by Jennie Marts
“Thanks, Mom. Love you too.”
She clicked off the phone and shook her head at the group. “No luck. My mom says there’s no connection to her. She’s never even heard of the guy.”
Edna tapped her pen against the notebook. “Maybe you know him by sight but not by name. Do you think he has a Facebook page? Or maybe we could Google him?” She looked at Scooter for confirmation.
He shrugged. “How should I know? I grow for him—I’m not his friend on Facebook. I know if you want to see him, he’s usually hanging out at his weed bar.”
“What’s a weed bar?”
“You know, like a regular bar, where people hang out, but instead of booze, you smoke weed.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Well, we’ve got one here in town. It’s called The Joint, and Leon spends a lot of time there.”
“We can’t just go waltzing in to a weed bar,” Sunny said. “I’m a grade school teacher for goodness sake.”
“I can,” Edna said. “I’m working on beefing up my bad reputation.”
“Well, it’s not going to help anything if you go in there and recognize him,” Sunny said. “Zoey is the one who has to go in there.”
“She can’t go in there,” Johnny said, speaking up for the first time. “Suppose this Leon is connected to all of this? That would mean he wants to hurt her. Or worse. Remember, it was one of his guys that was found dead in her apartment. This just sounds too dangerous. Why don’t we call Mac and have him look into it.”
“He’s already looking into it,” Zoey explained. “I called him and gave him Leon’s name. But Sunny’s right. It doesn’t matter if Mac checks into him, I have to see him myself to know if I recognize him or know him from somewhere.”
Sunny’s eyes widened. “Did I say that?”
“Well, it was something like that.” She twisted the edges of a loose napkin sitting on the table. “I’m the one that got us all involved in this mess. So, I’m the one who needs to help figure it out. Granted, I would normally never, ever, in a million years consider going into an establishment where the primary objective is to get stoned.” She nodded at Scooter. “No offense intended.”
He shrugged. “It’s cool.”
“But I also normally do not have thugs breaking into my apartment and trying to kill me, either. This is not a normal situation, and if I’m going to figure this out, I need to step out of my tidy little organized comfort zone and get messy. I’m not going to solve this by hiding out at my grandma’s house. So, if I have to go to a weed bar to scope out a potential murderer—then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Good Lord—who was this person talking? It certainly did not sound like herself. It sounded like someone who was brave and tough and a little kick-ass. She only wished she felt as brave and kick-ass as she sounded.
“Okay,” Sunny said. “If you can do it, so will I. I can use it as a research opportunity so if kids at school ever talk about it, I’ll know what they mean.”
“You’re forgetting one tiny problem,” Johnny said. “You can’t just go in there and look around. If you go in there, you’ll look suspicious if you’re just standing there and not smoking pot. Are you all prepared to get stoned while you’re undercover?”
“I will,” Edna piped up. “I’ve always wanted to try it anyway. And if at least one of us is smoking, then you girls can just hold something but don’t have to try it. I’ll take one for the team and volunteer to get stoned.”
“Oh for goodness sake.” Johnny shook his head in astonishment. “This is ridiculous. And dangerous.”
Edna waved a hand at him. “Oh, it’ll be fine. No one’s going to pay attention to an old lady like me.” She nudged Scooter. “But these two are gonna need new disguises. Do you think you can come up with something for them so no one will recognize them?”
Scooter nodded. “Sure. That’s probably a good idea anyway if you’re trying to stay under the radar. People notice when two hot chicks walk into a bar.” He ducked his head, and a blush colored his cheeks. “So, I’d have to make them more average looking. Even a little on the gnarly side if you really don’t want anyone to notice them.”
“I can do gnarly,” Zoey said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to blend in. I don’t want anyone there to recognize me, especially this Leon guy, or actually anyone that’s inclined to kill me.”
“I can do that. And just so you know, the weed bar’s really mellow. As long as you’re cool and don’t make a big deal about anything, no one will really even notice you’re there.”
“I can be mellow,” Edna said. “I was born mellow.”
Johnny scoffed. “You haven’t been mellow a day in your life.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like I’m going to talk you out of this, so this time I’m going along. And I think we should go in separately. It’ll seem more likely that an elderly couple would be on their own and that two young women would be together.”
Zoey nodded. “That makes sense.” She looked at Scooter. “Ready to make me unrecognizable?”
Chapter Ten
An hour and a half later, Zoey and Sunny stepped into The Joint. Scooter had worked miracles with their disguises, and Zoey felt like a different person.
This time, she had raided her grandfather’s closet and came up with a baggy pair of khaki’s, a long white T-shirt, and a flannel button-up shirt. She’d belted the pants with a thick leather belt and rolled up the sleeves of the flannel.
Scooter had found a wig of long straight black hair, and she’d topped it with a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. A pair of aviator sunglasses covered her kohl-lined eyes, and Scooter had placed a temporary tattoo across the lower half of her arm. The tattoo was the word ‘Courage’ scrolled in curly letters and surrounded by red roses.
She glanced at the tattoo now and screwed up her own courage as she walked into the bar. Fighting her natural inclination to stand up straight, Scooter had shown her how to slouch her shoulders and change her normal stride to affect more of a trudge.
Sunny’s outfit was a little more eye-catching in an effort to draw attention away from Zoey. She wore a short blue dress, torn black tights, and military boots. Her eyes were also heavily made up with the same kohl-black liner rimming her lashes. Scooter had tied another of Johnny’s flannel shirts around her waist and draped a long chain around her neck. He’d given her a wig as well, this one a short brunette bob cut to cover her usual blonde wavy curls.
They made quite a pair as they slunk through the doors and scanned the room for a place to sit.
The air was thick with the sweet, acrid smell of marijuana, and Zoey blinked against the smoke that already stung her eyes. The bar had a retro look with dark paneled walls and deep red leather booths along the outer walls. Posters of classic rock musicians hung on the walls, and the center of the room had clusters of loveseats and big comfy chairs circled around low black tables.
Dusk had settled outside giving the bar itself even more of a dark and mysterious feel. She didn’t know why the place made her giddy with nervousness. It was just like any other bar, except people were smoking marijuana instead of drinking.
And there was also the chance that one of the patrons possibly wanted to kill her. That could be adding to her nervousness.
The bar itself wasn’t too crowded—maybe twenty people in groups of two to four clustered together. They were centered around tables covered in bongs, pipes, food wrappers, and soda cans. Some tables had the Middle Eastern-looking hookah pipes setting on them, their long hoses snaking out like Medusa’s hair.
Only a few people even looked up as the women walked across the room. They slid into a booth, and a bored looking waitress wandered up and handed them menus.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yes, please,” Zoey answered. “Can I get a raspberry margarita—wait.” She lowered her voice and tried to sound bored and aloof. And tougher than she felt. “I mean I’ll take a seven and seven
.” It was the toughest drink she could think of.
Sunny nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
The waitress sighed as if she’d been through this routine before. “We’re not that kind of bar, ladies. We don’t serve alcohol.”
“Oh, in that case, we’ll take two Diet Cokes.”
The waitress raised an eyebrow. “This your first time?”
Zoey tried to shrug and come off looking cool, but Sunny had already nodded.
She tapped the menu on the table. “This shows our different blends. We sell by the gram, and you can use your own pipes, or you can buy them from us. We also offer edibles, like cookies, brownies and hard candies. If you want a little something more serious, we also offer dabs.”
“What’s a dab?” Sunny asked. Zoey nudged her foot under the table. They were supposed to act like they knew all this. Like they were totally used to hanging out in weed bars.
The waitress pulled a small container from her pocket and twisted the lid off. It looked like an eyeshadow pot with a small gray pool of wax in it. “A dab is like a concentrated form of high grade hash. It’s pretty strong, and it’ll get you real high real fast.” The slightest grin touched her lips, the first sign of emotion she’d had shown. “Around here we like to say just a little dab’ll do ya.”
Zoey nodded her head. “Yeah, that’s what I usually say, too.” She tried for a jovial chuckle, but it came out as more of a weak cough. “I think we’ll probably stick with the basics today.”
The waitress grinned again, apparently seeing through her false bravado. “Okay then. I’ll just give you some time to look over the menu.”
“Thanks.”
The waitress turned as the front door swung open, and Edna and Johnny stepped in.
And from that point forward, no one in the bar even noticed Sunny and Zoey.
“Would you look at this place, dear?” Edna asked Johnny in a booming voice. They both wore multi-colored Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts, and Johnny wore a dark sock with a sandal on his un-booted leg. The quintessential tourists.
“We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore,” Johnny answered with a too-loud laugh.
“Yoo-hoo.” Edna waved at the waitress. “Hi there—we’re here visiting from Kansas, and this is our first time in a marijuana bar.” She said the word ‘marijuana’ in a loud exaggerated stage whisper and used her fingers to indicate air quotation marks. “We heard you all legalized the stuff, and we thought we’d check it out.” She waved at all of the patrons who were now watching them. “Hi y’all. We’re Ken and Barbara. We’re here visiting from a little town east of Middle of Nowhere, Kansas.”
Seriously? Did Edna really pick Ken and Barbie as their aliases? Everything in Zoey’s introverted personality wanted to scream to tone it down—quit drawing so much attention to yourselves.
But Edna was doing exactly what she was supposed to do. She had the attention of every person in that bar.
A table with three older bikers waved and one chuckled heartily. They all had long hair in various stages of gray and wore jeans, leather vests over T-shirts, and heavy black boots.
One raised his bong in salute. “Welcome, travelers. I’m actually from Kansas too, born and raised there and graduated from K-state.” He gestured to the loveseat across the table from him and his friends. “Have a seat. You’re welcome to join us.”
Four kids in their twenties sat around a table smoking from a hookah, and they all broke out into fits of snorts and giggles.
Edna ignored them and crossed the bar to where the bikers sat. She nodded and offered a comment to a few of the groups as she passed. Lowering her glasses at the group of twenty-somethings, she stopped to scold them. “Shouldn’t you all be in school? Is this how you represent the future of America?” This only threw the group of kids into more hysterical laughter.
She waved at another group of people and stopped in front of Sunny and Zoey’s tables. She narrowed her eyes at Sunny. “You know dear, you would be much prettier if you didn’t wear so much makeup.” She wiggled her fingers at them as Johnny followed in her chaotic wake.
“This is very nice of you,” she said, as she and Johnny sat down across from the bikers. As they had talked about earlier, she kept her back to the door and drew attention away from the bar area. “Are you all in a little motorcycle gang together?”
One of the bikers laughed out loud. He wore a red, white, and blue bandanna around his head and his hair in two long braids, Willie Nelson-style. “Lady—you are too much.”
That was one way to put it. Her grandmother was indeed too much.
But she was also very good at creating a distraction, and Zoey nodded at Sunny as she slipped out of the booth. “I’m going to the restroom.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sunny seemed to be caught up in watching the Edna show. She snapped to attention as if she just remembered their mission. “I’ll come with you.”
A restroom sign pointed down the hallway behind the bar, and it seemed to be the only way to reach any other rooms so Zoey hoped they were headed in the right direction. The hallway held four doors. Two were marked with signs stating either “Dudes” or “Chicks”, one appeared to be a utility closet, and the last door had an “Employees Only- Do Not Enter” sign affixed to it.
Zoey headed for the last door. She pointed to the front of the bar and whispered to Sunny, “Keep a lookout. I’m going to check out what’s behind this door.”
She turned the knob, and the sound of the latch’s click seemed deafening. She snuck a quick glance at Sunny, but her back was still turned and she didn’t appear to have heard anything. Strains of a Bob Marley song floated on the air, and Zoey took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
The door led to another hallway, and she could see two more doors, both standing open. The voices of an old sitcom came through one door with the undercurrent of deep male chuckles and the soft sound of a whirring machine.
She’d borrowed a pair of Edna’s white Keds, and one of the sneakers squeaked against the linoleum floor as she snuck down the hallway.
She froze, holding her breath as she listened for any signal that someone had heard her.
Nothing.
Slowly releasing her breath, she tiptoed forward enough to lean her head toward the door and see into the room.
Two long tables filled the middle of the room. A man sat at each table feeding stacks of money into a currency counter. The whirring sound must have been the sound of the money counters as they loaded and strapped handfuls of bills.
Fast food wrappers and empty beer cans cluttered the ends of the tables.
The men had their backs to her. Zoey tilted her head as she sought to see each man’s face, trying to memorize their features and catalogue them in her mind. Both appeared to be in their mid-forties, but one was overweight with a large paunchy belly crushed against the edge of the table, and the other was lean with hardened muscles.
A grey haze filled the room as tendrils of smoke curled into the air from a myriad of cigarettes and dark brown cigars that burned in ashtrays on the tables. A large screen TV was affixed to the wall, and the sitcom held the men’s attention.
The thing holding Zoey’s attention was not the stacks of cash lining the table, but the silver handguns resting next to each man’s hand.
Her heart-rate tripled in speed, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her forehead. She needed to get out of there.
She quickly scanned the rest of the room. A couple of shelves lined the walls holding office supplies, money straps, and plastic courier bags.
A third man of around the same age leaned against the wall, a cigarette dangling from his lip. He was tanned and wore black shorts, a golf shirt, and loafers with no socks. An expensive gold chain hung around his neck, and his dark curly hair was cut close to his head.
He pointed the cigarette and narrowed his eyes at the heavier man. “Pick up the pace, Dave. They’re gonna be here in an hour, and we need to have this cash ready.”
“A
ll right. All right. I’m going as fast as I can. Gimme a break, would you, Leon? I’ve been here all day.”
So this was Leon.
She hadn’t known exactly what to expect. Maybe because of the marijuana association, she’d been expecting him to look more like the old hippies that hung around her mother’s commune. More John Lennon or even someone resembling the bikers she saw in the bar.
She certainly wasn’t imagining this well-groomed man who looked like he’d just stepped off the golf course.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing in here?” A huge muscular man wearing a black T-shirt and jeans appeared in the doorway, blocking her view of the room. He wore a scowl on his face and a gun at his waist.
Zoey held up her hands. She tried to even out her voice, slow it down to affect the easy drawl she heard Scooter use. “Sorry dude, I was looking for the bathroom.”
The man studied her face a few seconds, but for what seemed like a few hours, then pointed down the hallway. “It’s back there, behind the door marked ‘Chicks’ not ‘Employees Only”.
She backed away a few steps then turned and hurried down the hall. Her heart was in her throat at what she’d just seen. She needed to get Sunny and her grandparents and get the hell out of there.
She pushed through the door and rushed toward Sunny, who was still standing lookout at the end of the hallway.
“Your grandmother is an absolute hoot. She’s got those bikers eating out of her hands.” Sunny turned, and her expression changed to one of alarm as she took in Zoey’s face. “What happened? Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but we need to get out of here.”
“Did you see Leon?”
“Yeah—he’s here. And he saw me.”
They moved quickly through the room. Zoey glanced at Johnny and gave a small nod of her head as she tossed a ten dollar bill on the table where the waitress had left their drinks. It took enormous effort to avoid eye-contact with her grandmother.
Edna was currently engrossed in a conversation with one of the bikers. He was showing her a large bong and appeared to be explaining how it worked.