Old Joe finished off his coffee. “Okay, okay,” he said and held up his left hand, “we're chasing our tail here, Momma Peach. Right now, we have to figure out a way to trick this turkey and get him behind bars. There ain't no sense in worrying over the past or even what the man might be thinking right now. So what if he isn't sure who tipped the FBI off about his hound dogs? What matters is that he's still in town, and that's something.”
“If J.W. finds out I was involved in the FBI takedown, he's surely going to change the rules of the game, Joe. And he might be changing the rules as we speak. What do I do about that?”
“Oh, Momma Peach, you're letting Old Joe down,” Old Joe exclaimed and slapped the baking table. “You mean to tell me you're going to stand here in your own kitchen and allow some crazy lunatic to outsmart you? Woman, that's talk for losers!” Old Joe shook his head. “You are a strong woman, and maybe all this fog has simply leaked into your ears and made you a bit batty. Just look at what you and Michelle have been doing.”
“We have been—”
“Hush,” Old Joe fussed and walked on. “You two have been burning up the phones, your brains, and your mouths. You got two people arrested and got some folks off the streets, and that’s a lot better than where we were when I left. You ain't no closer to catching Wording, but you’re a whole lot closer to keeping folks safe while you figure the rest out.” Old Joe shook his head. “And now look at you! You're sounding like a helpless old lady. Momma Peach, you are stronger than you know. Why are you waiting for the man to call you, sitting around like an obedient puppy? Shame, shame!”
Momma Peach felt anger flush into her cheeks. “Listen, you don’t understand—”
“No, you listen, Momma Peach,” Old Joe said with finality. He threw his arm into the air. “You've barricaded yourself in your bakery like a scared woman hiding from the boogie man. Last time I checked this Wording fella is flesh and blood, right? One man with a couple of guns, at best? Sure, he is. But you're acting as if this foggy weather is actually some kind of big scary monster.”
“That's because he is a monster!” Momma Peach finally hollered back at Joe at the top of her lungs. She slowly lifted her hands and touched her neck. “He...he nearly strangled me to death...years ago...in my room. If I hadn’t managed to reach...a piece of broken perfume bottle when I did...oh, Joe. I would be dead.” Momma Peach rubbed her neck. “Never in my life, never ever will I forget the horror of knowing how that feels.” Momma Peach pointed at the back door. “Momma Peach isn’t scared of that fog...she's scared of the monster in that fog.”
Old Joe walked over to Momma Peach and gently pulled her into his arms. “I'm sorry, Momma Peach. Old Joe didn't know.”
Momma Peach put her head down on Old Joe's shoulder. “The thing is, Joe, you're right,” she said, stifling a quiet sob. “I have been locked in this bakery fighting with my mouth and mind, but I sure ain't been fighting anyplace else.” Momma Peach closed her eyes. “It's easy to fuss at someone over a telephone...but Old Joe, I don’t know what I’d do if J.W. showed up in person. Maybe that’s why I can’t wrap my head around a plan to trap him, to get him to come here for me to go find him out there. I tell you, I am just plain...terrified.”
Old Joe felt Momma Peach begin to shake. “Hey, it's okay. Shhh, Old Joe’s got you.”
“I have been trying to be strong,” Momma Peach swore, “but my nerves are nearly wore down to the wire.” Momma Peach held on to Old Joe like he was a safety raft floating in a stormy sea. “I have dealt with a whole bunch of crazy people in my life and I’ve sure beaten a whole bunch of folks with my pocketbook when they’ve forgotten their manners, too...but I have only been scared of one person...J.W. Wording. Maybe I’ve just been blocking the truth out...until now.”
Old Joe gripped Momma Peach's shoulder. “Listen to me, Momma Peach,” he said, staring into her watery eyes, “you're a fighter, do you hear me? You ain't no wimp walking around out in this world fainting every time a bully says boo. You've always charged at the bull...well, except in Vermont when that bull got after you and Sam, but that's a different story.” Old Joe smothered his grin and narrowed his eyes. “This Wording character is a chump, do you hear me? He ain't nothing special. His momma led him around by his nose and told him what to do. Now that his momma is gone, he's trying to start up an old business that you’ve already helped to put an end to. He thinks he can wave around a few threats on the telephone and get you to quake in your kid boots? No, ma’am. He doesn't know who he's messing with, Momma Peach. This Wording fellow is tangling with Momma Peach, and no one tangles with Momma Peach without getting taught the lesson of a lifetime. Now listen to me, girl. You better get your mind straight and know just who you are! You're Momma Peach, and no one walks into Momma Peach's kitchen and tells her how to cook!”
Momma Peach stared into the fiery pride and love in Old Joe's eyes and felt her heart begin to stir with bravery. She nodded her head, walked over to the refrigerator, and yanked it away from the back door. “No one comes into Momma Peach's kitchen and tells her how to cook!” she yelled courageously. “Old Joe, help me pull the shelf away from the front door!” Old Joe nodded his head with a big grin on his face, and together they walked to the front of the bakery to clear the way to the entrance door. As they slid the heavy display shelf out of the way, the telephone rang. It was now midnight.
Chapter 9
“Hello, turkey,” Momma Peach told J.W. with a grin.
“Do you have the name I want?” J.W. asked, studying a vial full of lethal poison resting in a small black case. By now he had concluded that Momma Peach was surely responsible for unleashing the FBI on his people in California, but there wasn't anything he could do except finish the game. Of course, the rules had changed. Now, instead of simply killing Momma Peach, he was going to allow her to live only after forcing her to kill everyone she loved, and even better, force the woman to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
“Yep, I have the name, you turkey.” Momma Peach watched Old Joe dust off the cans of peaches as he settled them back into their proper places. “The name is Edward something or another.”
J.W. gritted his teeth. Momma Peach was proving to be a very brilliant woman. “Very good,” he hissed as his mind began to wonder how the woman managed to remember a name he had spoken only once.
Momma Peach lifted her left hand and touched her neck. “Listen, turkey, no more games, do you hear? You can go out and kill all the folks you want, but I ain't gonna play your games no more. I ain’t gonna answer no more calls or play no more puzzles. I’m sitting right here in my bakery and if you want to come for me, then you best get your butt moving and come over here and tangle with me in person.” Momma Peach drew in a deep breath. “Listen up. I know who set the FBI loose on your cronies, chump. I know about Nadine and Mr. Galloway. What, did you think you were going to walk into my kitchen and tell me how to cook? Boy, you don’t know the first thing about what me and my family and my little town are capable of. You sure are dumb!”
At the moment, J.W. did feel...well, dumb. He had underestimated the ability of a small town police department simply because he assumed no cop was smarter than he was. His pride had caused his carefully constructed plan to falter on multiple occasions. J.W. knew his mother would have ordered a more ruthless course of action in retaliation—he could practically picture her giving him the order to kill Momma Peach’s detective friend first, take a family member as hostage, lure Momma Peach to an unknown location, and kill the woman if the townspeople did not meet his demands. But J.W. bristled at the idea of doing it his mother’s way. That era had passed. Love Rich Wording was dead. Long live J.W. Wording. He wanted to prove that he could beat Momma Peach on her own turf—in her own kitchen.
“The rules of the game have changed, Momma Peach,” he said, forcing his voice to keep to a gentlemanly tone. “You have forced me to change the rules by stepping outside of the allowed boundaries.” At least, J.W. thought,
he could still act dignified, even though Momma Peach had once again, somehow, managed to ruin part of his plans.
“Who cares if you change the rules, turkey?” Momma Peach snapped. “You think you’re going to run off and kill everyone Momma Peach cares about? Try it. Go kill everyone in this town. I dare you.” Momma Peach rubbed her hands together with glee. It was time to play a turkey like the turkey he was. “You ain’t got the guts, and I know it, and so does everybody else. Momma Peach whooped your butt and whooped it good! Yes, sir and yes ma’am. I whooped you back at that fancy hotel many years ago and I’m gonna whoop your butt now. Your little business selling illegal organs is shut down. Your people are behind bars. And what are you doing? You're hiding in the fog playing a stupid little game of phone tag with a woman who has frankly had it up to here with your stupid little game. So if you think you got the guts, I dare you to try it. I promise you I will die with a huge smile on my face because once again I have kicked your butt up and down the playing field.” Momma Peach stopped rubbing her hands together. “Even if you kill me, and everyone else here, I already got the FBI on your people. Can’t put that cat back in the bag, can you? Nah. You ain't nothing but a stupid little chicken running around trying to pick up his momma's loose seed.”
Anger burned in J.W.’s cheeks. “You're a dead woman, Momma Peach.”
“Boy, don't you listen?” Momma Peach crowed. “You can kill me a million times over in one night but it won't matter. I done won the war! FBI saw to that. And let me tell you something else. It don't take no genius to kill someone, either. Any dummy can kill, turkey. Any dummy can sneak up on someone and stab them with a syringe full of poison. You ain't no brilliant killer. Way back when, you were your momma's lackey and nothing else. And today, well, you're just an old man who is trying to relive his glory days. But oh, it’s so sad, because before you can, you have to get rid of poor old Momma Peach...the only woman who knows who you really are or at least what you did. Boo hoo, poor you. Too bad that by now the police in Los Angeles and New York are getting an earful about you.”
“So what?” J.W. snapped. “Not a person in the world knows what I look like. The old J.W. Wording is long dead. Love Rich Wording is dead. The new J.W. Wording might as well be a ghost. No one will ever be able to capture me, Momma Peach. And even though you may have temporarily…inconvenienced my plans, I will resume my business in the near future after I kill you. And when I'm sitting in a nice café in the south of France, I'll think about you.” J.W. closed the black case with a firm click. “You see, Momma Peach, while it may be true that my game went awry, I still aim to win. I will kill you and everyone you love and still carry out my operations. How, you may ask? Well, the FBI may have taken Nadine Murton into custody, but they did not capture the list of our clients, now did they? No, of course not.” J.W. stood up from the kitchen table and gave a quiet little chuckle into the phone. “I’m sorry that you view my methods as…crude…or unskilled, but they are effective, you must admit. For now, I'm going to be a very patient man and hunt down every person you care about and kill them, no matter how long it takes. After all, I have time on my hands, thanks to you. And when I get through killing them, I will come for you...so you better prepare yourself. You dare me to do my worst? You’ve got it coming.”
Momma Peach felt a surge of panic rush through her heart. J.W. Wording was preparing to vanish into the fog. If that happened, he would surely kill everyone she loved. She had to act and act fast. “Your momma is a turkey, just like you!” she yelled. Old Joe swung around and gave Momma Peach a strange look. Momma Peach shook her head at him. “Not only was your momma a turkey, she should have been slapped silly for adopting you!”
J.W. froze, silent. He told himself to remain in control. Sure, he became irritated and even angry at times, but he aimed to never fully lose his temper with anyone. Even if at times he felt himself tremble with a suppressed volcanic rage, he never allowed it to fully consume his mind...unless, that was, someone insulted his mother. Only one man ever dared to insult his mother and that man was now dead. Other men had quickly learned to be fearful of the adopted Pitbull Meredith Wording walked on a short leash. “Momma Peach, don't resort to such pathetic measures,” he warned curtly.
“Or what, turkey? Oh, I forgot, your poor momma is six feet under, talking with the worms,” Momma Peach said, hating that she was stooping so low as to insult the memory of a dead woman she didn't even know. But desperate measures called for desperate actions. “Guess you can say your momma is feeling pretty low right now, huh, turkey?”
“Enough. You will—”
“Your momma should have been slapped three ways from last week for raising the likes of you!” Momma Peach told J.W. and added an insulting chuckle. “Boy, your momma must have been some kind of desperate to take the likes of you into her home. What, couldn't she get a flea-ridden rat for a pet?”
J.W. raised his fist and slammed it down into the kitchen table. “You're going to suffer greatly!”
“Yeah? I doubt that,” Momma Peach retorted. “Until you decide to come and kill me for good, I’m going to write myself a column to be published in the local papers every single day. I’ll call it How To Insult J.W. Wording's Momma. Yes, sir, I’ll write the column because I’m the expert and I’ll even get other folks to help me. By the time I’m finished, the name of your momma will be mud all over the place.” Momma Peach saw the door of opportunity crack open and stuck her foot in boldly. “Every time you kill someone I love, I’m going to send my column to every newspaper in the country and have them publish it as a way to punish you right back. And trust me, turkey, Momma Peach has friends in high places. You've seen that for yourself. Nadine Murton and Martin Galloway aren't in custody because I made a phone call. No sir, I have friends in some mighty high places who will run my column about your momma in every newspaper until the cows come home and everybody knows your name.”
The thought of seeing his mother's name trashed in every newspaper across the land both enraged and terrified J.W., even though he was uncertain whether to trust her threats. He never considered that Momma Peach had high-placed connections, or that she would dare use his mother against him as a weapon—of course, the guilt gnawed at him because he knew his mother would have never agreed to the game he had decided to play, either. “If you dare—”
“If you touch a single hair on anyone I love, I'll smear your momma's name in the mud so bad a dog won't be able to recognize it. I’ll tell everyone she was a sorry piece of society trash and you’re nothing but the little guttersnipe she raised to be her idiot servant.”
J.W. gritted his teeth. “You want to get a rise out of me. You want it to be just you and me, is that it?” he asked.
“That's right, turkey. Just you and me, tonight. No more games,” Momma told J.W.
“You're a sneaky woman. You'll try and set a trap for me.”
“No traps and no games,” Momma Peach promised. “I give you my word on a stack of bibles. I never go back on my word,” she said solemnly. Old Joe stared at Momma Peach in shock.
“Where?”
“In my bakery kitchen,” Momma Peach replied. “I will leave the back door open for you.” Momma Peach rubbed her neck. “It'll be a fight for the ages, that’s for sure. If you win, you walk off into the fog and finish whatever foul plans your sorry mind has cooked up. If Momma Peach wins, you walk off into your grave and join your momma.”
J.W. rubbed the scar across his forehead. “No games?” he asked.
“No one tries to strangle Momma Peach to death and gets away with it. I am tired of being afraid of you,” Momma Peach told J.W. “No games. Just you and me.”
“I'm going to finish what I started years ago,” J.W. promised.
Momma Peach closed her eyes and saw a vision of that terrifying night many years ago. The much younger J.W. had walked into her hotel room, spotted the black briefcase on her bed, and then immediately attacked her. She saw the man grab her around the neck. She
saw her hands swing out wildly in panic, knocking cosmetics off the dresser. Her hand smacked into a perfume bottle. The perfume bottle struck the side of a television and broke, perfume spilling out and filling the room with cloying sweetness as J.W. tightened his grip. He choked Momma Peach, pushing her down to the floor. Momma Peach struggled to break free, as her vision dimmed for lack of oxygen. She was staring into the face of a true monster unleashed before her; a monster that was squeezing the life out of her body with a hideous grin on his face. “Die,” J.W. hissed through his teeth. “Die, you pathetic, annoying woman!”
Momma Peach felt her strength fading. Her knees buckled, and she dropped down to the floor. Her head pounded, and she began to feel dizzy. Her limbs began to feel weak. The world began to turn dark. Her beautiful vacation in swanky New York City was going to end in her nightmarish death, she thought to herself in that moment.
But then, as if an angel guided her hand, she felt her fingers scrabbling on the carpet next to the broken pieces of perfume bottle. With only an ounce of strength left, she grabbed a piece of the razor-sharp glass and slashed it forward at her attacker's face. The glass made contact and cut open J.W. Wording's forehead. J.W. released Momma Peach, grabbed his forehead, the blood pouring down through his fingers as he stumbled backward. Momma Peach coughed as oxygen returned to her lungs but quickly stumbled to her feet and charged at J.W. with the broken piece of glass still in her hand. She stabbed the man in his chest and then started beating him with her fists. Despite her adrenaline-fueled strength and his bloodied face, J.W. managed to push Momma Peach back so violently that she landed on her backside. Before she could struggle back to her feet, the man yanked open the window and scurried down the fire escape.
What a Peachy Night Page 14
