Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  “Wait here,” Double H whispered to us, then, before I could stop him, the pretend policeman stepped out of the hallway and into the room.

  “Hold it right there,” he said to Finkerman.

  Finkerman’s voice was an octave higher when he said, “Look, buddy. I told your boss I’d have his money tomorrow.”

  “Well, tomorrow came early,” Double H said. “Have a seat.”

  Laverne and I huddled together in the hallway like orphans in a storm. I heard the familiar sound of duct tape ripping off a roll. Laverne opened her mouth. I put my hand over it.

  “Is that really necessary?” Finkerman asked. His voice sounded more annoyed that fearful. “Look, I’ve got fifty bucks in my wallet. Can’t we work something out, just between you and me?”

  “It’s not money we want,” Double H said.

  “We? You mean you’re not here for...you know who?”

  “Not likely. You can come out now, ladies,” Double H announced.

  I took a tentative peek around the corner. Finkerman was straddling Fargo’s chair. His ankles were duct taped to the front legs of it. His wrists appeared to be bound together behind the chair’s backrest.

  “Fremden!” he called out.

  Finkerman’s voice sounded nearly giddy with relief. Then it switched back to his normal snarky, nasal whine.

  “Well, well,” he said, looking at me with something resembling admiration. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I said, trying to sound tough. But my guts were seesawing between Southern belle guilt and Valiant Stranger’s desire for justice.

  Crap on a cracker.

  I hadn’t planned on stringing up Finkerman. But then again, I finally had the jerk right where I wanted him. Why waste the opportunity?

  I swaggered up to the hog-tied lawyer, my heart beating in my throat.

  “I know everything about you, Finkerman,” I lied with as much bravado as I could muster, considering there was a gold-lame clad septuagenarian by my side rooting me on like a proud grandma.

  “You do, huh?” Finkerman sneered. “Like what?”

  “I know you’re in cahoots with Victoria from the public library. She’s married, you know,” I said, winging it. “Her husband might not take the news of your affair too well. I hear he’s a retired football player. Tight end, I believe.”

  Finkerman shrugged. “So?”

  “Drop your suit against me, Finkerman, and you won’t end up with a football shoved up your end zone.”

  Finkerman laughed. “That’s all you’ve got on me?”

  I bit my lip and looked over at Double H. I kind of didn’t want to go where I was going next. But I kind of did, too....

  “Not exactly,” I said. “See this fine, upstanding police officer here? He’s investigating a series of break-ins in the area. Laverne and I are...uh...aiding his investigation.”

  Finkerman rolled his eyes. “What a crock of bull.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “But let me remind you, Finkerman, there’s nobody here to plead your case – except a shyster scumbag attorney. And he’s kind of tied up at the moment.”

  Double H snorted. Laverne cocked her head at me, confused. Finkerman blew out a breath.

  “Give it up, Fremden. Nothing short of five grand is gonna get you off the hook with me.”

  “No? We’ll see about that.”

  I turned to Double H. “Go ahead, officer. Commence operation Follicle Failure.”

  Double H reached over and plucked a frizzy hair from Finkerman’s head. The attorney’s shifty eyes grew as big as boiled eggs.

  “What are you doing?” he hissed.

  “Collecting a DNA sample to compare against that of the perpetrator burgling nearby businesses,” I said.

  “Har har,” Finkerman spat. “You’ve had your fun, Fremden. Now let me go!”

  “I’m afraid I’m gonna need another sample,” Double H said, and plucked another hair from Finkerman’s thin, balding pate. He studied the end. “Darn. Again, no follicle.”

  Finkerman’s sneer lost its edge. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “’Fraid not,” Double H said. “You know, the DNA thingy down at the lab is kinda unreliable. I might need two, three, or maybe a couple hundred hairs, just to be on the safe side.”

  Finkerman’s face turned the color of a pastor’s posterior.

  “You wouldn’t,” he whispered.

  Harvey plucked another hair. Finkerman lost his swagger – along with a follicle.

  “Stop!” Finkerman screeched. “All right already! Two grand and I drop the suit!”

  Double H looked at me.

  I shook my head. “No deal.”

  Double H reached over to pull another frizzy hair. Finkerman scrunched his neck down like a turtle trying to duck into its shell. Considering the painful expression on his face, we might as well have been pulling his teeth.

  “Hold up a moment,” I said to Double H. I reached in my purse, fished a small tape recorder out and hit “record.”

  I looked into Finkerman’s bulging eyes. “This is your last chance, Finkerman. For the record, did you try to extort money from Laverne Cowens over an overdue library book?”

  Finkerman shot an angry glance over at Laverne.

  “I don’t recall such a thing.”

  “Finkerman, your memory’s as convenient as your morals,” I said. “Go ahead, officer. Obtain another sample.”

  I nodded at Double H and he relieved Finkerman of another kinky, reddish-brown head hair.

  Finkerman whined like an abandoned puppy. “Okay! Okay! I admit it. Are you satisfied?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “Now, tell me that your suit against me is baseless, and therefore you’re formally dropping it.”

  Finkerman pursed his thin lips. “Two hundred bucks and we’re even?”

  “Some folks never learn,” Double H tutted and shook his head.

  Finkerman squirmed as Double H reached up and removed his police cap, then his do-rag. The biker’s pale, naked dome shone in the fluorescent lighting like an albino bowling ball.

  Double H leaned over until the top of his shiny head was six inches from Finkerman’s pointy nose.

  “Take a good look at your future, scumbag,” Double H huffed.

  Finkerman’s expression couldn’t have been more horrified if he’d have been looking at himself in his own coffin.

  Double H straightened to standing. “Gimme your cellphone,” he said to Finkerman. “I’ll have one of my lovely assistants here put Hair Club for Men on your speed-dial.”

  Finkerman groaned like a certain figurine that had recently met its demise under my Hammer of Justice.

  Double H laughed and slapped his do-rag back over his glowing-white, billiard ball of a noggin.

  “Do yourself a favor, buddy,” Double H said. “Stop pestering these two fine ladies here. Just agree to the terms stated, and we’ll disappear...before the rest of your hair does.”

  Finkerman whined, and nodded his semi-bald head.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I high-stepped it out of Finkerman’s office and did a victory dance in the parking lot.

  “Wahooo! We did it!” I yelled, “And we’ve got it all on tape!”

  “Woo hoo!” Laverne hooted and kicked up her gold high heels. “We got him all on the duct tape! Val, you’re a genius!”

  Well, that makes one of us....

  I grinned and hooked arms with the golden Vegas showgirl, and we spun around in the parking lot like the world’s most unbalanced atomic element.

  Double H laughed and clapped out a beat with his beefy hands until I got dizzy and stopped the show. I was so giddy with relief that I hugged them both.

  “What do we owe you?” I asked Double H as I unwrapped my arms from around his big belly.

  Double H grinned and shook his head. “I don’t want your money, girls. To tell the truth, that was the most fun I’ve had in
ages. In fact, I’d pay you money if I could go back inside and finish off that twerp’s frizzy fro.”

  The thought of Finkerman looking as bald as Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants sent me into a giggle fit. But it also made my heart tingle with guilt. Southern pride was a weird thing, indeed.

  I tried to justify my actions to myself.

  What was done needed to be done. And besides, what was done, well, was already done.

  “Here’s your cop shirt back,” Double H said, peeling it from his ample torso.

  The tattered blue shirt was limp with sweat. Both sleeves were torn at the armpits, and a couple of buttonholes were, shall I say, enlarged. Tom’s shirt was beyond repair. But that was a problem for another day. Today, we would focus on victory!

  “So, how about a celebratory lunch?” I asked. “It’s on me!”

  “I’d love to,” Double H said, “but no can do. I’ve got another assignment across town.”

  “Well, it was great to meet you,” I said. “And thanks again for your help.”

  “Likewise. If you ever need me again, here’s my card.”

  Double H handed me a black card. The only thing on it were the letters HH and a phone number...in red.

  “Will do,” I said, as he hauled a beefy leg over the seat of his Harley.

  He turned a key in the ignition and the shiny, chrome ape-hanger roared to life. I felt Laverne’s arm slip around my waist, and we watched Double H disappear out of sight, like Santa Claus in the throes of a full-blown, mid-life crisis.

  “Well, looks like it’s you and me, kid,” Laverne said in a voice like Humphrey Bogart with laryngitis.

  I laughed. “What’s say you and me split this joint?”

  “Suits me fine.”

  I motioned toward Maggie. “Your chariot awaits, Madame.”

  Laverne giggled like a schoolgirl and let go of my waist. She moved a foot toward the car, stepped in a pothole and nearly toppled over in her heels.

  I shook my head. “Laverne, why do you always wear high heels?”

  Laverne looked down at her shoes as if she’d never seen them before, then looked up at me and shrugged.

  “Habit, I guess, honey. In Vegas, they always told us showgirls that a gal’s just one pair of Birkenstocks away from the slippery slope to Slobsville.”

  My ears burned. Not only was I wearing Birkenstocks – I had on sweatpants, a ratty t-shirt, no makeup, and my hair was in a ponytail greasy enough to fry eggs.

  I wasn’t just a citizen of Slobsville...I was their village idiot.

  “Oh,” I said, and held open the passenger door for Laverne and her glitzy gold outfit. “Compared to you, Laverne, I guess I look like a frump-a-dump.”

  Laverne eyed me up and down, shrugged her shoulders and gave me a pursed-lip smile.

  “I dunno about that, honey.”

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked. “I don’t get it. How do you keep yourself so...together?”

  Laverne smiled. “I learned a long time ago that life ain’t a poker game, honey.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When it comes to outward appearances, you don’t hold your best cards for last, Val. You play them first. You don’t show a fella the crummy stuff until later. You know...after you’ve lulled him into complacency.”

  “Oh.”

  Laverne slid her scrawny butt into the seat. “Thanks for offering to buy lunch, honey, but I’m gonna pass.”

  “Why?”

  “A girl’s gotta watch her figure. And I plan on eating like a pig at the party tonight.”

  Holy crap! Winky and Winnie’s engagement party! I’d forgotten all about it...again!

  “Uh...okay. No problem Laverne.”

  I climbed in the car and turned the ignition key. Maggie rumbled to life, and I peeled out of the parking lot of Finkerman’s office. As I tooled toward home listening to Laverne belting out, I Did It My Way, I realized I was envious of her in many ways.

  Laverne knew herself, and actually liked who she was. So much so, she refused to change for anyone – not even J.D. And what’s more, she afforded everyone around her the same privilege. She was a real-life, living example of that old saying, “Why don’t you be you and I’ll be me.”

  I glanced over and smiled at Laverne. She returned the favor. I knew deep in my heart that the old woman loved me just the way I was. And, I guess, in my own slightly more judgmental way, I loved her the way she was, too.

  “What’d you get Winky and Winnie?” Laverne asked when she’d finished the first chorus of her song.

  I nearly hit the brakes. Not only had I forgotten about the party – I’d forgotten to get the trailer twins an engagement gift, too.

  “It’s a surprise,” I said. “How about you?”

  Laverne winked. “The same,” she said, and began belting out another verse of I Did It My Way.

  I drummed my nails on the steering wheel in time to Laverne’s off-beat serenade, and racked my brain for an appropriate gift for Winnie and Winky. But I came up blank.

  What could I get a pair of rednecks who were no longer in need of a pot to piss in?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Maggie rumbled into my driveway. I shifted into park and cut the ignition. Two missions had been accomplished. Finkerman had been vanquished, and I had my gift for Winnie and Winky.

  In the seat next to me was a gift bag containing a hundred-dollar gift certificate to the Dollar Store.

  I waved to Laverne. I’d dropped her off in front of her house, and she was toddling her way toward her front door, toting a Dollar Store bag nearly big enough to use as a pup tent.

  Laverne hadn’t needed any arm twisting to make a stop on the way home from our victorious gig of relieving Finkerman of his follicles. In fact, it had been her idea. She’d taken a coupon from her purse and waved it at me, informing me that the Dollar Store was having a two-for one sale on her favorite Skinny Dip dinners. Apparently, the new foil-pouch version didn’t need refrigerating – and it didn’t go over well in test markets, either.

  I went inside, plopped the gift bag on the kitchen counter and frowned. Somehow, a generic gift card seemed too impersonal for such an auspicious occasion. I pondered the thought for a moment, then realized I was in possession of something I knew the two trailer tots would love. I went and got it and added it to the gift bag.

  According to the clock on the kitchen wall, it was approaching two o’clock, and I was still in black sweats, t-shirt and Birkenstocks.

  I looked like a cat burglar who’d just robbed Woodstock.

  I wanted to take a tip from Laverne and make myself attractive before Tom played his hand and left me at the ugly table. But one look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror told me my makeover would require more time and money than I had to invest at present. What I really needed was a facelift, a tummy tuck, and a month at a fat farm.

  But seeing as how I only had three hours and thirty-seven minutes, and closet full of clothes so outdated even the Salvation Army wouldn’t even take them, I had to work with what I had.

  I rifled through my closet, thinking about who would be at the party tonight. Winnie and Winky didn’t need impressing. Neither did Cold Cuts or Bill. Milly and Vance already knew not to expect much. And I’d already had a couple of years to lower Tom’s expectations....

  But then I thought about Jorge and his glamorous new girlfriend Sherryl. Tom was once married to her cousin, Darryl.

  Darryl!

  The thought of Tom’s ex-wife sent a wave of insecurity crashing down on me.

  Darryl was gorgeous, elegant, mild-tempered.... In other words, everything I wasn’t. Compared to Darryl’s sexy Spanish fly, I was a redneck cockroach. And a slob. And now... a petty criminal!

  I was a walking disaster!

  I rifled through my closet again, Laverne’s words echoing in my head. Maybe it was time to give those impossible high heels I’d been saving a spin...

  I grabbed the shoebox out of the
closet and crammed my feet into the six-inch, silver-sequined heels. Two steps later, the balls of my feet might as well have been treading on stingray spines.

  I wish someone could take fat out of my stomach and put it in the bottom of my feet....

  I winced in pain and looked up at myself in the vanity mirror. The grimace on my face made me looked like Doo-Doo Daddy – in a brown, greasy wig.

  Ugh!

  It was too late. I’d already slipped down the slope to Slobsville. If high heels and Epiladys were any indicator, beauty required pain. Was it my fault I had a low tolerance for it?

  When was the last time I felt glamorous?

  I strained my brain. It had been a few years ago. Laverne had helped me glitz up for Tom’s policeman’s ball. Even though that night had ended in a disaster, it had started well. And maybe this time would be different.

  I kicked off the killer shoes and padded into the kitchen for a gin and tonic. I downed it, then dialed Laverne’s number.

  I WAS STANDING IN THE tub, wearing nothing but a G-string and a worried expression.

  “Trust me,” Laverne said, and popped the lid off a can of Fake ‘n’ Bake, a self-tanning foam she’d picked up at the Dollar Store.

  She squirted a load of foam into her hands and began to rub me down like an ancient masseuse with inch-long red fingernails.

  “When I’m done with you, Tom won’t know what hit him,” she said. “This is my number one glamour trick, honey!”

  I fought against the rising tide of doubt gnawing at my gut, and took a long chug of the gin and tonic in my hand.

  “OPEN YOUR EYES, HONEY!”

  I did as Laverne commanded. The first thing I saw in the mirror was her horsey smile and beaming double row of dentures.

  The second thing I saw was the orange-skinned transvestite standing next to her.

  I stared, speechless and transfixed.

  Laverne had transformed every inch of me, from my teased-up hair to my clowned-up face. My fake, press-on nails matched perfectly with the painted-on gold-lame cat suit she’d squeezed me into.

  True to her word, Laverne had kept her promise. Tom really wouldn’t know what hit him. And I was in desperate need of hitting something myself.