The discussion might have continued had they not come to the end of the corridor and a massive set of ornately carved wooden doors.
“Donna, can you get the door?” Dewey said.
“Sure,” she said and touched a certain piece of scrollwork on the door’s frame. The buzzer sounded and the doors opened.
It was something akin to the parting of the Red Sea, and damned if Louie-the-mobster didn’t look like Moses with his mane of silky silver hair—only he wasn’t wearing a roughly woven robe. Instead, Louie wore a red velour running suit with a thick gold chain with a gold skeleton key around his neck. He looked like an aged gansta rapper. Louie noticed Chase staring at the key as he introduced himself as Louie Salvatore.
Louie fingered it. “You like it? It was a retirement present from the boys.”
Chase nodded. “It’s very nice.”
Louie smiled and then studied Chase. “You know, Chase, I’ve read all your Shelby McCall mystery books—I’m a big fan. When Donna asked me if I could help, well, I have to admit I was excited that I was going to meet one of my favorite authors and as you can see,” he said, stretching his arms out to illustrate his point, the room was full of books and artwork, “I am a patron of the arts.”
Chase smiled, thinking at least he was a fan—that had to count for something.
“After I get you out of this—I would appreciate it if you would grant me one favor.”
Chase considered. What if he wanted her to hand over her firstborn child as payment? Bud would be raised as a mobster and with her brains she would become the criminal’s criminal—a mastermind of all things devious. Or did he want Chase to pose as some fancy art collector to distract one of the gallery owners in town so Louie and his gang of criminals could crack the safe? This was unlikely, she thought. In the electronic age, no one had gobs of cash stuffed in safes. It was all in Geneva or the Cayman Islands along with Mitt Romney’s money.
“Of course, she will,” Donna said, giving Chase a pointed look.
“I’d be glad to, Mr. Salvatore,” Chase said.
“Louie, please call me Louie,” he said, spreading out his large hands as if in supplication.
Chase wondered how a picker of locks could have such large hands—locks were small, except maybe locks on back of semi-trucks or bank safes. She would have gone on thinking about locks had it not been for Bud’s intervention.
“Would you like Chase to sign your books?” Bud inquired.
Louie looked flustered and blushed. “I would, very much,” he said, glancing at Chase.
“You get me out of this chair and I’ll autograph anything,” she said, her hopes of release rising.
Louie rubbed his hands together. “Perfect.” He ordered Huey to retrieve his tools and Dewey to set up lights so he could better see what he was doing. “We will have you out of this in no time.”
“See, no worries,” Donna said as she and Gitana sat down on one of the Italian leather sofas.
Bud stood by Chase.
“Are you standing by for moral support?” she asked.
“No, I want to see how he does it,” Bud said.
“Really?” Chase said.
“Since when does a person get the opportunity to see a master at work?” Bud said, her eyes gleaming with the overexcited look of the eager accolyte.
Louie smiled benevolently. “I would be pleased. You know, I don’t have anyone to pass this on to.”
“No,” Chase said. “I mean, Bud already has a lot of homework, and I don’t know when she would use such a skill.”
“We could have used it today. If I knew how to procure your freedom we wouldn’t have had to carry you around in a chair,” Bud said.
Chase gave her the I-am-an-adult look despite being cuffed to a chair.
Bud hung her head. “I apologize for my disrespectful tone of voice, but can’t I at least watch?”
Chase deliberated. “All right. It might come in handy in case this handcuffing-to-a-chair thingy is Lacey’s modus operandi when dealing with dissidents.”
“I think we should contact Amnesty International,” Gitana said.
Chase heard Louie’s labored breathing behind her as he held the small Maglite between his teeth and peered into the recesses of the lock. “Piece of cake.”
Donna, who’d risen to peer over his shoulder, said, “So you can do it? I knew you could.” She kissed his cheek.
Bud watched as Louie inserted tools, carefully opening the spring-loaded side and using a blunt-ended tool the width of a tongue depressor to keep it open while he picked the other lock. In less than two minutes the cuff was undone.
Chase leapt up, hugged Louie and then stretched her back. “I hate that chair.” She gave it a little kick. She noticed Louie giving Bud explicit instructions on how to unlock the cuffs. She looked over at Gitana and Donna who were also listening—what, now the entire household excluding herself would be lock pickers? Then she remembered Lacey. Hmm…maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. It would serve Lacey right. They would know how to free other dissidents.
Chase signed Louie’s books and they said their goodbyes. In the car, Chase rode shotgun due to her ordeal and her propensity for motion sickness. She studied Donna as they pulled out of the compound. “Are there any other skeletons in your closet that we should know about?”
“Suffice it to say, that was the worst one,” Donna said.
Somehow that didn’t make Chase feel better.
“I like Louie,” Bud said, examining her new set of lock-picking tools and peering into the depths of the handcuff.
“Please don’t grow up to be a criminal,” Chase said.
“I won’t unless the economy is bad and I can’t find legitimate work.”
Chase whipped around in her seat.
“I’m kidding.”
Chapter Six—The Blob
Chase hit the Ignore button on her cell phone. She scanned her call log. Lacey had tried to reach her four hundred and eleven times in a twenty-four-hour period.
“How many times an hour has she called you?” Gitana asked.
Chase took a calculator from the cubbyhole in the kitchen marked neatly with a laminated tag that read, “Math Implements” and did the math. “To be exact, 17.125 calls per hour.”
Gitana’s math skills were not impeded like those of Chase, whose right brain refused to perform any task that involved numbers—a flashback to her algebra days where the “x” and the “y” thingies were a constant torture. She said, “Wow, that’s four hundred and eleven calls per day.” She didn’t need a calculator.
“According to the call log some were in the middle of the night,” Chase said. She could envision Lacey sitting in her office steaming mad and dialing away—a diabolic look on her scowling face—with Chino sitting off in the shadows smoking a cigar…even though smoking was banned at the Institute. Chino would be saying, “I can take care of this. You just say the word.”
“I can’t believe she hasn’t trucked herself up here yet,” Gitana said, pouring them both a glass of lemonade. It was October, yet the summer seemed to hold on, unable to let go for the season. Even the aspens hadn’t turned, something Chase and Bud had been awaiting so Bud could take photos of the changing of the leaves.
“She has meetings all day and can’t come up here, or I’m certain she would be,” Chase said. She watched the dogs in the yard. Annie was chasing Jane in figure eight patterns around the grove.
“And how do you know this?”
“Eve checked out Lacey’s schedule planner when Lacey’s PA, Heidi, was on break,” Chase said, hoping that Gitana had forgotten about Eve’s inappropriate behavior in the library.
“So now you’ve got a mole,” Gitana said, smirking.
“Who’d have thought, but—”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Gitana finished.
“That should be our mission statement.”
Gitana wrinkled her brow. “Where’s Bud? I haven�
�t seen her since I’ve been home.”
“Out in the studio with Donna. They’re working on some new project.”
“Speaking of projects, how do you feel about Bud’s filming project?”
“I haven’t decided. She agreed that we should have first viewing rights and then we can make some decisions.”
“But what’s it all about?” Gitana said, pulling the Joy of Cooking off the very top shelf where Chase had stashed it in hopes that its difficult location would be a deterrent to her finding and using it.
“She says that it’s a docudrama as well as a situational comedy of lesbian life in a whacked-out commune.”
“That’s going to either get us hung or we’ll win the Sundance Film Festival award,” Gitana said, licking her finger and thumbing through the pages.
“I told her that. She says living is about taking risks. I did three sets of three Hail Marys after she said that, just to insure we weren’t struck by lightning for poking the snake.” Bud had mentioned this risk-taking business on more than one occasion. Did she think Chase was fossilized in her approach to life or just scared of what might be?
“What snake?” Gitana asked.
“It’s an expression I got from Gloria. She calls it poking the snake when you antagonize an entity already prone to be antagonized—like pissing off someone who is waiting to be pissed off.”
“Oh. I’d say that idiom also describes your relationship with Lacey.” She found the page she’d been seeking.
Chase watched her nervously.
“I’m going to start dinner.”
“Is that such a good idea?” Chase did her best not to look dubious. Gitana had decided that her “womanly skills, a.k.a. survival skills” had fallen by the wayside. “Everyone should know how to cook,” she said. This sentiment and subsequent behavior would have been fine had Gitana not discovered the Joy of Cooking so that learning how to cook had gone into fine cuisine hyper-drive. Chase did the bulk of the cooking because she was home most of the time, but she was a basic cook—quick, simple and requiring as few pans and kitchen implements as possible.
“I hope you’re not referring to the debacle. You promised not to bring it up again.”
Chase lowered her eyes as if in shame, but really it was to avoid bursting out laughing. The aforementioned “debacle” involved trout on a smoked shingle, and by the time Gitana was finished they had to use the fire extinguisher to put out the fire. At the time, Chase had been thrilled to get to use this piece of safety equipment. However, while she had put out the burning shingle with the fish on it, she discovered she’d also ruined the barbeque grill when she’d covered it with whatever flame retardant stuff the extinguisher contained.
Bud, in her usual philosophical manner, had said, “This is a prime example of the Fix-A-Flat quandary.”
“Which means?” Chase had inquired, staring down at the goopy mess that was now the grill.
“When the means to the end are worse than what you started with.”
“I don’t get it,” Chase said, poking at the charred fish with the grill fork.
“Perhaps you could make us grilled cheese sandwiches,” Gitana said, staring morosely at what was to have been a crowning achievement of her summer cooking lessons.
“Good idea,” Chase said.
“Have you ever read the Fix-A-Flat can?” Bud asked.
“No,” Chase admitted, but she was going to now.
“Yes, it does fix your tire, but it also ruins your tire in the process.”
“So what you’re saying is that I put the fire out, my initial goal, but I wrecked…”
Bud interjected, “Destroyed.”
“The grill in the process.”
“Precisely,” Bud said.
“What should I have done?” Both she and Gitana studied their genius child.
“Closed the vents,” Bud said.
Gitana nodded her agreement.
“Oh,” Chase said, considering it. “It might have taken too long and the danger could have escalated, threatening the house and the entire neighborhood, perhaps the region.”
“The fire can’t escalate without oxygen. It’s simple physics,” Bud replied.
Chase returned to the present moment and its particular challenges—her best friend turned dictator and her wife’s proclivity toward fires.
“I’m only going to make alfredo with fresh mushrooms on angel hair pasta. How badly can I mess that up?”
Chase shrugged noncommittally.
Gitana called her on it. “You don’t trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Chase said, pondering the state of long-term relationships where discussions on trust were not about fidelity, but rather about whether your wife was going to burn down the kitchen, or, in this instance, cut off a finger with a French chef knife. “Just be careful.”
Her cell phone rang again. She clicked ignore.
“Four hundred and twelve,” Gitana said, pulling the portabello mushrooms out of the fridge.
Chase didn’t have the heart to tell her that the portabellos would turn the alfredo sauce the color of baby shit. The best lessons were self-taught.
“It’s just a matter of time before Lacey shows up here,” Gitana said, washing the mushrooms.
“At least it will be on my turf, and she better take care that I don’t handcuff her to a chair.” Or make her eat Gitana’s cooking, Chase thought, but then felt bad. Gitana was trying something new. She was taking a risk at least.
“We really should show her how it feels,” Gitana said, cutting the mushrooms with fervor.
Chase winced. “Please, watch your fingers.”
“I am, don’t worry,” Gitana said, looking down at her fingers and then continuing her diatribe. “Just because she is the leading force of the Institute doesn’t give her the right to incarcerate people at will. I mean what’s next? You’re her best friend and look what she did to you. Imagine what she is capable of with someone she doesn’t like.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“I’m going to give her a piece of my mind when she does show up,” Gitana said, pointing the chef knife at Chase and gesticulating.
“Let’s hope it’s not for a while,” Chase said.
Gitana took a deep breath. “I will probably have calmed down in a few days. I wonder if that’s why she hasn’t come around.”
“Would you? Lacey knows how you feel when someone assaults anyone on your team.”
“Damn right.” She’d finished chopping the mushrooms and put the knife down. Chase felt safe to leave.
“I’m going to check on Bud and give her a heads-up on dinner,” Chase said. She refrained from saying “and I will keep an eye out for Lacey in case she does show up so I can keep her from harm.” She slipped around the corner and gathered up the “debacle equipment” that she had stored in the laundry room. She opened the first-aid kit, checking to see if there was a tourniquet, and then retrieved the extra fire extinguisher from the hot water closet. She set everything on the top of the washer where she could easily grab it and run for the kitchen in case of an emergency. Then she went to the studio.
When she opened the studio door, it took her a second to process what was going on and she still didn’t get it. “What on earth are you two doing?”
Donna was standing with a dildo attached to herself. Well, Chase assumed it was a dildo. Either that or she had a penis Chase didn’t know about. Of course, lately anything seemed possible. Bud was sitting on the couch sketching. “She’s doing a life drawing.” Donna was standing with one hand on her hip and the other in the air looking like a Roman orator.
“Why are you wearing that…” Chase pointed at the dildo. “That, that thing.”
“I needed a model. Like I know what a penis looks like,” Bud said.
This was true, but then Chase thought, she hadn’t seen one in years either. Ever? In movies, surely. “But…” Chase sputtered.
“It’s not a big deal,” Bud replied. She cl
osed her sketchbook. “But I do need to have a working knowledge of male genitalia—they do make up half the world’s population.”
“I’m pretty sure women have surpassed men in terms of population—probably due to the outlawing of infanticide in countries like China,” Donna said.
Chase stared at her.
“I could be wrong.”
“It’s not that!” Chase said, nodding in Bud’s direction. She was busy putting her drawing materials away.
Bud looked up. “I know they used to kill girl babies because they figured we didn’t count for much—apparently, as we are slowly taking over the world, they figured wrong,” she said.
“This is true,” Chase said. She watched with interest as Donna extricated herself from the harness and with one quick snap removed the dildo. Before she knew it or could stop herself, she said, “You’re very proficient at that.”
Donna didn’t even blush.
“Knowledge is power,” Bud said.
“Exactly. The classes at the Institute are very informative,” Donna said, handing the apparatus to Bud, who put it in her desk drawer.
“Is that a good idea?” Chase said.
“I only did one drawing. I’m good, but I’m not that good. I’m going to need more practice. Maybe next time you can model for me,” Bud said.
Chase blushed. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
Donna, ever helpful, said, “I can show you how it works.”
“Maybe some other time. Besides, Gitana is making dinner. Are you staying?”
“I’d love to, but I’m meeting Isabel at the Macaroni Grill. We’re going over the library budget.”
“That’s sounds fun,” Chase said.
“Oh, I think it will be. The food is good, and Isabel is very numbers oriented.”
Bud rolled at her eyes at Chase, who smiled sardonically.
“So I’m off,” Donna said, gathering her purse and briefcase.
After she left, Bud said, “Do you think that Donna has an interest in Isabel?”
Chase contemplated and then nixed the idea. “I don’t think so.”
“Hmm…” Bud said.
“We better get inside before there’s an accident,” Chase said.
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