Bubbles Ablaze (10 page)

W
hile Mama and Genevieve hit the Morning After Breakfast Buffet downstairs, I took a shower, toweled off and stepped into a pair of black stirrup pants, a fuchsia top in a polyester/spandex blend and boots with heels. Lined my eyes with navy and enhanced my lashes with cobalt mascara. Next came foundation. Powder. Rose blush. A touch of orchid in the creases of my lids and matching color on my lips. Hung my head upside down and blew my hair dry, brushing it up so it cascaded down with body. Spritzed apple blossom spray from head to toe and added a few dabs of glitter powder.

Ready for another day of professional investigative journalism.

I packed all of my things and placed them by the door. I took a tray with a croissant and coffee Mama had brought up for me and called Roxanne to tell her that Stinky had called to say he'd be stopping by my home and I would be rushing back to Lehigh to meet him. The way I rationalized it, I hadn't made a pinky promise with Stinky not to tell and, besides, Roxanne needed to know that her husband was alive. Cousins who sneak into Journey concerts together don't keep that kind of info to themselves.

“I'm going back to Lehigh with you,” she said as soon as I told her. “I have to see him and apologize. Stinky needs my support.”

“No way, Roxy. Give him his space.” I finished the buttery almond croissant and wiped my fingers on a paper napkin. “He may be staying away from you for other reasons.”

“Like what? Deep down he adores me.”

“Like your safety. Price was shot and left in a mine at the same
spot and hour Stinky's car was there. Maybe the shooter meant to get Stinky, too?”

“My Stinky? No way. Everyone loves the Stinkster.”

What was she, dreaming? Chief Donohue freely referred to Stinky as a blackmailing, homicidal vigilante, and from the way Hugh McMullen spoke at the press conference yesterday, Stinky might as well have been Charles Manson on a walkaway. “Think of what went down at the press conference, Roxanne. Stinky's a wanted man.”

Roxanne exhaled from a cigarette. “Yeah. And no one wants him more than me.”

On the off chance that the alternator was in, Genevieve dropped Mama off at Roxanne's and drove me back to the Texaco.

“It didn't come,” squeaked the clerk. “Slagville must be last on the list in Detroit because it always takes us three weeks to get parts.”

Three weeks! I could not live without my Camaro for three weeks. I'd lose my parking space on West Goepp Street.

Genevieve stomped forward and pounded the front counter so hard the cash register drawer opened. “Do you mean to tell me, Butch, that this girl is gonna have to wait three weeks for her car?”

The clerk gulped and quietly shut the drawer. “No, ma'am. Just that I fixed it myself, without the part.”

And there wasn't a drop of oil on him. He slid a handwritten bill carefully past Genevieve and toward me. “That'll be twenty-five-ninety-nine. Sorry it's so expensive. There was a lot of labor.”

I nearly kissed the blue pressed hanky in his breast pocket. Stiletto could make all the cracks he wanted about this place being stuck in time, but I did so like those 1935 prices. I wrote out a check, handed it to him and he sprinted out the door. He pulled the Camaro around to the front of the station and shifted the clutch into neutral, making sure to pull the seat forward
before he got out. Cheap and considerate, too. It was even vacuumed and was that Windex on the dashboard I smelled?

“Hasta la vista,
Genevieve,” I said, revving the engine.

“Take the back roads. I don't like trucks,” she said, waddling toward her car. “And don't go over the speed limit. I ain't no law breaker.”

Hold on. Hold on. I leaned out the window and glared at her. Genevieve was pulling out a musket from the backseat of her Rambler and coming toward me.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving the Rambler here for your mother,” she said, opening my passenger-side door. “The Texaco's only a block away from the Main Mane. She's got a spare key.”

Genevieve heaved herself inside and slammed the door. “What are you wasting gas for? Let's go.”

“But?”

“You don't think I'd let you go back to Lehigh to meet up with Stinky Koolball without a bodyguard, do you?” She patted the musket that lay across her lap. “On the drive down I'll bring you up to date on the Princess Diana crash investigation. Oh, and there's also some new research out about Crest you should be aware of. It could save your life.”

Genevieve spent the next half hour explaining the imagined evils of fluoride toothpaste and how Princess Diana had been murdered by the powerful French cheese lobby. After wowing me with Nostradamus's prediction of MTV, Genevieve revealed that her bladder was not nearly as big as her mouth and she needed a rest stop. That was doubly bad as we were on a wooded back road in Nowheresville.

“Fiddlecock,” Genevieve said, as I pulled onto the berm. “I'll have to hike in.”

Taking no chances, she slung the musket over her shoulder, plunked on her camouflage cap, and produced a roll of Charmin from her purse. Before she left, she pressed into my hand a peashooter filled with Sominex darts.

“Don't be afraid to use it.” She locked the door and left.

I placed the straw on the dash, zipped open a nail kit from my purse and began filing to keep the right brain occupied so the left brain could take a quick nap. That's when I noticed flashing lights in the rearview and saw a dark vehicle park at an angle behind me. Great. Just what I needed right now, a cop checking to see if the car had broken down. And me here with a Sominex peashooter on the dash.

The cop, wearing mirrored shades, stepped up to the passenger's side and motioned for me to roll down the window. I leaned over and rolled it down halfway.

“Problem?” he asked, zeroing in on the peashooter.

“No, no, officer,” I stammered. “My friend just had to answer the call of nature. She's an older woman.”

The cop stuck his hand through the crack in the window and yanked up the lock, opened the door and slid inside. As soon as he was next to me, I recognized him right off. He was about ten years younger than I, with all the muscle and confidence that youth bragged. Underneath his jeans and navy T-shirt was a gym-toned muscular body topped by a mop of windswept hair. Ash blond number six to be exact.

He wasn't a cop. He was the guy from the woods.

“Wha—?” My nail file shook. “Please, don't—”

“Aww, don't get hysterical or nothing.” He removed his mirrored shades. Brown eyes. “I'm not here to hurt you. I guess I scared you back there by the Number Nine mine yesterday. Sorry.”

Sunlight through the windshield glinted off the gun in his belt and I blanched.

“By the way,” he said, “a woman should never roll down her window for a stranger. You never know who'll take advantage.” He smiled wide.

Okay, it had finally happened. I was having my psychopathic encounter, just like the type you read about in
Redbook.
After all those years of being on high alert in poorly lit parking lots and
back alleys, I'd been cornered. Cornered on a deserted country road miles from any sign of civilization. Without my keychain Mace or trusty travel-sized bottle of Final Net.

Deep breaths, Bubbles. Get your perfectly manicured fingers around that peashooter.

“You said you were a cop.” I casually slid my hand up the dash, toward the African-style weaponry.

“I never said I was a cop. You assumed I was a cop.” He leaned forward and pulled out the baseball cap from his back pocket, positioning it on his head and inspecting himself in the rearview.

“You have flashing lights.”

“Nineteen ninety-nine at Wal-Mart. Anyone can buy 'em and stick 'em on their roof. All around America psychos are driving with those lights, cruising for unsuspecting women to do unspeakable things to. You should thank your lucky stars I'm not one of those.”

My hand clutched the peashooter.

“Cut that out.” He brushed it out of my hand. “What do I look like, a caribou?”

I stared at the broken peashooter lying on my shift case.

“I should introduce myself.” He extended his hand, the good-sized, tanned hand of a man who hadn't spent his life in an office. I surprised myself by shaking it. “Ezekiel Allen,” he said. “Like the Green Mountain Boys. Though I prefer Zeke.”

“Green Mountain Boys? You're a Boy Scout?” I asked, relieved.

He slapped his forehead. “No, I'm the descendant of Ira Allen, who, although, yes, ended his life in jail, was nevertheless a patriot like his brother Ethan in Vermont. Few people are aware that the eight Allen brothers were a gnarly bunch of vigilantes until the Revolutionary War came and turned them into heroes.”

“I can't believe it. You broke into my car to give me a history lesson. Is that why you tracked me into the woods, too?”

“No, way. I broke into your car to introduce myself. I'm your new bodyguard. Howdy do?” He touched the brim of his hat like
a gentleman. “I would have told you so yesterday, but I was trying to be incognito. I'm kind of new at this Secret Service stuff.”

“I already have a bodyguard.”

“So I gather. Seventy-year-old woman with a peashooter. Little good that will do you.” He nodded to the incapacitated straw. “My employer requested a more virile protector, you might say.”

“Who's your employer?”

“Steve Stiletto.”

I coughed. Stiletto? He hired someone to keep watch over me while he was in New York? That was so sweet. Wait. No, it wasn't. That was patronizing. “I don't need looking after,” I said, bristling. “I'm not a dog, you know.”

“So I've noticed.” Zeke turned on the ignition to activate the battery and started fooling around with the knobs on the radio. “Let's see if we can find some Skynyrd. Rumor is Skynyrd makes you do crazy things.”

“Only when there are Jell-O shots.”

“I'll call Mom. Mom always has Jell-O and vodka on hand.”

We were silent for a while as he searched the airwaves. “How do you know Stiletto?” I asked.

“Complicated story.” He zeroed in on an easy-listening music station in Hazelton. “Let's just say if it hadn't been for Steve, I'd be in Mexico for a permanent vacation. And I ain't talking the Cancun Hilton.”

Karen Carpenter came on and Zeke turned it up. “That's better. I hope you like the Carpenters because we'll be listening to a lot of them. So tragic what happened, with her not eating and all.” He folded his arms behind his head, slouched down on the seat and leaned back. I stared at him in disbelief. Guy impersonates a cop and breaks into my car just to play the radio?

Where was that Genevieve? I rolled down the window. Not a sign.

“That was the toughest part about being in the Cerro Huerro jail. No Carpenters. No Pat or Debby Boone either. She really lights up my life, man. Gosh dang, but she's a good singer.”

“Jail? You're a criminal!”

“Please. Criminal has such negative connotations. The better term is unreformed miscreant.” He bobbed his head to the beat of “On Top of the World.” I couldn't believe Stiletto had hired a former criminal to keep tabs on me. Probably came cheap.

“I don't like convicts in my car,” I said after Karen stopped looking down on creation. “I try to avoid people who've been in the slammer, even if they are friends with Stiletto.”

“Don't worry. I didn't get raped or nothing, if that's what you're worried about.”

“I want you out now,” I said. The fear was starting to wear off and irritation was taking its place.

“Really?” Zeke cracked his gum and thought about this. “What I want is world peace, a crisp Macintosh apple and unity with God. Okay, your turn.”

From way far away there came a hearty whistling. “She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain.” Perfect. Let Genevieve discover the Green Mountain Boy in her seat. She'd flatten his peaks.

“Okay. Let's say you are my backup bodyguard. Who, exactly, are you protecting me from?”

“I'm not crazy about that term, backup. But I'll let it slide.” He turned down the radio, which had moved on to Barbara Streisand. “How to explain.” He tapped his forefinger against his lip. “You know that story you wrote about McMullen Coal that ran in this morning's paper?”

“Yessss,” I said slowly.

“And you know your ass?”

“Uh-huh.” Not sure where this was going.

“Well, after that story, it's grass. Accusing a company of robbing coal is tantamount to signing your own death warrant in this part of Pennsylvania. We're not known for our doilies and afternoon tea, you know. This is the land of the Molly Maguires.”

“Molly Maguire sounds like doilies and afternoon tea to me.”

“I can't believe you don't know about the Green Mountain Boys or the Molly Maguires. Did you learn anything in high school?”