Bubbles Ablaze

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Stiletto and I stepped onto the sidewalk outside the Slagville P.D., blinking under the bright blue sky and breathing in the fresh autumn air. It was one of those old-fashioned crisp fall mornings where for once the world seemed in order. The children were in school. Parents were at work. Bills were paid and houses were clean. Productivity was all around us and it was comforting to be alive.

  Not comforting enough, though. It’s funny how surviving a murder attempt can change your perspective on life. Yesterday, I had blithely gone shopping, packed my bags for the Passion Peak and driven to a lovers’ retreat, humming Aerosmith all the way. Little did I know that I was being watched the entire time, that somewhere out there an evil maniac had been implementing a deadly plan to make that day my last on earth.

  The concept was too bizarre and scary for my rather peaceful mind to grasp. I decided that, until there was more evidence, I would stick to my theory that Stinky had set us up. My mission, therefore, was to find my cousin’s crazy husband and make him spill the beans.

  “Something’s not right,” Stiletto said, glancing around the wide tree-lined streets of Slagville. “It’s off.”

  “Maybe you’re just feeling the aftereffects of last night. How’s your head, by the way?” I reached over and touched the back of his head. The grapefruit had been reduced to an orange, although his nose remained swollen.

  “Still hurts.” He gently removed my hand. “It’s not my head. I mean something’s out of place in this town.”

  We turned onto Main Street, which ran straight up and straight down a steep hill and was lined with row homes of varying colors—brick red, spring green, baby blue and peeling white. Because they were built on a slope, each rooftop leveled off at its neighbor’s second-story window.

  The screen door of every home was covered with cardboard scarecrows, witches, and ghouls. Some front windows were ornately decorated with plastic moving pumpkins or ghosts that moaned as we passed. As in the south side of Lehigh, people here did not mess around when it came to Halloween.

  Men were on stepladders cleaning out gutters, or on their knees painting trim and recaulking brick. Women were inside frying onions and apples, sending mouthwatering smells from their open kitchen windows. We approached a set of padded matrons in aprons and hair nets who had paused from sweeping the spotless sidewalks to gossip. As we passed they went mum and gaped openly at Stiletto. One woman started giggling so hard her friend poked her with a broom to make her simmer down.

  “Women go gaga for Steve Stiletto,” I said, as we entered the Texaco parking lot. “What’s out of place?”

  “Take this, for example,” he said, nodding at the red-winged horse that flew above the Texaco sign. “It’s like 1963. I bet most of these people never heard of the Internet. Or computers for that matter.”

  Indeed, at that moment a fresh-scrubbed attendant in a white jumpsuit stepped sprightly from the gas station. “Just adding up the morning’s receipts in my ledger book,” he apologized, wiping ink off his fingertips. “What can I do you for?”

  I asked for the Camaro back and did not get the fairy tale response of, “Oh, sure, it’s over here. That’ll be ten bucks for a spark plug.”

  “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “We had to order a new alternator from Detroit. We don’t stock parts for that model year.”

  “They don’t stock parts past 1935,” Stiletto whispered, as the clerk checked to see what time I could pick up the car.

  “Tomorrow by noon at the earliest,” the clerk said. “Anything else?”

  Stiletto requested a rental with four-wheel drive, standard shift and no top.

  The attendant pointed to a beige-toned Crown Victoria LX with cruise control, automatic transmission, power windows and power steering. “It’s the only one we got. You can rent stick-shift cars in Wilkes-Barre, but,” he shrugged, “how you gonna get there without no wheels?”

  Logical.

  Stiletto pulled me aside as the attendant, whistling a Frank Sinatra tune, skipped to the office so he could take an imprint of my Visa. Since Stiletto’s wallet had perished in the explosion, he had been forced to rely on the graces of my plastic.

  “I can’t drive this,” he said.

  “Why can’t you drive it?” I ran my finger along the chrome. “It’s deluxe!”

  “It’s an old lady’s car. It’s got . . . automatic transmission.”

  I cupped my hands to the windows and peered inside. Overstuffed beige leather seats. Cushy arm rests. Seemed mighty darn nice to me. A welcome change from that cruddy Jeep with its worn-out shocks.

  “Look,” I said, pointing. “It’s got tilt-a-wheel.”

  “Oh, brother.”

  “Here you go, sir.” The attendant handed Stiletto a set of keys and me my Visa. “She’s all gassed up and ready to roll. Enjoy!”

  Stiletto managed to smear a polite smile on his face and open the door, though he cursed vehemently as the luxury car ding-ding-dinged to warn him that the seat belts weren’t on. As I walked around the front I saw a rather large AARP sticker prominently displayed on the bumper next to AAA, the auto club. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

  “That’s okay, you can drop me off at Roxanne’s,” I said, in an attempt to ditch him so I could get Roxanne alone. “That way you won’t be bored by our girl talk. You know, babies and hot guys and stuff.” If that didn’t send him screaming in the other direction, what would?

  But Stiletto only replied absently, “Uh-huh.”

  Roxanne’s salon, the Main Mane, took up one half of Roxanne’s house, a large vinyl-sided building at the end of Main Street (of course). As we got closer, I worried that perhaps my request to be dropped off hadn’t registered with Stiletto, especially when he reminded me that we could stay at Roxanne’s for only a few minutes.

  “How come?” I asked, now praying that the backup plan I had put into motion would work.

  “I’ve got to meet the AP reporter assigned to the story. Luckily, she’s already in the area, visiting family. She grew up in Slagville.”

  “She?”

  “Nice kid. Esmeralda Green.”

  What a name. “Sounds like a witch.”

  “Some witch. She’s a former model, though you probably won’t recognize her face.”

  “Why not?”

  “She used to model underwear.”

  The muscle under my right eye twinged. Stiletto grinned.

  “It’s how she put herself through Yale, in fact.”

  It twitched again. “You’re making this up.”

  Stiletto pulled in front of the Main Mane and parked behind Roxanne’s brand new gold Ford Explorer with its 62XS vanity plate. Stiletto killed the engine before stroking my cheek. “Don’t worry, Bubbles. No one else compares to you. You’re one in a million.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said as flashing blue lights appeared in the rearview. “Not now.”

  “What’s this?” Stiletto said, rolling down the window. Chief Donohue leaned in. The Texaco attendant was by his side and my eye twitching miraculously ceased.

  “Going for a little joyride?” Donohue asked.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Yablonsky,” the attendant squeaked, “but I had to place a call to the Visa company. Seems your card is over the limit.”

  I shut my eyes and waited for the aftershocks. In this situation Dan would have put his fist through the roof and the lecture would have been more rapid fire than an auctioneer’s. How could you have not paid that bill, blah, blah, blah.

  “Bubbles, I’m surprised at you,” Stiletto said in a calm voice.

  I cocked open one eye. He was resting his arm along the door and there was an approving smirk on his face. “I’ve run across National Enquirer reporters with more ethics. Guess you don’t pull any punches, do you?”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Were you that desperate to make sure I didn’t talk to Stinky’s wife? First you try to put me off with threats of girl talk and then this.” Stiletto shook his
head slowly. “My, my. What other tricks do you have up your fluorescent orange sleeve?”

  “It’s not orange,” I said. “It’s apricot.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind returning the car, Mr. Stiletto,” Donohue said, “I’ll provide an escort back.”

  “Of course not, Chief,” Stiletto said, starting it up again.

  I opened my side. “All’s well that ends well,” I said brightly. “Why don’t I wait for you here?”

  “What a brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” Stiletto said. “Although, since it’s your credit card, shouldn’t you be the one to drive back while I interview Roxanne?”

  Whoops.

  “Not me, babe,” I said, stepping out. “You know I can’t drive automatic. I only know how to drive stick.”

  Chapter 5

  Something was missing in the Main Mane and it wasn’t pink organdy curtains, mint-green walls, rust-colored shag carpeting, plastic plants and a low table littered with tattered magazines. It was customers. Thursday morning and the place was dead empty. In the hairdressing world, this meant Roxanne was at the edge of bankruptcy, if she hadn’t fallen over already.

  “Bubbles, how are you, hon?” Roxanne stepped out of the supply room and clicked over to me in her purple high heels, clasping me so hard to her bosom that puffs of Lily of the Valley powder rose from her chest. “Chief Donohue telephoned me this morning and told me the whole story.”

  I wiggled free of her perfumed grasp and sucked in fresh air before I passed out. As a kid, I had been in awe of my older cousin Roxanne’s flair with cosmetics. She’d been the one to teach me that white shadow across the bottom of my lids made my eyes wider and that the key to plucking eyebrows was to carefully trim them first. She was still doing that white lid thing, although at age forty it merely accented her wrinkles instead of making her look like a go-go girl, and she hadn’t cottoned on to the concept of “light fragrance.”

  “Did Donohue mention that someone tried to kill me?”

  “He did, but I didn’t believe it. I mean, who would want to kill you, Bubbles, especially by blowing you up? It’s so violent.”

  “Don’t take offense, but my personal opinion is it was one of Stinky’s practical jokes that got out of hand. I was hoping maybe you’d heard from him so we could clear this mess up. I’d like to find out if I’ve offended him or ticked him off in such a way that he needed to get back at me.”

  At the mention of Stinky’s name, Roxanne’s face melted. “I haven’t heard ‘boo’ from the Stinkster. After Donohue told me that you spotted the Lexus there, I worried Stinky blew up, too.” Tears sprung from the corners of her eyes. “He hasn’t even called me to say he’s okay.”

  “I’m sure he’s okay,” I said, although I doubted that highly. I put my arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “Stinky’s fine.”

  “You don’t know. Stinky hasn’t been fine for some time.” She turned away and wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. I couldn’t help but notice a pair of glittery amethyst earrings and matching necklace. Stiletto was right. No matter how weirded out Stinky might be these days, he was doing very well—at least financially.

  “Gotta keep positive,” she said, sniffling. “Say, where’s that well-hung hunk of yours, Stiletto?”

  “Stiletto’s having a problem with the rented Crown Victoria.” I nodded in a what-can-you-do way. “I’m sure he’ll be around.” Oh, yes. He’d be around.

  “A Crown Victoria. My, my.” Roxanne fanned herself at the thought. “Nice to have boku bucks. Is it true that he’s a millionaire?”

  It was true but not a fact Stiletto was proud of. In Stiletto’s mind the wealth he had inherited from Henry Metzger, his heartless stepfather, was dirty money. Out of nostalgia he maintained the family mansion back in Saucon Valley, an exclusive suburb for steel executives near Lehigh, but he had set aside the rest for charity and still kept his apartment in New York. We didn’t talk about his portfolio much.

  “He lives mostly on his AP salary,” I said. “Anyway, what’s this about—”

  “I hear he’s got a set of shoulders on him that could build Rome,” Roxanne interrupted, her eyes gleaming.

  “More like Easton.”

  “That’ll do,” she said. “And to think of you stuck with that chastity vow. Girl, I’d have thrown myself on that man without so much as a howdy-do.”

  I would have thrown myself on him if it hadn’t been for that bogus fax sent by your crazy husband, I thought ruefully.

  “So what do you mean by Stinky hasn’t been fine for some time?” I asked.

  I expected Roxanne to tell me what a rat her blackmailing psycho husband had been. Instead she said, “I did an awful thing, cousin. Just awful.” She brushed back a strand of copper hair. “Coffee, sugar?”

  Was that an offer of coffee or coffee with sugar? “Thanks,” I said, perching myself on a padded stool by the makeup counter.

  “You know that he quit his six-figure job at McMullen Coal, right?” Roxanne poured the coffee.

  “Six-figure job? What are they mining over there, gold?”

  “That was a recent salary hike. Stinky was making one-sixth that before.” She dumped two spoonfuls of sugar in each cup. Gag. “Early this year, McMullen Coal moved Stinky off maps and over to special projects where he got tons more money and even two new cars. We were in heaven for about six months and then . . . I probably shouldn’t talk about it.”

  “Then Stinky got fired for going wacko. Donohue told me.”

  “That’s a bunch of bull, if you pardon my French.” She held out her pinky. “Pinky promise to keep this quiet, just between you and me. Because I definitely do not want this to get out around town.”

  I dreaded promises. As soon as you make them, you want to break them. “Pinky promise,” I reluctantly agreed, hooking my pinky in hers.

  “Stinky discovered that after he left the cartography division of McMullen Coal, the maps of the Number Nine mine had been tampered with. They hadn’t been updated since the mine reopened briefly earlier this year.”

  I dropped her pinky. “Is that a big deal?”

  “If they didn’t update the maps intentionally, it is. It could mean McMullen was trying to rob coal.” Roxanne stirred the coffee slowly. “Stinky told his supervisors at McMullen that fudging maps could get miners killed and he demanded they correct them. He even threatened to tell the state if they didn’t. But despite all the promises from the supervisors that the maps would be updated, last month Stinky checked the records and found out that no maps had been changed. Then he went into the Number Nine mine and found out that more coal was gone.”

  My internal alarmed beeped so loudly Roxanne could’ve heard it. News story. News story. Ding. Ding. Ding. I glanced at my pinky. Drat that pinky.

  “So he quit. And then things got really nuts.” She poured a half a carton of Lehigh Valley Dairy milk in our coffee. “The day Stinky left his job, he came home from the hardware store with a bag of locks. Put new deadbolts on all the doors and windows.”

  “Why?”

  “Beats me.” She slid me my cup of coffee. “He spent those first few days doing nothing but writing letters to the state and following me around the house ranting and raving about spheric trigonometry and the CMIS and interlobate moraine.”

  “I buzz cut an interlobate moraine once,” I said. “For a tip, he gave me advice.”

  “I think interlobate moraine is some kind of dense rock, Bubbles,” Roxanne suggested.

  “So was he.”

  I thought that was pretty funny, but Roxanne didn’t crack a smile. “I was so eager to get him out of the house and out of my hair that I let him go with his buddy up to the Hole, a bar on the north side of town.”

  Roxanne sipped her coffee and I recalled what Donohue had said about the fax coming from a pay phone outside the Hole. Score one for my theory that our intended killer was really the Stinkster.

  “Next thing I know,” she continued, “Stinky s
topped complaining about McMullen Coal and was spending every night at the Hole and every day in the basement, hammering and sawing and drilling. Wouldn’t let me come down to see what he was up to. And then they stopped calling.”

  “Who?”

  “My clients, of course.” Roxanne said this as though I hadn’t been following along. “Ten women whose hair I’ve been cutting for two decades suddenly don’t show. They were such regulars I mentally referred to them by their time slots. You know how that is. Tuesday at one. Friday at four. That kind of thing.”

  Regulars that regular don’t simply quit a salon without some drama. Two women in a spat might stop coming so they won’t run into each other. One woman might leave because she had a fight with a stylist, but ten? No way. Not without rumors of legionnaires in the air conditioner or bubonic plague on the toilet seat. A prized Friday at two would be hard-pressed to no-show should a nuclear war be imminent.

  “What happened?”

  “Stinky and his practical jokes is what happened.” Roxanne rolled her eyes. “Get this. The first client I telephoned, Thursday at ten, said Stinky had left a message on her answering machine saying that if she didn’t pay him fifty dollars, he’d tell her husband, Joe, that she was really a size sixteen, not a ten like Joe thought, and that she had no intention of going on a diet like he wanted. Cookie?” She handed me a half-eaten box of Shop Rite oatmeal raisin frosted.

  I thought about the size sixteen. “No thanks.”

  “To each her own.” Roxanne bit into an iced oatmeal and continued. “Wednesday at six-thirty said Stinky vowed to show up at a PTA meeting and announce that her kids had lice and couldn’t get rid of them ’cause she cared more for her job than her family. And Saturday at eight said Stinky knew all about her pregnancy scare and how miraculous it was since Mr. Saturday at eight had undergone a vasectomy years before.”

  “Oops.”

  Roxanne played with her pink leatherette cigarette case while I stared at the sugar-laden coffee. Then it dawned on me. The worst that can ever befall a hairdresser had happened to my cousin. She’d been bugged.