Bubbles Ablaze (30 page)

“Then the Nag 'N Feed spells are to control the men,” I said. “To keep them around the house.”

“To keep them alive,” Vilnia said. “It's a short-term solution to a long-term issue.”

The phone rang and a harried woman answered it with quick yesses and nos. She hung up, grabbed her wool coat off the back of her chair and took her purse. “I've got to go, Vilnia,” she said. “That was my son. He's at a basketball game and needs to be picked up.”

“Can't Arch get him?” Vilnia said.

“Are you for real? Arch is passed out in the wing chair by now.” She waved good-bye and left.

“That's our problem,” Vilnia said. “Almost all of these women work during the day. The only time they can get away is after dinner and even then family intrudes.”

I still wasn't following. “What is it, exactly, that these women are doing? What do you want?”

“We want change. First we want the mining companies to fill up all the holes and gravel pits so that no more children die when they fall into them and drown,” she said. “Do you know how cold that water is? And you can't get out once you're in because the rock face around the water is slippery smooth. It's impossible to get a grip, so you eventually develop cramps because of the freezing temperatures and that's the end.”

“She's right,” Roxanne said. “That happens a lot here in those old pits.”

“Our final goal is more ambitious.” Vilnia breathed in and out deeply. “We want the mining to stop, period. Forever. It is a dangerous, cruel, dirty and environmentally devastating industry. It widows women and orphans children. It has to end.”

I sat back and picked at my uneaten cake. Vilnia was a toned-down Molly Maguire. Who would've thunk. “But how will people in Slagville earn a living?”

“We almost had the solution—until Bud Price was murdered. And that is what we're doing here.” Vilnia swung around in her
chair and surveyed the room of busy women. “Every night since Bud's death we've been researching the state and federal land use laws, putting together a comprehensive package for the state regulators on why they should permit this casino to be built. Our goal is to make sure that we have answers for every question. Let me tell you, it is not an easy task.”

Canned laughter from the TV erupted in the other room. Chrissy Price giggled.

“Dim bulb, that one,” Vilnia said, thumbing toward the living room. “That's our biggest obstacle to passage right there.”

“So why did you kidnap her?” I said.

“Because we couldn't afford for her to get murdered, too. If there is, like I've been saying, a third party who is bound and determined to get hold of the land she inherited after Bud's death, the Dead Zone, then she needs protection.”

Elaine handed Vilnia a computer printout. I mulled over what Vilnia had just said about there being a third party who wanted Bud Price's land. If that were true, then perhaps that third party was the same person who put pressure on Hugh McMullen to develop the fire extinguisher. It made sense considering that the Mammoth Basin, the largest deposit of anthracite in North America, extended under the Dead Zone. Only it couldn't be mined because of the fire. Until now.

Vilnia finished reading the fax and tossed it aside. “If we had stood idly by, there was also the chance that Chrissy would have sold the Dead Zone back to McMullen and pocketed the cash. And with Stinky's fire extinguisher—”

Roxanne practically leaped off the bench. “You knew about that? How come everybody in Slagville has heard of Stinky's fire extinguisher except me?”

“Chill, Imelda Marcos.” Vilnia shook her head. “Those shoulder pads, Roxanne, they're hideous. You look like you're playing center tackle.”

Roxanne sat down and touched her shoulder pads.

“But if you had Stinky's fire extinguisher, you could do with it
what you wanted,” I said. “You could keep it out of McMullen Coal's hands.”

Vilnia held up a finger. “I wouldn't know what in the world to do with a fire extinguisher. That's why we told Bud Price about it. Bud contacted Stinky after he left McMullen and encouraged him to set up a lab in his basement. He offered himself as Stinky's backer. With that fire extinguisher, Bud's casino would have been assured of approval.”

“I'm still perplexed as to how come everyone in my tiny town knew about this fire extinguisher except me.” Roxanne pouted.

“I'm not perplexed.” I recrossed my legs and leaned toward Vilnia. “Where's Louise? I need her.”

Vilnia stood and carried her tea cup to the sink. “Who?”

“Louise Lamporini.” I got up and joined Vilnia, who was suddenly inspired to wash dishes. “I know she's here. She was working on the laptop. I saw her through the window.”

Vilnia squirted soap into the cup. “I don't even know a Louise Lamporini.”

“She's a Slagville Siren. I witnessed her in action tonight when she tricked her husband into staying home so she could come here. She used sausage and onions.”

The women behind us had stopped typing and faxing. They raised their heads and stared at us. Vilnia flipped on the water and rinsed the cup. I pressed further.

“Louise was Hugh McMullen's secretary. She typed up all those letters about Stinky being a threat. That's why you women made up those stories about being blackmailed, so you could stop coming to the salon without hurting Roxanne's feelings. You were afraid of Stinky because Louise told you he was dangerous.”

Roxanne sighed. “Clients are always afraid of hurting a hairdresser's feelings. I once had a former client switch to another grocery store so she wouldn't have to run into me and explain why she wasn't coming to the Main Mane, anymore. It's so silly.”

“Louise found out that Stinky was perfecting his fire
extinguisher,” I said. “She told you and you told Bud Price, your big white hope.”

But Vilnia didn't budge. Just kept scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing that spotlessly clean cup.

“Louise is your connection to McMullen Coal. She's your underground mole, so to speak. I can understand why you'd want to keep her out of the limelight. She wants to keep her job. She doesn't want the company coming down on her, etcetera.” I cranked off the faucet. “Forget that cup, already. There is someone besides Hugh McMullen and Bud Price who is interested in this extinguisher and getting hold of the Dead Zone, Vilnia. You said it yourself.”

This caught Vilnia's attention. “Who is it?”

“I don't know why he doesn't just come forward and pay Stinky a tidy sum for the patent himself. I don't know why he's keeping his identity a secret, but he put incredible pressure on Hugh McMullen to produce that extinguisher. McMullen was a wreck, financially and otherwise. So much so that he shot himself.”

“Too bad about Mr. McMullen.” Vilnia shrugged. “But what's Louise supposed to do about it?”

I thought it wise not to comment on Vilnia's miraculous remembrance of Louise. “Louise has access to those phone records. Since McMullen conducted most of his business by phone, I am positive those phone records will lead us to the person who was putting pressure on him.”

Vilnia blinked. Stubborn Polish mule is what she was.

“If you won't let me talk to Louise for that reason, let me talk to her because of Sasha, Chrissy's daughter. She's been kidnapped and I don't think she's in the other room watching TV with her mother. She got into a police car today, only the car didn't belong to Donohue and Donohue says no cop in Columbia County picked her up.”

Vilnia let go of the cup. It smashed on the enameled sink.

“If he's got Sasha,” she said, “then he's won.” Looking up at me she said, “Tell me what you want and it's yours.”

Louise Lamporini distributed computer printouts of McMullen Coal's phone records to the women in the kitchen. Louise had been secreted in the basement during our visit. Fortunately, she had had the good sense to stop by McMullen Coal on her way to Vilnia's and pick up the phone records, as I had suggested earlier. So they were ready for the inspecting.

“I wouldn't get your hopes up,” Louise said as she scanned the August bill. “I did a cursory examination while I was in the basement and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Now, if we had access to Hugh McMullen's home phone records, that would be another story.”

Chrissy Price, oblivious to the news that her daughter had likely been truly kidnapped, was fast asleep in the living room.

“I still don't want to tell her about Sasha just yet,” a very worried Vilnia said. “Chrissy will lose her head and run out there, putting herself at risk for being kidnapped by him, too.”

This was a point over which Vilnia and I had been arguing for a half hour. As a mother of a teenage girl, I'd have been livid if I were in Chrissy's position. But Vilnia said that whoever the third party was, he wanted Chrissy to react to Sasha's kidnapping like any other mother. To keep her in the dark was the only way to fight him.

“We have to give this all powerful, evil person a name,” Roxanne said. “It'd be a lot easier.”

We thought about this as the Slagville Sirens thumbed through the books of green and white records.

“Donald Trump,” Vilnia said. “Why don't we call him Donald Trump? It's probably someone just like that.”

“What if it is Donald Trump?” Roxanne said. “Wouldn't that be bizarre?”

“Donald Trump is into New York real estate,” Vilnia said, “not commodities like coal and iron ore and steel.”

Steel, I thought rather wryly. When you live in Pennsylvania it always comes back to steel. It was like a metal serpent reaching from the ground, gripping our ankles and not letting go.

As I studied September's bill, I considered the Donald Trump of steel I once knew. Henry Metzger. Where the iron serpent had kept its grip on workers from below, he had wielded his hammer from above. Metzger negotiated and threatened from the boardroom, getting his way for so many years that he transformed himself into an almost god-like figure. Even his many vice presidents considered him invincible.

The tough and fearless unions hadn't been able to rein in Henry Metzger, nor had the President of the United States when he asked Metzger during the eighth hole of golf to consider negotiating with the strikers. The environmentalists, with their nagging requests for controlled smokestack emissions, had been a pitiable threat. Henry Metzger's immortality was unquestioned.

Until his wife hit and killed Chester Zug, an elderly garbage-man, in a park last summer and tried to get away with it. That stupid, thoughtless act, combined with the fortunate coincidence that Stiletto and I had practically seen it happen, is what did him in. Fleeing for his life, Henry Metzger and his lovely young bride had crashed and burned in Central America. An ignoble end to an ignoble man.

“Why are there so few calls on three days in a row?” I asked Louise.

Louise peered over my shoulder. “That was Labor Day weekend. Believe me, Labor Day was the first day I checked. I'm still pissed about being called into work.”

My finger ran down the long distance numbers. There were only three, two of which were to New York. “What's this number?” I said, reading off one that began with a 345 area code. “It looks like it lasted only one minute.”

Mrs. Wychesko typed it into the laptop, which was hooked
into the phone line. “I'll do a cross search on Yahoo!” she said. “Give it to me again.”

I read it off.

She squinted over her bifocals. “Looks like it goes to a Sand Pointe Road in the Cayman Islands.”

“Tax free,” Vilnia said with a snort. “Probably one of McMullen's many getaways.”

“Doesn't list the number as belonging to McMullen,” Mrs. Wychesko said, pointing to the screen. “Says here it's a Zug, Chester Zug.”

My fingers clenched September's phone records. My mouth could barely form the words. “Did you say Chester Zug?”

“That's what it says on Yahoo!”

Vilnia put her hand on my shoulder. “Bubbles. What's wrong? Do you know Chester Zug?”

“Do I know him?” I looked up at her. “I found his corpse.”

Suddenly I knew who had sent me the fax, who had e-mailed Stiletto and hired Zeke Allen. He was someone who knew every detail of Steve Stiletto's past, who would have a key to his house, who would know about Stiletto's relationship to me.

Henry Metzger. Immortal as always.

“L
ast summer,” I began, “Stiletto and I came across a dead body in the park. It was the victim of a hit and run, and the body was later identified as having once been Chester Zug.”

The women murmured to one another. Vilnia sat down.

“The person in the car that ran over Chester was a young woman named Merry Metzger. She was the wife of Henry Metzger, the former chairman of Lehigh Steel and undoubtedly the most powerful person Lehigh has ever known. Shortly after that accident, Henry Metzger fled the country. His plane crashed and burned on a Central American runway. He and his wife were presumed dead.”

“I know of Henry Metzger,” Vilnia said. “Of course, Lehigh Steel had working relationships with all the coal companies up here. Steel needs coal and coal needs steel.”

“The Lehigh Valley Railroad connects the two,” offered Roxanne.

“You're right. And I was thinking of that just the other day.” Now I was the one who was pacing. “I should have put it together sooner. The fact that Steve Stiletto's imposter knew all about Stiletto and that he had access to his house. That's because Stiletto's imposter once owned his house.” I paused, unable to verbalize the horrible truth that had held Stiletto back from freely committing himself to me, or any woman. “Henry Metzger was—is—Steve Stiletto's stepfather.”

The women exchanged glances, confused.

“You guys,” I said, resting my hands on the table, “the person who you fear will buy the Dead Zone from Chrissy Price, the
person who hired Zeke Allen to stalk me and who put pressure on Hugh McMullen to get that fire extinguisher finished is Henry Metzger.”

“But I thought he was dead,” Vilnia said.

“My assumption is that he faked his death,” I said. “And that doesn't surprise me. Henry Metzger can influence even the most responsible people to lie, steal and murder for him—especially a corrupt Central American coroner. I bet he's been pulling strings like a puppeteer from his home in the Cayman Islands.”

“She's right. Henry Metzger is alive.”

We all turned around to find Chrissy Price in the doorway, her hair rumpled from sleep and the oversized sweatshirt she was wearing wrinkled.

“Chrissy!” Vilnia hopped up. “Go back to bed.”

Chrissy yawned. “I'm not tired. I just had a nap. So what's this about Henry Metzger, Bubbles?”

I stepped back and leaned against the sink. “Why don't you tell me?”

“Okay. Now that you've asked.” She turned to the women. “Is it all right if I enter your precious inner sanctum or are you going to banish me to the living room to watch Bugs Bunny?”

Vilnia stood and offered her a seat. Chrissy sat while Vilnia brewed up another pot of coffee.

“Before I met Bud, I used to work as a hostess in a casino in Atlantic City. For the record,” she held up her hand like she was volunteering in class, “I was the one who suggested putting a casino on the Dead Zone, thank you very much.”

“Thank you,” Roxanne said sincerely.

“Anyway, as hostess my job was to cater to the executives, often Lehigh Steel executives, when they came to our casino on junkets. For example, I found out what each man drank—and, yes, ladies, we're talking men only—so I had their brands in the minibar when they arrived in their rooms. If they wanted to play golf in the morning, I had the limo ready at eight to take them. If they wanted to gamble, I reserved a spot for them at the baccarat table.”

“I'm sure that wasn't all they wanted, was it, Chrissy?” I said.

Her eyes glinted. “No, Bubbles, it wasn't. And I will personally come to your house and sock you in the mouth if you let this get out to Sasha, but I was Henry Metzger's favorite. I knew what he liked, I knew when he liked it, how often and where. I was an extremely attentive hostess.”

“Bully for you,” said Roxanne. “Hostessing is a lost art these days.”

I lightly kicked her ankle.

“I also became extremely familiar with his voice. It was convenient, as you may imagine, for clients not to have to identify themselves to me when calling. Henry would telephone my office and reserve the following Friday and I'd know who it was.” She smoothed the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “After I married Bud, I quit my job and moved to Lehigh. Sometimes Bud and I would be at the country club and I'd hear Henry talking in the hallway or out of sight and it was like being in Atlantic City all over again. It made me feel cheap and worthless, that voice of his.”

Vilnia handed her a glass of water. Chrissy took a few sips and put it down. “I heard that voice again Wednesday evening.”

She cleared her throat and Tammy gripped her hand. “Go on, Chrissy,” Tammy said. “It'll help.”

“We had just sat down for dinner, Bud and me because he didn't like Sasha to eat with us. But that's another story. Anyway, the phone rang. Wednesday evening is the maid's night off, so I got it. I can still hear him crystal clear. He said, ‘Is Bud Price there, please?' I can't tell you how freaked I was. It was like hearing a ghost.”

She began to cry and Roxanne passed her the box of tissues. Chrissy continued. “I said, ‘Henry? Is it you?' And he said, ‘I need to talk to Bud.' So I handed Bud the phone.”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

She blew her nose. “I'm not sure, exactly. Bud took the phone into the library and shut the door. When he came out he was fuming. I mean about to explode. He said, ‘I've got to go to
Slagville and talk to Koolball right now.' And he left. His Cornish game hens sat there on the plate, untouched. That was the last I saw of him. That's why I had to come here, to Slagville. To try and make sense of it all.”

Chrissy was now in full weep. When she had recovered somewhat, I asked her if she had told the police that story.

“Partly. I told them that Bud had gone to meet Koolball, but I didn't tell them that the voice on the phone belonged to Henry Metzger. I mean, they would have thought I was a lunatic. Henry Metzger's dead.” She let her hands fall on her thin little thighs. “Or so I thought.”

“Or so we all thought.” I studied my nails and tried to find the right words. “Chrissy, if Henry Metzger is alive, he may have been in Slagville today.”

“Yeah?” She dabbed mascara off her cheeks.

“This afternoon a police car picked up Sasha.”

Chrissy stopped dabbing. “Where?”

“She was in the car with my daughter's boyfriend. He was giving her a ride back to the inn.”

Chrissy's whole body started to shake. “That kid. I told her to stay in the hotel until Donatello came on Sunday to take her to school.”

“Listen to me, Chrissy.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “Chief Donohue says that no cops in Columbia County picked up a seventeen-year-old girl today. My daughter's boyfriend described the bogus cop who took Sasha as white haired, older. I think he may have been Henry Metzger.”

The look that passed over Chrissy's face is not one that I ever want to see again. It was pure, raw maternal horror. Horror turned to bewilderment and bewilderment turned to anger.

“I'll kill him,” she said, leaping out of her seat. “Where is the bastard?”

“Grab her, girls,” Vilnia ordered.

The women immediately pounced on Chrissy, their strong, coal-cracker bodies easily overtaking Chrissy's slender
casino-hostess build. All I could see were her pretty painted red toes kicking in the air.

“Go, Bubbles!” Vilnia shouted. “We'll take care of it here. Go do what you have to do.”

I dropped Roxanne off at the Main Mane where I changed into my black miniskirt, white T-shirt and orange cardigan. Carrying my suitcase down the stairs, I found Roxanne by the phone holding the cord.

“Look,” she said, waving it in the air. “What if someone's broken into my house and disconnected all the phones? What if he's lying in wait until you leave to attack me?”

I slapped my forehead. “I am such a dufus. I'm sorry, Roxanne, I unplugged it.”

She snapped the cord back in. “Why?”

“Nothing. It was stupid. Here, give me a hug good-bye.” I dropped the suitcase and put out my arms.

Roxanne fell into them and hugged me tightly. “Thank you so much, Bubbles. You have saved Stinky and me and, who knows? Maybe you saved Slagville from being blown to smithereens, too.”

“It'll all work out, Roxanne.”

“I know. I pray the same for you, Bubbles.” She let go. “I don't like you going to Stiletto's house by yourself. Why don't you call the police?”

“I will,” I said. “First I'm going to wake up Zeke. He's got to help me. I don't want to do this alone.”

“Smart idea.”

She waved at me as I threw my suitcase in the back of the Camaro and got in. The streets of Slagville were wet, dead and silent after the evening's rain shower. The clock in my car said it was close to two
A
.
M
. Three more hours and I'd have to be at a waste hauler's meeting anyway. For a second, I thought I saw St. Christopher shake his head, as though he could not ensure
protection if I decided to drive to Lehigh on rain-slicked roads while battling exhaustion.

I don't know why it took me so long to see his face in the rearview mirror, but it did. When our eyes met, he said, “Where are you going, Bubbles?”

I swerved to stay in my lane. “Oh, my God, Zeke. You just gave me a heart attack. I am so glad to see you. You've got to come with me to Stiletto's house in Saucon Valley. Something's happened to him, Zeke, and I think his stepfather, Henry Metzger, is behind it.”

“You can't go home,” Zeke said evenly. “I won't let you.”

“What?” I pulled over, wrenched up the parking brake and turned around. “What's wrong with you?”

And that's when I noticed the gun in his hand.

“Let's go, Bubbles,” he said. “Mother's waiting.”