Once I identified myself as a reporter, the inn’s front desk clerk went icy cold.
“Don’t you want to leave a message for Chrissy Price, too? Reporters have been calling all day for her.”
“She’s there?”
“Yes. But she won’t talk to you. She’s not taking any calls from the press.”
Then why did he bring up her name?
“Put my name down, anyway, why dontcha,” I said. “I’m feeling lucky.”
As it turned out, I was anything but.
Chapter 9
Cora Rittenhouse answered the phone like I’d roused her from a deep sleep. “Rewrite,” she droned. I pictured Cora at her News-Times desk—one hand in the bag of microwave popcorn, one hand on the keyboard and both eyes on the muted TV. One spongy brain on permanent vacation.
“Hi, it’s me, Bubbles,” I said with enough energy to be contagious. “I’ve got two stories for you. A six inch and a twenty-five.”
“Ugh. You correspondents. So verbose,” Cora said. “Give me the twenty-fiver first. Slug?”
The slug was what appeared in the night editor’s computerized directory to identify a story. Had Mr. Salvo given me permission to write what I wanted, it would have been slugged something like McMullen.doc or coal.doc. Instead I slugged it—
“PMS.” That should slip the attention of the average male editor.
“Huh?” Cora’s fingers were tapping away on the other end. “You writing for the women’s pages now?”
“Hmmm. Not quite. Ready?”
“Guess so.”
I slowly and carefully read my story about how Stinky had been fired after persistently urging McMullen Coal to draw its maps correctly and how Hugh McMullen had then publicly painted him as a lunatic the day after a state inspector visited the Number Nine mine at Stinky’s urging. It was good. At the last minute I’d managed to contact a United Mine Workers spokesman who provided a scathing quote about McMullen Coal Inc. being comfortable with putting miners’ lives at risk just to avoid the tedium of regulation.
“Doesn’t sound like it has much to do with PMS to me,” Cora said when I was done.
“You ever meet an angry coal mining union boss?”
“See what you mean. What’s the next story?”
The next story was the wimpy personal account of being trapped in the mine explosion. It was slugged coalmine.doc. As I read it over to Cora, Mama was in the next room shouting out incorrect answers to Jeopardy!—her “intellectual” moment of the day.
“What is toilet tissue?” screamed Mama, as though Alec Trebek could hear her.
“I’m sorry,” Alec said. “The correct answer is, What is the capital of Tunisia?”
“Damn. Close, though.”
Cora finished and I said good-bye and thanks. She asked if I wanted to speak to Mr. Salvo, but I said I needed to get my mother and her friend down to the Pocono Passion Peak Resort by their bedtime.
“Whatever flips their switch,” she said. “Not my bag, but if that’s what your mother and her friend are into, it’s cool.”
I hung up and turned to find Mama slipping into her black leather jacket. “I sure hope they got a decent bath at the Passion Peak,” she said. “My bunions need a good soak after being in these boots all day.”
Genevieve was right behind her, reloading the peashooter with refreshed Sominex darts.
“You’re not bringing that, are you?” I said.
“Civilians,” she snorted. “Always convinced they’re out of range.” She tucked the peashooter in her purse and pulled out a quarter. “Hey, I can use this in the auto massage at the Passion Peak. My back sure is sore after dragging your Stiletto around.”
It was going to be a long, long night.
The first thing I did upon arriving at our scarlet suite at the Passion Peak was to put in a call to Jane. No luck. Since an inexplicable twist of genetics had rendered it impossible for me to comprehend how to check my messages on the answering machine remotely, I couldn’t tell if she had left one.
I called Dan and Wendy, too, but they were out. I’d forgotten. Thursday night was their weekly marriage encounter session, which, as far as I could determine, required Dan to apologize to Wendy for forty-five minutes straight. Fine by me.
Still, I was worried about my daughter. It was not like her not to call. Jane’s hair may be multicolored, her clothes tattered and grungy, but she was the most upfront, smart and loving kid around. She had never fallen into that snotty teenage girl routine. Personally, I had my doubts about whether most girls did—contrary to what TV would have you believe.
“Now what kind of bathtub is this, Genny?” Mama said, surveying the human-size champagne glass Jacuzzi. “How am I supposed to get in that?”
“Ladder.” Genevieve lay on the bed, her mounded belly jiggling like a Jell-O centerpiece. “I could get used to this. It’s orthopedic.”
“Ortho-obscene is more like it.” Mama cocked her chin at me. “This what Stiletto and you do in your spare time, Bubbles?”
We should be so lucky. I tried home again with no luck. “Where’s Jane? I haven’t spoken to her since jail.”
“Wonder how many mothers get to say that?” Mama asked, stripping off her black leather and turning on the tub. “Well, here goes nothing.”
Three hours later, Mama and Genevieve were sacked out on the red bed, while I, fully dressed, tossed and turned on the couch, constantly checking the digital clock and trying not to fall asleep. At eleven-fifteen I snuck out of the room and ran downstairs to the pay phone where I put in a toll-free call to the News-Times night desk.
“Griffin,” answered Bob Griffin, the assistant night editor.
“Hi, this is Bubbles. Is Mr. Salvo there still?”
“Just left. But he edited your story. It’s fine.”
I paused for effect. “Story? Don’t you mean stories? I filed two. A personal account of being trapped in the mine and a twenty-five inch piece on violations against McMullen Coal.”
“Two? We don’t even have space for twenty-five inches. Yours is supposed to run as a sidebar to the AP piece.”
“I don’t think so. It’s supposed to run in place of the AP piece. Check the directory. I called it in around seven-thirty.”
I waited nervously while Griffin checked the directory. “All that’s here that’s not edited is something slugged PMS. Careless Cora must have sent it to the wrong cue. I’ll bounce it over to lifestyle.”
“Why don’t you open it just to make sure?” I tried to sound efficient.
Griffin opened it and read. “Yup. Guess that looks like your story. Geesh. That Cora. I’m gonna go over and ream her out. This is inexcusable.”
“Don’t do that, Bob. She probably has PMS and it was on her mind. Unless, of course, you’d like to listen to her cry about cramps and bloating and—”
“No, no, no. That’s okay,” he said quickly. “So, back to this story. Salvo wanted to run it in place of the AP, you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
He sighed. “Okay. Christ I wish he’d drop poker night. I’m all alone here. You know, one of these Thursdays something bad is gonna happen, some story’s gonna get past me that’s not supposed to, and I’m gonna get the flak.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Tonight is not one of those nights. Trust me. This story is supposed to be in tomorrow’s paper.”
As I predicted, the phone began ringing shortly after 7 A.M. I lay on the foldout and let it, wagering mentally on who was calling. Mr. Salvo? Dix Notch? Stiletto? Unlikely since he had been up until all hours, probably, partying with Esmeralda Greene. Or maybe—
I snatched up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mom. Guess what?”
Jane.
“Where were you last night?” I said. “I called and called and there was no answer.”
“Oh, it was sooo cool. You know Professor Tallow who’s teaching my Local Celtic History course at Lehigh? The one who’s leading the dig we’ve
been working on?”
No. But that was okay. Jane didn’t wait for my answer.
“He wore this head-to-toe shroud like a real Druid and led a midnight moonlight vigil around the rocks we found in the woods. It was awesome.”
“Rocks?”
“Yeah. They’re ancient Celtic. Baal and all that.”
I didn’t know what to say. It sounded Star Trek-ese.
“Like Stonehenge,” Jane added.
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I just wanted to ask if I can go back to the dig this morning. I have a couple of classes at Liberty High, gym and Latin, but I’m already through the Ovid due for next month, so is it okay if I miss them?”
Jane was most likely the only senior at Liberty who asked her mother if it was okay to skip school—and not to head over to the Delaware Water Gap or smoke pot behind the Hill to Hill, either.
“Fine by me. Anybody call this morning about my story?”
“That’s how come I woke up so early. Salvo and that moron Notch called around five. Notch was bitching so loud I couldn’t even make out what he was saying, so you must have done something right.”
I rubbed my forehead. God, I hoped the risk I took was worth it. I’d never live with myself if Griffin, Cora and Salvo lost their jobs over this.
“There was one guy who phoned to say he really liked it, though.”
“There was?” I sat up straight.
“Yeah, although he said you missed a really crucial point.”
I despise nitpickers. “What crucial point?”
“I don’t know. He said he’s gonna stop by later this morning to explain it to you. But he doesn’t want you to tell cousin Roxanne that, since he’s in hiding.”
I rolled off the couch. “Ohmigod. Stinky.”
Chapter 10
While Mama and Genevieve hit the Morning After Breakfast Buffet downstairs, I took a shower, toweled off and stepped into a pair of black stirrup pants, a fuchsia top in a polyester/spandex blend and boots with heels. Lined my eyes with navy and enhanced my lashes with cobalt mascara. Next came foundation. Powder. Rose blush. A touch of orchid in the creases of my lids and matching color on my lips. Hung my head upside down and blew my hair dry, brushing it up so it cascaded down with body. Spritzed apple blossom spray from head to toe and added a few dabs of glitter powder.
Ready for another day of professional investigative journalism.
I packed all of my things and placed them by the door. I took a tray with a croissant and coffee Mama had brought up for me and called Roxanne to tell her that Stinky had called to say he’d be stopping by my home and I would be rushing back to Lehigh to meet him. The way I rationalized it, I hadn’t made a pinky promise with Stinky not to tell and, besides, Roxanne needed to know that her husband was alive. Cousins who sneak into Journey concerts together don’t keep that kind of info to themselves.
“I’m going back to Lehigh with you,” she said as soon as I told her. “I have to see him and apologize. Stinky needs my support.”
“No way, Roxy. Give him his space.” I finished the buttery almond croissant and wiped my fingers on a paper napkin. “He may be staying away from you for other reasons.”
“Like what? Deep down he adores me.”
“Like your safety. Price was shot and left in a mine at the same spot and hour Stinky’s car was there. Maybe the shooter meant to get Stinky, too?”
“My Stinky? No way. Everyone loves the Stinkster.”
What was she, dreaming? Chief Donohue freely referred to Stinky as a blackmailing, homicidal vigilante, and from the way Hugh McMullen spoke at the press conference yesterday, Stinky might as well have been Charles Manson on a walkaway. “Think of what went down at the press conference, Roxanne. Stinky’s a wanted man.”
Roxanne exhaled from a cigarette. “Yeah. And no one wants him more than me.”
On the off chance that the alternator was in, Genevieve dropped Mama off at Roxanne’s and drove me back to the Texaco.
“It didn’t come,” squeaked the clerk. “Slagville must be last on the list in Detroit because it always takes us three weeks to get parts.”
Three weeks! I could not live without my Camaro for three weeks. I’d lose my parking space on West Goepp Street.
Genevieve stomped forward and pounded the front counter so hard the cash register drawer opened. “Do you mean to tell me, Butch, that this girl is gonna have to wait three weeks for her car?”
The clerk gulped and quietly shut the drawer. “No, ma’am. Just that I fixed it myself, without the part.”
And there wasn’t a drop of oil on him. He slid a handwritten bill carefully past Genevieve and toward me. “That’ll be twenty-five-ninety-nine. Sorry it’s so expensive. There was a lot of labor.”
I nearly kissed the blue pressed hanky in his breast pocket. Stiletto could make all the cracks he wanted about this place being stuck in time, but I did so like those 1935 prices. I wrote out a check, handed it to him and he sprinted out the door. He pulled the Camaro around to the front of the station and shifted the clutch into neutral, making sure to pull the seat forward before he got out. Cheap and considerate, too. It was even vacuumed and was that Windex on the dashboard I smelled?
“Hasta la vista, Genevieve,” I said, revving the engine.
“Take the back roads. I don’t like trucks,” she said, waddling toward her car. “And don’t go over the speed limit. I ain’t no law breaker.”
Hold on. Hold on. I leaned out the window and glared at her. Genevieve was pulling out a musket from the backseat of her Rambler and coming toward me.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving the Rambler here for your mother,” she said, opening my passenger-side door. “The Texaco’s only a block away from the Main Mane. She’s got a spare key.”
Genevieve heaved herself inside and slammed the door. “What are you wasting gas for? Let’s go.”
“But?”
“You don’t think I’d let you go back to Lehigh to meet up with Stinky Koolball without a bodyguard, do you?” She patted the musket that lay across her lap. “On the drive down I’ll bring you up to date on the Princess Diana crash investigation. Oh, and there’s also some new research out about Crest you should be aware of. It could save your life.”
Genevieve spent the next half hour explaining the imagined evils of fluoride toothpaste and how Princess Diana had been murdered by the powerful French cheese lobby. After wowing me with Nostradamus’s prediction of MTV, Genevieve revealed that her bladder was not nearly as big as her mouth and she needed a rest stop. That was doubly bad as we were on a wooded back road in Nowheresville.
“Fiddlecock,” Genevieve said, as I pulled onto the berm. “I’ll have to hike in.”
Taking no chances, she slung the musket over her shoulder, plunked on her camouflage cap, and produced a roll of Charmin from her purse. Before she left, she pressed into my hand a peashooter filled with Sominex darts.
“Don’t be afraid to use it.” She locked the door and left.
I placed the straw on the dash, zipped open a nail kit from my purse and began filing to keep the right brain occupied so the left brain could take a quick nap. That’s when I noticed flashing lights in the rearview and saw a dark vehicle park at an angle behind me. Great. Just what I needed right now, a cop checking to see if the car had broken down. And me here with a Sominex peashooter on the dash.
The cop, wearing mirrored shades, stepped up to the passenger’s side and motioned for me to roll down the window. I leaned over and rolled it down halfway.
“Problem?” he asked, zeroing in on the peashooter.
“No, no, officer,” I stammered. “My friend just had to answer the call of nature. She’s an older woman.”
The cop stuck his hand through the crack in the window and yanked up the lock, opened the door and slid inside. As soon as he was next to me, I recognized him right off. He was about ten years younger than I, with all the muscle and confidence that youth brag
ged. Underneath his jeans and navy T-shirt was a gym-toned muscular body topped by a mop of windswept hair. Ash blond number six to be exact.
He wasn’t a cop. He was the guy from the woods.
“Wha—?” My nail file shook. “Please, don’t—”
“Aww, don’t get hysterical or nothing.” He removed his mirrored shades. Brown eyes. “I’m not here to hurt you. I guess I scared you back there by the Number Nine mine yesterday. Sorry.”
Sunlight through the windshield glinted off the gun in his belt and I blanched.
“By the way,” he said, “a woman should never roll down her window for a stranger. You never know who’ll take advantage.” He smiled wide.
Okay, it had finally happened. I was having my psychopathic encounter, just like the type you read about in Redbook. After all those years of being on high alert in poorly lit parking lots and back alleys, I’d been cornered. Cornered on a deserted country road miles from any sign of civilization. Without my keychain Mace or trusty travel-sized bottle of Final Net.
Deep breaths, Bubbles. Get your perfectly manicured fingers around that peashooter.
“You said you were a cop.” I casually slid my hand up the dash, toward the African-style weaponry.
“I never said I was a cop. You assumed I was a cop.” He leaned forward and pulled out the baseball cap from his back pocket, positioning it on his head and inspecting himself in the rearview.
“You have flashing lights.”
“Nineteen ninety-nine at Wal-Mart. Anyone can buy ’em and stick ’em on their roof. All around America psychos are driving with those lights, cruising for unsuspecting women to do unspeakable things to. You should thank your lucky stars I’m not one of those.”
My hand clutched the peashooter.
“Cut that out.” He brushed it out of my hand. “What do I look like, a caribou?”
I stared at the broken peashooter lying on my shift case.
Bubbles Ablaze Page 9
