by Webb, Peggy
One of the greatest things about Lovie is her resilience. Nearly every plan we make somehow goes awry, but she always rises to the occasion, even when it involves stealing bodies and being chased by pigs.
Lovie and I start applying mud, while Mama and Fayrene and Mertis keep an endless supply of Prohibition Punch flowing into their plastic cups. At the rate they are going, I’ll have to call 9ll to help get them out of their chairs.
“It’s such a shame about that clown,” I say, and Mertis sobers up faster than Fayrene can slaughter the English language.
“What do you mean by that?” she says.
“Well, they said on this morning’s news that no family had come forward to claim the body and make funeral arrangements.”
“Lots of people prefer being alone.” Mertis treats me to stinging glare. “Including me.”
Lovie steps in to rescue me. “Oh, Mertis, I couldn’t agree with you more. Take that man who feeds the ducks, for instance. I never see him with another soul. Now, that’s a real loner.”
Mertis calls the duck man a word that shocks everybody into silence, even Lovie, who is the queen of the shocking phrase. Still, she recovers faster than I do and blows this enormous pink bubble. All us us watch, fascinated, when it pops. The sound makes Mertis jump. I don’t know if she’s naturally jittery or just high on Mama’s punch.
“Well, now, I guess that just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover.” Lovie leans close to Mertis and smears mud down the side of her cheek. “You missed a spot, Callie,” she tells me, and then she whispers into Mertis’ ear. “I love gossip. Tell me everything you know about that old duck man.”
“I don’t know a thing,” she says.
“But you made him sound like one of those paragon schizophrenics,” Fayrene said. “How’d you know?”
“I’m a good judge of character. Steer clear of him.” Mertis glares up at me. “Get this junk off my face and fix my hair. I’m ready to get out of here.”
“But you have the whole beauty package coming.” Before I can say more, the door bursts open and in walks the ice cream lady.
Could things get any worse? Mertis was supposed to be in the other room on the massage table spilling her guts to Lovie, while Amanda climbed into my chair and quietly told me her secrets.
“Yoohoo!” she yells, and Mertis Whatever Her Last Name Is jumps three feet off her chair. “I came early so I wouldn’t miss a thing!”
Mertis mumbles another string of words that would make the evil cringe, and Mal bows up with every last one of his cat hairs standing on end. Holy cow! What now?
Amanda Green stalks toward my beauty station, her brown brogans sounding like doom on my polished tiled floors and her large straw tote banging against her substantial thighs. There’s a look on her face I’ve never seen. I get the shivers and wonder why on earth I ever thought of her as a sweet little old lady. The woman standing in my salon looks like she could drive a stake through the heart of a vampire.
“Good lord, Mertis, is that you under all that mud?” Amanda yells.
“It’s me, you crazy old biddy.”
“Who are you calling an old biddy, you dried up witch?”
I glance at Lovie, hoping she has a backup plan, but she just shrugs her shoulders. It’s Fayrene who comes to the rescue.
“There’s no need for an alteration,” she shouts. “Everybody have another drink.”
“Lead me to it.” Amanda’s smile reminds me of one the witch might give after she’s shoved Hansel and Gretel into the oven. “I’m so tired of selling ice cream to little snot nosed brats I don’t know what to do.”
“Good grief,” I say. “I thought you loved kids.”
“They ought to all be under lock and key. Little monsters!”
The ice cream lady’s close enough for me to smell her breath. She’d obviously already been drinking. A glass of punch just might send her over the edge.
I glance at Lovie, who is already ahead of me. She grabs the pitcher and whisks it toward the back room.
“Hey,” Mama says, but I nudge her shins with my foot and say, “She’s gone to make some more, Mama.”
“Well, I hope she hurries up,” Amanda says. “I’m parched.” She taps Mertis on the shoulder. “I think Callie’s done all she can for you. Hop up and let me have the chair. I want Callie to take a crack at me.”
“You want somebody to take a crack at you?” Mertis rises up, pink cape, mud pack and all. “I’ll be happy to oblige!”
Mertis draws back her fist, Amanda drops her enormous tote, and the cat streaks around the room, yowling like he’s in pursuit of demons.
“Catch the cat,” Mama yells, and Bobby leads the chase with Darlene right behind him. The cat’s tail brushes through a lit candle and now there’s a fire fur-ball streaking around my salon.
“Fire!” Fayrene throws her cup of punch at the cat.
“No,” I scream, but it’s too late. The alcohol ignites the fire, and his tail goes up in blazes. Bobby jerks off his jacket and leaps for the cat, just as Mal jumps into Amanda Green’s straw tote.
Flaming bag and cat go rolling across the floor, leaving a trail of wreckage and….
Holy cow! What’s this? Baby boot camp booty rolls out of the ice cream lady’s tote, leaving a trail of evidence all over my floor.
Finally Bobby manages to throw his coat over the bag, the cat and the flames, while Mama and Fayrene both leap onto Amanda Green. All three go down into a heap of screaming old ladies. Good grief. My eggs may never recover.
I grab my hot curling iron and Lovie’s back, wielding a mop.
“Everybody just hold it right there,” Lovie says, and you’ve never seen chaos quelled so fast.
I’m about to be impressed and a bit envious of my cousin, but the way she’s looking at my front door makes me turn around. I nearly faint.
There’s a man the size of a refrigerator standing inside my shop, and he looks dangerous enough to take down a grizzly bear. Beside him is an ordinary looking man you wouldn’t even notice unless you had my skills of detection. Listen, there’s something so scary in this man’s eyes, you’d never want to get on his bad side.
“We’ll take it from here.” This, from the hulk with the polished ebony skin and the bald head, and I nearly pee my pants. His voice is magical – and so unexpected coming from this hunk of muscle and mean, I don’t know whether to be charmed or terrified.
He has the baby boot camp thief into cuffs so fast, I don’t even see him take them out of his pockets.
“Everybody okay in here?” the smaller of the two men asks.
I glance at Mama and Fayrene, who are now on their feet with their clothes askew and their mud packs overdone and cracking. Otherwise, they seem to be fine.
“Except for the cat,” I tell them.
“Fine,” the hulk says. “We’re done here.” Amanda Green is hanging between them like a sack of flour. I don’t know if they’ve used a stun gun on her or if she’s scared limp. Whatever the case, the two men vanish as quietly as they came.
Darlene and Bobby are both hovering over a much-subdued feline with a singed tail. “Go on and take him to the vet,” I say and they trot out the door together.
“Where’s Mertis?” Lovie asks, and I glance around to see that she’s vanished.
Mama and Fayrene are now sitting together on my passion pink love seat.
“Mama, you two just sit tight.” I race with Lovie toward the back of my shop. One glance shows nothing back here but my wash and rinse sinks. I head toward my office while Lovie shoves open the door to the massage room.
“Find anything?” I yell and she says, “No!”
We both race toward the break room and find it empty. But the back door is swinging wide open. I head outside with Lovie right behind me and glance around the back yard. Empty.
We hurry around the corner of Hair.Net just in time to see a big black Cadillac pull out from Gas, Grits and Guts across the street.
“Is that the duck man behind the wheel?”
“I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that’s the same car that tried to run down Mama.”
We both watch as the Cadillac idles at the four-way stop and then pulls away and heads toward Tupelo.
“Whoever it is, he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry,” Lovie says.
“If he’s up to no good, he wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself.”
The big black car slowly vanishes over the hill and we stand there like we’re waiting to be raptured.
“You think that was Daddy’s clean-up team in your shop?”
“Without a doubt.”
“That big one was a hunk.”
“Good grief, Lovie. Rocky’s a hunk.”
“Rocky’s not here.”
I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer. Besides, I’ve had so much going on, I just want to stand here and catch my breath.
“We’d better get back inside and see about Aunt Ruby Nell and Fayrene.”
“Okay.” I link arms with Lovie. “But if anybody mentions Prohibition Punch, I’m going to scream.”
“How about we eat that chocolate cherry cake I never got around to cutting, and afterward we’ll scrub your shop to get rid of the smoke stains?”
“Now, that sounds like a plan.”
Elvis’ Opinion #6 on Good Luck, Bad Luck and Chicken Livers
I’ll say this for hanging out with Jack in the Company headquarters: I’ve never had so much good eating in my life. Tonight we’re chowing down on gourmet chicken livers. To show my appreciation, I do a happy dance in the middle of the kitchen floor and hum a few bars of He Knows Just What I Need. Jack laughs and claps then tosses me a fried liver that I catch with a neat little maneuver I used to do when I was playing in Las Vegas, a little swivel to the hip, a little hunch to the shoulder and a sneered lip that knows how to snap a treat out of air.
This is what I calling living. I take a bow and am about to do an encore when Jack’s cell phone rings.
“Charlie,” Jack says, and I put my radar ears on full alert. Charlie’s just full of news about a take-down at Callie’s beauty shop earlier in the afternoon.
“The only harm done was a little smoke damage to Callie’s salon.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let Cal keep poking around in this mess. Are you sure she’s okay?”
“Everybody is fine, Jack. I wouldn’t let anything happen to them. Britt and Holmes said they’d never seen a feistier bunch of women, and Britt went so far as to say he wouldn’t mind having Callie and Lovie on his team.”
“Why does that not reassure me?”
This smart dog could tell you why. Jack hates the idea of Callie being involved in anything that could get her hurt. And take it from this patriotic dog that when there’s a stupid cat in the mix, everything will go wrong. Why do you think that feline is named Mal? It stands for maladjusted, malicious and malodorous. Not to mention malignant, malevolent and malarkey.
But back to the phone conversation…
“The ice cream lady is singing like a bird,” Charlie says. “She grew up in an orphanage and hates all kids she considers privileged. Her M.O. is to figure out what these spoiled kids can’t live without and then to take it from them.”
“That’s it? Some kind of petty revenge because she was raised in an orphanage?”
“That’s it. Except that her hatred of children seems to spill over to just about everybody she knows.”
“She hid that well. Callie thought she was very sweet.”
“According to info coming through the bugs and the wire taps, Callie caught onto Amanda Green really fast.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Still, Amanda has no involvement whatsoever with the baby kidnapping ring. Any luck on your end, Jack?”
“We’re still searching all the data. There’s a little intel coming in that the ringleader is a master of disguises.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“Do you have any leads on who killed Cates AKA Branson?”
“Nothing,” Charlie says. “Whoever made the hit is a professional. The house was clean, and we didn’t lift a single print on the murder weapon except Lovie’s.”
“When we get to bottom of the kidnapping ring, we’ll likely have our killer.”
By the time Jack finishes his conversation I’ve polished off all the chicken livers and am searching for some Tums and a soft spot of the couch. I heist my portly but glorious self onto a fat set of black cushions then twist about till I get comfortable. The TV remote is right in reach. If I had digits I’m find a good show. As it is, I’ll have to wait for my human dad. I’m hoping we can spend the evening watching reruns of True Blood. All that neck biting and blood are right up my alley. Who knows? Next time around, I might get sent back as a vampire. A singing one, of course. My theme song would be That’s What You Get for Loving Me.
But no, Jack leaves the rest of his food getting cold and goes into the hallway. I lift my head off the cushions just high enough to see that he’s standing over Ugly Face who is still lying like a lump on the hall table. I’m fixing to haul myself off this couch and finish his dinner for him, but I get sidetracked.
“What am I going to do about you?”
Jack’s talking to that lump of latex. I’m getting worried about him.
Well, bless’a my soul. He picks up Ugly Baby and the back of her melted head gets stuck and remains on the hall table. She just went from horrid to repulsive. As if she couldn’t get any worse, the gear box that holds her eyes has come off with the back of her head, and now she’s staring up at Jack with empty eye sockets.
“What in the devil am I going to do now?”
Listen, if my human daddy keeps hanging onto that mutilated pile of latex, I’m going to be seriously worried about his sanity. What’s a noble dog to do? I sashay my intelligent self into the hall, grab Ugly Face by the arm and take her out of Jack’s hands. Then I march straight to the kitchen and drop her into the garbage pail.
Applause, please. Thank you, thank you very much.
“You’re right about that, pal.” Jack follows me into the kitchen and squats to pat my head. “That doll’s hopeless. I guess I’ll just have to face the music.”
Did somebody say music? As far as I’m concerned, the only appropriate song here is Saved, but I don’t think Jack’s in the mood for dark humor. So I just sit still and act like a pet, then let him pick me up and take me back to the couch.
It must be my lucky day. Ugly Face is gone, baby, gone, and soon I’m watching vampires running amok all over Louisiana. I settle back for another great boys’ night out.
Finally, the credits roll and I doze off for a minute or two.
When I startle awake, the clock on the mantle makes me out to be a liar. It’s chiming midnight and Jack’s not in the living room. All I have to do is put my handsome nose to the floor and before you can say shake, rattle and roll, I’ve found him in the spare room where an industrial sized computer is lit up like Christmas.
And so is Jack.
“Look this, old pal. I’ve found it!”
Just my bad luck, there’s a replica of Ugly Face staring out from that giant computer screen. While I wasn’t looking, the apartment got attached by latex aliens!
“I’ve special ordered a dozen. They’ll arrive tomorrow.”
The only thing worse than Ugly Face is a dozen of them! I may just have to remind Jack to don’t be cruel.
Jack reaches down and scratches behind my ears, a little endearment I particularly like.
“Let’s get some sleep, pal. We’ve got some new leads on the baby snatching ring, and 666 will be here for breakfast.”
At last, some news I can live with. I leave Jack still working the computer then head into the master bath to check out the situation. There’s a big bottle of Old Spice aftershave I can reach if I stand on my hind legs and stretch myself to
my handsome limit. I’d prefer something more upscale like Bvlgari, but a dog has to do what a dog has to do. It won’t be any trouble at all to tug the cork off with my teeth and roll around in the spill. This might put me in the virtual doghouse for a while, but 666 is a woman worthy of a sacrifice or two.
Who knows? If I play my cards right, she might pin a canine detective badge on my pink collar.
Chapter 8
The Dead, the Undead and the Girl with a Gun
My day starts with a warning.
I walk into Hair.Net and there is Darlene, hunched over the newspaper. She looks up when I enter the shop.
“Brace yourself for an unpleasant surprise,” she says.
“What could be worse than yesterday?”
“I don’t know. I’m just telling you what your horoscope says.”
She could be right. When I woke up this morning, I had the feeling something was off. Still, I’m a professional through and through. I head to my office to check messages. Uncle Charlie has called to say the clown’s body has been released to Eternal Rest and he’ll have it ready for my finishing touch this evening.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Callie,” he says. “Lovie will be here preparing for the funeral reception and I’ll be here, too. I won’t let anything happen to my girls.”
That makes me feel better, but not a whole lot. Maybe Darlene and her horoscope are onto something.
The second message is from Alice Ann Street down at the video shop wondering if I can trim her bangs today. She’d tried to do it herself, she said, and made a big mess.
She does this every time. Right before her regularly scheduled appointment, she decides she can’t wait another day and then butchers her bangs with a pair of dull scissors. Thank goodness, she’s the only one of my clients who does this.
I call back and tell her to come on down, any time will do. Then I head back to the front of my salon thinking maybe Alice Ann’s message is my unpleasant surprise.
Nothing happens the rest of the day to dissuade me. Still, on the way home that evening, I can’t shake the feeling of unease.