by Webb, Peggy
I’ve never had a flair for drama, even as a child. In school plays I was always the kid picked to stand in the back row and be a cabbage. Plus, my eye twitches when I tell a lie.
“First the ghosts and now this.” Mama pours herself some coffee and sits beside me. “Charlie, somebody’s definitely trying to run us off.”
“I think you’re onto something, Mama.”
Whatever Uncle Charlie thinks he’s keeping to himself. Probably, he’s thinking that if he confirms Mama’s suspicions, he’ll add to our stress. His MO is serve and protect.
Listen to me. If I’d said that out loud, I’d sound just like Lovie after she’s watched too many film noir movies.
“Where’s Rosita?” I try to make this question nonchalant. I don’t want Mama and Fayrene any more riled than they already are.
Before anybody can answer, Rocky rushes into the courtyard hatless, disheveled, and frantic. Now what?
“Ghosts prowled Tulum all night and five of my men have run off.” He grabs a doughnut, heads toward the table, sees us practically in our underwear, and does a quick shuffle backward. Ever the perfect gentleman, he even makes a half-turn so his back is to us.
Listen, I don’t approve of our being out here practically naked any more than he does, but I’m not about to barge into a cottage full of snakes just so I can look presentable on the outskirts of a jungle.
“Jack’s on it,” Uncle Charlie tells Rocky. “He’ll find out who’s at the bottom of your problems, and I can guarantee it won’t be ghosts.”
“I appreciate that, Charlie, but I don’t know how I’m going to carry on my archeological work while I oversee a murder investigation and search for Lovie.”
Mama perks up and is all poised to put her two cents in, but I shake my head. Let the men do what they want. The women have a different plan.
“Don’t worry about a thing, boss.” Seth strolls into the courtyard. I didn’t even hear him approach, which is not like me. “Archie can keep the remaining men on task while you and I search the jungle for Miss Lovie.”
Seth proceeds to fill his plate, then plops down at the table ignoring our nightclothes. “Are you ladies having a good morning?”
“Fayrene found snakes in the bathroom this morning,” Mama says.
“I’m about prostate with fear.”
Poor Rocky chokes over Fayrene’s miraculous body part, but Seth is unfazed.
“Around here, they’re a minor nuisance.”
Is he kidding or is he just trying to make light of a bad situation?
Suddenly the air sizzles with a different kind of energy. Jack is standing by the entrance to the courtyard. He might as well be a stick of dynamite. And not only where I’m concerned. Seth gets very quiet, and his shoulder muscles bunch up. I’d never noticed he had so many. Up close, he looks like a contestant for Mr. Atlas.
Jack strolls casually to the table, but there’s nothing casual in the way his black eyes bore into me. Without a word about the snakes, he places a map on the table.
“I’ve laid out the search area in quadrants.”
Overhead, helicopter blades beat the air, a sober reminder of Lovie’s plight.
Seth rallies, then pops up to inspect the map. “Great idea, Jack. Rocky and I will take the north quadrant. You and Charlie start with the east.”
Jack sizes Seth up with a look that turns the brash young man’s face bright red. Then he nods to Uncle Charlie. What’s going on here? More than Jack and Uncle Charlie will ever tell, I’m sure. Even under questioning.
I’m next on Jack’s list of people he can undo with a single look. Sweat rolls down the sides of my face, and if I squeeze my Jimmy Choo shoe any harder, the heel’s going to pop off.
“Cal, the cottage is safe now.” He’s clearly dismissing me. Mama and Fayrene, too, of course.
“What about the snakes?”
“Dispatched.” Jack says this the same way he might tell me he sent his best friend for a three-day vacation to Vicksburg where you can get on a riverboat and gamble on the mighty Mississippi River. Legalizing gambling was another major lapse of judgment by certain politicians, might I add.
I could sit here and play games with Jack and wish I didn’t have gambling practically in my back yard to tempt Mama, but I have other plans. Which I hope will remain undetected by my almost-ex. Plus, I want him in the jungle leading the search for Lovie and Elvis.
I stand up. “Mama, Fayrene, let’s grab breakfast and take it to the Temple of the Frescoes so we can eat by the sea.”
Thank goodness, Mama catches on and doesn’t argue. Fayrene is another story.
“I thought we were going to help solve this mystery before there’s another futility.”
Poor Rocky. It’s hard enough for him to get his mind around the fact that Lovie might be a fatality, much less a futility.
But what’s up with Jack? Why is he not ordering me to stay put? At the breakfast buffet table, I load up a plate with doughnuts. Being around Jack always does that to me. All that energy I have to pour into restraint, I guess.
Balancing my plate and my coffee, I’m headed back toward the cottage with Fayrene and Mama when Jack says, “Cal, Archie Morgan will be keeping an eye on you ladies while we’re gone. Let him know if you need anything.”
“Good idea,” Seth says.
He doesn’t have a clue. When Jack Jones is this casual and offhand, you’d better be watching your back and digging for motive.
“Thanks, Jack.” Mama smiles and waves at her almost-ex son-in-law.
The minute we’re out of earshot, I say, “Mama, are you kidding me? That’s his way of keeping tabs on us.”
“I know.”
“If you knew, why’d you say thanks?”
“Carolina, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
Maybe she’s right. But in case she hasn’t noticed, Jack is hardly a fly.
The guest cottage is just up ahead. I’m not as anxious to enter as I was to leave. Obviously Mama and Fayrene feel the same way. If the three of us slow down any more, you won’t even know we’re moving.
“I’m not going in that bathroom by myself,” Fayrene says.
“What do you think best friends are for? If you need to go to the bathroom, just call Cal. She’ll go with you.”
This is one of those times I wish Mama would speak for herself. Still, I’d want somebody with me if I were reentering a room recently occupied by “deadless” snakes.
It takes us less than two minutes to change out of our nightclothes into shorts and tee shirts. Mama and Fayrene grab hats, I secure my hair against the heat in a hasty French twist, and we get the heck out of Dodge, as Lovie would say. Only she wouldn’t say heck.
Since Jack will surely have Archie Morgan spying to see if we actually go to the Temple of the Frescoes, we head that way. Over doughnuts and coffee, we discuss how to sneak into the main cottage without detection.
“Disguises,” Mama says. “This place will soon be crawling with tourists. All we have to do is disguise ourselves to look like them.”
“Does that mean I have to wear something besides green?”
“Cheer up, Fayrene,” I tell her. “We won’t be wearing disguises.”
“Flitter. I’d like to know why not?” Mama hates being wrong.
“Because Archie Morgan will be watching. He wouldn’t let a tourist into the main cottage any more than he’d want us snooping around there.”
“What are we going to do?” Mama asks.
“The two of you are going to create a diversion while I sneak in. Then you’re going to hotfoot it back to your rooms. I’ll meet you after I finish snooping.”
“What kind of diversion?” Fayrene wants to know.
“I’ve got a plan.” Mama perks up at being back in charge.
Even if it involves channeling her inner animal, I don’t care. All I need is enough time to get on Rocky’s computer to do some cyber-snooping, then search the room off the kitchen where Jua
nita and Rosita sleep.
Considering that we’ve already been through a kidnapping plus encounters with ghosts and snakes, the hard part’s over.
What else can possibly go wrong?
Elvis’ Opinion #8 on Foes, Big Macs, and Monkey Business
Well, bless’a my soul. Here we are in a primitive village so remote it’s probably not even on the map.
The painted-up savages lead us to a little thatched hut and shove us inside. Lovie’s gagged so she can’t protest, and my paws are so scratched up, I’m grateful to be anywhere but traipsing through the jungle.
I’m so tired when I plop down on the mat, I don’t know whether to growl “Release Me” or “Reconsider Baby.” Lovie thrashes around to let me know she’s as far from “Surrender” as you can get. If she thinks I’m going to drag myself over there and start gnawing ropes in front of restless natives carrying sharp-pointed spears, she’s fried a few brain cells with her own Prohibition Punch.
Even that empty-headed monkey is not foolish enough to untie her ropes and stir up the natives. He followed us all the way through the jungle, and is now up a tree outside our hut chattering as if he had something to say.
He might as well keep his trap shut. I can’t understand monkey talk any better than I can cannibal talk. Even my famous mismatched ears are no match for fools not speaking English.
Let me tell you, if I spoke that monkey’s language, I’d tell him to get out there and scavenge up some food. The King never goes hungry. Back in my heyday as a worldwide icon with black sideburns, I could call down to Graceland’s kitchen any time of the day or night and everybody would scurry to fix whatever I wanted. Usually a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Sometimes a BLT with a whole pound of bacon. Once, the doctor put me on a diet and the kitchen staff tried to cut back on the bacon, but I fixed that in a hurry.
“Who do you think pays your salary?” I asked, and they nearly broke their necks hustling back to the kitchen for the rest of my bacon.
Now I limp around this mean shack looking for scraps and don’t even find a crumb fit for a mouse, let alone a King. Listen, when I get my mojo back, I’ll find something to eat. Right now, though, I hear a nap calling my name.
The straw mat on the ground is a far cry from my guitar-shaped silk pillow, but it will have to do.
I’m wallowing in dreams of Pup-Peroni when a little bitty woman with skin like a dried peach pit lifts me off the mat.
“Long lipped god,” she says. “Long lipped god.”
Well, bless’a my soul. Finally, somebody in this burg recognizes my worth. I’d much prefer to be considered something more glamorous than a god you have to describe as long lipped, but under the current circumstances, any old god will do.
Furthermore, this woman is speaking English, even if it is a fractured version.
Even better, she’s got food. She snaps her fingers and six giggling nubile young women with most of their charms hanging out file into the hut and pile food at my feet in pottery dishes.
The food smells like meat and I don’t much care what kind. I wolf it down. I’d offer Lovie a bite, but she’s surrounded.
It looks like the natives are plying her with drink, and from the way Lovie’s eyes are rolling back in her head, I’d say it’s a stronger Mayan version of her very own Prohibition Punch.
One of the young women squats beside me and strokes my head while the older woman chants, Long lipped god.
I could suggest they call me swivel-hipped god, but considering the alternative (being prodded with spears), I’ll take what I can get. If they’d toss in some Pup-Peroni and some visitation privileges with my human mom and dad, I could get used to being a Mayan deity.
There’s only one little hitch. I don’t know if the natives are priming me like the sacrificial fatted calf, or if they plan to worship at the shrine of the King.
Chapter 11
Motives, Mischief, and Mayhem
While I linger around the Temple of the Frescoes acting as if I intend to spend the rest of the morning sipping coffee and enjoying the sunshine, Mama and Fayrene hotfoot it toward the cliffs to create a diversion.
Mama wouldn’t tell me what her diversion will be. She just said, “Leave it to me. We’ll meet back at the guest cottage. All you have to do is stick to your plan no matter what you hear.” Words that strike terror to my soul. My idea of a diversion is going into a fake faint while Fayrene screams her head off.
They’re probably going to do something that will get them arrested. I’ll end up spending the rest of my days in the Yucatan dispensing Mexican hairstyles to my new clientele while I try to get Mama and Fayrene out of jail.
Waiting is one of the hardest things for me to do, anyhow, but it’s particularly awful with Lovie and Elvis missing and Mama on the loose. I try to sip my coffee, but it has gone cold, so I pretend to be interested in the tourists who have just arrived.
Suddenly, I’m no longer pretending. Lulu Farkle just rounded the corner of the Temple of the Diving God. Did she just step off the ferry from Cozumel or has she been here since last evening, long enough to don a sheet and scare off Rocky’s crew, then grab a snake or two and toss them into the bathtub for Fayrene’s viewing horror?
And if so, why? What could have possibly gone so horribly wrong between Lovie and Alvin to make his sister resort to kidnapping, ghost impersonation, and almost-murder by snake?
I’m torn between following Lulu to see what she’s up to and going forth with my plans to break into Rocky’s computer. I have no choice, really. Any minute now Mama and Fayrene will start cutting a ruckus, the diversion angle of our plan.
I sit tight and wait for my opportunity. It’s not long in coming. Hard on the heels of Lulu Farkle is a group that includes six teenagers plugged into iPods and cell phones, plus two middle-age women dressed in walking shorts and matching yellow tee shirts that do nothing for their complexions. Both women are wearing plaited plastic lanyards with whistles on the end. Obviously they’re in charge, because every few minutes, one of them gives a big toot on the whistle followed by a screech to stop that, now!
Breaking and entering just got easier. With this kind of commotion, I don’t even need a diversion from Mama. I’m about to head toward the cliffs to tell her when I hear an unholy howl from the sea.
“Haints! Haints!” It can only be Fayrene.
The teenagers bolt for the sea while the leaders huff along behind them, tooting their whistles. Nobody pays them the least bit of attention.
I blend into the melee and am making good progress toward the main cottage when Fayrene screams again.
“Help, somebody, he’s throwing Ruby Nell into the sea.”
Holy cow! Is Mama going to meet her Maker in the Caribbean or is this the diversion? I’m about to bolt toward the sea when I spot old man Morgan trotting that way. If I’m going to break and enter, now is the time.
Anyhow, Mama’s too smart to fall into the Caribbean. Besides, she’s got a bucket list two miles long. She’s not about to do something foolish that might deprive her of a single adventure.
I wait until Archie Morgan vanishes around the side of the temple, then make a beeline for the main cottage. Thank goodness, the door is unlocked. I can’t believe my good luck.
Easing the door open, I slip inside and head straight to Rocky’s desk. Without his password, I have no hope of getting into computer files, and the Internet is likely to yield slim pickings on my major suspects. Still, it’s worth a try.
It’s my lucky day. The computer is up and running.
Since it was his wife’s bones Elvis found, I start by typing in Archie Morgan’s name. Plus, the man looks like somebody who keeps hatchets under his bed and black widow spiders in his dresser drawer.
The initial search for information on Archie Morgan yields nothing. I’m about to give up on him and move to Alvin and Lulu Farkle when inspiration hits. I type in Morgan’s name again, followed by archeology.
Bingo. There’s an obs
cure article about a 1965 dig in the Hawaiian Islands led by an archeologist named Archibald Simon Morgan. The dig was fraught with trouble—two caveins and four men dead. According to the article, the entire team left the islands in despair and disgrace.
Could it be this Archie? And if so, why isn’t he still leading expeditions and searching for hidden treasures? He’s probably not much older than Uncle Charlie, and I can’t imagine my uncle retiring at any age.
Though the tie-in is suspicious, being an unsuccessful archeologist on a trouble-prone site is not enough to link old man Morgan to anything. Let alone kidnapping and murder.
I type in Alvin Farkle and get an instant hit. An article complete with photograph. Joseph Alvin Farkle, hairy gorilla arms and all, a famous archeologist in the 30s. He’s too old to be Lovie’s Farkle. Still, all that hair is a tipoff. Joseph Alvin is bound to be kin.
Suddenly I hear a female voice singing in Spanish. The sound is coming from the direction of the kitchen. Probably Rosita. Somebody ought to tell her it’s not appropriate to sing about cockroaches in the kitchen.
I’d do it myself, but I’m standing here with my hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, wondering what I’m going to do if I get caught. Why didn’t I check the whereabouts of the cook before I barged in here? Especially after I thought I spotted her outside our cottage following the snake invasion.
Instead of leaving while her boss is gone, as I had assumed, Rosita is still here, most likely cleaning up the breakfast things and making lunch for the skeleton crew (no pun intended) who stayed through the ghost scares to work on Rocky’s dig.
Or, is she here for a more diabolical purpose? To spy for whoever kidnapped Lovie? If she really is in love with Rocky, as Lovie claims, then she could easily fall in with a plan to get Lovie out of the way.