Bubbles Ablaze

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “I should introduce myself.” He extended his hand, the good-sized, tanned hand of a man who hadn’t spent his life in an office. I surprised myself by shaking it. “Ezekiel Allen,” he said. “Like the Green Mountain Boys. Though I prefer Zeke.”

  “Green Mountain Boys? You’re a Boy Scout?” I asked, relieved.

  He slapped his forehead. “No, I’m the descendant of Ira Allen, who, although, yes, ended his life in jail, was nevertheless a patriot like his brother Ethan in Vermont. Few people are aware that the eight Allen brothers were a gnarly bunch of vigilantes until the Revolutionary War came and turned them into heroes.”

  “I can’t believe it. You broke into my car to give me a history lesson. Is that why you tracked me into the woods, too?”

  “No, way. I broke into your car to introduce myself. I’m your new bodyguard. Howdy do?” He touched the brim of his hat like a gentleman. “I would have told you so yesterday, but I was trying to be incognito. I’m kind of new at this Secret Service stuff.”

  “I already have a bodyguard.”

  “So I gather. Seventy-year-old woman with a peashooter. Little good that will do you.” He nodded to the incapacitated straw. “My employer requested a more virile protector, you might say.”

  “Who’s your employer?”

  “Steve Stiletto.”

  I coughed. Stiletto? He hired someone to keep watch over me while he was in New York? That was so sweet. Wait. No, it wasn’t. That was patronizing. “I don’t need looking after,” I said, bristling. “I’m not a dog, you know.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” Zeke turned on the ignition to activate the battery and started fooling around with the knobs on the radio. “Let’s see if we can find some Skynyrd. Rumor is Skynyrd makes you do crazy things.”

  “Only when there are Jell-O shots.”

  “I’ll call Mom. Mom always has Jell-O and vodka on hand.”

  We were silent for a while as he searched the airwaves. “How do you know Stiletto?” I asked.

  “Complicated story.” He zeroed in on an easy-listening music station in Hazelton. “Let’s just say if it hadn’t been for Steve, I’d be in Mexico for a permanent vacation. And I ain’t talking the Cancun Hilton.”

  Karen Carpenter came on and Zeke turned it up. “That’s better. I hope you like the Carpenters because we’ll be listening to a lot of them. So tragic what happened, with her not eating and all.” He folded his arms behind his head, slouched down on the seat and leaned back. I stared at him in disbelief. Guy impersonates a cop and breaks into my car just to play the radio?

  Where was that Genevieve? I rolled down the window. Not a sign.

  “That was the toughest part about being in the Cerro Huerro jail. No Carpenters. No Pat or Debby Boone either. She really lights up my life, man. Gosh dang, but she’s a good singer.”

  “Jail? You’re a criminal!”

  “Please. Criminal has such negative connotations. The better term is unreformed miscreant.” He bobbed his head to the beat of “On Top of the World.” I couldn’t believe Stiletto had hired a former criminal to keep tabs on me. Probably came cheap.

  “I don’t like convicts in my car,” I said after Karen stopped looking down on creation. “I try to avoid people who’ve been in the slammer, even if they are friends with Stiletto.”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t get raped or nothing, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I want you out now,” I said. The fear was starting to wear off and irritation was taking its place.

  “Really?” Zeke cracked his gum and thought about this. “What I want is world peace, a crisp Macintosh apple and unity with God. Okay, your turn.”

  From way far away there came a hearty whistling. “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain.” Perfect. Let Genevieve discover the Green Mountain Boy in her seat. She’d flatten his peaks.

  “Okay. Let’s say you are my backup bodyguard. Who, exactly, are you protecting me from?”

  “I’m not crazy about that term, backup. But I’ll let it slide.” He turned down the radio, which had moved on to Barbara Streisand. “How to explain.” He tapped his forefinger against his lip. “You know that story you wrote about McMullen Coal that ran in this morning’s paper?”

  “Yessss,” I said slowly.

  “And you know your ass?”

  “Uh-huh.” Not sure where this was going.

  “Well, after that story, it’s grass. Accusing a company of robbing coal is tantamount to signing your own death warrant in this part of Pennsylvania. We’re not known for our doilies and afternoon tea, you know. This is the land of the Molly Maguires.”

  “Molly Maguire sounds like doilies and afternoon tea to me.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t know about the Green Mountain Boys or the Molly Maguires. Did you learn anything in high school?”

  “How to dye my hair with peroxide and roll cigarettes. That’s about it.”

  “For your information, the Molly Maguires were a group of Irish-American coal miners from this anthracite region who took up violent action in the 1860s when their working conditions became intolerable. Initially they were written up in history books as a secret terrorist organization and were blamed for committing a series of murders, for which a bunch of Molly Maguires were hanged. In recent years, though, historians have considered that maybe they were fighting the corrupt coal owners and their private police force. They were the nascent stage of America’s labor movement.”

  “And this relates to my grass ass how?”

  “Gum?” He held out a packet of Trident. I took a piece.

  “Thanks.”

  “Your ass is grass because coal country once was rougher than the wild, wild west, Bubbles. Being born and raised next to the anthracite fields, I can tell you that attitudes haven’t changed much since 1860. Some people in town are of the opinion that arson, assault and murder are the only ways to get results.”

  “I see.” I chewed the gum. “Even before I wrote that story, someone had been set up to kill me, you know. Me and Stiletto.”

  “Heard all about it. Got any idea who your enemy is?”

  I shook my head. “Haven’t a clue. Two days ago, the biggest worry on my mind was whether or not it was right for me to sleep. . . .” I stopped myself. This guy, whoever he was, didn’t require knowledge of my private sex life. As opposed to a public sex life. “Anyway, two days ago I was under the impression I didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

  Zeke shifted in the seat and stared out the front window. He had an impressive jaw line. I could picture him as a Revolutionary War patriot like his ancestors, shooting redcoats from behind rock walls. “This isn’t a bad perm we’re talking about or a dissatisfied client with an uneven trim,” he said. “This is serious.”

  “I’ve seen some pretty bad perms.” I folded my arms. “For your information, they’re serious.”

  Boom! Clank!

  “What the . . . ?” Zeke was out of the car lickety-split. “Holy . . . !” He hit the ground as another musket ball came flying where his head had been.

  “I’ll give you to the count of five to get into your vehicle and return to the cave you crawled out of,” Genevieve hollered.

  I stuck my head out the window. Zeke was slowly standing from his crouch, his arms high in the air.

  “Okay. Don’t shoot,” he said. “Put the gun down, Genevieve.”

  Genevieve lifted the musket and put her eye to the sight. “I’ll put the gun down when I’m damn good and ready.”

  “Some bodyguard,” I said. “Can’t even take an old lady with an antique.”

  “Did you see what that antique did to my truck?” He pointed to a deep dent on the front hood of his Ford F150. “That’s body work. That’s gonna cost me.”

  “I know a good mechanic,” I said.

  Genevieve was pounding down another musket ball. “This ain’t the time to lolly about, boy. I’d move if I was you.”

  Boom! Whissshhhh. Another ball took
out his front tire.

  “Oh, man!” Zeke jogged toward his car with the musket trained on his butt. Genevieve refused to let up. He knelt down and inspected the damage. “It’s flat!”

  She lowered the musket. “That’ll do ya, then.”

  When she stepped into the Camaro, she laid the musket in the backseat and patted my knee. “You okay, Sally?” Genevieve had a habit of calling all girls Sally and all boys Butch.

  “Yes,” I said, starting up the car, “though it kind of freaked me out.”

  Genevieve checked out Zeke in the rearview. “Who was that jerk?”

  “A friend of Stiletto’s. Stiletto sent him to look after me. For my safety.”

  “What for, when you got me?”

  I gunned it down the road, to get away from Zeke as fast as I could. “You know men.”

  “No. Not really.” Genevieve scowled. “But I know snakes. And, if you ask me, Stiletto sent that fella to spy on you while he’s in New York dancing with Miss Fancy Pants. He wants to make sure you don’t beat him on that story you two are racing each other for.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Granted, Genevieve saw conspiracies in toothpaste and municipal tap water, but she might have been right about this one.

  “What should I do?”

  “We’ll think up a plan,” Genevieve said, checking the rearview. “By the time you get home, you’ll come up with something.”

  But by the time I dropped off Genevieve at her apartment and drove over to my own house, only one thing was clear. Namely, my smart and capable daughter Jane had been kidnapped.

  Chapter 11

  “Look at this place, Mickey, it’s a mess,” I cried, picking up a couch cushion from the floor. “Jane’s purse is on the kitchen counter, but she’s gone. Oh, if I hadn’t gone up to the Passion Peak to be with Stiletto Wednesday, this wouldn’t have happened.” The Lithuanian came out in me. I beat my chest like a crazed peasant. “What a lousy, selfish mother I am.”

  “You’re a kind and loving mother, Bubbles,” Mickey said calmly. “A selfish mother is one who abandons her children to seek a life without responsibility.”

  Lehigh Police Detective Mickey Sinkler spoke from experience. His wife had left him with a passel of kids, including a five-year-old still in diapers and a juvenile delinquent. But he had managed okay, transforming his string-bean body into a figure of steel and ordering his wife home to take care of the brood. Strutting around my wrecked living room, his leather belt crackling as he walked, Mickey was the model of leadership.

  “Everything will work out just fine,” he said. “Leave it to local law enforcement. We’ll find her.”

  “I can’t sit around twiddling my thumbs, Mickey. I’ve already called all her friends, the university, the high school, the ice cream shop, the library, even her boyfriend’s father. Not a word,” I said. “And my house . . .” Chairs were overturned. Paper was strewn about. There was even a rip in the plastic couch covering.

  “Definitely not a break-in. Looks like the morning after your typical teenage party to me,” Mickey said. “Take it from the father of a kid in juvie hall.”

  Juvie hall. That was reassuring. “Jane doesn’t throw parties like these. At Jane’s parties kids sit around playing these mathematical card games.” I began to cry. “Something bad has happened. She’s been kidnapped. Maybe the person who tried to kill me Wednesday took her.”

  “Who tried to kill you?” Mickey asked, alarmed. “I thought you said you were with Stiletto Wednesday at the Passion Peak.”

  “Didn’t you read this morning’s News-Times?” I asked.

  “You know I only read sports.”

  I ignored the insult and told him the whole story of the fax, Price’s body and the explosion. That Stinky’s car was at the Number Nine mine during Price’s murder and that Stinky was supposed to meet me here, at my home, this morning when Jane went missing, were not suspicious coincidences lost on me. I considered mentioning this to Mickey, but decided not to. Not just yet.

  Mickey pulled me to him. “Jane’s a smart cookie,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’ll call the department and spread the word. We’ll have her back by lunch. Promise.”

  The door burst open and my ex, Dan the Man, entered in his usual morning golf attire—baby blue polo shirt, plaid pants and white shoes. Wendy, his cheeseball heiress wife, trotted in right behind him, her white tennis outfit hanging off her pretzel-stick body.

  “Oh great. Super.” Dan threw up his hands. “My daughter’s missing and Bubbles is making out with Boy Wonder.”

  Mickey broke away from me to stand up to Dan. “Who you calling Boy Wonder?”

  “Take it easy, Sinkler,” Dan said, holding up his hands. “I don’t want to have to file a police brutality action against you.”

  “Now, Chip,” Wendy said, “let’s focus on why we’re here. Oh my.” She lifted a T-shirt that had been slung over a mirror. “Looks like it was quite a night.”

  “What the hell happened?” Dan paced through the living room. “Jane hold a kegger or what?”

  “I’m guessing Jane’s been kidnapped after leaving your place,” I said. “She must have put up quite a fight.”

  “Kidnapped!” Wendy gasped and Dan went pale.

  “This is your fault,” he said, pointing at me. “You and your stupid, worthless reporting. I read those stories you wrote this morning. They were crap. Crap stories that got our daughter snatched.”

  My cheeks burned. This was not what I needed right now. Mickey put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  “What if the kidnapper is after our money?” Wendy exclaimed. “What’ll we do?”

  “I don’t have money to burn,” Dan said. “Wendy’s got all the money. It’s not fair if the kidnappers hit her up just because they think I’m rich.”

  I was appalled. “Daniel Ritter. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Chip! The name’s Chip! How many gosh darn times do I have to remind you?” Dan, ahem, Chip’s face was turning bright red. “Chip. Chip. Chip.”

  “That’s even worse!” I screamed. “First you whine about paying a ransom, then you throw a temper tantrum because I didn’t call you by your fake name.”

  Mickey stepped between us. “Cool it, you two. You’re not helping matters by getting angry. This is your daughter we’re talking about.”

  Exactly. I threw a dirty look at Wendy, who appeared to be calculating how much she could spare for the kidnappers and still afford a weekly facial at Helene’s.

  “My experience as a police officer is that it’s never quite what it appears,” Mickey said. “Frankly, the parents often imagine the worst. Forget that the house is torn apart, Bubbles. If you had come home and found everything in order and Jane gone, where would you have assumed she went?”

  I studied my purple nails and recalled my last conversation with her. Before she mentioned Stinky she spoke about going back to the dig.

  “The dig,” I said, snapping to. “It’s a university class project at this farm in Emmaus. Maybe she got a ride.”

  “Digging for what?”

  “Celtic rocks,” I said, adding Jane’s explainer, “like Stonehenge.”

  “Hippie love fest is what it is,” Dan said. “Unwashed pagan punks staying up all night getting high and howling at the moon.”

  For the first time ever, Wendy leaped to Jane’s defense. “Don’t dismiss the rocks offhand, Chip. My crystal instructor is a staunch believer in the Celtic origins of this area. Do you know that those stones are aligned to the winter and summer solstices?”

  Dan jerked a thumb at his wife. “Crystal instructor. Charges my wife fifty bucks a week to look through a piece of glass. I’ll tell that instructor where he can shove his—”

  Mickey opened the door. “Why don’t we all go out to the dig. We’ll find Jane and then everybody can relax.”

  “You can relax,” Dan said. “I’ve got a tee time in thirty minutes with Fast Putt Herrick. How’d you like to be up against
a two handicap in my state of mind?”

  If Jane hadn’t been kidnapped, she’d have vanished from pure mortification when she saw our caravan enter the farmer’s field where the dig was underway. I led the pack in my rusted, two-toned Camaro, followed by Dan in Wendy’s expensive midlife crisis special—an apple red BMW roadster—and Mickey in his Lehigh PD cruiser.

  The cruiser caused an especially big stir among the muddy and energetic college students who were digging deep trenches in the field with shovels and picks. I assumed they were taking advantage of the morning’s cooler hours to do the hard labor. From the quick way the fog was burning off, it was shaping up to be another bright blue Indian summer day.

  Neither Jane nor her boyfriend, G, was anywhere in sight.

  “The fuzz!” shouted one kid, bare-chested except for a white line of puka beads around his neck. “Don’t tell me it’s a permit issue again.”

  Mickey slammed the door of his cruiser and strutted over to the edge of the pit. He stared down at the young, sweaty faces, dewy with the excitement of finding the past beneath their feet. “You guys see Jane Ritter today?”

  “That high school girl?” Puka grinned at his partner, a woman in braids and a brown tank top. “I’m not sure you wanna know.”

  I did not like the sound of that.

  “Let me handle this.” Dan hitched up his plaid golf pants. “Now see here, junior, I’ve come for my daughter, Jane. If you potheads have absconded with her, I’ll sue your parents for every dime of your absurdly inflated tuition. Where is she?”

  Puka leaned on his shovel and regarded Dan with open distaste. “Okay, old man. If you really want to know, your daughter’s in the woods with Professor Tallow. She follows him around like a puppy. If you ask me, she’s got a crush and after meeting her father, I can understand why.”

  My poor, poor Jane. A crush on a professor. And she was just a baby. So vulnerable.

  “A crush on a professor, eh? That’s my girl,” Dan said, beaming. “She knows how to suck up for an A. Connections, connections, connections. Get you there in half the time with half the effort.” He winked at Wendy, who rolled her eyes and went off to examine a mound of grass.