“Hello?” she called. The metal building echoed hollowly. Where the heck is Question-mark Bill anyway? She peeked out the rear door of the building and saw another three metal buildings. It looked like a military compound. The winery had kept plopping down buildings as they’d expanded. The next building had cases of wine ready to be shipped or delivered. It also had a bathroom.
“Hallelujah,” she said and her bladder cheered. Mary Grace used the bathroom with brutal efficiency as three glasses and about a hundred sips of wine were plowing right through her system. She had flushed the toilet and was using a hand sanitizer when there was a loud noise. Someone came into the building and threw the door shut with a bellow, “Bi-ILLL!” they yelled.
Silence.
Mary Grace didn’t move. She wasn’t Bill after all. And camo lingerie only camouflaged so much of her dearly precious anatomy. Okay, I come out now. Say I was looking for the little girl’s tinkle room because I tasted too much wine and my bladder is the size of a walnut and there isn’t anything for the next twenty miles back toward Dallas except sagebrush and I don’t want my ass hanging out while I’m taking a peepee, do I? Then, I-uh-oh. While talking herself into a valid excuse there was another door slam and a voice said, “Jesus, Marv, what are you yelling about?”
But it is a good opportunity to eavesdrop, Mary Grace allowed. And one never knows what things one might hear? A murder confession? Collusion to a conspiracy? A new type of base coat that’s recommended by the most famous Hollywood makeup artist?
“The brunette’s still around somewhere,” Marv said loudly. “Her car’s still out there.”
“The one in the silk dress with the long legs?” Bill said, no longer a question-mark. She recognized the tour guide’s voice.
“Did you have another brunette with a red convertible?” Marv asked sarcastically. “You had to have a tour today? You couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Jake’s coming with the delivery now and it’s not like we need witnesses.”
“All they would see is cases of grapes being delivered,” Bill said calmly. Mary Grace had to put her ear close to the door to hear.
“Oh, good Lord deliver me,” Marv complained. “Anyone with a brain is going to be asking why we need grapes delivered if we already are growing them here.”
“I don’t think she has a brain,” Bill quipped.
Oh, that’s not fair, Mary Grace protested internally. So I act a little airheaded. And I think dressing well should be the second commandment instead of whatever it is now. Also makeup is next to God to me but oh-hey, what’s he saying?
“You had to have a winery,” Marv went on. “Like we were going to make a fortune on it. Good thing I still have my connections. Five more years of deliveries and you can grow canned tomatoes on sticks for the rest of your life and not care because we’ll be set.”
“It’s good wine,” Bill protested. “We got three awards last year.”
“It is good wine,” Marv agreed. “But it doesn’t pay the bills, dear.”
It is good wine, Mary Grace thought, but I do have a brain. They don’t know who I am. They don’t have a clue about me. Also they’re lovers. I wonder if they know Mr. Lofts and his boyfriend from my street? And they’re doing something illegal that they don’t want witnesses for. I need to get the hell out of Dodge.
So Mary Grace waited until the pair had left and when it was absolutely quiet she slipped out of the bathroom and into the sunlight. But as she was about to take a step, someone said shrilly, “Oh, Jiminy Christmas!” which was followed by a loud clatter of metallic objects. When she turned her head something clobbered her. And not in a nice way.
And the last thing she remembered thinking was, No, not another piece of my wardrobe ruined. You bastards.
Chapter Nine – Monday, June 20th
Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her adorable hair, which is a faultless exemplar to the rest of us wretched plebeians. For preventing hair dye stains on one’s skins, first apply toothpaste to the as-yet-to-be afflicted areas. That minty fresh aroma is not recommended but it does thwart dye from coloring one’s tender flesh. – Aunt Piadora’s Beauty Hints
Omigod, I’ve been attacked by generally gregarious, gimmicky, grape-growing gays, Mary Grace thought upon regaining consciousness. She opened her eyes and saw darkness. It was silent, musty, and nothing seemed to be moving. Still lying down, she lifted a hand up and after a moment, saw its pale outline. Then she could see the faint line of light coming from a crack in a door. She felt around and discovered that there were piles of bricks around her. Hmm. Grassy bricks with little prickly pieces of straw sticking out. Who makes bricks out of straw except maybe one of the little piggies?
Disregarding the bricks she felt the lump on the back of her head. Mary Grace frowned. It was a little crusty with dried blood and felt about the size of a baseball. Combing her hair was going to be a big problem for a few days. If I get the chance to comb my hair.
She sat up carefully and braced herself on the pile of bricks to one side. Okay, what do I know? They have something to hide. They’re getting crates of grapes delivered when they already have grapes. They didn’t want me to see the delivery. They knocked me out. She did a quick check of her silk halter dress. It seemed as though it was in one piece and relatively unmolested. But one of her Nine West shoes was portentously absent.
“Goddamnit!” she swore, leaping ungainly to her feet and ignoring a pounding headache. She thrust her fists against the door and yelled, “Give me my shoe back, you heartless SOBs!”
A voice said on the other side, “I guess she’s awake now.” It was Marv.
Bill said, “You think?”
“What do we do with her?” Marv asked quietly.
Mary Grace froze.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you smacked her with the grape press,” Bill admonished.
“Hey,” Marv said louder. “It was a big mistake, lady. The grape press accidentally fell on your head. Anything you heard before that was all a concussion induced delusion.”
“I’m packing my bags,” Bill said. “We’ll be in Mexico before nightfall tomorrow and we can live on the beach in Cancun. My cousin lives down there with his three boyfriends. It’s a whole different world. I speak a little Spanish, you know. ¿Puedo tener un margarita, por favor?”
“So you didn’t try to murder me in Dallas?” Mary Grace asked politely, more than a little confused.
There was silence on the other side of the door. She added fiercely, “You know with a gun, with an explosive BMW, and oh, yes, malfunctioning brakes on the Ford? And you didn’t try to run me down with a dark sedan and mistakenly hit my friend instead?”
“She’s a nutjob,” Marv said. “Let her out and let her go to the police. She’s going to tell them we tried to kill her multiple times and then she came after us at our winery? They’re going to laugh their asses off before they kick her out of the station.”
“Uh, lady,” Bill said. “We haven’t been to Dallas in months. You know, since they closed that adorable little pub down that was by White Rock Lake. Terrible shame. Dallas may be a huge city but it’s still in the Bible belt. Another good reason why gays need to get out the vote. We should have bought land in California, but Lord, the price of real estate there.”
Mary Grace grunted in a fashion that would have made a Neanderthal happy. “Are you serious?” she asked in a high pitched voice.
More silence from the other side of the door.
Bill said, “I swear by Judy Garland’s eternal presence that we didn’t try to kill you with a gun, an explosive BMW, or by the other things you said. We never even met you before today. I don’t know anything about you except that you really like silk too much.”
“And the wine press didn’t fall on my head,” Mary Grace said sarcastically.
“Oh, it fell on your head,” Marv said seriously. “Sort of.”
“Not helping, Marv,” Bill said. “She did buy two cases of wine.”
“And I’m so sure she’ll be drinking it while we’re sitting in jail waiting for a gay Texas judge to set our cute little asses free,” Marv snapped.
“What are you going to do, then?” Bill asked calmly. “Kill her?”
“For what?” Mary Grace yelped. “If you weren’t trying before, well, hell then. No reason to start on my account. What’s a little wine press between friends?”
More silence ensued.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” she added helpfully. “You have some delivery coming today and I thought since your logo was on the stationary that I got the note on that you had to be connected to whomever was trying to off me. So I come out here to check things out and I find a wine tour. So what’s so bad about that?”
“What stationary?” Bill asked. “We don’t have stationary. We don’t even have business cards. You’re sure it was our logo?”
“It was a flying goose,” Mary Grace said lamely. “And what difference does that make? You clobbered me with a wine press. And you took one of my freaking shoes!”
“Twenty million goose logos in this world, peach,” Marv said. “It wasn’t us. We really don’t have stationary. We’re lucky we have a website. I had to trade three cases of wine to a web designer for that and he got the cheap rose. Heck, the only reason we have toilet paper this month is because I got paper instead of plastic at the grocery store.”
“I don’t even know why you people are so flipping paranoid,” Mary Grace went on as though Marv hadn’t said anything. “You’ve got a big pile of straw bricks in here with me and a shitload of wine in one of the other buildings. What are you hiding? An all male gay revue that caters to the closeted Texans? And where’s my shoe?”
Bill snorted. Then Marv chuckled. Mary Grace put her ear to the door and listened as they snorted with laughter that turned to uncontrolled belly laughs. It took five minutes before she swore she could hear the pair wiping tears away from their eyes. She, on the other hand, had a splitting headache and a temper that was about to blow a gasket out the side of her brain. Abruptly, the door rattled and opened.
Mary Grace blinked and realized that outside her temporary prison it was full night. A solitary light on the nearest building showed the two men that she had met before. Bill was the wine tour guide. Marv was the one who had tapped on her car window and directed her into the tour. They stared at her for a long moment and then Marv said sincerely, “It really was an accident.”
She looked back and said snarkily, “Having a run in your panty hose is an accident. Having something fall down on the back of my head in a highly suspicious manner is not. What? Wine presses fall from the skies in this part of Texas like hailstones?”
Marv shrugged apologetically. “You came out of the bathroom and scared the holy living crap out of me. I backed up into a pile of old equipment. It knocked the shelves down, and the wine press, a hand sized one from the fifties we don’t use anymore because I have Carpel Tunnel, well, it came right down on your head.”
Mary Grace crossed her arms over her chest. “Then you put me in here because you thought the musty air would do me good?”
Bill winced. “We panicked. We thought you were a narc.”
“A narc?” Mary Grace repeated stupidly. “A narc? Why in the name of Coco Chanel would you be afraid that I’m a narc?” She glanced down at her dress. “Do narcs wear silk halter dresses? Do narcs drive convertibles?”
“She has a point,” Bill said spryly. “After all, she did have on camo undies.”
“You looked at my underwear?” came out of Mary Grace’s mouth at the same time that Marv said, “You looked under her dress?”
Bill shrugged. “I wasn’t looking at her, darling,” he said to Marv. “I was looking at her panties. It’s so hard to keep up with fashion trends out here in the sticks, you know.”
Mary Grace was flattered in an altogether uncomfortable manner. It was a weird statement but she could actually understand the reasoning. “Macy’s,” she said. “They were on sale last weekend. But I think they might have your size.”
“Really?” Bill said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Marv said.
“Would you like some ibuprofen, dear?” Bill asked and he was speaking to Mary Grace.
“Oh, yeah,” Mary Grace replied earnestly. “I would love some ibuprofen. And another glass of that merlot you served today. Is it still today?”
“Yes,” Marv said slowly.
Bill went to help Mary Grace up and she said, “Why on earth are you worried about having narcs here? You sell wines, I mean, except these funny bricks of…oh. Ohhh. Oh. Oh, I see.” She stopped halfway up and then added, “You aren’t going to want to kill me again because I finally figured it out?”
“Goodness no,” Marv said, taking her other arm. “I could never kill a woman who wears Nine West shoes. Too bad they’re too small for me.”
“Where is my shoe?” Mary Grace asked not-so-calmly.
“Next to the open bottle of wine and the ibuprofen,” Bill stated dryly.
•
“I think she’s certifiable,” Marv said, an hour later. He sat at a table across from Mary Grace. Bill sat next to him and the two men had their hands lovingly intertwined. The three sat in a small house that was located at the rear of the vineyard. It was lovingly painted white with a bright blue trim and had a small yard that was adoringly maintained. The interior was as cozy as the exterior with 19th century antiques and warm colors.
Mary Grace took another sip of wine. “I am not. I’m a Sagittarius. Besides which I didn’t make up all the assassination attempts.”
Bill scratched his neck and studied the young woman. “Why would anyone go to the trouble of cutting your brake lines? Then to put an explosive in your rental car? Why would anyone rent a BMW? Then to tally the lot with a shooting attempt? I mean, it all sounds positively bizarre.”
“Yes,” Marv agreed. “Then there’s Deep Throat Mama and the attempted homicide by vehicle. Peculiar. Utterly peculiar. If we were to assume that you’re not certifiable, and that’s a stretch for us, sweetness. Well, if you were telling the truth and it all happened the way you said it happened, then it doesn’t make sense. Criminals don’t change their modi operandi just like that.” He ticked items off on his fingers even while holding on to his partner’s hands. “Brake lines, explosives, gun, car.”
“The car thing sounds like someone just saw an opportunity and took it,” Bill added. “Too bad about your friend getting in the way.”
“Yes, but they didn’t have a license plate, so they were definitely planning something,” Mary Grace interjected.
“Do you, oh by any chance,” Marv asked calmly, “have more than one person trying to kill you, Mary Grace?”
Mary Grace closed her mouth. Then she opened it. Then she closed it. She took a swig of the merlot, nodded approvingly at the taste, and then said wailingly, “I’m a good person. I shouldn’t have one person trying to kill me, much less more than one.” She sniffled loudly.
Bill clicked his tongue. “Now look, Marv. You made her cry.”
Marv groaned. He disengaged a hand from his partner and reached over to tenderly pat one of Mary Grace’s hands. “Well, having more than one person trying to kill you does make sense, doesn’t it?” he said reluctantly. “Someone wants maybe revenge or something. Then someone else wants to kill you. After all, anyone who would cut a brake line has to know that the likelihood of you being killed by failed brakes is remote. And the thing with the gun, well, there the guy was serious. Muy serious. If you hadn’t dropped your mascara, who knows, we certainly wouldn’t be having a discussion about doobage in our storage room and the menacing masquerades of Mary Grace.” He mulled minutely. “Rats. I was going for perilous pitfalls of Pauline thing, but it didn’t work.”
“What makes you think that the suspect has to be one of those three people that were there that night, Mary Grace?” Bill asked. “After all, th
eir presence could have been happenstance. Serendipity.” He considered. “Wrong descriptive. A fluke. An unlikely coincidence.”
“One perhaps,” Mary Grace allowed. “Two would be like finding Shiseido Limited Edition Lip Gloss at fifty percent off at Saks Fifth Avenue. In iced rubies color, even.”
“I’m seeing a pattern here,” Marv said gently.
“But all three?” Mary Grace went on. “One of them has to be the bad guy. I mean, how many people can be wandering around a deserted industrial section of town on a Friday night?”
“Your boss painted a portrait that looks like you from the neck down,” Bill offered. “A stalker? But you didn’t know that until you broke into his house.”
“It may not be me,” Mary Grace protested. “It could be some other largely breasted woman with black hair. It’s not like I hold the patent on that.”
“Let’s assume,” Marv said calmly, “that one of them is the bad guy. It’s a logical scenario. Maybe he, or she, is clever enough to have disposed of the evidence, leaving nothing for you to find. And if you get caught, then you’re the one who’s going to the slammer for the remainder.”
“The slammer,” Bill giggled. “I love that. How about the brig? Hoosegow? Maximum security? The gulag. The joint. The big house. The clink. Stir, pokey, cooler. Oh, Devil’s Island.”
“Not helping, Bill,” Marv interjected. “All I’m saying, Mary Grace, is that if we were bad guys, you would have already been a dead girl. Instead you’re drinking wine and discussing your current situations with would-be felons who are objective at worse.”
“With a headache,” Mary Grace added sourly. “Do you have any ice?”
Bill got up and went inside the tiny kitchen, rattled around, and returned with a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts. As he handed it to Mary Grace, he shrugged remorsefully, “I only buy them for Marv. I can’t stand them myself.”
Dial M for Mascara Page 10
