Bubbles Ablaze

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “Now, what?” Roxanne said as we walked down the hallway toward the Hoagie Ho. “How are we going to get hold of Stinky?”

  “Don’t worry about Stinky,” I said, my mind on other, more important matters. “Stinky’s in the Hole.”

  “He is? But I thought Donohue couldn’t find him there.”

  The boom-bass band launched into “I Don’t Want Her. You Can Have Her. She’s Too Fat for Me.” Why don’t they make a song, “I Don’t Want Him. You Can Have Him. He Watches Too Much Football. Is A Lazy Slob For Me?”

  “I’m talking about the Hole that’s the bar next door,” I said. “That’s where Bud Price reached Stinky on Wednesday night. But don’t go over there yet.” I watched as Donohue helped himself to a huge slice of pie. “Stinky’s safer there than anywhere else.”

  Genevieve approached us, her giant arm wrenched affectionately around the neck of her beloved Pete. “How did my man do? Not bad, eh?”

  “Not bad,” I said absently.

  “You don’t seem very appreciative, Bubbles,” Genevieve said with disappointment. “Pete’s got two metal hips after working fifty-odd years as a mechanic. He can’t bend and scooch like a kid. You should say ‘thank you.’ ”

  “She did, Genevieve,” Pete protested.

  Mechanic? “Tell me, Pete,” I said, getting an idea. “You ever hear of an F1 Ford?” It was an F1 Ford that brought the Slagville men to Price Family Ford and Tallow said Chrissy had driven off in an antique pickup. I was betting those were the same trucks.

  “A beaut of a pickup,” Pete said. “Made ’em in 1949.”

  “Know anyone around here who drives one?”

  Pete pursed his lips and thought about this. “Nowadays you don’t see them ’cept in parades. And we got a lot of parades in Slagville. Let me ask Norbert. He put together the Fourth of July event this year.”

  He hobbled over and spoke to Norbert, who thumbed his red suspenders and offered Pete a suggestion. Pete nodded and returned.

  “There were two F1 pickups in the Fourth of July parade,” he said. “One was owned by Geordie Hodgson, but he sold it to a yuppie couple from St. Louis. The other’s still owned, as far as Norbert knows, by a Seamus O’Malley.”

  “Who is Seamus O’Malley? Does he live in Slagville?”

  “Go on, Bubbles. You’ve met him yourself,” Roxanne said. “He’s Vilnia’s husband.”

  Chapter 28

  “I knew they were up to something, those Sirens,” Mama said, after returning from the ladies’ room. “Come on, Genevieve, let’s go get ’em. And this time we’re not backing down. I got my pastry pin oiled and ready to roll.”

  Riled up like this, Mama reminded me of a Boston terrier who needed to lay off the dog chow. Fat, nasty and bug-eyed. Ready to nip the mailman on his heels.

  “Hold on. How do you know the Sirens are involved?” I asked her. “Maybe Vilnia’s husband took Chrissy Price on his own?”

  “Get real. Vilnia’s husband doesn’t do anything on his own.”

  The Hoagie Ho was winding down and folks were going home. I checked my watch. After ten already. Chief Donohue was surveying the crowd, hoping perhaps for a quick glimpse of a disguised Stinky.

  “Shouldn’t you be headed to Lehigh?” Donohue asked Mama and Genevieve. “As I recall, that was the deal.”

  “Darn,” said Genevieve. “Just when things were getting good.”

  Donohue cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Is something going on that I don’t know about?”

  “They’re going to Lehigh,” I said, ignoring Mama’s scowl. “Perhaps you’d like to escort them to the city limits. After all, the Hoagie Ho is over.”

  “Bubbles!” Mama stomped her boot. “But, I—”

  “That would suit me fine,” Donohue said, offering his arm. “Madame?”

  Mama took it, although she stuck out her tongue at me when Donohue’s head was turned.

  “We’ll let your friend enjoy her one last song,” he said. “And then you’re out of here.”

  Genevieve and Pete were in a slow dance. “Goodnight Irene” played on the accordion. Pete rested his head on Genevieve’s bread loaf of a bosom as the two of them shuffled back and forth. In the spirit of reconciliation, Mama dragged Donohue onto the floor where they began an awkward box step.

  “Let’s go,” I murmured to Roxanne.

  “Now can we get Stinky?” Roxanne said when we were outside. “Donohue will be driving your mother and Genevieve out of town.”

  “Leave Stinky where he is,” I said, unlocking the Camaro. “We’ve got to save Chrissy Price.”

  I unfolded my Columbia County street map, flicked on the interior light and tried to figure out the shortest way to Vilnia’s using back roads, to reduce the chances of us being followed. Finally, I chose a meandering route that connected collieries.

  “Why do you think the Slagville Sirens kidnapped Chrissy Price?” I asked Roxanne as we arrived in the patch.

  “I don’t know. My mother was a Slagville Siren, but I never was.”

  “How come?”

  Roxanne opened a bottle of Diet Pepsi she’d bought at the Hoagie Ho. “Mostly because I never married a miner. That’s one of the requirements to be a Slagville Siren.”

  “Oh.”

  I tried to conceive why a collection of miners’ wives would kidnap the widow of a murdered car salesman. Was it that they were opposed to casino gambling? Were they hard up for money and hoped to hold her for ransom? I prayed that if they had kidnapped Chrissy they hadn’t hurt her or Sasha.

  Vilnia’s house was lit up like a Christmas season shopping mall. Cars were parked on the sidewalk out front in an interesting arrangement suggesting that the rules of parallel parking did not apply. I thought it best to leave the Camaro at the end of the patch.

  Roxanne, still in her sapphire blue with the rhinestones, and I in the snakeskin, walked down the opposite side of the street. I was freezing and wished I had brought a coat.

  “How are we going to get in there?” Roxanne asked when we came into view of Vilnia’s house. “You gonna knock on the door and say, open up, we know you have Chrissy Price?”

  “No. We’re going to start in the garden.”

  I decided that we needed to scope out the situation before we stormed the place. If there was a raucous party going on, then perhaps we could slip in undetected through the basement. Maybe Chrissy and Sasha were tied up down there. If all was quiet, then we’d have to create a disturbance outside, something to send the Sirens running into the street while one of us snuck inside and searched for the victims.

  We pussyfooted down the alley and opened the squeaky gate to Vilnia’s garden that was partially lit by her kitchen light. The tomato vines had been yanked, their stakes still in place for next season, and the ground had been mulched. It smelled of rotting leaves and damp earth. We stepped around carrots, spinach and a few pumpkins. Already a thick layer of frost was spreading across their orange flesh.

  “What are they doing?” Roxanne crouched behind a rhododendron bush and peeked in the kitchen window. Vilnia was pacing, her hands behind her back, and dictating to a woman with her back to us who was working at a computer laptop, its screen blazing bright blue. Another woman was at the table, also typing on a laptop, except she was talking on the phone, too.

  I tiptoed over to Roxanne for a closer look. It took me a few minutes to recognize them all.

  “That’s Tammy on the computer,” I said. “And look, isn’t that the client you were working on who wanted to know all about Stiletto? I nicknamed her in my mind the human prune.” I pointed to a woman who was flipping through papers on a clipboard.

  “Oh, you mean my Thursday at ten?”

  “Who?”

  Roxanne nodded to Mrs. Frazier, the woman who had been reading the Cosmo article and getting her hair washed earlier in the day. “Look. There’s my Wednesday at six-thirty.”

  “And Mrs. Wychesko!” Mrs. Wychesko came barreling through with a tray full of cups fil
led with coffee.

  “Over there is my Saturday at eight.” Roxanne sighed. “Why, they’re all my clients.”

  We watched them rush around, calling, faxing, typing, drinking coffee like they were air traffic controllers at O’Hare.

  “This is quite an operation, Roxanne. What are they up to?”

  “Maybe they’ve kidnapped Chrissy Price to sell her on the white slave market and they’re negotiating with an Arab sheik for more money?” my sometimes odd cousin suggested. “Or maybe they’re with the CIA. I’ve heard the CIA likes to set up shop in small towns.”

  “And you think your husband’s paranoid.”

  “Whatever it is, they sure are organized. I’ve never seen women work together so well,” she said. “You got six women there and they’re not even stopping to gossip.”

  It was the word gossip that pulled my mental light switch. “Roxanne. These women, they are all the ones that Stinky blackmailed.”

  “You’re right. Wow.”

  “Except, we now know that Stinky didn’t blackmail anyone and that the equipment in the basement was for fire extinguishers.”

  “Uh-huh,” Roxanne agreed slowly. “And your point is?”

  “If he wasn’t listening in on their conversations and using the gossip in the salon to blackmail them, then who was?”

  Roxanne sat on her haunches and thought a bit. “The same guy who pressured Hugh McMullen to lean on Stinky to hurry up with that fire extinguisher?”

  “No.” I turned to her. “No one. No one blackmailed them.”

  “Huh?”

  I saw my chance. One of the Sirens was walking to the kitchen door. I hurried over and hid in the shadow of the eaves. She opened the screen door and stepped out. From her pocket she removed a packet of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it. She exhaled and I leaped, grabbing her as Stiletto had grabbed me at the inn, by putting one arm around her waist and my other hand over her mouth.

  She kicked and attempted to scream, but I clenched her tighter. Roxanne rushed from the bushes and froze when we moved into the light from the kitchen.

  “Jesus, Bubbles. Do you know who that is? I recognize her from her picture in the paper.”

  The woman in my clutches was slender and wearing a deliciously smooth black silk blouse over her jeans. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail.

  “Missy mice,” mumbled my captive.

  “She’s Chrissy Price!”

  “Let her go!” Vilnia said. The icy barrel of a gun pressed against my spine. I was in no need of further convincing. I let Chrissy go.

  “Now put up your hands. You, too, Roxanne.” Roxanne, her eyes the size of doughnuts, lifted her rhinestone fingertips.

  “Run, Chrissy,” I screeched. “Get the neighbors. Call the cops.”

  Chrissy, who was still holding her cigarette, took another drag and sneered as she exhaled. Her eyebrows were plucked to severe lines and those cheekbones were unreal. Implants. “Vilnia. Who is this tramp?”

  “I came to save you, Chrissy,” I said. “Why aren’t you running?”

  “Oh, I know.” Chrissy wagged her finger. “She’s that Bubbles Yablonsky. The hairdresser with the reporter complex.”

  “Bingo.” Vilnia gripped the back of my neck and waved us in with her pistol. “Now let’s go inside before the neighbors get interested. You, too, Roxanne.”

  “Are you going to kill us?” Roxanne said, stepping past me into the kitchen. “Like you shot Mr. Price?”

  “I didn’t shoot Price,” Vilnia said, locking the kitchen door behind us and stuffing the pistol in her waistband. “McMullen did.”

  “He did?” Roxanne’s hands were still raised. “For certain?”

  “You missed that part. You were upstairs at the Hoagie Ho when Stinky told me he saw the whole thing.” I dropped my hands and shook them. “I’m not doing that anymore. It hurts, like when we were in gym class.”

  “Have a seat.” Roxanne and I sat. Vilnia addressed her crew. “Ladies, I doubt you need further introduction.”

  Roxanne’s clients waved casually. The sparkling white kitchen was a far cry from what it had been on my first visit. Manila folders were stacked on the burners of the cold stove. The chopping board was littered with newspaper clippings. Gone were the pots of potato soup and the bubbling apple crisp. In were Rolodexes and whirring printers. Even Vilnia looked different. She was wearing a two-piece Adidas black nylon running suit and sneakers.

  It wasn’t only the apple crisp that was missing, though. The woman whose back had been turned to us was gone, too. And she’d taken the laptop with her.

  Chrissy Price strolled across the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of mineral water. Then she sauntered out to the living room with the air of a queen bee. Were these women working for her?

  “Well, Bubbles,” Vilnia said, crossing her arms, “I’m just glad we caught you before you really screwed up everything.”

  “What? What is this thing you’ve got going on?” I didn’t know what to call it.

  “We like to call it the Slagville Project,” Vilnia said. “But first, cake.” She went to the counter and sliced up two pieces of Entenmann’s, the butt end of her gun sticking out beyond her Adidas jacket.

  “Goody.” Roxanne clapped her hands. “Cake.”

  I jabbed her in the ribs. “Be serious, Roxanne. Vilnia pointed a gun at us.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She slouched. “Hope it’s chocolate, though.”

  Vilnia handed us our cake. “It’s chocolate, all right,” she said. “The girls need the caffeine.”

  Roxanne dug in, but I put mine aside. “This has to do with being miners’ wives, right?”

  “Not completely.” Vilnia addressed the group again. “Is it okay if I fill in Bubbles about the Slagville Project?”

  The women unanimously said yes and went back to work.

  Vilnia poured herself a cup of tea and sat down opposite us. “Thirty years ago, my son, a more loving boy you’d never meet, came home from Penn State for the first week of deer season. He went hunting in the woods with his friends not far from here and fell three hundred and fifty feet down an abandoned shaft owned—but not maintained, you see—by McMullen Coal.”

  I gasped. Poor Vilnia!

  “I remember that,” Roxanne said, swallowing a mouthful of cake. “That was awful, Vilnia.”

  Vilnia tossed her head. “It was years ago, but you never get over losing a child. All these women in this room have either lost a father or a brother or, in my situation, a son, because of mining. Most of their men died on the job because of cave-ins or black lung. Many are like me, we lost men because the coal companies took from the earth what they wanted and never fixed the damage. No matter, though, McMullen Coal was at fault.”

  “But the company was never held accountable,” I said. “So McMullen Coal never paid for the harm it caused. Is that why you had Hugh McMullen shot?”

  Vilnia sipped her tea and put her cup down slowly. “Women don’t respond to violence with violence. We know that for every person who dies there is a mother who grieves.” She put her fist to her chest. “We know that in our bones.”

  “It’s so true.” Roxanne was beginning to cry. Vilnia reached across the table and got her a tissue.

  “Then the Nag ’N Feed spells are to control the men,” I said. “To keep them around the house.”

  “To keep them alive,” Vilnia said. “It’s a short-term solution to a long-term issue.”

  The phone rang and a harried woman answered it with quick yesses and nos. She hung up, grabbed her wool coat off the back of her chair and took her purse. “I’ve got to go, Vilnia,” she said. “That was my son. He’s at a basketball game and needs to be picked up.”

  “Can’t Arch get him?” Vilnia said.

  “Are you for real? Arch is passed out in the wing chair by now.” She waved good-bye and left.

  “That’s our problem,” Vilnia said. “Almost all of these women work durin
g the day. The only time they can get away is after dinner and even then family intrudes.”

  I still wasn’t following. “What is it, exactly, that these women are doing? What do you want?”

  “We want change. First we want the mining companies to fill up all the holes and gravel pits so that no more children die when they fall into them and drown,” she said. “Do you know how cold that water is? And you can’t get out once you’re in because the rock face around the water is slippery smooth. It’s impossible to get a grip, so you eventually develop cramps because of the freezing temperatures and that’s the end.”

  “She’s right,” Roxanne said. “That happens a lot here in those old pits.”

  “Our final goal is more ambitious.” Vilnia breathed in and out deeply. “We want the mining to stop, period. Forever. It is a dangerous, cruel, dirty and environmentally devastating industry. It widows women and orphans children. It has to end.”

  I sat back and picked at my uneaten cake. Vilnia was a toned-down Molly Maguire. Who would’ve thunk. “But how will people in Slagville earn a living?”

  “We almost had the solution—until Bud Price was murdered. And that is what we’re doing here.” Vilnia swung around in her chair and surveyed the room of busy women. “Every night since Bud’s death we’ve been researching the state and federal land use laws, putting together a comprehensive package for the state regulators on why they should permit this casino to be built. Our goal is to make sure that we have answers for every question. Let me tell you, it is not an easy task.”

  Canned laughter from the TV erupted in the other room. Chrissy Price giggled.

  “Dim bulb, that one,” Vilnia said, thumbing toward the living room. “That’s our biggest obstacle to passage right there.”

  “So why did you kidnap her?” I said.

  “Because we couldn’t afford for her to get murdered, too. If there is, like I’ve been saying, a third party who is bound and determined to get hold of the land she inherited after Bud’s death, the Dead Zone, then she needs protection.”