Small Town Taxi (Honey Walker Adventures Book 1)

by Harriet Rogers

  When I had explained the night before, Lucille scowled and said he would have to be awfully good in the sack to overcome his drawbacks. I thought about that and decided Jon had enough good attributes to overcome any drawbacks he might have in the romance department.

  The result was that I was in Jon’s house, on Jon’s oversized sofa, watching football on Jon’s huge TV and admiring more male butts two days later.

  When the score was lopsided enough to stop watching, Jon picked up the pizza box and beer bottles. I grabbed the dirty paper towels and followed him to the kitchen. After depositing the garbage on the counter, he turned around. The towels fluttered to the floor.

  We made our way backward, kissing and groping, to the bedroom. My pulse rate was higher than when Susan had held a gun to my head. I guess that sums up Jon’s effect on me pretty well. We stumbled through the bedroom door and were rolling around on the bed when bells started ringing.

  The earth might have been moving, too, but it wasn’t Jon’s technique ringing the bells. There are a handful of people who always answer their cell phones. Doctors, firefighters, police, moms. And, unfortunately, Cool Rides taxi drivers. Our phones were screaming for attention separately, together.

  We both punched our phones open. We both heard “Get your ass in here now.”

  

  Three hours later I staggered into Jon’s house. It felt like I had transported the entire Smith College field hockey team home. Oh yeah, because I had. Their bus had broken down and Cool Rides had to send its entire fleet of cars to gather them up and bring them across the river. But the tip had been enormous and Cool Rides now had an in with the person at the College who arranged special transportation. That was good networking and I felt like I had helped my company with a step up the transport ladder.

  I tossed my keys onto the counter. There was a large gift box lying there with a pink bow and a card. Of course, I had to read the card. Maybe it was for me. How would I know if I didn’t read it?

  “Good luck!” It read. No name, no signature. It might have been for me. Just as I was thinking about opening it, Jon walked in.

  “Where did that come from?” He eyed the box.

  “I don’t know. I just got here. It was on the counter when I walked in.” I put my hand out to pull the bow.

  “No, wait,” said Jon. “You didn’t bring it, and I sure as hell didn’t leave it here.” He circled it. “Did you touch it?” He looked at me.

  “I read the card.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Good luck.”

  “I’m calling the bomb squad.” Jon pulled out his phone. “Too much stuff has happened in the last three days. If Scarpelli isn’t feeling like revenge, Susan sure as hell is. And I don’t know what kind of contacts she has.”

  I backed up a few steps while Jon punched numbers into his phone. “No sirens,” he said as he ended the conversation. “Why wake up the neighborhood?” he grumbled. “Let’s go outside and wait.”

  Five minutes later a big truck lumbered up and three men in space suits jumped out. A squad car with two more uniforms followed. Jon pointed over his shoulder at the house.

  “It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  The first space suit through the door left it open, so of course we had to watch, from a substantial distance. They approached the box from three sides, passed a variety of gizmos over it and around it. They pushed it gently with a short rod and finally lifted it with a pair of long metal tongs and headed for the door. Nothing happened. We backed up as the space suit walked, gingerly, to the controlled environment next to the truck. He deposited the box on the metal table. Space suit two slipped a rod under the box lid. He flipped it backward to reveal the tissue paper within. He slowly pushed back the fluffy pinkness and raised it to reveal something very small. The one with the tongs snatched the object inside the box and held it aloft for all of us to consider. Should we run for cover? It was pink, silky, slinky and barely there. The space suit was holding a thong in one hand and dangling a matching teddy on the end of the rod. I could feel the grins starting. As one, they flipped back their helmets, their gazes left the box and they focused on Lieutenant Jon Stevens.

  “Guess we can leave this for you, Lieutenant, sweetie. It looks a little small, though.” The one who had opened the box slid off his space helmet.

  “We don’t get this good a call very often. Thanks, handsome.” He addressed this to Jon whose face had shut down into a blank expression. The suit put the offending clothing back, and one of the uniforms came over and picked up the box and bows. He strolled slowly over to Jon and made a show of handing it over, tissue, bow and contents. The suits and uniforms returned to their vehicles. I could hear giggling.

  “Who the hell would send me that?” Jon growled, stepping back into the hallway.

  I was wondering the same thing when Lucille stuck her head in the doorway and sang out, “Is everyone okay, Jonny?”

  Ah, the light dawns. The bomb squad pulled away from the curb and made its dignified and slow trip, followed by the uniforms in their patrol cars, down the street. Life on Lincoln Avenue would resume its sedate pace. Jon would eventually live down the incident at cop central, but it would take some time.

  “I hope the gift works for you. I got one like it and it was just what I needed.” Lucille smiled her angelic best.

  Jon grunted and closed the door in her face.

  He walked over with the now-infamous box. He lifted the offending garments out and held them up. He turned around and looked at me.

  “Put it on,” he ordered.

  It took me ten minutes to strip, fluff my hair, slip into the barely-there outfit and slide on the four-inch spike-heeled, open-toe, silver sequined slut shoes that I had in my big bag.

  It took Jon ten seconds to take it off me. He left the slut shoes in place.

  Read on for an excerpt

  from Honey Walker’s next adventure:

  Sky High Taxi

  by

  Harriet Rogers

  Chapter One

  “Gak!” I shrieked when a body launched headfirst through the window of my cab. It was the passenger side and he would have been my first fare of the day if he had chosen to enter feet first. Now there appeared to be a bullet hole in him and I wasn’t sure about his life status. My name is Honey Walker. I drive for Cool Rides Taxi in Northampton, Massachusetts. Questionable bodies are not an everyday event.

  I was planning to run him to the Amtrak station in Springfield, twenty minutes south of town. He had a paper bag, a bad haircut, paste white skin and clothes that didn’t fit. A red jacket with Bill’s Bar BQ and Tropical Fish embroidered across the front was loose over a stained white tee shirt. His pants were electric blue with a gold stripe. They were held up with a scarred leather belt with an off kilter cheap chrome buckle. The outfit screamed Goodwill. I wondered if he had chosen the red, white and blue color scheme or if it was just at the top of the free box. He leaned forward to say something. I heard a loud pop; he flopped through the open window and my brain recognized the sound as a gunshot.

  A cabbie’s job is to deliver the client safely, collect the fare money and, hopefully, a tip. Since I hadn’t delivered and he hadn’t paid, I was 0 for 2—3 if you consider the tip. I heard another gunshot and a paint chip flew off the hood of my cab. I grabbed the top half of the passenger by his frayed collar and mashed my right foot to the floor. The cab rocketed forward with the bottom half of the passenger flapping like a demented flag. The safest place I could think of was around the corner. I tightened my grip to finger numbing white, flew through a stop sign and screeched to a halt in front of the police station. It’s a small town.

  Two cops standing in front of the station grabbed their radios when they saw my cab with the bottom half of a limp body hanging out the window. The blood dripping down the side of the cab might have affected their reaction time. One cop pried my fingers off the fare’s jacket as an ambulance rolled around the corner.
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br />   The EMT jumped out, put a finger to my fare’s now even whiter throat and yelled, “I got a pulse!”

  The ambulance went into full scream mode and screeched off with my fare. The other cop removed my white knuckles from the steering wheel. My heart was hammering, and I was gulping air like a beached goldfish.

  In milliseconds I was inside cop central, in an interrogation room. My fare was on his way to the hospital or the morgue. I didn’t know which.

  The cops seized my taxi. The contents of the almost passenger’s paper bag had scattered across the front seat. Lots of prescription pill bottles. He must have had some serious health issues. Now they were either more serious or didn’t exist at all.

  I sat for at least a million hours waiting for someone to use the interrogation room to interrogate me. There were a few donut crumbs and paper cups on the table. It was obvious what they usually used it for.

  When a cop finally came through the door, it was Jon. Police Lieutenant Jon Stevens is a close personal friend. Really, really close. He didn’t look happy and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because his sex life was lacking.

  “We need to talk.” He leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. He frowned at me. Even unhappy, all six feet of him looked outrageously good. He also looked very much in charge. Right now, that meant in charge of me. I’m not good at authority stuff. When pushed, I tend to push back. Jon looked ready to push. He also looked ready to pull his hair out in frustration.

  Jon is six inches taller than me and too good-looking for his own good—or for mine. His dark blue eyes can turn from deep pools of seduction to cop flat way too fast. Lately he’s been in a good mood because the city built a new police station. The old building, often referred to as a rat maze, is being turned into a parking garage. So Jon’s big blue eyes have been more involved in seduction and less in cop mode. That’s good for me.

  At five foot six inches with curly blond hair, blue eyes and a cute turned-up nose, I’m the all-American girl next door. That is, if you live in the fifties and next door to Ozzie and Harriet.

  “All you do is drive a taxi, for Christ’s sake! How do all these bodies find you?”

  “At least I delivered it to your door. And speaking of ‘it,’ did ‘it’ go to the hospital or the morgue?” My heart rate finally slowed to that of a hummingbird. I could talk instead of babble. I was sitting on my hands because they were shaking, and I didn’t want Jon to see them.

  “Hospital. Last I heard he’s getting bullets removed from his body.”

  “So, you have some forensic evidence. All those pill bottles must tell you something. And the blood? Maybe you could wash it off my car before I take it back to the Cool Rides garage. Mona’s gonna be pissed. And I didn’t get paid and there might be a dent on the hood of the car. I am so toast.”

  Mona is our dispatcher and general guardian of the cars.

  “Uh huh. You ever pick him up before? Where were you taking him?”

  “No, and to the Springfield Amtrak.”

  “You pick up a lot of people. Any idea where he was headed on the train?”

  “No, and him, I would remember. His haircut was bad, his clothes didn’t fit, and he looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in a long time.”

  “He hadn’t. He just got out of county.”

  “County? As in jail county?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Then I would guess you knew I hadn’t picked him up before.”

  “Yup.”

  “You are such a cop.” I didn’t use the word as a compliment. Jon didn’t take the bait. But my hands were finally steady.

  “Yup.”

  “So, can I have my car back?”

  “Yeah. We took the bag and bottles and some blood samples. You can run it through the car wash.” He grinned. “Good luck with Mona.”

  Jon knew the Cool Rides staff and he knew Mona would notice the ding in the hood no matter how clean I got the car. And she would be livid.

  I snuck the car back to the garage, snatched the hose and scrubbed every inch clean. The missing paint chip on the hood stood out like a zit on a teenager’s nose. I knew it would be fixed by the next day. Willie, the majority owner of Cool Rides, and Mona kept the cars immaculate.

  I was getting ready to face the wrath of Mona when my cell rang.

  “Lucille to the senior center.” It was Mona. She was too busy to come out of the office.

  “Okay. I’m on it.” I rolled the hose back, hopped in the car and flew out of the parking lot. I was happy to put off the inevitable disapproval when Mona saw the tiny little almost non-existent bullet bing in the hood. I’m good at postponing confrontation. Jon would tell Willie anyway. Why aggravate anyone sooner?

  When I got to Lucille’s house, she was busy. But I smelled fresh-baked cookies, so I didn’t mind.

  I sat at the kitchen table and watched as Lucille tucked a curl of grey hair behind her ear. She pushed an arthritic finger around her kitchen junk drawer, rummaging through cracked rubber bands, unbent paper clips, dried-out stamps, a 9mm Glock, ammunition and silencer. She stroked the barrel of the Glock, expertly attached the silencer, shoved bullets into the handle grip and chambered a round. I bit into a chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookie, closing my eyes in bliss.

  Lucille padded to the window. A rabbit hopped across the lawn. It twitched a tiny pink nose, sniffing for danger, and inched toward the garden. Lucille opened the window silently and steadied her hand on the sill. I glanced at the cookies on the plate in front of me and watched the rabbit lift its white cottontail. It left a brown pearl of excrement on the lawn. An incriminating piece of lettuce hung from its mouth. Visions of blood-drenched vegetables danced in my head. I decided not to eat lettuce if Lucille ever offered it and took another cookie off the plate. Chocolate chip walnut.

  “Lucille?”

  “Shh.”

  “Lucille! Don’t…”

  “Shh!” She repeated with the authority of age and experience.

  I took a bite of cookie.

  There was a loud pop and a chunk of grass and dirt exploded an inch from rabbit stew. The brown fluff launched itself straight up and hit the grass like a ground ball drilling through the center fielder’s stomach. It didn’t stop running until it was three houses down.

  “Oh, good.” Lucille removed the silencer. “That’s Marion’s yard. She loves animals. It’s never good to disturb the neighbors.” She smiled, popped the ammo out and returned gun, bullets, and silencer to the drawer. “So, what do you think?” She gestured at the cookie that was halfway to my mouth.

  “You missed,” I gurgled.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “The rabbit.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to kill the misguided creature.” She looked indignant and swished her flower-print dress as she turned to me. “And I never miss.” She sighed. “Will the cookies help me get lucky with the new geezer wheezer at the senior center? And just to be clear, torturing old ladies is that rabbit’s favorite pastime.”

  “He’s gay,” I stated.

  “The rabbit? And how would you know?”

  “The Senior Center,” I replied calmly.

  “Honey, dear, you aren’t keeping up, unless you’re talking about the rabbit, and I wouldn’t know about his orientation. We’ve had several new arrivals and I need to stake my claim soon or that awful Henrietta will scoop them up. Now focus. The cookies?”

  My conversations with Lucille were rarely focused and usually disjointed. I was trying to think in a straight line. Lucille preferred triangles, stars, hexagons or anything that gave her brain lots of room to wander.

  We first met when I drove her to the airport on her way to scatter her husband’s ashes. Most of him made it through security and onto the airplane. There was a leak in the box and a little bit of him ended up in the giant ride-around airport vacuum. Some went up the nose of a drug-sniffing beagle. But that was months ago. Lucille was ready to move on with her love life.
She looks like Betty White and acts like Clint Eastwood. Sometimes she seems a little vague, but I happen to know she has a steel-trap mind and is a great shot with a big gun. Rumor has it she used to work for the FBI.

  Lucille pays the fare in cash, but she tips in homemade cookies. The object of her cookies and her affection is any unattached male over the age of sixty who knows that oral sex is a two-way street. She lives in a two-family Victorian side by side. Her landlord, who lives on the other side, is the same police Lieutenant Jon Stevens from my recent interview at the cop house.

  Lucille rarely worries about who’s in charge of her relationships since it is always her. I don’t have the same luxury. Jon is an authoritative kind of guy and I’m an anti-authoritative kind of woman.

  Lucille tossed her handbag onto the counter. It landed with an ominous thud. “Let’s make sure I have everything we need.”

  Using the pronoun “we” allowed her to add to the bag’s contents. She rooted around in the cavernous interior, pulling out two paperbacks. One looked like a steamy romance. The other was a copy of War and Peace.

  “Excellent examples of fine literature. I never know what kind of mood I might be in.” She held up the heavier book. “I’ve been trying to get through this since I was in high school.”

  She fished out lipstick, a nail file, and a box of condoms, followed by a purple vibrator.

  “Oh, I sincerely hope I need those,” she said, pointing to the condoms. “But not that.” She slid the vibrator into the kitchen drawer next to the Glock. I had a brief mental image of the Glock with a condom stretched snugly over the muzzle.

  She pulled out a Swiss army knife with more attachments than my email. “Not for bridge.” She tossed it back to the junk drawer. “Hmm.” She held up dental floss.