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This story is dedicated to the real Sandy G., who does make everything better.

This is also an entry into the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge.

Steffie On The Line

by Marian Allen

Steffie stood elbow to elbow with a line of men, women, and children, all holding signs protesting policies and, in some instances, personal attributes of politicians with whom they disagreed. It was, she could tell from the rubbery facial expressions and tentative hand gestures of passing drivers, a confusing event, since the demonstrators stood at varying points on the political spectrum.

She saw nothing confusing in it: It was clearly a peaceful gathering of people who disagreed violently. Nothing could be more natural. Families did it all the time.

A busy figure bustled up, a soft voice said, “Excuse me,” in a tone that could no more be resented than denied, and Steffie looked into the shining eyes of fellow agent Sandy G. With wide eyes, gently curled hair, a smile that could light up the whole street and a mind that missed nothing, Sandy G was even more of a stealth agent than the deceptively harmless-seeming Steffie, herself.

“Have you noticed,” said Sandy, her volume precisely attuned so that Steffie could hear her clearly but nobody else could make out her words, “that woman?”

Steffie, though surrounded by women who were demonstrating, driving by, and going about their various businesses on the streets and in the buildings of the bustling town, knew precisely who she meant.

“She passed behind us, then down the other side of the street, then back the other side of the street, carrying papers, then turned toward the shop with the striped awning.”

“I was on the corner,” said Sandy. “She went in, and came out without the papers. She went to a car, then went back to the shop with the striped awning, very angry, went in, and came out just as angry. Then she got into the car and drove away.”

“Slowly or quickly?”

“Like a bat out of hell. White car, blue license plate with bright green numbers and letters.”

Steffie didn’t need to ask if Sandy had gotten the license plate numbers and letters – of course she had.

“Hold my sign,” said Steffie. Between close colleagues and, Steffie dared to hope, friends, the “please” was understood.

“Of course,” said Sandy, showing the dimples which had figuratively disarmed so many so that she could do so literally.

Steffie went into the public building behind the line, which the demonstrators were allowed to access for the water fountain and the Necessary facilities, then out the back door. A series of left turns later, she slipped through the back door of the shop with the striped awning.

A man lay in a pool of his own blood – not, in Steffie’s expert opinion, a fatal amount – gasping and groaning.

“Oh, no! Mister!” Steffie’s hands fluttered to the sides of her head, where they activated a hidden microphone and camera and notified her team to be aware. “What happened?”

It could have been a robbery gone wrong, but she judged it unlikely, given Sandy G.’s observations.

“I didn’t double-cross them!” the man gasped. “I thought it was the real goods!”

“I don’t know what you mean!” Steffie squealed. “What real goods?”

“You’re not here to finish me?”

“What goods did you give them?”

“In that case,” said the man, struggling to pull his hand from beneath his body and coming forth with a blood-smeared derringer which he pointed at Steffie’s head, “I tried and failed to defend my customer from a robber and got shot for my heroism.”

A solid punch with a textbook followthrough put an end to that.

As per instructions from the receiver in her wig, Steffie helped herself to a selection of portable goods to lend credence to the “shot during a robbery” story and slipped back to her place in the line of waving placards.

She nodded to Sandy G. “That’s much better,” she said.

Sandy giggled and waved cheerily to a passing motorist who had just shouted something rude and was now flaming with rage at having been waved at by someone who had refused to be insulted.

Sandy, Steffie reflected, made everything better.

Thursday doors is under the direction of Dan Antion, photographer extraordinaire and critter daddy. Visit his site, enjoy his wonderful photographs, follow his directions, and enter a world of doors.

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: Sandy’s actual observations of a peculiar set of movements while we were demonstrating in support of democracy and her suggestion that it would make a good story.

MA