by David Berens
Inside the secret room, a fluorescent bulb flickered on and Prosperity gasped. Only this time, she wasn’t gasping from the smell. She was shocked at what she saw inside the room.
4
Bank On Frank
Troy Bodean dumped his overflowing grocery basket onto the checkout conveyor belt. An orange and a banana flopped out and wobbled as the belt slid along toward the cashier. The uninterested kid with red hair and dark freckles smacked his gum as he slid each item past the sensor.
“Nice day out,” Troy said with a smile. “Good day for fishin’.”
The cashier looked at Troy under heavy eyelids and stopped chewing his gum. He looked at the girl bagging the groceries and huffed in obvious indignation. With a single smack, he rolled his eyes and glared back at Troy.
“I wouldn’t know. I for one do not participate in the rape of our planet of its animal inhabitants for food when a perfectly sustainable supply of plants exists for our sustenance.”
Troy opened his mouth to argue with the kid, but he’d already looked back at the girl tucking the eggs and milk into plastic bags and loading them into the basket.
“Oh, I get it,” Troy said, picking up a package of maple flavored bacon. “You figure if you don’t eat meat, you’ll get a date with Sally down there. That about right?”
The boy’s eyes went wide with shock, and he stopped running the food past the red laser light buried deep in the counter. The girl arched an eyebrow and grinned. She folded her arms and watched with amusement to see how her suitor would reply.
“Pigs have feelings too,” was the best line the kid could come up with.
“What do you say, little lady?” Troy tossed the bacon down on the counter. “You ever seen a pig cryin’?”
She smiled wider and said, “Mister, I’ve never seen a pig at all, in real life.”
“Vineyard native, eh?”
She nodded.
“Well, if you’ll tell Skippy here that I promise not to fry my bacon in front of him, you think he’ll hurry now and ring it up for me?”
“My name is Wesley.” The red-headed vegan wannabe was shaking with either rage or embarrassment. “And I will not ring up that meat. I won’t touch it.”
He shoved his hands under his armpits and stepped back from the register. The girl laughed and then quickly covered her mouth as a man with a horseshoe of hair and a dark green apron and holding a wooden clipboard walked up.
“Is there some problem here, Wesley?”
“No ... well, yes. I mean ...” he stammered. “This man is berating me for my spiritual beliefs about meat.”
Troy could see the man’s name tag. It proclaimed him the manager of the store.
“Wesley, we’ve been through this before,” he said in exasperation. “You cannot talk about the customers’ groceries. You ring them up, and Chelsea bags them. End of discussion.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said to Troy. “Here’s a coupon for ten percent off your next purchase.”
Troy tipped his hat to the man as he laid the coupon on the counter and walked away.
“You heard the man, Wesley.”
“It’s still wrong.” The boy slid the bacon past the register and it beeped. “And you can’t change my mind.”
“Don’t reckon I need to, son. I’m gonna eat that bacon whether you think the pig was cryin’ or not.” Troy slid Prosperity’s crumpled wad of bills over the counter at him. “And I’ve got bad news for you. I’m gonna have it with eggs and milk.”
Chelsea snickered and slid the bacon into a bag. Wesley started counting the money, and a strange grin slowly spread over his lips. He held up the bills and made a grand show of pointing at the register’s digital screen.
“I’ve got bad news for you, savage,” he said. “You’re short five dollars and forty-three cents.”
Troy looked at the money, then at the screen. He reached into his back pocket and pulled his wallet out. Unfortunately, Wesley could see when he opened it that he only had one dollar. He pulled it out and laid it on the counter.
“Only four dollars and forty-three cents to go.” The kid was in full-on condescension mode. “Guess you’ll have to put back your precious bacon.”
For a fleeting moment, Troy considered punching the red-headed cashier’s nose off his face. But, he took a deep breath and glanced over at Chelsea. She raised both eyebrows and gave an almost imperceptible nod down. Troy followed her gaze and his eyes rested on the coupon the store manager had given him.
He handed it to Wesley and took his bags from Chelsea. Her cheeks flushed and she smiled.
“Why don’t we take that ten percent off and call it even, shall we, Wesley?”
He didn’t wait for the kid to answer. He strolled out and tossed his groceries into the passenger’s seat of Prosperity’s Beetle. It wasn’t a terribly manly looking car, but Troy could care less. He reached into the center console where he had left his Costa sunglasses and found a crumpled wad of ones. He pulled them out and counted them. Five dollars exactly.
Life was good and he could only think of one thing that would make it better. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he spied a giant circular sign painted like a donut with sprinkles declaring: The Vineyard’s Finest Donuts and Coffee. Another sign under that proclaimed they were hot and ready.
“Now, there’s a perfect day in the makin’ if I do say so myself.”
He steered the car toward the shop, ready to see what five dollars would buy of the Vineyard’s Finest Donuts and Coffee. He took the right turn into the parking lot a little too early and never noticed his fender catch a red, white, and blue sign that read: BANK ON FRANK FOR MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR.
But Frank would notice. Frank always noticed.
5
Guns And Money
Prosperity dry heaved a few times and for a moment thought she might vomit from the wretched stink now pouring out of the room. Her eyes stung from the odor and tears began to trickle from her eyes. The light coming on had scared her into thinking someone was inside, but peeking through the doorway, she could see the automatic sensor switch that had activated it. Best she could tell, there wasn’t anyone here.
Tightening a pillowcase around her face, she was able to block the offending odor slightly and able to investigate further. As her eyes became accustomed to the flickering dim fluorescent light, she could see the room was more of a hallway. It went ten feet back and turned ninety degrees to the left. Along the top of the hallway, she could see windows that looked to be six or seven inches tall positioned at what must be just above ground level outside. She was in some kind of cellar.
A shiver ran down her spine as she walked down the hall. The walls gradually got closer and closer together until her shoulders almost touched on both sides. This totally reminded her of the scene from that one movie where the girl walked step by step down into a coffin-sized room where she was buried alive. Thankfully, when she took the left turn, the walls seemed to stop closing in on her. But the windows stopped and the light behind her faded the farther she walked.
This short hallway emptied abruptly into a room that was at least fifteen feet square. The walls on the right were lined with large wooden crates stacked up to the ceiling. She could see the edges of windows behind them, but they were blocked completely. No light could get in. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight. When the writing stenciled on the sides of the crates came into view, she knew what was packed inside. Guns. Big, mean guns.
Moving across to the opposite wall, she could see huge stacks of plastic-wrapped bricks. White powder bricks. She didn’t know enough about cocaine or heroin to tell which one these were, but somebody had a boatload of drugs down here.
She estimated there were over five hundred of the bricks. Is a brick a kilo? I don’t even know what that’s worth, she thought. But it’s gotta be thousands. She ran her hand along the top of the stack and walked down the row. The end of the massive pile of bricks left ano
ther space open between the bricks and the wall. Tucked back into that opening was a floor-to-ceiling safe. On a whim, she reached out and pulled the handle. With a metallic sucking sound, it opened.
If she had been shocked by the staggering amount of guns and drugs down here, she was truly floored by the wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills inside the safe. Almost all were wrapped with yellow labels that proudly proclaimed that they held ten thousand dollars. With a quick mental count, she figured that there must be well over ten million dollars in all.
A shelf near the middle had several stacks without wrappers. The bills were loose. Thousands of dollars stared back at her. Steve Miller popped into her mind urging her to take the money and run. She reached out and picked up one of the loose stacks of hundreds. It was more money than she had ever seen in her life. She imagined driving around in a red Ferrari with the top off, her red hair flying in the wind, loose bills fluttering behind her in a whoosh as she sped away from here.
She looked a little closer at the bills and realized that the serial numbers were in order—sequential. Damn, she thought. If the owner of this money was keeping track of those numbers, he would know if some went missing. Would he miss it? Would he know it was me that had taken it? Not likely.
She put the money back into the safe and gently closed the door. As she did, her phone slipped out of her hand and dropped to the floor. The sound of a crack preceded the extinguishing of the light, sending her into night-blind darkness.
“Aw, crap,” she said, bending over to pick it up. “If this thing is cracked …”
She flipped it over and saw that the screen was indeed shattered. Her shoulders slumped and she thought again about the money in the safe. She shook her head. She was a lot of things that weren’t so great, but she wasn’t a thief. Mama always said if you wanted something bad enough, you could work for it.
She swiped the screen of the phone and could see through the spiderweb of glass that it still worked. She tapped the button and the flashlight turned on. For the third—or maybe fourth—time, she gasped. The pillowcase fell from her face and the deep breath she took in was filled with the smell of rot. Putrid, rancid, fetid, gag-inducing rot. And she had found the source.
Lying on the floor, mostly covered by a blanket, was a body. And then the vomit came. She hurled up the last remaining contents of what she’d had for dinner last night. The odor of it mixed with the odor of the body made her wretch three more times, but there was nothing left in her stomach. She seriously questioned her funeral services degree choice and made a mental note to do some soul searching about it later. She took three fast steps to run out of the room, but when she got into the hall, her curiosity made her turn back. Mama’s voice tried to tell her something about the cat and curiosity.
“Shut up, Mama,” she said to the empty room.
She tiptoed back into the drug, gun, money, dead person room and shone her flashlight on the body. A woman’s legs in flesh-colored hose and white tennis shoes poked out from under the old wool blanket. She wondered if the woman had had an accident down here, but quickly dismissed that idea. You didn’t have a fatal accident and then lie down and cover yourself up with a blanket. No, this woman was killed ... but how?
She crept down, keeping her light on the body, and took the edge of the blanket between her forefinger and thumb. She pulled it back to reveal the rest of the woman. If there had been anything in her stomach, it would have exited at this point. Prosperity gave herself a few seconds to compose herself and then looked more carefully at the dead woman.
Her neck was at an odd angle and looked like it might be broken. Her skin was loose and blistering and had a greenish tint to it. Unfortunately, the woman’s mouth was open and several teeth had fallen out. Prosperity wasn’t sure how decomposition worked, but she knew enough to know this woman had been here a long time—weeks maybe.
She moved her flashlight down the woman’s body and knew immediately how long she’d been there. Three weeks. Her kelly green, polyester polo shirt had a bright yellow logo that read: Martha’s Maids … just like Prosperity was wearing. It was the last maid who had worked here before her. The one the old guys down at the Tail Spinner had been so desperate to replace. Jesus, she didn’t quit, Prosperity thought. She found their shit and they killed her. A chill raced up her spine. If she found the room and they murdered her, she needed to get the hell out of here right now. She dragged the blanket over the body and bolted out the door. She ran through the narrow hallway, her shoulders banging against the sides. The fear icing into her made her tremble so hard she tripped when she reached the hidden door.
Reaching out her hands to catch herself, she fell straight into someone’s arms. The hair on the forearms and heavy black watch told her she’d fallen into a man’s arms. A man who clearly smoked a lot. She was surprised she could smell the smoke over the odor coming from the room behind her.
“Alright, alright, alright. Looky what we’ve got here. Second maid I’ve caught snoopin’ around this month,” the man drawled.
He was wiry and tall and had thick brown waxy hair that looked like it might be a toupee. His mutton chop sideburns were a slightly lighter color than his hair and stretched all the way down to his crooked jawline. A mustache that Sam Houston would be envious of stretched across his upper lip and down to his jaw so that it almost joined his sideburns. A wrinkled, yellow-stained v-neck T-shirt drooped down on his chest, where scraggly tufts of hair tried to escape it. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place it. When he grinned, she saw his teeth matched his shirt’s color and he was missing a random one here and there. He leaned close to her and her fight or flight mechanism finally woke up.
She tried to run, but his grip was like a vice, and he shoved her back into the secret room. He slammed the door behind them and she let out a blood-curdling scream.
He cackled in a high-pitched voice and said, “Give it all ya got, sweet thang. It’s all soundproof down here. Ain’t nobody gonna hear nothin’.”
She screamed again and again until she felt his bony hand smack the side of her head. The flickering fluorescent light slowly disappeared as she blacked out.
6
Gone Baby Gone
Troy eased the bug into the circular driveway and parked it out front. He tossed the keys onto the driver’s seat and imagined a butler coming to take it to the garage.
“Sure is somethin’ how the other half lives,” he said, jogging up the steps to the double front door.
He reached forward and took the massive antique brass handle of the door on the right. Turning and pulling, he was caught off guard and almost fell over when the door didn’t open. He tried the left door more cautiously and found it, too, was locked.
Peering in through the tall, narrow windows beside the door, he could see through to the living room. No movement. No Prosperity. But after thinking about it for a second, he realized if he were a young woman alone in a house, he would lock the door too. He pushed the button and heard the doorbell chime inside.
He waited a few seconds and saw no evidence that Prosperity was coming to open it up. He knocked a couple times and rang the doorbell again. Nothing. He walked back down the steps and looked up at the windows, thinking she might’ve opened one while she was cleaning or something. Everything was closed and looked empty. Strange. A breeze kicked up and brought the smell of saltwater drifting into his nose.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “The beach. She’s headed down to do a bit of loungin’ before breakfast.”
He flip-flopped his way around the house and squeezed through the hedges lining the back yard. A stone path led him around and down past the deck to the dunes that kept the ocean from attacking the house. There was a couple running with a golden retriever, an old man wearing a pair of speedos that threatened to make him a nudist, and a woman lying on a towel with a hat covering her face. Even from this distance, Troy could see by her build and pale skin that the woman under the hat was not Prosperity.
“Well, dang,” he muttered as he turned up the steps that led to the raised deck on the back of the house.
He half expected that when he reached the top, he’d see her sunning herself in one of the beach chairs that he had slept in more than once during his stay. But they were empty as well. He scratched his beard and thought he might trim it up a bit today. He thought he must look like a mountain man out of his element with the scraggly thing covering his chin. Padding his way across the deck, he found the porch screen door open and walked to the sliding door.
Luckily, it was open, too, and he slid it back to feel the rush of cool air inside the living room. He stepped into the same empty house he’d been living in since Clarice had left to save the whales.
“Honey, I’m home,” he called.
His voice echoed off the walls, and the surf crashed outside. He waited, but heard nothing. She didn’t answer and he didn’t hear footsteps. His internal danger sense perked up, and he slid his two bags of groceries onto the kitchen counter. He slipped off his flip-flops to mask his steps and started a search of the cavernous mansion.
A thorough search of the house left Troy to believe that Prosperity had gone somewhere. Maybe she’d decided to take a walk down the beach, or maybe she’d taken a cab out to get something she needed to clean, but it was obvious that she wasn’t here. There were no signs of any foul play, no signs of struggle, or of her being dragged away kicking and screaming. Yet, for some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Maybe it was just his recent past and the shady characters he’d been around that were spooking him.
So without proof of any dirty deeds, he decided to make some kind of breakfast out of all the things he’d brought back from the market.
