To the north of the mansion is the airstrip and dock. To the south are the private bungalows. There are five of them, more like luxury homes than rustic cabins. These buildings are hidden in the tree line, just off the beach.
The only rules on the island were not to give the staff any information on who we are or what we really do. (Seriously—you think it’s hard to find good help now? Try it when the maids know you might kill them if the sheets aren’t soft enough.) And at four p.m. every day, we have to be inside one of the buildings until five. Why? Because that’s when the various government satellites are overhead, taking pictures.
Liv and I checked in at the airstrip, and Paco (a.k.a. yummy cabana boy) took us by Jeep to the house. By the way, since women are in charge of the island, they hire the most gorgeous men to work there. All of us speak Spanish, so we made small talk until we arrived at the house. Paco winked at me as he carried our bags to the rooms.
“Mommy! I love this place!” Romi shrieked. Alta joined her and they raced around the lobby to check things out.
“Hey! There’s a pool!” Alta shouted and Romi ran over to her.
Liv and I couldn’t help smiling. We loved Santa Muerta too. If we weren’t so exhausted from all the travel, we’d probably jump into the pool fully clothed while Paco brought us margaritas.
“Nap time first,” I answered.
“Noooooooooo!” they screamed in unison.
Liv nodded. “Girls, we’ve been traveling all day. We need to take a break. Then we’ll swim.”
Both girls crossed their skinny arms over their chests and sullenly followed us to our rooms. We didn’t need keys because the room locks were configured to our fingerprints. I hated dragging around keys or worse, those stupid plastic cards.
Liv and I had adjoining rooms. We opened the door between them and the girls bounced around, exploring. I opened the balcony doors just in time for a small orange monkey to leap onto the rail and shriek at me. Romi and Alta stared at the creature until it howled and dove into the fauna.
Somehow, we managed to get the girls to sleep. (I believe we threatened them with one of the tarantulas on the patio. What?) I passed out almost immediately.
The phone rang, waking me from a deep sleep. For a moment, I forgot where I was. That is, until the toucan bird outside the window cawed, or did whatever the hell they do.
“Hello?” No caller ID on these phones. Why was that?
“Hello, Virginia.” Grandma’s deep voice was gruff, but she sounded happy to hear me.
“Hey, Grandma! What’s up?” I managed.
“Why don’t you and Liv bring your girls to my room for tea?”
“Um, okay. When’s that?”
“Now. See you in five.” And she hung up.
I shook Liv’s shoulder. “Grandma beckons.”
Liv pushed her thick dark hair from her eyes, looking amazing even after sleeping. I hated her.
We scrambled to wake the girls, brush our teeth and head up to the penthouse floor. The five Council members had their own penthouse in the building. Liv and I exchanged glances as I knocked on Grandma Mary’s door.
The peephole darkened, and I rolled my eyes. We’re on a secure island, surrounded by assassins, and Grandma had to check to see who was there. And you thought your family had trust issues.
The door opened and Grandma stood there with a broad smile and open arms. Alta and Romi rushed into her embrace, covering her wizened face with kisses. Liv and I each gave her a hug and kiss, then followed her into her rooms.
“Adios, Juan,” Grandma said briskly, dismissing the young man setting up the tea service.
I plopped down into a chair and began buttering a scone. Liv was already gulping down tea. The girls, on the other hand, were too busy checking out all the souvenirs from Grandma’s travels. Totem poles from Alaska, a couple of shrunken heads from New Guinea (I’d been meaning to ask her if she did them herself), masks and spears from Africa, a mantilla and bullfighter’s cape from Spain, Celtic knots carved from stone, and for some reason, a stuffed armadillo from Texas. And those were just part of the bizarre collection.
“Well, girls.” Grandma sat and helped herself to a biscuit. “Did you have a nice trip?”
We chattered about nothing really. Grandma always seemed so gruff with everyone, but she was really a sweetie on the inside. One of my favorite relatives, she was a tiny woman, with soft crêpe skin, long white hair rolled up in a chignon, and piercing blue eyes, wearing a caftan and acting like a typical grandmother. And family was the most important thing to her. But I knew her dedication ran even deeper. She was completely committed to the Bombay way of life. And as much as I loved her, that was a little scary.
“I suppose you’re ready for the girls to take the oath?” she asked as if she wanted to know what their favorite movie was.
“I guess so. As ready as you can be for that sort of thing,” I replied, watching the girls play.
Grandma nodded as if she understood. “Where’s Woody?”
Liv smiled. “Oh, he’s coming with Dad. They stopped at the Alamo on the way.” She rolled her eyes. “You know how Dad is. San Antonio is practically a religious pilgrimage.”
“Well, he did wear that damned coon-skin cap for four years until it fell apart,” Grandma said.
I smiled too. Uncle Pete(rsburg) and his grandson were very close. They spent one weekend a month together doing something worthy of a sweat lodge bonding ritual. I had to admit, it was nice being around family. Liv and I were the only ones to give Grandma great-grandchildren, and I think that made us special. Not that she didn’t dote on our brothers too. She spoiled them rotten.
“It’s nice to have some time with my girls before the reunion starts,” Grandma said. “And don’t worry, Romi and Alta will do just fine. I understand you two reserved the Charlotte Corday Bungalow?”
“Yeah,” I started.
“Did you say ‘yeah’?” Grandma frowned at me.
I sighed. “I mean yes.” She was a stickler for grammar and would have made one terrifying (and lethal) English teacher. “But Grandma, rm more interested in the reason for the reunion.”
Her eyebrows arched before she answered. “What do you mean, Ginny? Of course it’s because Romi and Alta are ready for the oath.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” I responded. Liv frowned.
Grandma changed her tactics. “Now girls, you know I can’t reveal anything else until the Council announces it.”
Liv put on her best pouty face. “Please? Just give us a hint.”
Grandma’s eyes flickered for a second, almost undone by Liv’s big brown eyes. “Sorry. You’ll have to do better than that. Your parents didn’t even try to pry it out of me.”
Just then, Alta, followed closely by Romi, tackled Grandma and she laughed as she tickled them into an eruption of giggles.
“Fine,” I said. “Don’t tell us. And we won’t warn you when you retire and Mom’s on the Council.”
Grandma laughed. “Nice try. But the only way I’m going off the council is by dying. If I have a debilitating stroke, I’ve always got my cyanide pill.”
I had no doubt she’d use it too. As far as I knew, no Bombay ever did time in a nursing home. Too risky.
Grandma looked at her watch, then frowned. “Speaking of the Council, I’d better go. We have a meeting in five.”
And that was it. She stood and herded us out of her apartment, leaving me to wonder why she’d called us up in the first place. Were Liv or I in trouble? I shuddered and thought of something more pleasant, like screaming monkeys.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Miss Winter: With your ideas, I’m surprised you’re shocked at the thought of war.
Ivan Dragomiloff: Not at all. It’s purely a matter of business. How can we charge our sort of prices with everybody happily killing each other for a shilling a day?
—The Assassination Bureau
Dela and Cali run the island and handle the occasional South Am
erican job. The most interesting member of that family is my cousin Missi. If Richie was my nemesis, then Missi was my favorite relative (except for Liv, of course).
You know those wacky people you come across every now and then? The really colorful kind who don’t care what others think? That was Missi. A little older than me, but also widowed with two sons, Missi cracked me up.
I’m sure you’ve seen the James Bond movies, the ones with Q, who’s the inventor of 007’s lethal gadgets. Missi is our Q. When she wasn’t using poison frog darts on a Peruvian terrorist or some corrupt Colombian official, she was here at Santa Muerta, coming up with some really cool stuff.
Let’s see, what had she come up with that I could tell you about? Well, there was the special car bomb that ignited through the cigarette lighter. That had been cool because the authorities didn’t catch it, and a major auto manufacturer recalled 100,000 cars thinking the explosion was their fault. One of my favorites was the remote-control icicle release mechanism. It might not sound like much, but she could actually create, then release, lethal icicles into the unsuspecting skull of a target. All the police would find was a wet spot. Brilliant!
“Monkeypops,” I said into the small speaker outside Missi’s workshop. The door sprang open and in I went. Did I mention her love of unusual passwords?
“Ginny!” Missi rose from her seat to hug me. Her magnifying goggles were still on her face, giving her a weird, eye-bulging effect.
“How are you? And Monty and Jack?” I asked.
“Hell as usual. Monty made his first kill last week.” She moved to wipe away a nostalgic tear. “I can’t believe it.”
“They’re fifteen already?” I couldn’t believe it either. Had it been that long since I’d seen her?
Missi nodded, then pushed a stool toward me. I sat, and we caught up on what was going on.
Her workshop was one of my favorite places on earth. Unlike my sterile place, Missi filled every inch with really weird stuff. Sometimes I thought she spent her free time Dumpster diving in Chile. But everything there made sense to her. I guess that was what counted.
“So what’s new?” I asked, hardly able to contain myself.
She smiled slowly. “What do you want?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any harmless nerve agent,” (that I could use on, say, a Girl Scout troop?) “or something like that?”
Missi rolled her eyes. “Harmless? Hello! Assassin.” She looked around the room. “Mostly I’ve been working on stuff for the new line.”
My eyebrows shot up. “New line?”
She nodded. “The Council’s asked me to look into another avenue of work for the family. It could be more lucrative.”
“What are you talking about? We kill people. Or are we going to sell Amway now?”
“Actually, nothing as horrible as that. I’m working on some tech stuff to develop character assassination.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope,” she replied, “and I think it’s gonna be big. Probably a fate worse than death, if you think about it.”
“Huh.” But you know what? Living with a horrible scandal and spending the rest of your life being punished for a crime actually did sound worse.
“The Council’s really excited about it.”
I sat up. “Hey! Is that why we’re meeting so early?” Yay! That was it! No one ... well, in the family, anyway ... bites it!
“No. That’s not it.” Missi shot me down. “We’re about two years away from getting everyone started with this.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Well, then what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Missi said, looking wistful. “No one tells me anything. It’s always, ‘Missi, can you come up with a hairdryer to incinerate my hit?’ or ‘I need another contact lens case that shoots the poisonous needles into the eyes.’ They only come to me when they want something.”
“You made a hairdryer that incinerates the user?” I was stunned. This family needed a newsletter or something because that was way cool.
Missi waved me off. “It was nothing. You just have to get the heat right.”
I sighed. “All right, so you don’t know anything.”
She grinned at me. “Nope. But I do have a surprise for you.” She crooked her finger and rose from her stool. I followed her out into the garden to a patch of lilies. My love of botany made me giddy with expectation.
“There they are!” She pointed proudly. The white lilies were gorgeous, but what was the deal?
“I’ve seen white lilies before. What can they do?”
She actually rolled her eyes at me. “Not like these, you haven’t. I don’t have to tell you how plants take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into oxygen.”
Now I rolled my eyes. “Duh.”
“Well, this will give FTD a run for its money. These babies do the reverse. They emit a gas to stun the Vic, then suck oxygen from the air and turn it into carbon dioxide.”
I felt like she’d slapped me. “Are you serious?”
She nodded proudly. “I’ve been working on it for years. I’ve managed to come up with the perfect hybrid. All you do is pot several of these together and deliver them. Of course, they have to be inside to work effectively.”
My excitement waned a bit. “So, how do you know they’ll work?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Honestly, Gin! I tried it! It can take out a man in a small apartment in a couple of days.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know who she tried it on, but I was really thrilled over this. Unfortunately, it would never make Botany Today Magazine for, well, obvious reasons. Missi’s genius would once more go unrecognized by the rest of the world.
“Can we send some of these to Richie’s room?” I asked, only slightly joking.
“I wish,” Missi said, “but I don’t want him to know I even have this stuff.” She shuddered. “In fact, I always hope he forgets I’m here. That dumb-ass takes credit for my gadgets. Remember the personal groomer debacle?”
Did I ever. Missi had created a nose-hair trimmer that when activated, fired a laser into the victim’s skull via the nasal passages. Richie told the Council he invented it. Only he set the frequency too high and it blew Vic’s head clean off. When he learned the Council was pissed about it, he recanted and pointed the finger at Missi. See? I wasn’t the only one who hated the son of a bitch.
I looked around. “You’re still working on the Richinator, right?”
Missi nodded and grinned. Her dream invention would take Richie out completely during a hit. There were hundreds of prototypes, but nothing satisfactory yet. I lived for that day.
“Have you seen him yet?”
“No. Hey! Maybe he won’t come and I can hunt him down or something.”
Missi shot me a look. “Do you really want to get that close to him?”
We laughed and spent another hour talking about work. When I left her workshop, I had this renewed sense of purpose. Missi always motivated me.
“Family meeting at four,” Liv told me as I walked into our rooms.
“Already?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, they always did this. First comes registration and an ice-breaker, then keynote dinner and chocolate reception. At least we didn’t have to wear name tags.
Tomorrow would be our individual evaluations with the Council, and the last day would be all about the rituals. Alta and Romi would have a sitter tonight—kids were excluded because they were usually bored to death. They would be involved in the ritual, then Liv and I would have our bungalow slumber party and we’d all go home.
At three-thirty, Luis arrived to baby-sit, and Liv and I went down to the conference center to check in. Mom and Uncle Pete were running the registration table. That meant Dak and Woody were around somewhere.
“Dad!” Liv called out. “Where’s Woody?”
Uncle Pete winked at her. “Dak took him up to your room. We just got in, and Mom stuck us with this job.”
My mother looked less enthusiastic. “I think we did this last time too.” She handed me a large brown envelope. “Ginny, your meeting time with the Council is nine a.m. tomorrow. You won’t be late, will you?” Her eyes were full of worry.
“Mom! I’m almost forty! Quit treating me like a kid!” I spun on my heel and walked away. You might think this was some big act of defiance, but in reality, we went through this ritual once a week.
“You know what?” Liv said once we were settled in our seats in the auditorium. We always tried to sit in the back. Actually, everyone tried to sit in the back. No one wanted anyone behind them in this room. “It feels like we were just here.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s only been a year since the last meeting.”
Liv looked at me for a moment. “That must be it.”
The room filled up quickly, with most of my relatives sitting near immediate family. Mom, Pete, Dak and Paris slipped into the seats we’d been saving for them.
The Council assembled on the stage at a long table. Grandma was flanked by Lou on the left and Dela on the right. Her cousins, Troy and Florence, represented the European branch of the family and sat farther down. All I could think was that they looked old.
I wondered how long it would be before Mom and Pete joined their cousins to form the Council. Now that would be creepy. I’m not going to let Mom slide with any of that Council secrecy bullshit either.
Everyone in the room stood up to identify themselves, but we knew everybody already. Then came announcements. No icebreaker—which I was happy with because it was idiotic, and there was an announcement that the ropes course was being repaired. Hey! I might actually enjoy this trip! Once again we were reminded to go inside from four p.m. to five p.m. every day to avoid the satellites. Blah, blah, blah.
The one thing missing from the announcements was why the hell we were all here. Uncle Lou stood and dismissed us to the dining room for dinner. Sounded like a normal business conference, didn’t it? It was, right down to the rubber chicken on the plate in front of me.
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy Page 11
