Bubbles Ablaze (20 page)

“How did you know?” I asked, handing her the book.

“Potato soup. Remember when we were at Vilnia's? There is only one woman in the world who put mint in potato soup and that was Nana Yablonsky. Once I saw that recipe cooking on Vilnia's stove, I knew we had our woman. I also knew she'd toss the evidence. Genny and I been through her garbage every day and night since.”

Genevieve yawned so loud it sounded like a B-47 overhead. “ 'Cept tonight Vilnia was up awful late with guests. She got to bed way after two. We had to wait until everyone was asleep to go through the trash.”

“Looked like a secret meeting of the Slagville Sirens to me,” Mama said. “I'm telling you, those sirens are up to something. And if I know them, it's no good.”

“Man, these old ladies. Sirens. Prowling the neighborhoods until three rustling through other people's trash,” G said. “Wilder than I ever imagined. You guys should get a website.”

Roxanne appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a fluffy green robe and an eye mask around her neck. Her hair was a mass of red, rumpled curls.

“Heavens!” She clamped her hand to her mouth. “So it was a fire. I knew I shouldn't have taken those batteries out of the smoke alarms. It's just that I can't stand those things when they go off. So loud.”

“It's okay. I put it out,” G boasted, patting the fire extinguisher, “with this.”

“Really? One of those cylinders Jane found in the basement tonight?” Roxanne yawned.

“Jane said she thought it was a fire extinguisher and she was right.”

“Still say the dang-fool boy could've blown the top off the house,” Genevieve said. “Even if it is just CO-two in them cylinders, you can't mix your chemicals. Fire extinguishers are not a one-size-fits-all kinda deal.”

My brain was busy taking all this in. Fire extinguisher. Basement. Stinky's visit to Limbo with his maps and measurements. Interesting. “How many of those tubes are down there?” I asked.

Roxanne shrugged. “I don't remember. Dozens. Jane found them after Genevieve's dowsing rods went crazy over this one spot. I'd tell you to ask Jane, except she's not here.”

“Yes, she is. I kissed her goodnight,” I said.

“She's not there now. I checked before I came downstairs.”

“Where could she be?” I was slightly alarmed, given tonight's events. A missing daughter was not what I needed right now.

“Don't get your knickers in a twist, Mrs. Y,” G said, tying up the garbage bag and tossing it back into the corner. “She's run out with that old geezer Tallow. Something about watching the sun come up through a bunch of rocks.”

Now I was really alarmed. “She went all the way back to Lehigh?”

“Nah. Right here,” G said. “Tallow's got a camp in that Blair Witch place I was at yesterday. What was it called again?”

“Limbo.” I was stunned. “But why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she even leave a note?”

Mama shook her head. “You gotta have a talk with that girl, Bubbles. Forget Limbo. She's gonna put you through hell.”

I
awoke sometime later to a piercing
Beep! Beep! Beep!
and the smell of rotting grapefruit and spoiled milk.

“Hey, lady. Move it. You're blocking the driveway.” A garbage worker in navy overalls was pounding on the windshield, through which I had a full view of the trash-strewn rear end of a waste management truck. McDonald's wrappers, moldy cucumbers and eggshells galore up close and personal. “I can't get to the dumpster, lady, if you don't move.”

“Okay, okay.” I yawned and wiggled up on the seat. My legs, having been stuffed under the dashboard, felt like they'd been squished in a tuna can and my shoulder, ouch. I tried to rotate it but I feared it was permanently damaged from hugging the stick shift all morning.

Thank you, G, I thought as I started up the car and parked it down the block. After saving the house from fire, G had demanded the pullout bed in the living room. And since I was afraid that denying Prince Precious any little whim would result in him going back to Lehigh and my daughter being abducted by a cradle snatcher, I agreed to sleep in the Camaro. The front seat made the so-called mattress at the Slagville lockup a heated water bed in comparison.

I got out and stumbled toward the salon in the freezing gray dawn. It was not until I was halfway up the walk that I remembered I was wearing a thong and a T-shirt that came down an inch past my navel. Oh, what the heck. So I had made some garbageman's morning. Call it a public service.

All was quiet inside except for G's nasal snoring in the living
room. I picked up my skirt that I'd tossed on the floor the night before and found a note from Jane. She had left with Professor Tallow and would return later in the morning. To the note she had taped a press release written by Tallow himself.

The press release invited members of the media to join him at a sunrise gathering Saturday morning around an “historically significant menatol standing stone” (whatever that was) in the so-called Dead Zone. Tallow wrote that his goal was to have the entire zone declared a historical site before a casino could be built there. After the sunrise gathering, the press was encouraged to return with him to Tallow's Limbo cabin where they could view—and photograph—other Celtic artifacts he had gathered from the area.

“Isn't he
amazing
!” Jane wrote in loopy cursive right below the directions to Tallow's cabin. “Maybe
you
should do a story on him.”

Right. Considering every reporter in a fifty-mile radius had been up past midnight covering Hugh McMullen's suicide, I doubted Tallow was going to get much of a turnout. I should go, though, I thought, looking out the window. Darn. The sun was already up.

So was Stiletto—hopping out of his spanking new black Jeep. He was carrying a pair of running shoes and what appeared to be blue spandex bike shorts and a jogging bra. Boy, I sincerely hoped those weren't for me. I don't do running. It's against my religion.

“Hi,” he said when I opened the door. “How about breakfast?” Stiletto was wearing a gray T-shirt and black shorts composed of a filmy, athletic nylon that hung—and that is the operative word here—well from his hips.

“My, oh my,” I said, trying to maintain eye contact at a ladylike level. “What do those have to do with breakfast?” I pointed to the athletic wear.

“Breakfast is going to be at Lou's Eggs.” Stiletto stepped in and closed the door gently behind him. He held up the clothes.
“These are what you're going to wear and,” he held up the Nikes, “these are going to get you there. Three miles away. Piece of cake.”

“Piece of cake, my ass!” I exclaimed, forgetting about G and the rest of the snoozing household. “I can't wear arch-supported rubber-based footwear.”

Stiletto tossed me the running gear. “Unlike cake, running does your ass wonders. Reduces the stress of being a reporter and it keeps you on your toes, so I don't have to worry about whether you can out distance creeps like Zeke Allen.”

“Zeke Allen is a creep? He seemed so goody-two-shoes.”

“We'll discuss it over coffee.” He threw me the shoes. “C'mon, I want to beat the crowd.”

“But I . . . my toes . . . all those years of high-heeled shoes.”

“Bubbles. Excuses aren't going to get you anywhere but prematurely dead.”

Ten minutes later there I was, Bubbles Yablonsky, she of “get the closest parking space to the mall and drive the car around the block for a quart of milk,” on the sidewalk in her dazzling running gear. I ran my hands over my smooth and silky tight blue hips.

“Not bad. Shiny spandex. I like these.”

Stiletto grinned. “I thought you would. Seemed like your style. Ready?”

“As ready as ever.” I smiled like a brave soldier and started a gentle jog down the sidewalk.

“I'll go slow, your pace this time, but as we continue to run we'll increase the speed, okay?” He kept a few paces ahead of me.

“Okay.” I couldn't get over Stiletto's leg muscles. Such definition. Such rock.

I leaped over a sidewalk crack and waved to a woman running an old-fashioned mower on her lawn. My legs were beginning to feel heavy, but I took a deep breath of air, pushed out my chest and pretended my feet were big marshmallows padding along in the cool autumn morning.

“Watch out for leaves, they can be slippery.” Stiletto pointed to a pile ahead and I charged right through it. “How you doing? You should concentrate on even breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

“I'm doing fine.” I took in another lungful. Hey, this wasn't so bad. I flapped my arms to loosen the muscle tension. In fact, it felt pretty good. The morning mist was clearing to reveal a blue sky. The scent of freshly mown grass and fallen leaves was in the air. What wasn't to love? “I think I'm getting my second wind.”

Stiletto, who was slightly behind me, warned that we were approaching one of Slagville's famous vertical hills. “If you want to stop, slow to a walk. Whatever you do, don't stop completely.”

“How about you run in front of me?”

Stiletto charged past. “How come?”

“I'm a sucker for a scenic view.”

“You're not going to pull a trick and duck into a bus or something?”

“Me? Please, a bit farther.”

Stiletto was now six feet away, his strong legs propelling him up the hill with effortless ease. He moved like an animal, shoulders first, as though his whole body were being lifted by his pecs. I fixated on his figure and was surprised when we reached the top of the hill and Lou's Eggs.

“Jesus.” Sweat was dripping from his head and neck, soaking his T-shirt and he was breathing heavily. “Not bad. For a novice.” He bent down and held his knees. “Man. That was some hill.”

I hopped onto the cement wall outside Lou's Eggs and waited for him to finish with the post-marathon dramatics.

“You're not even,” pant, pant, “sweating.” Stiletto was pacing, hands on hips.

“Glowing. Men sweat, Stiletto. Women glow.”

“It's unbelievable. You shot right up that incline. I bet you ran a four-minute mile. Straight up a hill.”

“Four minutes, huh.” I jumped down. “Is that good?”

“Four-minute mile is that good.” He punched me playfully on the arm and we entered Lou's Eggs.

Nearly every window in Lou's Eggs had its own personal fan to force out the airborne grease. We passed the counter of men, their arms protectively encircling massive white plates of fried substances, and sat down at a table covered by a floral cloth topped with a sheet of clear plastic. We were the only ones not smoking. And that included the customers in mid-meal.

“Talk about tobacco road,” Stiletto said, opening a plastic menu. “You've stopped smoking, right?”

“Absolutely. Smoking. Yuck.” I furrowed my brows at the all-day breakfast offerings. Of course, that may have been a teensy tiny lie about me not smoking, but I highly doubted a cigarette now and then would hurt me. Then again, there are horror stories. Grapefruit looked good. But not as good as a chocolate doughnut. Then again, doughnuts are chock-full of B vitamins. Decisions. Decisions.

“Where's Esmeralda?” I asked casually.

“Esmeralda? Esme's back in New York. Forget Esmeralda.”

“So, she's not working on the Hugh McMullen suicide?”

“What's to cover? A suicide is a suicide.” Stiletto eyed me suspiciously over the menu. “
Right
, Bubbles?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Unless you know different.”

“Who, me?” I flagged over a waitress. No freaking way was I telling him about the Smith & Wesson.

A waitress with flyaway hair wiped our table with a wet cloth, stuck it in her apron pocket, removed her cigarette from her mouth and asked for our order. I chose blinis, grapefruit and coffee. Stiletto ordered two eggs over easy, hash browns, scrapple (oh, please, not that), bacon and orange juice. He was going to be sorry. His eyes were bigger than his stomach was Teflon coated.

“So what's this about our mutual missionary being a creep?” I asked, to change the subject from Hugh McMullen.

“I went over to Zeke's apartment last night and then again around dawn. He wasn't in.”

“Maybe he has a girlfriend and was spending the night?”

“I don't think so.” Stiletto touched my fingers thoughtfully. “His car was in the driveway. But there was all this crusted white junk around the tailpipe. Funny. I could've sworn it was mashed potatoes.”

Dum, de dum, dum, dum.

“What did Zeke tell you about me again?” he asked.

I recounted in more detail than last night what Zeke had said, that Stiletto had called him shortly after the explosion and asked him to keep a watch on me, that the two of them spoke about what Stiletto had been up to in the past year, including the stint on the India/Pakistan border and his plans to move to England.

As though bowled over by this, Stiletto sat back and folded his arms. “Fascinating. How would he have known that? I haven't spoken to Zeke's parents since last Christmas.”

“His parents?”

“Earl and Martha Allen. Nicer folks you'll never meet. They moved from Limbo to Slagville two years ago after the government buyout, but insisted on returning the money. Wouldn't take a dime of someone else's tax dollars. They send me birthday presents and Christmas cards because I sprang their son from a Mexican jail.”

The waitress plunked down our dishes. Hmmm. Blinis. Grated potato pancakes fried crisp. You can't make them at home—well you can, but they put out such smoke that you might as well invite the entire fire department if you do. I emptied a packet of Sweet 'N Low into my coffee and dug in.

“What do Zeke's parents say?”

“I don't know.” Stiletto chowed down on his eggs. “I didn't go over to their house.”

“You mean you, experienced photojournalist, forgot the old newspaper trick of just asking?”

Stiletto smirked at me over his juice. “Cute. I didn't want to worry them.”

“That's silly.” I sipped my coffee. “If you won't ask them, I will, though I think since you saved their son you might make more headway than I would.”

“How about we go together?”

“Should we run?”

Stiletto glanced down at his half-eaten breakfast. “I feel like I just ate a bucket of lead. Next time I order scrapple stop me. This stuff should be banned by the FDA.”

Stiletto's Jeep had the new-car smell that made me swoon with delight. There were even paper mats on the floor, which hadn't been saturated by Diet Coke and coffee like mine. Boy, did I envy his ability to walk into a dealership, purchase a $28,000 car with cash and drive off the same day. I had paid cash for a car once. That was five hundred bucks for a rusted Chevy Impala and it was as illegal to operate on the road as a hijacked armored vehicle.

“No top again, I see.” We whizzed through Slagville, the wind breezing through my unwashed hair. It was October, not August, and a tad chilly for driving around without a top but I didn't want to come across as a poor sport. “You ever think of buying a different model besides a Jeep?”

“Like a Crown Victoria with cruise control?”

“Cute.”

As it was Saturday morning, the normally quiet town was buzzing with activity. A Cub Scout troop in blue uniforms was conducting a bottle drive, hauling around red wagons full of glass and soda cans as they went door to door along the immaculate row of homes. A father and son, rod and tackle boxes in hand, were heading down to the creek to catch the last of the fishing season. Freshly washed sheets flapped on laundry lines near piles of burning leaves and the local high school band practiced “Louie, Louie” high up on the hill.

Small-town bliss.

Life in Slagville hadn't stopped because a builder of family-friendly casinos had been murdered a few miles away or because the bratty owner of a colliery had shot himself. What was important—love, family, spotless lawns, clean sheets, Saturday morning soccer and Saturday evening Mass—were forever here.