“I have to say... I’m surprised yous are both girls. That’s very unusual for these types of jobs,” he said, regarding us under hooded eyes. Luckily, the waitress came in to deliver our drinks giving us a second to think of a response.
“Sexism from an East Coast buffoon. You must be Italian to boot.” He grinned acknowledgement at Ulyssa’s stereotyping. “No surprise. That’s probably the Patron Saint of machismo on your necklace!”
“It’s Saint Avellino, Patron Saint of sudden death. I’m surprised you don’t know him, since you’re in this line of business,” he taunted her. “If you’re real exterminators, that is?”
“We’re real alright!” Ulyssa said, leaning forward on the edge of the couch. “You’ve obviously never met redneck girls before, cause we have a way of getting things done.”
I choked on my Diet Coke, but it came out sounding more like a growl.
The three guards stepped forward placing their hands on their hips, but Nicolo waved them away.
“I likes you girls! You’ve got toughs! I think yous gonna be perfect for the job,” he said, turning to the nearest goon. “Joey! Gets me a whiskey, willya?”
“We haven’t accepted the job yet! I think we have a few details to discuss before we agree to anything.” Ulyssa had gone into tough negotiator mode. “How many pests are we talking about?”
“One big rat,” Nicolo answered, as Joey returned with his glass of whiskey.
“In that case, the price is double. We won’t do it for less than forty.”
He leaned forward, pulling his gold necklace taut across his neck. “For that price, I wants it to be invisible. Has to looks natural.”
“No problem. We’re stealthy like ninjas!” I contributed.
What was it with me and ninja references lately? I blame the roofie.
“Ninjas, huh?” His eyes scanned me head to toe. “I don’t cares how ya do it. I just needs it finished two weeks from tomorrow. The date of completion is a-very important to me.”
“Big day, huh?” I guessed.
“Yeah.”
“Just out of curiosity... You and your crew look strong... why aren’t you taking care of the rat yourself? Why bring in a couple of outside exterminators to do the job?” Ulyssa asked.
“Cause we don’t like to get our hands dirty, iffen ya know what I means. I’ve just started seeing ‘someone’ and if they find out about our little deal things wouldn’t be too good for our relationship. It would be finito. Which means the same for yous girls, got it?”
I don’t like the idea of being finito, whatever that means.
“Why all the trouble for this one rat?” Ulyssa continued.
“Let’s just say I’m tired of this rat eating my cheese. I don’t like greedy rats. They draw a lot of attention and people start looking in places they shouldn’t be and that gets real dangerous for everyone,” he said, a sinister grin sliding across his face.
“Okay. We’ll do the job quietly for forty. Where do we find this rat?”
Nicolo nodded to the tallest goon and he stepped out of the room. He returned seconds later with a large, manila envelope which he handed to Nicolo. Nicolo tossed the envelop on the glass top table in front of us.
“Here’s all the information you need, plus half of the payment up front.” He stood up and stretched making the buttons on his shirt strain to stay closed. “I gots a plane waiting on me at Yeager airport. Yous girls got my number if you needs anything.” Nicolo put his hand on the envelope, towering so close I could smell the whiskey from his breath. “I like you, but you girls cross me and I’ll kills ya.”
We didn’t exhale until they left and the waitress poked her head into the room. “Y’all want anything else? Nicolo said to make sure you were taken care of,” she said, smiling at us as she grabbed our empty glasses. “BTW, My name is Cheri, like the fruit!”
Of course it is.
“Nice to meet you, Cheri. Is Nicolo always so intense?”
She gave it some thought, “He only comes into town every once in a while, so I don’t know ‘em that well. But, I think he liked y’all. And I know for sure that’s a good thing cause he’s one of them mobsters from New Jersey.”
What? That didn’t make sense. Why would a mobster fly to West Virginia to hire an exterminator?
We ordered two more Diet Cokes, grabbed the envelope and opened the metal clasps. Peeking inside, we were shocked to find bundles of cash crammed behind a photo. We shoved the envelope lid closed when Cheri reappeared with our drinks.
“You can use the room as long as you want. Just give me a shout if you need anything else.”
“Thanks, Cheri!” she said, pulling the curtain closed behind her.
Strains of music piped into the room over an old sound system masked our excited whispers as we extracted the contents of the envelope.
“These are stacks of hundreds!” Ulyssa exclaimed, as she organized the bundles of cash on the table. She continued to count them as I finished pulling the photo and newspaper clipping from the envelope.
“There’s at least $20,000 here! I’ve never seen so much money. There must be some mistake. Twenty-thousand divided by $40/per hour equals five hundred hours. There’s no way it will take us five hundred hours to get rid of one rat.”
I looked at the papers in my hand. “I don’t think he hired us to get rid of a rat.”
Ulyssa stopped organizing the cash and looked at me. “Huh?”
“I don’t think we’re getting rid of a rat and that’s only the first half of the payment. He said that it was the first half up front. He’s going to pay us forty-thousand.”
“Why in the world would he give us $40,000?”
I spun the clipping around, “Because we’re supposed to exterminate him!”
The club was thumping with an old Joan Jett song while the rowdy crowd hurdled catcalls at the gyrating dancers. The song was perfect for our current situation as the rocker screamed about dirty deeds.
“We can’t do this!” I said, dropping the newspaper excerpt on the table next to the money.
“We have to Shasta! You heard what he said! He’ll kill us! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What have we gotten ourselves into?” She usually reserved her use of JMJ for the worst of situations. It was a subconscious byproduct of her Catholic upbringing.
She started shoving the money back into the envelope with shaking hands.
“I’ve never killed anything. There’s no way I can do this,” I said, feeling bile rise in the back of my throat. “My parents are vegans for goodness sake. I never even had a Chicken nugget until I started hanging out with you!”
“Okay,” she said, patting my back. “It’s been a long day, let’s head home. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.”
She stuffed the envelope in the back of her jeans and pulled her sweater over the top. We walked out to the cheering crowd as the stripper finished her dance and exited the stage.
Cheri stopped in front of us with a tray full of alcoholic drinks asking, “Y’all all done back there?”
“Yeah, we’ve had enough fun for one night,” Ulyssa responded, giving her a twenty dollar tip. “If anyone asks, we were never here.”
“No problem, sugar. I make most of my tips from folks who were never here. Y’all come back now, ya hear!”
Ulyssa kept the envelope hidden until we were back in the trailer with the door locked and the shades pulled.
She poured us each a glass of wine from the box in the fridge and sank into the couch. “Where are we gonna hide this money? It makes me nervous having it in the house.”
“We could hide it in the coffee can?” I offered.
“No. Too obvious.” She countered.
“Under the mattress.”
“No. That’s the second most popular hiding place.”
“Tampax box?” I didn’t even realize I’d said it out loud. The filter between my brain and mouth didn’t always work, especially when I’m stressed out
.
Ulyssa looked at me with shock answering, “Perfect!! Most crimes are committed by males between the ages of 18 and 34. There’s no way a man’ll look inside a Tampax box. Brilliant idea!” She ran down the hall and returned with the familiar blue cardboard box. I said a silent prayer of thanks that we buy feminine products wholesale from Sam’s Club because the envelope wouldn’t have fit in a regular size box. She dumped the contents onto the living room table, carefully slid the envelop in sideways, laid some tampons over the top and closed the lid. Perfect. We put the box back in the bathroom and crammed the rest of the tampons into a drawer. Feeling confident that the money was safe, we called it a night.
It didn’t take long for me to pass out from exhaustion, but my dreams were riddled with visions of town cars being driven by killer squirrels with Italian faces and pot bellies. They seemed especially evil as they alternated between eating nuts and threatening to kills us.
I woke up in a cold sweat as the sun penetrated the blinds, filling the room with light. I headed to the bathroom to shower off the filmy sweat. The quiet swish-swish of my toothbrush filled the still trailer. Silence wasn’t a good environment for me right now. I was sitting on the couch rocking and chattering when Ulyssa finally woke up.
“Yeah, we could go to the cops. Nope can’t do that they’ll kill us.”
Rock. Rock.
“But they could put us in witness protection. No, I like it here. I’d never get to see Deputy Hodde again. Definitely not.”
Rock. Rock.
“$40,000 is so much money. Yeah, definitely. We could do a lot with it. More than I won with the joke lottery ticket.”
Rock. Rock.
“But can’t kill somebody. Definitely not. Killing is wrong.”
“Hey RainMan! How long you been out here having a meltdown?” I blinked at her crazy morning hair. She didn’t sleep well either.
“Twenty minutes, maybe. Thirty tops.”
“Okay. Looks like we need to get you some serious caffeine today. Only a Starbuck’s triple shot will nurse you out of this shock!”
She disappeared into the bathroom. When she re-emerged she’d combed her hair down and pulled it back into a ponytail. She waved the newspaper article at me before folding it and sliding it into her pocket. “This may help us figure out what to do. We can have a quick look at these while we’re drinking our coffees.”
We walked outside to find Mitchell in his yard working on his stock car. He spent all his spare money and time fixing the car, so he could race it on the weekend.
Mitchell and Mitsy split the mortgage on the trailer across the street from us. We’d met them because we were the youngest people in the Wheels Up trailer park. When we first moved in, the residents thought we might be meth dealers setting up shop in their hood. They’d even tried to have the homeowner’s association pass a minimum age law for the trailer park. But it failed because of age discrimination laws. They started warming up to us once they realized we were just four hard working professionals trying to survive. They’d still call the cops if we were too noisy or rowdy, but at least they weren’t standing 24x7 shifts watching our trailers for drug deals anymore.
“Mornin‘ Mitchell! She gonna be ready to race this weekend?” I asked.
“Mornin’ girls! I’ve been having problems with the alternator, but I’m hoping she’ll be ready to race by Sunday afternoon.” He stopped working and leaned against the 1982 Buick, propping his boot against the oversized tire.
I stared at the giant MoonPie pasted on the hood of the yellow racing car. “Did you finally get a sponsor?”
“Shoot no. I keep hoping they’ll see me racing and pick me officially. Til then I’m just promoting ‘em for free,” he answered, before abruptly shifting the conversation. “What have y’all been up to?”
Ulyssa picked up the conversation smooth as pie, “Not too much. Just job shopping. Why?”
“Just wondering cause I saw one of them fancy Lincoln Town Cars parked outside your place last night. I thought maybe you’d won the lottery or got a rich boyfriend.”
“Uh.” She shot me a warning look before continuing, “Those were just some friends out for a visit from the East Coast. They were in town on business and could only stop by for a few minutes.” I shuddered remembering my squirrel nightmare.
Maybe I was psychic. Like a Dr. Doolittle-Diona Warwick hybrid. I wonder if I could get my own hotline.
“Yeah, they were only parked there for bout an hour. I saw them when I wuz running down to Wally World for some pork rinds, about 9, I reckon, and they were gone when I got back. I wasn’t gone for too long, probably an hour. Glad you know though. Thought we were going to have to report them to the neighborhood watch,” he said, winking at us.
“Yeah. These nosey fools don’t have anything else better to do with their time. They probably have one of those hearing amplification devices going right now, so they can here us talking. We’re going to Starbuck’s for coffee in case anyone is curious,” she said the last part loudly to emphasize the joke.
Mitchell laughed, “Y’all have a good one. Enjoy your yuppie coffee!”
Between the nosey neighbors and mob stalkers, we’d reached maximum paranoia and didn’t talk until we were on the highway with the radio blasting 80’s metal. We had to talk louder over the music, defeating the purpose of the white noise. But it somehow made us feel better.
“I can’t believe they followed us home! We’re so dead now! Did you notice them following us last night?”
Ulyssa shook her head and frowned. “I was so worried about what we were going to do. I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. This really, really complicates things. They know where we live now. I can’t believe we’re messing with the mob! Have you ever watched the Godfather or Sopranos? It never ends well.” We both shuddered at the thought of an unhappy Nicolo.
It was too cold for most folks to sit outside Starbucks, but we were cosy sitting in the corner away from prying eyes. Ulyssa extracted the newspaper clipping from her pocket and flattened it on the table. We both leaned closer to get a better look at it. The man in the photo was being escorted from a courthouse surrounded by bodyguards and lawyers.
CASE DISMISSAL FOR GRAVE ROBBING RINGLEADER
Alleged grave robbing ring leader, Marcus Bernini, was released from custody on Monday after his case was dismissed today. Bernini was arrested after residents complained about unusual activity at the graveyard after hours. An undercover sting by the Charleston Police Department gathered evidence of the nocturnal thefts, but were unable to convince witnesses to testify under oath. Victims claim that Bernini was the ringleader responsible for raiding fresh grave sites and stealing jewelry and other valuables from corpses. It is estimated that his crew stole over $100,000 worth of items from the recently departed. Bernini has a long history of criminal activity within the surrounding counties. He was arrested in 2008 for car theft and again last year for drug and prostitution related charges. Prosecutors claim that Bernini evades serious jail time because of his ties to New Jersey mobster Nicolo Patchelli. Patchelli assumed control of his family’s business when his father died in 2008, expanding the criminal empire as far west as Nevada.
We sat back in our chairs absorbing the article.
“It doesn’t make sense to me. If Nicolo is buddies with Marcus, why did he hire us to kill him?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe they had a disagreement or something. What’s the date of the newspaper article? That might help.”
“It’s got yesterday’s date on it.”
“Wow. So, the same day Marcus is released, Nicolo posts a Craigslist ad for exterminators and hires us to kill him?” Ulyssa asked, taking a sip of her steaming coffee.
“Maybe that’s why Nicolo flew out here from New Jersey. But why is he mad at Marcus? Did he try to cut him out of the profits or something? I can’t imagine that grave robbing is big business in the mobster world. Eventually the revenue stream would dry up.” Ulyssa
watched loads of crime-based TV shows and I can always tell when she’s speaking legalese.
“I don’t know. But one thing is for sure... we have gotten ourselves in a heap of trouble. This Marcus guy seems like bad business and now we’re stuck in the middle of whatever is going on between him and Nicolo.”
“If we go to the cops, we’re dead. If we don’t do anything, we’re dead. If we try to kill Marcus, we could end up dead. Plus, we can’t ask anyone for help or advice cause they’ll end up hurt or killed.” Voicing the hopelessness of the situation only made it worse. “And we only have two weeks to do whatever it is that we need to do...”
Uninspired by our caffeine highs, we were speeding along the dirt road heading home when the car bottomed out on a pot hole. The pellet size crack in the car window spread like a grand daddy long leg spider.
“Damnit!” Ulyssa exclaimed, as we hit another unexpected pothole, exploding the cracks across the entire windshield. She slowed down to avoid any more bumps that might cause it to crash in on us. “We’re gonna have to stop by Cornnut’s, so he can have a look at the windshield before it falls in.”
Cornnut was our local mechanic and car dealer who did business out of his house on the edge of town. Used cars with prices marked on the windshield were arranged around his front yard in three rows. Small, foreign cars in the front, midsized sedans in the middle and SUVs in the back. He had a special discounted car selection in the backyard. Most folks from Nitro steered clear of the questionable backyard lot and only shopped for front yard cars. His two car garage was set up as an efficient workshop with hydraulic lifts. Ulyssa pulled the car into the driveway near the garage door. We walked past the pink flamingos to the front door and pressed the doorbell.
A male chauvinist door chime echo’d through the house. “Woman, git the damned door. Woman, git the damned door.”
We were still laughing at the door chime, when a mean looking woman swung the door open and glared at us. “What do you’ns want?”
Fat Assassins (The Fat Adventure Series) Page 8
