When Notmie saw that Melono wasn’t half dressed, he began to wonder if this would be a better time to snatch his shirt from Captain Alex and put it back on, or if this was possibly one of those “shirtless times” that he had wondered long and hard about.
Captain Alex immediately felt silly and tossed the shirt back at Notmie.
You would think this would make Notmie’s decision easier and he would have just decided to put his shirt back on, but it actually made it more difficult for him since he kept getting distracted by the diamonds on it.
Melono stared curiously at the two as they tried to collect themselves. “What are you two boys doing? Y’all have been acting very weird lately. Well, actually I guess I can’t really say that seeing as how you, Notmie, have always acted weird, and you, Captain Alex, well, I don’t really know you. At all. But even for weird people, you guys are acting… strange.”
Notmie leaned in toward The Captain. “I’m getting the feeling that this isn’t a time for taking her in a manly fashion,” he said, quoting a phrase he’d heard on television somewhere.
“If you mean what I think you mean, then no,” Captain Alex said. “Plus, isn’t she your cousin?”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n!” said Notmie.
Captain Alex looked at Melono apologetically, not on his own behalf, but on Notmie’s.
“It’s not the first time he’s come on to me,” said Melono.
“And it’s probably not the last,” Captain Alex warned.
“Shut up, Cap’n! You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?” Notmie snapped.
“Basical—”
“As I was saying,” interrupted Melono, “because as I remember, there was a point to taking off my shirt…”
“Oh, right,” said The Captain, more disappointed than anything else. “I had almost forgotten that there was a point to that.”
“You asked if I was lying to you about working for the police. Well, yes, I sort of was. That’s why I took off my shirt. I thought it would be a funny opportunity to use the Liar written on my shirt, but that all went awry quickly. Anyhow, I’m not an actual police officer, but I do work for the local police as a sort of insider.”
“Inside what?”
Surprise—it was Notmie who asked this.
“Ignore him,” said Captain Alex.
Melono did.
“Well, with my unearthly beauty and unparalleled charm, I could easily infiltrate crime rings. Quite honestly, I think they liked the fact that my shirt had rubies on it, too. Gave me some credibility in da hood, if you’re down with that.” Melono took no notice that Notmie and Captain Alex weren’t down with that. They knew nothing about the hood, and Notmie even went as far as to wonder whether this hood she spoke of was made of cotton or polyester, or maybe a nice blend.
“So, how did you know where to find us, and how did you know my name?” asked The Cap’n.
“And more importantly—”
“Notmie, will you please put your shirt back on before you begin to speak?” Captain Alex requested, averting his eyes from Notmie’s chiseled chest.
“Oh, right. All better! Now what was I saying?”
“And more importantly—” Melono prompted.
“And more importantly, why didn’t you stand up for me at the family reunion?”
“Well, it’s about time someone asked the right question!” Melono exclaimed.
Notmie felt proud.
Captain Alex felt like smothering someone weaker than himself with a feather pillow.
“I didn’t stand up for you at the family reunion because it would have blown my cover,” Melono explained, “and I’d been working too hard to let it all fall to pieces because of your identity crisis. I was working an inside job and I thought you might be part of the people I was trying to track down.”
“Well, what makes you think I’m not?” Notmie knew he wasn’t one of them, but he thought it made him sound cool when he acted like there was that possibility.
“Well…” Melono stalled.
“Come out and say it. Is it my gentlemanly charm? Is it my soft ways? Maybe my chiseled abs…” Notmie lifted up his shirt as he spoke about his abs, causing Melono to spout and involuntary: “None of the above.”
“Then what is it?” Notmie asked.
“Ten to one it’s stupidity,” said Captain Alex dryly.
Melono suppressed a laugh, cleared her throat, suppressed another laugh, cleared her throat again, and then continued as if Notmie had never asked the question.
“When you started flipping out at the reunion, I had to play it cool like you and I were not really related. Yes, I know that we are related, and that we’re both related to just about everyone there, but I had to act like we weren’t together. I mean, obviously we’re not together together, but I had to act like we weren’t friends. I mean obviously we’re not friends since I just met you like a day before we went there—”
“—we’re not friends?”
“Not really, just cousins.”
“Yes!” Notmie said, confident that reaching cousin status was quite a victory.
Captain Alex was still puzzled. “So, why… wait… I still don’t understand. Dang, forget it, I can’t come up with a question,” he said.
“You… undercover… reunion, why?” Notmie forced out.
“Again! Right question!” Melono answered cheerfully.
“Dammit! I was so close!” Captain Alex banged his fist against the door.
“As you both know,” Melono began, “there’s that curse on our family. To you, Notmie, it might not seem so appealing, but there are some people who are not actually part of our family who have been benefiting big time off of our good looks and charm.”
“Okay, I know this is probably a bad time,” Captain Alex began, not really caring whether or not it was a bad time because of his disappointment (and slight irritation) from Notmie asking the right question again, “but how did you know my name back there when you pulled over? We’ve never met before.”
“I’ll get to that, hold on. Okay, so back to these people who were benefiting off of our unearthly beauty…”
“What people?” Notmie really meant it. He had no idea what she was talking about. He found this whole conversation to be way over his head.
“Exactly!” Melono exclaimed. “That’s exactly what we wanted to find out: who were these people who had been using our family for generations for their own personal gains?”
“How did you know they were using your family?” Captain Alex asked.
Melono looked at him as if he might possibly be the stupidest person in the car. “We just did,” she said. “Police have their ways. So, as I was saying, we knew that there was some funny business going on with some of my family, so I took the opportunity of going to the reunion as my chance to try to figure something out.”
“Figure what out?” Notmie was now getting frustrated with the whole confusing matter.
“Man, Notmie, you could be a detective if you really wanted to be. You’re really good at asking the right questions.” Melono smiled at him and nodded approvingly.
“Man,” Captain Alex whined, “I always wanted to be a detective.”
“Good luck with that. Anyway, I ended up finding out one important thing while I was at the reunion, and that was this: if anyone in our family was part of a crime ring, they were certainly unaware of it. Now I know that whoever is involved is being used, but I can’t figure out who it is that is using them.”
“I bet it was that damned French limo driver!” said Notmie.
“He wasn’t French, Notmie,” said Melono.
“Then how come he could speak it?” demanded Captain Alex.
“He couldn’t.”
“But you said—”
“I just went over this, Notmie. I was playing along with you because I suspected you at first. I had to play dumb. Maybe you’re not such a good detective after all.”
“Ha!” spat Captain Alex.
“Speaking of the limo driver,” Melono began, “whatever happened to that limo?”
“The French took it. Just like they take everything.” Captain Alex raised his fist at the injustice of it all.
“Real French, or French like the limo driver?” Melono asked.
“Well…” Notmie began, trying to put together the clues, “they were eating pizza—I mean, quiche. Jeez, I always get those two confused.” He smiled and shook his head at the flub.
“Hmmm, they do sound French,” Melono said.
Captain Alex sat battling with a question in his mind, wondering if now would be a good time to ask it. His brain was really reaching critical mass when it involuntarily erupted from his mouth, perhaps a little louder than he would have preferred.
“Will you tell me now how you knew my name?”
“Jeez, I guess so, but it’s really not important. You see, when the first cop car pulled you over, Notmie must have mentioned your name to the officer, because when that officer came back to the station—I was currently there waiting to hear if the suspects had been taken into custody—he had to explain to the chief why he had let the people we were looking for go. All he said was something about this one man who was unearthly beautiful—the mention of unearthly beauty was what caught my attention—and one who was apparently an army officer of rank. ‘Captain Alex’ he reported was the name he had been given. I’ll admit that I was only slightly suspicious that the person of unearthly beauty was you, Notmie, so when I actually got to where the reported car was, I was a bit shocked to see you and Captain Alex. Of course, as soon as I saw the cape I knew that the officer hadn’t met a real Captain, but rather a self-proclaimed Captain.” She paused and gave Captain Alex’s cape a good long stare before continuing. “How did you two meet, anyway?” she asked.
“He hit me with a limo.” The Captain was still understandably bitter about the incident earlier in the day.
“Fair enough. But why is he still with you, Notmie?”
“He’s Phil’s great-to-the-seventh grandson.”
Melono wasn’t sure how this was important or who the hell Phil was.
“Who the hell is Phil, and what relevance does that have to anything?”
“He’s the dude who put a curse on Baron,” Notmie replied matter-of-factly.
Melono’s eyes widened. “Well, isn’t that a strange coincidence. This could prove useful. I’m not sure how, but it seems significant.”
“That’s what we said!” Captain Alex replied enthusiastically, trying to impress Melono.
Melono finished off her fries and took a sip of her drink. “Hmm. Well, those are just about the only questions I can think of for you two, any other questions for me?”
“I don’t like big black bags in trunks?” Notmie said.
“Another good question—”
“That wasn’t even a question!” Captain Alex protested. “He just made his voice get higher at the end of a statement!”
Melono ignored The Captain.
“That black bag, which I noticed that you found right before I pulled up, was filled with cash. Mae and Hal are pretty notorious bank robbers. I worked with them on this particular job and got them into the bank’s safe by using my innate tools to coerce the teller to show us how much money they had. ‘I love a man with a safe full of cash,’ I said to him, and he told me he happen to have a safe with cash in it, though it wasn’t full. ‘I’d love to see it,’ I replied. He told me he would love to show me. ‘Can I bring a few friends?’ I asked. He said he would do anything for me.”
“So, you’re a bank robber?” Captain Alex asked.
“Don’t be silly. I mean, technically, yes, I did rob a bank, but I was working for the police. I left the family reunion and headed straight over to help with the job. I was then to report back to the police station to give them all the info they needed to make the arrest—license plates, descriptions of clothes, direction they were headed.”
“That doesn’t sound like the way police operate, Melono,” Captain Alex interrupted. “Are you sure you were working for law enforcement and not just another group of criminals?”
Melono was highly affronted. “Of course I’m sure I was working for law enforcement! We ran the sting that way because I suggested running it that way. Obviously everyone else in the station agreed it was the best way to do things as soon as I mentioned it. We would have made the arrest, too, if you boys hadn’t been in the car to distract the officer. When he came back to the station to report what had happened, I was waiting there and realized that whoever was with these people—because they are extremely dangerous—was in a lot of trouble, and if their hostage was unearthly beautiful, I was just about the only person they had who could go to the rescue without being wooed over by the person’s looks.”
Notmie crumpled up his wrapper and burped. As he did so, his brain felt a little clearer, so he asked, “Then why did you speak French if me and Cap’n and Hal and Mae knew who you were and knew you didn’t really speak it as a first language?”
“I had to appear to Mae and Hal to be on their side, and by speaking French—I mean, with a French accent”—Melono shook her head to eradicate Notmie’s bad influence—“they would think I was fooling you all into coming with me and that I would take care of you, or clean up the mess a bit. They recognized me, of course, but they thought I was playing a part to fool you guys.”
“See Notmie? I told you to stop calling her Melono!” Captain Alex hit Notmie again, but this time Notmie hit Cap’n back. On it went, back and forth, and back and forth until finally Melono had to put a stop to it.
“Don’t think I won’t come back there!” she threatened. “Okay, enough with this little Q and A. Now I have a question for you, Notmie. When you said ‘black bags,’ didn’t you really mean ‘black bag,’ as in singular? The safe only had enough money to fill one black bag.”
“No, I meant ‘bags.’ There were three of them, all full of money.”
“Are you sure? You counted three?”
“Positive.”
“But that just doesn’t make any sense. I can’t imagine where they got the other two bags. I’m sure they didn’t rob another bank, not even those two would have the nerve to do that when they were already wanted.
“I’ll have to put some more thought into it, but for now, we should probably get a move on, because we’ve been sitting at Sonic for a while. Look, the people working inside are getting nervous with our police car sitting here for so long. I wonder how many of them have warrants out for their arrest…. Heh, maybe we should just wait here a little longer and watch them squirm.”
“Dessert anyone?” suggested Captain Alex.
“Yeah!” Notmie yelled. “I want a chocolate sundae with walnuts instead of peanuts. Can they do that?”
“I don’t know, Notmie, I’ll ask.” Melono pressed the button and the voice asked her what she wanted.
“Yeah, can I get a chocolate sundae with walnuts instead of peanuts?”
Notmie and Captain Alex couldn’t understand what the voice on the other end of the speaker said through the static, but they could definitely understand Melono’s reply.
“Fifty cents for walnuts!? Forget it. Make it peanuts…. No, I definitely won’t sue if he’s allergic.”
Part 12
Reasons Why Not to Open Doors
They had left the Sonic fifteen minutes earlier, but it wasn’t until he’d finished his ice cream that Notmie noticed they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere again.
“Where’re we headed to?”
“I know a guy,” Melono replied cryptically.
“Congratulations, Melono,” Notmie said, bitter over the small size of ice cream he’d ordered and ready to take his frustration out on whomever he could. “That’s great, I know a guy too, but where are we heading?”
“Don’t be an ass, Notmie,” Captain Alex said.
Notmie’s deep yearning for more ice cream made him only too ready to take out after The Cap
tain.
“I’m not being an ass!” Notmie said, trying to be as ass-y as he could. “Maybe you should stay out of my business. Maybe you’re just being a jerk!”
“Your mom’s a jerk.”
“My mom’s dead!”
“Well, maybe that’s why.”
At this, Notmie jumped across the backseat at Captain Alex’s throat. Unfortunately for Notmie, The Captain moved out of the way, sending Notmie crashing headfirst into the bulletproof window. Recovering his sense and rubbing his head, he retreated back to his seat.
“He’s a very wise man,” said Melono from the front seat.
“Who, me?” Notmie asked.
Melono was caught off guard by Notmie’s assumption. “No, not at all, Notmie. I meant the guy I know. I think he might be able to help all of us.”
“Did you tell him the seriousness of Notmie’s condition? He might not have encountered stupidity of this intensity—”
Smack!
“What’s wrong with you!?” Captain Alex hollered as he moved his hand to his lip to check for blood.
“Your mom.”
Captain Alex paused to consider Notmie’s comeback. “Wait, that doesn’t even make sense. My mom’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“Gee, Cap’n, maybe you’re just too stupid to understand it.”
“Or maybe you’re just too much of an idiot to make any grammatical sense.”
“What does this have to do with math?”
“Huh?”
“Oh! Who’s lost now? Ha!” Notmie felt he’d finally won a round of wits.
Captain Alex didn’t feel like dignifying Notmie’s rhetorical question with an answer, so he dropped it and looked out the window.
Notmie shifted into a more comfortable position in his seat. “Today feels so long,” he said wistfully, “and the sun’s only just setting.” He leaned his head against the window and sighed. “Melono, do you think we’ll be able to sleep at your friend’s house? Like, will he be cool if we crash there?”
“Yeah, or at least it’s always been cool with him before, since he has advanced notice and can prepare for it.”
The Fraud Page 10
