The Death of Mungo Blackwell

by Lauren H Brandenburg

  “Oh, no – this, it’s for fun.”

  “I’ve worn my fair share of monkey suits, and I wouldn’t exactly call them fun.”

  “Oh, this will be fun, I promise. You haven’t seen Shug around, have you?” Charlie surveyed the market.

  “He’s around here somewhere, most likely in the shop.”

  Charlie only half paid attention – his mind caught between the memory of his professional death and making sure Shug Blackwell saw him.

  “I don’t know what you have up that expensive sleeve of yours, but it can’t be good.”

  Charlie adjusted his cufflinks – the cufflinks Velveteen had bought him when he informed her Edgar Green was retiring. They were books – tiny gold books monogrammed “CEP”. He should have pawned them; last week they could have used the money, but there were some things he could not let go.

  “Do you want me to tell Shug you’re looking for him?”

  Charlie laughed. “No, I have a feeling that after our last conversation, he has his eye on me already.”

  Even though Charlie could not see the shop owner, there was no doubt Shug was watching. While he waited for the inevitable confrontation, Charlie allowed his methods to mesh with his new image. He used bigger words and handled each object as if it were a rare artifact. To his surprise, his ruse was more of a detriment – the regular vendors laughed and not a single new vendor would take his offer.

  “Ah, ha!” Danger shot up from underneath a table of automobile parts. “I knew you worked for the FBI!” The boy proceeded to quiz Charlie on his secret identity, code words, and concealed weaponry – all the while Charlie scanned the crowd of eager shoppers for Shug. “Are you on a mission? Does Gideon know who you really are? Do you have a codename?”

  Charlie laughed. “I’m not a spy, Danger.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  He tried to change the subject. “Gideon said something about pirates and pygmies. Are you putting on a show today?”

  “It’s pygmy day, and it’s not a show, it’s –”

  Charlie laughed. “I know; it’s history.”

  “Mungo Blackwell was a spy too, Mr Price.”

  “Why am I not surprised? Go on now. I’m sure the other pygmies are waiting for you.”

  The boy would not ease his interrogation. “How long have you been a spy? Is your wife a spy? You can tell me!”

  Charlie gave in. “As long as you promise not to reveal my identity to anyone –”

  “I promise!” Danger nodded vigorously, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping.

  “I am on a mission. It involves the Chinese government. Top secret.” Charlie glanced over his shoulder, pretending he was being watched. “I need your help.”

  “Sure! Of course.”

  “I think you can handle it.” Charlie pulled his wrist to his chest, tapped the tiny gold book, and then brought it to his ear. He nodded, shot a quick look down at Danger, and then darted his eyes from side to side. “Number one says, you’re clear.”

  “Wow! Can I have one of those communication devices?”

  “Sorry, kid, you have to graduate from the academy. Here’s what we need from you. Keep a sharp eye on the tourists, got it?”

  “Got it. What am I looking for?”

  “Chinese vases. It’s what the ninja monks use to smuggle in the goods.”

  “Ninja monks. Yes, sir. I can do it, sir.”

  “I’m counting on you, Danger.” Charlie didn’t say another word. Danger took off into the sea of shoppers.

  Forty-five minutes later, while in deep debate with a vendor over the cost of a vintage record player, Charlie suddenly found himself handcuffed and facing the head constable of Coraloo.

  “Hey! What’s going on?”

  “Not a word until we figure this out.”

  “Can you at least un-cuff me? My son’s friends are around here.” Charlie was relieved Gideon was in school and not with him at the market to witness whatever was going on.

  “Fair enough.”

  The constable unhooked the metal bracelets. Charlie rubbed his wrists.

  “Now, I mean it, Mr Price. Not another word. For the sake of your boy, we’ll walk out together like nothing’s wrong.”

  Charlie followed the constable out of the market, through the stares of curious customers, down to the center of the town, and into the municipal building. The building stood three stories high, the tallest building in the town of Coraloo, with the law enforcement office and a two-cell jail on the bottom floor, a courtroom and municipal offices on the second, and the mayor’s office on the third.

  Charlie sat in the hard metal chair of the law enforcement office as the constable filled out his necessary paperwork. “Whatever you’re writing on that paper, I didn’t do it.”

  “Uh, huh.” The constable kept his eye on the paperwork in front of him.

  “I don’t work for the Chinese government!”

  “A lot about your story doesn’t add up, Mr Price.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re telling me the only reason you moved to Coraloo is so you can buy from the vendors and resell it all for more, and you’re supporting a wife and child doing this, Mr Price?” The constable shook his head disapprovingly. “That’s some story, but I’m not buying it. Right thumb…”

  Charlie let his head fall to the desk, and then allowed the constable to roll his right thumb on the pad of ink, and press it onto the paper with his other prints. “This can’t be about my personal life. Why am I really here?”

  “Espionage.”

  “Espionage! It was a joke! I was just playing with the boy!” Charlie tried to throw his hands up in the air, forgetting he was cuffed to the desk.

  “Granny doesn’t think so.” The constable put down his ink pen and leaned back in the slat back rolling chair.

  “What’s Granny got to do with this?”

  “Danger insists you moved to Coraloo as an undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Blackwells don’t lie, Mr Price. Granny was fearful of being found out – don’t ask.” Velveteen’s theory about the crazy grandmother seemed more plausible by the moment. “That woman has more secrets than Carter’s got liver pills.”

  “Carter?”

  The constable passed over Charlie’s confusion about a person named Carter and their liver pills. “So, she called it in, saying a man posing as an FBI agent and quite possibly a black market antiquities dealer, easily identified by a gray wool double-breasted pinstriped suit, was working the market today. We don’t like trouble, Mr Price. Why are you really here?”

  “I told you.”

  The constable chuckled. “Nobody’s going to believe that, Mr Price. I doubt you even believe it yourself. I’ll give you some time to think about it. Let’s clean you up first.” From a shelf above the filing cabinet, the constable took down a mason jar of clear liquid. “Here. It’ll take the ink off. Just don’t drink it.”

  Charlie unscrewed the lid, releasing a pungent aroma like that of turpentine. “Whoa! Is this stuff legal?”

  “Nope. Confiscated it years ago. That’s our last jug. A couple of the Toft boys found a family recipe and decided to have a go at it. They had a go at it all right! Pretty sure one of the boys bought and paid for a new car before I found what they were up to. All right, Mr Price, in you go.”

  Charlie stepped into the brick jail cell and sat down on the blue ticking stripe sheet covering the cot. The space hardly evoked a sense of fear and discipline. It was more like a quaint reading nook with a neatly folded white blanket at the foot of the bedding and a stack of old cloth-bound books resting on a wooden nightstand. He probably could have pushed the cell door open and walked right out if he wanted, but he didn’t want to.

  Charlie laid his head against the wall. I’m in jail. He laughed. I’m in jail. He reached for one of the books – Paradise Lost. He’d read it. He grabbed another – Frankenstein. A favorite. What kind of prison has their cell library stocked wit
h literary classics? He laughed again. Forty-five minutes ago he had strolled the market dressed like a banker awaiting a verbal confrontation with Shug Blackwell. His wool pinstripes were ironically fitting for his present situation.

  Velveteen flung herself against the metal bars. “Oh, Charlie! I only heard moments ago! I’m going to get you out of here! I love you…”

  She turned dramatically to face the constable who was sitting at his desk directly across from the cell. Charlie would’ve hated to be the constable right about now as his wife, appointing herself as his legal representation, frantically tried to convince the constable they were not a family of undercover spies, or black market distributors, or – as the story had grown largely out of proportion – a smuggler of illegal jasmine into China. She flailed her arms in exaggerated movements and plopped her hand on her hip emphatically when she was trying to make a point.

  Oh how he loved her.

  The door to the office opened again. Charlie pressed his body against the bars and craned his neck to see who else was joining the fray. Seconds later, Stephen Blackwell opened the cell door. Charlie reached out and shook his hand.

  “I promised Roy a batch of Granny’s bourbon balls if he’d give this whole thing a rest. Just be glad he didn’t call in the volunteer officers. You know he thinks something’s really wrong when he calls in those two old goons.” Stephen patted Charlie on the back. “He’s just doing his job.”

  “I know. Thanks, Stephen.”

  Charlie took Velveteen by the hand and led her down the streets of Coraloo to the Toft house. By the time they arrived, Gideon had heard all about the event and was so pleased with his father’s successful portrayal of the FBI agent who smuggled illegal jasmine via the black market into China, he wanted to convince Danger the whole thing could be acted out next weekend at the market. He’d call it, “A new page in the history of the Coraloo Flea Market”. Velveteen forbade it.

  CHAPTER 12

  “What will the book club be reading this month?” Charlie snagged a cookie from Velveteen’s sterling silver serving tray. When he had offered to sell the tray for her, she asked him if she could keep it, saying something about holding onto a piece of life pre-Rooning. He had suggested she hang it on the wall as a memory of The Rooning, but she said it was too fancy for their country life decor.

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’ll be here in what, forty-five minutes? It’s unlike you to not have figured out what you all will be reading.”

  “Granny is bringing it.”

  “But you always pick what the group is reading.”

  She pulled a lemon cake from the oven, set it on the counter beside her tray of break and bake chocolate chip cookies, and smiled at her accomplishments. “Not in Coraloo. Nobody argues with Granny.”

  “Maybe that’s why I was arrested.” In his former life, he would have hired an attorney to sue for defamation of character. In Coraloo, he was pretty sure he was a celebrity among the children. “You’re right – nobody argues with Granny.”

  “You were arrested because you are a spy. Look, Charlie! I made a cake!”

  Charlie liked this shift in Velveteen. In the past two weeks she had tried more than a dozen recipes from the Unofficial Melba DuMont Countryside Cookbook – most of which found a home in the trashcan, but she had perfected the lemon cake.

  The sunlight streamed through the windows of the cottage, mocking the chilly fall afternoon. Their cottage hardly resembled the leftover life of the Toft family. It was light, bright, and airy – the way Velveteen had imagined it could be.

  Charlie was impressed with how she had taken their old things and made them look new. She had a gift for it. It was hard to believe she had given it up. A year before The Rooning, a move like theirs would have required a contractor, construction crew, and an interior designer for each room. Now it seemed that every day she was tweaking and designing. Charlie looked forward to coming back after a day at the market to be welcomed with, “Charlie, come look what I’ve done!” It was a joy he had not seen in her in years. Last Friday, he returned to find her pulling up the orange living room carpet with a crowbar she’d uncovered in the garden shed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Wood, Charlie! Solid, beautiful wood!”

  At times, the Toft cottage felt like home to Charlie; at other times, he had the urge to upgrade to something with more square footage – possibly with his own office where he could sort and price, list and sell, without having to move his wares from the kitchen counters and table whenever they needed to sit down for a meal. The desire was an old one, the feeling of never having enough, always wanting more. He caught himself once or twice perusing online real estate sites, forgetting their goal of living a simpler life. A bigger house meant bigger payments. Discouraging.

  Currently, his latest picks were shoved under the bed in Gideon’s room – out of sight. Velveteen had insisted he move them from the kitchen. She had worked hard preparing the house for the Blackwell ladies. She wanted them to experience the luxurious book club she had hosted in the city – minus the macarons, of course. She had rearranged the pillows on the sofa for a solid hour and stared at the rack they called a wardrobe for another hour or more, deciding what to wear. It had to be perfect. She had to show Granny that Velveteen Price did not need an ounce of work.

  “Are you walking Gideon to school?”

  Charlie frowned. “Not anymore. He rides his bike with the boys.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I guess I’ll just sit at the table and list. I have a couple packages to take to the post office, and then I’ll be back.” The cheerful disposition on her face switched to a blank stare. Had he forgotten something? They celebrated their anniversary in July, and her birthday in February.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to go?”

  He quickly glanced at the calendar on his phone. Empty – free of lunch appointments, meetings, or required professional development trainings. “No.”

  “Charlie, you can’t be down here for my book club!”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” His mind was stuck on the emptiness of his calendar. It was what he had wanted – his days free to be with the family and not filled with the slush pile of paperwork and conference calls.

  “My book club, Charlie!”

  “Right, so where do you want me to go?”

  “Away! Please…”

  “How about Gideon’s room?”

  Velveteen had yet to get her hand on the room. The cowboys on the walls reminded Charlie of the scenes acted out by the boys at the market. Being confined to the rodeo would force him to get some much needed listing done of the picks he had stashed away: old tool chests, some containing tools; a vintage overhead projector; a box of spoons; a set of coasters; and three boxes of items to be sorted. It was always fun to go back through his picks – but clearly not today. Velveteen’s plans somehow made him feel agitated, uncomfortable, and aware of his boredom.

  “You’ve never been home during book club. I wasn’t expecting it. You’ll make me nervous.”

  “Nervous? I’ll shut the door. You won’t even know I’m up there.”

  “I can’t explain it, Charlie.” Velveteen walked in circles, mumbling to herself. “I guess I’ll say I am painting in there; we’ll keep the door closed. They won’t have to see his room. But what if they venture upstairs, they’ll wonder… Charlie, are you sure there is nowhere to go?”

  “It’s a Thursday; the market is closed.”

  “What about Stephen? Can’t you go do whatever it is he does on the weekdays?”

  “I don’t understand why this is a big deal.”

  “I don’t know why it’s a big deal, it just is! I was not planning on you being here!”

  He sighed. “I don’t have anywhere to go, Velveteen. Do you want me to sit in the street?”

  “Of course not.” She blushed.

  The mantel clock rang the half-hour – Velveteen had thi
rty minutes to freshen up her make-up and make sure the house was perfect for the ladies. She had planned through every detail, except Charlie. Gideon clomped down the stairs and into the kitchen. He grabbed a cookie, and with his backpack slung across his shoulder threw open the door.

  “Hey!” Charlie called. “Not even a goodbye?”

  “Sorry.” Gideon wiped a crumb from his lip with his forearm “Bye!”

  “Hold up! What are you doing after school?”

  “Practice. Mungo’s getting married!” Gideon started out the door again.

  “Wait!” Velveteen called to her son.

  He rolled his eyes and stepped back inside.

  “How does the house look?”

  He shrugged. “Good.”

  “Do you think they will like it?”

  “It’s just a house.”

  “It’s not just a house; it’s our house. The Blackwells aren’t used to being in a house. They live in camper vans.” She paused, noticing Gideon’s contorted stare. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “The Blackwells have a house.”

  “Gideon, we ate on the lawn in front of their camper van. I think I would know if they have a house.”

  “That’s not what Danger said – gotta go!” He quickly kissed his mom on the cheek, gave Charlie a sideways hug, and ran out of the cottage.

  “What do you think that was about?”

  Charlie scratched the back of his head, realizing he hadn’t spent enough time talking to his wife. “They have a house in the suburbs.”

  “What!”

  “They rent it to tourists.”

  “Oh, so it’s like an investment.”

  “Well, it was their house, until Stephen got word the market was in trouble. He was an attorney – took some time off to help out the family. Took over his father’s shop a few years ago and decided he liked his new life better.”

  “Are you telling me they have a house, and they choose to live in a camper van?”

  “Something like that.”