Not this girl.
CHAPTER THREE
Oleo's is the best food joint in town. Their burgers are the best in the state, and their fries are beer battered and seasoned to perfection. I could eat every meal there every day for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. Of course, my arteries would tap out eventually, but when the food is that good, arteries are highly overrated.
Once we ordered, Hilly looked at me thoughtfully. "So Wally is demanding that you kill Riley." I guess that in spite of my declaration earlier, she knew I wasn't going to follow through.
I fiddled with the straw in my iced tea. "Or he will kill Rex."
"Could you convince him that Rex is that guy who eats all the time?" Hilly wondered.
I shook my head. "Nope. Already tried that. It didn't work."
"Shame, really," she sympathized. "It would've solved your problems."
"You know what?" I put my napkin on my lap, hoping that would somehow speed up the cooking process. "I got some great intel when I was with that gang. If I hadn't been outed, I might've blown the whole organization open."
Hilly seemed to agree. "Yeah, you and that other spy."
"What are you talking about?" I took a big sip from my wine glass. "There wasn't any other spy. I was the only one."
"No, you weren't." She tapped her chin. "That maid he had was from Georgia."
I deflated, sinking back into my chair. "Bitsy? Bitsy was spying for the Republic of Georgia?"
"No, she was from the state, not the country. I think the Agency sent her in to have your back. Or maybe it was to spy on you. I forget which."
I was speechless. The CIA had sent in another spy but didn't tell me? "Dammit!" I swore a bit too loudly.
The restaurant went quiet as every head turned toward me.
Hilly looked around. "Boy. You really are mad."
"Damn right I'm mad!" I said in a slightly quieter voice. "My own company didn't trust me to do the job right, so they sent someone to babysit me!"
"Huh." Hilly cocked her head to one side. "I guess I hadn't thought about that."
"Was Bitsy the one who filmed me?" My voice level started rising.
"I don't know if she knew about it. I heard she retired a few months later. Maybe she thought they'd start looking at everyone a little more closely."
I shook my head. "Doesn't matter. When I'm done with Wally, I'm going to Langley for answers."
Our food arrived. Once the waitress left us, Hilly said, "Good luck with that."
We ate in silence for about five minutes before I spoke up again. "I'm serious. I'm going down there and kicking some ass."
The assassin who wasn't an assassin looked surprised. "Are you still on about that? That was like so five minutes ago!"
"Are you kidding?" I pointed a fry at her.
Hilly grabbed the fry and ate it. "No, I'm not. And don't point fried foods at me. I'm told it triggers me."
"Into doing what?" I had to ask.
She frowned. "I don't really know. A guy in Edinburgh pointed a fried Mars bar at me, and I guess I threw him to the floor and was about to break his neck before they pulled me off him. I don't remember it at all."
I studied my friend carefully. "Maybe you need to take a break or something. It might be PTSD from"—I looked around and lowered my voice—"all those you-know-whats."
"That's what the company psychologist said! She actually said I was most likely to end up naked in a bell tower with a sniper rifle. But close enough! Man, are you good or what?"
"I know a good counselor here in Who's There, if you need one."
Hilly began texting. When she finished, she smashed her phone with a hammer she'd pulled out of her purse. If people hadn't stared before, they sure were doing so now.
"What was that all about?" I looked at the shards of her cell.
"I texted that I was taking time off—starting now." Hilly picked up her burger.
"Yeah, but why smash your phone?" I asked.
She shrugged. "It was just a burner phone. I'll get another one tomorrow. It's my fourth one this month."
"You know," I pointed out, "most people only get one phone and keep it for a couple of years."
Hilly's eyebrows went up. "They do? How do they live like that?"
I took a bite of my burger. I had no idea what to tell her.
An hour later, as we climbed into my minivan, I scouted the area. "Do you think we're being watched right now?"
There was no sign of Wally's truck. But there were other Chechens in town according to Hilly. Which seemed a little ridiculous. In a small town where everyone knows everyone, a bunch of hairy, muscly guys with weird accents would stand out.
Hilly studied the cars around us. "On your left, four cars over, red Fiat. That's the one I spotted at the gas station."
A red Fiat? In Iowa? That really would stand out. Very slowly, I turned my head as I put on my seat belt.
"Ron and Ivan," I said once I turned back to Hilly. "I know them."
"Want me to pluck their nose hairs?" Hilly asked with interest.
"Not really." I stared at her. "Why would you want to do that?"
She looked at me curiously for a moment. "Huh? Oh. Right. You don't work for the Agency anymore. We can't say anything like 'take them out' because we don't officially have assassins. So the new guidelines have phrases like 'pluck their nose hairs' instead. Helps us blend in."
I started the car. "No. It really doesn't. Maybe we should go back to the Cold War and just say 'kill them.'"
Hilly laughed uproariously. "That's so obvious! Seriously, Merry! You're completely out of touch!"
I felt a twinge of defensiveness. "Anyway, no, I don't want you grooming their nostrils. Not yet anyway. I've already had more than enough bodies dropping dead around me on a regular basis."
"Okay," Hilly said as she plucked a Scout magazine from the floor and began to read as I drove us back home.
"So what do we do about Wally?" I asked once we were seated again at the breakfast bar.
Hilly was slicing up some cheese and salami. How could she eat after devouring a half-pound burger with fries mere minutes ago? I was stuffed to the gills. However, that didn't stop me from sampling the Havarti and Gouda. I mean, come on! I'm an Iowan, and this is cheese we're talking about.
The assassin stopped and pointed the knife at me as if to make a point. For a split second I considered grabbing it and throwing her to the floor as a joke. But only for a split second because it's never a good idea to try to disarm a woman who could cut you fifteen different, fatal ways before your fingers would even touch the blade.
"Have you thought about going through with it?" she asked before going back to slicing.
I snagged a piece of sausage. "Believe me, I've thought about it. And if you tell me he knew about Bitsy, then I'll suddenly have the easiest solution to this whole problem."
"I don't know if he did know about Bitsy." Hilly shoved the cheese and meat into a huge pile before taking another sausage log from the fridge. I didn't even know that was in there.
"But," she continued, "I don't think we could get away with it. The company kind of frowns on closing the lipstick tube on your own kind." Hilly paused. "That's another of the new replacement phrases." She said it slowly and loudly, as if I was an idiot. I decided to let it go.
"That's too bad," I said through a mouthful of Gouda. "Okay. On to Plan B."
"Which is?" Hilly asked.
"Plan B is where we come up with Plan B." I rubbed my forehead. All this meat, all that wine, a Chechen strongman in my house, and the crazy swim party earlier had taken its toll. I spotted my husband's car pulling in across the street. "Rex is home. I'd better go."
"Say hi to him for me." Hilly began putting everything into giant baggies. "I'll give it some thought tonight."
"Yeah." I got up from the bar and tossed her my keys to the house. "Me too."
As I walked across the street, I tried to formulate some way of warning Rex. Nothing
was coming to me, so I was walking very slowly. Finally, after dodging two cars in the middle of the street, I gave up.
"Hey, babe!" I went in through the kitchen and kissed him as he cooked.
My gorgeous, dark-haired husband smiled. "Hello, beautiful! Want some dinner?"
I slumped into a chair. "Sorry. I had dinner with Hilly."
My husband stopped messing with the stove and turned to face me, wooden spoon in hand. Oh hey! He was making sloppy joes! Did I have room for one or two of those, I wondered?
Rex's eyebrows went up. "Hilly? Hilly the assassin who's not an assassin is back?"
That's when I realized that I had no idea why she was here. "Yup. Said she was thinking of me and, well, just showed up. She's staying at my house."
My husband shook his head but smiled. "Your old house. This is your house."
Philby, my obese cat who looked like Hitler, waltzed into the room and jumped up onto the counter, watching the ground beef sizzling in the pan.
"Oh no you don't." Rex gently lifted the rotund cat back to the floor.
Philby had learned a while back that if we had meat and she wanted it, she just needed to touch it with her paw and sit back, wait for us to get grossed out, and receive said meat. It worked on my husband but rarely on me. I mean, seriously, it's cooked, right?
The cat trotted out of the room, tail floofed with disgust. I wondered where the dog and Martini, Philby's daughter who looked like Elvis, were. Probably napping in the living room. Martini had a narcolepsy problem that my vet believed was nothing. Lately she'd taken to sleeping on the Scottish deerhound. He didn't seem to mind as long as it wasn't Philby. That cat scared him to death.
"Hilly's in town." Rex went back to the stove. "And you don't know why."
"That pretty much sums it up." I got a bottle of beer from the fridge and handed it to him.
"Okay then," he said. "How did the swim party go?"
Philby trotted into the room wearing a rubber werewolf mask. She'd stolen it from us last Halloween and had recently taken to wearing it when she was miffed. I wasn't sure if she thought it would scare us into doing her bidding. In a way, she was a lot like Wally.
I filled Rex in on the swim party, leaving out the new, alarming Chechen presence in my hometown. I was just wondering how I could convince him to leave the state for the next five days when the doorbell rang.
"Now what?" I threw my hands in the air and headed for the front door.
Riley stood on my front porch, smiling. In the distance, I spotted Wally in his truck. He dragged his finger across his throat when he spotted me.
"Come in," I said as calmly as possible.
Riley, the other handsome man in my life, was wearing a black polo shirt with khaki slacks and dress shoes. As he walked in, he ran his hand through his slightly too long, blond wavy hair.
"Thanks. Oh wow, is Rex cooking? I'm just in time."
Despite the fact that I'd dated Riley very briefly a long time ago, and the fact that he'd tried to rekindle a romance with me two years ago, he and Rex got along well. It helped that my husband wasn't the jealous type and that Riley had given up, moving on to wealthy, hot housewives who'd hired him to spy on their husbands.
I followed him to the kitchen, my fingernails digging into my palms. I was plenty pissed off about the video of me in Chechnya. But with Wally just outside, this didn't seem like the right moment to brain him with Rex's frying pan. Besides, it would ruin dinner.
The two men greeted each other genially, and Rex offered my former partner a beer and invited him to dinner. An invitation he was happy to accept. As they chatted, my mind wandered to the man out front. Did he expect me to kill him right here, right now?
What if I covered myself in raw hamburger and walked outside and told him I'd done it? Would he believe me and leave? Wally wasn't the brightest bulb, but he may demand a body to prove it.
"I'm gonna check on Martini," I mumbled as I left the kitchen.
The men didn't even acknowledge me as they got to talking about a new model of handcuffs that had just come on the market. Normally I'd be just as interested, but I had to see if Wally was still outside, waiting.
Martini was where she usually was. Sound asleep on her most energetic day, she'd recently taken to napping in the middle of the coffee table. On her back, arms and legs splayed as if she were prepped for an alien autopsy, I left her alone. Leonard lifted his head from his dog bed and wagged his tail. I stroked his fur and indicated that he should stay. He dutifully went back to sleep.
The sun was setting, and Wally was still across the street. When he spotted me, he got out of his truck and walked to the sidewalk. He motioned again for me to cut Riley's throat. I shook my head.
He nodded vigorously. What? Did he have some sort of deadline? I held up five fingers, indicating, I hoped, that he'd remember the agreement. Wally held up four fingers. We furiously pantomimed for a few minutes. I had no interest in going outside to confront him, and he didn't seem to want to come in.
I was wrong. To my complete horror, Wally walked up and rang the doorbell.
I flung the door open and stepped outside. The man had changed into an aloha shirt, baggy shorts, and sport sandals. The pirate hat was missing.
"What are you doing?" I hissed.
"I make sure you follow through." He started to push past me to the door.
I stood firm. "No way. My husband, the cop, is in there. And Riley knows who you are! Are you crazy?"
Riley had, in fact, never met Wally face to face. But as my handler on that assignment, he knew who he was alright. Which made me wonder, how did Wally find out about Riley?
"You introduce me as cousin from…" He stared off into space as he thought about it. "The Alamo."
I rolled my eyes. "The Alamo? You mean San Antonio."
He frowned. "There is no Alamo?"
I'd forgotten that he was a fan of the old, black and white Fess Parker as Davy Crockett TV show. Between that and CNN, you had the whole TV lineup in his part of Chechnya.
"There is," I corrected, "an Alamo. But it's…"
He smiled as he interrupted. "Great! I go stay there next! So please to kill Riley quickly so I can go."
"It's a museum now," I said. "You can't live there." Then I realized this was useless. When Wally fixated on an idea, you couldn't talk him out of it. "You gave me five days!"
"Five days to do what?" Rex's voice came from behind me.
"Hi!" Wally pushed past me and extended his hand. "I am Finn's cousin from the Alamo! Wally!"
Rex shook it but looked at me questioningly. I never went by Finn anymore. And of course, he would notice that.
"Nice to meet you," Rex said when I didn't speak up. "It's been a long time since you've seen my wife. She doesn't go by Finn anymore. She's Merry."
Wally was standing in front of me, and I reached out and savagely pinched his back. He didn't react.
"Oh, right," Wally breezily corrected. "I come from old country. Haven't seen American family for a while."
Rex thought about this. "Didn't you say you were from the Alamo?"
I forced a laugh. "Wally's a kidder. He just came from visiting the Alamo. But he is from the old country alright."
My husband smiled and stepped back. "Why don't you join us for dinner, Wally?"
"Love to!" the Chechen said as he walked inside. "Are you coming, cousin?" he asked me with an oily grin.
"Of course." I swallowed hard. "I wouldn't miss this for anything."
CHAPTER FOUR
"Stay here." I pushed Wally into a dining room chair. "I'll help Rex bring dinner out."
To my surprise, he stayed put. Once in the kitchen, Riley gave me a strange look. The look that said he knew something was up.
I scratched my right elbow, and he stiffened. It was body language from back when we worked together. It meant that we were in danger and he needed to play along. Spies usually work out these signals with their handlers, and it really does help in a tight
spot. Rubbing our eyes with our fists meant we were being watched. My right hand on his shoulder meant someone was sneaking up behind him. And tugging on your earlobe meant that the Carol Burnett Show was still airing in the country we were in—always a bonus.
He gave me the slightest nod, and I knew he'd understand.
"Riley," I said cheerfully, "you remember my cousin from the old country, Aslan?" Before he could say anything, I said, "Well, he prefers Wally. He's visiting, and Rex has invited him to come in and join us for dinner."
Riley's jaw tightened for a split second before he lapsed into an easy smile. "Really? That's great. I'm looking forward to chatting with him again."
In reality, Riley and Wally had never met. But they both knew who the other was. This was going to be the dinner from hell. With sloppy joes, nonetheless.
Five minutes later, there we were, all facing each other over the dinner table. Rex sat at the head of the table with my fake cousin and me on his left. Riley sat on my husband's right across from Wally.
I'd had awkward dinners before. Like in Argentina when the prime minister, who was an amateur mime on weekends, ended up having dinner with me and the foreign minister, who was spying on the prime minister for me, in an Appleby's in Buenos Aires. I know that doesn't sound so bad, except for the fact that the prime minister was starting to suspect the foreign minister of espionage and sleeping with his wife, which, in fact, he totally was.
"Oh!" Wally's eyes grew wide when he spotted Philby in the werewolf mask. "You have cat!"
Rex frowned in concern. "Are you allergic? I can put them in the bedroom."
And have Philby throw up in my shoes out of fury of missing a loose meat buffet? No way.
"No!" Wally shook his head. "I love cats. We love cats back in…" His words faltered because he didn't know what old country my ancestors came from.
"Czechoslovakia," I finished for him. "Big cat-loving culture there."
Rex dished up the sandwiches and homemade French fries he'd made. Riley looked relaxed but never took his eyes off Wally, who was staring rather obviously at the man he wanted me to kill.
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