Double Agent

by Gretchen Archer

  “Is she dead?” Fantasy asked.

  “No,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Yes,” Eddie said.

  I followed the path of blood until it disappeared behind a King Cashalot.

  “Eddie,” I said. “Where’s my gun?”

  “How would I know where your gun is?”

  I turned around for a second. “You said you shot yourself. Where’s the gun? Tell me where my gun is, or Fantasy will shoot you with hers.”

  “Just say the word, Davis,” Fantasy said. “I’ll put one between his eyes.”

  The boot prints were big. Very-large-man big. And his right boot was decidedly bloodier than his left.

  “I said I thought I shot myself,” he said. “Now I’m not sure who shot me. And I for sure don’t know how Danielle ended up dead.”

  I stepped past the King Cashalot and a Quick Hits Wild Wild West to the Thunderstruck II at the end of the row. The bloody boot prints turned the corner. I backed up. I lowered my voice. “Eddie, where’s Jug?”

  “Jug who?”

  Seriously? “Eddie? How many Jugs do we know?”

  “Just our Jug.”

  Jug Dooley. Danielle and Eddie the Idiot’s mutual best friend, and who Danielle ran to when she and Eddie broke up every other week. The three remained best friends regardless of whose bed Danielle woke up in. Eddie and Danielle had Jug over for pizza. Jug and Danielle had Eddie over to watch Alabama football.

  It was gross.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, Eddie. Jug is not ‘ours.’ Where is he?”

  “How am I supposed to know where Jug is?”

  “Because he was in the drunk tank with you.” I saw it on the incident report that morning: White male, 300 pounds, J. Dooley, Pine Apple, Alabama: public nudity in the Bellissimo pool. Awaiting transport to Biloxi PD. Then it referenced thirty-seven additional complaint reports, filed by parents of small children, scarred for life after bearing witness to skinny-dipping Jug.

  “He was?” Eddie asked.

  “You’re asking me? Was Jug in the drunk tank with you or not? Yes or no.”

  “I can’t remember. I was sleeping.”

  “Okay, Eddie.” I forgot, from horrible-infrequent-encounter to even-more-horrible-infrequent-encounter, how far down I had to dumb it down when attempting to communicate with Eddie. Somewhere near the baby rock level. “When you woke up, was Jug there?”

  “No.”

  So the bloody boot prints weren’t Jug Dooley’s.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Probably,” he said. “Or probably not.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “Which is it?”

  “Look it, Davis.” He waved his bloody hand. “My life has just flashed in front of my face and my true love is dead. Could you cut me some slack?”

  Maybe it would help if I spoke slower. “Who…was…with…you?”

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “Danielle.”

  I dumbed it down a little more. “I know that, Eddie. Who else besides Danielle was with you fifteen minutes ago when you may or may not have shot yourself?”

  Fantasy raised a what’s-going-on eyebrow at me.

  I made walk-away fingers in the direction of the bloody boot prints.

  “Where is it you want to go?” she whispered.

  I rolled my eyes. I motioned her over.

  “Don’t move,” she said to Eddie. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  Sidestepping Danielle, her tongue still darting, Fantasy gasped at the blood pool haloed around Danielle’s head, then followed the trail to me. We tiptoed to the edge of the tall cabinet of the Thunderstruck II, then barely eased our eyelashes around the corner to look down the aisle.

  “Uh-oh,” Fantasy whispered. “They go all the way to Private Gaming.”

  The bloody boot print trail faded all the way down the wide aisle, disappearing, as best we could see, behind the giant waterfall outside of Private Gaming.

  “Did someone shoot themselves in the foot?” she whispered.

  “Looks like it.” And it looked like we’d have to follow the bloody trail to know if it picked up on the other side of the waterfall or not, meaning the bloody boots and their owner could be hiding in Private Gaming. Or they could have ridden the hidden elevator to Disaster. Or they could be somewhere else in the big empty casino. Before we could decide which one of those would be worse, an ear-piercing alarm sounded as a parade of elephants burst in and thundered our way, led, I was sure, by my husband.

  Fantasy ripped off her jacket, put it under Danielle’s head, grabbed her arms, then said, “Get her feet, Davis. Let’s scoot her around the corner.”

  “We can’t move her, Fantasy.”

  “Like hell we can’t. If a gaming agent sees this blood, we’ll never get out of here.”

  She had a point.

  “And besides,” she said. “We’re not moving her. We’re scooting her.”

  We scooted Danielle around the corner, then landed her beside Eddie. (He jerked away from his true love.) I slid down the side of the Oompa Loompa cabinet, put my head between my knees, and tried to breathe.

  * * *

  The Storms were an interesting bunch.

  Formed in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina devastated Biloxi, crushed the Gulf Coast, and almost wiped New Orleans off the map, the Storm Team was in a Bellissimo employee league of its own. Four were temporary positions, filled at the last minute, and the other fourteen positions were permanent. All but one of the fourteen had full-time jobs elsewhere, and that was in addition to being annual salaried Bellissimo employees with benefits. They were never seen, never on the schedule, and they weren’t invited to the company picnic. They were paid very well to do three things: train twice a year, keep an eye on the weather, and wait for the phone to ring. Made up entirely of men, the Storms hadn’t been called since October of 2017, when Hurricane Nate knocked on our door. Four Storms were security specialists: The Head Storm, a Mississippi State Trooper, another a seasoned private investigator, and the last two former police officers, current mall cops. Six were skilled labor: two electricians, two machinists, a master plumber, and a structural engineer. Two were firemen who doubled as heavy-equipment operators. One was a communication specialist, one a chef, one a housekeeper, one an insurance agent, and the last Stormer, a medic. The medic’s name was Miller, and Miller went straight to Danielle.

  My ex-ex-husband waved his bloody hand. “Hey! Over here. She’s already dead.”

  My real husband helped me up. “Are you okay?”

  “Where are the girls?”

  “They’re with Filet.”

  “What? Who?”

  “The chef.”

  “And his name is Filet? You left our daughters with a man named Filet?”

  Miller the Medic snapped open what looked like an EMT trauma kit. He checked Danielle’s pulse, shined a penlight in her eyes, then searched for an injury that could have produced the blood he found on the back of her head. “She’s stable and this isn’t her blood.”

  “Whose blood is it?” Bradley asked.

  Fantasy and I shared a quick look.

  “Probably his.” Miller nodded at bloody Eddie. Then he snapped a thick rectangle of plastic, a compress of some sort, and spread it across Danielle’s forehead. He stepped over her to Eddie. “Your turn.”

  All Miller did was clean and bandage Eddie’s hand.

  The bullet had come from my gun, or a gun like mine, a .22, about the size of a flea. It went straight through the fatty tissue on the outer edge of Stupid’s palm, missing everything. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt or need attention, but you’d have thought Miller was performing a triple bypass with a butter knife and no anesthesia. I married the man twice—Eddie, not Miller, long story—an
d never knew what a big baby sissy girl he was. Eddie Crawford squealed, broke Commandments, cursed his mother, the same mother he’d professed his deathbed love for just moments earlier, cried his eyes out, kicked, and bit the stew out of Miller the Medic before it was over.

  We were collectively open-mouthed staring at the spectacle Eddie was making of himself, and it wasn’t until he dialed it down to a pathetic whimper we noticed Danielle’s legs moving. Then a moan escaped her. Her eyes opened, she blinked several times, then reached up to explore her forehead. With Miller’s help, she sat halfway up, the compress sliding to her lap. She silently and blankly examined our faces. She reached up and gently probed her brow, wincing. We watched as she took in her surroundings. “Wow,” she said. “A casino!”

  She’d taken a hard knock. Maybe she needed a minute.

  Eddie the Idiot waved his bandaged paw. “Look, baby. Look what happened. I was gunned down.”

  Danielle tilted her head, obviously regretted it, adjusted for a more comfortable view, then said, “Who are you?”

  Her words dazed us, so much so we didn’t hear someone sneaking up from behind. Probably because someone was wearing Naturalizer Flexy Flats. My mother joined the circle, took a hard look at flustered me, put the back of her hand to my forehead, then my cheek. “You’ll be fine,” she said. She did the same thing to rattled Fantasy, then said, “You need a stiff drink.” She turned her attention to Eddie and Danielle and told them they needed to grow up and act like adults.

  “Mother, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to take my granddaughters to higher ground, Davis.”

  “I asked Daddy to come get them.”

  My husband looked at me sideways. “You did?”

  My mother was offended. “For your information, I’d already left when you spoke to your father. I know how to drive a car too.”

  Barely.

  “Why didn’t Daddy come with you?”

  “Problems at the Pig, Davis. Your father has a job, you know.”

  I knew. My father was the Chief of Police and Mayor of Pine Apple, population 420 on a good day, but still a job. The Piggly Wiggly was Pine Apple’s only grocery store. “What happened at the Pig?” I cut my eyes to Danielle, wondering why she hadn’t asked the question; she was the Pig’s head cashier.

  “A racoon family,” my mother said. “Tore up the cereal aisle. All the Froot Loops, gone.”

  “Ah.” Pine Apple was in the country. Way in the country. Animal calls were frequent, and all the Pine Apple Froot Loops would never be gone. There were two right in front of me.

  Bradley cleared his throat.

  He was right. We had better things to do than chitchat with Mother, who turned to Danielle. “Who hit you upside the head, Danielle?”

  Danielle didn’t answer but realized everyone was waiting for her to. “Me? Are you talking to me?”

  Hiccup hiccup.

  FOUR

  Bradley sat down at a Treasure Jungle slot machine and I fell into the Mighty Winner chair beside him, thoughts of the trail of blood behind us that he didn’t know about yet foremost on my mind. I wasn’t about to tell him in front of my mother. She’d lose it.

  Bradley pulled his phone out of his pocket. He sent several quick text messages, then made a call. “Filet.” He listened. “Could you repeat that?” He listened. “A little slower and English, please?” Then, “They’re where? With who?” He ended the call. To me, he said, “Our daughters may very well be on live national television.”

  “What?” I landed a panicked hand on his arm. “I thought they were with the cook.”

  “The chef. And they were,” Bradley said. “But now they’re with the Weather One crew.”

  “Doing what?” My nerves were shot.

  Eddie lobbed his bandaged hand in my direction. “See why I’m not married to her anymore?”

  Bradley, me, my mother, Fantasy, and probably Miller the Medic and Danielle too, if she remembered his name, said, “Shut up, Eddie.”

  A little scuffle erupted. (Fantasy kicked Eddie a dozen or so times.)

  “Wait,” Danielle said. “She’s your ex-wife? And we’re dating? And we’re at a casino with your ex-wife? Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?”

  She was not.

  “People.” My husband could command a crowd. And command he did. “I’d like to secure my children.” By all means. Be our guest. Especially mine, since they were my children too. He poked his phone, then passed it to me. It was Weather One, streaming live in front of the Bellissimo fountain. Fantasy and Mother nosed in. Our daughters were in the Bellissimo fountain, splashing around in their new Lilly Pulitzer rompers, the Kinley print, behind Weather One’s Chief Meteorologist, Chip Chapman.

  “Did Kevin pull a fast one on us, or what?”

  Chip Chapman, the Rockstar of Weathercasting. He was a social media darling with a cult following, got away with broadcast murder, and there were no limits to his on-air antics. He was movie star handsome, stunt man brave, and would do just about anything for ratings. Famous for wearing his signature Ray-Ban Aviators on air (“The sun always shines on Chip Chapman!”) and for his on-air gallantries, like standing as close to lava as he could without melting, crawling out of snowslides with frozen eyeballs and blue lips, and chasing tornadoes to their very eyes, broadcasting live with tractors and refrigerators whizzing above his head—he was always the last meteorologist standing at calamitous weather events. It didn’t bode well for us that he was there.

  “After saturating South Florida for three days, Hurricane Kevin surprised everyone but me—” he paused to gloat “—when it took a last-minute left for the Gulf Coast and strengthened, instead of taking a right and dissipating over the Atlantic like every other meteorologist told you it would. Was I right? Did Chippie come through for you again?” He paused, giving viewers a beat to nod at their screens. “Kevin’s winds have reached eighty miles an hour, and Chipsters, I’m here to tell you, that’s deadly.”

  He ripped off his sunglasses.

  He leaned into the camera.

  “Dead-ly.”

  Overcome by emotion, most likely glee, he turned his back to the camera and waved it away. I felt America’s breath catch in its throat. Regaining his composure, Chip settled his sunglasses back on his nose, then carried on somberly. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind the National Hurricane Center will upgrade Kevin to a Category Five before this is over. It’s strengthened in size, in speed, in power, and it’s two hundred miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. In just a few hours, the pressure will fall. Then, Chippies, we’ll feel the breeze. The ocean will swell, and we’ll be able to see the white cirrus clouds of the outer bands with our naked eyes. Things will only get worse. And by worse, Chipomaniacs, I mean cat-O-strophic. In a matter of mere hours, Biloxi will be hammered with massive thunderstorms and savage winds. Just imagine, if you will, a monster storm dumping Biblical rains accompanied by ferocious winds. That’s what we’re in for—” the camera went wide and Chip perked up “—but boy, you wouldn’t know it, would you? Look at this beautiful day. Look at the little beauties splashing in the fountain behind me, Chippers, as if the worst hurricane since Katrina wasn’t headed straight for them.”

  The camera zoomed in on Bex and Quinn.

  “I’ll go,” Fantasy said.

  “I’ll go with you.” Mother dove into her huge purse and pulled out a bath towel. And by bath towel, I meant bath towel. No telling what else she had in there. For all I knew, my gun was in her purse.

  “Why are our children on national television?” I asked my husband. “You left them with a total stranger cook and now they’re with total stranger weather people.”

  “At the time, I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said. “Their mother was in danger. Was I supposed to put them in danger too? I have no idea how t
hey got from the chef to the weather crew, and we can look into it as soon as we finish up with your ex-husband.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Eddie the Idiot quietly snickering.

  “Fantasy.” Bradley caught her before she was out of earshot. “Find the producer and tell him to shut it down before the ambulance pulls in.”

  “Shut what down?” she yelled back.

  “Filming,” he said. “We don’t want an ambulance pulling up to our front entrance on national news.”

  “What ambulance?” I asked.

  My stupid-stupid ex-ex-husband held up his bandaged hand. “My ambulance.”

  Bradley said, “The police are coming for you, Eddie. The ambulance is coming for your girlfriend.”

  His girlfriend spoke up. “I’ve never seen that man in my life.”

  “No, Bradley,” I said. “No one’s coming for anyone.”

  “She needs a hospital, Davis.”

  “Like I don’t?”

  Bradley and I said, “Shut up, Eddie.”

  “I’m going to ride in an ambulance?” Danielle perked up. “I’ve never ridden in an ambulance.”

  “You most certainly have.” Several times that I knew of. Once she fell asleep in the shower—who falls asleep in the shower?—slipped, and slid out across the slippery floor busting a kneecap when a pedestal sink woke her up. Another time, after a few (dozen) beers, she decided to wax her own eyebrows with the blistering runoff from a Glade Pure Vanilla Joy candle and wound up chemically burning her corneas. Her eyelashes never really grew back. And there was the time she drove through the plate glass storefront at the Pig because she didn’t look up from polishing her toenails on the way to work. She was pitched out her open driver window to land on a mountain of bell peppers, one of which lodged its unusually long stem in her right eardrum. “But you’re not riding in one again today.”