by Elise Sax
“I’m not Harriet Hard. Here’s what happened. It’s a funny story, actually. Harriet Hard is actually a character in a book that I was reading. Then, I got hit on the head and thought I was Harriet Hard. But I’m nothing like her. I’m a coward. And I don’t care about crime. Crime is fine. And I’m not a snitch. I’ve never snitched. I’m snitchless.” I smiled at him to show how harmless I was. He didn’t look convinced. “And Jordan is a waiter, studying to be an accountant. You can’t get more boring than that,” I added for good measure.
“She’s telling the truth,” Jordan whined. “I’m a waiter, and she’s a big loser. She used to clean cement trucks. She’s a really big loser. The biggest loser in the world.”
I pointed at Jordan. “Exactly. I’m a loser temp worker. I can’t hold down a job. I don’t know anything about drug lords and assemblymen. I don’t even know what one does. What do you do? I mean, besides this?”
“I’m going to find out how you knew about me, when I’ve been the best kept secret since the Manhattan Project,” he answered.
“What’s the Manhattan Project?”
“No more jokes,” he said, even though I wasn’t joking. “Come on, gentlemen, let’s get these two to the ice house. We’ll freeze up the lines of communication before this gets out of hand.”
“But I’m snitchless,” I blubbered, as one of his men grabbed me from behind and started to push me out of the shop.
The long and varied history of torture played in my mind as Jordan and I were abducted. Bamboo under fingernails, sleep deprivation, beatings, a low carb diet. I wouldn’t be able to handle any of that. But they didn’t believe me about Harriet Hard. They didn’t believe that I was a big loser.
Idiots.
I needed to figure out a story that I could tell to satisfy the assemblyman about how I knew Dominguez had a boss, and that I wasn’t a threat and he should let Jordan and me go free. And not dead.
Think. Think. Think, I told myself, as they shoved us outside and walked us forcibly toward a black SUV. There was no mistaking by any casual observer that we were being abducted. But nobody walking by came to our rescue. Nobody called 911 for our benefit.
Geez, what had society come to? Where’s a Boy Scout when you needed him? If things got any worse, I would have to start voting.
Then, Nat Pendleton got involved. Nat, the man who made my flesh crawl, violently shoved the man who was holding me out of the way.
“Listen, bitch,” Nat yelled at me. “I thought about it all night. You owe me. You ate two entrees. Two! And all I got for it was electrocution and a bill from the ambulance company.”
Blech. Nat was worse in daylight.
My abductor pushed Nat away from me. “Look, buddy,” he started.
Like giving a jump to a car battery, my brain finally whirred into action. While Nat fought with the men, I signaled to Jordan, and we ran full out.
“Where are we going?” Jordan asked, as we ran down the block.
“Away!” I shouted back.
He took my hand and sped up. Thank goodness for spin classes so that I could keep up. This time there were no killer kangaroos, but there was no place to hide, either. I snuck a look behind us to see that Nat was holding his nose, and our three abductors were getting into their SUV.
“We have to find a hiding place!” I shouted.
We ducked into the building on the corner. A woman sat at the receptionist desk in the large lobby. “Welcome to Cannabis College,” she said, smiling. “Are you here for the tour?”
“Cannabis College?” Jordan asked. “Is that a thing?”
I could hear the SUV screeched to a stop on the street outside. They had found us. “Yes,” I told the receptionist. “We’re here for the tour. Let’s get going now.”
She gave us two nametags shaped like marijuana leaves, and Jordan and I hastily scribbled our names on them and stuck them to our chests.
“Let’s go. Let’s go,” Jordan urged her. “I need a tour of the Cannabis College.”
“I love your enthusiasm,” the woman said. “My name’s Twilight, and I’ll be your tour guide. Would you follow me?”
We followed her, half-pushing her out of the lobby and into the building.
“Cannabis College was started in 2016 to educate those interested in cannabis or for those interested in getting into the business of helping people,” she explained.
“Where did she go?” I heard the assemblyman say from down in the lobby. “Find her.”
We walked upstairs in a hurry. “This is one of our classrooms,” Twilight told us, opening a door.
“Good. Let’s go in and see it,” I said. Jordan and I jumped inside.
“Maybe we can shove the tables up against the door,” Jordan said, looking around.
“I don’t think that’ll do it,” I said. “Where does that door lead to?” I asked Twilight, pointing to a door in the corner.
“The laboratories. But tours are only allowed to look through the window in the hallway. There’s no access for you. I’m sorry. Our laboratories are state of the art. Very scientific.”
She was smiling ear-to-ear, and I hated to burst her bubble, but I could hear death marching toward us.
“Listen, Twilight,” I said. “There’re men out there who want to kill us, and I don’t suggest that you get in between them and us. You know what I mean? You got to run away quick and let us know where we can hide.”
Twilight’s smile disappeared. “My mom told me this job would be dangerous. Weed is the gentle drug? Yeah, right. My ass. I’m out of here. You’re on your own.”
She ducked out through the corner door, and we followed her. The laboratories were actually rows and rows of pot plants. Light shined down from the ceiling, which I assumed made them grow. It wasn’t the perfect place to hide. We would have to find someplace else. I wanted to follow Twilight, but she was already long gone, darting between the pot plants and out of the room.
“Not so fast,” the evil assemblyman roared as he entered the laboratory with his two henchmen. They had found us. “You’re making me angry, Ms. Hard.”
I stomped my foot on the floor. “I told you that I’m not Harriet Hard! She’s not a real person!”
I searched for anything that could be used as a weapon, but there was nothing except for weed. Jordan thought faster. He ripped two plants out of the dirt and threw them at the bad guys. I did the same thing, but it had little effect.
“Hurry!” Jordan shouted and took my hand. We ran out of the laboratory and down the hall. Our pursuers were fast on our heels. It didn’t look like we would ever escape, and then I heard a shot ring out and crash through a window near my head.
“Don’t kill them here!” the assemblyman shouted. “We have to interrogate them first.”
I hoped they listened to him. Jordan and I stopped at a dead end.
Tasting Room was written on the door. Jordan and I exchanged looks. We both shrugged at the same time, and he opened the door.
Inside was a large room. There were about a dozen people in it, sitting on chairs and the floor. At least I thought they were. I couldn’t be sure because they were all smoking, and the room was filled with smoke, making visibility difficult.
“Uh oh,” Jordan said, wheezing. “I have asthma.”
“Hold your breath,” I told him.
He took a deep breath and went into a coughing fit. “I’m dying,” he wheezed. “And I’m high as a kite. What’s this stuff made of?”
The door opened behind us, and the bad guys ran in. Jordan and I hid under a table.
“Oh, man. I can’t take weed, man. It makes me crazy paranoid,” one of the henchmen complained.
“So, get Harriet Hard and her sidekick on the double, and let’s get out of here,” the assemblyman ordered.
We could see their feet, as they shuffled around, inspecting the smokers to see if they were us. It was only a matter of time until we were discovered. Meanwhile, we were breathing in at least a half dozen strains of super-strengt
h marijuana. I giggled, and Jordan threw his hand over my mouth, while he had a coughing fit.
“What’s that! What’s that!” the paranoid henchman yelled. “The soldiers are after us! They’re going to get us with their orange flying cars! The cars are shooting poison darts at us! Duck!”
As far as I could make out, the paranoid one jumped on his buddy, and they fell to the floor. “Watch out for poison darts!” he yelled and punched his friend in the face. His friend punched him back. They rolled along the floor, beating the hell out of each other.
Jordan lowered his hand from my mouth, and he gasped for air. “You want chips?” I asked him. “I could go for chips. And fried chicken. I would kill a puppy for chips. You think they have chips here? Maybe a snack machine? Do they sell guacamole in snack machines? Guacamole would go great with chips. And fried chicken. And bacon. And a chocolate cake. And Pop Tarts. Oh, Pop Tarts would be really good right now.”
Jordan coughed. “I’m… going… to… die,” he gasped. “Can’t… breathe… must… stop… him.” Crawling out from under the table, he grabbed the assemblyman’s leg, making him fall to the floor. “You’re… not… going… to… kill… me,” Jordan gasped. He straddled him and raised his fist over his face. “I’m… not… going… to… die… from… from… from. Screw it.”
Jordan gave up trying to talk and breathe. With every ounce of strength he could muster in his asthmatic, accountant body, he slammed his hammer fist onto the politician criminal’s face.
Pow! One punch was all it took. He was out cold. Luckily, the other two were unconscious, too, victims of each other.
“Help… Gladie…” Jordan gasped.
I helped him out of the room. I sat him on the floor in the hallway where there was fresh air, and I leaned him up against the wall. Once I was sure that he could breathe again, I went back into the tasting room and enlisted the help of the potheads to tie up the three criminals with strong hemp rope.
“What strain did they smoke?” one of them asked me.
“A new one. It’s in the laboratory. Third plant from the left. The very last row.”
They filed out of the tasting room to find the holy grail marijuana plant that knocked men out cold. Finally, the room emptied of smoke and I could see clearly, even though I was still high as a kite.
The three bad guys roused, but they were hog-tied and couldn’t move. “Nobody messes with Harriet Hard!” I yelled at them. “You’re all going to jail now! Harriet Hard always gets her man!”
“I knew you were lying about not being Harriet Hard,” the assemblyman sneered.
“You think they have chips here?” I asked.
“I saw a machine,” the paranoid henchman told me.
“Where?” I asked.
“Downstairs. Behind Jesus.”
The cops arrived while I was downstairs eating chips and Snickers bars. Since everything was in hand, I decided to take my junk food and walk home where my bed was waiting for me. Outside, there were at least ten cop cars, two ambulances, and three or four news crews. Nobody noticed me as I walked by, gnawing on a Snickers.
When I arrived home, I plopped down on the couch and turned on the television. After watching a commercial for toilet bowl cleaner, I fell into a deep sleep. A few hours later, I woke, sober with a slight stomachache. The news was on TV, and Jordan was the star. He was being interviewed, and I was surprised to see the pointy woman standing next to him. I was even more surprised to see my boss Francine standing behind them. She had gotten free.
“Then they went into the building, and I followed, and they went there and they went here and then they went back to there and here, again,” he told a reporter, his pupils large black saucers. “Then, I hog-tied them and called the police. I believe in justice. And freedom. And, you know, other Superman things.”
The reporter nodded. “How do you feel, revealing a criminal conspiracy in Los Angeles and taking down the world’s largest drug cartel?”
“It feels pretty good,” he said, seeming to think about it.
“And what are you going to do with your reward money?”
“The reward money?” he asked.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” the reporter explained.
Jordan smiled and looked directly into the camera lens. “I’m going to start my own restaurant.”
The pointy woman cleared her throat. “What he means is that he’s going to finish school and start his accounting practice,” she said.
Jordan turned toward her. “Nope. I’m opening a restaurant.”
“But we’re getting married.”
“Are we?” Jordan asked, smiling.
The couple argued on live TV about what Jordan would do with his reward money. I would have liked some of it, but I was happy to see Jordan standing up for himself for the first time and following his dream.
My phone rang, and I answered it.
“Hello, Dolly.” It was my grandmother. “I cleaned up your room, and the fried chicken will be here in an hour.”
It was like my Harriet Hard dream was coming true. My room. My fried chicken. Sanctuary.
And boy, fried chicken sounded good. So did a nice room in my grandmother’s house.
“But what will I do there?” I asked her.
“You have the gift, bubbeleh. You’re going to be a matchmaker like your Grandma. You’ll help me run the business.”
“But I don’t know how to be a matchmaker,” I said.
“You have the gift. You’ll see. Won’t it be nice to live here and give people their happily ever afters?”
That did sound nice. But I didn’t want to let my grandmother down, and I was supremely talented in letting employers down.
“You won’t let me down,” Grandma told me, somehow reading my mind. “I see you, Gladie. I see you. I know who you are, and I love you. And I know that you have the gift.”
“I guess I could come for a couple months and see how I do,” I said, warming to the idea, but unwilling to commit.
If I got in my car now, I could be at her house in a couple of hours. Safe. Loved. It was a mighty big temptation. Sure, I was scared and totally certain that I would be a terrible matchmaker, but my grandmother had a way of knowing things that couldn’t be known, and maybe she knew this. Maybe I did have the gift.
“Okay,” I said finally. “But no matchmaking directed at me. I’m through with men.”
“I’ll leave you in charge of matchmaking for yourself,” Grandma said.
“Good, because I’m done with men. Finito. I’m never dating again.”
“If you say so.”
“It’ll be nice to be somewhere calm where nothing happens,” I told her, getting up from the couch. I dug my suitcase out from under my bed and started to pack. “You won’t believe what happened to me in the past couple days. Mayhem! Severed heads! Luckily nothing like that ever happens in Cannes. Total calm. Peace. Serenity. Yep, maybe you’re right, Grandma. It’s time for me to settle down and relax. A nice quiet life. That’s what I want.”
“If you say so, bubbeleh,” Grandma said.
And don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter for new releases and special deals: http://www.elisesax.com/mailing-list.php
Also by Elise Sax
Five Wishes Series
Going Down
Man Candy
Hot Wired
Just Sacked
Wicked Ride
Five Wishes Series
Three More Wishes Series
Blown Away
Inn & Out
Quick Bang
Three More Wishes Series
Matchmaker Mysteries Series
Road to Matchmaker
An Affair to Dismember
Citizen Pain
The Wizards of Saws
Field of Screams
From Fear to Eternity
West Side Gory
Scareplane
It Happened One Fright
Operation Billionaire
; How to Marry a Billionaire
How to Marry Another Billionaire
Forever Series
Forever Now
Bounty
Switched
Moving Violations
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elise Sax worked as a journalist for fifteen years, mostly in Paris, France. She took a detour from journalism and became a private investigator before writing her first novel. She lives in Southern California with her two sons.
She loves to hear from her readers. Don’t hesitate to contact her at [email protected], and sign up for her newsletter at http://elisesax.com/mailing-list.php to get notifications of new releases and sales.
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