Lady Blues

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  The door rolled up and we ducked inside.

  Next to her yellow Dodge, a mountain of white boxes with Novacom labels filled one side of the bay.

  I moved closer to examine them. “Memorphyl,” I said. Thousands of packets lay in what I guessed were over fifty boxes. “The pink pills?” I asked, calculating how many years of relief the cache would provide.

  “Yeah. The reps loaded all of them into the garbage gondola out back at Bello Mondo. I heard them talking. They said they were losing profits ‘cause the pills worked too well. Actually, I got a video of it with my cell phone. The picture is blurry, but you can hear their words very clearly.” She brandished the phone from her pocket. “Not that this did me any good out here. I can’t even get one bar.”

  I stared at her. The woman had single-handedly recovered the key evidence, saved enough to restore Kip’s memory, and taken a video most likely to damn them in court. No wonder Novacom wanted her. And no wonder they’d been searching everyone’s place for the medication they tried to throw away in the dumpster. They wouldn’t want that evidence to turn up in an investigation.

  Something hard jabbed into my back. With a jolt, I realized it was a gun muzzle pressed against my spine.

  “Christ almighty. You two are gonna put me in an early grave with all this running around. Turn around, LeGarde. You too, Debbie.”

  The voice was familiar, and instantly I recognized the Novacom rep with the flat black eyes.

  I slowly turned around. “You’re awfully predictable,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Is this what you were looking for?” I gestured toward the towering boxes of Memorphyl. “I thought you threw these into the dumpster?”

  “Maybe. But we didn’t plan on her going dumpster diving.” His eyes slid sideways, darting from Debbie to the Memorphyl and back to me. “Move,” he said. “We’re going inside.” He growled and brandished the gun toward the cabin. “No funny stuff, LeGarde. I’ll put a bullet in you quicker than you can say boo.”

  The blood drained from Debbie’s face. Her hands clenched into balls and her mouth tightened. “Alphonso, you bastard.” She spat the words at him. “You don’t give a damn about the patients.”

  I hadn’t known Alphonso’s name, and wasn’t sure if it was his first or last. But at this point, I didn’t really care. I ached to smash the gun out of his hands and knock him across the driveway, but I’d have to bide my time until the timing was right. I didn’t want Debbie getting shot. Or me. Neither was high on my wish list.

  “Business is business,” he said. “Now move it.”

  We shambled slowly toward the cabin. I hoped Kip or Lucy had seen us and hid themselves.

  “What are you gonna do?” I said in a loud voice, hoping to alert Lucy and Kip. “Kill us? You can add that to fraud and whatever else you’ll be charged with for switching the medicine that worked with those useless yellow pills.” I stumbled toward the porch with Alphonso’s gun still digging in my ribs. “Or will you tie us up and leave us, like you did Curtis and Bella?”

  “Who?” he said, shoving me hard.

  I lurched forward, but grabbed the porch railing before I went all the way down. “Those two nice folks you tied up and deserted in their basement, after you tossed their house.” I paused again, hoping to give Lucy more time.

  “Oh. Them.” His eyes flickered briefly, confirming his guilt. “Shoulda killed ‘em. Just like I’m gonna kill you two pains in the ass.”

  Debbie froze and stared at him with venom. “You’re killing us? For money? For God’s sake, Alphonso.”

  “Why else would I risk my neck?” He actually smiled. “It’s enough to live on, forever. I’m planning on a nice little beach house in the Bahamas. Early retirement.”

  I tried to keep him talking. “How’d you find us? I saw your car tailing us earlier, but I thought I lost you.”

  “Ever hear of bugs?” This time he sneered. “Isn’t technology great?” A sense of pride drifted over his face. “I knew you’d lead me to the stash, eventually.” He shoved the gun in my side. “Now, move. Stop stalling.”

  Does he know I came here with Lucy? That Kip is in the house?

  Debbie stuck out her chin, planting both her hands on her hips. “I’ve hidden more Memorphyl at another location, and plenty of people will know where it is. I mailed letters to the authorities yesterday.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “I really did,” she said, nodding with the confidence of the righteous.

  “Good for you.”

  In return, I received a steely glare from Alphonso, who shoved me to the porch deck.

  When I pulled myself up by the wall, I felt for my cell phone and slowly drew it out of my pocket, holding it close to my side. I flipped it sideways to see if I had a signal.

  No service. Damn.

  Alphonso waved us forward. “Hurry up. Inside.”

  Lucy and Kip were nowhere to be seen. I breathed a careful sigh of relief, but wondered where in the world she had stashed him, and when she would return to take a shot at this silver-haired lunatic who constantly poked his gun at me.

  He pulled out a cell phone, and frowned. “No signal?”

  “What’s the matter,” I said. “Can’t call your pals?”

  Incensed, he threw his phone onto the couch and spun around as Debbie edged toward the kitchen. “Get back over here, you meddlesome bitch. Pull out a chair and sit. You too, Professor.”

  I ignored him and ambled toward the fireplace, holding my own cell phone out as if searching for a signal. “Hey, I’ve got one bar over here.”

  “Give me that damned phone.” He held the gun on me with one hand and pulled a roll of duct tape out of his pocket with the other. In seconds, he had secured Debbie’s arms and legs to the chair.

  I swung my arm around as if trying to get a better signal, moving closer to the firewood stacked on the left side of the hearth. I climbed up on the Adirondack chair set in the corner of the room.

  He watched me, his coal black eyes glittering. “Get down from there, damn you!”

  “Two bars up here.”

  Furious, he snatched his phone from the couch and darted to my side. Grabbing my phone, he hurled it across the room and pushed me off the chair. With a victorious air, he climbed up in my place.

  Just what I’d hoped he’d do.

  When he held his phone up to catch the elusive signal, I seized the nearest piece of firewood and swung toward him, smashing it into the back of his knees. Gun and phone clattered to the floor, and he fell off the chair, collapsing onto the rug. Alphonso howled like a wounded bear, and it was all I could do to keep from smiling. All the pain he’d put those poor folks through at Bello Mondo. It infuriated me.

  I thought he was done, but to my shock he scrambled toward the gun, almost reaching it before I could react.

  With vengeance and absolutely no remorse, I swung again, this time at the back of his head. I put all I had into the blow.

  Kill or be killed.

  A sickening thud resulted, and his eyes rolled into his head. He fell with a soft thump to the polished oak floor.

  Chapter Forty-one

  I leaned down to feel the pulse in Alphonso’s neck, but couldn’t find it. Debbie shouted from the other side of the room. I couldn’t make out her words.

  Is he dead?

  In that one moment, with adrenaline pumping through my body, with anger and outrage shouting in my brain, I almost hoped so.

  He moaned and stirred.

  “Gus, get the gun!”

  I didn’t need to be told twice what to do, and scurried for the weapon. Alphonso didn’t move again, but to be safe, I grabbed the duct tape and secured his legs and hands. He lay on his side. Blood matted his silver crew cut. The ruthless detachment I felt when yanking his limbs around almost surprised me, but I didn’t care. The bastard was going to kill us, and I’d stopped him. I wouldn’t apologize to anyone.

  A whooshing sound came from the sliding glass door in
the back of the room. Lucy stood with her gun arm slack at her side and an expression of astonishment on her face. “So, you really can whack ‘em, eh, Gus?”

  I glanced up at Lucy’s grim features. She stowed her gun and hurried to release her sister.

  “When necessary, I guess I can.” My hands started to tremble, ever so slightly. I walked to the fireplace and stoked the fire, hoping she didn’t notice. “Where’s Kip?”

  She ripped the last of the tape from Debbie’s arms and straightened. “He’s in the old shed by the pond. Not too far away. Thanks for stalling, though. You gave me time to stash him.”

  I nodded, and grimaced toward Alphonso. “So, what do we do with this piece of garbage?”

  She walked toward him and looked as if she wanted to kick him. It didn’t happen, but I read the hatred in her eyes.

  “We call the cops. We explain that Kip wasn’t kidnapped. He will corroborate that. We get them to promise to leave Debbie alone after she’s interviewed and videotaped. We turn over the evidence Deb collected. The video. The pink pills.”

  I nodded, warming to her ideas. “And then we get Kip over to Curtis’s house. He’s awfully anxious to meet someone.”

  A smile creased her face. Her eyes, steely when she first entered, softened and glanced out the window, apparently toward the shed. “You wanna get Kip while I run to the neighbors’ to use their phone?”

  I nodded. “It would be my pleasure, Luce. Just point me in the right direction. And give Camille a call for me when you get there, would you? Tell her our cell phones don’t work in this area, and that we’re okay.”

  “Will do.”

  I gave her our number and she punched it into her useless cell phone rather than write it down, saved it to her address book, and pointed to a path curving off to the east. “See that trail?”

  I leaned against the windowsill. “Uh huh.”

  “Just follow it for a few hundred yards and you’ll run right into the shack.”

  “Right,” I said. “But I’m not sure if Debbie will be comfortable staying here all alone with him.”

  Debbie gently took the gun from my hand and chuckled. “Don’t worry about me, Gus. I’m armed and dangerous.”

  Five hours later, Kip and I got in my SUV and headed for Curtis’s house. Debbie was taken to the Livingston County Sheriff’s to give a deposition, and Lucy went along to be sure they treated her well. I almost pitied the cops who took her away. Lucy was one tough lady.

  The ambulance carted Alphonso off, but not until we’d clarified the events that led to my ‘whacking’ him as Lucy called it. Joe Russell and Adam Knapp had appeared quicker than the rest, and helped guide us through the process without too much trouble.

  Kip sat up straight in the passenger seat beside me, his face careworn, but his eyes alive with anticipation.

  “Excited?” I said.

  He tilted his head toward me and flashed a half smile. “You can’t imagine.”

  I phoned Camille when we re-entered the village of Honeoye, where I finally received a good signal. After filling her in on the details and my plans, I’d called Curtis and Bella, who anxiously awaited our arrival.

  I hung up, and Kip said, “How does she look?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Beautiful. Just like her picture. And she’s a real spitfire—so full of life, she lights up the whole room.”

  Kip smiled with a knowing look. “That’s my Bella. No doubt about it.”

  The euphoria lifting me from the depths of exhaustion swelled and doubled. I took the next turn a bit too fast, speeding in the direction of Conesus Lake.

  “Slow down there, cowboy. I’ve waited for seven decades, I can wait seven more minutes.”

  Chuckling, I backed off on the accelerator and willed myself to drive more sedately. “Sorry, Kip.”

  He readjusted his seatbelt and pulled down the sun visor to block the late afternoon rays glinting through the windshield. “Thank you, Gus. For everything. You found my son, and Debbie—”

  I stopped him mid-sentence. “No, Kip. Thank you. It’s been a real pleasure getting to know you.”

  He acknowledged my remark with a small smile, and sat up straighter when we turned up Turkey Hill.

  “Almost there,” I said.

  Kip’s dark blue eyes shone. He patted the white hair on his scalp, and fastened his top button.

  “Is it better this way, or undone?” he asked, with a trace of nerves.

  I glanced at him. “Where’s your bow tie?”

  He grimaced as if it really mattered. “Drat! At the nursing home. When they moved me from the home to the hospital, they only packed this dang-blasted white shirt and these awful green trousers.”

  I turned into Curtis’s driveway, parked the car, and turned to him. “My dear man, I don’t think Bella will care whether or not your top button is fastened. She just wants to see you. Her music man, the father of her son.”

  Heaving a sigh of relief, he smiled and unlocked his door. “Okay, Gus. You’re right. Now get me out of this contraption and help me inside.”

  I held Kip’s elbow and guided him up the front steps. The curtain fluttered in the window and the door swung wide open. Curtis burst onto the steps and ran to embrace him. “Dad!”

  “Hello, son. Okay, okay. Don’t knock me over, now.” His face contradicted his protests. Eyes closed with an easy smile, he hugged Curtis for a long time.

  A voice came from inside the house. “For Heaven’s sakes, boy. Let go of your daddy. It’s my turn.”

  Bella beamed from the doorway and locked gazes with Kip, whose hands fell in a limp flutter to his sides.

  He stood transfixed, his eyes searching hers. Slowly, he walked to her. “My Bella. Oh my God. My Bella.”

  They disappeared into the house. Curtis and I stopped staring long enough to collect ourselves and share embarrassed smiles. He gestured toward the door with a flourish. “Please, come inside.”

  I slid my arm around his shoulder and smiled. “You think it’s okay? Shouldn’t we give them a moment?”

  He chuckled. “They won’t even notice, I promise.”

  He was right. Bella and Kip sat on the couch, embracing. She snuggled into his neck, holding one of his hands against her chest. He stroked her hair, eyes closed, murmuring her name over and over again. She slumped into him as if she belonged there, and hummed a bluesy tune.

  Kip rocked her, ever so slightly, and time melted away as Curtis and I chatted quietly over our coffee in the far corner of the kitchen.

  After a long while, Bella lifted her head and backed up a few inches. Taking Kip’s face between her hands, she stared deep into his eyes. “Good Lord, my man, you haven’t changed at all. I still see the night sky in your eyes.”

  A laugh burst from him and he nearly choked on his reply. “My dear, I love hearing that, but I’m afraid you may need spectacles. You know I’m an octogenarian. On the other hand, you look as fresh as you did the day we parted.”

  She leaned toward him, pressing her lips against his. He returned the kiss, tentatively at first, then with more urgency. When they parted, he kissed her eyelids, one after the other.

  A throaty chuckle emerged from her lips and her eyes fluttered open, smiling into his. “You always were a good fibba, Kip Sterling.”

  “Me?” He protested. “Not at all. It’s the truth. I feel like I’m robbing the cradle.”

  This time she swatted him, laughing with a rich stentorian sound. “You get out of here, Kip.”

  He prepared to rise. “Okay, if that’s what you want, dear woman.”

  Without hesitating, she grabbed him and pulled him back into her arms. “Don’ you dare. Don’ you ever leave my side agin. I don’ care if Glenn Miller wants to train you to be a conductor. I don’ care if there is a war on. I don’ even care if you have to use the little boys’ room. You are not leavin’ my side. Evah agin.”

  He snuggled back against her and lost himself in her embrace. “It’s a deal, my love. I�
��m all yours.”

  She smoothed the hair on the top of his head, and leaned over to kiss it. “Good. And now, let’s settle back an’ you can tell me what really happened the day you went missin’.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Kip sank back against the couch with his arm draped around Bella. “I’m going to tell you everything I can recall, my dear. And lately, I’ve remembered details buried for years.”

  Curtis and I exchanged glances, and he jumped up from his chair with one finger flailing in the air. “Wait! Dad, Mom? If you’re going to talk about what happened that night, I need to video tape it. I don’t want to lose one word.”

  Kip raised one eyebrow. “Well, okay, son. I don’t exactly understand all these new gizmos, to tell the truth. But if you must, then go ahead.”

  Bella snuggled against him for another minute, until Curtis returned with a tabletop tripod and digital camcorder. He fiddled with it for a few minutes, then pushed record and waved his father on. “Go ahead, Dad. It’s on.”

  Kip, flustered at first, collected himself and ignored the recorder after a few moments. “Okay. Well, let’s see. Perhaps a bit of history is in order, since you may not know a lot about my past, Curtis. And then we’ll get to the night I ‘disappeared.’”

  Curtis and I sat forward, eager for the mysteries to be unveiled. Bella gently slid out from Kip’s arm and settled back against the couch pillows, smiling, seeming to relish every moment.

  Kip crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands on his lap. “I was born in 1926. My family moved to New York City when I was a sophomore in high school, because my mother, a renowned thespian, landed an important role on Broadway. She starred for years in ‘All I Want,’ with some pretty big names.” A nostalgic smile stole over his face. “She was a lovely woman. So poised and elegant. I wonder what happened to her? Bella, when we’re all caught up, we will need to find my parents’ graves.”