Once Upon a Spy (Humorous Cozy Mystery)

by Nic Saint

“Neither did I. That explains why he likes the vodka so much, V.”

  “It certainly would. Well, lemme see. When did we start working for Jack?”

  “Nine months ago? Something like that?”

  “Nine months sounds about right. Right around the time Lindsay got pregnant from that no-good skunk Billy Clapper. And since she’s due any day now, I’d say nine months is exactly right.”

  Matt blinked. “Who’s your contact? Who got you involved?”

  “Eileen McCartney. Though my pops been telling me to join up for years now.”

  “Your… pops?”

  “Yeah. He considers the sanitation business our family business. Been working for the company for coming up on forty years now. And his dad before him, of course. And since all of my brothers are involved as well…”

  “All eight of them, huh, V? And your uncles.”

  “Yep.” She grinned. “You might say the Assenheimers are the Department of Sanitation. Each time a new baby boy or girl is born, pops says ‘here’s another little garbage hauler!’”

  “So funny.”

  “Pops is funny, isn’t he?”

  “Hilarious.”

  “Now my family, on the other hand, isn’t that well connected. I really owe my job to V.”

  “Aww.”

  “No, it’s true. Dad always wanted me to be an architect, but drawing isn’t my strong suit.”

  “Or math.”

  “Or any of the other skills involved.”

  “Too true.”

  “So that’s how I got into the business. I owe it all to V.”

  “Aww.”

  “It’s true!”

  Suddenly a soft whistle sounded. Searching around for the source of it, Yvonne was surprised when it seemed to emanate from Matt. His face was all red again, and he seemed to be blowing through his teeth.

  She then saw Brian staring at her with something of awe in his eyes. “They’re good. They’re really good.”

  “I’ve had it,” declared Matt, shoving back his chair. It scraped on the floor with a horrible sound. Just like a piece of chalk scratching across the blackboard. She hated that sound. “I’ve had it with you two!”

  Yvonne felt her own temper rising. She knew where this guy was coming from. She knew it all too well. “We’re garbagewomen and we’re proud of it, buster.”

  “Damn proud!”

  “Too long the profession has been dominated by men. Well, we’re here to tell you that women can do that job and do it well!

  “Do it better!”

  “And if you don’t like it, you can lump it!”

  “Tell him where to put it, V!”

  “You can take your petty masculine prejudices and your wounded ego and shove it up your—”

  “Matt! Brian!” Feet slapped the cement floor as Frank came racing into the room. Yvonne hadn’t even noticed he’d left. The angular agent was waving a tablet computer in his hand, and seemed extremely excited about something. Panting, he placed the tablet on the table, and pointed at something.

  “What’s happening, V?”

  “That Frank fellow you like so much just came waltzing in here with his iPad and now he’s showing it to the hot guy who’s jealous of the fact that women can pick up garbage as well as men.”

  The hot guy held up his hand with a pained expression. “Please. Refrain from speaking.”

  Brian tut-tutted. “You gave them the truth serum, Matt. Now don’t be cross when they speak their mind.”

  “They’re driving me nuts. Now what do we have here?” He studied the information for a moment, then his eyes perceptibly widened. “It can’t be.”

  Frank nodded excitedly. “It is.” He pointed at something else on the tablet.

  Matt shook his head. “No way.”

  “Way. Look.”

  After a long pause, the three men looked up simultaneously, and gazed at Yvonne intently.

  Matt was the first to speak. “You are a sanitation worker.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Uh-huh. And if you’ve got a problem with that, you can shove it up your—”

  “Your whole family works in the waste management industry.”

  Yvonne lifted her chin. “Assenheimers are the waste management industry.”

  “You tell em, V.”

  “You don’t know Oswin Grant.”

  “Well, unless he’s Hugh’s brother, I’ve never heard of the man.”

  She noticed with interest how a small vein on Joe’s left temple was throbbing. The man definitely had anger management issues. “So what the hell were you doing there?”

  “Picking up garbage of course. What do you think we were doing there?”

  He angrily stabbed at the tablet. “I have your schedule here. You weren’t supposed to be anywhere near Canal Street!”

  Yvonne’s eyebrows shot up. Oops. “I, erm…”

  “Did I get it wrong again, V? Is that what they’re saying?”

  “It’s all right, Iz. I’ve got this.” She glared at Matt. “We thought it more time efficient to do Canal Street first, sir. After all, we are professionals and, being professionals, we sometimes like to interpret the schedule in a, erm, creative way.”

  “I took the wrong turn again, didn’t I?” Izzy gave a short laugh.

  “Let me handle this, Iz.”

  Matt eyed her blankly. “You took a wrong turn?”

  “Not wrong per se, sir. Just different.”

  “Third time this happened to me this week. Duh.”

  “Don’t say another word, Iz. You’re discriminating yourself.”

  “Incriminating,” Brian intoned automatically.

  “We are sanitation workers and we like to do things our way. And that’s the last thing I have to say on the matter.”

  She would have folded her arms across her ample chest at these words, but since her hands were still strapped behind her back, she found it difficult to accomplish that particular feat.

  For a moment, silence reigned supreme as the three men stared at her, seemingly lost for words. Then the oldest one, the white-haired one, gave a short jerk with his head, and as if on cue, his two younger colleagues joined him for an impromptu meeting out of earshot of Yvonne and Izzy.

  Yvonne gave a deep sigh. “We’re so busted.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. Each time that GPS thingie says left, I always think it really means right.”

  “It’s fine, Iz. They can’t fire us over a little thing like that. Can they?”

  “Of course not. They’d be crazy to fire two fine workers such as ourselves.”

  “We did forget to take our shots.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And we did mess up the schedule.”

  “True, too.”

  Yvonne closed her eyes with a groan. “Pops will kill me. No Assenheimer has ever been let go from the DSNY before.”

  Finally, the three men seemed to have concluded their little meeting, and approached. Judging from their inscrutable faces, Yvonne feared the worst.

  “You’re going to fire us, aren’t you? Hottie Matt?”

  “Don’t fire us, Hottie Matt. I promise I’ll learn to distinguish left from right.”

  At the mention of the moniker, Matt furrowed his brow. “Would you stop with the hottie thing already?”

  Yvonne knew it was all over. “If you don’t fire us, I’ll bear your children! I mean, I’d bear your children regardless, cause you’re so hot—the hottest man I’ve ever seen—”

  “Enough already!” he roared, slapping the table with his palm.

  “Ouch. That must hurt,” said Yvonne as she watched him wince.

  “You two are without a doubt the most skilled agents I’ve ever seen. To my knowledge, no one has ever beaten Sodium Pentothal before. The fact that you did, tells me all I need to know.”

  “Uh-huh.” She knew the ax was about to fall, and she braced herself.

  Matt fixed her with a stern gaze. “Yvonne Assenheimer and Izzy Su
perczyński?” Suddenly his face creased into a wide smile. “I would like to formally request you to join the operation in full employ.”

  Yvonne managed a feeble smile. “Join? The CIA?”

  “A division of the CIA, to be precise,” murmured Frank.

  Matt gave her a grin. “We are ASS. Actionable Secrets Service. More intelligent than the CIA. More secure than the NSA. More investigative than the FBI. More, um, homely than the DHS. We are the cream of the crop. The best of the best.” His smile widened. “And we’d be honored to welcome you two remarkable ladies on board.”

  Chapter 6

  Yvonne didn’t hide her confusion. “Change jobs?”

  Joe’s smile remained firmly in place. “Not just change jobs. Working for the ASS is not just a job. It’s a calling!”

  “Uh-huh,” she said dubiously. She gestured at the syringes still lying on the table. “What about the vaccination? You’re telling me you’re not working for the Department of Sanitation?”

  Behind her, Izzy squeaked, “They’re not?”

  Joe’s smile lost some of its wattage. “We’re not. We’re with the ASS.”

  Yvonne frowned dubiously. “The ASS. Right.” She let her eyes roam around the room. “Iz? I think I got it. We’re being punked!”

  “Oh, you guys!”

  Yvonne gave a short laugh. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! Come on, you guys. Show yourselves!”

  Matt pursed his lips and steepled his fingers. “You’re not being punked. This is an ASS facility. We took you here because you were interfering with an ASS operation.”

  “Right. As if any agency would voluntarily call itself ASS. Good one, Hottie Matt.”

  Matt closed his eyes. “Please stop referring to me as Hottie Matt.”

  Frank gave his colleague a nudge. “They’re playing hard to get. I think you should up the ante.”

  “How much do you make at the Department of Sanitation?”

  Yvonne eyed him dubiously. “Well, this year I should net about 34,000?”

  “We’ll double it.”

  Yvonne’s jaw dropped. “Double our salary?”

  “Now I’m sure we’re being punked, V. I bet it’s your brothers.”

  Yvonne grinned. “I bet you’re right. Albert, Archibald, Bert, Cornelius, Ernest, Irving, Randall, Theodore! Come out now!”

  Brian shook his head. “I told you they were good.”

  Matt grunted. “We’ll triple it!”

  Yvonne frowned at the man. He did appear dead serious. For the first time, a hint of doubt started niggling at her consciousness. If they weren’t being punked, were these guys for real? Were they really offering them a job? At triple their current salary?

  “Look, you guys. I don’t think you know what you’re doing. We’re sanwomen. We don’t do…” She gestured at the three of them. “… this. Whatever this is. We keep the streets clean.”

  Matt inclined his head. “So do we.”

  “We take out the trash.”

  “Just like us.”

  “We get up before the crack of dawn and do the dirty work so others can sleep in peace and live their lives, never knowing we’re even out there.”

  “I know you do. And that’s why we’re offering you the chance to join our team. Help us save American lives—keep this country safe from harm.” He eyed her stonily. “It’d be an honor and a privilege to welcome you on board.”

  Yvonne sighed. How could she refuse Hottie Matt anything? The man was smoking! “Pops won’t like it.”

  Matt shrugged. “Well. Pops will just have to accept the fact that you’ve moved on to greener pastures.”

  “What do you say, Iz?”

  “I say let’s do it.”

  “I have one request, though.”

  “Anything.”

  “Could you please remove these handcuffs? They’re killing me.”

  ***

  Brian excused himself and walked over to the long corridor connecting the interrogation room with the rest of the compound. The structure was but one of several the ASS utilized across the country, but to him, usually stationed in New York, it was home.

  He quickly covered the distance to his office, and entered it in a hurry. He could hardly suppress his excitement at the turn events had taken. When Matt had triggered his subcutaneous distress button, the emergency procedure had immediately been kicked into gear, and a rescue team sent out.

  He’d personally run point on the mission, and had been more than a little surprised when the threat to seasoned pros Matt and Frank had turned out to be two garbagewomen.

  Suspecting foul play, they’d bundled them up and hauled them to headquarters for interrogation. The operation to catch the traitor Grant had already been faced with setback after setback, and it was simply too much of a coincidence to find the Assenheimer and Superczyński women on the scene when they did.

  Grant was spying for some foreign power, possibly the Russians, most probably the Chinese, so it was immediately assumed the two women were operatives working in concert with this foreign nation.

  It hadn’t taken them long to figure out they were exactly what they appeared to be: two sanitation workers, in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it had taken Brian even less time to see this for what it was: a golden opportunity.

  Convincing Matt that Assenheimer and Superczyński were in fact master spies working for a rival agency had been a stroke of genius. It wasn’t difficult to persuade his boss. Joe’s male ego was still smarting from the knockout blows he’d sustained at the hands of the fattest of the two. And Frank, who seemed to have the hots for the skinny one, had been even easier to get on board.

  The CIA, he’d reasoned, was trying to steal the ASS’s thunder, and the only way to get back at them, was by stealing their best operatives away from them.

  He’d read in Assenheimer’s DSNY personnel file that her IQ was off the charts, in the negative sense, and so was Superczyński’s. With these two on board, ASS would suffer critical failure, until the fledgling new agency would have to be scrapped.

  He picked up his cell, and placed a call to his contact.

  “Marquis? I think I’ve found a way to destroy ASS from within.” He proceeded to explain to the other what had transpired, and was gratified to hear the Marquis’s wholehearted endorsement for the operation.

  “Assenheimer and Superczyński. Yes. Sanitation workers.” His lips curled up into a smile at the guffaw sounding over the phone. “Yes, sir. I thought it was rather ingenious myself.”

  He listened for a moment, and stared out the window at the drab scenery right outside his window: the dead wall of some old factory. “Judging from the women’s performance, I’d say three weeks. Tops.” He smiled. “Absolutely, sir. They won’t know what hit them.”

  Chapter 7

  Matt took another glance at the file Brian had just sent him. “Amazing,” he murmured. He scrolled through the document. “Simply amazing.”

  Yvonne Assenheimer had not only singlehandedly toppled three dictatorships in the last three years, she’d also managed to take out fifteen terrorists, expose five spy rings and thwart no less than sixteen terrorist attacks on US soil. The woman was a hero!

  He looked up when Frank trotted in and eased himself into the opposing chair.

  “Listen to this,” he said. “Izzy Superczyński was the youngest field agent ever to be approved for active duty. Before her first year was up, she’d already successfully prevented two assassination attempts on foreign heads of state, taken down five terrorism networks and managed to stop a bombing targeting the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

  Frank raised his brows at this little piece of intel. “Somebody wanted to blow up the Pillsbury Doughboy?”

  “I don’t doubt it for a second. It’s like blowing up the Eiffel Tower.”

  “Holy moly.” A look of worship came into Frank’s eyes.

  Matt leaned back in his chair and displayed a wide grin. “I think we just executed a master stroke, b
uddy, by bringing these two into the fold. They’re not simply the best of the best. They’re the best of the best of the best. And by a wide margin at that.”

  Frank surprised him by expelling a wistful sigh. “She’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

  “Who is?”

  “Izzy, of course. I’ve never seen a prettier girl in my life, Matt.”

  “She’s not too bad-looking, sure. A bit skinny for my taste, but—”

  “I think she’s simply wonderful.”

  “You sound like a man in love, buddy. Better watch it.” He tapped his computer screen. “The girl is deadly. According to this file, she can kill a man simply by laying her pinky finger on him.”

  “I wish she would lay her pinky finger on me.”

  “Look, Frank, as your superior officer it is my duty to inform you that interoffice relationships are strictly frowned up within the ASS.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “And as your friend it is also my duty to inform you that this girl?” He jabbed at the screen. “Is way out of your league.”

  Frank heaved another sigh. “Trust me—I know.” He raised his melancholy gaze. “What about you, Hottie Matt. Any comments on one Assenheimer Yvonne? Or the fact she kicked your ass? Three times in a row?”

  Matt groaned at the recollection. “It won’t happen again. If she so much as frowns at me, I promise you, I’ll—”

  “Take another beating?”

  “If I’d known this morning what I know now, I wouldn’t have underestimated her. This is a one-woman fighting machine we’re talking about.”

  “Who has the hots for you.”

  “She was taunting me, Frank. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to beat the needle, for Christ’s sakes! She knew exactly what she was doing the entire time. She was playing with us. Some kind of sick, psychological mind game.”

  “So you don’t think she’s got the hots for you?” Frank seemed disappointed.

  “Of course not. She was simply challenging my authority.”

  “But you like her, right? I saw the way you were looking at her.”

  “I don’t! Like her, I mean.” He gingerly touched his damaged snout. “I respect her. I admire her. But apart from that? I have absolutely no feelings for her whatsoever.”