by G M Eppers
“Not for provolone.” Why was I taunting him? I asked myself. “It’s the big sleep for that.” I looked behind him and saw a beat cop strolling our way. From his angle, he wouldn’t see the tommy gun until he was right on top of Capone. “Turn around. You can take a clean sneak. We won’t say nothing to nobody.”
The girls saw the cop, too, but kept silent. Avis’ fingernails, which were much longer in the dream than they were in real life, dug into my upper arm, right through the thin canvas of the jacket. Agnes, wanting to distract Capone, repeated her sister’s request. “Give it to ‘em, Billsy.”
“Is there a beef here, gentlemen?” asked the cop as he came up to Capone. A nightstick hung at his waist, and he rested his hand on the end, but didn’t take it up. He didn’t seem to notice the gun at all.
Capone smiled. Downstairs, the music changed to Turkey in the Straw. “Good to see you, Buttons. The usual?”
“Usual is good.” The cop gave a couple deep nods in agreement and reached out. Capone handed him the rifle and the cop, rather than turning it on Chris Capone, continued holding us at bay. While he did this, Capone pulled a brick of cheese out of his own pocket. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was yellow, not white. Taking out a small switchblade, he sliced off about a third, then put the rest back in his pocket with the folded knife. The cop took the cheese, handed Capone back the gun, and tipped his hat. The cop smiled at us and nibbled the cheese as he walked past me edging the curb.
I caught his eye, showing my disgust at his lack of integrity.
Capone watched the policeman saunter away into the darkness. “Now, give me the provolone or I throw lead at your molls. I’m not getting nailed for any of it. I own this town.”
“You don’t need my squish.” Here I was, arguing with the gangster, again. I nodded toward the concrete steps to the speakeasy. “Go down to the hash house. You can get all the squish you want. All kinds. Provolone, gouda, brie, mozz, I hear next Thursday they’re going to have pule. You could make enough lettuce to lay a carpet of it.”
“Listen to this sap,” he said as if someone were with him. I got the feeling someone was, but out of sight. “I just told ya I own this town. The hash house is part of the town, ain’t it? But, youse. I don’t know youse so youse must be from out of town. And no one leaves my town with cheese. Got it?”
I had a gun, too. Glancing down, I could see it in my right hand pocket right next to the block of provolone. Chris Capone had a tommy gun, and even though it didn’t have a drum, there could still be as many as thirty rounds in the stick. I had a rusty Colt Pocket Hammer from the early aughts which held a single round and I didn’t even know for sure if it was loaded.
“Okay, I give.”
“It’ll be okay, Billsy.” Avis said around her wad of chewing gum. “We’ll get more someplace else.”
Agnes agreed. “Yeah. Don’t let this guy scare ya. Let’s just give it to ‘em and take a powder, okay?”
Slowly I reached into my pocket, leaving my left hand up in the air where Capone could see it. Bumping the Colt out of the way, I wrapped my hand around the brick and brought it out into the open.
“That’s it,” said Capone, moving the tommy gun into one hand, making it clear he could operate it just as easily that way. “I got a chopper squad, so no chiseling. Toss it over here nice and easy.”
I tossed the brick of provolone underhand and it landed at his feet.
The next thing I knew we were being hit by a hail of bullets. He must have fired the entire stick in about thirty seconds. Some of them missed, but I took one in the arm and two in the stomach. There might have been more, but it happened so fast it didn’t register. I dropped to the ground and Avis fell on top of me, her yellow dress dotted with red that oozed and spread until her dress matched her sister’s. Agnes’ red dress, to my hazy dying eyes, looked untouched, but there was a thick red puddle spreading from her neck. Her head turned, her mouth opened, and a chewed up wad of gum fell into the puddle of blood on the sidewalk. Her eyes closed. Above me, Avis’ face was an inch from mine. Her eyes were open, but they were glassy and unseeing.
His tommy gun smoking from the barrel, Capone stepped up to me. “Sucker. No one leaves my town without cheese, either.” Laughing, he tossed the provolone into the air and caught it like a baseball. He poked me with the hot barrel to make sure I was dead, then walked away in the same direction the cop had.
I jerked awake in the bed, my heart jackhammering in my chest, adrenaline flooding my system. The other side of the bed was empty and the clock said 5:43 A.M. I took a deep breath. Calming down took a real effort. The bedside lamp on the other side was lit, providing enough illumination to see that the twins were in the corner on a yoga mat, sitting side by side in the lotus position. They were both naked. I must have made some sound, because their heads turned toward me. “Oh, you’re up,” Avis remarked.
“Yeah.” I wondered if they could hear my rapid heartbeat, or sense my distress. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, which gave an even better view of the twins. Despite my best efforts, Captain Gung Ho saluted. No, I told myself. No, no, no, not now. Can’t do it. “What are you guys doing?”
“Twoga,” said Agnes. “Twin Yoga. We learned it in Tibet where we studied Muay Thai. It’s great for morning stretches. Usually we finish before you wake up.”
Avis started to shift slowly and Agnes followed. They extended their legs all in one direction, supporting themselves on one locked arm each, reaching to the ceiling with the other. “We’re working toward downward facing dog, if you care to watch.”
“Or you could join us. We’ll teach you,” offered Agnes.
I wasn’t sure I could even get out of bed. I averted my eyes and thought of my grandmother. “No, no thanks. I think I’ll do an hour in the yard.” I carefully rolled, letting my feet fall to the floor, as I folded back the covers. After a few more breaths both my heartrate and Captain Gung Ho were calming down, so I grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom to freshen up and change. When I came back out, ready to hit the yard, the twins were in a configuration I couldn’t even describe. Let’s just say it wasn’t helping the situation any.
“Have a good workout,” Avis called to me. When I paused, staring at them, she added, “It’s called the Bavarian Spiderpede. It’s very advanced.”
“But it feels great!” Agnes said. Her voice was muffled by a thigh, but I couldn’t tell whose it was. I tied my sneakers and went down to the yard, where we have various pieces of equipment to keep us in shape. The motion detector light went on because it was still well before first light. Early February in D.C. is also a bit chilly, but once I got going I didn’t even notice the temperature. I have a fairly wide comfort zone. Some warm up laps on the dirt track were followed by the horizontal ladder, some chin-ups, and a trip up the climbing wall. I rappelled down and then did it again just to make it worthwhile to have put on the safety harness. By the time I came down the second time, the motion detector light had given way to daylight.
The dream stayed with me.
I went in to find some breakfast, hoping Badger remembered my request. Nitro, in pajama bottoms, an undershirt, and slippers, was just coming from the front door. “Dispatch,” he said, handing me the 9 X 12 manila envelope. It was uncharacteristically thick. “Busy month?”
“Course catalog,” I replied.
“Oh, that.” He moved to the counter to start some coffee going.
“Last night,” I found myself saying, holding onto the envelope but not opening it, “you were testing me, right? Making sure I wouldn’t fly off the handle?”
Reaching into a cupboard, he got down two coffee cups and then went to the drawer for spoons. He avoided looking at me at all. “I’m not allowed to say.” That was an honest answer. Since it meant the reason for his words was medically confidential, I was reasonably sure in my interpretation.
I pulled a black marker from the junk drawer, took a seat at the table, and opened the course catalog. I set aside t
he Dispatch. I could probably do that mostly extemporaneously in transit. We never expect to be in D.C. very long. I opened to the first page and started redacting any listing I knew didn’t apply: courses I’d already taken or anything that duplicated someone else. Nitro served me coffee and sat down to sip his while making toast. “What are you doing?”
“Redacting what I don’t need. It’ll be easier to make a decision.”
“You’re really going to switch?”
“I have to.” The things I was seeing that were available to me so far were not interesting. This was going to be a difficult choice. One of the first things I dismissed was Chaplain. I had to admit I didn’t have a sincerely held belief in the sanctity of the Catholic Church and faking it didn’t seem to set the right tone. Not long after that I crossed out Engineer because of the long list of class requirements. Applied Mechanics, Physics, Plumbing, Electrical Sciences, Pneumatics, Hydraulics, and Cost Estimation for Profit. I’d be away from the team for two years or more completing all that. There had to be something I had at least partially covered. I kept looking.
Roxy came down in a feathery robe and high heeled slippers, using the microwave to heat up a serving of raspberry oatmeal. By the time she sat down, Sir Haughty was there in slacks and a smoking jacket, popping in a bagel as soon as Nitro took out his toast. Badger came in, bare-chested and in pajama bottoms like I’d seen him last night, grabbing a banana from the counter and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. I wanted to remind him about my request, but not in front of everyone else.
Finally, the twins came down, no longer naked. Avis was in dark denim and buffalo checks and Agnes wore acid wash and a multi-color dotted top. Avis bent over and gave me a kiss on their way to the coffee maker. As they assembled their morning beverages, Avis said, “You know, City Hall isn’t far from the museum. I was thinking maybe afterwards we could pop over and get our wedding license.”
“It’s one of the things the wedding planner suggested,” added Agnes. “It doesn’t expire as long as we get married in D.C.” The wedding preparations, to be perfectly honest, were the last thing on my mind just then. “Sure,” I said agreeably. “No problem.” First Responder was out. That infringed on Nitro’s territory. While it seemed like a good idea to have some medically trained backup, it also had an extensive course list for which I had no background, including anatomy and physiology. A quick assessment had me gone for over a year to qualify. I crossed out Horticulture. It was only a three week course, which is very brief for a specialty, but I had zero interest in plants. I once killed a cactus. Don’t ask me how. Aside from that, there wasn’t a big call for plant knowledge in our day-to-day. Nitro could identify anything poisonous, too.
As we ate, I hurried through the catalog, hoping something would catch my eye. I rejected Morale Officer on the grounds that I’d have nothing to do. I would not feel fulfilled giving pep talks that clearly weren’t needed. Protocol Officer was out. I did have some basic diplomacy courses under my belt, but they expected someone to be at least trilingual and I knew I was never going to be fluent in anything other than English. Avis would say I hadn’t done that, either. Ha ha, very funny.
Then I found it. The perfect specialty, in between Translator and Tweet Editor. One might think Tweet Editor would be good, but Badger usually took care of that. Current investigations were confidential, but he would put out official Team A Tweets from time to time. The rest of us were too lazy to do anything but suggest topics for him to Tweet. I put a big circle around my choice, tore out the page, folded it and put it in my pocket. Everyone else was so busy eating they didn’t notice.
After breakfast, we partially cleaned up, rinsing and placing our dishes in the sink and wiping off the table. Knobby, our caretaker, took care of whatever we didn’t, but I didn’t like to take advantage. We were, after all, coming back here after the museum. If the twins and I made the extra stop at City Hall, we’d be back later than the others, but I would make sure those few dishes were taken care of. For the moment, anyway, I was still coordinator and had to take responsibility for things. Taking the catalog and the Dispatch upstairs, I freshened up after my morning workout, then met everyone downstairs again, each of them now dressed and ready to go. We suited up in our regulation jackets that identified us as CURDS on the back. Nitro had his local field kit slung crossways over his shoulder. He kept another on the plane. I wondered if we would still be testing samples for Uber when the ban started. If we were confiscating everything testing could just be done at the chembassies or it might even become moot.
By quarter to ten we were making our way through security and to the spacious front lobby of the three-story tall Natural History Museum, where a model of Henry, an African elephant, was displayed. He’s been there since 1959 and is one of the more stable things in my life. When Mom and I first came to D.C., I hung out at the Mall a lot and wandered from museum to museum because they were all free. You just had to go through security. While Mom was in her academy classes, or after that, on missions, before I signed up, I was here, visiting Henry. At that point in my life, I really needed something that wouldn’t change. Other exhibits changed sometimes, but not Henry. He was a comfort to me.
The main museum would be opening shortly, but we paraded quickly over to the customer service desk. A sign listed important exhibits, such as the current IMAX film, a musical journey through a dinosaur’s digestive system, Eaten By Tyrannosaurus Rex, an interactive exhibit exploring The Beauty of Spider Webs, and a special event called The Dead Singers Festival. A similar sign on the other side had the heading Coming Soon! and listed Guts and Gory, a detailed examination of mummified viscera; Moon rocks on loan from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas; and Open Wider, a look at prehistoric surgery and dentistry. The female attendant, probably thinking we were a tour group or something, fanned a supply of map brochures toward me. I waved them away and said, “Hi, I’m Billings Montana. We’re CURDS,” I said indicating my colleagues, “and we have an appointment to see Dr. Prospero Stephano in the Department of Mineral Sciences.”
The attendant checked something on her computer and found the appointment. “Ah, yes. Dr. Stephano’s offices are on the third floor, which is restricted. If you’ll wait here a moment I’ll page someone to escort you.”
“Thank you.” I turned and looked at Henry the elephant as I leaned against the counter. A spattering of guests, most of them tourists, were beginning to wander in, small children running up to the edge of the exhibit to see the huge elephant.
Nitro, noting the signs, commented, “I’m coming back to see the viscera.”
Behind him, Sylvia said, “Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”
He turned. “What? You don’t want to come with?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Count me in,” said Sir Haughty. Before I knew it we’d made a plan for tomorrow. I privately predicted that it would be thwarted, as most of our plans were.
A young man who looked about twelve approached us. I’m only twenty-one, so when I say he looked twelve, I mean it. He wore a black vest with a name tag that said, “Courtesy Crew.” A small ribbon underneath was embroidered with, “Hi! I’m Mike!” The woman behind the counter explained where we were going. “No problem. Follow me, please.”
He led us to an elevator and we piled in. Once everyone was in, he glanced around to make sure it was just us and that no stragglers had snuck into the group. He pushed an unmarked button and we rode up to the third floor. When the door opened, we all followed him down a hallway, which made an abrupt turn to the right and opened into a large studio where three long tables were arranged parallel to each other, divided up into workstations with tall, wheeled stools, most of which were occupied by people in knee-length, light denim lab coats. The tables looked littered to me, filled with large rocks, boxes of excelsior, and piles of variously colored dirt. Scattered over the tables were microscopes and other electronic equipment.
; Mike showed us to a separate table where a rotund man sat in a bow-backed, wheeled wooden chair in front of a computer. The keyboard had a plastic skin over it. “Excuse me, Professor Stephano. These are the people from CURDS. They have an appointment to see you.”
The man spun the chair around. His round face was clean-shaven except for a bushy moustache with tiny waxed ends. A thick mass of wavy black hair was on top of his head. “Ciao, ciao!” he said boisterously. At least he was a fun Italian and didn’t have the vibe of the Italian Mafia. I’d had a very unpleasant experience with the Italian Mafia. His eyes fell on the twins and actually twinkled. “Che bella!”
Stephano reached out a hand and Avis quickly presented her left, the one with the engagement ring on it, winking at me. Being a geologist, the professor noticed the stone right away, pronouncing it also beautiful, and kissed her hand restrainedly, the waxed ends of his moustache quivering.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nitro wandering quite close to one of the pieces of equipment, rubbernecking to see it. He’s a man of science, and going through here without touching anything had to be tortuous for him. His curiosity knew no bounds. Professor Stephano, his flirting thwarted, seemed delighted by Nitro’s interest, spouting rapid Italian but clearly inviting him to investigate further. Nitro looked at Badger to make sure he understood properly. Badger nodded with an unexpected laugh. “He says it’s a Spinning Riffler. I think it distributes samples into individual storage tubes. Roger uses something like it at his lab.” Roger is Badger’s boyfriend. He works at the Smithsonian Institute’s Forensics Lab.
“Sì!” Stephano seemed very happy with the machine, and started to explain all about it in thick Italian.
“I’m sorry,” I said to a nearby colleague of his. “Doesn’t Professor Stephano speak any English?”
She looked up from her microscope. “Not when he’s angry, or happy, or hungry, or depressed, and definitely not when he’s excited. He’s like a dog when you just get home from work. We’re lucky he doesn’t pee on the floor. Professore,” she said, addressing him in his native language she spoke several words to him calmly.