by G M Eppers
Nitro interrupted to give a brief update on their condition. “Good, good,” Miss Chiff replied. “Glad to hear it. When they wake, please give them my best.” I glanced at my watch and realized that landing procedures should have been started by now. Wisconsin and DC were not that far apart. So, we were heading somewhere else. “I’m diverting your flight to Paris after a refueling stop in Bangor International. It’s just refueling, no sightseeing. Is that understood, Gerrold?”
Badger swallowed a sip of coffee with difficulty and looked sheepish. Last time we were in Maine, he had disappeared for several hours to stalk Stephen King (who, as it turned out, was not even in Maine at the time). He didn’t see him, but he thinks he might have been on the road where Mr. King was nearly killed in 1999 and he might have found a bone fragment and the rest of us just might be humoring him to avoid a conflict. Realizing that Miss Chiff didn’t have video, either, he assured her, “Understood, Ma’am,” while he tried to push the entire exchange out of his memory.
“What’s going on in Paris?” I asked, as Backwash jumped up onto the conference table and began to walk the perimeter like a border guard. T.B. had curled up at my feet, or rather on my feet, his sleep interrupted, but not quite finished, with the jingle ball under his chin.
“They have a hostage situation at a Mom and Pop grocery on the south side of the city. There’s a single gunman who is clearly an Uber addict, demanding several hundred kilograms of Uber Cheddar. He’s holding the store’s staff and several shoppers hostage until his demands are met.”
“But what doeth that have to do with uth?” asked Billings. He’d already finished his coffee and I was assuming he had a burned tongue. Either that, or his tongue was expanding on its own. “He doethn’t actually have any Uber, no one’th going to give him any Uber, and we don’t treat addictth.”
“It’s been a while since you were in Paris and it’s a good time for a patrol. While you’re there you can find out if there’s a reason this guy thinks there’s that much Uber to be had in Paris. It should be a fairly easy job and the fact that the twins are out of commission shouldn’t be a problem.” Many cities in France, but especially Paris, became huge problem centers after the OOPS hit. France, being a major cheese producer, responded to the OOPS dramatically, cracking down and regulating everything so fast French heads were still spinning to this day. But it also represented a huge untapped Uber market, an Uber Uber market, if you will, that every pusher in the world kept trying to break into. If we didn’t hear anything from them every six months or so it was usually a good idea to go check them out under the rule of ‘It’s quiet….too quiet.’ So when any incident even slightly related came up, Miss Chiff tended to throw a CURDS team at it.
Sylvia seemed a little suspicious. “Why cheddar? France has about 400 cheeses available at any given time. Cheddar is an English cheese, isn’t it?” She scratched Backwash under the chin for a moment before he continued his patrol.
“Yes it is, my dear,” replied Sir Haughty. “In fact, cheddar is extremely rare in France. There is a version called Cantal that is close, but it’s not actual cheddar. And where there IS cheddar it’s in high end supermarkets. For a Mom and Pop to be expected to have any, let alone a large quantity, may simply be the delusion of the addicted mind. This is a job for the mental health and medical professionals of Paris, not us, Madam.” It was clear his last sentence was directed at Miss Chiff.
“The local authorities have requested our help, nonetheless. You know as well as I do that there are many law enforcement agencies who don’t want to mess with even the possibility of Uber. Having no representative there would be like not calling in the bomb squad because you don’t hear any ticking coming from the pile of dynamite.”
Sylvia, who hadn’t yet touched her coffee, blinked her exposed left eye and said, “What do we know about the gunman?”
There was the sound of paper rattling. “His name is Casper Ferruz, about 35 years of age, average height, black hair, brown eyes, he’s been arrested before for possession and attempt to distribute Uber Camembert. We don’t know when or where he gained an interest in cheddar. This is something new. He’s been holding, at last count, 14 people inside the store since yesterday noon local time.”
“At last count?” I asked.
There was more paper rattling. “Seems he had 17 originally, but the negotiator got him to give up four children. Shortly after that he forced a passerby at gunpoint to enter the store. And before you ask why there was a passerby, a gawker got past the security line, got too close to the door and Mr. Ferruz immediately shanghaied him, for lack of a better term. He threatened to shoot a hostage if the man didn’t go in, even had a woman up against the window with the gun to her head.”
“That’s fairly odd behavior,” said Sylvia, trying to reason out the gunman’s motivations. “Why take the risk that the man refuse and force you to shoot a hostage? Unless he hasn’t yet proven himself serious and was looking for just that opportunity,” she paused, answering her own question. “Interesting. A win win. He would either be forced to prove himself, a show of force, if you will, or gain another hostage. And he took the decision, in his point of view, out of his own hands.” I could see her wheels turning as she nodded, agreeing with her own reasoning.
“I’m afraid that’s all the information I have to give you. Dinny can fill you in on the flight details. Good luck!” Miss Chiff hung up.
Dinny was there at the end of the call. She may have been listening in. I didn’t have a problem with it. “Our flight time is seven hours once we take off from Maine. We’ll be landing at Orly Airport approximately 1 PM Paris time tomorrow.” Sounds like a really long flight, but there is the seven-hour flight plus a five-hour time difference in favor of Paris. International flights can be such fun. And we had a little over an hour before we landed in Maine for refueling. “I’ve alerted the Chembassy nearby for accommodations if you need them.” A Chembassy is like an embassy but specifically for the fight against Uber cheese. Most European countries had at least one. France has 16, including two in Paris. This was Dinny covering the bases. Some missions took time, others didn’t. Just in case, it was common practice to make arrangements any time we were near a Chembassy.
I tried to sleep on the way to Maine, but didn’t do very well. I could hear the soft breathing of the twins behind me. They were still under light sedation, but would likely come out of it before we reached Paris. They weren’t going to like being excluded from this and I worried that they would try something stupid. It sounded like the others were having trouble, too, tossing and turning trying to sleep in a chair when your body wanted a real bed. Even fully reclined, it just wasn’t the same thing. Another part of it was knowing whatever rest we got would be interrupted again when we landed in Maine. We didn’t have to get off the plane, but the process of landing and take-off were both hard to sleep through, unless you were on some good drugs like the Nicely twins had. And I worried about the job waiting for us in Paris. A lot can happen in a hostage situation in seven or eight hours. It could even be resolved by the time we got there, but then there would still be the question of the cheese for us to investigate. It seemed like light duty, but I’ve learned to never expect light duty.
The refueling stop went off without a hitch. No one got off the plane. We were all still trying madly to fall asleep, which we did fairly easily once we took off from Maine and reached a nice boring cruising altitude. I drifted off and dreamed about the plane going down in a fiery crash and woke up in the dark some time later. Dinny had taken the lights from dim to off so we could sleep. I looked out the window and saw stars, but we were flying toward the terminator so sunrise was just over the horizon. It wasn’t long before enough light came in to enable me to see and a casual look around startled me. I’ve taken head counts so many times I don’t even need to think the numbers anymore. I could tell immediately that someone was missing, and that turned out to be Nitro. And in the quiet, I could hear muffled noises coming
from the locker room.
I got up silently and went to see what he was doing. When I got there, I found Nitro in front of his locker, pulling stuff out of it and swearing under his breath. He shook out a jacket, dumped out his kit and piled toiletries on his other side. “Crap, no,” I heard him say. “Shit!”
“Nitro?” I whispered, not wanting to startle him. “What’s wrong?”
I did startle him, and he fell on his butt when he realized I was there. He sat there among his array of personal items sadly. “I can’t find it.”
Moving closer, I asked, “Can’t find what?”
He took a deep breath, trying to calm his panic. “My passport.”
Okay, I thought. Shit it is. “You can’t get off the plane without that.”
“I know! That’s why I’m trying to find it. It’s not here!”
I presented calm, and I even felt calm. I knew immediately that it would not be a disaster if Nitro had to stay on the plane in Paris. In fact, I was glad it had become academic. I hadn’t relished the idea of leaving the twins on the plane without trained medical supervision. “Where do you usually keep it?”
He pointed to his now empty kit bag, and opened the top flap to show me a zippered pouch. The zipper worked, but he never bothered zipping it. “Right here. It’s always right here.”
“Nitro, you spilled your bag at the Grundy farm. Remember?”
He hadn’t remembered, until I reminded him. Then he slapped his head. “Oh no! Grundy’s got my passport?”
I offered my hand to help him up. “Put your things away. Let’s call Miss Chiff and see if someone’s turned it in. Maybe one of the CSPD officers found it.” He did as I said, though it looked rather haphazard. He closed his locker, and locked it, then followed me out of the locker room.
We went upstairs to the conference table, where the phone and speaker were still hooked up. I took it off speaker and dialed Miss Chiff. This is a first, I thought. I hope we’re not waking her. She answered on the third ring, sounding not at all drowsy. “Is there a problem, Miss Montana? Are the twins all right?”
I reassured her that no one had died and explained the problem. “Oh yes,” she replied. “I should have expected that. Yes, Mr. Thackery, I have your passport. Cletus V found it, actually, but he gave it to the local PD before they left, and they were able to Fed-Ex it to me. Unfortunately, it means Mr. Thackery will have to remain on the plane in Paris, but that’s just as well since I assume he’ll be monitoring the Nicelys. If you do need medical on site, Paris has an excellent health system as you well know.”
“And what if we find cheese?”
“I’m sure Mr. Thackery can give someone a crash course on the Uber test. Or someone can bring a sample of the cheese to him on the plane if necessary. Whichever makes more sense to you. And perhaps Mr. Thackery will be more careful with his belongings in the future.”
“I’m very sorry, Miss Chiff,” said Nitro. “Yes, I’ll be very very careful in the future. It won’t happen again. Thank you so much.”
I stopped him before he could start groveling too much and ended the call. “It’s safe with Miss Chiff,” I told him. “Relax. And when we get back home, you might want to get her some flowers.”
He grinned at me sadly. “I guess she’s right. Even if I did have my passport, I’d probably have to stay here to look after Agnes and Avis, anyway. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You didn’t wake me.” I told him truthfully.
“But –“
I put one arm across his shoulders comfortingly. “I had a dream the plane went down in flames, that’s all. Go back to sleep.” Then I released him and went back downstairs to my seat. There were still a couple of hours before landing, and why should I be the only one awake?
When I got back to my seat, I heard a very soft whisper in stereo. “Helena?” I knew immediately it was Agnes and Avis. I went over to their seats and crouched down. There was enough light to see, but just barely. “Are we going blind?”
“No, of course not. Do you guys remember what happened?” I put a supportive hand on Avis’ arm. Agnes was out of reach, but she’d know just the same.
“Yes,” Avis said. I saw the shadow that was her head move up and down once. “That asshole in the chimney shot us.”
I smiled. Then I spent the next fifteen minutes filling them in on the rest. I let them know they were going to have to stay in the plane, but that Dinny and Nitro would be with them. They weren’t yet strong enough to object, but in a few more hours, after the rest of us were in Paris, I was pretty sure that would change. “If we ever have kids,” said Agnes, “we’re NOT naming them Cletus or Myrtle.”
“And that changes your life how exactly?” I had to ask.
The Gross Grocer
Chapter One
There are times in your life when you remember every detail of the mostly mundane things that precede an event, probably in exchange for forgetting most of the event itself. More than a decade ago, I was standing in front of my classroom giving a talk on the economics of The Civil War. It was a Thursday in November. The schoolyard outside was scattered with crisp yellow and brown leaves that were blowing in little whirlwinds. Thirty-three blank faces looked at me as I wrote key phrases on a dusty chalkboard. The linoleum flooring was old and speckled, and there were broken tiles in about every third row. A desk squeaked as a student shifted it out of sheer boredom. Someone sneezed. No one said, “bless you.” And I began to explain the effects of inflation.
I was interrupted by a knock on the door. Three raps, exactly the same. Without waiting for an invitation, the principal of the school, George Asgevny, came in. “Pardon me, Mrs. Montana. May I speak with you in the hall?”
“Of course, sir,” I said. “Class, there’s a short quiz at the end of Chapter 6. Take out pencil and paper and take the quiz. We’ll grade them when I get back.” And I followed Mr. Asgevny out into the hall.
After I closed the classroom door, he said, “We’ve had a call from your mother. It’s about your father.”
“Yes?”
“He’s in the hospital. She said he appears to have an intestinal obstruction.”
“What? No, that’s impossible. No one near us has…” At the time, the OOPS was active, but no one had yet determined the cause. The CDC was still trying to isolate a virus or bacterium. No one seemed to know how it was transmitted, if it was transmitted, or what protocols should be used. Most hospitals erred on the side of caution and did full isolation, even though the efficacy of that had begun to be questioned. It may have sounded like only a mild medical emergency, but it was also known to have a close to 100% mortality rate. My heart was in my throat instantly. “It can’t…”
Mr. Asgevny put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take your class. Go. He was in the ER, but they will probably have admitted him by the time you get there.”
“Yes. Thank you, sir,” I muttered as I walked away, waiting to wake from the bad dream. But I didn’t wake up. All the way to the hospital, I replayed what Mr. Asgevny had said. Intestinal obstruction. It was like hearing the words Bubonic Plague in mid-14th Century England. I didn’t understand. He hadn’t been sick in years. He was as healthy as the proverbial horse. How could he suddenly be at death’s door?
I found Mom sitting in the ER waiting room. She jumped up when she saw me and then hugged me so hard I thought I might break. “Oh, Helena! It’s awful!” she sobbed. “He’s got a room now. Come on. I’ll take you to him.” And we hurried through the corridor to the elevators and went to the fourth floor.
“Mom, what’s going on?” I asked as we walked at double time. “How could this happen?”
“I don’t know. Jesus, I’m still trying to figure it out. He seemed fine this morning at breakfast. He had a cheese sandwich. Did I tell you he’s grown quite fond of cheese sandwiches? He wants them all the time. I figured the calcium had to be good for him. I don’t know where he could have picked up this thing. None of our friends have Obstruction.” She slo
wed down then stopped at his door, which was closed, and just stared at it. It said ‘ISOLATION.’ “This is it. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “WE can.” I took her by the arm, opened the door, and led us inside.
Dad was lying in his bed, in a smaller room with large glass windows and an airlock door. The head of the bed was raised almost completely. A wheeled table extended over his legs. On the table was a plate with half of a sandwich sitting on it. The other half was in his hand with a couple of bites out of it. A man in a white, helmeted suit was holding his clipboard at the foot of his bed and making a notation. “Appetite good,” he said, then he noticed us. “Hello,” he said through a speaker system. “You must be Mrs. Gumphy.” He released the clipboard and approached the window. The face in the helmet was about sixty three…hundred…years old, with a face so wrinkled that he could be mistaken for a Shar Pei.
“Yes. This is my daughter Helena.”
The doctor nodded at me. “I’m Dr. Glen Wood, admitting physician. Mr. Gumphy has a serious intestinal blockage. But I think we can break it up with stool softeners. We have some new softeners that had good results in Oklahoma.”
I was skeptical. “Really? Define good results.” The doctor clearly wasn’t used to being questioned. His voice lowered to inaudibility. “Excuse me, could you repeat that?” Instead he came through the airlock system, stopping inside to dispose of the suit into a red container. When he pulled off the helmet, he revealed blinding white tufts of hair that made Einstein look well-groomed. He then paused with arms out while jets squirted some kind of steam all over him, before exiting into the anteroom.
He cleared his throat. “The patient survived three weeks longer than expected.”