by Shari Hearn
A few of the men standing around laughed. Another guy holding a pool cue hooted. “What the hell was that?”
Mitch whipped around, staring at the space above me.
“’Scuse me!” I screamed. He looked down at me, fuming, unable to yell at an old woman in a wheelchair. Old age had at least one advantage.
I zipped a few feet deeper into the place and scanned the patrons. At a table next to the bar sat Fred Barbaret, the Yankee hater and the man I suspected of being the bomber, deep in discussion with another man seated next to him. I eased my chair into the empty space next to Fred and held my hand up, trying to signal the bartender. Whether he purposely ignored me or I was invisible to him, either way I wasn’t getting served. And if I had to sit in this place while waiting for Fred to spill out any information, I would need at least one drink.
I grabbed the cane sitting across my lap and banged it against the bar.
“Hey!” I yelled in that annoying way of Cookie’s. “Who do I have to smack to get a drink?”
The bartender looked over the bar and down at me. His lips lifted a bit in a phony smile. “Your usual, Cookie?”
“What?” I screamed.
“Your usual?” he yelled. “Fuzzy Navel?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t checked it this morning,” I yelled. “But I wouldn’t be surprised. I always find something hidin’ in there.”
The bartender held up his hand to stop me. “Coming right up!” he yelled.
Fred and his friend glanced at me, annoyed. I pointed to the empty space at their table. “That seat taken?”
“Yes,” Fred’s friend said.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, driving the couple feet over to the table.
“Should we move?” the friend asked.
Fred shook his head. “She can’t hear a thing. Watch.” He turned to me and said in a normal voice, “Hey, you old witch.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“See?” He looked back at me, and in a louder voice, said, “I was just giving my friend a demonstration.”
“Menstruation?” I screamed “I haven’t had a period in over fifty years! What kind of a question is that to ask a lady?”
Fred gave me a dismissive wave of his hand and turned his focus back on his friend. The bartender came to my table and set a nasty-looking orange juice cocktail in front of me.
“Choke on it, you old biddy,” he said under his breath.
I took a sip of the Fuzzy Navel from the straw. The bartender went light on the alcohol, no surprise there.
For the next twenty minutes all Fred and his buddy, who Fred called “Rod,” talked about was construction materials. A big snore. Until talk turned to some copper tubing missing from a construction site in neighboring Mudbug. Copper tubing an importer to China paid handsomely for.
“Are you sure they can’t trace the theft to us?” Rod asked Fred.
“Would you stop worrying? I told you I established an alibi. I made an appearance at the rec center. Some fake funeral was going on. I stood in line and ended up in some old guy’s selfie. Everybody’ll just assume I was there the whole time.”
Rod grabbed Fred’s shoulder. “A funeral?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is there was a bomb planted in the old lady’s casket.” Rod tossed back a shot of something and signaled the bartender, holding up the glass. “The sheriff’s department might talk to you about it since you were there.”
“Perfect,” Fred said, laughing. “He’ll help establish my alibi. I was at the funeral, not hauling butt with a load full of copper from Mudbug.”
My shoulders drooped, and with them, my hopes. If what Fred said was true, then he wasn’t the guy on the bench. I didn’t need to steal one of his glasses to lift a print. In fact, I didn’t need to stay in the Swamp Bar any longer. I took several more sips of my drink, set the glass on the table, and backed up the wheelchair.
“Sayonara, boys,” I said loudly to Fred and Rod. “You can finish it if you want.”
Rod grabbed my drink and chugged it as I pulled away from the table and made my way through the crowd.
“What the hell, girl, where you goin’?”
I stopped the chair and looked to my right, where an old man sat at a table, grinning as if he swallowed the cat that swallowed the canary.
Five-foot five if he were standing. Ears about half the size of his head. Wearing a brown, velvet jogging suit with a thick gold chain hanging from his neck. A red fedora topping his head. One hundred if he’s a day. Threat level: High, but only in his mind.
“I’ve been watching you, Cookie,” he said loudly. “Waiting to see if you’d notice me. Why didn’t you call and say Delphine was bringing you here tonight?”
“Huh?” was all I could think to shout.
He pulled himself up from his chair with the help of his cane, grimacing. He then held his hand out to me. “It’s our song. Dance with me, woman.”
Oh, crap. I just realized Cookie didn’t go to the Swamp Bar to get drunk. She went to get lucky with this guy.
He moved over to me and grabbed onto my arms, trying to pull me up from the chair. I didn’t want to call attention to myself and resist. So I slowly got up from my chair and took his cold, bony hand and together we hobbled to the dance floor, me throwing in a few arthritic grunts for good measure. He was stronger than he looked, and when we settled on a dance spot, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.
“The second I saw you I took my pill,” he yelled into my ear. “Little Marty should be good to go in ten minutes.” He winked.
Little Marty? In all my years as a CIA assassin, I’d never had to get intimate with a man in order to protect a cover. I wasn’t going to start with Methuselah here.
“Can’t, I’m a little gassy tonight,” I said into his hairy ear. True. What with the four bowls of cabbage soup and the Fuzzy Navel at war in my stomach, I’d be lucky if I didn’t blast my way back to Sinful.
He laughed. “I’ll say you’re sassy.”
“No!” I shouted. “I’m gassy!”
Several dance couples moved away from us.
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “My camper’s parked out back.”
“What about my daughter?” I screamed, grasping at excuses.
“She always waits in the van reading,” he screamed. An odd smile formed on his face, quickly turning into a confused expression. “What’s wrong? You normally like it when I squeeze your peaches,” he said, casting his gaze lower on my body.
I looked down to find his hand cupping one of my fake breasts. I couldn’t feel a thing. Thank God.
He then stopped dancing, a look of fury crossing his face. “Is there another man?”
“Yes, there is,” said a voice from behind.
I could tell the voice was faked, trying to sound deeper and masculine. I turned around to find Gertie wearing a long black coat, black bowler hat, and a fake black mustache and matching thick black eyebrows. Holding a cane.
Charlie Chaplin?
“We have an unexpected problem,” she whispered in my ear.
“Who the hell are you?” Old Marty shouted at Gertie.
“We have to go,” Gertie said.
She scooted me back over to the wheelchair and pushed me down into it. Old Marty hobbled over and whacked her in the butt with his cane.
“Ow!”
“Let her go!” he screamed.
I lifted myself to her ear level and whispered, “What’s going on?”
“Delphine’s van just pulled into the lot,” she whispered back. “The real Cookie’s here. And she’s hopping mad. One of the regulars must have seen you here but didn’t see Delphine’s van out front and called Delphine to find out what was going on.”
Old Marty shoved Gertie aside with his cane.
“Cookie, honey, what’s going on?”
At that moment the door to the Swamp Bar burst open. The bouncer came through first and held th
e door wide for Cookie, who zoomed past him in her wheelchair.
“Where is she!” she screamed, waving her cane.
The chatter stopped. Soon, the music died as well. These people knew a good spectacle when they saw one, and no one wanted to miss it.
As the Red Sea did for Moses, the crowd parted, creating a clear path between Cookie and me.
“She’s an imposter!” Cookie shouted, pointing her cane at me. “Let go of my man!”
Knowing that the best defense is a good offense, I pointed my cane back at her and yelled in my best Cookie voice, “She’s the imposter!”
A collective gasp erupted from the crowd. I bet they had never paid this much attention to a senior citizen in their lives. But they knew a good fight when they saw it, and it didn’t matter that the principle players were over a hundred.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man collecting money, taking bets on who would come out the victor.
“Okay, I think we should just calm down now,” Gertie said, deepening her voice.
“What?” Cookie said.
“Calm down!” a group of people near her screamed.
“Hell no!” Cookie yelled. She pushed the speed stick on her wheelchair forward, racing toward me.
I backed up and made a sharp right. “Outta my way!” I screamed, still maintaining my cover as Cookie. People dove aside in order to avoid getting hit as I barreled on through, knocking away chairs and tables. But it all slowed me down.
“Where is she?” Cookie hollered from behind a crowd of bar patrons, who again parted so Cookie had a clear path toward me.
We were now a few feet apart. Cookie pushed the accelerator stick and bumped into me, sending me and my chair sailing into a table. She came at me again, this time stopping a couple feet away from me. She picked up her cane and swung it at me like a sword.
I didn’t care if she was a hundred; I had a right to defend myself. I grabbed my cane and held it up, blocking her swings.
“Now, Cookie, you put that down!” Gertie shouted.
Gertie’s cries served to distract Cookie, giving me an opportunity to knock some chairs out of the way, clearing a path for me around the pool table. I looked back and saw Gertie charging in my direction, with Cookie on her heels. Cookie had an evil look on her face as she stuck her cane down at Gertie’s feet, causing Gertie to trip and fall into the pool table.
Cookie lifted her cane and swung it into Gertie’s butt.
I popped the wheelie of my life, turned my chair around and charged straight for Cookie.
“No! Get out! Save yourself!” Gertie yelled at me.
I grabbed an abandoned glass of beer from a nearby table. “Hey, Cookie!”
She looked over at me and I emptied the glass into her face.
“Run!” I yelled at Gertie.
I popped another wheelie, spinning myself in the direction of the exit. Gertie ran past me and out the door. I was hot on her heels.
“Come back here!” Cookie yelled.
I zoomed out the door and down the wheelchair ramp into the dirt parking lot. Several cars away I saw Delphine, sitting in her mobility scooter alongside her van, her face full of confusion as Gertie, her mustache hanging down at one end on her face, raced past her.
Delphine spotted me. “Mama?”
Oh, crap.
I pushed my accelerator stick as far as it could go and hauled butt across the lot toward the back end, where Ida Belle had parked her van.
“Mama! Come back here!” Delphine yelled to me, thinking I was Cookie.
Delphine pushed her scooter to its limits and raced alongside me. “Mama! You come back here,” she screamed, trying to pull my hand away from my accelerator stick.
“Stop her!” screamed Cookie, who had just exited the bar. “That’s not me!”
Delphine looked behind at Cookie. “Mama?” Then back at me. Evil overtook her face. I could finally see the family resemblance. She took a hard left, bumping my wheelchair with her scooter. I spun around, facing an advancing Cookie who charged toward me, waving her cane with one hand.
Headlights hit us. It was Ida Belle. Time to abandon my cover. I leapt out of the chair and ran for the side of the van.
“Unlock the door!” I yelled.
The door unlocked and I swung it open. As I hoisted the upper half of my body inside, Cookie’s cane slammed into my back. A hand grabbed my foot. I turned and saw Delphine in her scooter, her hands clamped on my shoe, trying to yank me out of the van. She grunted and gave it her all, ripping the shoe off my foot.
I was free.
I grabbed onto the armrest and dragged myself further into the van. “Gun it!” I yelled to Ida Belle.
The van jerked forward, away from Cookie and Delphine. Ida Belle then swung it around, wide enough to avoid mother and daughter and skirted past them. Delphine threw my shoe at our fleeing van, knocking me in the side of my head and causing my prosthetic ear to slip. I closed the side door and scrambled into a seat.
We didn’t speak a word until we were off the dirt road and onto the highway.
Ida Belle whistled. “Another fun night at the Swamp Bar.”
“And it didn’t need to happen,” I said, trying to readjust my latex old-person ear. I finally gave up and left it flapping against my face. “I overheard Fred telling one of his goon friends he came to Gertie’s funeral in order to establish an alibi. He was in Mudbug stealing some copper wiring to sell to China just after the funeral started. No way could he have been the bomber.”
Gertie turned in her seat to face me, her mustache still dangling over the side of her face, her bowler smashed on top. “Meaning we’re still at square one.”
I nodded.
We needed another suspect.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We returned the borrowed van and drove to my house in Gertie’s ancient Cadillac, ready to plan our next move. Removing latex and washing the remnants of Cookie from my body and psyche topped the list. At least we didn’t have to break back into Delphine and Cookie’s shed to return the stolen backup wheelchair, as I’d left it back at the Swamp Bar. No doubt Cookie would recognize it as her own.
“You both have overnight bags in Gertie’s trunk, don’t you?” I asked as we headed up my walkway.
“Sure. We never know when one of our outings will land us in jail,” Gertie said. “Why do you ask?”
“Because she wants us to spend the night here,” Ida Belle said.
“You think whoever put the bomb in my casket is going to try to get at me again?”
“I have no idea. But I’d feel better if we were all together.” I stopped halfway up the walk and held out my hand, stopping Gertie and Ida Belle. If I wasn’t mistaken, someone was sitting on the swing of my darkened porch. “Weapons ready, ladies,” I whispered, jerking my head toward the figure.
I reached inside the waistband of my old-lady pants and pulled out my Glock. Ida Belle did the same. Gertie retrieved her pistol from her purse. I motioned to Gertie to come up from the right, then signaled Ida Belle to hang to the left. I planned to meet the intruder head on.
Slowly we advanced.
The darkened outline stood. “What the hell?”
It was Carter.
We stopped our advance and shoved our weapons back where they came from as Carter stepped out of the darkened porch and onto the walkway.
“Were you three going to shoot me?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
He shook his head. “For a minute there I thought I was stuck in one of those old reruns of Charlie’s Angels my mom watches.”
“I want to be Kelley,” Gertie said, raising her hand. “Ida Belle, you be Sabrina, and Fortune can be Jill. You can be our Charlie, Carter.”
Carter’s gaze fell on me. His jaw dropped. “Fortune?” He blinked several times. “Why are you dressed up like that?”
“Dressed up?” Yes, really lame. All that cabbage I ate today must have seeped into my brain. I couldn’t think.
“Except for the droopy ear and… that thing coming out of your stomach… you look like Cookie.”
I looked down. One of my prosthetic boobs had dropped even lower. I grabbed onto it and hoisted it back up. Somehow the saggy boob now pointed upward toward the Moon, but that was the least of my concerns at the moment.
He looked at Gertie, still wearing her trench coat, smashed bowler and dangling fake mustache. “I’m not even going to ask.”
“We’ve been busted, ladies,” Gertie said, trying to secure her mustache back over her lips. “We wanted to surprise you, Carter.”
“Surprise me? Oh, that I definitely am.”
“Yes, with a blue ribbon at tonight’s costume contest at the Swamp Bar.”
“I didn’t know the Swamp Bar had a costume contest tonight.”
Finally my brain cells overcame the cabbage. “And that’s what we found out when we went there.”
“Imagine our embarrassment,” Ida Belle said. “I’m just glad I decided not to dress up tonight.”
Carter nodded and held his hand to his chin. “Uh-huh. We received a call about a brawl there tonight.”
“Yep, the Swamp Bar is one tough place.” I looked at Ida Belle and Gertie. “Why don’t we make a pact never to go to that dive again?”
“I’m with you,” Gertie said.
Carter folded his arms across his chest. “Seems Cookie made a surprise visit and found a lookalike dancing with her beau. And then the lookalike ran off with Charlie Chaplin and left Cookie’s stolen backup wheelchair behind.”
“There were other people dressed like Cookie and Charlie Chaplin?” Gertie asked, frowning. “I knew I shouldn’t have told Babs who we were going as. One sip of cough syrup and that woman turns into a blab machine.”
“I’m so glad we left before the trouble started,” I said.
“Delphine called to file a police report about her mama’s stolen wheelchair.”
Gertie wrinkled her nose. “Really?”
Carter nodded. “But then I reminded her that everyone at the Swamp Bar took photos and videos of her swinging her cane at the two people who were dressed up. And if we found them and charged them with theft, they would probably turn around and have Cookie arrested for assault. Delphine decided to call it a wash.”
