that would be going into the lion's den."
He smiled. "We could pull a C.W. McCall."
"Huh?"
"Crash the gate doing ninety-eight."
"Don't think it's not tempting."
Barry pulled into the driveway, turned off the ignition. "He had a gun. Did you notice that?"
"Yes," she said quietly.
They sat in silence for a moment.
"So what do we do?" Barry asked. "Do you have any ideas?"
"No." She sighed. "God, I can't believe this is happening."
"Let's go inside. Maybe we'll think of something."
They got out of the Suburban, walked around the Toyota, but even before they'd started up the porch steps they saw a notice on the screen door.
They'd been gone five minutes, eight at the most, but somehow someone had managed to come onto their property and leave a message from the homeowners' association.
"Are we under surveillance?" Maureen asked. "Do they spy on us and wait until we leave so they can rush in and put this crap on our door?
This can't be coincidence."
"Nothing's coincidence." He remembered the note they'd found in the closet.
They're doing it. They're keeping track of it. Don't think they aren 't.
Barry freed the paper from the grating and read it. "It's an order for all residents to attend the Bonita Vista anti- rally at eight o'clock tonight."
"Order?"
"That's what it says." He handed her the notice, then used his key to unlock the door. They walked inside.
"According to this, they'll fine us if we don't show up. Is that legal?"
"I don't know. I have a feeling that it is, though. That's one thing they don't seem to screw up on. However outrageous their actions, they always seem to come down on this side of the law."
"According to Sheriff Hitman . Not exactly an unimpeachable source in my mind."
"I'll call Jeremy. He'll be able to tell us." He locked the door behind them, threw the deadbolt.
Barry went downstairs and dialed Jeremy's number, but midway through the first ring, a robotic female voice came on the line and said, "I'm sorry. Due to a heavy call volume, all circuits are busy. Please try again."
The call was cut off, leaving only a dial tone.
He tried again.
And again.
And again and again and again. Over an hour period, he must have dialed Jeremy's number thirty times, but in each instance he received the same recorded message. He finally gave up, throwing the phone across the room in frustration. It bounced harmlessly on the carpet.
Not only couldn't they leave, but they could not contact the outside world. They were cut off here, effectively isolated, and he could not help thinking that it was entirely intentional, that it was part of the association's goal. He would not be surprised to learn that Bonita Vista had its own switchboard and that all incoming and outgoing calls were routed through there, giving the association the power to censor and monitor all of its residents' phone messages.
Neither he nor Maureen could think of any way to get past the armed guard save the Convoy option, and they so tired of staring at each other across the living room as they fruitlessly tried to brainstorm.
Maureen finally went down-1 stairs to work on her web page while Barry headed upstairsf to make himself an early lunch.
Mike called just after noon. "Did you get the notice?"
"You're the one who left that for me?"
"No. I got one, too. I was just wondering what your plans are."
"I don't know yet."
"They can level a fine against you. And if you don't pay it, they can put a lien on your house."
"I'm so glad we live in a democracy."
"We live in a gated community," Mike corrected him. "The two are mutually exclusive."
"What are you going to do?"
"Go."
"Me, too, I suppose."
"I've got an extra baseball bat if you want one," Mike said.
Baseball bat? Barry felt an unfamiliar shudder pass through him as he thought of wielding a weapon against another person. "You really think there's going to be trouble?"
"I have no idea, but I want to be prepared. Better safe than sorry, as they say."
Barry hung up and told Maureen that he was going to attend the anti-rally, explaining that if there was any hope of preventing violence it would be through a show of strength, a display of numbers.
He'd expected an argument, but she was defeated and resigned and said that she'd go, too, that since they'd been forced into this situation and there was no way they could avoid it, they might as well face it head on.
They spent the afternoon restlessly, trying to find tasks with which to occupy their minds and take up time, but the hours crept by slowly as they shifted desultorily from one unfinished household chore to another. Maureen finally ended up reading a magazine on the couch, while Barry watched Court TV and then a political talk show on CNBC.
Neither of them was hungry, but they forced themselves to eat an early dinner and then wash the dishes together.
They watched the local news, the national news, Entertainment Tonight.
And then it was time to go.
There'd been only a half hour of rain in the late afternoon, but the temperature had not returned to the high heat of midday and the evening was unusually cool. Maureen put on a jacket, Barry changed into a long-sleeved shirt. They locked up the house and started walking.
The sun had gone down only recently and they'd been able to see from the house before they left that the western sky still carried a tinge of orange, but it was dark down here among the pines. Night arrived early on the forest floor.
There were others on the road ahead of them: two couples and a family of four. Barry could see their silhouetted forms in the occasional swatches of porch light that spread out from the driveways of the dispersed houses. Neither he nor Maureen spoke, but there was a low-grade murmur audible through the trees and bushes at the bottom of the hill. The sounds of a crowd.