Suspicious Mimes

by Virginia Brown

  “It’s impolite to talk on the phone in front of guests,” she said when he came back in.

  “I’m the guest.”

  “That’s even worse.”

  A faint smile tucked in one corner of his mouth. He looked tired.

  “I don’t want to leave you here by yourself,” he said, and looked at her.

  “I’ll be fine,” she lied. “I can lock my doors. I have an attack cat. And Mace.”

  “Yeah. That’s great. Your brother will be here in a few minutes.”

  She scowled. “I’m fine!”

  “Then play cards with him. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

  She said a few things that weren’t very nice and stood up. While she’d planned on telling him exactly what he could do with himself, a sudden rush of blood from her head to her feet made her stagger and say something that sounded more like “Urk!” Morgan leaped forward and grabbed her arm to steady her.

  “Sit down, okay?”

  “Only because I want to,” she said, reeling like a drunk.

  He did the cop equivalent of an eye roll. “Fine. I don’t care why you do it. Just sit down. Sit!”

  She sat.

  Eric arrived thirty minutes later. He wore baggy black pants, a Slipknot tee shirt, and did a handshake with Morgan that reminded Harley of hand games little girls played. Then he looked over at her.

  “Chick, you really need to stop hanging around with the wrong people.”

  “Good advice. I wonder why I never thought of that.”

  Eric grinned. “I brought a Jackie Chan movie and my sleeping bag.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable. You’re not staying long,” she said. “And what did you do to your hair?”

  “Chick, this is the real color. Don’t you remember?” He ran a hand through his dark brown hair. It was thick and coarse and looked normal. He’d trimmed it but left his sideburns a little long and had the beginning of a beard.

  “You look like a Hell’s Angel.”

  “Oh yeah, speaking of that, my car’s on the blink again, so I borrowed your bike.”

  “You what?” She sat up straight and her voice rose an octave. “You’re on my bike? Have you got a death wish?”

  “Chick, I can ride a bike. I won’t get hurt.”

  “Oh yes, you will. I’m going to strangle you.”

  When she stood up, Morgan stepped between them. “Hey, you don’t need to get physical.”

  Harley lunged around him toward Eric, but her brother evaded her, slithering away with a look of surprise on his face.

  “You idiot,” she yelled at him, and he held up his sleeping bag to fend her off.

  “Jeez, chick, settle down. I didn’t hurt it. Go look for yourself if you want.”

  Panting a little, Harley glared at him. “It’s paid for. If that bike has one scratch on it, I’ll kick your ass from here to Canada.”

  Eric held out the key, keeping the sleeping bag up as a shield. “Check it out. It’s fine. Damn, chick, you need some meds or something.”

  “Let’s go down and look at it if it’ll make you feel better,”

  Morgan said. “You feel well enough to do that?”

  “It’s amazing what an urge to kill does for your health.” She looked at her brother.

  Morgan steered her toward the door. “I’ll walk you down there and we’ll check it out.”

  Mr. Lancaster had excellent security lights outside the door, two 400 watt lamps that came on at dusk and went off at dawn. The front door that faced the street had one of those gas lamps that didn’t illuminate much, but that door usually stayed locked anyway. Everyone used the back door that led to the parking lot.

  Harley’s bike was next to Morgan’s car. Chrome gleamed, the black and gold tank had that expensive glow, and the seat looked unharmed. Eric had left the helmet on the back bar, and she picked it up. This was her pride and joy, the Harley-Davidson Softail Deuce with over-under exhaust and a Twin 88 cam. It usually stayed in Yogi’s garage with a canvas tarp over it, since no car could fit in there anyway with all the paint cans, PVC pipe, and assorted junk gathered through the years.

  “See,” Morgan said, “it’s just fine. Feel better now?”

  “Almost. Little jerk. He knows I don’t like anyone else riding my bike.”

  “That might be my fault. He said your parents were gone and he didn’t have a ride, and I told him to get here any way he could.”

  “So now I have to kick both your asses. Just as soon as I feel a little better.”

  Morgan grinned. “Yeah, that should be fun.”

  “Don’t get too cocky. I’ve been known to inflict damage. Ask Bobby. I have ways.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He took a couple of steps forward, pinned her back against his car and boxed her in with a hand against the car on each side of her head. He leaned into her, closing the height difference, his belly bumping hers. With the light behind him he was silhouetted, but there was no missing his intention.

  Maybe she should have pulled away, but she didn’t. Instead she got that tingly feeling in the pit of her stomach again, and it went all the way to her toes.

  When he kissed her, the tingly feeling escalated into electricity strong enough to power all of Midtown. As if she wasn’t already lightheaded enough. Damn him. He put his hand up her shirt and stroked her bare skin, fingers sliding upward. Everywhere he touched, her skin got hot enough to melt. She put her arms around his neck and held on. Oh yeah. She’d missed this. A lot.

  They stopped kissing after a minute. Or maybe it was an hour. Whichever, when Mr. Diaz drove up and parked his car in the garage, it seemed best. He lived in the apartment just below the Spragues, worked at FedEx and kept odd hours. If he’d noticed them necking like teenagers in the parking lot, he didn’t mention it, just nodded in their direction and said hello as he passed by. He was medium height with black hair and skin the color of aged oak, had a slim build, usually wore slacks and knit shirts, and kept pretty much to himself. He also had a really cool car, a new Mustang hardtop convertible. Speed and beauty.

  “I’ll watch until you’re back in the building,” Mike said, and Harley looked up at him.

  “Okay.”

  He smiled and kissed her again, quickly and lightly this time, just a graze of his mouth against her lips. She hoped she wasn’t drooling.

  Like he’d said, he watched until she was back in the building and the door closed behind her before he fired up his car. Harley flipped the night latch on the door and went upstairs. Maybe being without oxygen had done some permanent damage. Why else would she let him just kiss her like that and then leave? It’d been his idea to take a break. It should be her idea when and if to stop the break. That’s the way it went. There were rules about that sort of thing.

  Before she got her apartment door open, she heard what sounded like a scuffle going on inside. Then Sam let out a shriek and she shoved open her door, barging inside ready to do battle.

  Eric—or the back half of him—stuck out from under her coffee table. He seemed to be wrestling with something. And it sounded like he was losing. Sam was on top of the table looking like a Halloween cat with back arched and unearthly noises coming from his throat. Harley shut the door.

  “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m chasing a rat.”

  “A rat?”

  “Yeah. It ate all your fish, but you forgot to put water in the tank anyway.”

  Harley looked back at the coffee table. The wire mesh top to the aquarium lay on the floor next to Shakespeare. Damn. She looked back at her brother.

  “That’s not a rat. It’s a ferret. It belongs to Cami, and she’ll be really ticked off if you’ve hurt him.”

  Eric sat up, banged his head on the undersid
e of the coffee table, and then crawled out. “That explains the mask he’s wearing. I thought I was seeing things.”

  “What have you been smoking?”

  Rubbing his head, he looked up at her. “Just cigarettes. I’ve given up weed.”

  “Uh hunh.”

  “Seriously, chick. I’m thinking of getting into politics, and I hear they give drug tests.”

  Harley rolled her eyes. “Have you been talking to Prince Mongo again?”

  Prince Mongo was a local Memphis eccentric, the only white man she knew who wore dreadlocks, sandals, loose baggy caftans in mismatched stripes and polka dots, and claimed he was from the planet Zambodia. He’d opened a bar downtown, and every year he ran for mayor. He had a loyal following who voted for him, but he’d never come close to being elected. Maybe the city wouldn’t have a financial deficit if he had been, but that was one of those things that would never be known for sure.

  “No,” Eric said, “I haven’t talked to him in a few months. You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

  “What I think is a good idea is that you help me find Frank and get him back in his nice little home. I promised to keep him safe.”

  “Right. I’m on it.” Eric stood up and brushed cat hair from his black pants. Or maybe it was ferret hair. “Who’s Frank?”

  “The ferret.”

  Eric grinned. “Like in Frank Burns? That’s funny.”

  “Hilarious. What direction did he go?”

  “That way.” Eric pointed toward her bedroom.

  Harley got an uneasy suspicion. She went into her bedroom with Eric and Sam following. A scrabbling noise came from her dresser. When she opened her underwear drawer, a pair of red bikinis leaped out and streaked across the floor. Inside them was Frank Burns.

  “Chick!” Eric leaped back.

  “Catch him! He’s headed for the living room!”

  She didn’t want Frank getting cedar shavings—or anything of a pellet nature—on her best “do me” panties.

  Sam stood in the small hallway outside the bathroom, fur sticking straight up on his back like a bristle brush. He sounded like a leaking tire. There was no sign of her panties or the ferret.

  Eric peered around the door frame. “Where’d he go, chick?”

  “My guess is he’s in the bathroom. Sam keeps staring in there. Just go in and close the door and you can catch him.”

  “Why me? I’m not going in there. Ferrets bite.”

  “You let him loose, you go in there after him. And I hope he does bite. You idiot. Why’d you take the top off his cage anyway?”

  “How was I to know? Who keeps a glass cage with a ferret in it on their coffee table?”

  “Well, obviously I do.” Harley put her hands on her hips.

  “You’re not getting out of this. You let Frank out. You put Frank up. Got it?”

  Eric got that look on his face she remembered from their childhood. Diva called it his “focused” expression. Harley called it mulish when she was being kind, jackassed when she wasn’t.

  “Chick, chill out. It can’t get far.”

  “I don’t want teeth holes in my bikinis, or ferret poop either. Get the ferret!”

  He started to say something and stopped. His blue eyes made a laser cut right into her brain. “Good thing for you that you just got out of the hospital, or I’d tell you where to put that ferret.”

  “Yeah? Don’t let that stop you. Chunko.”

  Chunko was her nickname for him when he was little. Until he reached five, he’d been built like a fireplug, stout and solid. Then he’d started growing up but not out, and decided he didn’t like being called Chunko anymore. It was a guaranteed red flag.

  “Bubble butt,” he said back, another red flag.

  “Snake snot.”

  They faced off, both pretty irritated by now. Then Eric suddenly started jumping up and down and shaking his left leg.

  He made one of those high-pitched noises that always sounded so weird when a guy made them, almost like a shriek. Harley stepped back, a little startled.

  “Dude, what is your problem?”

  For a minute he just made those odd noises and slapped at his leg, then he unbuckled his belt and the baggy black pants fell to the floor. He wore Sponge Bob boxers that went almost to his knees. She started to laugh, and then she caught a glimpse of red silk at his feet. It was moving.

  “My Victoria’s Secret! Catch him!” She grabbed for the panties but Frank had them all wrapped around his head. His pink nose, masked face, and tiny feet were tangled in one of the lacy legs, but that didn’t stop him from being too fast for her to catch. He darted toward the living room and disappeared under a chair.

  Sam skittered sideways across the oak floors onto the rug, still making that guttural sound low in his throat, fur sticking up like it’d been gelled. Sam took his duties as Guard Cat quite seriously. Frank stuck his nose out from under the chair and looked at Sam. Black, beady eyes were rimmed by expensive red silk. Sam’s eyes were blue slits. They made angry sounds at each other.

  Harley climbed over the arm of the chair and crouched, waiting for Frank to come out so she could grab him. And snag her panties. The damn things had cost her over thirty dollars, and she sure didn’t want a ferret wearing them before she could.

  “Stand guard on this side,” she said to her brother, but Eric was inspecting his legs for scratches and bites and didn’t even answer. Just like a man.

  Sam approached the chair in a crouch, stalking the ferret, and Frank ducked back under it. Harley watched the other three sides of the chair.

  “This would be a lot easier if you’d help,” she muttered in Eric’s direction, and about that time the ferret made a run for it. She dove over the arm of the chair, grabbed panties and handfuls of furry ferret, and hung on. Sam tried to pounce and she fended him off with an elbow while trying to get to her feet. It was not the easiest thing she’d ever done, but finally, she got Frank back into his glass cage with the lid on top and without the red panties.

  Ferret and cat both looked relieved. Eric looked worried. Harley looked at her panties.

  “Damn. Ruined.”

  “Do ferrets get rabies?” Eric asked.

  “Probably. You should get the shots just in case.”

  “Chick!” He sounded so alarmed that she sighed and shook her head.

  “Cami would make sure he had all the shots he needs to have, so I’m sure you’ll be just fine. There’s some hydrogen peroxide under the sink. And pull your pants up when you’re through looking for wounds, if you don’t mind. Sponge Bob is winking at me.”

  Life, she decided a half hour later, when they had the Jackie Chan movie on TV and bowls of microwave popcorn with extra butter in their laps, was returning to normal. Tomorrow she’d worry about the killer. Tonight, she’d let Jackie Chan handle that kind of thing.

  Sixteen

  The finals for the Elvis competition were in just a few days. Yogi had made the last cut and was beside himself with joy. Not only that, the finalists were to be allowed a special place in the Candlelight Vigil this year, a ceremonial parade to the gravesite with their lit candles, a solemn procession to pay respects to the King of Rock and Roll.

  “You’ll be there, won’t you, Harley?” he asked.

  She looked at him, unable to refuse but wishing she could.

  It was always so crowded. “Yes. I’ll be there, since I’m working that night anyway.”

  Yogi’s smile stretched across his face. “Good. I want my family to be with me to share in the moment. It’s always so emotional.”

  That’s what she was afraid of. It always made her a little squeamish to see her father weep, and every time he went to Elvis’s grave, he became very emotional.

  “It’s not just the loss of a great s
inger,” he’d once explained to her, “it’s the loss of the man himself. Elvis touched so many lives. Maybe most people saw him as a celebrity, but he was always that shy Mississippi boy with enormous talent being wasted in third rate movies and songs. I really think that’s what killed him in the end, his disappointment.”

  Diva always said Elvis had just decided to go home.

  Whichever it was, Harley dreaded being caught up in an emotional whirlpool. No matter how festive the crowd, once they reached the gravesite the mood immediately changed to sorrow. Very few were unaffected. Even her. Like Yogi said, it was such a waste of promise.

  Tootsie, it seemed, had second thoughts about Harley attending the candlelight vigil.

  “Are you sure you want to take that run?” Tootsie asked doubtfully when she went in to work.

  “Of course not. But the police are watching Hughes very closely.”

  “So I hear.”

  She tapped her foot thoughtfully. “I can’t help wondering how he managed to show up at the cemetery with helium balloons and a bowler hat, though.”

  Tootsie pointed out the obvious. “No one can prove it was him. His fingerprints weren’t on the balloons, the grotto’s too damp, and concrete doesn’t show fingerprints well. Besides which, they’d have to match them with the thousands of people who pass in and out of the cemetery, and that’s nearly impossible.”

  “So you’re saying they aren’t even looking? And how do you know all this technical stuff, anyway?”

  “I didn’t say they aren’t looking. They’ll check for fibers or prints on the coffin you were in. Sorry about that,” he said when she flinched. “Sore subject, I see.”

  “Only when I think about it. Do you know all this kind of stuff from listening to Steve, the invisible man?”

  “He’s not invisible, just rare. Okay, let’s work this out another way. I’ll list the pros and you list the cons.”

  “Easy enough. I’m sure Hughes is an escaped murderer.”