Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  I TOOK A SLUG OF BEER to deaden the pain and dialed Finkerman’s number.

  A robotic voice spouted a canned-sounding spiel.

  “Thank you for calling the award-winning law offices of Ferrol Finkerman, attorney at law. He’s not available right now to –”

  “Gimme a break!” I said sourly.

  “Excuse me?” the voice said.

  “Uh...sorry!” I gasped and nearly fell out of my chair. “I just...uh...somebody here...I just sneezed. Yeah. Sneezed! Who is this?”

  “I’m Fargo Finkerman, ma’am. Ferrol Finkerman’s nephew.”

  “Oh. Well, uh...could you please tell him I’d like to make an appointment at his earliest convenience?”

  “Certainly, ma’am. He should be back from the 7-11 in a couple of minutes...would that work?”

  “Uh...not really. How does his schedule look for tomorrow?”

  “He’s got court until after lunch.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, should I schedule you for 1:30?”

  “Sure. That would be perfect.”

  “Who should I say called?”

  “Uh...Freda Feldman.”

  “Will he know you, ma’am?”

  “No. I’m a new client.”

  “And who referred you?”

  My mind went blank. I blurted out the first thing to cross my mind.

  “Umm...the ASPCA.”

  I clicked off the phone. My heart raced with exhilaration at the incredible, ingenious plan that I, Valiant Stranger, had just hatched on the fly.

  I’ll just sneak over to Finkerman’s office tomorrow morning while he’s in court, and steal back Goober’s dreamcatcher!

  If successful, the plan would solve one problem I had with Finkerman. As for the lawsuit, well, I’d just have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

  I WAS HAVING A DATE with Destiny when Tom got home from work early and caught me in the act.

  “Val? Are you home?” he called as he walked into the house.

  “Uh...yeah.”

  Crap on a cracked-up cracker!

  I was standing in front of the bedroom mirror, squeezed into a disguise I’d worn a couple of years ago during my brief stint working with Cold Cuts and Milly as a spy for Date Busters. I’d put the ridiculous ensemble together myself, and named it “Destiny.”

  Destiny was a cross between a go-go dancer and a tramp. The outfit consisted of silver stretch hot-pants, a red halter top, KISS-era platform boots and a cheap blonde wig voluminous enough to make Dolly Parton chew her nails off with envy.

  I’d planned on wearing the get-up as a disguise when I went to Finkerman’s office tomorrow morning. But now Tom had come home early, and I was in a tight spot.

  And I didn’t mean the hot pants.

  The last thing I needed was to be forced to divulge my scheme to Tom. I turned around. The hot cop was standing at the bedroom door, eyeing me with suspicious, sea-green eyes.

  Crap! Think of something, Val. Fast!

  I smiled and waved casually. “Hey.”

  Tom did his best to keep a straight face.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, and began un-holstering his gun.

  “Uh...well, you know...what they...uh...say,” I stammered, and nearly lost my balance on the eight-inch platform heels.

  Tom stifled a smirk. “No. What do they say, Val?” He looked me up and down, shaking his head.

  “You know. That variety is the spice of life.”

  Tom’s face went slack. The left corner of his mouth twitched.

  I snapped the garter belt around my thigh and quipped, “And you thought I couldn’t stay up past 9:30.”

  “That was a joke,” he said, looking as unsure about where this conversation was going as I was.

  Geeze, Val. You’ve really painted yourself into a corner this time. Tom thinks you’re a hooker! Or...wait a second...a playful girlfriend with a naughty imagination...?

  I bit my lip seductively, tilted my head to one side, and laid on a Southern accent thick enough to stick to the wall.

  “Have I ever told you how much I love a guy in uniform, mister cop man? How would you like to –”

  Tom’s lips never let mine finish that sentence. In under fifteen seconds, we were way past the point of no return. Then I remembered I was supposed to be mad at him.

  I forgot. Again!

  Geeze. I was definitely slipping in my old age.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Wednesday morning, Tom went off to work and I went off to get ready for my second date with Destiny.

  I found her piled in a chair in the corner of the bedroom. The memory of how she’d ended up there made me smile. In that regard, Tom certainly made it difficult to stay angry at him.

  I wriggled my butt into the silver hot-pants and stuffed my feet into the platform boots. I slipped the red halter top over my head and tied it at the neck.

  The humongous blonde wig was as large and fluffy as a full-grown Pekinese, and almost the same shape, thanks to last night’s shenanigans. I planted it on my head and adjusted it in the bathroom mirror.

  For makeup, I circled my eyes with eyeliner and coated my eyelids with plum-purple eyeshadow all the way to my eyebrows. For good luck, I plastered on a shade of lipstick red enough to do Glad proud. Then, for a final flourish, I used eyeliner to paint a suspicious mole over the left side of my upper lip.

  Voila!

  I was no longer Val Fremden...or even Valiant Stranger. I was Destiny – undercover private eye and go-go dancer extraordinaire!

  And, best of all, totally unrecognizable.

  I grinned at my reflection, grabbed my purse, and headed for the door.

  AFTER CHECKING THROUGH the front blinds with binoculars to make sure Nancy Kravitz Junior wasn’t checking though her front blinds with binoculars, I poked my head out the front door and glanced around.

  It appeared the coast was clear.

  I snuck out, locked the door behind me, and hobbled down the driveway toward Maggie, as fast as my fifteen-pound boots would allow.

  I had my fingers on Maggie’s door handle when I heard someone call my name.

  “Val!”

  Oh, crap!

  I turned around. Laverne was on her knees in her yard, fiddling around with her garden gnomes.

  Great. How am I going to explain this?

  “Honey, are you going to the grocery store?” the old Vegas showgirl asked, not even batting an eyelash.

  “Uh...sure, Laverne. That’s where I’m going all right.”

  “While you’re there, could you pick me up a bottle of kosher water?”

  “Kosher wha? Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

  “Thanks, sugar! I got some money right here.” Laverne stuck a hand inside of her hot-pink, skin-tight tube top.

  “Uh. That’s not necessary,” I said.

  “Then I’ll pay you when you get back, darlin’.”

  “Okay.” I turned, opened the door and slid my sparkling hot-pants across Maggie’s bucket seat. I turned the ignition and peeled down the driveway.

  “Have a nice day!” Laverne called out, and waved merrily at me as I drove away.

  So much for stealth.

  She didn’t mean to, but Laverne had just totally harshed my Destiny bad-girl buzz.

  JUST LIKE FINKERMAN, his office was on the sleazy side of town. With Sultry Sam’s Sex Shoppe next door, a hooker in a run-down car blended right into the scenery.

  Lucky me.

  Graphic ads pasted on Sam’s windows reminded me of something on my “To-Do List.” Maybe after I’d heisted Goober’s dreamcatcher from Fargo Finkerman, I’d pop into the Sex Shoppe and get a “personal item” to pay Tom back for his prank.

  I climbed out of Maggie and wobbled like disco Frankenstein toward Finkerman’s door. I was reaching for the knob when my phone rang. I checked the screen. It was Winky.

  “Hey. What do you want?” I asked.

  “Are you sittin’ down, Val?” Winky asked, his
voice trembling.

  “What? No. What’s happened?”

  I hobbled over and leaned against the dirty wall outside Finkerman’s office.

  “Well, since you went and got me that Dale Earnhardt Big Gulp cup a couple a weeks ago, I started broadening my horizons.”

  “Winky, what are you talking about?”

  “That dang Dr. Dingbat action figure you showed me, Val. It’s worth twenty big ones!”

  “Twenty dollars?” I said into the phone.

  A guy walking by in a cheap suit stopped in his tracks and eyed me up and down.

  “Naw,” Winky said. “Twenty grand, Val!”

  “How much?” I gasped.

  “Twenty thousand U.S. greenbacks!”

  “I’ll give you twenty-five,” said the sleazebag in the cheap suit.

  I shot him some side eye. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I yelled. “Get outta here!”

  “I ain’t kiddin’ Val!” Winky said.

  The guy shuffled off toward the sex shop. I turned back to Winky on the phone.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Val. I been lookin’ ‘round on the Internet. I seen a post on Craigslist. Somebody’s offerin’ twenty grand for an original Dr. Dingbat Difficult Defecation figurine!”

  “Holy smokes!”

  “I don’t know if he does or not, Val. But you want this gal’s number? I done writ it down.”

  “Yes! Of course! Give it to me.”

  “I’d like to give it to you,” a voice said beside me. Sleazeball was back.

  “I told you to get lost!” I hissed.

  “So, you don’t want her number?” Winky asked.

  “What?” I said into the phone, and sneered at cheap suit guy.

  “Make up your mind, Val.”

  “Okay. Yes, Winky. I want the number. What is it?”

  I wrote down the lady’s name and number on a scrap of paper, and shoved it into my purse. I felt around in my bag for the figurine. Panic shot through me for a second when I couldn’t find it. Relief made me sigh when my fingers finally wrapped around it.

  I let go of the figure and checked the time on my cellphone. It was 11:37 a.m.

  “Look, Winky. Thanks for the info, but I gotta go. My window of opportunity is closing fast.”

  “You gettin’ you a service window, too?” he asked.

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. Something like that. Bye.”

  I clicked off the phone, yanked the hem a bit lower on my back of my hot-pants, and headed for Finkerman’s door.

  “LOOK, MR. FINKERMAN said you girls need to make appointments first. No more drop-ins.”

  I stared, open-mouthed, at the youngster behind the desk. Poor Fargo Finkerman couldn’t have been more than twenty. He was a younger, slimmer, slightly less frizzy-haired version of Ferrol Finkerman. Hopefully the poor sap hadn’t inherited his uncle’s charm and wit to go along with his looks.

  I mean, no one should be that unlucky.

  “An appointment?” I asked, stalling as I sized Fargo Finkerman up.

  He thinks I’m a call girl, so I’ll give him call girl!

  I struck a provocative pose and nearly fell over head first onto his desk. I steadied myself on my platform boots and shot young Fargo a smile he apparently didn’t feel the need to return.

  “Yes, an appointment,” Fargo said. “We can’t have you turning up at all hours. It’s bad for business.”

  “I uh...understand,” I said. “It’s just that, well, sweetie, I left something behind at my last...uh...appointment with Mr. Finkerman, if you know what I mean.”

  Fargo let out a huge sigh. I’d seen less doomed-looking faces on movie posters featuring the Apocalypse.

  “What did you forget?” he muttered, and stared at his desk blotter.

  “Well, it was...a thing...with a pair of pink thong underwear strung up on –”

  Fargo closed his eyes and put a hand up. “Say no more. Please. I’ll go get the box.”

  Finkerman’s clone left the room. A moment later, he returned with a cardboard box full of panties and a jumble of assorted plastic gadgets the likes of which I’d never seen before, and hoped to never see again.

  “Be my guest,” Fargo said in a voice devoid of any hope for the future.

  I peered inside the box and got the willies. “Listen, kid. You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of rubber gloves on you, would you?”

  Fargo closed his eyes for a moment. “In my uncle’s office,” he sighed.

  Fargo didn’t invite me to follow him, but I did anyway.

  When he cracked open the door to Finkerman’s office, I barged in and poked around. While I rifled through the shelves and drawers, Fargo, like a zombie slave, slowly and methodically pulled a pair of latex gloves from a conveniently located, industrial-size box on his uncle’s desk.

  Drats! Goober’s dreamcatcher isn’t here!

  Fargo handed me the gloves. I followed him back out to his desk at reception. I tugged on the gloves and scrounged through the box, trying not to gag.

  “Sorry for the bother, young man,” I said as I gave up and pulled off the rubber gloves. “Tell Ferrol that Lady Destiny dropped by.”

  “Lady Destiny?” Fargo spat, and rolled his eyes. “Gimme a break.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly worried he was on to my plan.

  Fargo stared me down with beady eyes slanted with disdain. The family resemblance was so uncanny I nearly winced in sympathy.

  “You never had an ‘appointment’ with my uncle, did you?”

  I bit my red-lipstick-smeared bottom lip and cringed.

  “Why would you say that?” I asked.

  Fargo pursed his lips into a sour scowl.

  “Because. You’re not his type.”

  “Really?” I asked, suddenly feeling weirdly inadequate. “So, what’s his type?”

  Fargo sighed.

  “Incoherent, lady. Incoherent.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Crap on a cracker.

  Raiding Finkerman’s office had been a bust. The jerk must’ve taken Goober’s dreamcatcher home with him. Either that, or he had it hanging on the rearview mirror of his obnoxious yellow Hummer.

  So much for Plan A.

  I stumbled out of Finkerman’s office and flopped my scantily-clad fanny down onto Maggie’s driver’s seat.

  I shot back out of the seat as if it had detonated.

  “Yeeowwch!”

  The July heat had turned Maggie’s red vinyl seats into red-hot sheets of semi-molten plastic. My silver hot-pants didn’t offer nearly enough protection. What I needed was a pair of butt-potholders.

  Strike that.

  What I needed was a spare heat shield from a NASA space shuttle.

  I rubbed my red thighs and looked around. Thankfully, cheap-suited scuzz-man was nowhere in sight. He’d probably disappeared back inside Sultry’ Sam’s Sex Shoppe. I didn’t care to see him again, so I scrapped the idea of going inside to find something to prank Tom with, and focused on my next urgent mission.

  Procuring twenty grand for Doo-Doo Daddy.

  I shifted my gaze to the scrap of paper in my hand. On it I’d written the name of the Craigslist nutcase Winky said was willing to pay a fortune for a ceramic replica of a half-naked fat guy grunting on a tiny toilet.

  I shook my head.

  What’s the world coming to?

  I set my jaw to “whatever” and punched in the number on my cell phone.

  “Yello?” a deep, raspy voice said.

  “Hello, is this Layla Lark?”

  “Yes. Who’s calling?”

  “Uh...Val Fremden. I got your number off Craigslist?”

  “Oh! Do you have the figurine?!”

  “Uh. Yes.”

  “I must have it! When can you bring it to me? Can you do it now?”

  I looked down at my roasted thighs, sparkly hot pants and shiny vinyl knee boots.

  “Uh...I
’m kind of indisposed at the moment.”

  Unless I want to take up the world’s oldest profession.

  “It’s really urgent,” the woman said earnestly. “You see, I lost the figurine in a poker game. It belongs to my husband. If I don’t get it back by tonight...well...I’m toast!”

  “Oh. Well, in that case...uh...do you have the money on you?”

  A wolf-whistle sounded nearby. Sleazeball was back, loitering around the door of the sex shop. He shot me a look that should have come in a plain brown wrapper. I turned my back to him.

  “Yes. In twenties and fifties,” the woman said. “I had a bit of luck at the table Monday night....”

  “Okay, then. So, where should we meet?”

  “Do you know Davie’s Donuts?”

  Davie’s Donuts? Really? “Yeah.”

  “Meet you there in say, ten minutes?”

  I looked around the sleazy strip mall. Scuzz-ball took a step in my direction. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  “Hello? Are you still there?” Layla asked.

  “Wha...yes. Yes, I’m here.”

  “So, do you know where Davie’s is?”

  “Yeah. I do. See you there in ten.”

  I clicked off the phone. Cheap-suit man was only a few yards away, lumbering toward me like a down-on-his luck insurance salesman. He appeared desperate to sell me something from his portfolio of short-term products....

  I jumped back into the fiery fanny fryer and turned the ignition key. My thighs smoked and Maggie’s tires squealed as I shifted into reverse and hooked a sharp right. I spun the wheel and shifted into drive. The sleazy guy yelled something at me, but I couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of Maggie’s dual glasspack muffler.

  Finally, I’d caught a break today.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Twenty thousand bucks!

  As I tooled down Gulf Boulevard, the figure swirled around in my mind like the bubbles in a gin and tonic.

  That would be enough to pay off Finkerman, buy a new Barcalounger for Tom, plenty of toys for the new puppy coming Saturday, and even some fancy, insulated seat covers for Maggie! Anything left over, I’d donate to a good cause – namely a huge freezer full of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia....