Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  “Are you here to take me to the party,” he asked, a forced smile not fooling anybody. His smoker’s skin and yellow teeth were not flattered by office fluorescent. He looked truly frightening.

  “You were invited,” Skip said. “The whole city was.”

  “Very nice what you’ve done with that bar,” White said. “Too bad not everyone in this town sees the value of upgrading.”

  I swear he looked at me when he said it. Sure The Gull hadn’t changed during my lifetime, but I wasn’t going on the defensive. I was part of the offensive line in this mission.

  “Do you know Dalton Longfellow?” I asked.

  White cleared his throat and made a barely-noticeable glance at an unknown person in his office.

  “Also known as Dale Long,” I prompted. What the hell? In my opinion, the gloves were off. The scales had fallen from my mermaid eyes. I wanted to settle this.

  White did not speak, but he looked at a spot behind his door and cocked his head as if he were asking a question. A chair creaked. And dumpy Dalton appeared. Strangely, he wasn’t dumpy at all. He wore a polished suit and had his hair slicked back. I swear he looked thinner—maybe he wore one of those gut-sucking garments. Spanx for men. Either way, he was scarier this way. More imposing.

  Skip held his eye patch between his fingers and snapped the elastic string, a strangely threatening gesture. “Maybe you can show us a copy of your article for the travel magazine,” he said.

  I thought this was a good opening, especially since Dalton had been nosing around ostensibly wanting to show me his writing. I’d turned him away yesterday, and now I wondered what would have happened if I’d heard him out.

  No one said anything. Skip continued to snap his eye patch. The city manager and his guest eyed each other, both of them appearing to search for a way out.

  “Or maybe you’d like to show us some nice real estate for sale,” I said. I didn’t want to let Skip have all the fun. I held up the folder of real estate flyers. Dalton’s eyes fell on it and I had no doubt he recognized it.

  White tried to reclaim his territory and right his ship. “It appears you’ve discovered that my friend here wears many hats. If that’s all you have to say, we’re all busy and I’m sure you could make an appointment to come back at a more convenient time.”

  LeeAnn unrolled the poster of Barefoot Key and held it in front of her, only the top of her cowgirl hat visible. Dalton and White looked at it and exchanged glances again.

  “Where did you get that?” White demanded.

  “From his corporate office,” I said, pointing at Dalton.

  “Stolen,” Dalton said, his voice full of fake umbrage.

  I crossed my arms and cocked my head. “Give me a break. It was handed to me accidentally. And that doesn’t change what it reveals.”

  I really hoped I wasn’t bluffing or full of inflated conspiratorial baloney. What if we really did imagine what we were afraid to see in all this evidence I had liberated from the real estate building?

  White wasn’t backing down. He leaned against the paneled wall separating his office from the reception area. “And what have you all conjured up in your imaginations? You barge in here and act like you’ve uncovered a great mystery. But what do you have?”

  The secretary rolled her chair over, removing herself from the direct line between my group and the manager and his guest. Maybe she didn’t think a minimum wage secretarial position was worth taking someone else’s crap. She parked by a low counter and watched. I would have taken my lunch break if I were her.

  “You know what I think?” Rita asked. “I think you and two-face here are in cahoots. I think you’ve been using him to pry into people’s businesses in this town. He’s been cuddling up to you so his big fancy company can buy up half of Barefoot for their plan.”

  LeeAnn lowered the map and laid it on the receptionist’s counter. The secretary stood and tried to get a look at it. “Back off,” Maria said, getting in the other woman’s face and giving her a scary gypsy look.

  “Just curious,” the secretary said. She held up her hands in a gesture of neutral innocence. “Wondered what you’ve got there.”

  “Other than some lame suspicion. You’ve got nothing on me,” White said.

  “I wonder what people in Barefoot will say about that when this gets around,” I said. “I think they won’t want to hear that their city manager has been secretly working with a company that wants our town’s property so bad it’s willing to steal to get it.”

  “Are you accusing me of theft?” Dalton asked.

  “I sure as hell am,” I said. My sequins sparkled in the office lighting, bolstering my confidence. “Buying properties and then selling them back to the same company at a loss is fraud. Especially if that company takes a tax loss. I think it would be pretty interesting to have a look at your company’s books.”

  “You really think we’d be that stupid?” Dalton asked.

  “Please,” I scoffed. “I could name five cases involving companies a lot smarter than yours that have swindled their way into a jail cell.” This was true. Cautionary tales were all over Wall Street and cable news. “Our next phone call is going to be to the police.”

  Dalton and White exchanged a look and went on the offense, catching us all off-guard because none of us expected them to get physical. White lunged for the folder in my hand at the same time Dalton lunged for the rolled-out poster. Skip grabbed White just before he got my folder. My costume made it tough for me to react, but pirate garb was made for high-seas adventure. Skip swashbuckled the city manager right to the ground.

  Unfortunately, Dalton was too quick for Cowgirl LeeAnn. He nearly got the poster, swiping it from the counter a half second before she grabbed for it. Dalton spun around, poster clutched in his hands, and tried to maneuver his big body past the secretary.

  To everyone’s surprise, the secretary did not shrink back. “Freeze!” she said. We all cut our eyes to her. She held a gun trained on Dalton. “You’re under arrest.” She spared a quick glance at White, writhing on the ground under Skip. “You, too. If I had to work for you one more day, I was probably going to shoot you just for fun.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, stupefied.

  “Undercover agent, IRS,” she said. “We’ve been after these swindlers for years. Hard to catch them at their own office. They’re crafty. So we branched out and followed the money.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Dalton said, still being held at gunpoint by the secretary.

  “You’ll get your chance. This guy,” she said, pointing at White, “has made a nice little profit off real estate speculation.”

  Skip ground the heel of his pirate boot a little deeper into the soft flesh of White’s shoulder.

  “Change is coming,” White grunted. “Backward Key can’t stay this way forever.”

  “Hey,” Maria said, giving White an evil eye. “Watch your mouth.” She leaned close and whispered something none of the rest of us heard. White turned three shades paler and stopped resisting Skip’s restraining foot.

  “See if you can get me a few officers from the police station downstairs,” the agent said, “and we’ll put these guys away while we finish off our case.”

  After the schemers were hauled downstairs by some local police officers, I asked Maria what she said to White.

  “I told him about a dream I had involving him,” she said.

  “It must have been some dream, judging from his reaction.”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said.

  I decided I was glad Maria was on my side.

  “Party time,” Skip said. “You driving, Rita?”

  “I’ll drop all you clowns off and then go home and get in costume,” she said. “You’ll never guess what I’m wearing.”

  After the events of the past few hours, I was afraid to ask.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was the calm before the storm. The lights were still full power, the kegs were loaded, the chairs
neatly shouldered up to high-tops and tables. In about ten minutes, Skip would throw open the doors to customers for the first time since he’d sunk his savings and future in the former Harvey’s Pirate Emporium. Now Skip’s Beach Shack, it still felt like pirates could swagger through the door and raise some hell. Maybe the owner’s costume was no accident.

  The sight of Dalton and the city manager being hauled downstairs by Barefoot Key police officers was fresh in my mind, but unanswered questions had taken over the stage.

  “What now?” I asked Maria, LeeAnn, and Rita. We were the first patrons, but also acting as staff. We’d help out by checking IDs, pouring a few rounds, and judging the costume contest. We were already taking our jobs seriously, only sharing one pitcher so far.

  “Now people in Barefoot are gonna get some justice,” Rita said. Her costume mystified everyone on her initial arrival. Because we thought she was a tub of butter. When she pointed out the black letters clearly labeling her cardboard tub Margarine, LeeAnn was the first to put it together. Marga-Rita. A more clever play on words than I was expecting, but who could argue with a hooch-themed costume at a grand opening for a bar? I guess I wasn’t the only savvy one around.

  “Hard to pay the bills on justice,” LeeAnn said. “People whose property is worth seagull-shit or already been sold aren’t going to eat justice for dinner. What happens to those places?”

  I’d already thought about what would happen to properties like the Sunshine Souvenir Stand next door and many others just like it. Sure, the criminal masterminds at the real estate company might do time over their fraud and wouldn’t be getting their hands on any more of the red boxes on their poster, but what about the properties they’d already bought?

  “Public auctions,” I said. “Sheriff sales, something like that.”

  We sat around a table in front of the bar. Long faces and empty glasses.

  “What if someone had some capital?” Maria asked. “What could a pile of money do to help in this case?”

  I thought about that for a minute. “Hypothetically speaking, someone could buy the properties near fair market value and help restore the balance around here. Could also finance current owners, maybe help them stay afloat in their mortgage and location.”

  Maria nodded vigorously, looking like a gypsy who was just offered an audience with the Queen to direct national affairs.

  “But it would take a huge pile of cash. A hundred thousand here, eighty thousand there, plenty in the bank for reserves and collateral.” I shook my head. “Even if we knew anyone who had access to cash like that, how would we convince someone to take a chance on Barefoot Key? Especially since the airport and cruise line terminal thing is probably bust now.”

  Maria set a crystal ball on the table in front of her. If it was a costume prop, it was a damn realistic one. She stroked it dramatically. Skip left his bar-polishing job and came over, standing at a corner of the table occupied by the four of us.

  “I’m seeing a group of women in Barefoot Key,” Maria said. “Good Catholic women.”

  I wasn’t sure where the Catholic Church was on the subject of gypsies, but everyone likes to be labeled good.

  “The women have a treasure. A big treasure,” Maria continued.

  I suddenly remembered Maria’s admission to me about her Internet gambling success and her insinuations that some of her church friends were possessed of the all-seeing eye as well. It was almost too much to hope for, but…

  “The treasure can only be used to help others,” Maria said, “or the source of knowledge might dry up.”

  “Jesus Christ,” LeeAnn said. “Are you telling us your crazy-ass visions have actually amounted to something?”

  Maria dropped her gypsy act and looked almost repentant. “It started small. A thousand, thirty thousand, a hundred thousand. We kept picking winners in the market. Bought low, got lucky, sold high.”

  “And you’re telling us—” I began.

  “Two million. And counting,” Maria said. She shoved her words away from her body like they were an evil burden. “We’ve been meeting in secret, not knowing what to do with the money. None of us have told our husbands. They’d want to buy a boat or a motor home. Maybe start drinking.”

  I could sympathize with their priorities, but could also see Maria’s point.

  “Let me get this right,” Rita said. “You church ladies have used some kind of vision to play the market—”

  “And do some Internet gambling,” Maria added.

  “Nice,” Rita said, smiling. “And now you have a crapload of money you feel guilty about?”

  Maria nodded.

  “In the right hands,” Skip said, “that amount of money could be used to rescue properties in immediate danger and create a fund to sustain future local development. Like a revolving loan fund for local businesses.”

  Maybe it was my mermaid costume combined with my share of the margarita pitcher, but I felt tingly all over.

  “How would this work?” LeeAnn asked.

  “You’d need someone, or a group of people like a board, to manage a fund like that,” Skip said. “Would have to be someone the locals trusted, someone who’s proven she cares about Barefoot Key.”

  He snapped on his eye patch and bored me with a one-eyed stare. Rita, LeeAnn, and Maria fixed me with their attention, too.

  “I can’t be in charge of your booty,” I said. They weren’t serious, were they?

  “Why not?” Maria asked.

  “I don’t live here,” I said.

  “Huh,” Rita grunted. “In an outfit like that, you sure look like you do. And how about your Barefoot Key T-shirts and that tacky tube top sundress? You can’t wear those up north.”

  “So I have the wardrobe now, but come on. I finally got into the hotel management trainee program.”

  “You did?” Rita asked.

  I nodded.

  “You didn’t mention that,” Skip said.

  No one looked impressed.

  “It’s a fancy hotel,” I insisted.

  Again, not impressing anyone.

  “In Chicago,” I finished. Even I wasn’t buying what I was selling.

  “I had a dream about you,” Maria said. “You were on a beach. With three barefoot children.”

  “We’re going to need another pitcher,” I said.

  ****

  The party had been raucous for at least an hour when a mysterious pair of gorillas showed up. Their black costumes were more anatomically correct than anyone—even drunkards—wanted to see. One was obviously male and the other female. The identities of the wearers were completely concealed under fake primate skin and fur.

  Rita bumbled over in her big tub of margarine. “Who you think they are?” she asked.

  The gorillas hovered near the door for a moment, their masked faces turned up and around like they were seeing the bar for the first time. Not a surprise since most of the hundred or so guests were also seeing the grand reveal of Skip’s remodel.

  “Think they’re friendly?” I asked.

  Rita scrunched her face, staring and evaluating. “Hard to tell with primates. Maybe I’ll go nose around ‘em, see if I can figure it out.”

  “They could be federal agents or real estate agents or Hollywood talent scouts for all we know.” I smoothed my mermaid ruffles. “It’s been a hell of a day.”

  Rita scrutinized me and leaned as close as she could in her big costume. She shouted over the noise of the DJ and the bar. “You thinking about sticking around and handling the church ladies’ guilt money?”

  I shrugged, my boobs almost popping out of my sequined cups. “I think I better think about it. A lot depends on my aunt and uncle. If they ever come back from Michigan, I’d be interested in hearing their take on all this.”

  Rita looked around the room like she was thinking hard about something serious. “Can’t ignore Maria’s visions, I guess. Hell, I thought she was kind of a nut, but now—” she spread her arms wide, grinning broadly, “I can�
�t tell from the smart ones from the fools.”

  Rita moved on, bumping past clowns, bikers, priests, superheroes, princesses, and a farmer/devil pair with matching pitchforks. I didn’t want to know if they were an intentional pair, but it sure looked that way.

  I shifted onto an end bar stool, adjusted my costume, and parked my half-full glass on the shiny bar. Skip’s handiwork was evident everywhere I looked. The pirate bar mixed tacky old motifs with a shinier beach vibe. Like Blackbeard had found his hipster side.

  “Wonder who’s in those suits,” Skip said as he leaned toward me and pointed behind me at the mystery primates.

  “No idea,” I said, swiveling to look, “but they sure are having fun.” The gorillas were performing all kinds of antics—scratching armpits while shaking their booties, knocking hats off people’s heads, stealing drinks.

  I began to suspect they were not federal agents when they rubbed their surprisingly realistic nipples together and got loud applause from the well-lubricated crowd.

  “Something about the big one seems familiar,” Skip observed.

  Disturbing, but true. The gorillas bowed for the crowd and ambled over to the bar. The big gorilla held up two fingers and Skip obliged him by pulling two drafts and setting them on the bar. They were right next to me, but I doubted they could see very well out of the small eye-holes in their masks.

  I turned toward them so they got a good view of my face, and I was immediately crushed in a vinyl and faux fur hug. I thought I might suffocate at first and wondered if being molested by two primates was an occupational hazard of costume parties.

  And then it hit me.

  “Aunt Carol?” I asked.

  The smaller ape nodded enthusiastically.