Here are some alternate translations:

Help!

or

I need help!

or

I can help you!

or

You are being watched!

or

They’re not watching now, so wove!

Final point of syntax: If the Word is used properly, you should never have to think twice about what it means in a given situation. Fine point of usage: Never trust anyone who uses it improperly.

I waited for her to finish waiting.

She opened a wallet in front of me. “Chief of Special Services Department Maudline Hinkle,” she read without looking what it said below the silver badge.

“You have that very well,” I said, “Maud.” Then I frowned. “Hinkle?”

“Me.”

“I know you’re not going to believe this, Maud. You look like a woman who has no patience with her mistakes. But my name is Eventide. Not Eldrich. Harmony C. Eventide. And isn’t it lucky for all and sundry that the Word changes tonight?” Passed the way it is, the Word is no big secret to the cops. But I’ve met policemen up to a week after change date who were not privy.

“Well, then: Harmony. I want to talk to you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

She raised one back and said, “Look, if you want to be called Henrietta, it’s all right by me. But you listen.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Crime, Mr… ?”

“Eventide. I’m going to call you Maud, so you might as well call me Harmony. It really is my name.”

Maud smiled. She wasn’t a young woman. I think she even had a few years on Business Man. But she used make-up better than he did. “I probably know more about crime than you do,” she said. “In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t even heard of my branch of the police department. What does Special Services mean to you?”