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

by Margaret Lashley

  “Uh, dude, that is not what she ordered.”

  Milly shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s close enough.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Cold Cuts objected.

  The waiter turned to leave. Cold Cuts lost it for real. She stood up, grabbed the waiter by his choker-sized belt, and hauled him back to the table.

  “Dude, see what’s on my plate? We ordered three of the same thing!”

  “Excuse me,” he replied, in a tone that was anything but apologetic. We watched with piss in our eyes as Jackson picked up Milly’s plate and headed to the kitchen. Halfway there, he turned around and dropped the plate in front of an old, grey-haired woman sitting alone.

  Cold Cuts stared at us, dumbfounded. She flopped back down into the booth as if she’d just finished a marathon. “God! I hope you two aren’t contagious!”

  I blew out a jaded breath. “Like we said, it’s –”

  Cold Cuts bolted upright and slapped her hand on the table. “This is ridiculous! You two are…gorgeous! You know what? I think it’s time you two put your powers to work. Against this…evil!”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I think it’s time we get the hell out of this stupid place.”

  “The restaurant?” Milly asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now?”

  “Hell yeah! Before Captain Oblivious returns.”

  I looked over my shoulder. The waiter was heading into the kitchen. He paused a moment to pull his pants out of his tiny little butt crack.

  “Okay. I’m in,” I said.

  Milly gave me a shocked look. “Really?”

  Cold Cuts and I jumped up. She grabbed Milly’s hand and tugged her out of the booth. We made a run for the door, me trailing behind. As Milly and Cold Cuts made it out the door, I looked back just in time to see the waiter delivering Milly’s omelet to our empty booth. He looked up as if in slow motion. I could almost see the scales fall off his dull eyes. He focused in on me. I panicked, shot him a bird and ran out the door.

  Milly and Cold Cuts were waiting for me just outside.

  “Woooo hoooo! That was killer, ladies!” Cold Cuts screamed.

  “What have we done?” Milly cried out, then laughed nervously.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here!” I said, and ran past them.

  We hooted and hollered and screamed with laughter as we ran to our prospective getaway cars. You’d have thought we’d just robbed the place.

  “You know, I can never go back there,” Milly yelled as she climbed into her Beemer.

  “Why the hell would you want to?” Cold Cuts yelled back.

  Yeah. Why the hell, indeed.

  Chapter Twenty

  I squealed into my driveway and slammed on the brakes. Milly’s Beemer pulled in behind me a second later. She climbed out of her car and wobbled, weak in the knees, to my driver’s side door. We both stared at each other, speechless. A moment later, we heard a vehicle backfire. Milly flinched as if it was a gunshot aimed at her head. We looked back at the road and the old RV came into view, Cold Cuts at the wheel. Milly and I both exhaled loudly. Hopefully, her safe arrival meant we’d made a clean getaway.

  Cold Cuts waved an arm out the window and touched her thumb and index finger together to form an okay sign. She pulled up behind Milly and shut off the RV. It shuttered and coughed and finally cut out.

  “Wow! That was fantastic!” Cold Cuts yelled. She jumped out and sprinted to join us.

  Milly chewed off her last fingernail and looked over at me, her face marred with guilt and fear. “Do you think they’ll call the cops on us?”

  “Who?” Cold Cuts asked.

  “The restaurant!” Milly cried, exasperated. “Jackson!”

  Cold Cuts shook her head confidently. “No way.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “Think about it. Your cloaks of invisibility. He could never pick you guys out in a lineup.”

  Milly’s fear gave way to relief, then a grin. “You know Val, she’s probably right.”

  Cold Cuts cocked her head and pointed a thumb at her own chest. “I know I’m right.”

  “Yeah, I agreed,” I said. “But please, both of you, not a word to Tom.”

  “Who’s Tom?” Cold Cuts asked.

  I shot Milly a “keep quiet” look. “Even better,” I said.

  ***

  I made my partners in crime a consolation breakfast of strawberry Pop Tarts and coffee. We munched them while Cold Cuts gave us a tour of the RV.

  It was unrecognizable inside. All the dragonfly stickers on the walls were gone, as far as I could tell. They’d been replaced by clothes, scarves, belts, hats and bags full of wigs and shoes. They covered every wall, hung from sturdy hooks screwed into the paneling. I noticed one dry-cleaning bag had a name on it. Sherry Perry. Inside was the blonde wig and purple rhinestone shirt that had saved me from the oaf in Publix.

  “What do you do with all this stuff?” Milly asked, beating me to it. She picked up a small hairpiece and studied it.

  “I’m a freelance makeup artist, slash wardrobe consultant, slash whatever I have to be to get hired. I work on local TV commercials and low-budget indie films.”

  “That’s so cool!” Milly said. She played with the little wig and giggled. “Mind if I use your mirror? After that run for it, I might need a disguise for a while.”

  Cold Cuts raised her eyebrows, then shrugged. “Knock yourself out. There’s one in the bathroom.”

  “Are all of these costumes for your movie clients?” I asked.

  “Well…sort of.”

  “Where do you get the ideas?”

  “Some from client requests. Most, though, from my imagination. This one’s Scary Kerry.” Cold Cuts held up a clear plastic bag containing a rainbow-colored Mohawk, tattoo sleeves, a pair of ripped jeans and a piece of cardboard poked through with piercing jewelry.

  Milly peeked out from around the bathroom door. “Yes! She’s the one who saved me from Dexter!”

  “Dexter the dweeb,” Cold Cuts corrected.

  “How do you remember all these characters?” I asked. “I mean, how do you keep them straight in your mind? What they would say?”

  Cold Cuts shrugged nonchalantly. “Back stories.”

  “Back stories?”

  “Yeah. You know. Little quirks to make them more real. Odds and ends to give them depth. Motivation.”

  “Motivation?” Milly came out of the bathroom wearing the little wig on her chin.

  “Yeah. A reason to act.”

  Milly giggled and lowered her voice. “So, what’s my motivation?”

  Cold Cuts grinned. “You tell me. By the way, that’s a merkin, not a beard.”

  Milly scrunched her brow. “A merkin?”

  “Yeah. For nude scenes. Everybody’s shaved nowadays.”

  Milly cocked her head like a puzzled gnome. “Huh?”

  “It’s a pubic wig.”

  “Aaargh!” Milly ripped the curly wig from her chin and tried to fling it away, but it stuck to her finger like a piranha on a tube steak. “Eeeww! Get it off me! Val! Help!”

  But alas, I couldn’t help Milly. I was too busy trying not to pee my pants.

  Milly screeched like a bat and flailed her fingers back and forth in the air like a miniature helicopter. The little wig finally flew off, but it landed on top of Milly’s head. She screamed and tore at her hair like it was on fire. The merkin finally let go and fell to the floor like a dead tarantula.

  “I think she just invented a new dance,” Cold Cuts sniggered. “The Merkin Jerk!”

  I crumpled over and grabbed my gut. Cold Cuts and I nearly choked to death on Pop Tart crumbs and our imaginations.

  “Quit laughing! This thing is disgusting!” Milly shrieked. She ran a hand through her hair to smooth it down, then looked down at her fingers as if they might have picked up an STD. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought you knew,” Cold Cuts sniggered
. “Hell, I didn’t know you were going to sixty-nine the poor little thing.”

  Cold Cuts stuck out her tongue and waggled it. She and I grabbed onto each other to keep from falling over laughing.

  “Ha ha. Very funny.” Milly stomped the three feet to the kitchen and turned on the tap. “Do you have any bleach?”

  “No,” Cold Cuts managed to choke out. “But there’s wig sanitizer under the counter.”

  Milly shot us both a look that could have curdled milk. I turned my back and tried to regain my composure before Mount Halbert blew her top.

  I bit my lip between words. “So…what’s…Scary Kerry’s…back story?”

  Cold Cuts eyed Milly once more, smirked, then gave me her full attention.

  “Mohawk Kerry? Let’s see. She’s a rebel without a clue. She wants to right the wrongs of the world, but all she’s got to work with is a warped sense of humor and a rusty old hammer.”

  “Reminds me of someone I know,” Milly quipped. She’d come up behind me. She eyed me with a mixture of hurt pride and embarrassment. I returned her volley with a sneer.

  “What about the one you did with me – Sherry Perry?”

  Cold Cuts’ eyes looked upward, as if she could see into her brain better that way. “She’s an ex cheerleader. Now an aging beauty-pageant has-been. Lives for gossip and glamour magazines. And she always seems to get the shit-end of the stick when it comes to relationships.”

  “Hmmm. Reminds me of someone I know,” I deadpanned.

  It was Milly’s time to sneer.

  ***

  We left the RV and moved into my kitchen, so Milly could give her hands a “proper washing.” As she used up the rest of my bleach and Ty D Bol, I realized from her surreptitious angry glares at Cold Cuts that the two had gotten off on the wrong foot. Big time. I needed to fix this situation, pronto. I liked Cold Cuts. I wanted Milly to like her, too. The last thing I needed was to tick this strange girl off. Besides, if I did, I might never find Glad’s ashes.

  I offered my most potent olive branch. Wine.

  “Wow, Cold Cuts. How do you stay so thin?” I asked, and handed her a glass of pinot grigio.

  She shrugged. “Poverty helps.”

  Milly’s hard glare softened a notch. I handed her a glass. She slurped down half of it in one gulp.

  “Your work sounds exciting,” I said, like the ultimate hostess – or, perhaps, peace negotiator.

  “It can be,” Cold Cuts admitted. “I got to see Channing Tatum once when he was here filming Magic Mike. But mostly, it’s just grunt work. And I never know when my next gig is coming.”

  “My job is mind-numbingly steady,” Milly said unexpectedly. “I’ve done the same thing for twenty years. Monday through Friday, rain or shine. Boring, boring, boring.” She drained her glass. I sprinted back to the fridge to grab the bottle.

  “What do you do?”

  “I work in an accounting office.”

  “Oh,” Cold Cuts said without judgment. “Did you always want to be an accountant?”

  Milly was taken aback by the question. I refilled her glass as she thought about how to answer it. “No. I mean, it was a process of elimination, I guess.”

  “What were your other choices?” Cold Cuts asked with genuine interest.

  The wine seemed to be working its magic. Milly sat up and made a joke.

  “Well, princess and mermaid didn’t seem like valid options once I hit junior high.”

  Cold Cuts laughed. “Hey, it’s never too late to change careers.”

  Milly shook her head as if it weighed 80 lbs. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, who would hire me at my age?”

  “Who says you have to find someone to hire you?” asked Cold Cuts. “You could be your own boss.”

  The reply stumped Milly. She scrunched her eyebrows and uttered one syllable. “Huh.”

  “Listen, I’m going out to the RV,” Cold Cuts said. She set her glass of wine on the counter. “I need to change my clothes and head out. Mind if I change them in your place, Val? You’ve got a little more elbow room.”

  “Oh. No. Not at all. Take a shower, if you want. Save your water.”

  Cold Cuts grinned appreciatively. “Great! Thanks, I will.”

  When Cold Cuts left, I turned to Milly. She was busy downing the last of her wine. “What’s your problem with Cold Cuts anyway?”

  Milly shrugged and looked confused. “She took your mom’s RV, Val. And won’t give it back.”

  “Not yet. She still might. Maybe. And she did say she’s going to help me find piggybank. I’m okay with it. Why can’t you be?”

  Milly pouted. “Val, she’s just so…young. And perky.”

  “There’s no law against perkiness.”

  “Well, there ought to be.”

  My best friend and I grinned at each other with the soft comfort of knowing we had each other’s backs. The front door cracked open. We watched Cold Cuts reenter with a bag of clothes.

  “Bathroom’s that way,” I said and pointed down the hall.

  “Thanks!” Cold Cuts smiled and headed in that direction. Milly eyed her with a sad, envious look.

  “Val, who would you be – if you could be anybody?”

  “I dunno. I like my life fine.”

  “Even the schlepping files part?”

  “Well, maybe not that part.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t mind working for myself, like Cold Cuts said. Mrs. Barnes is a pain in the neck. And poor Mr. Maas. He’s so old he could go any day. They both could. Maybe I should work on a plan B.”

  “Oh crap! Speaking of plan B, I should call Tom. I was supposed to meet him for dinner tonight. But I’d kind of like to invite Cold Cuts to stay the afternoon. Are you up for a girl’s day? I could order pizza or something. Watch a movie?”

  Milly nodded. “How about that Magic Mike movie. I heard it was pretty sexy.”

  “It was,” said Cold Cuts. She appeared, fresh from the shower. She dried her hair with one of my towels. “I’ve got the DVD in the RV.”

  “Can you stay?” I asked. “Watch it with us? I’m ordering takeout. Pizza or Chinese?”

  Cold Cuts grinned. “Sure. Why not? Chinese for me. Chop suey? I’ll be back in a minute.” She sprinted out the door.

  “Give her a chance?” I asked Milly.

  “Okay. For you.”

  Cold Cuts returned with the DVD in one hand, a plate of brownies in the other. She beamed at me and Milly.

  “All right, ladies. Take off your cloaks. Let’s get this party started!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I woke up Sunday morning sprawled out on the couch like a drunken harlot. Milly’s bare foot was in my face. I shoved it away, waking Milly in the process. She cracked open an eye.

  “Where am I?”

  “My place.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Yeah.”

  Memories like snippets of confetti fell into place in my mind. “Geeze, Milly. The brownies. I think they had pot in them.”

  “What?” Milly pulled an oven mitt off her hand and stared at it. “Crap, Val. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her. Is she gone? Did she take your wallet?”

  “Come on. She wouldn’t do that.”

  But I had my nagging doubts. I crawled off the couch on my hands and knees and peeked inside my purse. It was hanging on the front-door knob. Everything appeared to be intact. I pulled myself to standing using the door handle. Something odd in the backyard caught my eye. I slapped on some sunshades and peered through the sliding glass door. A foot was hanging out of the swaying hammock. Its nails were painted, so unless Winky had suddenly decided to become a transvestite, it was probably Cold Cuts.

  “She’s out there. In the hammock.”

  Milly stood up and rubbed her neck. “Geeze. What time is it?”

  “Nine fifteen. You want some coffee?”

  Milly’s eyes flew open like a doll in a horror movie. “Oh, shit! Val! My Ladies’ Leadership Brunch! It starts
at 10 a.m.!”

  “Ughh. Just skip it.”

  “I can’t. I’m leading it!”

  “Crap on a cracker.” My brain kicked into action as much as it could without caffeine. “You go take a shower. I’ll make coffee, then go rouse Cold Cuts.”

  Milly ambled crookedly down the hallway. “If I were you, I’d let sleeping dogs lie.”

  I got the pot brewing. When I turned around, Cold Cuts was coming through the sliding door. She looked way too chipper if you asked me.

  “Morning, Val! I tell you, it was beautiful sleeping under the stars.”

  “Huh. Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Look, Cold Cuts. I’ve gotta warn you, Milly’s on the warpath again. We’ve got to be across town at Tyrone Square Mall to make her leadership meeting in like…half an hour.”

  Cold Cuts twisted her lip. “I guess I’m back on her shit list.”

  “The brownies didn’t help.”

  Cold Cuts smirked, then her face lit up. She snapped her fingers and pointed the index one at me like a gun. “I know what. I’ve got a plan.”

  “I’ve had enough of your plans,” Milly jeered. She’d emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. Her hair was sopping wet.

  “Come on, Milly, we can do this!” Cold Cuts said cheerily. “I can dress you and do your makeup in the RV. You’ll get there in plenty of time.”

  Milly eyed her angrily. “Are you crazy?”

  “No. I do it all the time. It’s literally what I do.”

  I gave my best friend a pleading look. “Milly, it’s probably the only chance in hell we have of making it on time.”

  Milly scowled. “All right, dammit. But no wigs this time.”

  ***

  I pulled up in the lot at Tyrone Square Mall with five minutes to spare. I’d gotten dressed while Cold Cuts drove, then taken over the wheel while she performed her magic on Milly. I shut off the ignition. Above the cough and sputter of the engine, I heard Cold Cuts clear her throat.

  “Introducing the dashing business tycoon, Milly Halbert!”

  Cold Cuts stepped aside and Milly sauntered into view. My eyes nearly dropped out of my skull. Milly was dressed to kill in a stunning red skirt and matching jacket. A cream-colored silk blouse made her skin look like peaches and cream. And her hair? Fabulous! Her shoulder-length blonde locks had been swept up into an amazing bun that tucked into the back. A single, long curl swept down the side of a face. Cinderella herself might have punched a dwarf in envy.