Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  “It was made of cheese. Just like the golf balls, and the other stuff. About fifteen coats of lacquer, though. The craftsmanship is amazing. It’s Exhibit A, but they let Nitro take a bit from inside the handle and it wasn’t Uber, so they also allowed Sir Haughty a nibble from the same area. They need the business parts of the gun intact for the trial. Sir Haughty identified it as Havarti.”

  That struck a memory, too. “Didn’t you say the next mission has something to do with Havarti?”

  I almost had to repeat the question because the train picked that moment to sound its horn and its engines began to start up. Most likely, the engineer rebooted his systems and blamed the whole thing on a glitch. As the train pulled away, I saw Butte waving at it. Junior slapped him upside the head.

  Badger nodded vigorously. “Yep. The Havarti Hoarders in Sacramento. Turns out there’s a chapter here, too. SPD is working on getting them dissolved according to the new cheese ban. They said they got rid of all their Havarti and the search they did a week ago turned up zilch. A little interrogation got one of them to reveal where they sent it.” In an aside to McGrone, who evidently hadn’t been in on this information, he added, “Havarti Hoarders are not hard core. They’re just regular people who like cheese. Not hard to crack. Like saltines.”

  I still wasn’t sure why they were here at the boat club. “So where did they send it?”

  He pointed with his chin across the lake. “You remember the HIP?”

  The HIP stands for Homeless Initiative Projects, something Springfield tried about five years ago. They put up several prefab shelters in Cotton Hill Park and provided plumbing, unisex bathrooms, electricity and constricted climate controls just to keep the buildings warm enough in the winter to keep people from freezing to death and cool enough in the summer to prevent heat stroke. There were no apartments and no furniture. It was strictly BYO Everything. A large wide building was one story and handicapped accessible and four others almost adjoining with multiple floors but no elevator. So there was a two story, a three story, a four story and a five story in a vague spiral formation with the tallest in the middle. About as architectural as prefab was going to get. Those capable of getting up to the top got an awesome view of the lake. It mostly served the homeless from south of Lake Springfield, though. People unfortunate enough to live on the north side had a hard time getting there. They weren’t rich enough to own a boat, and the only other access was the train track and I55. But it was better than nothing.

  “Why would they send all their Havarti to the HIP?”

  Dad, still keeping a wary eye on us, was almost done unwrapping the rope. Junior was yelling at him to go faster. He said something back to Junior, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

  “Not just Havarti,” Badger said, getting a little breathless with excitement. “I checked. The HIP has been getting shipments of all kinds of cheese for several months.”

  “Including…” my wheels turned too fast for me to articulate what I was thinking.

  “Including Sage Derby, authentic parmesan, Little Ypsi, all the types we’ve been encountering chasing the counterfeiters. That’s why they were so hard to track down. The HIP isn’t considered an address. People just took it there.”

  “People like…”

  “People with boats,” McGrone said. He fingered the Glock 33 in his holster.

  I put up a hand to stop him. “No, sir. Wait.”

  “But-“

  Badger explained for me. “If we take them on this side of the lake, we get Junior and Butte. If we take them at the HIP…” He left it hanging for McGrone to catch.

  “We get the whole cabal,” McGrone said. “But they know we’re following. Not even Junior is stupid enough to just lead us right to them.”

  I scanned the boats in their slips to see which one would be easiest to commandeer. It was kind of fun commandeering things, but I thought about the motorcycle that the government would have to pay for. There were some very nice power yachts bobbing in the slips, but if something went wrong I didn’t want to accumulate too much collateral damage. “I assume you both want to come with?”

  Badger answered for both of them. “You’ve got that right. Remember, we’ve been chasing these guys much longer than you have.”

  I was able to eliminate a couple of small motorboats. Going much bigger, like to an inboard, would require too much prep work to launch and an ignition key that I didn’t have. The small ones were too unstable for three people. Finally, I spotted a medium sized pleasure boat with two Yamaha outboard motors hanging aft. It had a red and black hull and a high white gunwale. “Follow me,” I said trotting toward it. As I neared, I could see the name painted on the rear flank in block, sans serif lettering. Helena’s Heaven.

  Chapter Five

  “Billings,” said Badger, seeing the name on the side of the boat.

  “I know. Weird, isn’t it? It’ll make it easier to find out who to reimburse.” Badger unwrapped Helena’s Heaven’s docking rope from the piling and plopped it onto the deck. Helena’s Heaven floated and bobbed freely as the three of us clambered onto the boat. The Kroch Rocket was starting to slide out of its slip. It picked up speed rapidly, curving around our dock and heading south. Butte, standing aft and watching us trying to launch, stuck his tongue out as they passed. Yeah, Dad, I thought. What a role model.

  My plan was to make them think they’d lost us. The problem was it was a straight shot across the lake. No islands in this area, nothing to hide behind. The Kroch Rocket was making a beeline for the dock on the southern shore. Any idiot could have followed them.

  “We need life vests,” said McGrone, no doubt remembering the chewing out he’d gotten in the hold of the pirate ship. Neither Junior nor Butte had put on any protection, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have to. I’d be a hypocrite if I even suggested we skip it.

  “Check the storage. There’s probably some in there.”

  Badger, who had already sat down on said storage, got up and lifted the seat. “Eureka!” He pulled out a heavy, orange adult life vest and tossed it to me. Fond memories of the lightweight inflatable vest I’d trained with on the Ike flew through my mind. I dreaded the leaden weight of the old fashioned vest, but I put it on, keeping the rifle snug against my back. It might not be code, but I wasn’t about to take off the rifle. Badger pulled out another vest and gave it to McGrone, who put it on and tightened the straps around his waist with satisfaction. Badger rummaged around some more and cursed.

  “Is that all there is?”

  “No, there are two more, but-“

  “But what? Put one on.” He pouted, picking up a bright yellow, vinyl life jacket. It was child sized. “It’ll have to do. It’s better than nothing.” I would have traded, but Badger was smaller than the two of us so it made the most sense for him to wear it.

  “There better not be security cameras,” he said as he slipped it over his head. The front cushions of the vest barely reached his chest and he had to have McGrone help improvise a way to tie the straps in place because they were too short to buckle. It was pretty much a noose.

  By then, I’d found the jumper wire hidden in the cup holder near the helm. Electric, key driven starters fail a lot, I’d learned. To start it manually, so you didn’t get stranded, you should have a jumper wire that you can connect to the solenoids, just like jumping a car. I expected it to be better hidden than in the cup holder, but if boating was Helena’s Heaven she probably didn’t worry about it. I found the ignition wire wrapped in red and blue insulation, followed it to the solenoid and attached the jumper. Then I connected the other end to the battery terminal and a moment later the engine came to life. After verifying that the cooling system was operating, we were good to go. I moved the throttle up carefully. The double outboards started simultaneously and we moved forward. I wanted to get a good distance from the dock before really letting loose. It’s rude to speed out of a slip.

  The Kroch Rocket was speeding along. The dock for Cotton Hill Par
k is about 30 football fields away from the Boat Club. The bow of our boat bobbed up and down in the surf, spraying us with cold, fresh water that smelled of dead fish. As I scanned the distant shoreline, I revised my plan. Hoping there was enough distance to for this to work, I flipped the switch to disable the cooling system. McGrone and Badger were watching the receding Kroch Rocket and wouldn’t have known what I was doing if they did see it. Sir Haughty was the one with boating experience, and then only peripherally through his yacht club in England. Biting my bottom lip, I pushed the throttle up some more, then jammed it all the way. The Helena’s Heaven leaped forward, sending a sheet of cold water over the windscreen.

  “Yee-ha!” Badger yelled, exhilarated by the speed. “Let’s get these guys!”

  We were gaining on the Kroch Rocket, which still kept a straight path across the lake. I started to swerve a little, back and forth, erratically. McGrone shouted, “What are you doing? Keep it straight!”

  I ignored him, muttering “Come on, come on,” under my breath, as I taxed the motor every way I knew how.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Badger suddenly sit up straight and reach into his pocket for his phone. After a glance at the screen, he shouted over the wind, “It’s Roxy!” It was too loud for a conversation, so he screamed into the phone. “Text me, Roxy! I can’t hear!”

  Deliberately, I gained, then lost ground on the Kroch Rocket by swerving back and forth, ramming head first into our own wake. “What does she want?”

  “She wants to know if she can leave. Your grandmother is driving her crazy.”

  I did an extra hard right, pretending to be losing control. “No! She stays put.”

  “But we’re following Junior!” he argued on her behalf.

  I turned for the few seconds it took to say, “Junior could have friends. She stays put.” Even if he couldn’t hear me over the waves and wind, he could read my lips.

  He typed with one thumb into his phone, then put it back in his pocket and grabbed a hand rail. “You never answered McGrone’s question. What are you doing? Didn’t you learn how to pilot a boat?”

  That’s when there was a ping deep under the deck. Next thing I knew there was a plume of white smoke seeping out. I slowed the throttle, satisfied. I didn’t want it to die completely, but the motor wouldn’t take warp speed any more. Apologizing to whichever Helena owned the boat, I swerved to the left, where there was a fairly large inlet with thick tree cover east of the Crown Hill Park dock. Junior would think we were grounded, which wasn’t entirely wrong. I wasn’t exactly sure that Helena’s Heaven could make it back home at anything more than a sorry limp. With the white smoke leaving a clear trail behind us, we floated behind the trees. The Kroch Rocket was already at the dock as we lost sight of her.

  Quieter now, McGrone bit at me. “That was inexcusable. We’re going to lose them and you’ve ruined an expensive boat. Miss Chiff will be very upset.”

  I put a finger to my lips. “Not so loud, McGrone.” Keeping my voice low, I explained as the Helena’s Heaven bumped along the forested shoreline. “Junior thinks we’re off his trail. I want to come around the back of the HIP and see what he’s doing. Help me beach this thing.” As we reached the furthest point inland, I climbed out of the Helena’s Heaven onto a muddy bank lined with large rocks and thick tree trunks.

  Badger found the dock rope and brought it with him as he got out, tying it securely to the nearest tree. As soon as he had tied it and tested the knot, he started contorting to reach the improvised fasteners on the life vest. “Help me get this thing off!” McGrone obliged, then removed his own and tossed them both into the boat. I followed suit. We left the boat and went into the trees on foot.

  The HIP is only five years old, but it looks like it’s ready to be condemned. The prefab walls are pockmarked and crumbling. Parts have been patched, but it’s hardly a professional job. I saw a couple of windows with small cracks. The pavement around the complex is also pockmarked, with some hardy weeds struggling up in the cracks. The building we came up to is three stories high. There’s a two story to the left, a four story to the right. We couldn’t see the one story from here and they were all wrapped around the five story in the middle. Because of building codes, each of the taller buildings had metal fire escapes snaking down two sides. “You know, it kind of looks like a closed fist with one finger raised,” said Badger. “Like the homeless are flipping the bird. Whose idea was that?”

  “I think it was intentional,” I whispered back. “Stay here.” Using the trees for cover, I scouted around to get a view of the front.

  Junior and Butte were actually just getting off the Kroch Rocket, clumsily carrying a large box between them. “Junior,” Butte said between grunts, “I think we should lay low. My son and his cohorts were following us, you know.”

  “I saw,” said Junior. “They overheated their boat and grounded way over there. They’re probably busy nursing the engine. Let’s get this in there. You figure out how we’re going to get the old lady with CURDS agents watching her. And how did they know we were coming, anyway? That rat Butler probably squealed.” As he spoke, they walked sideways, lugging the box, up to the front door of the single story structure. “I told you we shouldn’t have trusted him.”

  They put the box down so Butte could open the door. Butte put his back against the open door and they bent down to pick it up again. Before the door closed, I heard Butte say, “We couldn’t have done all those red herrings without him.” The door closed and they were inside.

  I hurried back to McGrone and Butler. “They’re inside Building One. They were carrying a big box. I’m betting there was cheese in it. I looked at McGrone specifically. “Do you have a plan?”

  He hefted his pistol and checked the chamber. “We go in and catch them red handed.”

  “Hold on, Han Solo. It’s still a shelter. There’s going to be a lot of homeless people in there who may or may not be involved in this. We don’t want to start a firestorm.”

  McGrone holstered the weapon. “Okay, what’s your plan?”

  “You two are going to go in and pretend to be homeless.”

  “What about you?” Badger asked.

  “I’ve got a rifle across my back.” I looked at them. They were too well dressed to pass as homeless. Quickly, I pulled on McGrone’s patch pocket and tore half of its seams. “Unbutton some of it. Pull out the shirt tails. No, just one.” He gave me a dirty look. “I know, but just go with it.” I bent down and grabbed some handfuls of dry dirt, spit in it, and started smearing it unevenly over McGrone’s and Badger’s clothing. Badger, for his part, mussed up his hair and set his glasses at an odd angle. He took off his shirt and put it back on inside out. “Oh, that’s good,” I said. “Can you sound homeless?” I realized as I asked it that it was ridiculous. It wasn’t like there was a homeless accent or anything.

  “What does homeless sound like?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  McGrone, with an air of superiority, said, “It doesn’t sound like anything. All kinds of people become homeless.”

  “What if your Dad recognizes me?” Badger asked. “He hasn’t seen me a lot, but he has seen me.”

  “Not with your glasses on.”

  “What am I, Clark Kent?”

  “We’ll have to risk it. Okay, here’s what I want you to do.” I gave them the plan, then went around front. While they were doing their job, I was doing mine. I walked over to the Kroch Rocket, my boots thumping on the wooden dock, and untied it from the piling. There was the soft sound of the lapping water and a few seagulls flew overhead. With Helena’s Heaven probably still smoking on the other side of the trees, Junior’s yacht might be the only way back across the lake, but I didn’t want Junior or Butte taking it. The shimmering copper yacht floated away from the dock, the current taking it gently out to the middle of the lake.

  Now I just had to stand here and wait. Inside, McGrone and Badger were looking as pathetic as possible, inventing nice
sob stories about how they came to be homeless. I wished I’d been inside to hear. Badger, I knew, was particularly good at inventing. After confirming the contents of the box, and establishing the presence of the counterfeiters, they were to accidentally look out a window and spot me setting the yacht loose. Then Junior, and hopefully Butte, would rush out to rescue the boat and I’d have them, separate from the other homeless, from the front while McGrone and his pistol would cover them from the rear. Badger would stay behind to call in the collar and hold onto as much of the evidence as he could, such as the box and at least one counterfeiter. Some of them might run south, but some of the homeless might actually be willing to help out. Whatever Badger could manage. We kind of had limited resources.

  There was no sign from outside what might be happening inside. I slipped the rifle from my shoulder and held it in front, ready, hoping this plan would actually work. Would we be able to hold everything together long enough for Springfield PD to get here? I wasn’t sure. But I was willing to shoot someone in the leg if I had to. Depending on who it was, it would kind of be a pleasure.

  It took several minutes, but suddenly the front door swung open and Junior came rushing out with Butte right behind him. Perfect, I thought. He stopped short when he saw me and I leveled my rifle. I saw his top teeth bite gently into his lower lip as he invoked the F word. I couldn’t shoot both, but when Junior turned his head to check his retreat he saw McGrone with his Glock 33. “It’s over, Junior.” I deliberately ignored my Dad, who had also seen they were trapped.

  Junior put up his hands in surrender. “You got me. Let Butte go. I made him help me. He didn’t want to.”

  “Oh, really?” I was skeptical about that. I finally looked at my father, who still hadn’t put his hands up. There was fear in his eyes, but it’s hard to prevent that when you have two guns pointed at you. Junior has had guns pointed at him most of his life. He was used to it. “How?”

  “Billings,” my Dad said. Just that. “Billings.”