Bubbles Ablaze

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “Not bad. Shiny spandex. I like these.”

  Stiletto grinned. “I thought you would. Seemed like your style. Ready?”

  “As ready as ever.” I smiled like a brave soldier and started a gentle jog down the sidewalk.

  “I’ll go slow, your pace this time, but as we continue to run we’ll increase the speed, okay?” He kept a few paces ahead of me.

  “Okay.” I couldn’t get over Stiletto’s leg muscles. Such definition. Such rock.

  I leaped over a sidewalk crack and waved to a woman running an old-fashioned mower on her lawn. My legs were beginning to feel heavy, but I took a deep breath of air, pushed out my chest and pretended my feet were big marshmallows padding along in the cool autumn morning.

  “Watch out for leaves, they can be slippery.” Stiletto pointed to a pile ahead and I charged right through it. “How you doing? You should concentrate on even breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

  “I’m doing fine.” I took in another lungful. Hey, this wasn’t so bad. I flapped my arms to loosen the muscle tension. In fact, it felt pretty good. The morning mist was clearing to reveal a blue sky. The scent of freshly mown grass and fallen leaves was in the air. What wasn’t to love? “I think I’m getting my second wind.”

  Stiletto, who was slightly behind me, warned that we were approaching one of Slagville’s famous vertical hills. “If you want to stop, slow to a walk. Whatever you do, don’t stop completely.”

  “How about you run in front of me?”

  Stiletto charged past. “How come?”

  “I’m a sucker for a scenic view.”

  “You’re not going to pull a trick and duck into a bus or something?”

  “Me? Please, a bit farther.”

  Stiletto was now six feet away, his strong legs propelling him up the hill with effortless ease. He moved like an animal, shoulders first, as though his whole body were being lifted by his pecs. I fixated on his figure and was surprised when we reached the top of the hill and Lou’s Eggs.

  “Jesus.” Sweat was dripping from his head and neck, soaking his T-shirt and he was breathing heavily. “Not bad. For a novice.” He bent down and held his knees. “Man. That was some hill.”

  I hopped onto the cement wall outside Lou’s Eggs and waited for him to finish with the post-marathon dramatics.

  “You’re not even,” pant, pant, “sweating.” Stiletto was pacing, hands on hips.

  “Glowing. Men sweat, Stiletto. Women glow.”

  “It’s unbelievable. You shot right up that incline. I bet you ran a four-minute mile. Straight up a hill.”

  “Four minutes, huh.” I jumped down. “Is that good?”

  “Four-minute mile is that good.” He punched me playfully on the arm and we entered Lou’s Eggs.

  Nearly every window in Lou’s Eggs had its own personal fan to force out the airborne grease. We passed the counter of men, their arms protectively encircling massive white plates of fried substances, and sat down at a table covered by a floral cloth topped with a sheet of clear plastic. We were the only ones not smoking. And that included the customers in mid-meal.

  “Talk about tobacco road,” Stiletto said, opening a plastic menu. “You’ve stopped smoking, right?”

  “Absolutely. Smoking. Yuck.” I furrowed my brows at the all-day breakfast offerings. Of course, that may have been a teensy tiny lie about me not smoking, but I highly doubted a cigarette now and then would hurt me. Then again, there are horror stories. Grapefruit looked good. But not as good as a chocolate doughnut. Then again, doughnuts are chock-full of B vitamins. Decisions. Decisions.

  “Where’s Esmeralda?” I asked casually.

  “Esmeralda? Esme’s back in New York. Forget Esmeralda.”

  “So, she’s not working on the Hugh McMullen suicide?”

  “What’s to cover? A suicide is a suicide.” Stiletto eyed me suspiciously over the menu. “Right, Bubbles?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Unless you know different.”

  “Who, me?” I flagged over a waitress. No freaking way was I telling him about the Smith & Wesson.

  A waitress with flyaway hair wiped our table with a wet cloth, stuck it in her apron pocket, removed her cigarette from her mouth and asked for our order. I chose blinis, grapefruit and coffee. Stiletto ordered two eggs over easy, hash browns, scrapple (oh, please, not that), bacon and orange juice. He was going to be sorry. His eyes were bigger than his stomach was Teflon coated.

  “So what’s this about our mutual missionary being a creep?” I asked, to change the subject from Hugh McMullen.

  “I went over to Zeke’s apartment last night and then again around dawn. He wasn’t in.”

  “Maybe he has a girlfriend and was spending the night?”

  “I don’t think so.” Stiletto touched my fingers thoughtfully. “His car was in the driveway. But there was all this crusted white junk around the tailpipe. Funny. I could’ve sworn it was mashed potatoes.”

  Dum, de dum, dum, dum.

  “What did Zeke tell you about me again?” he asked.

  I recounted in more detail than last night what Zeke had said, that Stiletto had called him shortly after the explosion and asked him to keep a watch on me, that the two of them spoke about what Stiletto had been up to in the past year, including the stint on the India/Pakistan border and his plans to move to England.

  As though bowled over by this, Stiletto sat back and folded his arms. “Fascinating. How would he have known that? I haven’t spoken to Zeke’s parents since last Christmas.”

  “His parents?”

  “Earl and Martha Allen. Nicer folks you’ll never meet. They moved from Limbo to Slagville two years ago after the government buyout, but insisted on returning the money. Wouldn’t take a dime of someone else’s tax dollars. They send me birthday presents and Christmas cards because I sprang their son from a Mexican jail.”

  The waitress plunked down our dishes. Hmmm. Blinis. Grated potato pancakes fried crisp. You can’t make them at home—well you can, but they put out such smoke that you might as well invite the entire fire department if you do. I emptied a packet of Sweet ’N Low into my coffee and dug in.

  “What do Zeke’s parents say?”

  “I don’t know.” Stiletto chowed down on his eggs. “I didn’t go over to their house.”

  “You mean you, experienced photojournalist, forgot the old newspaper trick of just asking?”

  Stiletto smirked at me over his juice. “Cute. I didn’t want to worry them.”

  “That’s silly.” I sipped my coffee. “If you won’t ask them, I will, though I think since you saved their son you might make more headway than I would.”

  “How about we go together?”

  “Should we run?”

  Stiletto glanced down at his half-eaten breakfast. “I feel like I just ate a bucket of lead. Next time I order scrapple stop me. This stuff should be banned by the FDA.”

  Stiletto’s Jeep had the new-car smell that made me swoon with delight. There were even paper mats on the floor, which hadn’t been saturated by Diet Coke and coffee like mine. Boy, did I envy his ability to walk into a dealership, purchase a $28,000 car with cash and drive off the same day. I had paid cash for a car once. That was five hundred bucks for a rusted Chevy Impala and it was as illegal to operate on the road as a hijacked armored vehicle.

  “No top again, I see.” We whizzed through Slagville, the wind breezing through my unwashed hair. It was October, not August, and a tad chilly for driving around without a top but I didn’t want to come across as a poor sport. “You ever think of buying a different model besides a Jeep?”

  “Like a Crown Victoria with cruise control?”

  “Cute.”

  As it was Saturday morning, the normally quiet town was buzzing with activity. A Cub Scout troop in blue uniforms was conducting a bottle drive, hauling around red wagons full of glass and soda cans as they went door to door along the immaculate row of homes. A father and son,
rod and tackle boxes in hand, were heading down to the creek to catch the last of the fishing season. Freshly washed sheets flapped on laundry lines near piles of burning leaves and the local high school band practiced “Louie, Louie” high up on the hill.

  Small-town bliss.

  Life in Slagville hadn’t stopped because a builder of family-friendly casinos had been murdered a few miles away or because the bratty owner of a colliery had shot himself. What was important—love, family, spotless lawns, clean sheets, Saturday morning soccer and Saturday evening Mass—were forever here.

  A fireman was replacing the letters on the sign advertising tonight’s get together at the Slagville Union Hall and I almost fell out of the Jeep.

  “Hoagie Ho!” I shouted before I could catch myself. Actually so far the sign just said Hoagie H, but I got the idea. Stinky had told Jane he’d meet me at the Hoagie Ho and here I’d been keeping an eye out for hoagie shops when all along it had been the name of the next festival. No wonder it hadn’t been in the phone book. I had to get over to that Union Hall, pronto.

  “What’re you so excited about?” Stiletto turned the corner and parked in front of a new vinyl-sided beige doublewide that was landscaped like it was Windsor Castle. Pruned bushes, hearty mums and fountains galore. “The Union Hall party?”

  Shoot. I’d forgotten that Stiletto knew nothing of Stinky’s surprise visit to me in Lehigh.

  “Uh, Genevieve,” I said, not completely fibbing. “I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a way to get her together with a nutty conspiracy theorist in Limbo named Pete Zidukis. They’d be perfect for each other. I think maybe the Hoagie Ho might be the ticket.”

  Stiletto killed the engine. “Genevieve likes men?”

  “Of course she likes men.” I frowned at him reproachfully. “She’s been married twice.”

  “And they left her?”

  “No, she killed them. . . .”

  “With her musket? Or a peashooter?” Stiletto said.

  “With love,” I finished. “They died of heart attacks in the sack. Smiles on their faces, if you get my drift.”

  “Talk about your conspiracy theories.” Stiletto opened the door and hopped out.

  I joined Stiletto, who immediately launched into a speech about how we should not alarm Mr. and Mrs. Allen. They were simple, church-going people who ladled up food in soup kitchens and visited the elderly and sick. It would never occur to them that their son might have fallen to the dark side. We must be careful what questions we asked.

  We found Mr. Allen in a cement garage that was more spotless than a biotech laboratory. Rakes hung on hooks. Green hose lay perfectly coiled. Even the dark plastic garbage cans were shiny clean like they’d been buffed. The place smelled faintly of Tide detergent and gasoline.

  “Hey, hey, hey. If it isn’t Steve Stiletto. How go things old champ?” Mr. Allen pulled his head out of the toolbox he’d been organizing and shook Stiletto’s hand with both of his. “Mother! It’s Steve. Champ’s come to visit.”

  Champ?

  “Oh my,” a maternal voice replied from inside.

  Steve introduced me as Bubbles Yablonsky, his “friend.” I flashed him a dirty, dirty look before I extended my hand, smiling sweetly.

  Mr. Allen smiled back. “And look, honeybunch, he’s brought his tart!”

  I was stunned, to say the least, but Mr. Allen didn’t seem to think he’d said anything, ah, inappropriate, as the guidance counselor at Jane’s school would put it.

  “Pardon?” I said. Mr. Allen ignored me and opened the door to the kitchen to call Mother one more time.

  Stiletto poked me with his elbow. “That’s the way they talk. I told you they were simple. Don’t take it personally. They mean only the best.”

  Easy for “Champ” to say. He hadn’t just been called a slut.

  Mother appeared looking every inch the part. Blue dress, flowered apron, permed and sprayed brunette hair with not a strand out of place. “This must be Bubbles.”

  Mrs. Allen hugged me delicately, my eau de morning’s jog, smoke and grease from Lou’s Eggs and last night’s fire making for an oh-so-pleasant perfume. “How wonderful to meet you. She’s not too much of a Jezebel, Earl.”

  “These are running clothes,” I said for some inexplicable reason. “Champ bought them.”

  Mr. Allen winked. “Thatta boy. Get it while you can before you find yourself an old-fashioned girl and settle down.”

  My bottom jaw dropped.

  “I’m sure Bubbles is old-fashioned.” Mrs. Allen rose to my defense. “Aren’t you, dear?”

  “I better be. I’m a single mother of a teenager.” My face felt hot and it didn’t help when Stiletto put his hand on my shoulder to calm me down. “Not that it’s anyone’s business.”

  “That’s the hussy in her speaking.” Earl Allen slapped Stiletto on the back. “Say, who’s up for a tour? I just redid the paneling in the rumpus room. Let’s take a look-see.” And he escorted Stiletto out of the garage, leaving me alone to do battle with Betty Crocker on overload.

  I said, “Before we join the men folk—” (Mama has an old Polish saying: When flying with crows, fly like a crow. Deep. Very Deep.) “I wonder if you might know how I can locate your son, Zeke?”

  She smoothed her apron. “I think one man at a time is enough, don’t you?”

  “This is for professional reasons.”

  Mrs. Allen blinked.

  “I’m a reporter. Like Lois Lane.” She was a virgin.

  “Why don’t you ask Steve? He sent Zeke off to Colorado or some such place yesterday afternoon. Chartered a personal plane for him at the Allegheny Airport even.” She led me out of the garage. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised to see Steve here. Zeke said he was in New York.”

  Holy mackerel. Stiletto chartered a plane to Colorado? What the heck was going on?

  “I see,” I said, keeping my voice normal, “and what is it exactly that your son does for a living?” We had entered the kitchen, all yellow with checked curtains and matching place mats. Straight out of the Sears catalogue “Homemaker On Valium” section.

  “Zeke’s a dick.” Mrs. Allen slipped on yellow checked mitts and opened the oven door.

  I thought about this. “A dick?”

  “Yes. A private dick.” She proudly displayed a pan of cinnamon rolls that had just happened to be in the oven and had just happened to be ready when two impromptu guests arrived. “With your profession you should know all about that.”

  Stiletto returned just in time to stop me from socking her. “What Martha means is that Zeke is a private detective. ‘Dick’ is just slang for that.”

  “Apparently, Champ, you chartered a private plane for Zeke, which he flew to Colorado yesterday,” I said.

  Stiletto stifled a look of shock. “Yes.”

  “Is there some problem?” Mr. Allen asked. Perhaps it had dawned on Earl that things were amiss when the client who had hired his son to fly three thousand miles away was suddenly in town looking for him.

  “No problem. Just doing a bit of checking.” Stiletto rocked on his heels. “Well, we better be going. I need to get back to New York and wait for Zeke’s call.”

  Mrs. Allen put down the spatula, which she had been using to drizzle perfect curly-cues of white frosting onto the cinnamon rolls. “Don’t you usually call him at eleven every night?”

  “Ahh,” Stiletto said. “Right.”

  “And, besides, you’ve obviously found Bubbles, so what do you need Zeke for?”

  That was my cue. “You mean to tell me, Champ, that you hired a private dick to tag me? Is there no trust between us?” I pretended to be getting a head of steam. Hands on hips. Eyes flashing. Etcetera, etcetera.

  “Don’t get mad, babe. I was only concerned about your safety.”

  “Sure. And with a loose goose like Bubbles for a girlfriend, you never can tell what sailor she’s brought home, eh boy?” Mr. Allen nudged Stiletto in the ribs. “In this day and age with all t
hem diseases around it’s your safety, too, that’s at stake.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Stiletto said. “Bubbles is the most honorable woman I’ve ever met. Sorry to have disturbed you.” And, bowing slightly with respect, he put his arm around me and ushered me out the door.

  “Doesn’t that beat all,” I heard Mr. Allen remark to his wife. “I think he actually loves the floozy.”

  Back in the Jeep I was frothing at the mouth. Let me at ’em. Let me at ’em. Stiletto had the good sense to get out of there hell for leather.

  “I don’t blame you, Bubbles. I got a bit ticked off in the end there, too. But you have to remember that the Allens are very basic people. What you see is what you get.”

  “What I see is my running shoe in Mr. Allen’s—”

  “So, did Mrs. Allen tell you anything of worth?” Stiletto stepped on the gas. “Her husband kept yapping about his hand-hewn paneling. I could barely get a word in edgewise.”

  When I told him what Mrs. Allen had said, it was Stiletto’s turn to froth at the mouth. “The temerity!” He pounded the steering wheel. When Stiletto got mad he occasionally slipped into English Twit Speak. Some tic left over from years of boarding school. “Who in heaven’s name had the audacity to pose as me? Right down to the most minute detail of my schedule.”

  “Whoever had the audacity also had the bucks,” I said. “Think how much a chartered flight to Colorado costs.”

  Stiletto leaned back and steered with one hand. “We’re not using our brains. What’s the key distinction of the person who set us up Wednesday night?”

  “He knows us. He knows where we work, our pasts, or at least your past, and all about our relationship,” I said. “Though it could be a she.”

  “A she?” Stiletto grunted. “No woman could imitate a voice as deep as mine. Certainly not with my timbre. I’ve just got too much testosterone flowing through my veins.”

  I tapped my head. “Sorry. What could I have been thinking.”