Bubbles Ablaze (4 page)

Stiletto put the phone to his ear. “Since said salesman won legislative approval to bring casino gambling to Slagville. It's been nothing but controversy since. My guess is some religious fanatic got it into his sick head that Price was responsible for the downfall of Slagville society and took matters into his own hands. Then this sicko, whoever he is, decided to settle some score with us.”

That would explain Donohue's questions about legalized gambling and whether I had religious opposition to it. It did not explain, however, why Stiletto and I, of all people, had been the so-called sicko's subsequent targets.

“How do you know about stuff like this?”

“Because I read the newspapers, Bubbles.” The phone wasn't working. Stiletto glared at it with contempt. “Price's Family Casino has been headline news for weeks.”

Shoot. I knew there had to be a reason why Mr. Salvo told me I had to read the newspaper. And here I thought he was just trying to boost circulation.

“You can hang up anytime,” said a no-nonsense voice behind us.

Stiletto grimaced. “Shit,” he said, tossing the phone onto the cot.

Chief Donohue's portly frame stepped into the ambulance. “Gosh. It's so nice to be around folks who are up on their current events,” he said, strolling over and slapping a cuff on Stiletto's wrist and its mate on mine. “So rare that we're treated to intelligent conversation about local enterprise.”

The metal of the cuffs transmitted the heat rising in Stiletto's body. “I don't know who the hell you think you are—” he began.

“Stiletto,” I cautioned, “think of Clint. Swearing at cops only makes their day.”

Donohue patted Stiletto all over, a eureka look coming over his face as he reached in Stiletto's pocket. “My, my, my, what's this?” he asked, holding up a plastic canister of film. “Taking some vacation shots?”

“Property of the Associated Press,” Stiletto said. “Confiscate that and you're facing a First Amendment lawsuit that'll bankrupt you out of doughnuts for eternity.”

“Sweet talk won't get you nowhere.”

Donohue shook out a baggie and dropped in the film. “In the meantime, this is evidence. I don't have much truck with journalists . . . unless they're hairdressers.”

He turned and winked at me. “Nice hairdressers like Bubbles don't cause trouble, do you?”

I blinked innocently. “No, sir.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Stiletto flashing me an incredulous look.

“Yes, you've been very cooperative, I must say, Bubbles.” Donohue turned to lead us out of the ambulance. “Don't you worry your pretty head about a thing. I'll have you processed and out of my jail in a jiffy.”

Stiletto raised an inquisitive eyebrow in my direction.

I arched a defiant (not to mention perfectly plucked) eyebrow in response.

Stiletto and I had been the only two journalists at the scene of what promised to be a blockbuster of a news story. But for the first time in our relationship, we were on opposites sides. He with the Associated Press. Me with the
News-Times
.

We both wanted the same things—to find our apparent murderer and win the scoop of the year. And we both wanted to hop each other's bones. The question was whether we could have it all.

“The gauntlet,” I said to Stiletto, “has been run.”

Stiletto's lips twitched in amusement. “I believe, my dear, you mean thrown.”

I
was left with no choice but to make my one phone call to the most deceitful person I knew. He who had no compunction about lying, browbeating and whining to get his way. Dan the Man. My ex-husband and, not surprisingly, a darned good criminal defense lawyer. (For more explanation, see above.)

“It's three a.m.,” he barked when I placed my call from the Slagville Police Department. “What have you done now?”

I explained what I had not done, but for what I had been erroneously charged. I waited for the inevitable: his protests that he was too busy and that Slagville was too far away. When the inevitable came, I reminded him about the dirty little secret I'd discovered—that he had fraudulently filled out Pennsylvania Student Assistance Corporation loan applications to pay for my community college education.

“What's that chief's name again?” he asked.

As I provided the particulars, I could overhear Wendy demanding to know what I wanted at that hour of the night. Wendy is Dan's second wife, chicken-bone thin and just as dry. Her only attractive quality was a fortune she stood to inherit from her father's cheeseball empire. After Dan met her, he had his name legally changed to Chip and gave up knockwurst and the World Wrestling Federation for the Episcopal Church and golf at the country club. As though that was all it took to shed his German working-class heritage.

“Jane wants to talk to you,” Dan said when I was finished. “She got in around one this morning and I read her the riot act. I'm telling you, the kid's out of control.”

While I was out of town, Jane was supposed to check in at Dan's by midnight—sans G the slack-jawed boyfriend. This was one area where Dan and I agreed. No G. Lots of parents worried about their kids messing around with dope. In our case G
was
the dope.

“Let me talk to her.”

The Slagville patrolman sitting at the desk where the phone was located put aside his
Field and Stream
and pointed to his watch. “One minute,” he said.

I nodded.

“Mom! I can't believe you got trapped in a coal mine explosion. How boss is that?”

Only a teenager would describe near death as boss. “Pretty boss. Listen, Jane, you gotta call Mr. Salvo for me at the paper. Make sure to ask him about the fax he supposedly sent to the Passion Peak and let him know what happened. Dad will tell you all about it.”

“What about Stiletto? Isn't he there with you?”

“Yes, but . . .”

The patrolman was winding his arm for me to wrap it up.

I pressed my mouth against the receiver. “We're kind of competing for the same story.”

The patrolman leaned forward.

“I'll explain later. Leave a message for me at my cousin Roxanne's. Mama has the number.”

Jane was no fool. “Gotcha. You're going undercover, aren't you?”

“Ten-four. Are you giving your father a hard time?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Keep it up.”

Dan must have threatened to bring the full wrath of the American Civil Liberties Union upon Donohue for holding two journalists investigating a story, because Stiletto and I were released
early the next morning, a Thursday, as soon as the sun rose over the ash-strewn, stripped hills of Slagville.

Not only were we let go, we weren't charged with any crimes, Stiletto got his film back and we were provided with cups of sugar-laden Dunkin' Donuts coffee and directions to the Texaco gas station three blocks away so that I could pick up my car.

Stiletto and I stepped onto the sidewalk outside the Slagville P.D., blinking under the bright blue sky and breathing in the fresh autumn air. It was one of those old-fashioned crisp fall mornings where for once the world seemed in order. The children were in school. Parents were at work. Bills were paid and houses were clean. Productivity was all around us and it was comforting to be alive.

Not comforting enough, though. It's funny how surviving a murder attempt can change your perspective on life. Yesterday, I had blithely gone shopping, packed my bags for the Passion Peak and driven to a lovers' retreat, humming Aerosmith all the way. Little did I know that I was being watched the entire time, that somewhere out there an evil maniac had been implementing a deadly plan to make that day my last on earth.

The concept was too bizarre and scary for my rather peaceful mind to grasp. I decided that, until there was more evidence, I would stick to my theory that Stinky had set us up. My mission, therefore, was to find my cousin's crazy husband and make him spill the beans.

“Something's not right,” Stiletto said, glancing around the wide tree-lined streets of Slagville. “It's off.”

“Maybe you're just feeling the aftereffects of last night. How's your head, by the way?” I reached over and touched the back of his head. The grapefruit had been reduced to an orange, although his nose remained swollen.

“Still hurts.” He gently removed my hand. “It's not my head. I mean something's out of place in this town.”

We turned onto Main Street, which ran straight up and straight down a steep hill and was lined with row homes of
varying colors—brick red, spring green, baby blue and peeling white. Because they were built on a slope, each rooftop leveled off at its neighbor's second-story window.

The screen door of every home was covered with cardboard scarecrows, witches, and ghouls. Some front windows were ornately decorated with plastic moving pumpkins or ghosts that moaned as we passed. As in the south side of Lehigh, people here did not mess around when it came to Halloween.

Men were on stepladders cleaning out gutters, or on their knees painting trim and recaulking brick. Women were inside frying onions and apples, sending mouthwatering smells from their open kitchen windows. We approached a set of padded matrons in aprons and hair nets who had paused from sweeping the spotless sidewalks to gossip. As we passed they went mum and gaped openly at Stiletto. One woman started giggling so hard her friend poked her with a broom to make her simmer down.

“Women go gaga for Steve Stiletto,” I said, as we entered the Texaco parking lot. “What's out of place?”

“Take this, for example,” he said, nodding at the red-winged horse that flew above the Texaco sign. “It's like 1963. I bet most of these people never heard of the Internet. Or computers for that matter.”

Indeed, at that moment a fresh-scrubbed attendant in a white jumpsuit stepped sprightly from the gas station. “Just adding up the morning's receipts in my ledger book,” he apologized, wiping ink off his fingertips. “What can I do you for?”

I asked for the Camaro back and did not get the fairy tale response of, “Oh, sure, it's over here. That'll be ten bucks for a spark plug.”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “We had to order a new alternator from Detroit. We don't stock parts for that model year.”

“They don't stock parts past 1935,” Stiletto whispered, as the clerk checked to see what time I could pick up the car.

“Tomorrow by noon at the earliest,” the clerk said. “Anything else?”

Stiletto requested a rental with four-wheel drive, standard shift and no top.

The attendant pointed to a beige-toned Crown Victoria LX with cruise control, automatic transmission, power windows and power steering. “It's the only one we got. You can rent stick-shift cars in Wilkes-Barre, but,” he shrugged, “how you gonna get there without no wheels?”

Logical.

Stiletto pulled me aside as the attendant, whistling a Frank Sinatra tune, skipped to the office so he could take an imprint of my Visa. Since Stiletto's wallet had perished in the explosion, he had been forced to rely on the graces of my plastic.

“I can't drive this,” he said.

“Why can't you drive it?” I ran my finger along the chrome. “It's deluxe!”

“It's an old lady's car. It's got . . . automatic transmission.”

I cupped my hands to the windows and peered inside. Overstuffed beige leather seats. Cushy arm rests. Seemed mighty darn nice to me. A welcome change from that cruddy Jeep with its worn-out shocks.

“Look,” I said, pointing. “It's got tilt-a-wheel.”

“Oh, brother.”

“Here you go, sir.” The attendant handed Stiletto a set of keys and me my Visa. “She's all gassed up and ready to roll. Enjoy!”

Stiletto managed to smear a polite smile on his face and open the door, though he cursed vehemently as the luxury car
ding-ding-dinged
to warn him that the seat belts weren't on. As I walked around the front I saw a rather large AARP sticker prominently displayed on the bumper next to AAA, the auto club. I didn't have the heart to tell him.

“That's okay, you can drop me off at Roxanne's,” I said, in an attempt to ditch him so I could get Roxanne alone. “That way you won't be bored by our girl talk. You know, babies and hot guys and stuff.” If that didn't send him screaming in the other direction, what would?

But Stiletto only replied absently, “Uh-huh.”

Roxanne's salon, the Main Mane, took up one half of Roxanne's house, a large vinyl-sided building at the end of Main Street (of course). As we got closer, I worried that perhaps my request to be dropped off hadn't registered with Stiletto, especially when he reminded me that we could stay at Roxanne's for only a few minutes.

“How come?” I asked, now praying that the backup plan I had put into motion would work.

“I've got to meet the AP reporter assigned to the story. Luckily, she's already in the area, visiting family. She grew up in Slagville.”

“She?”

“Nice kid. Esmeralda Green.”

What a name. “Sounds like a witch.”

“Some witch. She's a former model, though you probably won't recognize her face.”

“Why not?”

“She used to model underwear.”

The muscle under my right eye twinged. Stiletto grinned.

“It's how she put herself through Yale, in fact.”

It twitched again. “You're making this up.”

Stiletto pulled in front of the Main Mane and parked behind Roxanne's brand new gold Ford Explorer with its 62XS vanity plate. Stiletto killed the engine before stroking my cheek. “Don't worry, Bubbles. No one else compares to you. You're one in a million.”

“I'm not worried,” I said as flashing blue lights appeared in the rearview. “Not now.”

“What's this?” Stiletto said, rolling down the window. Chief Donohue leaned in. The Texaco attendant was by his side and my eye twitching miraculously ceased.

“Going for a little joyride?” Donohue asked.

“I'm sorry, Miss Yablonsky,” the attendant squeaked, “but I had to place a call to the Visa company. Seems your card is over the limit.”

I shut my eyes and waited for the aftershocks. In this situation Dan would have put his fist through the roof and the lecture would have been more rapid fire than an auctioneer's. How could you have not paid that bill, blah, blah, blah.

“Bubbles, I'm surprised at you,” Stiletto said in a calm voice.

I cocked open one eye. He was resting his arm along the door and there was an approving smirk on his face. “I've run across
National Enquirer
reporters with more ethics. Guess you don't pull any punches, do you?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Were you that desperate to make sure I didn't talk to Stinky's wife? First you try to put me off with threats of girl talk and then this.” Stiletto shook his head slowly. “My, my. What other tricks do you have up your fluorescent orange sleeve?”

“It's not orange,” I said. “It's apricot.”

“If you wouldn't mind returning the car, Mr. Stiletto,” Donohue said, “I'll provide an escort back.”

“Of course not, Chief,” Stiletto said, starting it up again.

I opened my side. “All's well that ends well,” I said brightly. “Why don't I wait for you here?”

“What a brilliant idea. Why didn't I think of that?” Stiletto said. “Although, since it's your credit card, shouldn't you be the one to drive back while I interview Roxanne?”

Whoops.

“Not me, babe,” I said, stepping out. “You know I can't drive automatic. I only know how to drive stick.”