Early in my career, I was paired with a guy named Harold. Harold had been an unsuccessful theater actor. In fact, he was lousy at it. After years trying to break in on Off-off-off-Broadway and failing, he'd decided to join the CIA.
Why they took him was anyone's guess. Langley was pretty picky about who they took on. We always wondered what he was doing there. Especially during training when he'd ask the torturer, "What's my motivation for this?" while tied to a chair in a basement. Two waterboardings later, he had decided he was going to play the part of a screaming, terrified toddler. Or maybe he hadn't been acting. It was fairly convincing.
Anyway, Harold and I had been assigned by Riley to just observe and report on the goings-on at a certain bar in Honduras, notable for it being the favorite watering hole of guerilla fighters. It took a whole hour to explain to Harold that guerillas weren't the same thing as gorillas after he suggested we just bring along a bunch of bananas.
"What do you think?" Harold had showed up dressed as a sheik.
"Are you crazy?" I hissed. "You are supposed to dress like they do here!"
Harold sniffed haughtily. "I am an actor." He always emphasized the end of the word, as if that was supposed to make him better at it than he was. By the way, you won't be surprised to hear that it didn't.
"No, you're not. You are a field agent, and you have to blend into the surroundings. Be invisible. Didn't you pay any attention during training at the Farm?"
I was dressed in muted, muddy tones and combat boots. My hair was stuffed under a boonie cap, and I wasn't wearing makeup. Just like the other women there. I was even drinking straight tequila. And I hated tequila.
Harold was shot exactly two minutes and fifty-seven seconds later when he ordered a Slippery Nipple cocktail and hailed one of the guerillas at the bar, speaking in an obnoxious (and most likely racist) Arabian accent, asking who he needed to talk to in order to get in on some action around here.
Fortunately, a platoon of government soldiers walked into the bar (for drinks, not because they heard the shot), gunned down the bad guys, and took Harold away on a stretcher. He survived but left the CIA soon after. I later heard he went into politics and was pretty good at it. Go figure.
The person in the hoodie was looking around as he started to climb into the dumpster, but his back was to me and I couldn't see his face. I suspected he was a man by his gait. Women and men carry themselves differently. Well, that and he adjusted his jeans at the crotch. But mostly because of the way he moved.
I didn't want him taking those bags before I knew what was up. Why? Because my spy-dy senses were tingling, and those comics seemed important. That and the fact that him wanting them made me want them even more.
"Hey!" I shouted in a gruff voice. "You! Get out of that dumpster!"
The hoodie froze, then jumped down and took off running around the front. I dashed out of the cornfield, and after a quick glance to determine that the bags were still there, I gave chase. I wasn't sure why. Maybe this guy wasn't doing anything wrong. Maybe he always suited up like a ninja to go dumpster diving in the middle of nowhere.
Nah. You didn't dress like that unless you were doing something you shouldn't be doing. I cleared the corner just in time to see the generic black SUV with dark-tinted windows roar to life and race out of the parking lot. It stirred up so much dust that I couldn't see the license plate. I followed it out onto the road. He was heading in the direction of my van. If I ran fast enough, I'd get there not long after he passed my car.
Something was rumbling toward me from the other direction. I turned to see that a garbage truck was lumbering down the road, headed my way. I was torn. Did I give chase and find out who that hoodie was? Or did I run back, grab the bags, and beat it before the garbage truck took them away?
It only took a second to decide before I ran back to the dumpster, hurled myself over the edge, tossed the bags and then myself out, and ducked into the cornfield just before the truck came around the corner of the building.
Catching the hoodie wouldn't tell me about these comics. But studying the comics might just help me figure out who was wearing the hoodie. I waited until the truck lifted the dumpster and took advantage of the distraction to run away. Lugging the bags was hard, especially when getting smacked by cornstalks. The rows were narrow. Holding one bag in front and one behind me helped, but it was still slow going because the bags were heavy.
Back at my van, panting and out of breath, I loaded the two garbage bags and backed out onto the gravel road heading back to Who's There.
My cell beeped with a "meeting reminder" text, and I glanced quickly. It made me smile. I knew just who might help me with this little mystery.
"Bird Goddess!" Stewie lifted his hands in the air dramatically, adding a foot and a half to his 5'1" frame. "You have returned to the Cult of NicoDerm!"
The Cult of NicoDerm consisted of a small band of surly teen druids who had once kidnapped me as a sacrifice. After dissuading them with threats that suggested I could literally tie their limbs into pretzels, they decided to adopt me. When they found out that I talked to a certain king vulture at the zoo, I became Bird Goddess.
The group had taken to meeting in the woods in the city park on the outskirts of town. Since most of the meetings were at night, this daytime meeting was unusual. At this point, I didn't care because the timing was perfect.
"Bird Goddess," said Kayla, Heather, and Mike in a sort of lackluster unison as they gave an almost nonexistent bow in my general direction.
"Now we can reach the spirit world!" Stewie raised his hands over his head and wriggled his fingers dramatically. They had originally looked like jazz fingers to me, but after being told I was wrong with no other explanation, I gave up.
"I am Odious the Demigod!" Stewie ranted. "And I command the dead to speak!" Then he brought his arms down to his sides. "Oh, and you owe us ten dollars for dues."
What? "Dues? You're charging the Bird Goddess dues?"
Stewie nodded.
"I'm not going to pay any dues," I said.
"Well, if she isn't going to pay it," Mike said, his Adam's apple heaving nervously, "I'm not going to."
"Me neither," Heather agreed.
"We went over this!" Stewie shrieked. "We need money for the incense that will help us contact the aliens!"
I gave him a look. "It was the spirit world a minute ago."
"I only make five dollars an hour babysitting my brother," Heather grumped. "And I need stuff."
Mike pointed at Kayla. "Why not get it all from her? She has a job."
Kayla tore off her druidy bathrobe and threw it on the ground. "If I have to pay for all of you deadbeats, I'm out of here."
"If she's gone, then I'm gone. I need stuff." Heather nodded.
"Mutiny!" Stewie thundered as he pointed at Heather. The cow skull on his head wobbled precariously. "The spirits will punish a mutiny!" His eyes bulged, and he pointed at Heather. "Tread carefully, mortal!"
I didn't have time for this. I opened my wallet and peeled off two twenties. "If I pay everyone's dues, can we call this meeting over?"
Stewie held out his hand, and I gave him the money. He stared at it then at me. "There are five of us. You're short ten."
He was expecting me to pay his dues too? I toyed with killing him. I really did. But that was probably what he wanted so that he could be one with the spirit world.
"Fine." I handed him another ten.
"Yes!" Stewie shoved the wad into his pocket. "Now we can raise the dead!"
"Which is it? The dead? Aliens? The spirit world?" Kayla scowled.
Heather agreed. "We really need to be on message. We should do, like, branding."
Kayla turned toward her. "Branding? I thought we were going to do tattoos."
"Fake ones," Mike said. "I've got sensitive skin."
Heather rolled her eyes. "Not branding. Branding! Like marketing. We could have brochures."
"And how is paying you going to help us reach…wh
oever?" Mike changed back to the original subject of dues.
"It's spiritual…" Stewie sniffed. "You wouldn't understand it. Only a dread demigod like me knows about these things."
"I want my money back!" Mike held out his hand. The girls did the same.
"First of all," I interrupted, "it's not your money. It's mine. And I'm using it to pay for a moment of your time, alright?"
"Okay," Mike said. "But we want receipts!"
He wanted receipts for the money I'd paid. Seriously, you couldn't make this stuff up.
"Why do we want receipts?" Heather asked.
Mike shrugged. "I don't know. Whenever Dad sends me out for groceries or gas, he says I need to 'get a goddamned receipt.' So it must be important."
Stewie's face fell as he pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and pouted in my direction. "You're not here to participate?"
I shook my head. "Another time, perhaps. Right now, I need your expertise."
The short, fat redhead brightened at the thought that somebody considered him an expert at something other than using incense to reach the spirit world. I wondered if it was wise to encourage him in any way.
The kids sat down, and I handed Stewie the comic book. "I need to know what this is."
"It's a comic book," Stewie said.
"Yeah, I know that. And I didn't just give you fifty dollars to tell me that. What I need to know is, is it important?"
Mike, Heather, and Kayla crowded around Stewie. Their eyes grew wide.
"Oh my Lord of Destruction and Pain! It's the first Beetle Dork comic!" Stewie held the comic to his chest.
"Beetle Dork?" I asked. "Is he supposed to be a superhero?" I probably should've read the comic. I was now more than a little bit curious about a comic featuring someone called Beetle Dork.
"That's impossible. It wasn't supposed to come out for another two weeks!" Mike snatched it away.
"Hey!" Stewie grabbed it back. "It's a number one in mint condition! I need to put it into a mylar bag!"
"We get to read it first!" Heather scolded.
"Yeah! You don't get all the money and the comic!" Kayla said.
"No one can read it!" Stewie closed his eyes in a sort of dream state. "You can't even open it! It loses value the minute you crease the cover!"
That was interesting. "So it's valuable?"
"Where did you get it?" Stewie asked.
"She really is magical!" Heather gave me a weird curtsy.
"So," I repeated, my voice like ice, "it's valuable?"
Mike rolled his eyes. "Well, duh! Nobody has seen this yet! Nobody!"
"How do you know about it?"
"Um, we go to comic cons like all the time!" Heather rolled her eyes. "We're networking with other druids there."
"Yeah," Kayla snickered. "We're not losers!"
That seemed debatable at this point.
"We need to do branding and junk," Heather clarified.
Stewie nodded. "It's important to network with one's professional peers. We're thinking of hosting a Druid Fest in the fall."
I was getting annoyed and hoped it showed on my face. "Can you please just tell me what's going on?"
The four started whispering to each other.
Stewie spoke up. "We're not going to tell you anything until you tell us how you got it."
My head nearly exploded. First I had to pay for everyone's dues, and now they were holding information hostage?
"Look," I started. "If you tell me, I can get each of you your own copy. Hell, I'll give you each two so that you can put one in a mylar sack."
"Bag." Stewie rolled his eyes as he corrected me.
"Whatever." I took a few steps and snatched the comic from their hands. They groped in the air, but I held it over my head.
Stewie's face was contorted as if he was in pain. "Yes! Yes! We'll tell you about it! Just don't crease it! The second the inside pages are exposed to air, the book loses value!"
"Okay." I pulled it to my chest. "What's so special about this comic book?"
The chubby druid relaxed. "Well, for one thing, nobody knows who the artist or author is."
"What do you mean?" I looked at the book. "It says right here, 'B.E. Nuff.'"
Riotous laughter that I did not appreciate broke out.
"That's a pen name!" Stewie said. "It means Be Enough. Everyone knows that!"
The others nodded.
"So what?" My patience was wearing thin.
"Well," Heather said, "the rumor out there is that B.E. Nuff created the comic and then destroyed all copies when it was printed!"
"To make it extra rare," Kayla said.
Mike disagreed. "Because art!"
"I don't care," I said. "It doesn't look like much to me…" Granted, I hadn't really looked at it. I opened the cover, and what I saw on the first page made me blanch.
"Um, I've gotta go," I said hastily.
"The comic!" The kids reached out, their hands grasping.
"I'll bring you your copies!" I said as I ran away. I climbed into the van and drove to the grocery store parking lot, parking the car as I hyperventilated.
There was something in that comic that was never meant to be seen. I wasn't going to keep my promise to the teenagers because I was going to destroy all these comics myself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
My mind was racing as I sat there. What was happening? How was this possible? I opened the comic, and there, in all her glory, was Beetle Dork. And she looked just like me in that bar in Honduras, except for the eye mask with beetle antennae and the giant BD on her chest. In fact, Harold was in the first frame, dressed as an Arab while he gunned down guerillas.
Harold was B.E. Nuff. And he'd come out of the CIA closet, so to speak. I added him to the list of people I now wanted to kill as my cell went off. To my complete surprise, it was Dr. Wulf from Obladi Zoo.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Merry." Dr. Wolf motioned for me to take a seat. "We have a problem with the king vulture."
"Mr. Fancy Pants," I said.
The zoo director chewed her lip. "Yes, that's right. Mister…um, Fancy Pants."
"Is he okay?" I leaned forward.
"Well, he's out of sorts," she said. "Lately, he won't eat, and he isn't relating to Dickie, the scarlet macaw."
"He relates to Dickie?" I asked. "You want him to relate to Dickie?"
Dickie was an extremely annoying scarlet macaw who talked all the time when I was there at night. During the day, he was dead silent. But at night he could chatter like a magpie on speed. And most of his chatter repeated the obnoxious complaints of the despondent teenager who cleaned the place at night and talked to himself.
"We put Dickie there specifically for Mr. Fancy Pants. They're both large birds, and we thought them compatible. But lately, the vulture isn't responding to him. He seems upset."
"Or lonely?" I felt instantly guilty. I hadn't been to see my friend in a long time. He was addicted to Girl Scout cookies, mainly shortbread. I had a secret key, and I usually visited him in the middle of the night. But things had been so crazy this summer that I'd barely had time to see him.
The zoo director gave me a curious look. "What do you mean?"
I could hardly tell her I was breaking in.
"My troop has been considering a project to bring a girl vulture here to the zoo—for Mr. Fancy Pants. Like a girlfriend."
The zoo director considered this. "He's only on loan from the Smithsonian, you know. I'd have to discuss this with them first."
"What can we do to help?" I asked. "I have ten little girls I can mobilize to get this done."
And they could call out the National Guard, Basque Separatists, and the unholy wrath of the Girl Scouts.
"It won't be that easy, I'm afraid." Dr. Wulf looked sad. "It's more likely that they'd say no and ask for him back."
"Oh no! They can't do that!" I jumped to my feet. "What would I…I mean what would the children who visit do without him?" I sat back down and pasted on a smile to hope
fully demonstrate that I wasn't crazy.
"Let me think about it," she said. "But if he doesn't pep up soon, we may have a serious problem on our hands."
I agreed, but there was something I could do to help. I just needed to wait until the zoo closed.
"Why did you call me? Why not a veterinarian or a vulture expert from South America?"
Dr. Wulf shook her head. "We brought in a veterinarian, and they couldn't find anything physically wrong with him. And we can't afford to fly in an expert from South America."
I whipped out my checkbook. "I can. How much do you need?"
She waved me off. "I called you because I thought maybe you could see him after hours. Maybe he's just missing you."
After hours? This was a delicate dance. Did I act aghast that she thought I could get in after hours, or did I tell her I had a key?
"I know you have your methods, Merry." Dr. Wulf gave a thin smile. "Of course, normally we would never encourage members of the public to break into the zoo and visit the animals, but Mr. Fancy Pants seems so much happier when you do."
"How did you find out?" I blurted.
She stifled a smile. "Dickie repeats what you've said to the keeper the next morning. She makes transcripts. They make for fascinating reading, I must say."
From now on, Mr. Fancy Pants and I were only going to talk in code. I had no idea how I'd achieve that, but that traitor Dickie wasn't going to repeat one more thing I said.
"Ok." Her admission took the wind out of my sails a bit. "I'll, um, visit tonight."
As I walked out to the car, my head was spinning. Mr. Fancy Pants was ill? That was unexpected on a day when so much unexpected had happened already. Guilt gutted me as I sat in my car. I'd failed a king vulture. I'd let him down. That took all priority over the comics and Ron and Ivan. I'd known Mr. Fancy Pants for a few years now. I owed it to him to break into the zoo and give him Girl Scout cookies.
My cell buzzed, and at the same time, my stomach rumbled. I'd missed lunch.
It was Hilly!
I scrambled to answer it, nearly dropping the phone in between the seat and the console. "Hilly! Where have you been? We need to talk right now!"
Macho Man Murder Page 10
