Three Dumb: Wheelin' & Dealin' (A Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Book 3)

by Margaret Lashley

  Just as we scooched in, my phone rang. It was Milly.

  “Val, I can’t make it.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “I promise, I have a good reason. I’ll explain later. Gotta go.”

  She clicked off, leaving me to fend for myself on the merry-go-round of mayhem.

  “Milly’s not coming,” I said.

  “This place reminds me of Water Loo’s,” Goober said, not missing a beat. He’d worn a black t-shirt that looked like a tuxedo. Mr. Class.

  Orange swirl lady returned and deposited three glasses of water on the table with as little care as humanly possible. The third thud caused Jorge to return to this plane of existence. He lifted his head and smiled at me sheepishly.

  “Yeah, it does look a bit like Water Loo’s,” I agreed. I picked up a glass and studied the tiny white flakes swimming around in the liquid. “Minus the water.”

  “And the Loo,” Jorge said.

  Goober and I smiled at each other. It was rare for Jorge to say much. Booze usually robbed him of conversation skills beyond a few slurs. Goober reached across the table and shook him on the shoulder. I encouraged our shattered friend to keep going.

  “So, what’s new with you, Jorge?”

  “My mother got remarried,” he offered, then stared at the menu.

  I knew Jorge had been living in his mother’s garage in a makeshift “apartment” since his wife and kids were killed in a traffic accident years ago.

  “Oh. So, good for her. Will you stay in the house?”

  “Jes. She’s giving it to me.” Even though he kept his eyes on the menu, I could tell Jorge didn’t seem thrilled with the news. “She’s moving in with him.”

  “You’re not happy for her?” I asked.

  Jorge looked up at me. “What? Oh, jes. I’m happy for her. But now…I’ll be….”

  Jorge’s attention faded before he could finish his thought. But I could guess what the problem was. He’d be in that house all alone. The poor guy had lost everyone in his family that he’d cared about except his mother. And now she was leaving him, too. I’d like to think what I said next was completely altruistic, but that would have been a lie. However, killing two birds with one stone was…an efficient way to kill two birds.

  “Jorge, why don’t you invite Winky and Winnie to live there with you?”

  Jorge stared down at the menu. “I dunno. My mother wouldn’t like it.”

  “Your mother won’t be there. Besides, she gave you the house, right?”

  He looked up. “Jes.”

  “When is the wedding?”

  “This morning.”

  “What? You never….”

  Goober shot me a warning look. Tread lightly.

  “Oh. So she’s gone already? The house is empty?”

  “Val, it’s not empty,” Goober said sarcastically. “Jorge lives there. And I’m moving in tonight.”

  “Oh. Is there room for Winnie and Winkie, too?”

  Goober and I looked at Jorge. He shrugged. Then smiled.

  “Sure. Why not? We could be a fam….”

  Jorge stopped dead in his tracks. He’d almost pushed his own self-destruct button – the f-word ‘family.’ I held my breath. Goober came to the rescue.

  “Famished, right Jorge?”

  Jorge gave a tiny nod.

  “Me, too,” I said, way too cheerfully.

  “Me three,” Goober said and shot me a dirty look.

  The old lady came back with a notepad. “So, what’ll it be?”

  “The cheese fondue for three,” Jorge said.

  Goober and I exchanged raised eyebrows and grins.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. Very good, indeed.

  ***

  We made it all the way through dinner with no Cold Cuts attack. In a way, I was glad. I’d gotten to share a special moment with the guys. One that had the potential to be a turning point for Jorge. At 8 p.m. I declared the stakeout officially over. I paid the bill and we bid Garvey’s adieu.

  We’d just rounded the corner to the back parking lot when we heard Winky holler from the van window.

  “’Bout time, you three. Let’s go!”

  I walked up to the van window. Winky stared straight ahead, madder than a stirred-up hornet’s nest. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. He didn’t answer.

  “He’s ticked off about something else, Val,” Winnie said. “Nothing to do with you.”

  I looked across the van to Winnie. “Did you two have a fight?”

  “No. A –”

  Red-faced Winky turned his head to face me. “We was just sittin’ here, mindin’ our own business, when this crazy woman came up and tried to steal Winnie away from me.”

  Winnie put a hand on his shoulder. “She didn’t try to steal me away, Winky.”

  “She did, too. Asked Winnie if she needed to go back to rehab.”

  “What?” I asked, incredulous.

  “You wouldn’t a believed it, Val. That gal talked a pile a horseshit. Said she thought Winnie’d done been cured once.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of dating…what was it?” Winky looked over to Winnie for an answer.

  “Moronic hicks,” she offered softly.

  Goober and Jorge began laughing their asses off.

  “What did she look like?” I asked over their guffaws.

  “A witch!” Winky hollered. “All dressed in black. Long-ass black fingernails. I tole her to get on her broom and fly back to where-evers she come from.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she would a, but her broom was busted. In the shop ‘til Wednesday. Told Winnie she should drop me like a hot tamale. Can you believe that?”

  I glanced at Winky’s beer belly, atrocious haircut and wife-beater t-shirt.

  Could I believe that? Oh, yes. I certainly could.

  Chapter Twelve

  I awoke to the sound of someone rapping on my sliding glass door. I wrapped a bathrobe around me and shuffled into the living room to let the annoying stray hound in.

  “There you are. Finally,” Winky scolded me. “I need to pinch a loaf. Drop a deuce, you know.”

  “Yeah. I figured.”

  As Winky defiled my facilities, I made coffee and wrote a mental note; Buy more Ty D Bol. I awaited the royal flush and the arrival of his majesty from the throne.

  “Woo doggy! That was a tough one. Hey, Val Pal. D’you ever hear the one about the constipated mathematician?

  I groaned in my mind. “No.”

  I absently handed Winky a cup of coffee, somewhat stunned he could pronounce the word “mathematician.” He grabbed the cup and wagged his ginger eyebrows at me.

  “Yeah. You know, the poor old feller worked it all out with nothin’ but a pencil and a piece of paper.”

  I groaned audibly this time. But I had to hand it to Winky. He was a miracle worker. I actually wanted to go to work.

  ***

  I pulled Shabby Maggie into the parking lot of Griffith & Maas. Milly pulled up beside me in her shiny, red Beemer. I accosted her before her matching, shiny red pumps hit the pavement.

  “Why couldn’t you make it last night?”

  “Milly shut the door and locked it behind her, then shot me a smug look. “I wanted to teach you a lesson, Val. In responsibility. You’re a working girl now. You need to act like one.”

  She marched toward the front door. I scrambled to follow her.

  “How is you not showing up last night going to teach me responsibility?”

  Milly spoke without looking back. “Now you know how I felt…when you blew off your interview appointment last week.”

  I grabbed Milly’s elbow as she reached for the door. “I didn’t blow it off, Milly. Something…came up.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Look, you were right about Garvey’s. Cold Cuts was there.”

  Milly’s face registered surprise. “So, you caught her already?”

  “Well, not exactly. She ambushed Winky
in the parking lot. He didn’t realize it was her.”

  “Oh. Too bad.” Milly opened the door to the accounting firm. I followed her inside.

  “Milly, we decided to do a second stakeout tonight. Can I count on you?”

  Milly looked at me, then nodded toward a jumbled stack of files bigger than her Beemer.

  “I dunno. Can I count on you?”

  ***

  By 11:30 that morning, I’d lost both heels and my entire sense of humor. For nearly three hours, I’d been schlepping around files non-stop for Mrs. Barnes, aka “The Little Old Sadistic Slave Driver from Pasadena.” My aching feet and back made me forget all about my black-and-blue bottom. I was about to cause an avalanche by collapsing dead onto a heap of files when the old taskmaster herself stuck her shriveled head in the file room and announced it was time for lunch.

  I dropped an armful of files and peeked down the hallway. Milly was nowhere in sight. Screw her. Besides, I had a lunch date with Tom. I tiptoed out of the office and slipped my heels back onto my blistered feet. I hobbled out to the parking lot, turned the key in the ignition and hit the gas. I smiled smugly to myself. I’d made a clean getaway.

  ***

  “Milly hasn’t been very friendly today,” I whined.

  Tom looked up from the Ming Ming’s menu and shot me a silly pout.

  “Poor baby. The kids at school didn’t like you?”

  I kicked him under the table.

  “Ow! Hey! Look, maybe she doesn’t like to mix business with pleasure. Lots of people don’t.”

  “But there’s no one else in the office to see her do it…except for Mrs. Barnes.”

  “That’s funny. In high school, I had a teacher named Mrs. Barnes. She was a real ballbuster.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one in the same. She’s already worked me to the bone this morning. And the woman’s old enough to be Methuselah’s grandmother.”

  “So, what does my favorite working girl want for lunch?”

  I hadn’t realized I’d developed such an appetite. But food had nothing to do with it. I looked at Tom longingly and blew out a breath. “The usual, I guess.”

  “You know, you’re sexy when you have to work, Val. It adds to your mystique. Ms. High-Powered Career Woman. Me likey.”

  Tom’s knee rubbed up against mine. I moved my leg to reciprocate, causing my stiff thigh muscles to grumble with pain. I’d just finished a 180-minute, complete-body workout. If I hadn’t felt like I’d been run over by a steamroller, I’d have jumped Tom’s bones in the parking lot.

  ***

  After lunch, Tom walked me to my car. He kissed me goodbye as I leaned against the driver’s door of Maggie. Afterward, he lingered, holding my hand.

  “What’s up, Tom?”

  He looked deep into my eyes. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I was wondering. If you’d thought much about…what I told you at the party.”

  “Oh, Well, now that you mention it, yes. I have.”

  Tom snuggled a little closer to me. “And?”

  “Why did you get a vasectomy?”

  Tom flinched and jerked his hand away.

  “Oh. Well…umm…I guess I just thought it was time to give up on the whole idea of having a family.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  Tom shrugged. He took my hand again and studied it, rubbing my palm with his thumb as he spoke.

  “To be honest, Val, I didn’t want to end up like my cousin Karl. He got divorced a couple of years ago. Then he went and knocked up his thirty-year-old girlfriend. He married her. But the girl was twenty years younger than him. How did he ever think that ever going to work?”

  Tom looked at me as if he expected an answer. I shook my head and gave him one.

  “I dunno.”

  “Right. Well, no surprise. They ended up getting divorced a few months after the baby was born. Now she’s raising the kid alone. And he’s gonna have a kid in grade school while he’s pissing in his diapers in a nursing home. It’s just not fair.”

  “What do you mean, Tom? Not fair to who?”

  “To anyone. Karl finally got some sense and started dating women his age. But it’s kind of too late. I mean, what does he expect these women to do? Marry him and take care of a two-year-old on the weekends? The man was a fool to go messing around with a woman that much younger than him.”

  I studied Tom with new eyes. Maybe it was the sunlight gleaming off his sandy blond hair. Maybe it was knowing he loved me, and wanted me to love him in return. But if I had to put a finger on it, I’d say it was the magical words from his lips. Tom had never been sexier. I leaned over and kissed him with a lip-lock that meant business. My aches and pains be damned.

  It was Tom’s day off. We could…oh shit! No we couldn’t. Dammit! This “job” stuff was turning out to be a real cock-blocker.

  ***

  I returned to the detention camp known as Griffith & Maas with the disgruntled attitude usually reserved for long-term postal employees. I could have been having my way with Tom. Instead, I was screwing around with heavy piles of useless paperwork.

  “Where’d you go for lunch?” Milly asked when I stomped in the door.

  “Is that a requirement of the job? To tell you my personal business?”

  Milly’s left eyebrow arched like a Halloween cat. “No.”

  I kicked off my shoes and carried them toward the file room. “Then let’s just get back to work, shall we?”

  “You know, that attitude isn’t going to fly around here, Val. What’s up your ass?”

  “So now you want to get personal?”

  “Ladies, let’s cut the bullshit and get back to work,” Mrs. Barnes interjected, nipping our catfight in the bud. She picked up a pack of cigarettes and walked toward the front door. “The sooner this mess is cleaned up, the sooner we can all go back to our pathetic lives.”

  Milly eyed me up and down, her mouth a pinched line.

  “You know, Val, maybe you should come to my Ladies’ Network meetup on Sunday. You might learn how to conduct yourself in an office. I’m afraid after all these years, you’ve gone a bit…feral.”

  Luckily for Milly, I wasn’t a cat. I’d have scratched her eyes out. I turned to the old woman who’d already worked me to the bone. Thank you, ma’am. May I have another? I put on my prissiest business tone.

  “Mrs. Barnes, what would you have me do next?”

  The old woman pointed to the room heaped with files. “What else, Sherlock?”

  Milly smirked and disappeared into her office.

  I returned to my dungeon, beaten down, but not defeated.

  Speak for yourself, bitches. My life isn’t pathetic. Tonight I’m going to ditch a handsome man who loves me in favor of eating cheese-flavored vomit with three homeless guys in the hopes of nabbing the lunatic master of disguise who stole my mother’s ashes.

  Let’s see you top that.

  ***

  We were in a booth at Garvey’s, waiting for our pot of cheese glop to arrive. Winnie had to work and Goober had gone AWOL. I’d been forced to take his place as one of the three stooges – Winky, Jorge and Val. I was desperate to find out if Jorge had invited Winky to live with him, but I didn’t want to jinx it, or hurt anyone’s feelings if the answer had been “no.”

  “Where’s Milly tonight?” Jorge asked without slurring his words.

  I eyed him suspiciously. “Don’t ask.”

  “Okay. Then where’s Tom?”

  I was in a foul mood and Jorge was getting on my last nerve. Why did he have to pick tonight to sober up and resume his washed-up career as a police detective?

  “Tom needs to stay out of it – and uninformed, Jorge. I don’t want his reputation on the line. Besides, I’m not a hundred percent sure Cold Cuts is the same woman who bought the RV.”

  “If you’re not sure, why don’t you go show this Lefty guy a picture of her? Find out if Cold Cuts and this baloney woman ar
e the same person?”

  “Two reasons, Jorge. One, she wears disguises. She could have looked like anyone when she bought the RV. Second, I don’t have a picture of her.”

  “Well, I do,” Winky said.

  “What?”

  “Yep. Took it last night. Got her on camera, so she ain’t no vampire. But she shore is a witch.”

  Winky pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. I jerked it out of his hand.

  “Let me see that.”

  In the left side of the screen stood a woman in a Goth outfit. Her hair was jet black, her face ghostly white, and her eyes were encircled by thick bands of black liner. Overall, the shape of her face was right. And I thought I recognized the ring on her middle finger. She’d been caught in the act of displaying it prominently.

  I handed the phone back to Winky. “It could be her. Hopefully, she’ll show up again tonight.”

  But she didn’t.

  The only measurable result from the second stakeout attempt involved copious amounts of methane. That night, I’d had to tie my foot to the bedpost to keep from rocketing into outer space. Good thing I’d turned down Tom. He’d asked at lunch if he could come over and spend the night. The evening had been embarrassing enough. Besides, I was completely knackered. It turned out that work was…well…work.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I woke up the next morning, there was no desperate, red-haired mongrel at my backdoor. A tiny part of me felt empty and sad at the realization. The rest of me smiled and danced a jig. I peered out the sliding doors. Definitely no Winky! I flung off my ratty bathrobe and sang along with the imaginary bluebirds flitting around me. I brewed up a cappuccino and crawled back in bed with the warm cup of froth. Ahhh. Life was back to normal.

  Then I remembered I had to go to work.

  The bluebirds pecked me on the nose, shit all over the place and flew out the window.