“Just wait. I’m driving us to a safe spot, so we can talk.”
I pouted the whole time she was driving. Patience isn’t one of my strengths. I’m really annoying when it’s my birthday or Christmas.
She pulled onto the dirt road near the Saint Albans-Nitro bridge. I stared at her asking, “Are you kidding me?”
“C’mon. Let’s go.”
I grabbed my jacket and followed her onto the catwalk under the bridge. It wasn’t even 10AM yet and the day was already shaping up to be a weird one. The bridge was one of Nitro’s primo make-out spots, so it didn’t see too many visitors during the day. Cars thundered overhead as we huddled together to talk on the metallic grids suspended above the river.
“I’ve been giving it some thought and we must be bugged. Maybe the car. Maybe the trailer. I don’t know. Otherwise, how did they find out the money was in the Tampax box?”
I hadn’t given it much thought, responding “Okay.”
“You throw the other hitmen into the mix and we have to assume that we’re being followed or listened to 24/7,” she explained, extending her arms. “I didn’t want to tip anyone off about our plans, so I thought this would be the perfect place. It’s hidden and noisy.”
“Okay,” I agreed, she’s getting a little too clever with this clandestine stuff.
“I think I found the perfect way to kill Marcus!”
“How?”
“We’ll make a bomb!”
“How did you come up with that idea?”
“I just Googled for ways to assassinate people. Stabbing, shooting, and hit-and-run were the most popular, but we’ve already been down that road, so I had to go with option #4. Homemade bomb! And we’ll be able to get all the materials here locally too. I printed out the how-to guide. Easy peasy!”
“How do you know how to make a bomb?”
“I Googled it too.”
“So... you did a Google search on assassination ideas, searched on bomb making and printed out the how-to guide?”
She nodded.
“You didn’t think it might look a little suspicious?” I asked, looking around expecting someone to come sprinting down the catwalk to arrest us for being terrorists.
“Of course I thought of that. I covered our tracks. After I printed the bomb directions, I printed out Ruth’s chat logs and a few pages that only old people would visit. Then I spent fifteen minutes looking around at colleges. That’s why I was talking to Jennifer about schools. She’ll remember that we were in there after Ruth, talking to her about schools. So, if someone is smart enough to check the computer and printer. It will look like Ruth did it.”
I stood there silent and stunned.
“Say something!”
“Freaking brilliant!” I exclaimed. “Let’s see the bomb directions.”
She pulled the folded papers from her pocket saying, “It’s called Acetone Peroxide. I had a quick look at the ingredients and it didn’t look to hard to make.”
“Dang. I’m glad my mom never let me bleach my hair with peroxide. One little spill onto the nail polish remover and kaboom!”
“I think it requires a little more science than that. I guess it’s a good thing I got a C in chemistry,” she added, puffing her chest out just as the wind caught the papers pulling a few from her grip, sending them down to the river.
“Whew I think we got most of the instructions,” she said, flipping through the pages trying to figure out which ones were missing. “We’re just missing the part that explains crystal sizes. It’s not nearly as important as the composition and heating process. I think we have most of the ingredients at the house to make the mixture. The only challenge now is getting the bomb materials without raising suspicion.”
I nodded in agreement asking, “What all do we need?”
She flipped through pages explaining, “Looks like we need some PVC pipe, tape, a timer, and a few other pieces of hardware. Most of this stuff is at Home Depot.”
There was only one Home Depot in town and we never shop there. So, it would be out of character for us to stroll in for a shopping spree to buy a bomb making supplies. “If we try to buy all that stuff, won’t it look suspicious?”
“Yeah. We can’t get caught on camera buying it and we’ll have to cover our tracks like we did at the library,” she answered, but you could see the gears turning in her mind.
“We could shoplift it,” I offered.
“We’re stockpiling felonies! We’ll be institutionalized by the time we get paroled. Besides how are we going to shoplift something as crazy as a PVC piping? I can’t even steal a grape from the grocery store without getting caught.”
“You’re right. We’re way to clumsy. It’ll take a real professional.”
We looked at each other, saying in unison, “Tater!”
“Best shoplifter in the state!”
“And he owes me big time since it was his stupid lottery ticket that got us in this mess.”
“We’ll just have to give him a shopping list. We can’t tell him what it’s for, just in case he gets caught.”
“Okay. Let’s go make our list and find Tater.”
We found him at Mabel’s Diner eating biscuits and gravy.
“Hey cuz!”
“Hey, Tater.” We slid into the booth and I asked, “Got a minute?”
“I reckon.”
“We need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“I need you to pick up some stuff for me.”
“C’mon. You know I’m going straight,” he replied, his eyes shifting to the right.
“I know. This is the only time I’ll ask you to do it. And we’ll call it even for the birthday present.”
“Gawd! That ain’t fair!”
I leaned back and watched his internal struggle.
“What kinda stuff do you need?”
“We have to swear you to silence first. Hillybilly Oath.”
“C’mon cuz!” he whined, “You know I won’t say anything. It ain’t right to use the Hillbilly Oath.”
I just stared at him.
“Ok! Fine!” he said, grabbing his skoal can from his back pocket and slapping it down on the table.
The trick with the Hillybilly Oath is to make the person swear with their hand on a valued item. The valuable items could be anything, but they usually use a Skoal can/bag of tobacco, autotrader magazine or pork rinds.
“Place your right hand on the can and repeat after me.”
He laid his right hand on the Skoal can.
“I do hereby swear an oath of silence on this here can of Skoal that I will never tell anyone, one word about what I’m about to hear.”
I paused while he repeated.
“If I break this oath I will suffer the justice of the Hillbilly ancestors and my trailer will fall off the blocks. And Shasta can put Democrat signs in my front yard.”
He repeated the last part in a whisper.
“Here’s the list,” I said, laying it out in front of him. “Remember you can’t make a copy or show anyone. I’ll need it back when you’re done.”
“Dang. Paranoid much? This ain’t my first time on a shopping trip!” he exclaimed, picking up the list to scan its contents. “Aw, this will be easy. When do you need the items?”
“Yesterday.”
“I reckon we can do it this afternoon. I’ll need a few hours to formaldehyde a plan.”
“You mean formulate?”
“Yeah formulate. Duh, formaldehyde is something they do to frogs. I been watching Jeopardy to learn, but keep getting the answers confused.”
I looked at Ulyssa to confirm that I wasn’t this country, but she just shrugged. I punched her in the leg.
Tater folded up the paper and stuck it in the front pocket of his overalls. “So, you gonna give me a ride to the store for the shopping trip?”
“Sure. Remember you can’t say anything to anyone about this.”
He stopped chewing and looked back and forth between us
saying, “Ok. Pick me up at the house about six then.”
“You gonna eat that?” I asked, grabbing a fork to finish the last bite of gravy drenched biscuit. “See ya at six!”
We managed a quick visit to Cornnut to borrow a car and a shopping trip to Wal-Mart for more disguises before we pulled up in front of Tater’s trailer at 6 o’clock on the dot. His momma, my aunt, stared out the window as we drove by in the borrowed El Camino. I waved at her, forgetting I was in disguise. She just scowled and let the curtain fall down. She liked to keep tabs on Tater’s visitors even though he was a grown man now. It didn’t help that when he turned eighteen, he bought a trailer and parked it in her backyard.
Ulyssa hit the horn and La Cucaracha blared out the front of the car. I scooted into the middle to make room for him. Tater walked down the stairs laughing, “You two look like Cheech and Chong!”
“Is it Hammertime or something?” I asked, pointing at his huge colorful pants.
“It’s all part of the plan.”
“So, what is the plan?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
My eyes widened.
“I already told you I wuz sorry about the joke ticket. When are you gonna let it go?”
“Once you do us this favor. I’ll let it go.”
A few minutes later Ulyssa drove us past the Hurricane city limits and pulled the El Camino into a remote parking spot at the far end of the Home Depot lot.
“Dang. Could you have parked any further away?” Tater complained.
“It’s so we’re not on the security cameras.”
“Oh.”
“So what do you need us to do? Cause a distraction or anything?” I asked.
“Nope. Just wait here. You’ll know what to do when the time comes,” he said, hopping out of the El Camino, strutting in the orange entrance with his pants flapping in the wind.
We spent the next hour impatiently waiting outside for Tater, our anxiety grew with each passing minute. Tater was renowned for his shoplifting ability, but he had a large list of items and we weren’t sure how he was going to smuggle it all out. He musta wore his hammer pants, so there’d be extra room in the legs to stash some of the more awkward items. I still wasn’t sure how he was going to get the compound and some of the piping out. Paranoid thoughts kept flitting around in my head. Did he get caught? Should we leave before they come after us?
I was just about to suggest we leave when Ulyysa yelped and pointed.
“JMJ! Is that Tater?” she said, gesturing towards the garden section as a riding lawnmower came cruising through the gate.
I looked at the turbaned driver in hammer pants and black gloves. “Yup. That’s Tater! That red flannel he’s wearing on his head is the one I gave him last Christmas! He’s looks like a dang terrorist!”
“What the hell is he dragging behind that mower?”
“I think that’s a cart full of our stuff!”
We both slunk down in the seat and readjusted our Groucho glasses and mustaches. Ulyssa crossed herself and started praying to Saint Eustace.
“Saint Eustace?” I asked.
“Patron Saint of Difficult Situations.”
I would never tell her, but sometimes she’s the spitting image of her mother.
“Why haven’t you been praying to him the whole time?” I asked, my voice sharper than I’d intended. The dang mullet wig was making my head sweaty and itchy and the abrasive polyester pants were irritating my thighs.
She was riveted by the situation and ignored my hateful attitude. “What the hell is he thinking?! He’s dressed like a terrorist dragging bomb materials out of Home Depot on a mower! This is his great plan? Seriously? That thing has a top speed of 10MPH and we’re at least ten miles from Nitro! We’re going to jail!”
Ulyssa shifted into reverse and hit the accelerator to back out of the parking space. A thud and scrapping metal made her jump and slam on the brakes.
“Crud! I forgot how dang long the truck bed is on this thing, I bet I hit a freaking shopping cart. Cornnut is gonna kill us for scratching his car. Lazy people. Don’t know how to put their carts away!”
We looked up at Tater, who was slowly making his way down Liberty Park Drive.
“At least we don’t have to worry about him getting too far away,” I said.
We hopped out of the car and walked around the back to clear the path. A hoverround scooter was laying on it’s side with Roberta still stuck in the seat.
How are we gonna get out of this one?
Roberta started yelling at us not giving us much time to formulate a game plan.
“I should have known you wuz illegals! First you take my social security and now you’re running me over.” We recoiled with genuine confusion. “Do you even speaka da English?” she asked, prying herself out of the cart and pushing herself to her feet using her cane. “I want to see your licenseo and el insuranceo. You’ll pay dinero for my scooter or I’ll have you arrested.”
“Lo siento, senorita!” I said, wishing I would had listened more in ninth grade Spanish.
“What does that mean? What did you just say to me?” she demanded, puffing up.
“Um. Uno taquito, dos chalupas y bell grande!” Ulyssa added.
Roberta stared back and forth between us. “If you’re in America, you need to speak American. You dang communists!”
We lost sight of the mower.
“No English!” I set the hoverround back on all four wheels, shoving it aside to clear a path for the car. Ulyssa ran back to the driver’s side and started the car.
“Don’t touch that! You’re messing with a crime scene!”
She started hitting me with her cane.
“Ouch-o!” I yelped. She kept hitting me with the cane, but I stood my ground and waved my hands to help Ulyssa back it out of the parking spot.
“Adios!” I said, hopping in the passenger seat as Ulyssa maneuvered around a fuming Roberta.
She screamed at us, “You cain’t just leave! That’s hit and run!”
“Whew! I’m gonna have bruises all over my body! She was beating the hell outta me! These are great disguises though! I’m glad she didn’t recognize us,” I said, glancing over at Ulyssa who’d stopped talking.
“What?” I asked, following her gaze out the window. “You have got to be kidding me!” Roberta was pacing her hoverround with our car as we made our way down the street.
Dang, those things are fast.
Pop! Pop! We both jumped as Roberta started beating the car with her cane. She was driving the cart with one hand and using the other hand to wield her cane like a battering ram.
“She’s freaking crazy! How are we going to get rid of her?” Ulyssa asked.
I watched Tater make a right turn half a mile in front of us and hoped we might be able to shake her if we took the same turn quickly.
“Take that turn without slowing down,” I said.
Ulyssa checked for traffic before swinging the El Camino right. Roberta cornered the scooter on two wheels. It seems like my plan had the opposite effect on her. She started crashing her hoverround into the El Camino trying to run us off the road.
Thudunk!
Thudunk!
“What are we gonna do? She won’t go away?”
Ulyssa maintained a safe distance from Tater.
“We could ram back,” she offered, flexing her hands on the steering wheel.
“That could hurt her!” I protested.
“I’m all out of non-violent options. What’s your idea?”
We inhaled sharply when a police cruiser pulled out from a side street and turned right to follow Tater. The flashing red and blue lights confirmed that Tater had been busted.
“I think we’re going to have to leave Tater on his own,” Ulyssa decided, “We’re not going to be able to shake her and we’re getting too close. If that cop looks in the rearview mirror - we’re finished!”
Thudunk!
Thudunk!
“Hold on!�
� Ulyssa said, hitting the brakes as the hoverround flew past us. Roberta looked over her shoulder, squinted at us and laid down over the hoverround steering handles like she was on a sport bike.
All this convoy needs is a marching band and it’d fit right into the Nitro Christmas parade.
“Oh shit! She’s going to try to catch the cops!” I yelled, “Drive! Ulyssa! Drive!”
Ulyssa threw the car into reverse and backed down the road. I braced myself against the dashboard hoping for an empty road. At the first opportunity, she spun the car around and sped down the road barely keeping all four wheels on the ground as she squealed around the turns. She was driving so fast that when she hit the 3rd street bridge the car went airborne. She accidentally smacked the horn mid-flight, so La Cucaracha was blaring when we landed in Nitro. Our trip took eight minutes flat.
Ulyssa pulled the El Camino into the dirt lot next to the Pinto. We’d parked it near the old electric station because it was a good place to switch vehicles and don our disguises without being noticed. We changed out of our disguises and tossed them in the truck bed of the El Camino. We started driving a loop between the two main bridges into town looking for Tater. We were fourty-five minutes into our search and rescue efforts when we finally spotted him limping along the road.
“Hey Tater!” I said, stopping the car next to him.
He looked like he’d been crying exclaiming, “Boy am I glad to see y’all!”
“You okay? Why are you limping?”
He pulled the PVC piping and the rest of the items from his pants and shoved them into the Pinto.
“Yeah. I’m okay. I didn’t think I wuz gonna get away, so I started praying real hard,” he sniffed.
“Somebody musta heard my prayers and sent that crazy, old woman on the scooter to distract the police.”
“I don’t know if that was divine intervention...” I started, but he just kept talking.
“I ain’t led a Christian life up to now, but I’m back in church first thing Sunday.”
“That’s good Tater.” I hoped his newfound religion would keep him out of trouble for a while. “Thank you for doing this. We’re even now.”
Fat Assassins (The Fat Adventure Series) Page 17
