“Nope. He’s getting something a little more personal. Ladies, feast your eyes upon the size of that man’s tool.” Barney made an odd croaking laugh. “It’s got to be the world’s biggest pipe-wrench. How stupid is this pizza guy? Hasn’t he ever heard what it means to be a back door man? It means you sneak out the back door, not run through the front door. This guy deserves whatever is coming to him just for being an idiot. And there goes the world’s biggest pipe-wrench. Ooh, ouch! Right in the yam bag!” Barney closed his eyes and covered his groin with his floppy hands.
I watched the pizza boy crawl into his car while the plumber and his wife shouted obscenities at each other. “Ezzy, Barney, tell me we didn’t ruin the Whitehurst’s marriage.”
Esmeralda dismissed my concern with a flick of her wrist. “Please. You saw how she met that guy at the door, they were having sex within two minutes. Without a doubt, this has been going on for a long time. Sooner or later, they were going to get busted. Maybe it’s a good thing they got caught tonight. Who knows what the circumstances would have been in the future.”
“I suppose you’re right. Maybe it would have ended much worse.”
Barney found the spray bottle I use for my plants and decided to mist himself. Apparently frog skin gets a little dry. He waved his arms at us. “We’re not done yet, my lovely witches. Check out what’s happening on the TV now.”
We returned our focus to the TV. The pizza guy was driving and talking to himself. “Where the hell did I leave my cellphone? Damn it. God, I hope I didn’t leave it at home. Who cares? Kathy is too stupid to check my phone, even if I did leave it there. Last delivery of the night and it’s in my own neighborhood. I’m one lucky son of a bitch.” He turned on a residential street and slowed down. “1162, 1164. There we go, 1166.” He brought the car to a crawl and started talking to himself again. “What the hell? Kathy? What the hell is your car doing here?”
When the pizza man walked up to the door, the magic video feed followed him. Barney adjusted the image until it returned to a split screen. “Something is going on here. I think the poor bastard has some more Karma coming.”
I clapped my hands in applause when I saw what was going on. “Yes! I knew it. Look at the video of inside the house. More sex. This time on the living room floor. That chick is riding that guy like a he’s one of those toy bouncy horses.” The pizza guy knocked on the door.
“Pizza delivery!”
“Bring it inside. The door’s unlocked,” the woman replied without the slightest interruption of her pogo stick rhythm. Our pizza man stepped inside and was greeted by the sight of sex. The pizza boxes fell to the floor.
“What. The. Fuck? Kathy, you slut! I’m out busting my ass to pay the bills and you’re here screwing every guy in the neighborhood?”
Kathy continued to enjoy her bouncing ride. “Yeah. Busting your ass. More like getting your ass busted. You left your phone at home. I had some interesting conversations with four different women who had no idea you’re married. I told them not to worry, you’d be single again very soon. And looking for someplace to stay. Oh, and if you hurry down to the river, you might find a few of your clothes that haven’t sunk or drifted away.”
“So, you believe some crazy women who called my phone? And you’re screwing the neighbor to get back at me? For something I didn’t even do!”
“Of course I believed those women. It helped that you’ve been taking pictures and video clips of yourself hard at work. Hold on a second. I’m going to come again.”
“Ouch! I know this guy is a jerk…but man.” Barney seemed actually sympathetic for Mike Stumpf. “That had to be rough for him to see. I gotta say though, the way she handled that little payback was really perfect. It had all the right elements. It was dramatic to set him up so he would walk in on her with another man. And at the same time she confronted him with his multiple affairs. Not in a psychotic rant either. Nicely done.”
It looked like another pipe-wrench, of the invisible variety, hit Mike Stumpf right in the gut. He doubled over and literally crawled out of the house. He made it to the sidewalk just in time to witness a jacked up, baby monster truck careening down the street, right into his parked crappy car. The truck easily withstood the impact. The car didn’t fare so well. As a matter of fact, it looked like it had been disassembled by a pit crew of Neanderthals. The TV screen went blank.
“Wow. You were right, Barney. She got him where it hurt. I guess Karma came back in spades tonight on a guy who clearly deserved it. He was cheating on his wife with at least four other women. And he wrecked my car.”
Esmeralda shook her head. “Four women that he was lying to and stringing along. Probably more. Pizza dude was messing up a lot of minds with his little games. We did a good thing here tonight. So much for black magic being so bad, huh? Anyway, let’s see what sadistic thrills await by seeing what Karma has in store for Jackass Scott.”
Barney was tuning in the crystal ball. “I’m way ahead of you, Ezzy. Just have to find him on here. I can’t wait to see what Karma will do with someone that objectifies women, because Zeus only knows I’m guilty of that.”
“Maybe you should pay close attention, Barney. See what fate awaits unless you change your evil ways.”
Barney’s enthusiasm waned as he continued to fiddle around with his ball. “I don’t know, ladies. I’m not picking up anything. I think we were so caught up in the dramatic life of Mike Stumpf, we missed what happened to Jackass Scott. Sorry, Kelly. I guess you’ll have to ask around to find out what misfortunes took place.”
I was yawning to the point of tears. Literally. “It’ll have to be some other time. I’m beat. This kind of magic really wipes a person out. Feel free to make yourselves at home.” A final yawn and I was off to bed, Chihuahuas in tow.
Chapter Six
Witchy Wakeup
“Mmm, that feels nice.” Through the sheet, I felt a sensual, soft rhythmic massage on my lower back and the nape of my neck. I was still in the foggy world of my dreams, lying in bed with Chris Hemsworth. I felt him playing with my hair, slightly pulling on it and urging me to roll over. His delicate manner made me giggle. “Ooh. Baby, it feels sooo good.” I couldn’t stop giggling. “You were so rough and wild last night. This morning, you’re so gentle. Is this where you tell me you love me?”
“Why sure, I love you, Kelly. I love all my friends.”
“Your voice…why do you sound like a girl? An Irish girl?”
In that confusing place where dreams are interrupted, I struggled to reconcile the young woman’s voice with what I expected from my fantasy. Then it happened, the excruciating pain of being ripped from my playful lover’s bed and thrown back into reality’s lap of disappointments. Two black cats had been kneading me, filling for the role of Chris Hemsworth’s hands.
“Cats? Cats!” I gently nudged the two fluffy black cats off my bed and quickly made a protective shelter with my pillows and blankets.
“Being an Irish girl, I suppose it’s only natural to sound like one. You didn’t forget I was coming this morning? I brought your new witch cat. Oh, and I brought your dear brother along. Now, say hello to Gemma. She has the purple collar. The other cat is my Darcy.”
I peeked out from under my pillow fortress like a cautious turtle extending its neck out of her shell. “Ugh. Gertie, I completely forgot.” Gertie was seated at the foot of my bed. Her little dress was bright orange and matched her wide awake personality. I buried my head back into my pillow igloo. “Why do you have to be so perky this early?”
“I don’t think I’m the only one. That little frog man in your living room is a riot. Can’t you hear them all out there?”
Gertie was right. From the din erupting down the hall, it sounded like Ezzy, Barney, and my brother, Randy, were throwing a party. And perhaps something more physical. THUMP. THWACK. Followed by cheers, barks, and applause. “Oh, what the hell are they doing out there?”
Reluctantly, I slipped out of my cozy nest. I picked u
p Gemma and was rewarded with nuzzling and purrs. “This is a first. Loosey and Lorena hate cats. I would expect them to be in here losing their damn minds.”
“Oh, not these cats. You have to remember, Kelly, they’re not ordinary cats. Your little dogs seem to have reached an understanding with them.”
When I reached the living room, I stopped to watch the spectacle taking place. Barney was standing on the back of the couch and he bobbed up and down as if he contemplated an attempt at a swan dive. Randy stood in the kitchen and took a maraschino cherry from a jar in his hand. “Ready? One, two…three!” Randy flicked his thumb, launching the cherry. It arced over the island. Just before it landed on the TV, Barney’s pink, gummy tongue shot out and instantly retracted. Randy and Ezzy waited. With a theatrical bow, Barney spit the cherry out to instant applause. “Next. Ready? One, two…three!” Now Ezzy launched something white and round. Barney snagged it. This time, Barney didn’t bow. Instead, his little frog face crinkled with a look of utter disgust.
“Phew!” Barney spewed the remnants of a cracked egg onto the floor. “Goddamn it, you guys! That’s dirty pool.” He wiped his lips off with an article of Ezzy’s clothing. “I’m done. Going to hit the shower. Assholes.” I doubt Randy or Ezzy could hear him over their raucous laughter. Barney walked past us, gave me a wink, and swatted Gertie’s ass with his webbed hand. The audible smack was immediately followed with Gertie’s squeaky yelp.
“Hey sis! About time you woke up. I was just looking through your fridge. You don’t have enough stuff to make breakfast. So we’ve all decided we’re going out. Hurry up and get ready.”
“Randy, maybe I’d have some food if you would quit feeding it to the little green pervert.” I did an about face and sighed when I thought about the mess left behind by their circus act. “Give me a few minutes to get ready. You guys can clean up the mess.”
Gertie took my arm and whispered her worries to me. “Ezzy said Barney is an imp. I thought imps were evil. Aren’t they? Devils or something?”
“I wouldn’t worry. He seems okay. Sure, he’s a little mischievous, but he’s no worse than half the boys in my seventh grade English class. You want to talk about demons? Ach! I long for the days when I was teaching second grade.”
“Well…if you trust him.” Gertie’s eyes tracked the two cats walking down the hallway to my bedroom. “It might not be a bad idea to let Marie Laveau know that you girls have this imp hopping around.”
“That’s not a bad idea. But we should leave that decision to Ezzy. She’s the one that took him out of that old chest. So for now, please don’t tell anyone. We wouldn’t want Ezzy to get into any trouble.” Gertie was right, but I couldn’t tell Marie. For starters, Ezzy appropriated, and that’s a nice word for what I believed was outright theft, the trunk out of the Union storeroom. Mostly, I was up to my neck in black magic collusion with Ezzy.
“Oh, Kelly! I nearly forgot. I have a litter box already set up for Gemma. I put it by the closet that has your washer and dryer in it. Since you have dogs, you’ll want to see if that’s a good place.”
“Um, okay.” I didn’t really know how to respond. I went into my room to get dressed and thought about it. Was that a good place? Is there really a good place for a litter box in a condo? What do dogs have to do with it?
Chapter Seven
Black Magic Breakfast
“Nice spring morning for a walk.” Gertie wrapped her arm around Randy’s arm and attempted some forced skipping down the sidewalk. This was a good time to remind Ezzy about being careful of what we said, or did, in regards to black magic.
“Ezzy, I just want to let you know that Gertie seemed a little concerned that we have an imp out of the box. I told her that Barney is nothing like the imps of myths and legends. You know, a demon. Anyway, it’s probably not a good idea to talk about the kind of magic we’re playing around with. Gertie is a super honest person, and if certain witches were to start asking questions, I wouldn’t blame Gertie for telling everything.”
Ezzy didn’t answer right away, and I started to wonder if she thought I questioned her intelligence. She smiled at me and her reply, although delayed, made me feel better. “That’s perfectly okay by me. My lips are sealed.”
I was a regular weekend breakfaster at Bud’s, the corner café near my condo. It’s not exactly health food, just the world’s best waffles, an overdose of shiny chrome eye-catching red vinyl upholstery, and black and white checkered tiles. It’s the ultimate retro diner. Bud’s isn’t some schlocky recreation. It’s the real deal, and each booth still has the original tabletop jukeboxes that have played the same hit single for decades.
That morning we lucked out by getting the more spacious corner booth. Orders placed and coffee served, our attention turned to unusual activity coming from Gertie’s tote bag sitting on the booth next to her. Two fuzzy little black ears popped up from the opening, then they were gone. The ears reappeared a few times. This was soon followed by an equally fuzzy black paw that swatted relentlessly at Ezzy’s large canvas knapsack.
Randy took his jacket from the coat hook on the end of the booth. His head swiveled to see if anyone was watching, then threw it onto Gertie’s tote like he was a fisherman casting a net. “Gertie! You didn’t! Don’t you know? You can’t bring a cat into a public restaurant.”
“Why? Darcy wouldn’t bother anyone in here.”
“She sure seems to be bothering me. What’s wrong with that cat anyway?” Ezzy pulled her own bag out of Darcy’s range.
“I’m not sure. What do you have in that huge bag anyway? Is it a backpack? She’s never this aggressive. Unless of course—” Darcy’s next move interrupted Gertie. She threw Randy’s jacket off, then made a ninja-like leap, diving whiskers first, right into Ezzy’s bag. Imagine every sound ever heard during a cat fight. Add to that commotion the sound of Barney’s Steve Buscemi like voice. The imp shouted out expletives like an enraged Bears fan watching his team lose to the Packers. It was that bad.
Ezzy’s bag turned into a hellish gladiator cage for both cat and imp. The churning sack of violent creatures fell off the booth’s seat, hitting the tile floor with a sickening thud. Darcy sprang free and headed for the door. Her escape was halted when she sped claws first into the leg of a large—monster sized, actually—man. I recognized this man as the notorious mobster, Moscow Mike. At least that’s the name my Uncle Carmine used when he was talking about him.
Poor Darcy did what any cat would do when frightened. She sunk every needlelike claw and tooth into the obstructing leg. Moscow Mike kicked his leg out and Darcy’s claws were torn free from her grip. The cat was propelled into the air where she spun wildly. Like a trapeze artist who had missed her mark, she grasped frantically for something to hang onto. Fortunately, the old adage was once again proven to be true when she landed safely on her feet. Uninjured but obviously disoriented, Darcy zig-zagged her way back to our booth. Gertie scooped her up, checked her over, and placed her under the table.
Randy gave me a painful elbow nudge. “Kelly, see who that is?”
“Yeah. Moscow Mike and some of his goons.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gertie stand up. I knew exactly what she was going to do. “Gertie! Don’t say a thing. Just let it go. We don’t want any trouble from those guys. They’re mean, violent, and they would be very angry if you started in on them.”
Randy leaned over the table and whispered to Gertie, “Yeah, don’t say a thing. These are the only gangsters that Uncle Carmine is afraid of.”
Randy’s mention of our loveable Uncle Carmine being afraid took me by surprise. “Really? I’ve always thought of Uncle Carmine as fearless. I never thought it could be possible that he would be afraid of anything.”
“Maybe ‘afraid’ isn’t the right word. Let’s just say he acknowledges the fact that he is way out of his league with Moscow Mike.”
I need to explain a few things about my Uncle Carmine. It would be impossible for me to talk about the topic of revenge or Karma
and not explain who he is. He’s my Godfather and he takes that responsibility seriously, at least in the traditional Franchetti family way. He has always been there for me if I needed some help, threaten some bullies, or to dispose of a body, but I’ve never had to take him up on the latter. Carmine is a self-described retired mobster. Despite his overblown reputation, even at the peak of his organized crime career, his crew mostly ran some illegal gambling scheme, owned a shady automobile parts operation, a pest control business that broke every environmental law ever written, and an exotic pet store that may or may not have smuggled the occasional rare animal. They also ran a costume shop that was, by all accounts, unexpectedly honest and above board. His “crew” consisted of Johnny Nipples and Hamster Dick, along with a rotating roster of equally underachieving Mafiosi. Now that I think about it, I can understand the mismatch between Carmine and a card carrying kingpin of a Russian mob outfit.
“I suppose Uncle Carmine understands his limitations. Anyway, you get what we’re saying, Gertie?”
“Ooh. I don’t get my bristles up very often, but the way he flung my Darcy across the room…ooh! I could just say a few words to him.”
Darcy was already opening the bag with a slow and cautious paw. Barney’s front leg or arm came out of the bag and surprisingly, the two made up. Barney crawled out of the bag, sitting under the table, conveniently right between Gertie’s knees. “Hey, you with the sweet beaver. Don’t get mad…get even.” His hands slid up Gertie’s thighs. “You wanna see a fun trick I can do with this elastic tongue?”
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